125 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, October 1”

  2. Following a topic introduce by Shallow Sand affecting his worker access/productivity in an earlier thread. If true, in a general sense, it’s a dismal statistic. Maybe Covid-19 is somehow involved? I’ve no idea if anything similar is happening up here (in Canada), or not.

    THE STREETS OF MAJOR US CITIES ARE BEING FLOODED WITH FAR MORE DRUGS THAN EVER BEFORE

    “An endless tsunami of illegal drugs is turning the streets of our major cities into desolate wastelands, and yet our politicians seem powerless to do anything about it. In fact, in some of our biggest cities the politicians actually don’t seem interested in doing anything about it. As I will discuss below, open air drug markets are operating freely right in the heart of New York City at this moment. Dealers and addicts go about their business without the slightest fear that the police will do anything. Meanwhile, the national death toll just continues to rise. An all-time record 93,000 Americans died as a result of a drug overdose last year. That was an increase of nearly 30 percent from the year before, and authorities are already warning that there will be another huge jump when the final numbers for 2021 come in…

    It has been estimated that approximately 23 million Americans are addicted to drugs, but nobody knows the real number. It isn’t as if there is any sort of a “drug census” that would give us a more accurate count. But what we do know is that the problem is bigger than it has ever been in our entire history.”

    https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/streets-major-us-cities-are-being-flooded-far-more-drugs-ever

    2. Zero Hedge is Russian propaganda. Their content is taken from Russian state media like Sputnik and RT. Most of the things you read there are practically identical to what you find there, and it’s a safe bet that this content is parroting the Putin party line.

      The Russian government wants you to spread gloom and doom about America, and you do a great job.

        1. Might as well be a chart of us population increase. Without representation as a % this is useless.

            1. Overdose deaths are likely increasing because the drug supply is not as safe as it used to be; to wit, fentanyl, not because the overall rate of addiction is rising.
              Are you suggesting that the drug addiction rate is increasing in tandem with the overdose death rate? That’s some Alex Jones logic bro.

        2. Ghung —
          I’m not shooting the messenger, just calling out liars.

          Shooting the messenger means blaming someone for telling the truth. I don’t have to accept obvious lies.

          In fact I would strongly recommend you improve your media literacy. When you read something in the internet, ask yourself why you should think it is true instead of blindly accepting it because it feels good. And don’t trust sources who have lied to you in the past.

          1. You’ve made assumptions that expose your lack of tact. Indeed, I doubt you have any clue as to my “media literacy”. At least I go after the information rather than dismiss it because it was parroted by a source I don’t like.
            I’ve never put any stock in Zerohedge, but in this case the claim that drug use (and deaths) in the US HAS increased seems quite accurate. At least I went and looked before condemning the claim, regardless of source.
            Whose intellectually lazy here?

            1. Zerohedge is a tool of the Russian government campaign to spread chaos in the West as revenge for the breakup of the Soviet Union. Putin is still mad about that. The site also promotes anti-vax lies with the goal of killing as many English speakers as possible. In America alone, 700,000 have died.

              I don’t think it is “lazy” to call them out for their bullshit.

            2. Alimbiquated. Probably you are right. Zerohedge tool of the Russian government to discriminate the political leadership of the United States. This is due to the confrontation (new “cold war”) between the Russian Federation and the United States. I do not think that the parties use lies in their messages, it discredits the source, undermines the credibility of him. Enough
              tendentiously not to notice the facts that interfere with the tasks of inculcating “false concepts” and to give in the messages what is necessary to achieve propaganda goals. This is used by both Russian and Western media. For example: During the 2008.08 war between the Russian Federation and Georgia, the media in the west hid, that the war began with the night shelling of the MLRS (rocket artillery) of Georgia, the capital of South Ossetia (Tskhinval), and it was she who started the aggression.
              I think you are mistaken about Putin’s desire: “is promoting anti-vax lies with the aim of killing as many English speakers as possible.”
              I believe that the goal is different – the Russian vaccine “Sputnik” is not recognized in the West and this is just a confrontation between pharmaceutical companies. If I did not have allergies, I would have been vaccinated with Sputnik, I think that all permitted vaccines are about the same …
              And, yes, any person with critical thinking is able to distinguish between propaganda and its goals. In this case, he can use any sources, not trusting everything they report.

            3. Alexander:

              “And, yes, any person with critical thinking is able to distinguish between propaganda and its goals. In this case, he can use any sources, not trusting everything they report.”

              I don’t think it’s that easy. It takes work to evaluate information, and most people don’t have the time or inclination to do that – they go with news sources they like, and commonly, with sources their friends or family likes.

              News sources used to be well-sourced, poorly-sourced, or outright fabrications. The internet has allowed the outright fabrications and poorly sourced information to compete on an equal footing.

              Right now, I can create 1000 Facebook accounts, pick a person, and flood the internet news sites with ‘letters’ and all their friends with completely bogus information about them, and they have little recourse.

              I don’t know what the solution is, but there does seem to be a growing chorus calling for some kind of penalty for knowingly spreading false and malicious information, but that will surely be a large can of worms, and i’m not optimistic.

            4. A+P
              Blah blah Georgia. Seriously. Putin and his minions can’t run Russia’s vast holdings properly, but their thirst for more land is insatiable. Pretending Russia isn’t picking on tiny Georgia is weak propaganda, try something halfway realistic. You can’t pretend to be a superpower and whine about losing a war to a country the size of Georgia at the same time. It’s like Reagan great triumph in Grenada, except you lost. Boohoo. Mean old Western media is to blame. Cry me a river.

              You can tell this is garbage by the wording of the headline. WTF is “tsunami” supposed to mean? How many pecks are there in a tsunami? If the only headline you can come up with is what a 13 year old thinks is cool, then you fail as a news outlet.

              If you are naive enough to share the headline, you fail at basic media literacy, and are part of the problem, either as an active agent or a passive asset, as the KGB put it.
              If the information is interesting an relevant, there is likely to be a source that isn’t gobbledygook.

