107 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, November 7 2021”

  1. I have posted an Annendum to my page From Whence the Fine-Tuned Universe. It is in the main post, not a reply.

    There seemed to be some grave misunderstanding as to what the multiverse implied and the serious problems with it. I hope I cleared the matter up.

    If you have any replies, please reply there, not here.

  2. Just filled my tank. It costs $7.60 a gallon (€1.73 a liter)

    1. I just seen on the news that gas prices are getting near $3.50 a gallon in the Great Lakes Region. Yowzers! Highest since the year 2014. As we saw back then society has a hard time functioning with those kind of prices. Makes you wonder why elected politicians aren’t treating this seriously and trying to get the prices back to reasonable levels. Don’t they want to get reelected?

      1. That would be government interference in free markets, don’t you think?

    2. Just filled my tank. $1.08 ($0.09/kWh). It was only about a half tank, so…

      1. Regular here is $1.529 per litre. Unfortunately, I have a 40 year old restored van and now simply use higher test fuel with no ethanol which is even more expensive. We don’t drive too much, anyway, but this blend mandate is crazy as it takes more energy/carbon to grow and process (ferment) fuels into ethanol for fuel blending than what it actually saved……. feed stock growing, processing, fertilisers, transport, etc. I suppose there is a carbon reduction at the tailpipe, but that is more than made up in the entire process.

        Anyway, I used to just use regular fuel until I had to flush and filter my tank 3 times this summer before it was clean. I changed the fuel filter and luckily carry a spare in-line fuel pump with me so I swapped that out too. My tank had water and brown gudge in the separated mixture at the bottom of the tank. Since the fuel pump is external and high pressure it costs over $300 to replace for just parts. Never mind the pain of lying on your back all afternoon to do the work. Water in fuel just eats VW fuel pumps, makes the engine run lean, and is plain old hard on the entire fuel system. I also started using a Lucas product for fuel injected engines and this has also helped a great deal.

        We only have 10% ethanol here in BC but I see Ontario will mandate 15% by 2030 and some states will require 20%….all corn growing areas with conservative farm votes. This is now being done under the guise of GH warming and carbon reduction when the only solution is to just drive less and reduce buying.

        I wouldn’t care if fuel was $2.50 per litre to be honest. I see when Biden returned from COP26 his first order of business is to try and get the price of fuel down. What a cynical situation, that and the 400 private jets for the big shots to attend.

        I haven’t been online at POB as my computer crapped out. Using a borrowed one today, and ordered a new one this morning. Made overseas, of course. 🙂 Regards to all.

  3. Volvo has issued a report comparing the carbon footprint over their lives for the ICE and EV versions of the XC40. It chose not to include a comparison for an option using public transport.

    https://group.volvocars.com/news/sustainability/2020/~/media/ccs/Volvo_carbonfootprintreport.pdf

    The EV takes 70% more emissions during manufacture so takes a certain mileage for each to be driven before the overall impact becomes lower. The mileage depends on the mix of renewables vs coal and gas in the power generation used to charge the cars (as shown below for pure wind, EU and overall global) It would have been useful if the report had included global minus EU (resulting in a few more miles needed) and Asia alone (a lot more miles needed). If I am up to it I might use the BP WEO figures to try and calculate these.

    I may be missing something but don’t batteries need to be replaced every 100000km? If so there should be step changes of 28 % of the original construction number added to the EV emissions curves, which would make even the wind power option increasingly marginal. Also the heavier EV would have an impact on road damage so it can’t be net zero running compared to the ICE (maybe negligible, I haven’t seen any such analysis, but road wear goes up with axle weight to the fourth power).

    In UK cars are scrapped on average after 14 years and do about 8000 miles per year (so 112000), so I read an EV would gain a bit less than 10 tonnes. EVs may last longer as the cost of maintenance is often what consigns the cars to the crusher, but equally a battery change out mat be what finishes off the EV.

    Coming from an EV proponent this figures aren’t very impressive, and if we did suddenly switch to them there would be an immediate spike in CO2 which would take about ten years to recover.

    There are already loads of “Oh yes but …” objections all over the internet: the numbers are wrong – they may well be but I’d bet they are more accurate than anything anyone else has; we are switching to electric foundries – not very quickly, really we only have demo plants, the Li and Cu production is what has to be electrified and I think both involve heavy trucks; etc.

    Rapid switching to electricity would have the same issues – a large spike in CO2 during construction (there are no carbon free methods existing or likely to be around for many years at the scale needed) and then a wait until the lower operating emissions catch up. As usual throw in battery back up and the numbers will look very poor.

    1. Battery life depends on how hard you use it I guess. One big improvement in battery life has been better software, both for charging and operation.

      Tesla offers 150,000 mile battery warranty on its base cars, (roughly 193 000 km) with 70% capacity the definition of still working. My guess is they think all but a low single digit percentage of batteries will work that long.

      After that they are still valuable as grid batteries, so they won’t get recycled immediately. 70% is a problem in a car because you have range issues, but a grid battery has plenty of space to store half-dud batteries, so it isn’t an issue at all.

      If autonomous vehicles go mainstream, then a lot fewer cars might be built, since taxis would be cheaper than private cars. That wouldn’t solve the battery issue, because mileage would, if anything, go up. But it would reduce the amount of energy spent build cars.

        1. You’re welcome. Here’s one more you might like.

          Want a Tesla? The Guinea Coup Might Make It More Expensive

          https://www.geopoliticalmonitor.com/want-a-new-tesla-the-guinea-coup-might-make-it-more-expensive/

          Energy Transition Must Not Make Same Human Rights Mistakes As Fossil Fuels

          https://cleantechnica.com/2021/10/31/energy-transition-must-not-make-same-human-rights-mistakes-as-fossil-fuels/

          My guess is the current lot of dweebs running the EV/renewable circle jerk wont be displaying any better care for things than Exxon et al ever did. and most Fanbois couldn’t find Guinea on a map. But hey, I’m cynical,

          1. Survivalist ” But hey, I’m cynical, ” . Yes you are correct . We don’t smoke “hopium ” . 🙂

      1. Islandboy , you used the correct word ” concept project ” . At the end he says it will take 18 years to build the network so 2022 + 18 = 2040 . These guys obviously know nothing about peak oil and nett surplus energy available which unfortunately are facts and not concepts . Best of luck .

    4. Several thoughts:

      First, you refer to “EV proponents”, suggesting that you are not one. So, do you feel that EVs are a bad idea? If so, do you simply feel that we should do nothing to reduce carbon emissions? If not, what’s the alternative to electrifying transportation?

      2nd, these numbers are not fixed. Some manufacturers are moving aggressively to slash their fossil inputs – apparently Volvo (which is Chinese owned) is not one of them. And obviously grids everywhere will reduce fossil inputs over time.

      Even in the short term, these numbers are not fixed. In a country like China, which is 55% coal, an EV can still run mostly on low-carbon power. An EV can charge on mostly or all wind, solar or nuclear even in a grid that’s dominated by fossil fuels.

