249 thoughts to “Open Thread Non-Petroleum, September 6”

  1. Coal is far, far too expensive:
    ANNALS OF THE NEW YORK ACADEMY OF SCIENCES
    Issue: Ecological Economics Reviews
    FULL COST ACCOUNTING FOR THE LIFE CYCLE OF COAL
    Our comprehensive review finds that the best estimate for the total economically quantifiable costs, based on a conservative weighting of many of the study findings, amount to some $345.3 billion, adding close to 17.8¢/kWh of electricity generated from coal. The low estimate is $175 billion, or over 9¢/kWh, while the true monetizable costs could be as much as the upper bounds of $523.3 billion, adding close to 26.89¢/kWh. These and the more difficult to quantify externalities are borne by the general public.

    Still these figures do not represent the full societal and environmental burden of coal. In quantifying the damages, we have omitted the impacts of toxic chemicals and heavy metals on ecological systems and diverse plants and animals; some ill-health endpoints (morbidity) aside from mortality related to air pollutants released through coal combustion that are still not captured; the direct risks and hazards posed by sludge, slurry, and CCW impoundments; the full contributions of nitrogen deposition to eutrophication of fresh and coastal sea water; the prolonged impacts of acid rain and acid mine drainage; many of the long-term impacts on the physical and mental health of those living in coal-field regions and nearby MTR sites; some of the health impacts and climate forcing due to increased tropospheric ozone formation; and the full assessment of impacts due to an increasingly unstable climate. The true ecological and health costs of coal are thus far greater than the numbers suggest. Accounting for the many external costs over the life cycle for coal-derived electricity conservatively doubles to triples the price of coal per kWh of electricity generated.
    http://www.chgeharvard.org/sites/default/files/epstein_full%20cost%20of%20coal.pdf

    1. Meanwhile,

      GLOBAL COAL DEMAND SET TO REMAIN AT RECORD LEVELS IN 2023

      “The three largest coal producers – China, India and Indonesia – all produced record amounts in 2022. In March 2023, both China and India set new monthly records, with China surpassing 400 million tonnes for the second time ever and India surpassing 100 million tonnes for the first time. Also in March, Indonesia exported almost 50 million tonnes, a volume never shipped by any country before.”

      https://www.iea.org/news/global-coal-demand-set-to-remain-at-record-levels-in-2023

        1. Curious what the dynamics are in AUS with respect to solar – seems like a pretty good place for it so I wonder which dimension I’m missing.
          rgds
          WP

            1. Australia and the USA have 40% of the world’s coal reserves.

              The sonar from USA nuclear submarines are beaching whales in Perth (Western Australia).
              https://www.abc.net.au/news/2023-07-27/wa-whale-deaths-why-do-beachings-happen/102651354

              The whales think a gigantic killer whale is coming after them. They haven’t evolved to deal with that….my speculation.

              They don’t have the same restriction on sonar in the southern hemisphere.

              When us Americans start having gas rationing or need to grab China by the balls……those reserves are gonna look attractive.

              unfortunately.

          2. About 1/3 rd of Australian households have rooftop solar.
            Like in the US, there has been a huge political/partisan battle about issues like solar vs coal.

            1. Australian’s talk a good game about the environment.

              But they are comfort critters like the YANKS and BRITS

              whatever is cheap, easy and avoids long lines and waits…always wins.

              Australia would be a great country to go electric…YET YET…..

        2. “..coal burning for electricity generation will reach record levels this year.

          Why? Largely because rising natural gas prices, due to sanctions on Russia, is driving demand for less expensive coal to fill the gap in energy supply. The report finds Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has “sharply altered the dynamics of coal trade, price levels, and supply and demand patterns in 2022”.

          The good news, however, is the world’s coal use has peaked – and will soon rapidly decline. This is because new solar and wind power station capacity is being installed 18 times faster than new coal. In many countries such as Australia, retiring coal power stations are being replaced by solar and wind.

          Coal use in Australia’s National Electricity Market (NEM) peaked in 2008. Since then, the proportion of coal in the NEM electricity mix has fallen from 86% to 59%, and this decline is accelerating.”

          https://theconversation.com/global-coal-use-in-2022-is-reaching-an-all-time-high-but-australia-is-bucking-the-trend-196809

      2. And Germany knocking down a wind farm to extend a coal mine must be some kind of message.

        1. It’s a tiny, obsolete wind farm which was always going to be dismantled at this time. The fight is just about symbolism:

          “Constructed more than 20 years ago, the turbines at the small Keyenberg wind park are less powerful than modern equivalents, with each producing about 1MW of energy per hour at a wind speed of 15 metres per second, roughly a sixth of the output of a more efficient state of the art turbine.

          Since windfarms in Germany are no longer eligible for subsidies after 20 years in operation, the park would probably have been “repowered” with new technology or wound down even if it were not for the nearby mine.”

          https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/oct/26/german-windfarm-coalmine-keyenberg-turbines-climate

          1. How are we going to build windfarms fast enough if they become obsolete after only twenty years?

            1. Oh, it’s still working, it’s just been surpassed by the latest stuff.

              “It’s not a bug, it’s a feature!”. The cost of windpower has dropped by, oh, maybe 80% in the last 20 years. That’s meant it’s worth it to replace old wind turbines in good sites. And, you get 5x as much power out of 5MW turbines vs the old 1MW ones. Or more, because of improved capacity factors: better efficiency, better aerodynamics, higher so reaching into stronger and steadier winds, etc.

              If that trend continues, windpower will cost less than a penny per kWh in 20 years…

            2. Look at the auction held yesterday for renewables in the UK with not a single taker at the current market prices.

              More gas it is.

            3. Kleiber,

              My understanding is that renewables are stalling in the UK because the government has put a cap on pricing, which is no longer realistic with recent inflation.

            4. There’s no particular reason any given wind farm will ever be “obsolete”.

              But here and there an old wind farm has been or will be decommissioned for various reasons, including needing the land for some other purpose…… in this case, mining.

              A few that were poorly sited have been or will be abandoned because they’re interfering with bird migrations, etc, or simply because they wouldn’t be worth upgrading due to having a poor wind resource, meaning building a new one elsewhere results in more juice for less money.

              It’s pretty much EXPECTED that just about any kind of heavy industrial infrastructure wears out and therefore it is necessarily replaced as necessary. Trucks, farm equipment and construction equipment are routinely replaced after five or more years.

              Boilers and generators at coal fired power plants last up to forty or even fifty years, if you spend a LOT of money on them on maintenance and repairs. After that it’s usually cheaper to demolish them and build new ones.

              Nukes are typically designed to last forty to fifty years but the political and financial pressure is on to keep them running, and so they’re still running, for the most part, having been granted extensions of their operating permits.

              The only parts of a wind farm that are EXPECTED to wear out are the ones on the top of towers…… the blades and generator driven by the blades. These have an expected service life of twenty to twenty five years. Everything else , the towers, foundations, cables, roads, security fences, transmission lines connecting the wind farm to the grid, etc, lasts indefinitely, with repairs made as necessary. Towers will have to be replaced at some point, but it’s hard to get a definite answer on this point, because an old tower can may still be serviceable if you replace the gen set and blades with ones the same size.

              But NEW wind turbines are typically five or even ten times as powerful as old ones, and you HAVE to have a new, taller, stronger tower to mount them.

              But the cost of doing so is only a fraction of the cost of building a new wind farm from scratch, and the new turbines typically produce at least four or five times as much electricity as the ones that are replaced due to being twenty years old, and very likely badly worn.

              This is very good business, because the cost of electricity PER KLOWATT HOUR produced is substantially lower that previously. More juice for less money is a bargain for everybody…… except people with skin in the coal and gas industries of course.

  2. By Copernicus, August was the highest monthly temperature anomaly ever. As El Nino is just beginning we are likely to similar to 2015 so another 0.2 degrees might be expected next year (i.e. the heat waves, floods, wildfires from this year will be the least that can be expected, and while the average moves linearly the extremes will change exponentially).

    Hurricane Lee is heading for cat. 4/5 in the Atlantic. The medium term forecast for atmospheric convection indicates that conditions will be conducive for something as strong or stronger to form at the end of the month, but this time in the Caribbean or GoM.

    1. This chart of Earth’s energy imbalance freaks me out:

      https://twitter.com/LeonSimons8/status/1698410404693594417

      To you climate experts here: This chart shows a huge anomaly in the last three years over a period that covers 150 thousand years. That chart can’t possibly show anomalies for individual years over such a long time period. Is it possible that the chart ignores other anomalies that are lost in the “smoothing” of the data over time? Is that weird outlier at the end the ONLY time such a spike has happened over the last 150K years?

      2. I’d like someone to tell me how you can look at the recent EEI acceleration, however it is smoothed, without concluding that we are completely and utterly fucked, and not over this century but in a few years. I think the 1.4 refers to the average for the last three years, but the latest 12 month average was 1.97 (or something like), which is pretty much a doubling in three years. Loss of Antarctic ice, low aerosols, methane spike, subsea volcano, lag in warming, something else – all seem pretty bad, except maybe the volcano, but the increase has been so steady over twenty years that it looks unlikely to suddenly stop, let alone reverse, which is what is needed. The increase in temps this year and next should increase radiation out and so reduce the EEI but let’s wait and see.

    2. Thanks George, this heat may be last straw for millions of us living in areas surrounded by forests. Meanwhile Antarctica seems to be facing a new reality.

      STABILITY INSPECTION FOR WEST ANTARCTICA SHOWS MARINE ICE SHEET NOT DESTABILIZED YET, BUT MAY BE ON PATH TO TIPPING

      “With more and more ice being lost in Antarctica over the last years, concerns have been raised whether a tipping point has already been crossed and an irreversible, long-term collapse of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet has already been initiated,” explains Ronja Reese from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK) and the Northumbria University, Newcastle.

      https://phys.org/news/2023-09-stability-west-antarctica-marine-ice.html

      1. On being surrounded by forests: Maine had terrible fires 75 or so years ago. The largest fire east of the Mississippi occurred in Maine in the early 19th century… and here we are now with much less open farmland than we had then and property owners who don’t care about such things as maintaining field margins or managing woods. It’s all terribly overgrown in places.

        We’re sitting ducks up here.

      2. I’ve spent vacation time in Lac Le Jeune and Shuswap and they both have huge areas burnt, would they still be tourist destinations and/or film locations? Latest area burnt is 16.615 million, or 4.6% of forests and no sign of slowing, so it looks like 5% will be easily passed. My guess is Siberia isn’t much better and Australia must be in real danger for next year.

      1. “It’s hard to argue against the truth.” It’s even harder to argue against the crap that you come up with. I have encountered your type before and frankly can’t be bothered to do the mount of work required to expose the fraud people like you cite as science. A great deal of money and effort has been expended by people with vested interest in pulling the wool over peoples eyes and you are either a participant in the fraud or a victim of it.

        You obviously don’t live somewhere that is likely to be submerged by sea level rise. I think I may live long enough to see the start of very serious problems in low lying areas like South Florida. The cost of the damage that is going to be caused by global warming is going to make all the money the fossil fuel companies made over the years look like chump change. What you people are doing is a crime against not just humanity but all life on earth.

        Now that I’ve got that off my chest, have a good day!

        1. My observation is that your response is just pure emotion and totally devoid of anything of fact, science or logic. A personal attack and then just blithering.

        2. Dan Brown is co-director of the Breakthrough Institute. Here is what Michael Mann says about that:

          “Climate scientist Michael E. Mann also questions the motives of the Breakthrough Institute. According to Mann, the self-declared mission of the BTI is to look for a breakthrough to solve the climate problem. However Mann states that basically the BTI “appears to be opposed to anything – be it a price on carbon or incentives for renewable energy – that would have a meaningful impact.” He notes that the BTI “remains curiously preoccupied with opposing advocates for meaningful climate action and is coincidentally linked to natural gas interests” and criticises the BTI for advocating “continued exploitation of fossil fuels.” Mann also questions that the BTI on the one hand seems to be “very pessimistic” about renewable energy, while on the other hand “they are extreme techno-optimists” regarding geoengineering.[17]”

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

        3. @Nick G, Thanks for making the effort. This stuff can always be traced back to some think tank or institute or the other. Usually funded by people like Charles Koch or someone of his ilk. Why these people can’t see that they are being played is beyond me. I find it somewhat amazing that the response to record heat levels from these folks is to turn up the BS.

        4. Island boy

          Is that like the Cr*p you were saying 5/6 years ago when you confidently predicted that China’s coal consumption would fall every year. Also your prediction that India coal mine and coal power station investments would be straded assests.

          https://coal.gov.in/en/major-statistics/production-and-supplies

          Ha ha ha

          https://coal.gov.in/en/major-statistics/coal-indian-energy-choice

          Indian coal offers a unique ecofriendly fuel source to domestic energy market for the next century and beyond.

      2. These two ideas (“earth is getting warmer”, and “further cooling”) seem to contradict each other:

        “The varying tilt of the Earth towards the Sun affects the climate on Earth. It is the reason why the earth is getting warmer.”

        vs

        “As ice cover increases, it reflects more of the Sun’s energy back into space, promoting even further cooling.”

        1. Milkankovitch cycles are complex, but I think they’re being mis-represented by FF advocates.

          Milankovitch cycles appear to cause cooling, but the effect is much weaker and slower than human-caused heating. Maybe 1% as strong.

  4. I’m thinking things are actually quite a bit more positive on the political front than the way they’re painted by the mass media……. which is after all driven by REVENUE considerations far more often than not.

    trump signs have just about disappeared in my deep dark red Bible Belt community near the NC Va state border down towards Tennessee. A couple of years ago there was trump merchandise on every third table at my favorite large regular flea market. Now there’s trump merchandise on only every tenth table, and not much even then.

    And the many local people I know ( most of them the ” poorly educated” ones loved by trump) that used to talk about him all the time seldom mention his name in public these days.

    All this leads me to believe that his support is not REMOTELY as strong as the polls suggest. NOBODY ever likes to admit he’s been had, so hard core R voters will continue to say they still support him, if asked.

    Furthermore, it’s now perfectly obvious that quite a lot of his co conspirators will be convicted of various felonies, and the odds are very high that some of them are going to throw HIM under the bus to get a better deal on their own sentences.

    PLUS the trial in Georgia will be televised. This is not just A nail in his coffin, it’s a whole row all the way around the lid.

    Given all these considerations,

    I can’t see him winning, even if he gets the nomination, unless maybe the Democrats REALLY screw it up, or unless the economy crashes hard before the election.

    I’ve already put aside a bottle of my favorite bourbon to celebrate when he’s pronounced guilty by a jury of everyday people.

    1. The timing of trials vs election is going to be fascinating in a morbid way.
      Also, if the parties move on from Trump, and Biden,
      its going to be a rolling of the dice.

      In the end, we will still be left living in a nation were almost 1/2 of the people are severely brainwashed
      by fox news and other far-right media sources, and are extremely gullible.
      Mob Willful Ignorance.

      1. What about the other half?
        Just wondering…
        Edit: I oftenly agree with you but the thought struck me.

      2. When it comes to 1/2 of the people in the US being severely brainwashed, yesterday evening in traffic I pulled up beside a svelte woman driving alone in a compact SUV with her widows rolled up and her air conditioning on, wearing a surgical mask! Might I dare suggest that, more than half of the folks in wealthy nations and a smaller portion in poorer developing nations have been thoroughly brainwashed when it comes to health issues in the response to the pandemic.

        How many people still believe that “there are no effective treatments for covid”, despite the fact that thousands of doctors around the world treated their patients (against the advice of the WHO and most national public health agencies) and these doctors assert that “early treatment saves lives”? How many people believe the mantra that “you just don’t know how badly the virus will hit you”, despite the fact that the overwhelming majority of those that died fell into several clearly defined groups (elederly, obese, hypertensive, diabetic, dark skinned living outside of the tropics and immune compromised among others)? Very few if any young, fit individuals that spend a lot of time in the sun and eat a diet rich in fruit and vegetables were adversely affected. How many people still believe that masks and lock downs were effective at containing the virus, despite a some amount of evidence to the contrary?