            5. Alimbiquated.
              1.RF-state has subjectivity, independently makes decisions. This does not like the United States. This is the reason for confrontation. Yes, the Russian Federation is negligible in terms of its economic development, development prospects are poor, foreign markets are closed by the decision of the United States. Yes, corruption is present, which is a normal human quality. Yes, I believe all the negative facts that the CIA indirectly through the “opposition” Navalny and others are voicing about the authorities. But recipes, decisions are unacceptable for citizens of the Russian Federation.
              2. “. Putin and his minions can’t run Russia’s vast holdings properly, but their thirst for more land is insatiable.”
              —
              This is wonderful. You think like Frederick the Great (Frederick 2 is certainly a great man). He also did not like how neighboring states manage their lands and he constantly fought. Your desires to create a dozen states on the territory of the Russian Federation like Chad and Uganda are understandable and they are not new. tried to implement and before you, for example, your compatriot Schicklgruber. Such a policy will not lead to anything good.
              3. Georgia is not an independent state, it is governed like many others from Washington. Its borders, it arose only in 1924 (as part of the USSR). In 1991, after gaining statehood, there was a war with “small peoples” living for millennia on their land – Ossetians and Abkhazians. The Russian Federation had no desire to fight in 2008 and generally the emergence of conflicts. In the professional sense, the army in the Russian Federation from conscripts was not combat-ready. In Ossetia, two peacekeeping battalions without heavy weapons (only AK74), one Georgian and one Russian were deployed on the territory of the military base. At night 08.08. Gruzinsky took off, left, and the Russian was fired from MLRS, like the Iosetian cities and villages. Blitzkrieg did not work.
              4. “It’s like Reagan great triumph in Grenada, except you lost. Boohoo”
              —
              Russia won this war. Captured trophies. South Ossetia and Abkhazia are in fact independent and left Georgia. Washington’s puppet is now in prison. What will I lose?
              5. I think that the ideas of the citizens of Western Europe and the United States about the situation in the Russian Federation and the goals of its government, as well as the relationship between the authorities and the people, do not correspond to reality. We understand what is happening, what level of theft, corruption, and in spite of, that we mainly support the authorities, although we don’t like the situation. And yes, we want to change this without the help of the CIA and others.

            6. gerryf

              “I don’t think it’s that easy. It takes work to evaluate information, and most people don’t have the time or inclination to do that – they go with news sources they like, and commonly, with sources their friends or family likes . ”
              —-
              It must be understood that all people have a formed understanding of certain concepts, history, relationships, politics, and their own responsibility. This is formed by the media environment, upbringing, environment. Depending on this, we believe or not, we choose the source we trust. I think it’s right not to believe. and to doubt. To understand what the newsmaker wants.

      2. Not to detract from the drug issue at all, but zerohedge is an extremely poor source of info.
        I crossed it off my list along time ago in attempt to avoid mind garbage.

        1. To be little more clear about this-
          I don’t go to zero hedge because I consider the articles that they publish to be a very poor representation of particular issues. Very poor as in incomplete, cherry picked, sensationalized, and generally designed to capture eyes and the imagination of the poorly educated (about particular topics) or the easily manipulated minds. [no surprise that Watcher likes it, as someone mentioned].

          There is an excellent site that ranks media sources based on two factors-
          Political Bias/Partisanship
          Reliability [scale from factual to downright false or misleading]
          https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/?utm_source=HomePage_IMBC_Top_Button&utm_medium=OnWebSite_Button

          ZeroHedge rates overall poorly – on the factual scale it ranks poorly- opinion or highly variable reliability and on the partisan scale it ranks- skewed right
          https://adfontesmedia.com/interactive-media-bias-chart/?utm_source=HomePage_IMBC_Top_Button&utm_medium=OnWebSite_Button

          1. When you singe check Zerohedge with your first link, there are many very high listed articles on Zerohedge – more than I thought.

            So you can take it as a source, but not blind. Lot’s of clickbait or pure opinion articles there.

            Big media like CNN lie more with the non reporting method – so they don’t print lies, but selective reporting is the most infamous lie. Just lying is more easy detectable, by just reading a few articles accross the media landscape (better a few from abroad, too).

            Big media in Germany have been cought about lying about Syria over years. They used sources sitting in London, did not-reorting and just lied about the USA supporting extreme islamistic groups directly with money and weapons.

            1. Big media like CNN lie more with the non reporting method – so they don’t print lies, but selective reporting is the most infamous lie.

              Damn, Eulenspiegel, I have to call foul here. CNN has a limited time to report everything. But if they do not have time to report a certain story, that’s lying? I mean that is a reach, a fucking very long reach just to accuse someone of lying. And how would one defend themselves against such an accusation? Those poor bastards at CNN are in a real bind if they don’t report every news event possible. So every network has no choice, they are all damn liars by default.

              Don’t get me wrong, some news reporters do lie. Tucker Carlson does it daily. But most reporters try diligently to tell the truth. And that is the case even with most Fox reporters. What comes out of their mouth is mostly bullshit but they actually believe it is the truth. They are just too damn brainwashed to know the difference.

              George Costanza: It’s not a lie if you believe it.

        2. Also the gun killings, supported by the NRA, another Russian backed organization, but not lamented by Zerohedge. Another issue is deaths in traffic, which also increased sharply during the pandemic.

          All three are similar in size and show similar upswing. Why pick one out?

          The real problem here is lack of understanding of issues of public health. Obviously the biggest short-term issue by an order of magnitude is the pandemic, which Zerohedge and its sponsers are actively worsening.

          1. You’d think that Americans might take a hint from the idea that Putin wants Trump to be president.
            It appears that would be asking too much thought from the voters.

      3. You may be right. I don’t normally Read Zero Hedge and will boycott it in the future. Would never have discovered it at all except for Watcher referring to it on occasion. Actually I get most of my non-science information from the BBC World News, The New York Times and/or The Atlantic. Anyway, thanks for the heads up.