      EVs can charge when low-carbon sources are at their peak: at night, or at noon. They are highly computerized, and most have much more storage than is needed for daily driving of 50 kms (in the US) or 30 kms in the EU or Japan: that means they can schedule charging at typical low-carbon times, or in response to utility price or DSM signals.

      Even where low-carbon sources are a low percentage of the grid, EVs can still seek them out. This will raise prices at those times and incentivize even more low-carbon power. If you want to accelerate the grid’s transition to low-carbon, you want EVs installed ASAP.

      In closing, let me ask again: do you feel that we should do nothing to reduce carbon emissions?

      1. There is nothing superior about a world going from ICE to EVs. It’s more greenwashing to make rich countries not give up conveniences that are otherwise hurting the planet. If you think you’re replacing 1.5+ billion vehicles that run on oil now with EVs and doing a solid for the world, I have a bridge to sell you.

        Personally, I hope everyone keeps their ICEs and deals with fewer miles from expensive petrol and diesel. Because no one is conserving anything by switching to an EV and it’s completely the wrong message. But I’m sure the car companies won’t mind their stock rocketing up because they have a way of avoiding the pitfalls of declining liquid fossil fuels.

        1. That’s an odd approach. It seems to assume that the only good approach is a punitive one. People are just enjoying themselves too much, and we have to wear a hair shirt and do without.

          Reducing mileage by, say, 30% can only reduce emissions by 30% – that’s not enough. Even reducing by 70% would not be enough – we need 100%. Switching to EVs could reduce emissions by 100%, and that’s what we need.

          1. So that’s 6% or so of global emissions dealt with in terms of usage. How much carbon did you put out in building these things and their infrastructure? I leave that as a hanging question.

            1.5ºC is baked in. We’re on track for around 3ºC after a supposedly successful COP26, with no indication at all in emissions even levelling. Emissions need to drop by 5% annually from now on, in perpetuity to reach even the poor targets already aimed at. That’s a COVID pandemic each year, with NO return to economic normality after it. Economic growth is directly related to energy expenditure and the stability of society is directly related to prosperity. Good luck.

            So, yes. I think people need to get past the focusing on new shiny toys that few can afford right now anyway, and get on the emergency reduction of ALL consumption ASAP, plan, because building up a new industry around batteries is the definition of mistaking the symptom for the problem.

            But I say all this knowing nothing will change, because nothing has changed and human nature says this is how we’re gonna play this out: by side-stepping the issue and focusing on “green growth” because the god of growth must be sated.

            We could have gone with the softly, softly approach of a carrot back in the ’70s. We didn’t. So now we have the “you’re going to get poorer and less energy secure from now on or we burn” approach. Let’s see how it plays out.

            1. get on the emergency reduction of ALL consumption ASAP, plan

              Ah, so you’re proposing something that you know has no chance of being implemented, and that has no chance of working if it was implemented?

            2. I’m proposing what should have been the viable course of action if we were smart. Right now, we’re way too late to deal with anything and it’s patently dishonest to tell people that offsetting flights, eating a bit less meat, and buying an EV will cut it. It won’t. It will help, it just won’t do anything while the expectation of growth is still there.

              This is where you get these dumb hot takes of “just stop all FFs now!” when doing so would literally kill billions. You can stop superfluous use of those and save what we have to build something better. You can’t carry on as we are AND stop all polluting carbon activities. I lament how many people think we’re just sitting on some Totally Sustainable And Equitable Grid Button and just won’t push it because capitalism.

              Really, the cult of modern economic growth has primed people to expect nothing else. Going off message is seen as not helpful, but how do you tell a forty a day guy that they aren’t helping their lung cancer when they love tobacco so much?

            3. Well, let’s see what we can agree on:

              I think we can agree that half measures won’t work. We can’t reduce GHG emissions a little, we really have to eliminate human-caused GHG emissions entirely, and then go back and pull some of it out of the atmosphere and ocean.

              And, I think we agree that you can’t eliminate GHG emissions literally overnight: it would take 15 or 20 years to do even with a WWII type war-time approach, and probably 30 or 40 years with a relatively normal implementation.

              Are we roughly agreed so far?

    5. Late last week i went looking for the latest from Tony Seba and found this:

      The Great Disruption – Rethinking Energy, Transportation, Food & Agriculture / August 17th, 2021

      Seba continues to hammer home the exponential growth in renewables idea. He is quite convincing that FF powered infrastructure is a dead man walking. The projections he made in his 2014 book don’t look so crazy now. How likely is it that his projections out to 2030 are going to be way off the mark? He continues to insist that internal combustion engine sales will start to collapse sometime around 2025 and that it (the disruption) will be all over by 2030, bar the shouting.

      1. I agree with Tony Seba. He is a brilliant MIT and Stanford educated engineer and a successful entrepreneur. He made predictions that were considered astonishing 7 years ago. He has turned out to be accurate so far. His predictions are based on a lot of data, analysis and research of previous technology disruptions. His cost curves are surprisingly accurate.
        The doomers and naysayers on the other hand have a very poor track record. Peak oil was supposed to happen in 2005 and civilization was supposed to have collapsed by now. Then there is Richard Duncan’s olduvai gorge nonsense. LOL.

        1. According to Colin Campbell, global peak oil was supposed to have happened in 1990. And then he rinsed and recycled that into global peak in 2002. The locals aren’t even Johnny come lately to this game, they missed the entire “already been rinsed, recycled and repeated” part of the modern peak oil era, and went straight to the broken clock meme without a seconds thought on why everyone else had already been wrong multiple times. Tony has some great stuff, from 2016 he called a global peak oil in 2020, we’ll see if 2018 continues to hold and if it does, he might be closer than anyone else, including the folks around here who proclaimed it back in 2015.

          1. Note that Tony is calling for peak oil demand around 2020. This is significantly different from the traditional peak oil crowd that is calling for a peak in supply. The difference is that the former doesn’t cause a crisis (just like the peak in demand for whale oil didn’t cause a crisis) while the later will cause huge problems. According to Tony by 2030 most VMTs will be via EVs and oil will lose a lot of economic value. We will see how it goes.

            1. The lack of interest in the peak demand argument, when it has arguably as much chance of being the cause of maximum global oil production as scarcity, is one of those classic misses of the McPeaksters. Once you incorporate the 3 way relationship into any peaker type thoughts, there is no more requirement that any one cause a crisis, than all 3 at once. Tony has one of the best thought out disruptive technology arguments that I’ve seen to date.

          2. reservegrowthrulz,

            Comparison of recent shock model with EIA’s IEO for crude plus condensate reference case, low oil price case, and high oil price case. I think EIA’s estimate will be wrong due to peak demand by 2030 or so, which I build into my shock model (extraction rate stops increasing due to lack of demand).

            1. Well, certainly peak oil can be caused by a peak in demand, I’m not sure what the basis for lack of demand is? Is it assumed, based on a Tony type scenario? The IEO2021 certainly isn’t projecting a demand peak prior to 2050.