        Not all the folks that did not buy into the prevailing narrative were poorly educated, ignorant, gullible, Trump supporters. Celebrities Bill Maher and Joe Rogan come to mind as does Novak Djokovic, the greatest male player in tennis history.

        1. Another fact resistant human being

          Lockdowns and face masks “unequivocally” cut spread of Covid, report finds

          https://desdemonadespair.net/2023/09/lockdowns-and-face-masks-unequivocally-cut-spread-of-covid-report-finds.html

          COVID was interesting in that it really helped identify the idiots amongst us.

          Everybody was into the lockdowns at first, even Ron DeSantis. After about 5 weeks it became apparent that COVID was only an existential threat to the most vulnerable, and that nobody gives a fuck about them. One day soon nobody will give a fuck about you. Enjoy.

          1. “Lockdowns and face masks “unequivocally” cut spread of Covid, report finds”, says he who is fount of all that is factual and accurate.

            From the Institute of Economic Affairs (UK):

            Did lockdowns work? The verdict on Covid restrictions

            From The Cochrane Library:

            Physical interventions to interrupt or reduce the spread of respiratory viruses

            According to the above there is no clear empirical evidence that masks helped or that lockdowns did less harm than good but, what do I know? Apparently I am just a fact resistant idiot!

            1. https://royalsociety.org/topics-policy/projects/impact-non-pharmaceutical-interventions-on-covid-19-transmission/

              There is clear empirical evidence. You just don’t read it, likely because it’s not self validating. I stand by my previous statement; another fact resistant human being.

              What the Cochrane Review Says About Masks For COVID-19 — and What It Doesn’t
              https://www.factcheck.org/2023/03/scicheck-what-the-cochrane-review-says-about-masks-for-covid-19-and-what-it-doesnt/

              expert reaction to an IEA report about COVID-19 lockdowns
              https://www.sciencemediacentre.org/expert-reaction-to-an-iea-report-about-covid-19-lockdowns/

              I bet I know what you do find self validating, though; dRiViNg ArOuNd and pointing out to yourself the people who are wearing masks. I bet it makes you feel smart lol.

              Weak tea, as usual.

  5. Trashing planet Earth.

    SAND DREDGING DEVASTATING OCEAN FLOOR, UN WARNS

    “Sand is the most exploited natural resource in the world after water and is used to produce concrete and glass. The UN Environment Programme (UNEP) said some vessels were acting as vacuum cleaners, dredging both sand and micro-organisms that fish feed on. This means that life may never recover in some areas.”

    https://www.bbc.com/news/world-66724628

    1. So we should dig out the oceans as fast as possible to counteract climate change driven sea level rise.

    2. And asteroids change the climate quicker than humans do too.

      Also, shut the fuck up you absolute shill.

  6. Many people have the view that since humanity is basically stuck with mass combustion for decades at minimum,
    that we need to focus more on adaptation rather than replacement of energy sources or carbon emission restrictions.
    What does adaptation mean?
    An example-
    Acknowledge that rising seas and increase river basin flooding is baked in the cake and that everything within 5-10 feet of elevation (at minimum) from sea level and river flood zones needs to be abandoned. This includes homes, businesses and infrastructure like refineries, railroads, ports and pipelines. Property insurance in these zones will fade away or become exorbitant. Permits for rebuilding or renovation after flooding should not be reissued. Sorry to say, but the affected zone and economic impact on this is massive.
    –

    1. And yet he gets population planning all wrong – he thinks it’s a matter of limiting freedom. If Egyptian women had the freedom to not have children the problem would be solved: birth rates would plummet, as we’ve seen in Iran, S Korea, Japan, Italy, etc.

        1. Thanks!

          Although I think I spent too much time today – I’ll probably have to take a break for a bit.

      2. But how can I have a patriarchy if I’m letting women do what they want? We should keep doing the thing we’ve been doing and hope for the best. It’s the only course.

  8. New solar installations to hit nearly 400GW this year as module prices hit new lows

    BNEF is now predicting that new solar PV in 2023 will hit 392GW by year’s end, which would be a 56% increase in total new capacity compared to 2022.

    The web page includes the chart below showing capacity additions since 2010 and BNEF’s projections through to 2030. For some reason the growth for 2024 is less than the projection for 2023 and the growth tapers off after 2024. One wonders if they have evaluated projected increases in global PV manufacturing capacity because, the following article suggest that growth in global PV manufacturing will be robust at least through to the end of 2024.

    Global PV manufacturing capacity to reach 1 TW by 2024

      1. “Solar electricity creates cheap electricity when I use little electricity, and expensive electricity when I use a lot of electricity.”

        Not true, If you’re like most people and business. The most power is used during the day. Which makes sense, when you think about it: humans are most active when it’s light out.

        There is some industrial power consumption which moved to the night because of lower power rates, because there was night time excess power. If there’s excess power during the day, that industrial consumption will move right back.

        “The nuclear power plants are shut down when electricity is cheap and started when electricity is expensive.”

        Not in the US. Wind, solar and nuclear have the lowest marginal cost, so they’ll get used first.
        Coal is the most expensive, so it get’s shut down first. We have a long way to go before nuclear starts getting curtailed.

        2. “I need less electricity on sunny days and more electricity on rainy and cold days.”

          Sounds like you live in a higher latitude than most people, so you don’t use much air conditioning. Keep in mind that you depend on industrial/commercial services, so really your consumption is better described as the overall consumption of the area in which you live.

          So…where do you live?

      2. My question was a trick question and you fell for it. You have exposed that you are basically a troll (everybody already knew that). If you were a business owner you would be doomed because, some young whippersnapper would come along and figure out a way to take advantage of newly available and cheap renewable energy to produce cheaper goods and services than you do. Below is a link to part of a presentation by Tony Seba who has done a considerable amount of work into how the globe could be powered by solar, wind and storage (batteries).

        The Great Transformation [Part 3] – The Disruption of Energy

        And below is a link to an article out of Australia where they are inching towards the scenario described by Seba.

        Wind and solar hit record share of main grid, as curtailment underscores need for more storage

        1. Island boy

          How is your prediction that India coal mines and coal power stations would be stranded assets in a few years. Well here we are now 5 years on and India’s stated policy is to continue growing it’s indigenous coal resources.
          India is now burning over 1 billion tonnes a year.

          How is your prediction that China coal consumption would fall year by year?
          5 years on and they are opening every mine possible and burning a record 4.4 billion tonnes.
          China and India have now ensured runaway global warming.
          Unfortunately people who can’t face reality still dream about solutions which are 30 years too late.

        2. I play the long game and the fat lady hasn’t sung yet! I don’t remember putting a time line on these events apart from generally agreeing with Tont Seba (who gives me most of these crazy ideas) that close to 100% of new electricity generating capacity additions in 2030 onward are going to be solar energy.

          Unless you are like really old and close to death I suspect you will see some of this come to pass. If you are young, you might want invest in some property in South Beach, Miami to take advantage of the great scuba diving sites that are likely to be there in the latter half of this century if the planet continues to warm at current rates!

      1. Or create hydrogen to inject into underground storage for use in winter, like we do with NG now.

        “The Chevron Phillips Clemens Terminal in Texas has stored hydrogen since the 1980s in a solution-mined salt cavern. The cavern roof is about 2,800 feet (850 m) underground. The cavern is a cylinder with a diameter of 160 feet (49 m), a height of 1,000 feet (300 m), and a usable hydrogen capacity of 1,066 million cubic feet (30.2×106 m3), or 2,520 metric tons (2,480 long tons; 2,780 short tons).[11]”

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

        1. The biggest long term problem I foresee in most cases for using hydrogen on the long term scale is finding or creating places to store it on the grand scale, and pipelines to get it where it needs to go.

          My reasoning is that we will eventually have “surplus” wind and solar power out the ying yang, due to over building so as to help manage the intermittency problem, PLUS of course solar electricity is getting cheaper every year……. to the point that we may eventually have solar farms that are needed mostly only during periods of high demand, looking a long way down the road, just as we have peaker gas plants today.

          Batteries may always be cheaper, but I’m willing to bet that over the long term, hydrogen as ICE fuel is going to be a VERY big thing. The biggest battery in the most powerful and expensive Tesla car is only big enough to run a typical modern combine or farm tractor for an hour or so, two hours max, under normal working conditions in the field.

          Such machinery necessarily sits around for weeks, sometimes months on end, and paying for super sized batteries necessarily means using them on a regular basis.

          Then there’s the issue of charging them out in farm country. The rural grid will NEVER be up to THAT job.

          And even the urban grid is not typically up to the job for such purposes as running heavy construction machinery, because the necessary transmission lines for job sites would have to be BUILT just for the job.

          Ain’t gonna happen. Even if the costs of doing it were to be manageable, the NEIGHBORS along the entire route would have what local people around here refer to as a “S**T HEMORRHAGE” . NO WAY will this sort of transmission line work ever get thru the permitting process, never mind waiting for it to be built for TEMPORARY use any way.

          So…… barring near miracles on the battery front, we will be using ICE machinery ( turbines are far too expensive for such purposes) for the foreseeable future.

          Of course diesel fuel will probably be readily available most of the time for many years to come, assuming we switch to mostly electric cars and trucks running on batteries or maybe hydrogen fuel cells. But even if this is the case, there’s huge political momentum to get away from diesel…… whereas hydrogen burns into water only, rather than CO2 and water . Industries needing ice engines will be PUSHED to go with hydrogen, barring the previously mentioned miracle battery big enough and cheap enough to run heavy machinery…….. AND a grid robust enough to charge such batteries up AT the places they are needed.

          Hydrogen can be delivered from pipeline terminals to job sites and farms by trucks, although at rather high cost, and there’s zero question that currently used diesel engine designs can be modified at reasonable cost to run on hydrogen.

          Plus having a supply of hydrogen available for power plants and essential industries, hospitals, etc, means these facilities can keep running for a day or a few days in the event fuel is otherwise unavailable. Hospitals, etc, often have their own emergency generators.

          It’s very likely going to be practical in the near future to run domestic and small business heat pumps with internal combustion engines designed for this job, salvaging the excess engine heat to help with heating and for hot water. Such a heat pump can have an electric motor as well, to be automatically switched on when necessary or more economical.

          And such a heat pump, equipped with a hydrogen, propane or natural gas engine can also have a built in generator……. enabling the owner to run it as necessary if the grid is down, so long as fuel is available. In cool or only moderately cold weather the excess heat from the engine might well be enough for domestic heat and hot water…. meaning saving some money on grid sourced juice.

          ( And yes, suitable engines can run whisper quiet, and can be and are built at very reasonable costs to run for ten or even twenty thousand hours, in stationary machinery …… assuming the cost of the engine is offset by saving on purchased electricity and or heating fuel etc. )

          1. My gut tells me that synthetic liquid fuels might help solve the problem of finding fuels for combines and such. I have a very strong suspicion that research into creating synthetic fuels is behind hindered by some of the same factors (interests) that are trying to hold back renewable energy.

            I am not ignoring the fact that it will take a lot of energy to create such fuels but, in a electricity grid that is largely fed by renewable energy, there are going to be periods of massive over supply of electricity that is going to be useless unless a good use case can be made for industries that can consume truly massive amounts of electricity on demand. It has already been proven in Australia that this can work for Aluminum smelting. My hunch is that synthetic fuel production is a good candidate. If process heat within the range of that attainable from concentrated solar power is needed then we have a twofer.

            A quick Google search and, bingo!

            Synthetic fuels explained

          2. I agree with Islandboy: It’s likely to be much cheaper to use hydrogen at centralized points, and create synthetic diesel for the small percentage (10%? 15%) of diesel consumption that isn’t easily electrified, like aviation, backing up seasonal utility scale generation, and seasonal farm equipment.

            And please note that diesel is only about 20% of overall oil consumption, so 10-15% of diesel is only 2-3% of overall oil consumption. That won’t be very hard to cover with synthetic diesel, especially using cheap surplus power.

          3. Yo Old Farmer Mac,

            I recall it was you that impressed on me, in TOD days, the utility of fuel on the farm. What was it, how a barrel of diesel at $500 is still worth it, when compared to the alternative? How much prairie sod can be broken up with a pint of gasoline?

            How about forestry without chainsaws?

            You’ve always got a salient point with your essays when it comes to the realities of powering our civilization. This one is great.

            Keep up the good work.

        2. Or úse it to fuel processes intermittently, like melting scrap aluminium,

    3. For perspective
      This 2023 global new solar installation equates to the electrical output from roughly
      86 new full scale (1000MW) nuclear plants.
      In the world of 2022 6 new nuclear plants came online, and 5 were decommissioned.

      1. Yeah, nuclear has lost the race for competitiveness. It’s like VHS vs Beta, CD vs SA-CD, Nokia vs Apple, or BEV vs fuel cell light vehicle.

        All of these losers were viable, but not competitive. Heck: Beta and SA-CD were significantly better, but they still lost the race by getting in too late and missing the race.

        1. If only there was some nation that showed nuclear was totally viable outside of stupid regulations and Big Fossil meddling. I guess we’ll never know if this hypothetical nation could have ever happened.

          1. Well, physics suggested very large plants. Then it turned out that very big plants were long and difficult projects, so it was difficult to develop a learning curve and bring down costs.

            Wind and solar have the advantage of short R&D cycles, fast manufacturing and installation, very small module size, etc.

            It would have been pretty expensive to build enough nuclear to start well down the curve – it’s a pretty big barrier to entry.

            I think nuclear’s biggest problem doesn’t get much discussion: weapons proliferation. It’s pretty unsolvable.

            1. I agree that synthetic diesel or gasoline may be the best solution for seasonal work such as on farms and for work at construction job sites.

              But you’re going to have to put a good bit MORE energy into it that you get out of it, and it’s necessarily going to have a lot of carbon in it, so there’s no way it will ever burn clean, like hydrogen.

              The carbon is dirt cheap and everywhere…….. but the hydrogen is ONLY going to be available as a feed stock by either stripping it out of natural gas or stripping it out of water…….. so the cost of hydrogen production infrastructure is a wash, either way.

              Plus hydrogen requires nothing at all in the way of processing, although getting it from places it is produced to places its needed is going to be one hell of a problem.

              I’m thinking that this delivery problem will be manageable, over time, because pipelines can be laid so that hydrogen is available ( at first ) at truck stops and industrial facilities that are now burning natural gas or propane, both of which will eventually be in short supply and therefore costly.

              Such pipe lines would eventually have smaller branch lines going to nearby communities with office parks and other places that could use it in large amounts.

              It’s also possible that the equipment needed to split water will SCALE DOWN as time passes, so that hydrogen can be produced economically at a profit directly at places its needed, any place there’s transmission capacity to get wind and solar power delivered.

              This would enable a truck stop to fuel up hydrogen powered heavy trucks, and believe me, this could be a game changer, and out compete batteries in eighteen wheelers, because the batteries are HEAVY.

              Hydrogen, a dual fuel diesel and transmission are flyweight by comparison, and such trucks might even be built hydrogen/ diesel electric, with engine, generator, and wheel motors. This works beautifully in bulldozers and similar equipment, being simpler, cheaper to run, and more durable as well.

              Even three tons less truck empty weight means three tons more paid cargo capacity, and this is the sort of pencil work that means everything to a trucking company.

              Plus such a truck can have a small diesel tank, say fifty gallons, that’s only needed once in a while……… but this also means it can go ANYWHERE, so long as diesel can be had at hundred mile or even two hundred mile intervals along its route to deliver such stuff as wind farm components in the backwoods of the boonies.

              Time will tell. It’s entirely possible, maybe even a given ,that synthetic liquid fuels will be better than hydrogen for farmers, construction companies, etc.

              But the political pressure will still be for hydrogen and or batteries, and that’s not going away.