        1. Doug etc , understand ZH is a news aggregator ” it does not make the news , only reports it ” . This is just like the site ” Naked Capitalism” or Matt Tallibi which many follow . Do you expect Don Lemon , Mr “Good Morning Joe ” , Wolf Blitzer or Mr Toobin ( caught masturbating on live TV) to give you an unbiased report ? If yes , nothing lost for me ,continue . I read what ZH posts and then check if the post is accurate or propaganda . This is the advantage of the internet , one can cross check . As Reagan said ” Trust but verify ” .
          Disclaimer : I have no interest financial or otherwise in ZH .

          1. Agreed. I read ZH everyday. They cover news that others don’t. Of course they have their biases ( against EVs, renewable energy, etc) but then so does everyone else. They will sometimes sensationalize news ( e.g. Tesla fires) but it is easy to see through it. I stopped watching broadcast TV years ago. Major networks are just propaganda outlets for the establishment.

            1. Major networks are just propaganda outlets for the establishment.

              And just who the hell is the establishment? Do all networks serve that one establishment? Or is there more than one establishment?

            2. Ron, there are major cesspools of corruption:
              1. The healthcare industry which has given us the highest cost of healthcare in the world with one of the worst outcomes compared to other first world countries. This includes big pharmaceutical companies, large hospital chains, large health insurance companies, etc.
              2. The big banks and financial institutions on Wall Street and the large hedge funds and private equity funds.
              3. The war industry which includes the CIA, Pentagon, State Department and the weapons manufacturers.
              There is a revolving door between top levels of the government and these industries. The government primarily serves the interests of these industries with ordinary Americans as an afterthought. The government together with these cesspools of corruption constitute the “establishment”.

            3. Ron,
              Has any mainstream American TV channel done any of the following?
              1. Oppose wars of aggression before they start.
              2. Analyze why the US has the highest cost of healthcare in the world with the worst (compared to other developed countries) outcomes.
              3. Ask why we are not allowed to import insulin thereby granting a duopoly to a couple of pharmaceutical companies. Insulin is so expensive in the US that people have died from not being able to afford it. Why are we not allowed to import drugs from Canada and other first world countries? Don’t the capitalists believe in free trade?
              4. Oppose the US government policy of arming, funding and training terrorist groups and using them to destabilize other countries. There are numerous examples of this: contras of Nicaragua, Al Qaeda in Afghanistan during the 1980s, and more recently Al Nusra and ISIS in Syria and Islamist militias in Libya.
              5. Analyze the root cause of the financial crisis of 2008 and point out that it was caused by Clinton’s repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act in 1999.
              6. Analyze the absurdly high cost of college education in the US and point out that it was mainly caused by Clinton making student loans non-dischargeable in a bankruptcy.
              7. Take war criminals Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld, Powell, Rice, et al to task for destroying Iraq which killed a million people, created 4 million refugees and gave rise to ISIS.
              8. Take war criminal Obama to task for not prosecuting the criminals and thugs on Wall Street, for invading and destroying Libya, and for arming ISIS/Al Nusra in Syria in an attempt to overthrow Assad.
              In a democracy it is the media’s job to investigate, to analyze, and to hold the establishment’s feet to the fire. They are not doing that. Media channels are owned by large corporations (e.g. Time Warner) who are only interested in growing the bottom line. The only thing they care about is advertisement dollars.

            1. I think Reagan said, “In God we trust. Everyone else pays cash” 🙂
              LOL. He had a way with words.

            4. Mike B , ““Trust, but verify” is actually a RUSSIAN PROVERB taught to Ray-gun! ”
              Yes sir , you are correct . My error .

            5. HIH, hope you see the hilarity has to do with the irony, not with your post.

            6. Mike B , I got the irony , just forgot to put the (Sarc) e moji . Take care .

          3. Jeffrey Toobin didn’t masturbate on live TV. It was a Zoom call with his New Yorker colleagues which he mistakenly thought he had exited. Stupid mistake, but it doesn’t necessarily have bearing on the quality of his journalism.

            1. Toobin a journalist ? He is worse than a third rate lawyer . ” It was a Zoom call with his New Yorker colleagues which he mistakenly thought he had exited. ”
              What else did he “mistakenly ” do ? Rape ?? ROFL

            2. HIH, you made a claim about Toobin which is false. If you’re indifferent to factual accuracy, no worries mate.

            3. Bob , I have not refuted you on the TV to Zoom call issue . You are correct there . If masturbation even if on a zoom call is appropriate and acceptable behavior for you then who am I to argue ? Yeah , he thought the call was over, is similar to the excuse ” the dog ate my homework ” . No worry for me either . For all I care Toobin and his types can take a “Long walk on a short pier ” . Good riddance to bad rubbish .

          4. Oh, bullshit. Yes, all those things are true. But you are way, way, off base to blame it on the mainstream media. It is not the media’s responsibility to fix what is wrong with capitalism. Where in the hell did you ever get that idea?

            But they do report all the shit you spoke of. Almost every day, on MSNBC, I hear guests and anchors complaining about all those things. But does it do any good? Fuck no. The problem is in the system, not in the media. Political contributors own their congressmen. They follow the money. That is the problem and the media report that problem every day. But no one is listening. It is the voters’ responsibility to listen to the media. If they did they would know where the problem lies. Money buys your congressman. And the media complain about this daily.

            What you should do Suyog, is start listening to the media and stop believing what you read on the internet, espacially facebook.

    3. Doug,

      You have probably seen the last few days on the news that there is real real push in Canada to treat addictions as a medical rather than criminal set of problems. When this happens things will improve as there will be more options. It wasn’t many years ago that pot smokers were fined, and in some cases jailed. Puffers would even carry criminal records. That has changed now and we are none the worse for it. Mind you, I don’t smoke anything let alone pot. Don’t like it. I grew a bunch last year and just gave it all away.

      1. PAULO,

        Yes, decriminalizing drug use seems to have a lot of plusses; at least it takes the profit motive away from pushers. Then again Holland did this a long time ago and apparently a new set of problems arose. The whole issue is so far beyond my ken I can’t really discuss it intelligently. I only mentioned it because Shallow Sand had said something respecting illegal drugs in his operations and I saw the article in Zero Hedge. Obviously a mistake.