          3. Unfortunately for this cause–that is, pinpointing a date for an inevitable event–one may be wrong an infinite number of times but correct only once. Add in imperfect data and a plethora of outside factors, and you have an impossible task.

            That experts far more informed than most of us here have been repeatedly proven incorrect only worsens the situation; they’ve “cried wolf,” no one believes them, so when the wolf does arrive (as it does in the fable), no one is prepared, and no one will probably even believe what the crisis consists of. Goddess help us.

            1. Or maybe the wolf never arrives. The wolf named “Malthus” is 200 years late and some are still waiting for him.

            2. “Add in imperfect data and a plethora of outside factors, and you have an impossible task.”

              From a deterministic perspective? True. But not from a stochastic one.

            3. Suyog, ask other members of this ecosystem if Malthus was “wrong.”

              Malthus has been incorporated into the core of darwinian theory. It’s the way things work.

            4. Mike B,
              Malthus applies to non-human animals who lack a predator because they cannot invent technology and cannot voluntarily limit their fertility. Humans have invented technology which has bought some time and have voluntarily reduced their fertility. In a few short decades the human population will peak and then start an inexorable decline. In the meantime we may figure out how to grow massive amounts of food indoors at a very low cost. For example the price of precision fermentation is falling rapidly.
              Secondly Malthus has nothing to do with Darwin. Darwin’s theory is about adaptation to the environment increasing reproductive fitness. Malthus’s theory is about linearly growing food production not keeping pace with geometrically growing human population. Malthus never anticipated the green revolution and didn’t anticipate humans voluntarily reducing their fertility.

            5. Both Darwin AND Alfred Russel Wallace, the co-discoverer of natural selection, were prompted by Malthus’s “Essay on the Principle of Population” to unlock the truth about how natural selection works. Nature is essentially Malthusian. If not, there would be no evolution, human or otherwise.


              “I happened to read for amusement Malthus on Population, and being well prepared to appreciate the struggle for existence which everywhere goes on from long-continued observation of the habits of animals and plants, it at once struck me that under these circumstances favourable variations would tend to be preserved and unfavourable ones to be destroyed.”               (28 September 1838: from his Autobiography).

              Again–human “success” has come at the cost of the destruction of nature. If you don’t think the wolf is always at our heels, read about the scramble to fix nitrogen in the book “The Alchemy of Air.”

            6. Mike B ,:- Malthus , Hubbert , Duncan , Meadows etc were not wrong only early . This was discussed in the last post . Ron gave a very good example of insider trading on the stock market . Suyog does not understand that “Peak oil ” was a theory when Hubbert announced it in 1955 . Well in 2018 the “theory ” became a ” theorem ” . So it will be with Malthus , Duncan and Meadows . The problem is that when ‘” theory ” becomes a ” theorem ” mankind has wasted the interim period trying to avoid the outcome and doing all within it’s grasp to continue BAU and when reality arrives it is in deep dodo . You are on the right side of the equation in your posts .

            8. Mike B , here is Ron’s reply of 18/10/2021 . The post is in OPEC update Oct 2021 . This was in response to your post of 17/10/2021′. My question was ” Are Malthus , Hubbert , Duncan , Meadows wrong or early ” This was Ron’s response .
              Here goes .
              Wrong or early? Reminds me of my short stint as a stockbroker. What most stockbrokers know is that insider traders are almost always right, and almost always early. That is they see the fate of their company, either something good or something bad, and buy or sell their own stock accordingly. But they see it happening long before it actually does happen.

              I think we can see the same phenomena in our predictions about the fate of civilization. Most of us can clearly see what is bound to happen. But we underestimate the resilience of civilization to forestall the inevitable.

              We are right but early.
              You can check the thread by yourself . Cheerios .

            9. People often refer to Malthus loosely, using him as a metaphor for problems with population growth. I think it’s a good idea to know what he actually said, and how his predictions compare with history.

              First, Malthus argued that contraception was morally wrong, and that only abstinence was acceptable but, that abstinence didn’t work! He also argued against governmental assistance for the poor, as that would only make things worse…

              https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/An_Essay_on_the_Principle_of_Population

              2nd, history has proven him wrong: there’s really no question that most people are willing to break out of ancient religious rules that mandate many children. There are some remaining countries in MENA and Africa that haven’t gotten there yet, but the world as a whole has reduced it’s fertility by 50% in the last 50 years.

              3rd, the best cure for overpopulation is better child health, women’s education and freedom, and development:

              “Societies generally experience falling fertility rates as incomes and education improve, child mortality declines, and more women work, a demographic transition captured in the saying, “Development is the best contraceptive.” India’s experience largely supports this. The states with the highest fertility rates – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh – also have the lowest socioeconomic indicators, especially with regard to women. Bihar, for instance, which has India’s highest fertility rate (3.2), has the largest percentage of illiterate women (26.8 percent). By contrast, low-fertility Kerala has a literacy rate of 99.3 percent, the result of decades-long state focus on basic education and health care. Fertility declines have been especially sharp in India’s cities and towns — where women are more likely to marry later, go to school, and work — and in southern states, which include the IT hub of Bangalore, where education levels and age of marriage are generally higher.”

              https://e360.yale.edu/features/why-india-is-making-progress-in-slowing-its-population-growth

            10. Mike B,
              I completely agree that human success has come at the expense of nature. We cannot undo what has already happened.
              The question is what do we do now?
              My response:
              1. Reduce fertility drastically. I have only 1 child.
              2. Install renewables with battery backup as rapidly as possible. If this means we have to have a command economy for the next 10 years, so be it. This fight is as serious as WW2. I installed 10kW PV system on my roof 4 years ago.
              3. Transition transportation to EVs as rapidly as possible. Any kind of EV that is safe and protects from weather will do. I bought Chevy Volt PHEV 5 years ago and have booked Hyundai Ioniq 5.
              4. Figure out how to grow calorie dense food indoors at a cost comparable to food grown outside. Food grown indoors requires negligible water and chemical fertilizer (since you can recycle stuff that is not absorbed) and zero pesticides.

              Some people are wailing, pulling their hair out, gnashing their teeth and flailing about. What good does that do? Even if we are doomed due to overpopulation, peak oil and global warming we owe it to ourselves and future generations to make an attempt at transition. If you disagree, what is the alternative?

            11. 3rd, the best cure for overpopulation is better child health, women’s education and freedom, and development.

              Nick, you remind me of the people begging for the covid vaccine as they are admitted to intensive care with covid. You want to cure overpopulation in a world that is already vastly overpopulated.

              But not to worry. Nature will eventually fix the human overpopulation problem. But nature’s fix will not be kind nor benevolent.

            12. Ron,

              That’s a different argument.

              It’s an interesting argument, one in which we have some disagreements. But it’s not about Malthus.

        2. Yeah, look at how coal died and… whoops. Looks like coal demand is growing again. What a prophet. I hear COP26 was more hot air too with everyone deciding not to follow Seba’s amazing advice to dump FFs and go all in renewables. Guess they know something he doesn’t, or they’re just all idiots.