            2. All of this replacement liquid and manufactured gas fuels are going to be much more expensive than people of the world have become accustomed to for energy in the past 80 years.

              Keep in mind that this increase cost then extends to all products that use the energy in their production and distribution chain. Human labor costs also rise in this higher energy cost scenario.
              Its going to take a massive adaption to swallow the higher energy costs.
              Billions of people, and most countries, are already in a marginal state of financial affairs.

              There is a lot of wishful dreaming here about living in a world of abundant energy/energy surplus. Maybe some places will have that favorable situation for some time, but the high probability scenario is a reality that has us on the verge of entering an era of much greater constraint on energy availability/affordability.

            3. What does higher energy costs mean on the ground in the real world? Things like
              – a couple billion who just barely afford enough basic food now cannot sustain what they currently scramble for . Most of these people own no arable land.
              – people who can’t afford air conditioning equipment and the energy to run them will die in hot buildings. We will likely see mass casualty events from this.
              – many segments of the economy will not handle higher energy costs…people won’t be able to afford the energy component, and employment in these sectors will plummet. Tourism dependent regions, and non-essential air craft travel (almost all of it) are examples of sectors at risk.

              Yes, in favored places there will be enough energy for critical industries and commerce, if wise decisions are made and coordinated cultural behavior is maintained.
              I am not optimistic about the mob human behavior in a scenario of declining energy affordability. Its a huge setup for reshuffling of the board, and all bets are off when that comes to be.

            4. OFM, Hickory

              A wide variety of things will work for long-haul trucking and water transport. Which will win out depends on a lot of things: cost, tradition, momentum, timing, convenience, etc. A few thoughts:

              Electricity will always have the lowest energy cost. H2 is next lowest: it will always be 2-3x more expensive than electricity due to conversion efficiency. Synthetic fuel will require more conversions and possible the addition of carbon or other elements.

              Batteries have momentum: Amazon, for instance, is likely to buy 100,000 electric local delivery trucks. That kind of thing will give momentum and economies of scale to BEV long-haul trucking. Battery costs are falling, albeit with fits and starts due to scaling up hiccups. Electricity infrastructure is everywhere, although it will certainly need to be strengthened. NG is unavailable to residences in many places due to lack of infrastructure: H2 will face large barriers. Batteries are heavy, but so diesel motors, transmissions, cooling, etc. are heavier than their electric counterparts, so that partially reduces the weight penalty. H2 tanks tend to be low density, so H2 will likely also reduce payload. Fuel cells are still substantially more expensive: they seem to be losing the volume competition. ICEs can burn H2, but they’re less efficient and put out pollution like NO2.

              So, I think that electrification will win out in 90% of cases, with the exception of the most difficult niches, which will go with high density liquid fuel: aviation, combines, long distance water transport. There’s one big exception: seasonal utility storage, which works really well with H2 stored underground.

              Synthetic liquid fuel will be more expensive. But, It will only be used in roughly 10% of consumption, Electricity will much less expensive and energy costs overall will be the same or lower.

  9. My hubby and I have been all RFLMAO over a series of stories on NPR about “net zero oil.” See, you build a bunch of “carbon capture” thingamajigs, and you SUCK the CO2 out of the atmosphere and pump it into oil wells . . . to get more oil to come out! The carbon emitted from that new oil is cancelled out by the carbon pulled out of the atmosphere to drive more oil to the well bores. Hence, “net zero oil”! Brilliant!

    But that’s not the best part . . .

    They interviewed an “oil man from Midland Texas.” When asked what he thought about this “plan,” his response was cynical, ugly, and — I think — right on.

    First, he said trying to extract the CO2 out of the atmosphere would be like “trying to drain the ocean with straws.”

    Second, he said: “But it will shut some people up.” Meaning those who bitch about climate change.

    And that’s where we are in this deluded world.

    1. “They interviewed an “oil man from Midland Texas.” ”

      Why? He appears to know nothing about carbon capture or climate change.

      Of course, he should have said that we should be moving away from oil completely, and use net-zero liquid fuels for maybe 10-15% of what we currently use oil for, but….his saying that doesn’t seem likely.

    2. Direct CO2 capture from fossil fuel will consume energy to accomplish.
      This lowers the overall EROEI for the net oil produced, like spinning your wheels.
      Lower EROEI gets expressed in the actual world as higher price/unit of energy.

      For oil, this higher price will tilt the table further towards the cost advantage of PV/EV.
      And the effort to capture some of the produced CO2 will likely be of marginal benefit,
      considering the overall situation.

      1. All true.

        It’s just that liquid fuels are uniquely useful in some niches – see my comment above to OFM about synthetic diesel.

        1. The thing is, the prices will make those avenues even less cost effective. Look at what Porsche has been doing with their race team synth fuel research. It’s like the green hydrogen dream. Yes, theoretically you can do it. But for a price.

          Flying and using combines or high performance cars will be once more relegated to the rich. Everyone else does without.

          1. Well, high performance racing is perfect for EVs.

            Combines using hydrogen or synthetic fuel won’t add much cost. The fuel per unit of food is very low.

            Flying may get a bit more expensive, I agree, but there’s a lot of room for efficiency improvement in aviation that can be used for synthetic fuel.

            Finally, it’s pretty likely that renewable overbuilding will generate a lot of very cheap surplus power.

  10. In the preceding thread I argued that economic theory had some utility in a declining economic environment. People would maximise utility and act in their self interest. And as a result big obstacles might be deminished.

    So I would acknowledge that this would only be true with democratic nations setting the rules. The same self interest setting the ground for economic theory, would argue to corrupt democratic societies to the core. After all if you are the chief of a tribal community, you are persuing your self interest.

    It is a lot that can be done going forward, but the principle of suppression of ego is very important for democracy. I wonder when the democratic world order finally would be corrupted to the core? 2050s, 2060s. I would probably be dead then but could potentially still be around, and I would love to be wrong about the exact timing of that event.

  11. A global Food Price Index drops in August, reversing the slight rebound of the previous month…

  12. https://electrek.co/2023/08/29/ego-electric-motorcycle-that-runs-on-power-tool-batteries/

    I once knew a man who as a matter of necessity built himself an electric bicycle to ride to work, having had his driver’s permit permanently revoked for drunk driving. He powered it with a salvaged battery operated drill motor, the biggest one he could find, and bought half a dozen DeWalt heavy duty eighteen volt batteries to run it. It had sufficient range to get him to work and back , his round trip being ten miles more or less, at maybe eight or ten mph. ( Such batteries are typically sold with a three year warranty. )

    So……. here’s a question.

    How long will it be before we have small batteries for POWER TOOLS that are standardized, so that we ‘re locked into buying replacements from the tool manufacturer and dealer at what are obviously very profitable prices?

    I just bought four new ones for my *** brand tools sale priced for the holiday at considerably less than half the usual price….. no other purchase necessary. No limit on how many. I know about loss leaders….. but this store is not into selling a LOT of stuff at a loss.

  13. “…a worse-than-predicted climate crisis could bring the global financial system to its knees…The 16 climatic tipping points, identified by a group of researchers in an article in Science, are triggers for a possible collapse in highly leveraged global financial markets. The markets, including regulators and central banks, have failed to integrate the physical, transition and liability risks from climate change into the observable market data.”

    Throw in higher energy costs and… ‘Houston’ we have a problem.

    behind a paywall so I didn’t read the article- https://www.ft.com/content/71bd6ac7-43c9-45e2-ab85-020dded0d8b3

    1. Econobrain is a sight to behold.

      “The world catching fire 24/7 may impact on dividend payments and bond yields by up to 6% PA. Climate change now being seen as a major threat to portfolios everywhere and may need remedial action. See also: top ten best stocks to invest in for CO2 sequestration and carbon offsetting.”

  14. How do the Texans feel about this?-
    “Texas paid bitcoin miner more than $31 million to cut energy usage during heat wave…

    “Riot said on Wednesday that the state’s power grid operator paid the company $31.7 million in energy credits in August — or roughly $22 million more than the value of the bitcoin it mined that month — to cut its energy consumption… The strain on the grid persists. On Wednesday, Texas officials declared an emergency as sky-high temperatures again threatened to trigger rolling blackouts across the state.”

    https://www.cbsnews.com/news/bitcoin-mining-cryptocurrency-riot-texas-power-grid/

    1. Demand Side Management, where large industrial consumers are paid to accept curtailments, is an old and widely used strategy.

      Bitcoin, on the other hand, is a Ponzi scheme which probably should not get any help from government or the grid.

      1. See the story the other week about a city office block being converted to server farm space for Bitcoin mining and other computer stuff? They made out like this was a benefit as they reduce traffic and sewage impacts by making this boondoggle investment chasing imaginary assets.

        Wild time to be alive.

        1. Yes, very weird.

          One get’s a bad feeling that there’s a lot of people grifting large amounts of money…

  15. How does the early phase of peak energy look like?
    We get an early sneak preview-
    “Germany’s embattled economy, once Europe’s main engine of growth, looks set for a fresh contraction as its all-important manufacturing sector continues to weaken. After stagnating since the end of last year, Germany’s output is likely to contract this quarter as its factories face higher energy costs…”

      1. The first clause of Scheer’s statement is absolutely true.

        The second clause is abject bullshit.

        Permit me to qualify: If by “renewable energy,” he means “plants and animals and human labor,” then he could be correct–if population and consumption drop precipitously.

        If by “renewable energy” he means cars, truck, planes, power plants, shopping malls, entertainment industries, space exploration programs, etc., etc., powered by windmills, solar panels, and fry vat oil, with batteries as adjuncts, then he is full of shit up to his eyeballs.

        “Fossil fuels” is the Sugar Daddy of the latter sort of “renewable” energy.

        1. ““Fossil fuels” is the Sugar Daddy of the latter sort of “renewable” energy.”

          You’re thinking that FF is necessary to produce renewable energy? Where, specifically, is FF essential?

          1. Nick, I suspect you are a young man (that is, under 50), in which case, you are to be forgiven.

            Moreover, the unfolding transition to renewable energies will demand huge amounts of steel, concrete and plastics. No structures are more obvious symbols of “green” electricity generation than large wind turbines—but their foundations are reinforced concrete, their towers, nacelles, and rotors are steel, and their massive blades are energy-intensive—and difficult to recycle—plastic resins, and all of these giant parts must be brought to the installation sites by outsized trucks (or ships) and erected by large steel cranes, and turbine gearboxes must be repeatedly lubricated with oil. These turbines would generate truly green electricity only if all of these materials were made without any fossil fuels.

            https://time.com/6175734/reliance-on-fossil-fuels/

            The Selfish Ape–Homo sapiens is doomed to fail. It has been failing repeatedly for millennia. It will fail again. That doesn’t mean it will go extinct–far from it–but its next failure is going to be a doozy.

            1. Okay, so the idea is that the following absolutely require FF:
              steel, concrete and plastics;
              outsized trucks (or ships);
              lubrication with oil.

              But…they don’t. Really, there isn’t anything that requires FF. Some things may require liquid fuels, possibly even liquid hydrocarbon fuels, but remnants of the Cretaceous period? Not really.

              Steel: almost all steel in the US is recycled scrap, using electricity. If you’re smelting iron ore for new steel, you can certainly use renewable power to do so, though it is going to be more expensive than coal, at least for a while.

              Concrete: heat and reduction can come from renewable electricity.

              Plastic: it’s a hydrocarbon: hydrogen can come from water electrolysis, carbon can come from atmospheric or seawater carbon capture, biomass or even fossil fuels for a long time: it’s a low volume usage (it can be recycled) and it’s not combustion.

              Trucks: it’s pretty obvious they can be electrified, or fueled with synthetic diesel, hydrogen, methanol, etc.

              Ships: Again, likely to be fueled with synthetic diesel, hydrogen, methanol, etc.

              lubrication with oil: the word “oil” here is a generic term for lubricants. It can certainly be synthetic.

              One more time: there isn’t anything that requires fossil fuels. Fossil fuels used to be a convenient, cheap source of large quantities of hydrocarbons. But electrification, hydrogen and synthetics can do whatever is needed.

              Just talk to your friendly neighborhood chemical engineer: they’ll tell you it’s so. They’ll tell you that some niches will be substantially more expensive at the moment, and they may not be familiar with the cost curve of renewable energy, but they’ll reassure you that it’s absolutely doable.

            3. Survivalist,

              That’s interesting – it’s somewhat different from what I expected. OTOH, it would be nice to find something more up to date: this was from 2006, and they say “Three of the four major energy sources consumed as a fuel in the steel industry – natural gas, byproduct fuel, and coke and breeze – show a similar declining historical trend, for the same time period, as the total energy consumed for this industry. However, the consumption of electricity increased during this fifteen year cycle.”

            4. Nick, have you ever considered providing links to data to backup your assertions. You say quite a bit, but seem to miss out on backing it up with any data at all. I, and perhaps others here, aren’t particularly in opinions; we like the data.

            5. Survivalist,

              Good thought. It seems to me that often basic ideas are helpful; I’m often time-limited, and I have assumed that if people needed data they’d look for it a bit and if they couldn’t find it they’d ask me for it. But…you’re right, it’s always helpful to provide that when possible.

            6. Nick, you assumed that people here would go looking for data to back up YOUR assertions? Again, what you say here beggars belief. If you bring an assertion to the conversation, then you should back it up, not expect others to.

        2. Hi Mike B,

          Let’s not forget that the oil industry started out on LITERAL horse power, with everything needed delivered from the nearest railroad, which was often running on WOOD for the locomotive, by wagons pulled by horses and mules. The timber for the derricks, etc, was dragged out of the woods by mules, and sawed using “slabs” from the very same trees by way of a steam engine burning the otherwise useless slabs.

          It’s true that we will be using fossil fuels as usual, to the limit of affordable supplies, for quite some time to come…….. but the renewables industries are showing every possible indication that they will grow to the point they can power up their own growth to any extent necessary.

          In ten to twenty years you’re going to see most offices, homes, and factories running mostly on renewable electricity in countries such as the USA. This includes mines and heavy transportation, smelting metal ores, and even REFINING OIL into gasoline and diesel fuel, lol.

          WHY do I say something like this that sounds crazy at first glance?

          Well, the fact is that oil refineries burn ONE HELL of a lot of oil, or gas generated in the refinery process, TO RUN the refinery. While renewable electricity gets cheaper, as such FLAMMABLE stuff gets more expensive, there will come a day when oil refineries are running on wind and solar power so the owners can SELL that gas.

          I’m pretty sure solar power is already cheap enough in ” sand country”, the oil producing Middle East, that it’s displacing oil and gas for electricity not for environmental purposes, or to collect subsidies or tax breaks or ANY other reason except just one.

          They can sell that same oil and gas they’re burning to run their air conditioners for MORE money that it costs them to build solar farms.

          1. This is all well and good, but as I repeatedly have to point out, that is not the world we live in. Hasn’t been for a LONG time.

            Half of EVERYTHING humanity has produced was materialised since the year 2000. The idea that we did this industrial stuff before we had modern FF production and so could do it again, misses the fundamental part of scale.

            23 years ago, you could live without the Internet. You can’t today. It’s as vital as any other utility. Fifty years ago you could get by without really needing the grid. Hundred years ago most people barely had plumbing to the house.

            And you can’t get by on just recycling. Even if it was 100% efficient for most things (it’s nowhere near that for most things, not even regular iron). You would inevitably lead to societal collapse regardless of RE energy input as it catabolically consumed itself, albeit, at a slower rate than a sudden loss of energy from oil vanishing.

            None of this changes that this world, as it stands today, has its days numbered. Even if things go smoothly in any transition, it means the end of the economic and geopolitical order as it stands. And cornered foxes do not play nice, so it can go sideways very quickly, which in a nuke armed world, is not a great development.