        1. Where my son works in the Alta patch there is automatic testing if any kind of issue arises. For example, even dropped tools from a scaffold, a fender bender, whatever.If you work for a union operation there would be treatment options and a chance to prove a ‘clean start’, but from what he says it is often instant termination. Alcohol impairment is just as big of issue. I bring this up because addiction issues have touched my own family, and on a recent visit to emergency I saw posters everywhere urging people to get help and possible options. The death rate is absolutely terrible among young men in BC. It is obviously a part of the homeless culture, but endemic in const and heavy industry among young men 18-40.

          Anyway, I enjoy/respect your comments and always find them worth reading.

  3. If someone wanted to build the best model to calculate peak oil that they could, what information is lacking in the public sphere that would allow them to 1) improve current estimates from publicly sourced information or 2) create an entirely better framework?

    1. full OPEC transparency would help , example: the real data on their reserves , but its not going to happen

      1. Hadn’t mentioned whether or not the information was available, only what information could improve estimates or create a better framework. A more conceptual question than a practical one.

  4. Finally, good news from the Amazon. Let’s hope it’s not a one-off situation.

    BRAZIL’S AMAZON RECORDS LEAST SEPTEMBER FIRES IN 20 YEARS

    “The number of fires in Brazil’s Amazon during September dropped to the lowest for the month in two decades, according to data from the Brazilian National Institute for Space Research. September is historically Brazil’s worst month for forest fires and, while the data is positive, environmental experts question whether the trend will be confirmed by coming months. The number of Amazon fires was just over half the level recorded in September last year, according to the data. That helped push down the nationwide total, along with a sharp drop in the amount of fires in the Pantanal wetlands. Fires in September retreated to the lowest number for the month since 2018, several months before President Jair Bolsonaro took office.”

    https://phys.org/news/2021-10-brazil-amazon-september-years.html

  5. Bit hard to greenwash this though I’m sure a few here will try. Fact is, not many willing to freeze in the dark even if they have to burn the family furniture.

    EUROPE TURNS TO RUSSIA FOR MORE COAL AS ENERGY PRICES SKYROCKET

    “As we head into the cold winter months, Europe’s energy crisis is set to worsen, and their dependence on Russia to keep the lights on will only intensify. Asia, too, will be facing an energy crunch this winter, leading the entire world to resort to burning more and more coal at a time that most countries have pledged to do exactly the opposite. At a moment that countries are just beginning a green energy transition in earnest, and the United Nations is sounding a “code red for humanity” concerning climate change, this return to coal is an extremely worrying development that will hopefully be short-lived as even coal proves to be insufficient to ease supply crunches in the coming months.”

    https://oilprice.com/Energy/Coal/Europe-Turns-To-Russia-For-More-Coal-As-Energy-Prices-Skyrocket.html

    1. “this return to coal is an extremely worrying development that will hopefully be short-lived”

      The way things look now, it wont be a short-lived trend.
      Europe oil and gas is depleting quickly, and north of the Alps the solar resource is marginal (being kind).
      Lots of offshore wind, but they will have to be very aggressive with that development if they don’t want coal and deforestation to be the lay of the land.

      Will Europe build more nuclear power plants-
      “Nuclear plant construction is currently underway in only three EU member states – Finland, France and Slovakia. These construction projects have all experienced cost overruns and delays.”
      As of Feb 2021- 7 more units EU are in the the planning phase. 5 of the 7 are in Romania,Bulgaria or Hungary.

      In non-EU Europe 8 more units are underconstruction- 2 each in UK, Russia, Turkey,Ukraine.
      Russia is planning 21 more.

      Hinkey Point nuclear station under construction in the UK-
      “In January 2008, the UK government gave the go-ahead for a new generation of nuclear power stations to be built….estimate of first unit electrical generation now at 2026” Cost is more than you want to know.

      Good source of info-https://world-nuclear.org/information-library/country-profiles/others/european-union.aspx

  6. Who would have thought? Great news if it applies in general and anyone can plant a few trees. Now, if we could just stop burning so many of them to the ground in wildfires.

    INCREASING CARBON DIOXIDE IN THE ATMOSPHERE TEACHES OLD OAKS NEW TRICKS

    “Mature oak trees will increase their rate of photosynthesis by up to a third in response to the raised CO2 levels expected to be the world average by about 2050. The results, published in Tree Physiology, are the first to emerge from a giant outdoor experiment, led by the University of Birmingham in which an old oak forest is bathed in elevated levels of CO2. Over the first three years of a ten-year project, the 175-year-old oaks clearly responded to the CO2 by consistently increasing their rate of photosynthesis.”

    https://phys.org/news/2021-10-carbon-dioxide-atmosphere-oaks.html

  7. The Corruption of Science | An International Issue Bold theirs.

    “The ‘Big Lie’ of Blue Hydrogen Starts With Ignoring Basic Economics” by Justin Mikulka (investigative journalist with degree in civil and environmental engineering from Cornell) posted in DeSmog blog (September 10, 2021).

    Mikulka: “The two biggest false claims about blue hydrogen are that it is clean energy and that it is economically viable.”

    First, he recounts the UK Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Association feeding a false claim of blue hydrogen’s economic viability to the UK Treasury. Then he introduces the Columbia University Center on Global Energy Policy, or CGEP (primarily funded by the oil and gas industry), which is actively pushing blue hydrogen as clean energy. Mikulka attended a CGEP presentation titled “Zero-C Hydrogen” (C, Carbon). The panel was heavily weighted with expert officials from Saudi Arabia, which exports methane.

    Dr. Toledo himself substantiates the case in the United States by citing a research report published by the Union of Concerned Scientists-US in 2012. The following excerpt describes how corporations corrupt and coopt science; tragically, the findings are as true today as when they were published almost a decade ago.