          “Any year now, we’ll have >90% renewables. Aaaaany year now…”

          But sure. One day, we’ll be running on all renewables. Just like before the Industrial Revolution happened. And certainly the massive build out of them will be a boon for the shareholders, sorry, planet.

          1. So, you don’t like EVs, and you don’t like renewables.

            So, really you prefer to use fossil fuels, and you’re arguing that we should do nothing about climate change?

          2. How did you get that from this post? Genuinely curious now pointing out disconnected extrapolations of growth is an argument against renewables.

            Incidentally, today the UK is getting 59% of its power from NG, 4% from coal and a lot of nuclear both domestic and imported. Lowest renewable output in over 50 days, all power prices spiking again.

            And also, Oz gov’t literally just come out saying that thing they signed in Glasgow yesterday won’t be looked at. Ink barely dry and already reneging on pledges to even entertain reducing emissions. Farcical.

            1. Kleiber,

              Nick is a black and white type of guy. If you are not with him you are against him….

            2. Iron Mike,

              Not so. I’m just trying to get to the heart of things. Trying to ferret out what people are really trying to say.

              Kleiber,

              Please see my other note just now. A discussion about economic growth (and Seba, renewables, etc) would be good, but I think it’s good to take a discussion slowly, one point at a time in order to make real progress.

            1. China’s coal output just hit a new record. US coal prices are now higher than any time since 2009. UK is getting 2-4% of power from coal as I type this.

            2. Kleiber,

              Production isn’t as important as consumption: aggressive increases in combustion efficiency and problems with imports obscure the connection between Chinese domestic coal production and consumption.

              A quick internet search suggests that China may have increased coal consumption significantly because of sharply increasing power consumption, but it’s not clear.

              US coal consumption has fallen dramatically in the last 10 years, and the current economic recovery hasn’t really changed that overall picture.

              2-4% of UK power isn’t a big number…

            3. China’s increase is all going to keeping the lights on and meeting industrial production for the economy getting back to pre-pandemic levels and beyond. Bridgewater had a chart I need to find again that shows they’ve massively ramped up output for exports.

              For the UK, that coal is standing in for NG or lack of PV or wind. That percentage shortfall can be a big issue if other sources are tapped, since it will be non-existent when those coal plants are properly shuttered next year and up to 2025. We are now in a market that has British NG prices hitting all time highs again, along with TTF and LNG contracts.

              Germany is burning more coal than ever to offset their dumb anti-nuclear hysterics. If you want to see an energy policy that torpedoes any greening of the industries we rely on, look to the Germans and their total dropping of the ball today.

            4. Kleiber,

              I agree: a good transition away from coal, etc., needs good planning!

            5. I would argue that Germany wouldn’t have these issues if they’d focused more on keeping nuclear available, or at least thinking about something else that can stand in for when wind and solar (frankly, solar in Germany is just odd given all the wind) aren’t coping with demand. The fact that they have gone all in on coal again, on top of NG disruption with NS2’s latest hijinx, is crazy. I question the supposedly more rational thinkers leading Germany. In this instance, they’re making my local politicians look positively competent.

              The UK, for that matter, is also playing with fire. Little storage for NG, North Sea declining, and despite massive offshore wind, there is little else to pick up the slack should the wind not blow. Biomass and nuclear are players here, but again, biomass may as well be coal for all the good it does, and nuclear has issues given how much time and investment and expertise has been lost over the decades.

              This is why the NG spot and future prices are going crazy now. Everyone wants gas who moved off coal, and at a time when Putin is already suspect, we’re now playing into his hands more.

              Though strangely, France today has higher electricity prices than Germany, despite being far less reliant on NG or coal and their prices spiking.

            6. Kleiber,

              I’m less familiar with European planning. What would European grid planners say about these problems?

    6. You’re right in theory on axle weight and damage to roads, but as a practical matter, this is not an issue at all, for electric cars, because they just aren’t heavy enough to create any significant damage to a road. Lots of conventional personal vehicles weigh as much or more than typical electric cars. A Tesla S weighs less than five thousand pounds. A new Ford F150 which is more apt to be used as a car than as a truck nine days out of ten weighs from over four thousand to almost six thousand pounds, depending on how it’s optioned. A new Suburban weighs in at very lose to six thousand pounds. Both of these are comparable to a Tesla S in terms of hauling passengers and luggage.

      And so far as larger trucks are concerned, there are very strict, and very strictly enforced, laws on the books about gross weights and axle weights. So a partially loaded electric truck might weigh more than a partially loaded conventional truck, but fully loaded, both will weigh the same, if they have the same number of axles, spaced the same. ( Length of the truck comes into the regulations too. )

      My personal guess is that there would be a rather minor but statistically significant difference in terms of road damage in favor of larger conventional trucks, due to miles driven with no or only small loads.

      This disadvantage will grow less as battery tech improves, and it’s small already, because while batteries are heavy, so are big diesel engines, transmissions, and differentials. Some trucks will be built with wheel motors, maybe all of them, and they might actually weigh less than a similarly sized conventional truck.

      And lets not forget that there are a lot of conventional trucks out there delivering maximum legal loads of gasoline and diesel fuel to stores, lol. Some of them will be retired as electric vehicles become more common.

      1. Wery wery Long Time Ago I was on a course about road planning and teacher told that trucks and other heavy road vehicles cause 100 (one hundred) times more road damage than normal cars. Probably a sort of rule of thumb and hereabouts there is winter freezing that also causes road problems when (especially older roads) freezing water moves the road materials…

    7. George- as you know the CO2 lifecycle emissions of ICE vs EV results vary primarily on the source of electricity that the local grid charge source is comprised of. For example- hydro good, coal bad.

      In the USA updated data indicates that the average grid charging source for EV yields a lifetime carbon emission equivalent to an ICE vehicle that gets 93 mpg petrol.
      In Poland the comparison is not advantageous to the world and its battle with global warming, since their grid is heavily supplied with coal, for example.

      A big issue I see with electric vehicles is the propensity for people to adopt an attitude that ‘if it is electric then there is no consequence’, so they think of the ecological cost as zero. Its simplistic thinking- black and white. People seem to like that.
      Same issue applies to biofuel. It is seen as little consequence. People want to fly ‘green’, not acknowledging that just one flight would result in the expropriation of a roughly one or two hundred acres of wildlife habitat, or food production.

      Accelerated pace of downsizing is the only meaningful and durable path towards some measure of stability in systems.

  4. There is a mouse-over chart at the below link that shows how much coal, oil, and, natural gas each region of the world uses. Asia-Pacific, which includes China and India, are decades away from getting off coal. And even North America is still 80% dependent on fossil fuels. The Middle East is 98.7% dependent on fossil fuels.