            It’s not like we can just runaway from it all and live off the land. Most biomatter on the planet now is either human or human livestock as part of industrial agriculture. Trees and forests are now monocultures for the market, as usual, and almost all of it is at risk of catching fire, dying off due to beetles, or being washed away in storms that are only going to get worse regardless of any actions now. Just the impact on food production from changing climates is civ ending, I couldn’t possibly see how one rides it out while dealing with civil strife from the various things eating away at prosperity which leads to radical gov’ts and fascism.

            Children Of Men should be required viewing. And I think it’s probably too rosy looking now.

            1. Kleiber,

              OFM wasn’t suggesting going back to horse power. His point was that just as horses supported the nascent oil industry, FF is supporting the growing renewable industry. Eventually the oil industry no longer needed horse. Eventually renewable will no longer need FF.

              As for recycling not working…no. Iron is 5% of the earth’s crust. There’s no way we run out of it. The same is true of most elements. Remember, waste can always be recycled with energy inputs, and the solar input to the earth system is 100,000 terawatts, continuously.

    2. I am convinced that if Hermann Scheer were still alive, things in Germany would be a little different. He was extremely strident and confident that not only was a transition to renewables possible but, necessary. He was basically the architect of the German Renewable Energy Act that ushered in massive shift to renewable energy in Germany. I am very suspicious about the circumstances of his death. He was quite obviously not the healthiest guy who ever lived but, with the amount of very powerful and very wealthy people that must have wanted him to go away I would not be surprised if foul play was involved. Of course it is not and never will be possible to prove any such thing. Doesn’t mean it didn’t happen that way.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZ8jL7lJ6Dc

        1. Yes, that is probably true. But how do you define “dumb”? I read and watch YouTube videos with people who have doctorate degrees in geology and other related disciplines from the most prestigious universities who are confident that the universe is only 6,000 years old. These are smart people who believe some really dumb things.

          Okay, are they smart or dumb? Someone, please reply if you think you have a possible answer.

          1. You need to be more holistic on things. There are Ph.D. scientists who hold tenure in fields they are masters in, who are also thick as pig shit on other matters.

            Look at the latest letter signed by “scientists” on climate change saying it’s a hoax. Most of them are either physicists in niche fields like superconductors or geologists who just so happen to take kickbacks off the Heartland Institute. Funny that.

            Likewise, the other side of the aisle has idiots parroting Cleantechnica editorials about how we’re all going to be A-OK because EV sales are up (in bougie suburban households with six figure incomes) and wind turbines are now cheaper than ever at delivering wind (but also don’t ask how long they last or how much they cost to install in the grid).

            1. So long as OMBUA ( Old Man Business As Usual) stays on his feet, it should be PERFECTLY obvious, ESPECIALLY to anybody who believes in fossil fuels, that today’s expensive goods such as ahem, new electric cars, will get to be substantially cheaper as time goes by………. again assuming OMBAU lives on.

              When I was a kid, only my more prosperous neighbors had modern plumbing. Now even the poorest of us have it, because welfare apartments have it.

              I remember very well when Momma cooked on a wood stove, and when we first got an electric stove, and then oil heat, although I chopped and toted wood so as to use less oil. Still doing that, by the way.

              The fossil fuel propaganda machine, exemplified by such as the politicians who control Texas, are doing all they can to slow down the growth of the wind and solar power industries……. while in the MEANWHILE, these industries are growing like mushrooms in a warm spring rain in Texas, laughing my ass off.

              NOBODY , nobody at all, is happier than the people who OWN the electrical grid, taken as a group, about electric cars, because they’re EXPECTING to make a TON of money, doing what they do already…… SELLING ELECTRICITY.

              Sure there are shortages of generating and transmission capacity at times in some places…….. so long as OMBAU stays on his feet, more capacity will be built…. and built at a PROFIT.

              Sometimes fossil fuel shills are just so dumb they forget the most telling details…… like trumpsters who say the Democrats stole the election.

              If they were so GOOD at it, well then, why didn’t they steal a few more house and senate seats, etc, while they were at it?

              The electricity industry has a LOT of spare capacity almost everywhere in a country such as the USA, more of the time than not…….. for instance almost every night, except during extremely hot or cold weather.

              Charging up electric cars using that surplus capacity will be EXTREMELY profitable for the industry…… and the industry knows it.

          2. Ron
            The ability to graduate from a prestigious university is not a measure of intelligence. Think about it all you have to be is above average or average to your peers who for all we know are idiots. Then you get your doctorate and become the instructor. Interestingly all major prestigious universities today were initially founded as theological seminaries. Should we truly believe they have more to offer now? And why?

            I have a high school textbook from 1914 that’s curriculum exceeds 4year college today. What does that say about a society that imprisons its children in student loans for the equivalent of what used to be free. Sure we can argue that science and technology have brought things that were unimaginable back then. But are we any better off materially? Technologies greatest achievement is advance weapons. Quicker ways to kill ourselves. Not to mention 1billion legal abortion performed globally in the last one hundred years by doctors. So is our medical system for us or against us as a species and I’m not even diving into the vaccine debate? And some might argue that landing men on the moon was a great accomplishment but bottom line if you build a big enough gas tank and strap a few cowboys to it you can really fast really far and that rodeo ended in 1973. Why peak oil.

            We now live in a world where our children are unsure of their gender. This confusion is being promoted in our prestigious universities. It is from these same hallowed halls that we have economists who believe humanity operates outside of ecology and we can conger up whatever we materially need from thin air. They are modern alchemists but they’re not turning lead to gold or dollars to oil or food. It simply doesn’t work that way.

            So as you probably can tell I have little to no faith in the present system. Nor do I believe in the collective wisdom of a group of idiots.

            The reality of the American experience is that we had a continent full of untapped resources that we could exploit. It wasn’t a political achievement, had the founding fathers been in Botswana the outcome would have been far different. But it’s worth considering how these resources even came into existence. Even with likely 13billion years of universal history and perhaps 1-2billion years of earth history how is it the earth is both geologically alive and biologically alive. And without those two conditions there would be no oil or gas or coal or minerals of any kind. Because every other planet we’ve ever discovered doesn’t have these necessary characteristics. Even the probability of building amino acid chains of the variety needed to build the most basic proteins would exceed the age of the known universe and far exceeds the age of the earth.

            So how willing are people to divorce their prejudices and look at the facts? That’s really the measure of intelligence. I think most of us know the average person can not. As the system crumbles as it is now if you’re republican it the democrats fault. If you’re democrats it’s republicans fault. If you’re anti semite it the Jews fault. If you’re American it Russians fault. Isn’t that religion?

            Is there any source of hope? That is man’s quest.

    3. I think solar and wind are obvious adaptation attempt mechanisms to the depletion phase of fossil fuels,
      but to be kind about…we are way behind the curve on the energy transition attempt,
      and far far far beyond our ways and means on population levels and economic demand.

      1. We’re way behind the curve on decarbonization, but peak energy? I haven’t seen any evidence for that.

        1. “but peak energy? I haven’t seen any evidence for that.”
          You will. Sorry about it.

          1. Well, there’s quite a bit of evidence for peak demand for coal, and for ICE light vehicles.

            There’s a bit of evidence for peak oil, though a long plateau which is ended by peak demand (as shown by Dennis) seems more likely.

            Peak Energy? Not so much.

            1. Remember five years ago, when coal demand peaked? Those were good times. Can’t see people switching to the cheapest and most abundant energy source at a time of increasing energy poverty.

              Peak demand? Yeah, I guess like peak demand for food when you price all the poors out of it.

              Solve food insecurity with this one weird trick. The Final Solution to all your calorie woes, if you will.

    4. It’s not peak energy, it’s a regional war that is the problem.

      Of course, Germany would do well to accelerate it’s shift away from imported FF.

      1. This week German electricity production was about 60% renewable. A year ago it was 44%. Five years ago it was 34%. Ten years ago it was 28%.

        1. Meanwhile,

          “Coal has made a comeback in Germany this year, as Europe’s largest economy turns to the dirty fuel to power it through an energy crisis. More than a third (36.3%) of the electricity fed into the German power grids between July and September came from coal-fired power plants, compared with 31.9 percent in the third quarter of 2021, according to German statistics office Destatis.”

          And, “Only in Germany, with 10 gigawatts (GW), is the reversal at a significant scale. This has increased coal power generation in the European Union, which is expected to remain at these higher levels for some time,” the IEA’s annual coal market report said.

          https://www.reuters.com/markets/commodities/energy-crisis-fuels-coal-comeback-germany-2022-12-16/

          1. It gets better, because Germany is in a recession that isn’t going to end until their heavy industry is demolished.

            America played a blinder in getting them to give up Russian gas. And Germany played itself by hoping to use that gas and also REs while shutting down perfectly viable nukes, despite their non-service based economy.

            Plaudits all round.

  16. https://news.yahoo.com/america-experiencing-great-dechurching-happening-030000089.html

    I have often remarked that a hell of a lot of hard core R voters are middle aged to elderly church going people, and that this block of voters is already starting to die off in relation to the size of the voting population, and that it will die off faster every year as time passes.

    This loss of voters may well already be enough to cost the Republicans more than a wins in votes in 2024 because a lot of elections are won or lost by very small margins, and there are quite states and districts and cities where the younger more secular voters are numerous enough to out vote the older people if it’s close.

    And while it’s true that half of us here in Yankee Land are as ignorant as fence posts in respect to the sciences, and willing to believe anything, in terms of a culture war, it’s also true that the truth, at an abc level does gradually sink in, although it may and does often take a generation or two.

    Most of my local backwoods acquaintances forty years ago were absolutely convinced that cigarettes are harmless, that anti smoking campaigns were plots about power and control, etc.

    A couple of generations later, I can say that I haven’t heard ANYBODY defend cigarettes lately, except as a matter of personal choice in smoking. Everybody now understands that they’re slow poison.

    Ditto dinosaurs, deep time, that the Earth is round, and goes around the sun, etc, even though they often deal with this knowledge by compartmentalizing it and ignoring it most of the time.

    They’ll be coming around pretty fast on climate …… my guess is that within ten years nearly all the local hillbillies will acknowledge that it’s getting hotter, wetter, dryer, stormier without any shadow of a doubt.

    And if the environmental camp, and the Democrats, and the renewables industries play their cards right, they can win over trades people by the millions…….. by bringing them around to understanding that renewables and conservation are where the jobs are.

    Things look pretty damned bad, in the short to near medium term, but there is at least a real possibility that we might pull thru the built in overshoot crash as a functional society without the Four Horseman getting more than a rather small percentage of us, here in Yankee Land anyway.

    The only advice I would have, if asked, for a person in a country such as Egypt, would be to LEAVE, while leaving is still possible, while getting into a more survivable country is still possible.

    1. A couple of weeks ago I was helping connect a generator to the supply of the local go kart track which is close to the local international airport since, the transformer that supplies the track from the grid was defective. Both the airport and the go kart track are basically at sea level with the airport being maybe a foot or two above high tide. Around here the difference between high tide and low tide is probably best measured in inches rather than feet but, the was evidence that parking lot/pit area of the go kart track had seen a significant incursion of sea water. A berm appears to have been constructed to try and keep the water out but, it looks like it did a better job of keeping the water in!

      Looking at it I got a hunch that the King Tides in Miami this year are gonna be a doozy!

  17. Cornucopians, unless you know more than UN climate scientists you’re blowing smoke.

    WORLD FALLING DANGEROUSLY SHORT OF CLIMATE GOALS: UN

    “A world facing catastrophic climate change is perilously off course in meeting goals for slashing carbon pollution and boosting finance for the developing world”, according to the UN’s first official progress report out Friday.

    https://phys.org/news/2023-09-world-falling-dangerously-short-climate.html

    1. “Cornucopians” used to refer to oily people who were sure that we’d always have enough oil & fossil fuels for whatever we needed. Is this a new definition?

      1. No cornucopian is a label given to individuals who assert that environmental problems faced by society either do not exist or can be solved by technology or the free market. The second part of the cornucopian dissent has to do with the effects of population growth. Cornucopians note that although population has increased rapidly since 1800, so has the standard of living. Some cornucopians even assert that population growth might actually improve the human condition, given the increase in goods and services over time. ENCYCLOPAEDIA BRITANNICA

        1. Ah.

          Well, this definition seems to add up to passivity: cornucopians think that something (the invisible hand, technology, the free market, etc) will take care of our problems and we don’t need to worry about them or take action.

          And that suggests, Doug, that you agree that we should take concerted, political action to deal with climate change. That’s great.

            2. It means you’re being unbearably naïve, like you’re not even on the same planet as me or people I know.

              It’s like how Bidenomics has made everything super great, or how Brexit was a turning point for Brits’ fortunes. Except, reality is everything is shitter and getting shittier.

              It’s not even like the MSM even bother anymore. Some of the stories about how actually everything is okay and fine, just ignore the wildfires, the energy poverty, the decline in car ownership linked to loss of disposable income at the same time public transport is massively underfunded, the crumbling infrastructure that no one can afford to replace, the financialisation of everything leading to the global system becoming highly unstable, the horrific collapse in the biosphere, the Ukraine war being a massive clusterfuck and much, much more.

              I don’t blame you. It’s comforting to not to acknowledge these things. But seriously, take a look around. When I hear how RE is going to solve everything, I kinda just tune out. It’s no different to the system screwing up nuclear power decades ago, and now everyone is losing their shit over fusion test sites making enough energy to boil a kettle, or superconductor papers that turn out to be utterly bogus. We already had solutions and ways of avoiding all this, we just didn’t because the system absolutely isn’t interested in that route.

              The wind turbine auction failure the other day in the UK because the prices to sell energy were way too low compared to gas made me laugh. And I live in an area that is the most water stressed in the UK, and the gov’t wants another 250k homes built here and more industry to further build out Silicon Fen and get all in on AI. I did a hearty Joker laugh to that too. Oh, turns out we also build thousands of buildings out of bubbly concrete that just suddenly fails after 30 years and kills people, a thing we knew about in the mid-’90s and we did… nothing. Now we’re all scrambling to close countless schools and hospitals and council buildings because it just became a problem right this second.

              Everything is so dumb and broken, I wonder how anyone manages to avoid it still and act like there’s a plan. There isn’t. We’re riding this driverless bus off the cliff and, by golly, I’m going to just kick back and see how demented it gets.

            3. Nick doesn’t talk about UK. Nick cherry picks morsels of positive seeming US data and then seems to discuss things as if it applies to the entire planet. China could build 200 coal plants, but if USA dismantles one it would be sold by Nick as gLoBaL PrOgReSs, so to speak. Many Americans are toilet trained to think they are the world.

              Here Nick states “Eliminate fossil fuels, and we’re no longer in overshoot”
              https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-december-17-2021/#comment-731835

              I tend to agree, but it’ll be due to a massive population contraction secondary to famine. Nick perhaps seems to think everyone will remain well fed without FF, which beggars belief.

              Peak oil is peak food.
              Peak food is peak people.
              This is because modern agriculture uses hydrocarbons to produce carbohydrates; then, carbohydrates and more hydrocarbons are used to produce animal protein. It’s easy to see. I wonder if Nick is vegan.

            4. “The wind turbine auction failure the other day in the UK because the prices to sell energy were way too low compared to gas made me laugh.”

              A few comments on this
              -Nat Gas is as cheap as it ever will be. Enjoy the low prices while they last. Depletion does not sleep
              -the higher prices for offshore wind generation are likely a true representation of the rising costs of all manufactured goods using things like steel, concrete, copper, plastics and various other minerals. It is unlikely that prices for this energy will ever be as low as they had been in the past five years.
              -nonetheless a country like UK has no better choice for spending on a replacement to fossil fuel than offshore wind….not solar, not nuclear fission or fusion, not geothermal, not coal, and not conquering new lands with vulnerable indigenous peoples as they have in the past.
              -these considerations or observations supports the notion that energy is going to get much more expensive for most people of the world, with a few exceptions…
              1- Those who can install their own solar power station in a sunnyish area where they own the system stand to do relatively very well over the next 30 years on energy cost and security. About 80% of the worlds people do live in sunny enough areas, I guess. Just how how many securely own their personal sunny roof or open space and can afford a big enough system to handle their energy requirements is a big question mark.
              2- Some poor countries have had very poor energy availability and that very well might improve. Example- Ethiopia is the 11th biggest country in the world, as big as France and UK combined, and have very little energy/person. The new dam on the blue Nile will more than double the electricity per person. And the solar potential of the country is huge. The citizens will likely enjoy a big expansion in affordable energy compared to what has been available up to now, since they are starting from such a low step.