    Heads They Win, Tails We Lose

    1. As a fact, there is no green hydrogen at the moment.

      Only tiny amounts from testing facilities. No big projects in the double digit billion $ range at the moment.

      And as in any billion $ industry, the rampup times are long. Plans have to be made, budgets have to been created, places have to be found, logistic chains have to be established, new energy sources have to be projected and build, all nimbys have to be sued out. That’s at least 10 years when things are really pushed in a war like effort, 20 normally.

      1. Rons post indicated blue hydrogen, not green.
        What is this color indication anyway?

        ‘Green hydrogen’ is achieved when water goes through electrolysis (with electricity supplied by solar, wind or hydroelectric power) and the water is separated into hydrogen and oxygen

        Blue hydrogen starts with converting methane to hydrogen and carbon dioxide by using heat, steam and pressure, or gray hydrogen, but goes further to capture some of the carbon dioxide. Once the byproduct carbon dioxide and the other impurities are sequestered, it becomes blue hydrogen, according to the U.S. Department of Energy. The process to make blue hydrogen takes a large amount of energy, according to the researchers, which is generally provided by burning more natural gas.

        Companies/utilities around the world seem eager to explore the idea using green hydrogen as way to store energy from remote unconnected wind/solar, or at times when energy from these sources are in excess. We’ll see. It is not a cheap way to store energy.

        Blue hydrogen looks like a huge waste of energy.

        1. I can green hydrogen being a very big thing a decade or two down the road, when we have enough wind and solar capacity to have ample amounts of otherwise surplus juice to run electrolysis plants, as well as manufacture such essential chemicals as ammonia, etc.

          I DON’T see it running cars and trucks to any substantial extent anytime soon, certainly not within a decade, due to the near total lack of distribution infrastructure, but hydrogen can be stored economically in salt caverns and maybe in old oil wells or mines, etc, and then used to run large stationary fuel cells or to fire up turbines to generate electricity when necessary.

          As far as highway use is concerned, I’m firmly of the opinion that hydrogen is a no go for a long time to come….. but eventually there might be enough hydrogen fueling stations along major highways to run commercial trucks, and the distribution system could grow from there.

          But nobody wants to build the trucks without fueling stations, and no fueling stations are likely to be built without trucks to use them, other than a few that are highly subsidized.

          1. Not all is well with hydrogen.
            1.The hydrogen atom has the smallest size and can penetrate through many materials, including through joints in pipes, in fittings, they must be different from gas
            2. If existing gas pipelines are used to transport hydrogen, they will quickly become unusable. Hydrogen penetrates into the structure of metal and makes it brittle. This is dangerous.
            3.Hydrogen has a low energy density per volume; when used, cylinders with a pressure of up to 600 atmospheres are used, this makes the use more dangerous.
            4. The combustion temperature of hydrogen is much higher than the combustion temperature of methane, which seems to be about 2000 degrees Celsius. It is necessary to use special materials in the combustion chambers.

            1. There is a long history of hydrogen being used in industry. It’s well studied and the industry knows how to use it.

              I’ve worked with hydrogen for many years, both in manufacturing it from electrolysis and using it for industrial processes.

            2. Yes, of course it is.
              And if 10% hydrogen is added to natural gas, then the mixture can be transported through existing pipelines, while the combustion temperature of the mixture will slightly increase.

            3. @1 and 2
              Hydrogen pipelines are used since the last 80 years. They are made from normal pipe steel. This is old technology. There is a 100 mile hydrogen pipeline in Germany running since the 1930s.
              3. Big tech usage would be underground caverns to store it, not 600 bars. Like nat gas. Toyota Mira has even more than 600 bars pressure – they use carbone tanks. A tank full of conventional gasoline is a dangerous device, too.
              4. No big problem here – the common solution is to blow additional water vapor into the turbines. It even increases efficieny by expanding.

            4. Thank you. I didn’t know about pipes. I was not informed correctly.

  8. https://news.agu.org/press-release/earth-is-dimming-due-to-climate-change/

    Researchers used decades of measurements of earthshine — the light reflected from Earth that illuminates the surface of the Moon — as well as satellite measurements to find that there has been a significant drop in Earth’s reflectance, or albedo, over the past two decades.

    The Earth is now reflecting about half a watt less light per square meter than it was 20 years ago, with most of the drop occurring in the last three years of earthshine data, according to the new study in the AGU journal Geophysical Research Letters, which publishes high-impact, short-format reports with immediate implications spanning all Earth and space sciences.

    —————

    Two things affect the net sunlight reaching the Earth: the Sun’s brightness and the planet’s reflectivity. The changes in Earth’s albedo observed by the researchers did not correlate with periodic changes in the Sun’s brightness, so that means changes in Earth’s reflectiveness are caused by something on the Earth.

    Specifically, there has been a reduction of bright, reflective low-lying clouds over the eastern Pacific Ocean in the most recent years, according to satellite measurements made as part of NASA’s Clouds and the Earth’s Radiant Energy System (CERES) project.

      1. WEEKENDPEAK —

        Yes. Furthermore, many scientists had hoped that a warmer Earth might lead to more clouds and higher albedo, which would then help to moderate warming and balance the climate system but it now seems the opposite is true. Even worse, the applicable AGU journal Geophysical Research “Letter” reports this lower albedo number mainly came about over the last three years.

        1. One would have to wonder about a synergistic relationship between the recent decrease in albedo and the extreme northern hemisphere heatwaves that have occurred repeatedly over the last few years.

          Along those lines, here is another study suggesting that methane gas was released from carbonate rock formations during a 2020 Siberian heat wave:

          https://www.pnas.org/content/118/32/e2107632118

          To conclude, our observations hint at the possibility that permafrost thaw does not only release microbial methane from formerly frozen soils but also, and potentially in much higher amounts, thermogenic methane from reservoirs below and within the permafrost. As a result, the permafrost–methane feedback may be much more dangerous than suggested by studies accounting for microbial methane alone. Gas hydrates in Earth’s permafrost are estimated to contain 20 Gt of carbon (14). Additionally, subpermafrost natural gas reservoirs may be tapped. To clarify how fast methane from these sources can be transferred to the atmosphere, further research is urgently required, including monitoring of air composition, tracking of air movement, collection of air samples for analysis of tracers of thermogenic venting, and modeling of the hydrate destabilization process.