    Asia-Pacific is home to some of the world’s largest carbon-emitters — 2 charts show its reliance on coal

    KEY POINTS
    Asia-Pacific accounted for 52% of global carbon dioxide emissions last year, according to the latest edition of BP’s Statistical Review of World Energy.
    Experts have said that much of global efforts to fight climate change is dependent on Asian countries cutting their reliance on coal.
    The region’s move away from fossil fuels and toward renewable sources has remained “far too slow,” said Gavin Thompson, Asia-Pacific vice chairman at Wood Mackenzie.

  5. Right now EV’s are in head to head competition with ICE vehicles, so they are designed like the automobiles we are used to. Non are really “sustainable” in the long haul for personal transport in any eyes wide open analysis of the future. We must think smaller, much lighter and slower. And used less often. My wife and I have been using electric recumbent trikes now for the last 7 years. We use 18 watts per mile and have logged a bit over 8,000 miles each on them. Batteries still going strong. Very little maintenance, break pads and tires. Charge them off my PV array. A recent study showed that a Tesla EV battery pack could be configured to support 178 e-bikes!! Granted, e-bikes are not going to replace cars completely. But our thinking about personal transportation will be forced to evolve, and the scale will be reduced to smaller, lighter, slower. This is simply a matter of physics and hard planetary limits that we are running up against.
    Just finished Nate Hagen’s book Reality Blind. His conclusion that renewable energy (aka “rebuildables”) can support a vibrant civilization, just not the one we happen to live in, is not far off the mark in my humble opinion.

    1. An important aspect is how we chose to configure society. The suburban crawl that you see in many places is just nuts. JH Kunstler used have some really good observations about that before he went off the rails.
      To a fair degree it’s a question of the individual vs the collective – and how do you make those decisions as a society.
      Rgds
      WP

    3. ” We must think smaller, much lighter and slower.”

      I agree completely Tom . . . my ride is a Greenspeed Anura and I sometimes fantasize about a light vehicle road network beside existing highways.

      As far as electric “cars” go, logic would suggest a lightweight vehicle on narrow large diameter wheels with a compliant suspension.

      Vehicles such as the Aptera and others demonstrate the possibilities.

      Instead, in order to gain perceived “public acceptance” the industry is producing vehicles that are just electric powered versions of former gods . . . even SUVs for goodness sake.

      If no human ever travelled faster than 100 kilometers per hour what would change?

      Cheers.

    4. It’s true that EVs started off at the high end of the market, like mobile phones did. It is a common way to introduce new technology. But it will change quickly.

      I think Chinese tastes will control the car market in the coming decade. China is already the biggest car manufacturer in the world by far. China produces about three times as many cars as America — more than the United States, Japan, Germany and South Korea put together.

      Chinese consumer like some pretty odd cars, including a lot of unbelievably cheap ones. I expect a huge wave of these vehicles to hit world markets before 2030. And they will all be electric.

      1. Also e bike sales are growing at an amazing rate, with about 40 million expected to be sold this year, compared to about 90 million cars..

        1. And to think I just peddle mine instead of getting one a battery. Are we saved yet?

        2. E bikes also need oil . Ever wonder about how the minerals were mined , the paint , the tires , the plastic grips , the plastic lamp . I think I will stop now because it is never ending . When the ” Oil age ” ends so does ” Industrial civilization ” . TEOTWAWKI . Best of luck .

      2. It’s true that EVs started off at the high end of the market, like mobile phones did. It is a common way to introduce new technology.

        Well, Tesla started off that way. But…we forget that Tesla wasn’t the first modern EV. That’s really GM’s EV-1, which was small and underpowered. That’s largely because GM didn’t really understand or like EVs. They thought of EVs as economy cars, simply ways to save money with cheap “fuel”. It took a company that really understood and liked EVs to take advantage of their ability to provide much greater acceleration. Much greater acceleration allowed Teslas to compete with much more expensive vehicles ($500,000 and up), whose signature feature was speed. Speed in an ICE is expensive because large engines are produced in small quantities, which robs them of the economies of scale that are necessary to make complex ICEs affordable.

        We forget how complex ICEs are – they’re Rube Goldberg machines. Electric motors are marvels of simplicity by comparison, and you can make a powerful electric motor relatively cheaply.

        That’s how a tiny startup managed to compete with GM, VW, etc., and break through the barriers to entry in a highly capital intensive industry. Tesla is the first new car company in the US to succeed (meaning major sales success and going public), in roughly the last 100 years. It’s an astonishing achievement.

    5. My personal belief is that if battery prices stay high due to short supplies of the materials such as lithium needed to build them, we will eventually see new car dealer showrooms filled with micro cars.

      The optimal design will be two passenger fore and aft, low, narrow, highly aero efficient.

      Damned few people would buy such a car today, but given a choice between such a car, and NO car, or an electric bicycle, lawyers and CPA’s will gladly buy one to get around as necessary. The materials needed to build one three hundred mile range six thousand pound car would be enough to build a dozen or more such cars with a fifty to a hundred mile range.

      The banking industry isn’t going to eat America’s investment in suburbia, lol. We aren’t going to abandon our McMansions, no way in hell. And even if we were willing to do so, just where would the people who live in them go?

      One way or another, we’re going electric, eventually, because the depletion of oil cannot be outlawed, lol.

      So maybe twenty years down the road, each driver who still owns an ordinary ice car gets a five gallon per week gasoline ration. If he hoards it, that’s enough to use it occasionally for a special occasion such as taking the family to a school event or even on vacation.

      People who see it coming, and can afford to do so, may buy a couple of new long range electric vehicles and garage them for later use.

      And in the event electricity is rationed, well to do individuals will heavily invest in personally owned solar systems…. quite possibly communally owned in gated subdivisions, lol.

      1. OFM,

        I agree, we’re going electric, and we’ll redesign vehicles however we need to enable mobility.

        The idea that shortages of battery materials will create a long-term barrier to electrification is highly unrealistic: there are no key materials to batteries. There are literally hundreds of different battery chemistries, all using different materials. You can make almost anything into a battery. Heck, you’ve seen the potato battery, right?

        Seriously: there are lithium-ion chemistries that don’t use cobalt. There are li-ion chemistries that don’t use either cobalt or nickel. LFP is in use in EVs now: ” “LFP contain neither nickel[28] nor cobalt, both of which are supply-constrained and expensive.” https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lithium_iron_phosphate_battery

        Lithium has very desirable characteristics, and lithium is relatively abundant, but even lithium isn’t essential. There are iron batteries that have been in use in EVs for 100 years. There are advanced lead batteries that would work. CATL is developing a sodium battery. There’s aluminum, sulfur, vanadium, etc.,etc., etc. There are zillions more chemistries. There are super-capacitors, which aren’t a “chemistry” at all – they aren’t economically competitive at the moment, but wait till they go through a development cycle like PV, li-ion, etc… (Heck, the kind of super-streamlined min-EVs that you describe could be powered by a big solar panel and no electrical storage at all – have you looked at the solar car races? They get 20 miles per kWh, and run at 70MPH for days on end with essentially no energy storage).