            5. “unless you know more than UN climate scientists “

              Climate scientists will no longer be relied on the way that science is now proceeding. Hi-tech companies such as NVidia, Huawei, Google, are starting to report groundbreaking climate and weather predictions based on their computing and artificial intelligence technology. This is no longer the conventional climate science community that will be at the forefront of research.

              This new climate science prof offered up this observation:

              Astonished by several studies presented at a #ML workshop for Earth system #prediction.

              I – maybe the entire academia & industry – greatly underestimated the stride that ML models could achieve in two years.

              This time it is at time scales including but also well beyond the medium range (~2 weeks).

              One attendee joked that a newly surfaced study killed 100 PhD dissertations. It’s not an overstatement for #climate modeling & applications.

              https://twitter.com/GabrielZ_Storm/status/1699131864940712388

            6. Cornucopian, label given to individuals who assert that the problems faced by society either do not exist or can be solved by technology or the free market.

            7. Whoa. Too much to reply to. A few things:

              ” Except, reality is everything is shitter and getting shittier.”

              No, it’s really not. OTOH, we have lots of things that are bad. That’s true with FF, and it will be true with renewable energy. Renewable energy doesn’t cure cancer, it doesn’t fix income inequality, it doesn’t indict Trump. It just replaces FF.

              “Peak oil is peak food.
              Peak food is peak people.
              This is because modern agriculture uses hydrocarbons to produce carbohydrates; then, carbohydrates and more hydrocarbons are used to produce animal protein. It’s easy to see. ”

              It’s easy to see if FF is essential. If tractors can run on electricity, H2 or synthetic fuel, then no. If fertilizer can come from renewably generated H2, then no.

              Seriously: FF isn’t magic. It’s dirty, it’s unreliable (how many recessions were caused by oil shocks?), it’s expensive. It comes from a relatively narrow selection of places, many of them run by dictators who don’t like the countries they sell to.

              Renewables are cheaper, more reliable, easier and more widely available, non-depleting and much cleaner.

              The FF industry would love to sell everyone on the idea that they’re essential and that we’re all doomed without them. It’s not so.

            8. “Climate scientist Michael Mann is possibly best known for the iconic “hockey stick” graph published in 1998 that showed the steep rise in planetary temperatures.

              He was also one of the targets of a massive email hack dubbed “Climategate” aimed at discrediting climate scientists.

              As a result of all this he gained an intimate knowledge of the strategies of those who are attempting to resist climate action — climate change deniers, and those trying to derail the political and social changes necessary to fight climate change.

              There are powerful vested interests who have seen it as advantageous to their agenda, to discredit science and to discredit the message of science. ”

              Take me through some of the false narratives that you’re trying to debunk about climate change.

              “So this is one important narrative: doom and gloom, despair mongering. There are climate advocates who, you know, of good intentions, of goodwill, who have come to believe that it’s too late to do anything about the problem.

              That’s very dangerous because first of all, it’s not true. The science indicates otherwise. The science indicates that if we reduce our carbon emissions dramatically, we can avert the worst impacts of climate change. For example, this idea that global warming is now unstoppable, that warming is going to release so much methane from the Arctic that it will warm the planet beyond habitable levels. There is no scientific support for that contention.
              A lot of the folks who fall victim to the doom and gloom are, again, of good intentions, of good will. But they’re being weaponized. The inactivists love that narrative because they don’t care about the path you take to inaction, whether it’s outright denial of the science or denial that there’s any possibility of doing anything about the problem. ”

              https://www.cbc.ca/radio/quirks/jan-30-new-climate-war-tactics-lizard-burrows-are-wildlife-condos-sleep-lunacy-and-more-1.5889807/prominent-climatologist-behind-hockey-stick-graph-talks-about-the-new-climate-war-1.5889809

            9. Michael Mann is typical of climate scientists that talk up a good story but aren’t making progress in understanding the complexities of the climate. He claims to have coined the description of the Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (AMO). However, recently he has backpedaled from that definition and says that it is no longer even an oscillation (chatGPT response link).

              Mann seems to be second-guessing himself .. whatever. Let’s look to see if we can actually fit the AMO as a fluid dynamics response to a cyclic forcing. Everything in the ocean is forced, as it clearly won’t spontaneously start oscillating. This is a tidal forcing calibrated to the Earth’s rotational speed variations
              https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2855758/266798980-d2630119-584b-4e94-9dbd-c2f95874b33c.png
              The ocean responds to this with a nonlinear modulation which is straightforward to lock in
              https://user-images.githubusercontent.com/2855758/266798825-1eea4f35-369d-448d-8d21-e5662ce29655.png

              Note that a region can be left out of the fitting interval, which can be used as a cross-validation of the model itself.

              This procedure we developed is complementary to those that are being used by machine learning runs to learn climate behavior. They will soon catch up when they realize how easily tidal forcing explains the oscillations observed.

  18. Hi Doug L,

    I’m with you, and with the scientific consensus all the way, in general terms. I frequently post that I believe huge numbers of people, maybe even most of us, will die hard before the end of this century, because the overshoot cake is in a hot oven, so to speak.

    It’s not yet quite fully baked, but it will be, over the next few decades. The Four Horsemen are ready and waiting in the wings. Right now they’re only going out here and there, in a many of speaking, to keep in training for the big show coming within the lifetime of today’s youngsters.

    But I also believe that although the climate IS going nuts that there’s a real possibility, even a probability, given a little luck on the political front, that countries such as the USA, and possibly other powerful countries with lots of natural resources still available can pull thru the built in crash without giving up working electrical grids, working water and sewer, etc, and continue to have hospitals and stores with food, etc.

    It’s going to be tough as hell, and even we Yankees will have to get used to eating chicken rather than beef, and not all that much chicken, so far as that goes. People by the tens of millions will be thrown out of work, and the only way they will survive is if the government reorganizes the remains of the economy in a wartime model, providing work and welfare as necessary.

    Whether this WILL be done is an open question, but it’s possible.

    If it’s not done, my own tentative but well thought out last ditch plans to fort up with a few old buddies would have to be dusted off and put into operation………. but for one thing. I don’t expect the crisis to hit with in the next decade or so, and the odds one hundred percent that I’ll be dead of old age within two decades at the upper limit.

  19. I remind you all that the 91 felony charges on Trumps head were not for
    shoplifting, or indecent exposure, embezzlement or false impersonation,
    public intoxication or false advertising, larceny, bribery or selling drugs.
    Or simply his rotten-to-the-core character.

    Rather, most of the charges are related to an attempt to subvert our 234 year old democracy,
    and for the first time interrupt the peaceful transfer of power to new leadership duly elected
    by the citizenry of the country.

    Its not complicated, so even the people who like things real simple can understand this.
    Law and Order applies to Trump, Fox, and that whole crowd,
    and not just to you and me, and all the other people walking the street and working their jobs.

    1. Gonna be amazing when he becomes POTUS again next year from a selection of potential prison cells on offer.

      You guys at least have interesting leaders waiting in the wings. We have Sunak, the billionaire’s favoured non-white actor in power, and Kier Starmer, who is trying to out right-wing the Tories to gain votes after murdering the left of the party.

      We can’t even afford to have even lip service paid to anything other than more neoliberal bullshit. It’s super depressing to see the left get removed fully and the libs and alt-right basically take the reins.

  20. Interesting article for those who follow Chinese coal trends. Not good news for planet!

    WHAT IS CAUSING THE RECORD RISE IN BOTH CHINA’S COAL PRODUCTION AND IMPORTS?

    “In the first four months of the year, China’s coal imports increased no less than 89% year-on-year. The increase continued in April with a 73% increase year-on-year. This seems paradoxical because domestic coal supply has increased sharply recently, growing 10.5% in 2022 and 5.5% in the first quarter of 2023. At the same time, total coal consumption increased by 4.3% in 2022 and 3.6% in the first quarter of 2023. Thermal power generation, the main user of imported coal, increased 1.4% year-on-year in 2022 and 1.7% in the first quarter of 2023.”

    https://energyandcleanair.org/record-rise-in-chinas-coal-production-and-imports/

      1. Modi leading this explains the delusion and incompetence.
        Come now India, you can do a lot better!

        1. Too busy rallying the nationalist ghouls to make India strong and stable.

    1. It’s fine. The Sahel losing a load of people because of famine is nothing to worry about because it’s over there with brown people.

      Let me know when NYC runs out or something. Then I guess we can devote a 60 Minutes segment to it. Assuming there isn’t better celebrity news.

  22. I can’t be bothered answering all the BS from Nick G in so many posts above, about how cheap and easy renewables are. I just continue to have the one major question that continually goes unanswered by the cornucopian crowd…

    What is the EROEI of solar, wind and nuclear built entirely from electricity? Show me one paper from anywhere that has that type of calculation, because without it, it’s all just bullshit!!

    We need to mine all the minerals before we can build out a renewable or nuclear system, yet the grades of all minerals are continuing to fall, meaning more energy to just maintain production (think copper), the mines are becoming on average more remote, needing vast quantities of diesel to build and operate and accompanying processing plants. The concentrates then need to be transported by diesel powered trucks, to ports where bunker fueled ships transport the concentrates to (mostly) China where more diesel is used to transport to smelters operated with coking coal and gas to provide the raw ingredients to the manufacturers.

    None of the existing research shows it’s possible to run the world just on renewables and nuclear, while showing how to get there. The above pathways to create the pure minerals is assumed to continue BAU (business as usual) Everything is a simple solution to those that don’t understand the complexity of the entire system and how everything needs to operate in a normal manner, of continual expansion, for a huge increase in any one particular industry.

    Every advocate for renewables or nuclear is a person that expects the normal course of business to continue, which means more coal, more oil and more gas use, just like the last couple of decades for any of it to be possible.

    To suddenly quell fossil fuel use would mean huge increases in prices for everything that relies on fossil fuels, so by simple economics the trend of lower prices for renewables would reverse very rapidly as they are totally reliant on fossil fuels for all the mining, processing, transport, smelting, manufacturing then distribution.

    No aluminium smelter not associated with hydro power is going to sign a supply agreement with wind or solar in a totally free market. They rely on continuous power or damage the pots in the production process. They would sign for coal and gas if they had the totally free market choice. They don’t get the choice as they have to go green by government mandates, but the underlying assumption is that gas and coal will pick up any slack so they can continue to run continuously, otherwise they just shut down.

    Renewables are clearly only cheaper because of market rules, plus subsidies and tax credits are continually offered. In a full free market every manufacturing business would choose to sign long term contracts with those that offered as near as possible continuous power.

    Renewables and nuclear are just more business as usual while we continue to squeeze the living daylights out of all natural systems, making the long term future a lot worse in terms of biodiversity, pollution, over population and climate. All we are doing is making more appliances (turbines, solar panels, heat pumps, batteries), to keep the industrial system growing.

    It’s just a massive collective denial of the much lower living standards ahead for humanity on average, plus the huge reductionist event that comes with rapidly lower energy use (think food, shelter, education, health), while most of the worlds population never were able to enjoy the modern comforts of everyone capable of reading this post.

    1. Look, I’m fed up of you doomers talking about this thing. Why can’t you just accept that REs are so cheap and plentiful and bootstrapping their growth all the time? What do you mean it’s additive to sum energy globally used? Speak sense!

      No, don’t look over there at that coal plant construction! It’s a stranded asset just waiting to happen. No, I don’t know how much an EV is in your country, but my Polestar 2 is amazing and my golf club pals love their Teslas. You should all get one and I’ve converted my holiday home in Malibu to have fully solar chargers for my cars there too. Thanks, Bidenomics!

      Now if you’ll excuse me, I need to have a meeting for securing funding for my direct air capture train concept. I’m super excited this will get us to net zero by 2030, thus solving the problem of climate change and ecological collapse and capitalism’s innate seeds of its own destruction once and for all.

  23. “And that suggests, Doug, that you agree that we should take concerted, political action to deal with climate change. That’s great.” ~ Nick

    https://peakoilbarrel.com/open-thread-non-petroleum-september-6/#comment-763058

    I agree, too, Nick. That’s why I vote for the Green Party.

    Biden Administration Oil, Gas Drilling Approvals Outpace Trump’s
    https://biologicaldiversity.org/w/news/press-releases/biden-administration-oil-gas-drilling-approvals-outpace-trumps-2023-01-24/

    Care to join me in voting for the Green Party, Nick; or maybe that’s not your kinda concerted political action?

    1. SURVIVALIST- “just needs more EVs, Problem solved”

      You can’t have it both ways. Driving around in your 20 year old fossil fuel burner. Pretending to care by uselessly voting for a party with the word “Green” in it. Then condemn what is needed to support your addiction. You can lead or follow and complain. Let’s see your list of solutions for the masses. Backseat criticizing and hiding in the woods doesn’t fix anything. You can pretend humanity isn’t part of your future 200 year old squirrel eating family, but your just kidding yourself to justify previous poor decisions. The next wildfire could burn down your dream. Your not as smart as you think you are. Just mostly selfish. You will be long dead before starvation in America reaches your dream scenario. That’s why you now have to move your dream out to 200 years into the future. Simple mission creep denial. You offer nothing but self gratification and demonization. You don’t stand up to your pretend standards. If your genes make it though the future bottleneck, it will be a setback to the evolution of humanity.

      1. Is that you, Fred; goalkeeping for Nick, again?

        Once again, a Biden Bro troll in denial who asserts that one’s predictions of the future are synonymous with ones desired outcomes (very Fred Magyar). I suppose, for some, that ad hominem and “argument by assertion” can’t be avoided. A few references might be nice, though.

        I can guarantee my fossil fuel footprint is smaller than anyone’s here, including yours. It’s minuscule compared to Elon Musk’s, and his dozen children; the youngest being named Techno Mechanicus.

        Your black and white reasoning clearly communicates massive deficiencies in both basic intelligence and interpersonal ability. Not exactly captain of the debate club, are you?

        Climate change threatens to cause ‘synchronised harvest failures’ across the globe, with implications for Australia’s food security
        https://theconversation.com/climate-change-threatens-to-cause-synchronised-harvest-failures-across-the-globe-with-implications-for-australias-food-security-209250

        Enjoy the famine, Fred. It’s coming whether you, or I, like it or not. You can’t wish it away, nor will voting Democrat or buying an EV do much either. Your idiocy beggars belief.

        Wildfire will have no impact on my retreat’s structures.
        https://www.fs.usda.gov/research/treesearch/28574

        Ring the bell, schools in.

        1. More assumptions and no facts:

          “I can guarantee my fossil fuel footprint is smaller than anyone’s here. Including yours”

          “Enjoy the famine”

          “Is that you, Fred?”

          More self gratification and demonization:

          “Your black and white reasoning clearly communicates massive deficiencies in both basic intelligence and interpersonal ability. Not exactly captain of the debate club, are you?”

          “Your idiocy beggars belief”

          “Ring the bell, schools in”

          You’re a bully and need help

            1. Have we tried voting for climate change to stop? Seems like that may be important.

            2. It perhaps seems that’s what they think voting Democrat is going to do.

            4. “Pepsi and Pepsi Lite”

              If you see merit in that statement , and truly can’t see a 3000 mile wide chasm between these two party policies on dozens of extremely important issues,
              then you are either blind or of extremely low intelligence level (even if you have been to school).
              On this kind of blindness…many call it Willful Ignorance.

            5. The Dems and the GOP are the same functionally. Fight me.

              And if you live outside the US, we especially hate the Dems right now.