          1. There can be a connection with man made greenhouse gases and induced albedo decrease, but there is still the question of ocean interaction to resolve and how much is human and how much is natural ocean fluctuations. My feeling is the natural contribution should be dominant even when greenhouse contributes – the ocean fluctuations probably offset the majority of human contributions (and this is assuming firstly that the ocean responds positively to increased CO2 concentrations).

            1. FATOUMATA —

              Regarding climate I suggest you forget your “feelings” and go with the science, there’s lots of it out there. Climate models have allowed us to understand climate change and anticipate its risks. They have provided a clear basis for predicting impacts, guiding adaptation decisions and setting mitigation targets. And, as laid out by the current Nobel Committee, latest developments involve ever more details of our earth system, providing precise information to enable robust decision-making in the face of rapidly amplifying climate change. Save your feelings for all the creatures dying and going extinct from our flagrant disregard for Earth’s natural habitats.

              https://phys.org/news/2021-10-nobel-prize-climate-physics-award.html

  9. An Iowa wind farm turns twenty this year, and seems to be going strong.

    https://electrek.co/2021/10/05/egeb-kansas-first-big-wind-farm-is-20-heres-how-its-going/

    I’m hoping somebody here knows something about how much it’s going to cost to replace or refurbish the turbines and towers in the fairly near future. It’s my guess that in constant money, a wind farm overhaul, making it back better than new, will cost considerably less than half the cost of construction from scratch, taking into account that the overhaul or refurb will be using bigger and more efficient turbines, etc.

    Given the way costs have been falling for turbines and tower installations, etc, the saving might be even greater.

    1. Many sites that had early wind deployment had much smaller towers than are now being used.
      So, the towers are being upsized on sites being retrofitted.

      “Size increases have led to greater output from turbines under—also known as the nameplate capacity—which has gone from 100 kW per turbine in the 1980s to approximately 2.2 MW per turbine in 2017. In that same time frame, the average U.S. commercial wind turbines’ hub height increased from 20 meters (m) to 84 m and rotor diameter has expanded from 20 m to 108 m.”

      Good graphics on this here-
      https://www.energy.gov/eere/articles/wind-turbines-bigger-better

      1. Thanks Hickory,

        Do you have any data on how much it costs to modernize an obsolete or worn out wind farm compared to new construction from scratch?

        There won’t be any significant permitting issues, or right of way problems, and the grid connection is a done deal. Replacing turbine towers is going to be a big deal, but the state of the art of building them has advanced substantially, and so new ones today, in terms of constant money, are probably no more than half the price of ones the same size built twenty years ago.

        These numbers are very important when it comes down to promoting the benefits of wind power.

        1. New construction often means new electricity infrastructure, so replacing is cheaper. That’s also the reason why renwables are often built on the site of existing or closed power plants.

        2. I don’t have that kind of information OFM, but the infrastructure and permits already in place should make the upgrades pretty straightforward.
          I wonder if the bigger units will sometimes need the base pads to be upgraded?

    1. Global Peak was in November of 2018.
      We could pass that.
      But don’t hold your breath.

        1. You’ve got to be careful with irony: most people don’t get it, especially in writing.

      2. If you refresh the page, then stop the page load quickly afterwards, it will prevent the running of the script which blocks the content. You can also get a browser extension that will allow you to selectively disable scripts (“NoScript” is one, there are a number of them). This is a useful trick for getting past many paywalls.

  11. A dose of reality.

    THE ENERGY TRANSITION WILL TAKE DECADES NOT YEARS

    “This year’s global demand for all three fossil fuels has sent a message to overly enthusiastic proponents of the energy transition — hold your horses. Those who predicted last year the demise of oil, gas, and coal after the pandemic and those who said that peak oil demand was already behind us because lasting changes in consumer behavior would reduce the use of crude are now facing reality. Global oil demand is just a few months away from reaching pre-pandemic levels, while natural gas (and coal) demand has already exceeded the 2019 volumes.”

    And, respecting coal: “On average, coal demand declined by 4 percent last year – the steepest drop since World War II – but it was already back to pre-pandemic levels by the end of 2020. Coal use in the fourth quarter was 3.5% higher than in the same period in 2019, contributing to a resurgence in global CO2 emissions.”

  12. Someone was asking about potential Arctic methane release(s). The following is an excellent, easy to read, summary. Of course, there are numerous Russian sources on this topic but they are more difficult to access.

    SOURCE: Geological Society of America

    ARCTIC METHANE RELEASE DUE TO MELTING ICE IS LIKELY TO HAPPEN AGAIN

    https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2021/03/210322135221.htm

    1. Two or three yeats ago when every bit of new climate data seemed to be just a bit worse than the worst case models had predicted we got messags like: “well at least we won’t go back to coal”, “at least the free methane in the Arctic is safe”, “the cloud albedo will be a negative feedback anyway”, “it will take years before wildfires turn forests into net emitters”, “it just needs a couple of really bad seasons and humanity will wake up”. All wrong as far as I can see. Well what know? Even the cries of “but there’s still time” seem to have been hushed.

      1. Well George, just this June the World Meteorological Organization wrote: “2021 is a make-or-break year for climate action, with the window to prevent the worst impacts of climate change — which include ever more frequent more intense droughts, floods and storms — closing rapidly.”

        1. What if there’s really no time left? What if a few months more is all?

          Well it’s now two yeats since any new data showing a little worse than what was assumed would happen got humanity’s attention. So maybe we should try something different this time and not talk about expectations? If we could prove that we were headed towards some new unanticipated tipping points that would be useful, but at least the most recent climate data has looked very familiar. Yes at least the temperatures are going up, yes at least the sea ice is going down, yes at least the ice that has always been lost continues being lost, yes the temperature has been around a degree and change slightly higher than expected. That makes it look pretty close to what was in a couple of “worse than expected” years at the start of the new 21st century.