        The EV industry has standardized on li-ion, and it would be inconvenient to switch to something else entirely. The problem: there are large barriers to entry to such an industry – leaders have a big advantage in economies of scale. Manufacturers have to make a choice, a commitment, along with an ecosystem of suppliers. That’s a big deal, and industries don’t do it lightly.

        As it happens, lithium-ion appears to be the consensus choice, and it’s still progressing quickly, with relatively rapid improvements in capacity, cycle-life, and cost.

        But one way or another, battery materials will NOT be a long-term problem.

        1. “But one way or another, battery materials will NOT be a long-term problem.” ~ Nick

          Ah yes, good ole ‘one way of another’; gotta love that lol; is it preordained? What do you call that methodology of future trends analysis; “But Amazon!!”?

          Perhaps battery materials will not a problem for you Nick, but it will be for quite a few people who you don’t seem to care much about. Exxon bad, EV good- is that how it goes, Nick?
          The analysis seems to stop once Nick has gotten what Nick wants.

          Guatemala Puts Town Under Martial Law as Indigenous Leaders Protest Mining Project
          https://www.democracynow.org/2021/10/26/headlines/guatemala_puts_town_under_martial_law_as_indigenous_leaders_protest_mining_project

          As demand for nickel grows, so do environmental concerns
          https://www.mining.com/as-demand-for-nickel-grows-so-do-environmental-concerns-report/

          Perhaps some would have you believe that all the solutions are all preordained. What, me worry?

          1. is it preordained?

            Good point. I should have said something like “Battery material problems are extremely unlikely”.

            Exxon bad, EV good- is that how it goes?

            Well, oil production has certainly destroyed a lot of indigenous communities.

            You seem to be objecting to the electrification of transportation. So, do you feel that we shouldn’t transition away from fossil fuels?

            1. 6 Automakers and 30 Countries Say They’ll Phase Out Gasoline Car Sales.

              GLASGOW — At least six major automakers — including Ford, Mercedes-Benz, General Motors and Volvo — and 30 national governments pledged on Wednesday to work toward phasing out sales of new gasoline and diesel-powered vehicles by 2040 worldwide, and by 2035 in “leading markets.”

              We have the technology to make clean road transport a reality and today it’s clear we have the willpower to do it in the next decade,” said Nigel Topping, who was appointed by the British government to the United Nations to be a “high level climate action champion.”

              https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/news/6-automakers-and-30-countries-say-they-ll-phase-out-gasoline-car-sales/ar-AAQw1ZB?ocid=winp1taskbar

        2. CATL is preparing the mass production of sodium batteries. In 2 years they plan the mass rollout – development and industrial design is finished. They say they are preparing logistic chains for mass production.

          They are almost on par with LiFePO – much better than iron.

          They eliminated everything rare, even the copper interconnector was replaced with aluminium.

          There is no raw material bottleneck for this battery. They are 180 wh per Kilogramm for the first version, they have plans to go to 220. From the cost side they are settled to break the 50$/kwh at some time – 1000$ battery cost for the asian market 100 miles city car.

          Ideal for cheap or short distance cars and local distribution.

          As goodie they are 4C fast load proof to 80÷ and work down to -20 C degrees without the need to heat them.

          1. For once Greta is correct . ” Blah , blah ,blah ” = pledges , mandates , promises . What do they say in Texas ” All hat , no cattle ” .? Feel good and warm with this BS because winter cometh and Mr Putin and Mr Lukeshenko are devising excuses to shut off the gas . Get some blankets .

            1. Exactly. Mandates like all new vehicle sales by _________ will be EV, are simply nonsense.

              Tax the shit out of FF with a carbon tax and see what happens? They’ll be a revolution all right. Some of those COP 26 attendees think space travel is good. I’m going to go visit a friend next week before he flies to Mexico next month. My sister, a big EV proponent, wants to go back to Turkey for a vacation.

              I not only think there will be nothing much accomplished with carbon reduction proposals, there won’t even be any action after cities flood and mass migration cause more war. It’s always everyone else cut back, and my buddy is still going to fly to Mexico. Throw on a huge carbon tax and use the money for clean power research and production, and transit. But no one wants to ride on transit and do without.

    6. I was in a fairly well to do town in Lincolnshire, England the other day. Out of all the cars I saw, I did see a few EVs. They were all along the lines of giant Audi e-tron Q7s, Jaguar E-Pace, Range Rover Velar and at least one Polestar 2 with a few Model S Teslas on the motorway up there.

      These are all two tonne or thereabouts vehicles, driven primarily by 60+ aged men/women with only the driver or one passenger, perhaps a Labrador.

      If this isn’t indicative of how screwed we are in our thinking of dealing with climate change (we’re not dealing with climate change), I don’t know what is.

      Very few drawn to the likes of the VW ID.3 or an electric Fiat 500, but then, those “cheap” EVs are also £30k before the minuscule gov’t grant. No, let’s enable the well heeled to carry on driving their Chelsea tractors, but powered under the assumed inputs of the wind and sun, not fossil fuels, so it’s okay.

      1. I too sometimes feel a bit annoyed at people driving big expensive vehicles, but…what does that have to do the question of ICE vs EV?

      2. The ID3 hasn’t been on the market for long, but its sales are robust and increasing. Aside from Tesla, it far outsold the other models you mention.

        2021 Q3 VW ID3: 52,700
        2021 Q3 Audi sales (all models): 20,00
        2021 Q3 Jaguar I-pace: 2,644
        2021 YTD Range Rover Velar: 9,368
        2021 Q3 Tesla: 241,391

        As you know, luxury models have been prioritized from manufacturers because battery costs were high, so a high sales price has been necessary. As battery production increases and costs decline, more affordable EV’s are entering the market. When quality 200+ mile EV’s at $25k are introduced they will sell extremely well.

        I’ve been driving a Fiat 500e for 3 years and it’s a great car. I actually prefer driving it to driving my brother’s Model Y, but I do wish it had 50% to 100% more range.

        This is a tangent, but I live ~50 miles outside of the major metropolitan center, so when I need to go there I can’t the full round trip on one charge; I need to plug in for an hour. It doesn’t always work out that I can do that while I’m in the city, so occasionally I have to sit on my ass and wait impatiently for enough range to get home, but even so it’s a couple of hours less time than taking commuter rail, there’s no ‘last mile’ problem getting to and from my destinations, it costs me $9.00 less than transit, and my emissions are lower.

        For about four years, I would take transit out of principle, and it frequently ran off schedule, or left me completely stranded and having to stay overnight with friends. On one occasion, while on the bus, the driver missed a turn due to confusion caused by road construction, and she had to take a bit of a detour to get back to the route, problem was, she re-entered it half a block beyond the stop, and gave no consideration to the dozen people who were waiting, clearly visible, behind us. This was a commuter bus, and it was an hour until the next one would be by to pick them up.

        I was using transit by choice not necessity, and eventually, I simply gave up.

        Many people live in built environments that are car centric. They aren’t serviceable by public transit, and they can’t be made so. Do we simply abandon them all?