              I can’t wait for the Tories to get kicked out here only for Labour to come in and outdo them on shitty policies. But oh, they pay lip service to the economy and LGB rights and whatever. So I guess they’re better in their PR for kicking the can down the road?

    1. No one loves brain cancer, but a lot of people got addicted to it.

      I can thank Elon for imploding Twitter, I guess. Swings and roundabouts.

  25. Grim news from up here:

    CANADA’S WILDFIRE EMISSIONS SKYROCKET AS FIRES SPREAD

    This season, some 59,230 square miles have burned across the country in a national disaster worsened by climate change. The affected area is larger than the state of Iowa.

    • Recently, large communities have been evacuated, and the province of British Columbia has declared a state of emergency and military deployed.
    • With the blazes — which began unusually early amid a dry and hot spring in western Canada — have come ever-climbing amounts of carbon dioxide, soot, methane and other harmful emissions.
    • The carbon emissions amount to more than double the previous Canadian annual total estimated fire emissions record. According to estimates from the Copernicus Atmospheric Monitoring Service, part of the European Center for Medium Range Weather Forecasts, the fires have spewed about 355 megatonnes of carbon through Aug. 21.

    https://www.axios.com/2023/08/23/canada-wildfires-carbon-emissions

  26. Comment on commentary
    Many people who have posted (including myself) indicate that the positions taken by Nick are unrealistic, failing to take into account many limitations and being overly optimistic about technologies and transition mechanisms.
    While I believe that there is lack of realism or understanding expressed, and that some glorious combination of adaptation and collective positive thinking and action is extremely unlikely to avert a tragic ‘limits to growth’ head on crash into the concrete wall which will put literally billions of people at risk of backsliding into more severe poverty and worse (including collapse of nations into a state of severe disorder),
    nonetheless I wholeheartedly agree with Nick on many specific points.
    Those points are centered on the measures needed to attempt an adaptive response to the challenges we see coming. It would be extreme foolishness to deny that the abundant fossil fuel era has an impending end, and to just pretend that humanity will not work hard to implement a transition mechanism to the twin problems of climate change and peak fossil energy.
    And we should acknowledge the distinct possibility that some pockets of humanity will achieve a considerable degree of success in these adaptation efforts, especially if they have a strong collective mindfulness about the situation. While I have not been accused of inappropriate optimism by those who know me, I nonetheless embrace many of the transition attempt mechanism simply on a pragmatic basis.

    What none of these adaptation attempts will solve is the population Overshoot problem, which along with the resultant problem of ecological destruction, is the problem at the core of everything.

    1. “What none of these adaptation attempts will solve is the population Overshoot problem, which along with the resultant problem of ecological destruction, is the problem at the core of everything.”

      Spot on Hick. All these “high tech” solutions are basically BAU. One obvious tragedy where I live is the destruction of insect populations as beef ranches, orchards and grape plantations consume more-and-more “wild” land. Chemical sprays to facilitate these enterprises have made it impossible for insects to live in harmony with humans. As insects disappear so do birds, fish, reptiles, etc. Our land has become a patchwork of businesses all designed to facilitate an ever increasing number of people on planet Earth: eight billion and counting!

      1. So you are telling me 8 billion people in a collapsing ecosystem is a problem?

          1. I have a market based solution utilising AI and the power of the blockchain seeking funding that will right this wrong lickety-split.

            2. Thorium? But I can’t sell my plutonium waste to the MIC if I use that.

    2. Mother Nature has her own well tested and one hundred percent effective ways of dealing with the population problem. We have a short hand term for it……. FOUR HORSEMEN.

      It’s never failed, and it’s not going to fail just because we’re naked apes.

      Just about all the regulars here know this very well.

      The thing that both amuses and frustrates the hell out of me is that hardly anybody here seems to have any sense of history, other than to interpret it to suit his own prejudices.

      I used to have the same problem. Back in the old TOD days, I was utterly convinced that life as we know it was DONE, that you could stick a fork in it and it would fall apart.

      Nowadays I still believe in what I learned in biology classes, and in reading a few dozen books written by giants in the field, such as EO Wilson.

      The truth, as Yogi was fond of saying, is that predicting is hard, “specially the future, paraphrased.

      The TRUTH is that none of us, NOBODY at all, can predict the future in detail.

      Nobody at all can be SURE, for instance that the population problem won’t solve itself, because the birth rate could CONCEIVABLY fall even faster than it has BEEN falling, and it’s already below replacement level in most of the developed world. OMBAU might conceivably stay on his feet long enough for the population in most of the world to peak and decline.

      Now I don’t BELIEVE this will happen, but I’m OPEN MINDED enough to at least realize it COULD happen.

      I’m also open minded enough, and I’ve read ENOUGH science fiction, and ENOUGH history, BOTH, to know that while the free market and the invisible hand aren’t omnipotent, there’s a real possibility that scientists and business men can and will solve some or all of our toughest nut problems.

      Now I’m personally convinced that this cornucopian scenario will not come to pass before Mother Nature deals with our overshoot problem her own impartial way. I’m convinced that one hell of a lot of us, maybe most of us, will die hard before this century is out.

      IF you believe that we’re looking at civilization as we know it, life as we know it as DOOMED, because there isn’t time enough nor resources enough to solve our many existential problems, I must say that you MAY BE RIGHT.

      I BELIEVE (rhetorical ) you ARE right in terms of the world wide population crashing within this century, the climate going nuts to some uncertain but catastrophic extent, etc.

      But if you believe that renewable energy CAN’T be scaled up to the point it can carry the load and support an industrial civilization providing a decent standard of living, all I can say is that you’re blind to the realities of history, and the possibilities of FUTURE history.

      I was once a hard core doomer myself, but the last thirty years or so have taught me something in the way of humility. I’m no longer afraid to admit that I have BEEN wrong on the grand scale, or that I might be wrong now.

      I’ve plowed with a mule, and I’ve lived to see a tractor drive itself via gps.

      We went from horse and mule power in my Dad’s generation to machines on OUR two bit farm with TWO HUNDRED and FIFTY horsepower.

      I’ve lived to see things that used to be imaginary, such as wrist radio’s in the comics become realities.

      I have a house full of hand made furniture, each piece representing a month’s work by an artisan using only hand tools. I’ve worked in a furniture factory where up to FIFTY pieces went out the door every day for each employee on the payroll.

      I’ve worked in a mine, where stone is crushed into gravel. The crusher and all the conveyers ran on electricity as far back as WWII. The loader will be electrified pretty soon, and it’s altogether possible that the trucks will likewise be electrified, if diesel gets to be too expensive…….. and guess what?

      This hundred acre mine operation shuts down and the owner MOVES the machinery to another location every once in a while, having stockpiled enough gravel to meet local market needs for a while. It could run on solar electricity if necessary.

      I raised crops that didn’t exist when I was a kid…. such as hybrids created starting with peaches and plums.

      When I was a freshman student at the local ” cow college ” aka land grant U, I was allowed to LOOK at a computer that filled a LARGE room thru a locked door, by appointment. I’m using one RIGHT NOW that cost me less than one day’s work, used, at going trade wages in my area, that has more power. I have a phone in my pocket that probably has more power.

      I’ve seen the wind and solar power industries grow from curiosities into industrial giants growing faster than any other heavy industry in the world.

      And I might yet see enough Pearl Harbor Wake Up Events, sharp pieces of bricks landing upside our collective heads, to get our attention as Leviathans, nation states, so as to do what’s NECESSARY, what we MUST do, to successfully transition to a renewable energy economy.

      And what would that be?

      My personal guess is that diverting a third of what we spend on military hardware and personnel would be enough to speed up the transition to the point we could mostly be finished within a generation or two, at least in modern well developed countries.

      Mother Nature will solve the overshoot problem for every body else, but as some pirate once famously said, the only problem with making a man walk the plank is that de doesn’t live to benefit from the lesson.

      The tongue in cheek sci fi story about an automated factory with only one man and a dog in it, his job being to keep an eye on things, and the dog’s job being to make sure he doesn’t TOUCH anything, is a potential reality, if not today, certainly within the next decade or two.

      There’s NOTHING in physics indicating we can’t go entirely renewable. I don’t believe there’s anything in geology, referring to raw materials, that means it’s impossible.

      Do I believe it WILL happen? I’m now old enough and humble enough to admit I don’t KNOW, either way.

      But I’m with Nick.

      It’s not impossible.

      1. I don’t doubt those things.
        I do point out that its going to be a much smaller population that achieves a post fossil fuel era economic life.
        And the getting from here to there has the risk of being the most massive collective episode of disruption in human history.
        Humans don’t do downsizing gracefully or voluntarily.
        Certain populations have been through hell in the past, sometimes even with survivors. We even know a few details of some of those stories.
        For many people it is already happening right now.

        Some people who live in pleasant bubbles will be able say to themselves that everything is ok.

        1. Back atcha Hickory,

          You’re generally dead on, ditto this time.

          The baked in crash headed our species way is going to be the biggest ever by by a factor of ten maybe up to several times that, compared to WWII, for a wild assed guess..

          There will be war, famine, plague, slavery, mass murder, misery of every sort on the BIBLICAL scale.

          The biggest question as to how it will play out, in general terms, in my own mind, is whether it will be mostly piecemeal, or whether it will morph into a more or less world wide storm of destruction as industries collapse.

          We are probably shit out of luck even here in the USA if such wars morph into WWIII.

          ENOUGH nukes and or disease bombs will get thru whatever defenses we have to destroy our industrial infrastructure to the point I’ll die myself, if I’m still around, being too old to do the physical work necessary to live as my great grand parents lived…… without electricity, ice engines, etc.

          Lots of countries may see their only two options as starving in place due to a lack of earnings to buy food, if any food is available for sale, or going to war hoping to take whatever they can by force. They’ll go to war with whatever they have…… and it won’t be pretty at all. Massacres are inevitable…… genocide is the usual more civilized term.

          It’s very likely imo that a substantial portion of the population of some countries and some geographical regions will mostly die in place, simply because they aren’t considered to be WORTH the cost of either relief or invasion to seize whatever resources they may have.

          Crop failures in such places may wipe out anywhere from ten percent of the population on up. If half the people die is a given year, the ones who live may succeed in growing enough the following season to live on…. unless growing conditions get even worse.

          And it’s inevitable that the climate IS going to get worse, but not necessarily on a local basis year to year.

          My own wild ass guess is that anywhere from a few hundred million to maybe a billion of us, globally, with luck, can pull thru while still having something of an industrially based civilization.

          Depending on how bad the climate gets, another billion or two people may survive living something along the lines of a historical serf’s peasant life style in places where subsistence agriculture and low tech industries are possible.

          2. Yes OFM…I think the trajectory we are on has a big chance of landing on scenarios you call out.
            And I understand why someone like Nick, and most people, would like to do whatever mind work it takes to avoid confronting the possibilities of this path. I’m in that crowd too, most of the day.
            I bring up the point that even today, before peak energy and before climate change economic damage is big, that we have a billion people on marginal survival footing and another couple billion who aren’t far from that status.
            Even a little failure of current systems of food supply, economic function and civil stability is a massive problem.

            And regarding the problems called out by the article that Doug linked…just the beginning.

          3. Civilisations are based on cultivating and storing grains. With three or more degrees of global warming the climate will be too unstable to allow sufficiently reliable harvests for long term settlements, even if there are areas where the topsoil has not been so degraded as to be infertile without large doses of industrial fertiliser (Antarctica and Greenland will still be ice covered for centuries yet).

  27. Nick, Fred Magyar, Madeline, and a few other techno-cornucopians/collapse denialists here over the years have expressed the same very specific argument; that one’s predictions for the future are synonymous with one’s desires for the future, and then use it as a basis for anti-rural ad hom. It’s a foolishly specific line of reasoning, yet it is one they all share. I submit that it’s the same person using different monikers; certainly urban, likely a Gen Z.

  28. Peak oil is peak food.
    Peak food is peak people.

    I wonder if that’s even true. A lot of the food resources in the world are used on meat. Before the great massacre, there are said to have been about 30 million bison in in North America. Now there are about 29 million cattle. There are maybe a billion and a half chickens as well, but there used to be 5 billion passenger pigeons.
    There are also pigs of course, but deer and wild pig populations used to be significantly higher.

    And of course the rivers and lakes used to be full of fish and fowl, and there were millions of beaver maintaining habitats for them. All these populations have fallen dramatically in the last 200 years or so.

    So North America was able to maintain a similar quantity of edible animal biomass on foraging and zero chemical inputs that it does now with grain-fed livestock and vast petrochemical inputs.

    Part of the problem is desertification and soil depletion, but part of it is just bad farming techniques, like ploughing up the land every year which further depletes the soil.

    1. In several years you’ll know whether it’s true or not. All the best.

      1. We may never know. It depends on whether good agricultural practices are adopted in the next few years or not. There’s no question that physical reality has many more possibilities than current technology, and there’s no question that current farming practices are ludicrously inefficient. Will mankind save itself with by adopting better practices? Maybe.

        Another possibility is that meat substitutes and lab-grown meat replace the meat industry. If so, then we won’t need all that inefficient livestock anyway.

        Another possibility is that people lose their appetite for meat. This is already happening, as highly processed meat (like hamburgers and chicken nuggets) is increasingly preferred to meat with skin bones and fat.

        Choice cuts like tongue, liver and kidney are mostly seen as disgusting by the younger generation. This makes it easier for the processed food industry to introduce meat-like products made of grain and legumes and a much lower price point than meat products.

        1. Meat is vanishing one way or another. It’s a dice roll if we have a stable climate even a decade from now that enables global agriculture to feed us all.

          https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YToMoNPwTFc

          That video is the best part of a decade old and is already more optimistic than what’s actually happening. Aged like a fine milk.

        2. We’ll know if peak oil is peak food soon after peak oil occurs. Perhaps within several years.

    2. I’m a pro farmer, university trained, with a lifetime of hands on experience, interrupted at frequent intervals of course, to live in the city, or work in various industries as opportunities offered that matched my need for work.

      Fossil fuel IS food, in de facto terms, in respect to the way we obtain the necessary feedstocks, grow it, process it and deliver it in modern well developed countries.

      But we can and will have enough fossil fuel, and all the other necessary feed stocks to keep the food machine well greased and running smoothly, in general terms, indefinitely.

      WHY?

      These fuels and feed stocks will be DIVERTED as necessary for use growing and distributing food.

      And unless the young people of the entire civilized world are by some ( to me) unimaginable trickery convinced to start cranking out babies assembly line fashion, the population that COUNTS in terms of maintaining industrial civilization with electricity, water and sewer, food in the stores, cops on the street, is going to peak within the lifetimes of a lot of people reading this forum today.

      ( And as far as the rest of the world is concerned, well, they’ll either make it, or the won’t. I personally expect that the populations of quite a few impoverished and resource poor countries won’t just peak, they’ll CRASH. HARD.

      Forgive me for being a REALIST. I’m not paying the least bit of attention to moralistic lectures.

      But I will do what I can to support such people, which is very little, other than support any public or private policies that help them REDUCE THEIR BIRTH RATES. )

      With a little bit of luck, we’ll avoid WWIII.

      If the climate goes haywire, we Yankees and other Westerners may have to eat mostly beans, potatoes, onions, cabbage, maybe a little chicken, but that won’t kill us……. we’ll actually live longer and healthier lives as a result.

      WE ARE ONE HELL OF LOT CLOSER TO PEAK POPULATION in the places that really COUNT, from the perspective of the kind of people who read this forum, than almost anybody would guess.

      READ THIS.

      https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-populist-right-want-you-make-more-babies-viktor-orban/

    3. When there were 30 million bison, there were not 350 million humans or a deeply degraded ecosystem. Fossil fuels have artificially multiplied ( short term) the carrying capacity, so I think eventually humans might get to eat in a manner similar to the Amerindians who lived here first, but I think we are pretty much at peak population right now.