          As far as here in Britain, it’s all about the wet, cold, windy, and generally wind-battered, autumn. What I like about such weather is that you can take a look at how good your home retains heat. I saw a photo once of an apartment in Moscow where just the roof edge is exposed to the street, and it had a picture of a frost-crust over it (with a “melt snow” sign out of view, and a “do not enter” one next to the frost-line, and “you should turn back in 15 minutes” sign at least a floor down from the roof). Well for me, there are only a couple of spots where my roof edges touch the outside. There’s one over the garden-gate on the eastern side of the house, and one on the garden wall leading onto the rear garden.

          What I determined is that my house keeps its heat well because one cool morning a few days ago the house was quite warm to touch, and I found that when I went to bed, it was still warm. Another helpful factor is that my central heating radiators and thermostats aren’t on the same power circuit. When they were originally installed, my central heating all had gas supplies, hence why I got a big old chimney piece on top.

          But because that wasn’t so reliable back then (and the fire regulations of the time allowed for a few minutes’ delay between supply switches), they couldn’t use a truly central heating and had a separate thermostat for each radiator. These were not connected to a central heating supply, and their respective thermostats had the radiators attached on each of their two independent circuit branches. This meant when central heating tried setting a power level – which happened automatically on power-up, then again on power-down after a couple of minutes – the temperature in my house would stay the same because the thermostats were keeping their radiators on the same power levels and heat flow that they’d already achieved.

        2. That window “closed rapidly” when Reagan was re-elected in 1984. That’;s the way I saw it, anyway. I distinctly remember thinking, Bye, Planet.

      2. George,

        Do you agree that we should transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible?

        1. Nick, Do you agree that we should transition away from fossil fuels as quickly as possible?

          1. Whatever any of us thinks or feels is utterly irrelevant to what is going to happen.
            Unless those thoughts or feelings are translated into action
            Rgds
            WP

            1. Yes, action is good.

              And shared agreement usually precedes group action. So discussion and development of consensus is a good idea.

              So…what do you think on this question?

            1. It’s easy to say something like “fossil fuels are bad, renewables are good” without any context. If getting rid of FF leads to lots of pain and suffering – for example WWIII – one may want to rethink the timeline.
              I would say that we should get rid of FF as soon as we can without causing too much damage, not counting the damage that already has been done or what is baked into the cake.
              Any action has consequences, and often a lot those consequences are not particularly obvious or foreseeable so one needs to be careful. The fastest way to reduce demand is to reduce the number of “demanders” – those who consume the most. And that includes us, discussing things on the internet. If the world gets rid of the population in the developed world – an afternoon of tossing nukes could do this – FF demand would drop like a rock.
              Be careful what you wish for.
              Rgds
              WP

            2. Well, that’s what I mean by “as soon as possible“. And I think that your answer is a “yes”.

              Maybe a better phrasing would be: “Do you agree that we should make a transition away from fossil fuels an extremely high priority?”

            3. If nukes aren’t a good option, what do you think about a super-virus that only targets the ultra-rich?

    1. And what will they use for electricity production?

      In 2020, Germany produced 484 TWh of electricity of which 50% was from renewable energy sources, 24% from coal, and 12% from natural gas.

      I guess they’ll only plug the cars into the renewable outlets. 🙂

      1. Which, as a practical matter, isn’t hard: just follow the price signals caused by high or low renewable generation. Program your EV to not charge when prices are high, and charge when prices are low.

    1. It’s more a toy for physicists, according to my older brother, who worked on the NIF project for years.

    2. Nuclear fusion has always been a scam and always will be. Universities and companies get huge grants from the government because they promise to develop fusion power. They say fusion power is just a decade or two away, but they need more money for development. Fusion power is two decades away and has been for over half a century. And it always will be just a few decades in the future.

      1. I’ve always suspected so, and now Sabine has made it crystal clear to me. I love her videos.

      2. I think that meme about fusion being 20 years away, forever, is a bit of a myth. The literature I read has been saying that fusion was 50 – 100 years away for quite some time. I don’t think that serious researchers have been promising fast results. OTOH, they think the problems can be solved, eventually. Just…not tomorrow.

        1. No Nick, you are simply mistaken here. I can remember when fusion power was promised within the next 10 to 20 years. You cannot get a grant for something you promise in 50 years, so the timeframe had to be within 10 years, or close to that.

          And no, fusion power will not ever be realized. You cannot get temperature to those in the center of the sun in a magnetic vortex, and then get higher temperatures out, and with that boil water to power a steam turbine.

          Sorry Nick, but it just ain’t never gonna happen. Sooner or later the grant money providers will realize that and just quit with the money supply. That day will happen Nick. And when it does the fusion power grift will die.

          1. fusion power was promised within the next 10 to 20 years

            1950 or 2021, that was the statement.

            1. I met a guy who has actually had full time employment working on fusion….for many many years. He is machinist. Apparently his job is now moving from Vancouver to England. Go where the money is, I guess. Apparently they have an unending source of funding.

          2. Well, when I toured the Princeton tokamak more than 40 years ago, their physicists were quite clear that this was basic research, and not expected to result in a commercial product in anything like 20 years.

            I think if you go back to any serious researcher’s timelines from before the year 2000 you won’t find anyone forecasting commercial results in anything less than 30 years…probably more.

  18. Good discussion of the issues around this-

    “Europe’s offshore wind to green hydrogen plan won’t work for the US, report finds-”

    “”Until there has been significant offshore wind development in the US, it will not make sense to divert output to hydrogen production,” the report’s authors wrote. “Europe is, in part, focusing on offshore wind to hydrogen because offshore wind farms are being planned for locations far from major load centers and where there will be difficulty integrating some of the output into the electric grid. Green hydrogen is also a key component of Europe’s deep decarbonization strategy for sectors where electrification is technologically unfeasible.”

    https://www.renewableenergyworld.com/wind-power/europes-offshore-wind-to-green-hydrogen-plan-wont-work-for-the-us-report-finds/

  19. Solar energy potential generally drops off as you get far from the equator, but not in a uniform way.
    Cloudiness is the big variable.