        1. The large majority of transportation needs don’t fit with mass transit.

          I love electric rail, but it needs very high density corridors. If mass transit is to replace private vehicles it must run 24 hours by 7 days to all locations, and that would be extraordinarily expensive to cover with bus drivers.

  6. Latest news on the pandemic. Pfizer has recently (Nov. 5) announced their new oral antiviral pill, Paxlovid. The single, vendor conducted clinical trial reported a 95% improvement in outcomes vs tha placebo and has been halted because it is considered unethical to continue giving at risk patients a placebo when the treatment is so effective.

    This is already being heralded as a game changer. I find it a little odd that this announcement is not being met with the same skepticism that other promising, cheap, out of patent therapeutics have received but, hey! If it works that well, it’s all good, I guess!

      1. I choose to believe real medical doctors, not a nurse teacher on youtube, lol

        https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/

        The dumbshits promoting bullshit do make good comedy, tho.

        A Republican lawmaker in North Dakota will miss his Monday rally opposing vaccine mandates because he has COVID-19. Instead, Rep. Jeff Hoverson said he will stay home and take a cocktail of medications including the unproven anti-parasite drug ivermectin and the malaria remedy Hydroxychloroquine.

        https://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/ny-covid-lawmaker-anti-vaccine-rally-20211108-uhu7yrxqjffxpmahj5onc44r6a-story.html

        1. You’ll probably find this hilarious then. Dr. Paul Marik (MD) founding member of the Front Line COVID-19 Critical Care Alliance and chief architect of their protocol for treating hospitalised covid patients has filed a suit against the Sentara Norfolk General Hospital where he practices. This was done after the hospital refused to allow him to choose to therapeutics with which to treat his patients and he had to watch them die without being able to treat them. The hospital will allow Remdesivir and convalescent plasma which are both very expensive but, typically do not work in late stage covid. He is a suing to be allowed to use the treatments which he considers best in his judgement.

          https://www.newswise.com/coronavirus/world-s-leading-icu-doctor-files-lawsuit-against-hospital-system-after-being-barred-from-administering-safe-and-effective-covid-19-treatments/?article_id=760545

          As for Rep. Jeff Hoverson, my bet is that he will survive. If he ends up in the ICU, you win! As this pandemic grinds on, the data from most of the places that openly admit to widespread use of “the unproven anti-parasite drug ” is very interesting. Just sayin’.

        2. And this is the kind of corporation that people are so willing to trust when they come with products they claim are a solution for this pandemic?

          https://abcnews.go.com/Health/PainManagement/pfizers-23-billion-settlement-change-practices/story?id=8476391

          I saw a video in which CNN outlined how Pfizer created a shell company to take the rap in order for them to be able to continue selling their products to federal government agencies. A really nice, law abiding company they are!

        3. We know that Ivermectin is extremely safe because it has been around for decades. When it comes to Covid, there is considerable evidence in its favor. The evidence however is not conclusive. If I ever get Covid (I have taken the Pfizer vaccine) I will take Ivermectin. If it doesn’t work I am no worse off than before. It it works and keeps me out of the hospital then I win. I wouldn’t put it past the sick care industry to intentionally discredit a cheap, out of patent drug.

          1. I wouldn’t put it past the sick care industry to intentionally discredit a cheap, out of patent drug.

            Sorry Suyog, but I have to call bullshit on that one. Those who say Ivermectin is worthless, except for deworming horses, are the CDC, not the drug industry. The CDC does not make a dime on any drug out there. The “sick care” industry is the hospitals. And hospitals don’t make money on the sale of drugs except to people already admitted. And they are desperately overcrowded and they know damn well that people taking bullshit medicine instead of getting vaccinated will only add to their overcrowed problem.

            But I mean really? Do you really believe hospitals want people to get sicker?

            1. Ron, I think your trust that the CDC is completely separate and disconnected from “the drug industry” might be displaced. The global response to this pandemic from public health bodies has been peculiar, particularly in first world countries.

              For further information, the best I can do is refer you to the website of a group of doctors that have been trying to promote the use of affordable, readily available substances to improve outcomes with this disease. The web site at flccc.net is chocked full of information that might lead you to question the actions of what they describe as “alphabet agencies”. You may well dismiss it as BS but, you might be denying yourself access to useful information in doing so.

              The lawsuit mentioned further up features prominently on the web site home page and you might find the amount of push back these doctors are facing a bit strange in light of the fact that their main intention is to save lives.This whole thing is an unholy mess and the apparent imperative to make loads of money for the drug industry seems to be at the root of it. (See also https://twitter.com/PierreKory/status/1458892074510651405 ) Why do all the preferred solutions have to be new, patented products from Big Pharma? It does not make sense and things are not adding up.

              An example of things not adding up. In a post discussing popultion issues, Nick pointed out that in India,

              “low-fertility Kerala has a literacy rate of 99.3 percent, the result of decades-long state focus on basic education and health care.

              Why is it that a state with a literacy rate of 99.3 percent has the worst covid statistics in all of India and is responsible for 60% of the daily new cases despite only having 3% of the population? From this article, Nearly half of new Covid cases over past week in Kerala are those fully vaccinated

              Kerala has highest rate of vaccination

              Kerala is the state with the highest rate of vaccination. As of 4 November, 95 per cent of the eligible population has been vaccinated with a single dose of vaccine, while 52.5 per cent have received both doses of the vaccine, according to the government data.

              As a contrast Nick wrote:

              “The states with the highest fertility rates – Bihar, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh – also have the lowest socioeconomic indicators, especially with regard to women. “

              The image below is what you see at the top of the page when you search for “covid cases uttar pradesh” using Google. If you do a similar search for Bihar, you get a similar graph. The estimated combined population of Bihar and Uttar Pradesh is roughly 350 million. That is more than the US and more than a quarter of the population of India! The combined number of new cases for yesterday (Nov. 11) for U P and Bihar was 11, 0.09% of the new cases reported in India as opposed to 7,224 (57.7%) for Kerala.

              Do you see what I mean about things not adding up?

            2. Islandboy,

              This is called the base rate problem.

              Let’s say we had 90% of the population fully vaccinated in a population of 100,000 people.

              Let’s also say we had 100 new cases of covid with half of the cases from fully vaccinated and half from not fully vaccinated.

              So for fully vaccinated the case rate would be 50/90000=0.056% (0.00056) and for not fully vaccinated the case rate would be 50/10000=0.5% or about 10 time higher than for the fully vaccinated population. If we looked further at people on respirators or deaths from covid19 the difference would be much higher.

            3. Dennis, the “base rate problem” is fairly easy to understand but, let us not take our eye off the ball. I am far more interested in places that appear to have defeated this virus than places that are still struggling with thousands of new cases per day regardless of high rate of vaccination. The following page allows visitors to compare countries, and regions.

              https://ourworldindata.org/covid-cases

              The chart below compares the data based on “income” and I hate to have to tell you guys in the high income regions this but, YOU HAVE BEEN SCAMMED!