      1. The UK and most of Europe had already denuded itself of major trees before even the 17th century, because of ship building and other construction. Imagine what would happen today if we tried to go back to the old ways.

      2. but I think we are pretty much at peak population right now.
        I think we will be at peak population just before the first mass die-offs: my guess at most likely candidate is the aftermath of some kind of massive crop failure.

        Without die-offs, the population will continue to grow, and I am quite certain that we will not reach the 10.4 billion plateau the UN projects for 2086.

        So we’re not there yet, but by gosh the Russians are giving it a go by laying waste to Ukrainian farming and shipping.

  29. I happen to own a condo in Maryland in a complex with 336 units and one in Myrtle Beach in a 128 unit complex. These were not built for an EV world. A few units could run an extension cord out their window to charge a car but otherwise millions would be required for an electrical up grading or I’d say NEVER. The best any of the owner could do is own a hybrid. This set of circumstances could be multiplied by the thousands across the USA.

    1. Yup.
      A lot of things aren’t going to be very easy or even feasible in a declining petrol world.
      I bet those condo owners won’t be able to find grazing for their horse within walking distance either.
      Bikes and electric car ride services like Uber/Lyft will be what people will more often be resorting to
      if they live packed tight like your condo situation.

      1. If there’s a parking spot for each condo, which seems to be the usual thing, except maybe in old converted office buildings, a dozen electricians and a crew of laborers could install a charging outlet at each parking spot for maybe a thousand bucks , maybe two thousand. The biggest problem would be trenching pavement to install underground lines and patching the pavement.That’s likely to be no more than a months rent, and it’s a permanent improvement for the life of the building.

        This kind of work goes from outrageously expensive to reasonably cheap when you do a lot of it over and over all at the same time in the same place.

        And in the case of new construction, the cost of having a place to plug in to charge overnight at each spot would probably fall to no more than a couple of hundred bucks.

        In any case I foresee most places of employment that provide employee parking having charging available as a cheap perk so as to make it easier to get help.

        Ditto stores, restaurants, and some professional offices. Such extra’s will be EXPECTED…. just as we expect restrooms today.

        There will be for pay charging stations available in lots of places. Nobody will be parking their diesel truck in such places……… because the OWNERS will have people who haven’t paid TOWED. There’s PLENTY of money to be made towing cars and holding them for storage. A small truck and one driver can easily gross well over a thousand bucks a day if he’s busy and the trips are short.

        Vandalism will result in automated calls for the cops and or owner’s security guys, and hidden cameras will get the necessary evidence.

        1. Mr OFM
          Two real world examples. In Maryland, in the last 2 years I had an A/C unit replaced, remove and replace $4500, gas water heater again remove and replace $1500 and lastly a garbage disposal $500. In South Carolina my neighbor just had her electric water heater replaced. $1800.
          Yes in Maryland we each have one assigned parking spot but parking in Myrtle Beach is random. They can be around the pool next to the dumpsters or across from the mail boxes. You really have no concept of the hardware and work involved. First off is the power available. Trenching, cabling , load centers, breakers and more. Purchase and maintenance of the chargers. And in the end how many will be used. As long as I have breath in me I will never own an EV.

          1. Yesterday there were a few oil puddles (2-4″ dia.) on my new-last-year driveway from my tenants car. He’s a computer dude, not a car dude, and didn’t realize it was leaking. We cleaned it off as well as possible – concrete is stained of course – and we put down some plastic and cardboard to catch the mess until he can get it fixed. Under the hood, everything is oil soaked. The serpentine belts having distributed it liberally; appears that it probably needs a new main seal. What a mess.

            Just one more reason I feel very lucky (along with low operating cost, low maintenance, and just plain convenience) to have an EV now. It’s been about five years since I’ve been to a petrol station. I sure don’t miss it.

            My brother who lives in one of my apartments in the same house also drives an EV. He feels the same way. He owns an auto repair shop that he’s run for decades. Sometimes a customer will tell him that they find it interesting that he drives an EV. His typical response is: “I hate working on cars.”

            To each his own ERVIN, but, your loss really. EV’s are great.

            1. I see EV’s as a transitional baby step in the direction of a different civilizational organization. What can’t continue won’t continue. In the post collapse scavenge economy, electric motors, photo-voltaics, and batteries will be prized commodities. Get them while you can!

          2. Hi Ervin,

            I’m actually proud of the fact that I’m a world class jackass of all trades. I’ve almost dead sure FORGOTTEN more about such things than you will ever dream of knowing.

            First off, I said that such work goes from being outrageously expensive to reasonable cheap if you do a hell of a lot of it at one time in one place.

            The examples you cite are one off jobs done by independent trades people…… not by industrial construction company CREWS. These people OWN their own little companies. They typically make a ton of money, several times what their skilled employees make.

            You’re talking going someplace to do something ONCE, with the labor and equipment efficiency being ten to maybe twenty percent of the efficiency of a CREW on a fair sized contracted job.

            I own a backhoe myself, and I’ve run trenching machines myself, and helped on paving crews a few times as well, being a rolling stone ready to work at anything for a buck if I’m free for a few weeks or months, ESPECIALLY if doing so is OJT, on the job training. This is how you GET to be a world class jackass of all trades, lol.

            I stand by the cost figure. There’s three or four estimates, or bids, on such a job, rather than a hundred for twenty small jobs. There’s a guy who brings the trencher, looks at the drawings, does the entire lot of it, in stages if necessary, and LEAVES. He doesn’t bring the machine a hundred times for a hundred unit building.

            Helpers or laborers in places where unions don’t control the electrical trade actually do most of the wiring work, under the supervision of maybe two qualified electricians, and then maybe four or five show up for a day or two to connect everything together and test it and get it inspected, and then the paving guys come and repair the paving.

            WHY? Because this means MORE money for the qualified electricians and the owner of the company, and helpers have to be trained in any case, on the job.

            For OVERNIGHT charging, as I specified, you need nothing more than a weather proof twenty amp outlet. These cost less than thirty bucks bought one at a time at a big box store.

            I’ve never worked on such a job, specifically, but anybody who has been in the construction trades of and on for decades will tell you I’m telling it like it is.

            Due to inflation, wages at given locations, a possible grid connection upgrade, etc, I might be off by a factor of three……. and rent at the beach for a nice place might also be six thousand rather than two, lol.

            The point is that it can be done at reasonable cost, considering that the people who live there are INEVITABLY going to be driving electric cars in more cases than not within ten to fifteen years.

            Whatever it costs, it will be far cheaper to do it than see the price of the units fail to go up in sync with the local housing market.

            I personally wouldn’t want to own a condo unless I happen to be DAMNED SURE the management will take care of such potential problems as ASSIGNING parking spaces.. by lottery if necessary, if no other means are available. Unit owners could then swap and sell among themselves.

  31. I don’t know if he’s nuts enough to actually use a nuke or two to hold onto Crimea and part of Ukraine.

    If he does, he’s done for, in terms of Russia ever being anything other than an impoverished pariah state, unless there’s a real revolution inside this miserable country. The best they could hope for would be to be a de facto Chinese colony.

    If he doesn’t, the Ukrainians are going to throw him out, assuming the West continues to support them with liberal supplies of weapons and other necessary materials.

    We live in interesting times.

    I personally see this support as a do it now or do it later when it will be twice as hard, maybe ten times as hard, if he’s allowed to get away with invading Ukraine, because he’ll be going for the other nearby smaller countries for sure.

  32. Most people in this forum apparently don’t have a clue as to just how close we may be to not having a population problem in the western world, not to mention some other places such as Japan.

    https://www.politico.eu/article/eu-populist-right-want-you-make-more-babies-viktor-orban/

    Old Man Business As Usual may survive is the West until we don’t need more houses, more highways, more water and sewage plants, more hospitals, air ports or just about anything else. We’ll be in a position to get along just fine by simply MAINTAINING what we have already, and replacing such stuff only as new technology renders the old obsolete.

    Maintenance costs peanuts compared to building from scratch.

    I’m NOT predicting a rosy future.

    But barring bad luck and lack of leadership, some of us in some places, maybe most of the modern Western world, have a shot at pulling thru the coming baked in economic and ecological crash not only alive but with working electricity, water, sewer, cops, food in stores.

    1. Thing of it is, growing the population wasn’t sustainable for obvious reasons (even if the new babies all consumed like your average sub-Saharan African, not an American or European). And neither is having your working population dwindle to the point where most of the momentum is in elderly folks accumulating and trying to be supposed by fewer, dare I say it, productive members.

      You’re going to have a bitter pill one way or another. Children Of Men like situations can come about via either scenario really.

    2. The problem with housing in rich countries is the rapidly shrinking household size. Lots of houses built for four people and not many apartments for two people means housing shortages even though the population and floor space don’t change.

  33. An open letter to Al Gore and John Kerry
    According to the Danish Meteorological Institute , the 2023 Arctic summer ice melt has ended with 5000 cubic kilometers in place. The Institute has been keeping a record of the Arctic ice mass for the last 65 years. I say to Al and John, better luck next year..

  35. I am in a bit of a predicament. On my right are those who think that climate change is a hoax, EVs are rubbish and renewable energy is a nonviable pipe dream. Among their claims is that all this is a socialist plot to rob them of their freedom to burn stuff if they so desire. These folks are unwilling to concede that their viewpoints just might be the result of a long established, well funded PR campaign to convince them as such. They are unwilling to accept that there are folks who have been raking in billions from the extraction and use of Fossil fuels that are more than willing to spend a minuscule fraction of their vast fortunes to convince people that climate change is a hoax, EVs are rubbish and renwables as well.

    Now it is typically the same set of folks that have objected to mask wearing, lock downs and vaccine mandates during the pandemic. Again they assert that their freedoms are being assailed. Some of them might claim that the public health response has been in lock step with the objective of the pharmaceutical industry to extract as much profit as they can from this pandemic. They might also claim that he public health and regulatory agencies have been the subject of regulatory capture by Big Pharma and therefore these agencies cannot be trusted to be acting in the best interest of the average citizen. They view the government as being in bed with Big Pharma and not worthy of their trust

    On my left are folks who think that climate change is a clear and present danger to life on earth as we know it. Their views are guide by academics and climate scientists that they consider to be untainted by the conflicts of interest that tend to show up in the work of those that contradict the assertion that an increase in atmospheric greenhouse gases is warming the planet. Typically these folks tend to support the adoption of renewable energy, EVs and other efforts to reduce carbon emissions. These folks generally hold the view that the FF industries have used their wealth to influence government policies with a view to remaining entrenched in human civilisation and as such obstruct the adoption of measures to reduce carbon dioxide emissions.

    This second group of people typically just happen to support mask wearing lock downs and vaccine mandates. They point to randomized control trials that prove one thing or another but, do not seem to see a conflict of interest in that the trials are funded and in many cases conducted by the same organisation that stands to benefit from the results of a given trial. This can be both in support of the approval of a new (patented) therapeutic or to show that a natural or an inexpensive alternative to a new drug is ineffective. They appear unwilling to concede that the pharmaceutical industry has a considerable amount of influence in the halls of most western governments and heavy influence over high impact medical journals as well as mainstream media. As a result they buy into whatever narrative is being put forward in the pursuance of public health despite the fact that the measures being adopted may result in immense profits for the pharmaceutical industry with questionable effects on actual outcomes.

    I have a considerable mistrust of large highly profitable corporations in that I do not trust them to do anything other than that which furthers their corporate interests regardless of whether it is the public good or not. The larger and more dominant the corporation the more skeptical I tend to be as a general principle. I tend to side with the people who do not stand to gain financially from their stance on particular issue, people with no obvious conflicts of interest.

    Hence my predicament. I agree with the relatively small group of doctors that have advocated early treatment for covid with vitamins, supplements and re purposed therapeutics. They have not benefited from their stance but, have instead been vilified, smeared, mocked, censored, de-platformed, removed from their posts and been threatened with de-certification by various licensing boards. They dare to challenge the dogma of the pharmaceutical industry they have paid a heavy price. Whatever they stand to gain from their efforts pales in comparison to the profits of the pharmaceutical industry and the remuneration of it’s executives. I am also on the side of the academics and scientists whose work on climate science does not find favour with FF interests. The idea that they are profiting from their work is preposterous. The income of these scientists pales in comparison to the FF corporations and their executives and owners.

    I have thus earned the wrath of those on my right and those on my left. So be it.

    1. You seem lost in a house of mirrors. Might want to question some of your base assumptions, rather than everyone else’s.

        1. In my reply to Iron Mike below, I linked to an article at the National Library of Medicine web site taken from a paper in the journal, Frontiers in Research Metrics and Analytics. The abstract reads:

          When a knowledge system importantly loses integrity, ceasing to provide the kinds of trusted knowledge expected of it, we can label this epistemic corruption. Epistemic corruption often occurs because the system has been co-opted for interests at odds with some of the central goals thought to lie behind it. There is now abundant evidence that the involvement of pharmaceutical companies corrupts medical science. Within the medical community, this is generally assumed to be the result of conflicts of interest. However, some important ways that the industry corrupts are not captured well by standard analyses in terms of conflicts of interest. It is not just that there is a body of medical science perverted by industry largesse. Instead, much of the corruption of medical science via the pharmaceutical industry happens through grafting activities: Pharmaceutical companies do their own research and smoothly integrate it with medical science, taking advantage of the legitimacy of the latter.

          I wouldn’t be so cocky about being epistemologically solid if I were you.

          1. Fact resistant human being; grasping at straws; you’re a fanatic.

            How the Cochrane Review went wrong. Report questioning COVID masks blows up, prompts apology

            https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/how-the-cochrane-review-went-wrong-report-questioning-covid-masks-blows-up-prompts-apology/article_80b67196-5872-5b1a-a208-b0a525f8de5b.amp.html

            The IEA has used covid-19 as another opportunity to brief against the NHS
            https://www.bmj.com/content/372/bmj.n697

            You’re anti-science COVIDiot.

            1. Why is it countries that had lockdowns and mask wearing had the highest death rates?

            2. What’s your conspiracy theory, dumbass?

              https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

              How many hospital beds per 1000 people do you think Peru has? Your idiocy beggars belief. You’re kinda making me look forward to the famine; the population bottleneck will likely select for intelligence. Sorry about your luck, Caelan.

            3. Charles —

              “In countries with cultural norms or government policies supporting public mask-wearing, per-capita coronavirus mortality increased on average by just 16.2% each week, as compared with 61.9% each week in remaining countries.” Please, enough anti-vax bullshit for one day.

            4. I just find it odd that someone who calls himself a “Survivalist” has so fervently married his health care to the fortunes of large, highly profitable corporations. That model of health care is unlikely to survive the collapse many of us here expect sooner or later. I would have thought a survivalist would have been far more into reducing any dependence they have on the pharmaceutical industries by researching the medicinal properties of many of the wild plants that they find around them.

              For example boneset (Eupatorium perfoliatum) was apparently introduced to European settlers in North America. From Wikipedia:

              Eupatorium perfoliatum (also called boneset) was used in traditional medicine by Native Americans who applied extracts for fever and common colds.[7][8] Possible effects of E. perfoliatum for these uses remain undefined by adequate scientific research, and are unconfirmed by high-quality clinical research.[7][8] If consumed in large amounts, tea made from its leaves may cause diarrhea.[7]

              Diarrhea is a sure sign that amounts of vitamin C over and above what the body can tolerate at a given point in time are consumed. One Dr. Fred Klenner who was an early pioneer in the use of vitamin C to treat illnesses was reprted to have assayed boneset tea for vitamin C; he found that a single cup contained 10 to 30 grams of the vitamin.

              One could easily dismiss all of this as horseshit but I would have thought that a survivalist would be very keen on such traditional approaches to treating ailments.