    Belfast and Glasgow have poor solar on both accounts, being about 55 N and cloudy. Global tilted irradiation at optimum angle is about 1000 kWh/m2 for these places.

    This is just slightly more than the city of Chengdu in Sichuan province of China, which is at 30 N, but is a startlingly cloudy part of world, with Global tilted irradiation at optimum angle of 960 kWh/m2

    But if you go due N from there to the capital area of Mongolia [Ulaanbaatar] at 47 N, you great solar- Global tilted irradiation at optimum angle of 2,220 kWh/m2. For reference this is roughly equal to Lubbock TX, or the best areas of Southern Spain.

    In case you were wondering.
    https://globalsolaratlas.info/map

    1. This seems to be based on fixed panels. I believe that tracking panels are starting to dominate utility-scale PV installations. Tracking raises output very significantly, especially as you go farther north.

      1. Yes the data for the Global Solar Atlas is based on fixed measure of solar incoming.

        Utility scale solar installation is now majority single axis tracking, meaning that tilt changes to track the elevation of the sun as it changes through the season. Double-axis tracking is much more rare (expensive), and this adds tilting capability to follow the sun across the sky throughout the day .

        Yes, tracking would offset a portion of the advantage of being closer to the equator.

        And tracking does not help at all with cloudiness- which is the big point of this geography exercise/mapping.

        There is a link at the top left corner of the Solar atlas page that will take you to the Global Wind Atlas, which is lots of fun to explore. Wind distribution is much more variable.

  20. The FAO Food Price Index (FFPI) averaged 130.0 points in September 2021, up 1.5 points (1.2 percent) from August and 32.1 points (32.8 percent) from the same month last year. The latest rise of the FFPI was largely driven by higher prices of most cereals and vegetable oils.

    1. “talking heads ”

      You deserve no reply if thats the way you think of people as.
      Par for the course with you.
      Look it up yourself.

      hint- if you refrained from calling people names as a manner of demonizing them you may garner a little more respect from other human beings.

  22. One of those troublesome truths.

    FOSSIL FUEL INDUSTRY GETS SUBSIDIES OF $11 million a minute

    “The IMF found the production and burning of coal, oil and gas was subsidised by $5.9tn in 2020, with not a single country pricing all its fuels sufficiently to reflect their full supply and environmental costs. Experts said the subsidies were “adding fuel to the fire” of the climate crisis, at a time when rapid reductions in carbon emissions were urgently needed…

    The comprehensive IMF report found that prices were at least 50% below their true costs for 99% of coal, 52% of diesel and 47% of natural gas in 2020. Five countries were responsible for two-thirds of the subsidies: China, the US, Russia, India and Japan. Without action, subsidies will rise to $6.4tn in 2025, the IMF said.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/oct/06/fossil-fuel-industry-subsidies-of-11m-dollars-a-minute-imf-finds

  23. Beware of emerging authoritarianism and tyranny.
    The social building blocks for such a reversal in the trend of growing civil rights and democracy in the world are coalescing. The coming era of energy shortfall will only accelerate this process, with energy have-nots becoming more vulnerable to manipulation.
    The USA for example has demonstrated how severely vulnerable they are to authoritarian manipulation with the emergence of Trump in 2016, enabled by Fox news and talk radio of course.

    And this time in history the added mechanism of technology and media control will be toolkits in the hands of ‘Big Brother’.
    For most of the the last 2000 years the big tyrant has been the Church, but the nation state is now the big player.
    To understand how this may play out study the ‘social credit’ system emerging in China-
    https://nhglobalpartners.com/china-social-credit-system-explained/

    Don’t think for one minute that a leader like Trump ( or Putin) would refrain from going farther and faster than China has on this.
    An example of the kind of inch at a time movement in this direction is the recent Texas move to change the laws regarding restriction of Women freedom of individual reproductive choice.
    Remember, the first Nazi moves in the 1930’s were just gradual early steps.

    1. Thanks Hickory. That China Social Credit article was scary, even though the author tried to make it sound not too bad.

      Reports in 2019 indicated that 23 million people have been blacklisted from travelling by plane or train due to low social credit ratings maintained through China’s National Public Credit Information Center. It is reasonable to assume that this will continue as part of China’s social credit system.

      1. Indeed.
        There are much more worrisome writeups on the situation, but I tried to select one that was light on commentary.

        And thank you John for updates on the Food Price Index. It is the essence of cultural stability.

  24. THE MOST INFLUENTIAL CLIMATE SCIENCE PAPER OF ALL TIME

    “Their first such climate-change experiment wasn’t to look at the role of carbon dioxide but was to look at the effects of water vapor injected high into the stratosphere from a potential fleet of supersonic jets, as this and a possible nuclear winter were the immediate concerns of the time. However, their Table 5 goes down in history as the first robust estimate of how much the world would warm if carbon dioxide concentrations doubled. Manabe and Wetherald estimated 2.36℃ of warming, not far off today’s best estimate of 3℃.

    Earlier attempts to estimate the warming from carbon dioxide increases had floundered, as scientists struggled to work out how water vapor, the most important greenhouse gas in the atmosphere, would respond as the Earth warmed. Manabe and Wetherald’s simple model could accurately redistribute water vapor in a way that real deep clouds do, with water vapor broadly increasing in concentration up to a certain level of humidity. This increase was found to amplify the warming from carbon dioxide by around 75%. This water vapor feedback estimate has also stood the test of time.”

    “After graduating with a degree in physics over 30 years ago, I chose a career in atmospheric science over particle physics. I always worried about how my applied physics was viewed by mainstream physics colleagues. With a Noble prize in physics under our discipline’s belt, it gives me and climate modeling colleagues the credibility and recognition we have yearned for: climate science is real science.”

    https://phys.org/news/2021-10-influential-climate-science-paper.html

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