            4. Here is another look at the data via Our World in Data showing new daily case counts on the different geographical regions (continents). It appears that Europe and North America have been scammed. The shithole countries are at the bottom. Is it the Nigerians pulling off the scam again?

            5. Well said Ron.

              Cue the conspiracy theorists, like my ex friend who thinks vaccines and vaccine passports are used to simply control citizens. Did I say ex friend?

            1. Ron,

              Yes my guess is that most cases in low income nations are not reported or identified.

              In part this may be due to a lack of testing facilities.

            2. One would think that if it were really just a problem of reporting, the WHO would be all over this but, they ain’t! The most telling story is the case of Uttar Pradesh vs Kerala in India. Take a look at the following:

              https://juanchamie.substack.com/p/ivermectin-in-uttar-pradesh

              The WHO knows exactly what transpired in U P but, they are not disseminating that information. Why? There seems to be a huge effort to deny what is staring us in the face. i am fed up!

            3. Ron and Dennis,
              If the data is unreliable that would change the size of the peak but not the shape of the curve.

          3. I’m not a patent lawyer, nor do I play one on TV or youtube, but I do have a few patents to my name. My understanding for drug patents is that new uses for an old substance are patent-able.
            From: https://www.uspto.gov/patents/basics/general-information-patents

            “1) Utility patents may be granted to anyone who invents or discovers any new and useful process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, or any new and useful improvement thereof;”

            So, the old/expired Merck patent is “process to treat with ivermectin”, plus a bunch of patents to make the stuff and to formulate it for more effective administration.
            A new patent would be “process to treat covid-19 with ivermectin”.

            Indeed, there are a couple of news articles about such filings for ivermectin and covid.
            https://trialsitenews.com/finnish-biotech-secures-u-s-patent-for-ivermectin-based-nasal-spray-to-take-on-covid-19-in-low-to-middle-income-countries-lmics/

            https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2021/oct/18/doctor-who-advocated-covid-19-therapy-including-ivermectin-applied-for-patent-on-same-unproven-treatment

            So the whole trope about “it’s off-patent, so they’re not interested” seems like B.S.
            People don’t want to accept the reality that (as the first response to Caly et. al. in
            https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172803/
            says:)
            “In vitro promise leads to clinical failure in the vast majority of cases, …”
            It’s one of those tough things like peak oil, climate change, overpopulation, topsoil depletion, etc. etc. etc. that a great many people prefer to deny.

            Note also this paper from Sept 2020:
            https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32942671/

            “The small molecule macrocyclic lactone ivermectin, approved by the US Food and Drug Administration for parasitic infections, has received renewed attention in the last eight years due to its apparent exciting potential as an antiviral.”

            eight years prior to 2020 – huh.
            A Dengue virus phase 3 trial was done in 2018 – huh, if it worked so great, how come we haven’t heard more of that?

            Hum, I’m reminded of thin-film solar, hydrogen fuel cells, nuclear fusion, … .

      2. John Campbell let his hatred of the press blind him to demonstrable fraud in the Elgazzar ivermectin study, then having gotten a taste of fame for his sarcasm wades in over his head with talk of molecular binding energies, which is interesting in a technical sort of way, but in silicio (computer modeling) is not a substitute for randomized controlled trials in real live bodies.

        https://grftr.news/why-was-a-major-study-on-ivermectin-for-covid-19-just-retracted/

        https://steamtraen.blogspot.com/2021/07/Some-problems-with-the-data-from-a-Covid-study.html

        (1) if ivermectin is so effective, why engage in fraud?

        (2) indeed, is ivermectin effective at all?
        (2a) Yes, outworldindata (OWID) shows that cases in India and other places are low, BUT
        what about the testing rates? On Nov 8, OWID reported 3.42 tests/1,000 people in the U.S., but 0.70 tests/1k in India. And tests/case as of Nov. 8, was 15.5 in U.S., 85/case in India. Really, poor India is wasting 5.5x as many tests as the U.S.? right….
        (2b) independent analysis of excess deaths shows India is vastly under-counting covid deaths.
        https://www.cgdev.org/publication/three-new-estimates-indias-all-cause-excess-mortality-during-covid-19-pandemic

        (2b) The issue is not unique with India, but certainly bad there and in other “ivermectin success cases”.
        http://www.healthdata.org/special-analysis/estimation-excess-mortality-due-covid-19-and-scalars-reported-covid-19-deaths

        (3) Shortly after the article appeared about in vitro testing suggesting ivermectin may be of value, there were several letters in response about how in a human body the effective dose may not be achievable or would be dangerous.
        https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7172803/

        (4) The studies cited by ivermectin advocates share a great many flaws. A major one is that they are just too small. If somewhere between 90 and 95% of covid cases are going to recover on their own, one needs an “N” of 500 to 1000 per arm (treatment or placebo) to demonstrate effect.
        In looking through the ivermectin trials on clinicaltrials.gov, I find many with “N” in the 20 – 40 range, one down at 16!
        The only completed invermectin study with such a number of treated people is, wait for it, the TOGETHER trial in Brazil – the ivermectin arm was stopped for futility.
        https://www.togethertrial.com/
        Paper in progress on ivermectin.

        BTW – the TOGETHER trial found that fluvoxamine (a cheap anti-depressant) reduced hospitalization by 32%. (N = 741 for fluvoxamine treatment, N = 756 placebo).
        Effect of early treatment with fluvoxamine on risk of emergency care and hospitalisation among patients with COVID-19: the TOGETHER randomised, platform clinical trial
        https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(21)00448-4/fulltext

        The PRINCIPLE trial in the UK is also investigating ivermectin at scale.
        https://www.principletrial.org/

        1. Might I suggest that India has inadvertently engaged in the largest quasi controlled study of ivermectin, a study that is still underway. The state of Uttar Pradesh and the other regions that followed their example of “early treatment” using “medicine kits” consisting of vitamin C, vitamin D, zinc, paracetamol, a couple of antibiotics and ivermectin represent the treatment arm. The state of Kerala that has eschewed the use of ivermectin and any “early treatment” options in favor of vaccination only, represents the control group. Not a proper randomized controlled trial by a long shot but let’s see how this all shakes out.

          U P (population est. 230 million) reported 9 new cases 0n Nov .13 compared to 6,648 for Kerala (population est. 35 million). Kerala is at 10.9° N (tropical climate) as opposed to U P at 26.8° N (temperate climate) and there are surely other confounding factors but, otherwise this looks as good as it’s gonna get. It’s not over till the fat lady sings!

  8. Rivian (which has yet to deliver a single vehicle) is now worth more than GM.
    LOL

    EDIT: On a more serious note, CEOs are paid for stock performance, so this is a clear signal to car companies to go all in on EVs.

    We’ll see how that works out in a few years.

    1. I hear their vapourware pick-up is actually pretty decent. Just don’t ask to personally verify that.

      In other news, stock market valuations are about as useful as the latest dog based crypto coin.

  9. 763,168—
    About 100,000 over 1918 in the US, but we had a smaller population then.
    However, this has just started.

Comments are closed.