            5. What’s your recommended alternative?

              I worked ICU for quite some time, aka opulent tertiary healthcare. Volunteered for the Ebola team and everything. Opulent tertiary health care won’t last much longer. The most important thing I learnt in university was ‘don’t get sick’. And on that basis I wore a KN95 during the covid pandemic. Wearing a mask is harmless. A risk analysis of mask vs no mask for covid is fairly straight forward. Lots of people still wear masks, immunocompromised people, and those who care about them, for example.

              The youngest person I know personally to die of covid was 39. Lost his spleen due to a car accident. Other than that, fit as a fiddle.

              FWIW, common colds generally clear up quite well with no treatment at all.

            6. I love how in the year of our Lord 2023 we are still arguing COVID. It’s the gift that keeps on giving, truly.

            7. Anti maskers are down in the dirt dumb. But hey, don’t listen to me, I’ve allegedly hitched my wagon to big pharma lol what clown.

    2. Islandboy,

      My opinion:

      The system we live in is all about the bottom $.

      Have you considered the possibility that the FF industry is behind the opposition and advocacy of renewable energy. That way they make money for their shareholders eitherway. It’s the old hedging your bets based on the political climate no pun intended.

      You’ll notice the renewable crowd is largely pure virtue signalling bs. Their m.o is BAU. They don’t want to deal with the root of the problem, which happens to be BAU!

      In my opinion it’s exactly the same as a drug addict subsituting heroin for morphine. The addiction is not addressed which is the root of the issue.

      Anyways, morality has no place in this system. These faceless corporations will scrape the barrel by invading countries, stealing their resources, killing their civilians even sacrifice their own citizens as long as the almighty $ is made in a politically correct way.

      1. I find it hard to believe that the FF industries are playing both sides of the political fence. In the US, while they make political contributions to both sides, the donations skew very heavily right wing. Their dark money goes to think tanks like The Cato Institute, The Heartland Institute, The Institute for Energy Research, and political advocacy groups like Americans for Prosperity etc. See:

        https://www.theclimatechangereview.com/post/the-cost-of-conservative-fossil-fuel-think-tanks

        This influence stretches across the pond to the UK. See:

        https://www.opendemocracy.net/en/dark-money-investigations/think-tanks-adam-smith-policy-exchange-legatum-iea-taxpayers-alliance-climate-denial/

        The second link has alerted me to something I suspected when I posted a link in a comment further up about covid related matters. The Institute for Economic Affairs is a right wing think tank and therefore any “study” they produce is likely to be tainted. However this leads me to the idea that the very basis for evidence based medicine has been corrupted. A Google search for “has evidence based medicine been corrupted by the pharmaceutical industry” unearths a plethora of results including the following:

        Epistemic Corruption, the Pharmaceutical Industry, and the Body of Medical Science

        Ex-editor of NEJM tells how Big Pharma has corrupted academic institutions

        The illusion of evidence based medicine

        The last link was published by the British Medical Journal, no less and is the title of a 330 page book by the authors. Are all these articles the product of right wing think tanks? I think not but, the left appears to be totally ignoring this issue. A cursory read of this stuff should shake your belief in the very foundations of modern “evidence based medicine”.

        1. What left? All I see are libs and more fascist libs. In America, you have the Dems and the GOP. In the UK you have Labour and the Tories. In all cases, they were always right wing or had their left field candidates wiped out (thinking of you, Bernie and Jezza). Otherwise, they are different flavours of neoliberal boot licking shitheads.

          And yes, they all love corporate interests. As someone who has worked in the pharma industry, there is no love lost between them and me. They are always looking at the bottom line, so naturally, as with RE and FF interests, it’s about maintaining the bottom line and keeping profits up or diverting blame.

          Remember, it was BP that made the carbon footprint idea which was a great way of clouding peoples vision of the bigger picture.

          And don’t look at how much money insurance firms and Big Pharma put into capturing medical services.

          We’re all libs now, sucking on the teat of endless growth to the cost of all else.

  36. Of course there’s a substantial amount of systemic corruption in fields such as finance, insurance, medicine pharma, the MIC, military industrial complex, social services, and especially in fossil fuels.

    But taken all around, the medical establishment generally gets it right, although it’s BEHIND the times in a lot of cases by ten or even twenty years.This is to be EXPECTED. People who have been doing the same thing for years are reluctant to change their ways until they KNOW they’re behind the times, without a doubt.

    I’m qualified to have an opinion, because in cow college they teach the same basic principles involving the control of diseases, etc as they teach in medical school for people, and because I have medical professionals in my family.

    But I’m pretty much with Island Boy when it comes to big pharma. So is my personal physician.

  37. https://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-12504841/Worlds-largest-lithium-deposit-McDermitt-Caldera-US.html

    I’ve spent a good bit of time poking around looking into whether there’s enough economically viable rare earth deposits outside China to make it possible to get along without their exports.

    It’s obviously going to cost a hell of a lot to open lots of new mines all over, but in general terms, the ores are apparently out there if enough money is spent to get them out of the ground, and there ARE ways to work around needing them in large quantities.

    There are exceptions, but let’s not forget we are or will likely be in a position to play hardball, collectively, with the Chinese in years to come. They’re toast if they can’t sell to us, because it’s going to take decades at least to build a consumer economy of their own.

    Electric car motors for instance can work just fine without them, at the cost of being a little less efficient…….. and that’s something we can live with.

    I didn’t save it but I saw a link yesterday that somebody is setting up to build new electric car batteries using recycled materials.

    And it’s obvious that materials such as wind turbine blades can be economically recycled as well.

    Island Boy is right about fossil fuel industry propaganda. I strongly suspect that some of the regulars here have had a sip or two of fossil fuel kool aid themselves.

    We had an industrial civilization before we had computers. We could if there’s NO CHOICE have such a civilization again, at a far smaller scale, with a far smaller population, using very little in the way of fossil fuels, so that there would be enough to last for centuries at least, after the coming hard crash.

    1. I agree, we can go back to those good times.

      Just waiting on the excess 7.5 billion hangers on to vanish in a probably totally civil and ethical manner when we decide voluntarily to cut back on fossil fuel and/or food usage for the betterment of the planet.

      1. Mother Nature is an indifferent mother. She scatters eggs, spores, seed, and babies by the trillions, to live and reproduce, or die, as often as not by being eaten.

        She will be dealing with our population overshoot in a totally impartial manner. Evolution doesn’t after all put much emphasis on ethics, except at the family, community, and tribal level among the higher animals.

        We have evolved in times past to help each other at these levels, so as to survive in competition with the rest of the biosphere.

        But starting thousands of years ago, we got to be numerous enough that we compete not at the INTER SPECIES level, but the INTRA species level…… meaning against each other at the same levels, up to the national level since the emergence of nations and nation states.

        SHE will take care of the naked ape population problem. It’s something SHE has been doing for a billion years, without a second thought.

        After all, she’s not sentient, she’s not even ALIVE except at the conceptual level, given that we choose to think of all life as being ” one” for our own idiosyncratic reasons.

        She’ll get the job done. Her score card is written in the fossil record.

        SHE has no intellect, no brain, she is utterly incapable of even GIVING a shit about anything at all, the planet or otherwise, except in the sense that we naked apes and some other species have evolved to possess ethics and morality at some level.

        My own scientific wild ass guess is that by the end of this century there will be anywhere from a few tens of millions of us up to a couple of billion, depending on what wars are fought, what natural new killer diseases emerge, what lab created diseases are released, how bad the climate gets.

        How fast things go bad. A ten percent average decline in food production in a self sufficient but economically isolated area could see a steady drop in population over the coming years. A catastrophic crop failure could wipe out up to eighty or ninety percent of a regional population unable to migrate or secure food aid.

        It ain’t gonna be pretty. Dead people will be piling up in front of fences at national borders. Machine gunned.

        But this doesn’t mean EVERYBODY everywhere will be going back to a preindustrial economy, although I expect quite a few survivors, maybe most survivors, best hope will be to live a lifestyle similar to that characteristic of the days prior to the Industrial Revolution.

        If the climate in my area, Southwest Virginia, Northwest NC, doesn’t get any hotter or noticeably dryer than say Southern Georgia or even Alabama at present, local people living here will be able to feed themselves by going back to farming the way my great grandparents farmed.

        It was a hard but relatively secure life, and if they reacted adulthood and were lucky enough to avoid accidents and violence, a hell of a lot of them lived into their seventies, eighties, and even nineties sometimes. A ton of iron and steel tools sufficed for a good sized family, and another hundred pounds or so on an annual basis of such things as nails and glass for windows was enough for their modest needs.

        One waste wood fired steam powered sawmill was generally sufficient for people for ten miles or more around in every direction.

        I KNEW some of these people, including three of my own great grandparents, in their last years when I was a kid back in the fifties, people who lived the first third of their lives having never seen an automobile, or an electric light, although they had heard of such things, and talked to people who had seen them. The first car to actually make it into my immediate neighborhood didn’t get here until around nineteen ten or so, because the cow path wagon road was so long and rough, and because so very few people in this general area had money enough for the first cheap car, a Model T.

        Some of them didn’t believe in airplanes until one actually flew over the neighborhood……. because somebody who had one right around WWI was taking people for joy rides flying out of a cornfield runway from the nearest town a half a day’s ride away by wagon.

        They did get a lot of stuff delivered by railroad to within a day or two’s travel by wagon, such as sugar, coffee, salt, glass ware, cheap foods such as rice, salt fish, hand tools, pots and pans, etc.

        It might take a couple of generations for such a near subsistence level local economy to emerge again and stabilize but on the other hand, any survivors will have the benefit of countless buildings that will be good for generations, vast amounts of easily salvageable useful materials, roads already in place, deep cased wells already in place, lots of land already cleared and fenced, etc.

        Speculative thought to pile on these speculative thoughts……… a healthy young mare carrying her foal would be a MAGNIFICENT wedding gift…… far more valuable in real terms than a brand new top of the line Mercedes today, lol.

    2. “We had an industrial civilization before we had computers.”

      I bang on about this quite a bit . . . people seem to think computers and the internet are a part of life and cannot imagine being deprived of them.

      There are downsides that are never mentioned.

      I consider the whole world of computing a most inexact science . . . never in the history of mankind have humans been so tolerant of, (and dependent on), such a potentially damaging. fragile, glitch prone, misused system.
      er

    3. ‘And it’s obvious that materials such as wind turbine blades can be economically recycled as well. ”

      Really. Perhaps you would like to elaborate on the process and the economics because I for one would be very interested. I am unaware of any process that can recover either epoxy GRP or carbon fibre RP. or this this another of your unsubstantiated claims of success.

      In another post you foresaw the re-use of expired wind turbines with larger new units bolted to the same mast. You might like to think about that a little more carefully. The mast is designed around specific wind loadings and mass carrying capacity. It would not be possible to mount a larger output turbine on an existing mast safely. Moreover the powers density needs to be at 5 W/square metre or less to minimize wake turbulence.
      Another fallacy is that if the wind speed increase the turbine will produce more power. Another myth. The turbine will have a rated output at a specific wind speed. When the wind exceeds the rate power speed the pitch control mechanism will modulate the turbine rotational speed to keep the angular momentum and hecce the delivered power constant.
      When a wind turbine over-speeds, even by a small margin it it will place damaging loads on the gearbox, pitch mechanism and mast., not mention the centrifugal loads on the blades and attachments. That’s is before the other stresses and strains caused by leading edge erosion, fluctuating loads, and bird strikes. Do you really think these things are the way forward?
      I will leave you idea that we can reduce the population to below 1 billion and still maintain a decent lifestyle by repairing existing infrastructure. With what?.

      1. I don’t have time right now to answer these arguments, but I will get back to you soon. Got to get to work right now, since the sun is out. I’m after all USED to working when the sun is out, as we farmers say……… making hay when the sun shines.

        Back to you maybe tonight.

  40. List of countries by hospital beds
    “The availability of CCB-ICU beds, mechanical ventilation and ECMO devices generally closely associated with hospital beds has been described as a critical bottleneck in responding to the ongoing COVID-19 pandemic. The lack of such devices dramatically raises the mortality rate of COVID-19.”
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_hospital_beds

    COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country
    https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country

    To put it mildly, this information is not exactly carved in a stone tablet and hidden in a pyramid on the dark side of the moon.

    People form political attitudes to serve psychological needs. Ego gets the better of literature review.

  42. How mindless people supported covid lockdowns and the facts they ignore.

    Firstly it is obvious that Covid just like so many other viruses killed people, but was Covid so bad as to warrent the global cost of $20 trillion?

    The number of covid deaths is estimated at around 8 million over the last 3.5 years. Out of a total of 240 million people who normally die over a 3.5 year period. The actual excess deaths due to covid is about 4 million over that period.

    How does Covid compare to other deaths which are fully preventable?

    https://ourworldindata.org/water-access

    When it come to preventable deaths such as high blood pressure, smoking, self inflicted diabetes and Obesity dwarf covid. To the tune of 35 million each year or 122 million deaths over the period of covid.

    I noted early on that friends who are obese and do little exercise were the most in favour of lock downs, almost as if they know that they are damaging their immune systems by their lifestyles.

    When compared to the 35 million people who die each year due to the choices they make, the cost of lockdowns was out of all proportion to the risk.

    Did lockdowns work?

    The UK first went into lockdown on the 26 March 2020.

    https://ourworldindata.org/water-access

    What happened to covid cases?

    https://ourworldindata.org/covid-deaths

    As you can see they keep going up at the same rate. The second lockdown was in November and was just as ineffective and cases did not really start to fall until the middle of February 2021.

    Lets look at a cause of death that I find very distressing in a world that can spend $20 trillion saving a very tiny number of people. Most of whom are killing themselves anyway.

    https://www.un.org/en/academic-impact/world-water-day-reminds-us-value-precious-resource

    900 children die each day from drinking water with faeces and deadly diseases.

    It has been calculated that to provide every human being with clean water and sanitation would cost about $150 billion per year. Saving over 3 million lives every year!!

    https://www.unesco.org/reports/wwdr/2021/en/valuing-water-supply-sanitation-services

    What has the world spent on clean water over the last 20 year?

    Ask yourself a question if Covid killed only poor black people how much would the world have spent over the last 3.5 years?

      1. Survivalist

        People like you can never be wrong that is why you cannot look at any data that contradicts your petty little ideas.

        There is no doubt that a fraction of the money spent on covid lockdowns would ensure clean safe water to drink for everyone and save millions more lives over just a few years.

        The majority who die from water contamination are the young, while the vast majority of those who died of covid were very old.

        You just have a twisted sense of priority.

        1. Whataboutism

          When’s the last time you gave a shit about Flint Michigan? Was there a plan to take care of water quality issues, but it was interrupted by the lockdown? Were you an advocate for investment in water quality prior to 2020?

          The differences between you and I on this matter are not about right vs wrong data; they’re about values, whether it was worth it or not. As far as I can tell, America is a country of people, who for the most part, don’t give a shit about one another. You’ll likely find yourself on the short end of that dynamic sooner than you think. I suppose you’ll perhaps find someone to blame for that too.

          Everybody, including Ron DeSantis, was in favor of lockdowns for the first few weeks, because the risks were unknown. Attitudes changed after about 4 weeks, when it became evident that COVID was only a threat to the most vulnerable among us, and nobody gives a shit about them.

    2. We now have the retrospective opportunity to examine global data and determine what was and was not effective in the Covid pandemic response, and to analyze the cost to benefit. I’m confident that this is being done by people who are trained in the relevant areas of expertise, and are competent.

      Globally, this will be a lot of different people operating within the auspices of different health and political regimes, and their conclusions (which will be cross vetted) will presumably inform the future actions of public health authorities in future epidemic and pandemic crisis.

      It is reasonable and vital to scrutinize the actions of health authorities and governments during the pandemic, but it’s not reasonable to insist that actions taken in the first months of 2020 in the face of an obviously viral and lethal novel pathogen were ‘mindless’ because some proved to be too costly, and some proved to be ineffective, retrospectively.

      One very interesting thing to emerge from the Covid response, was it’s effect on flu transmission in 2020.

      “Influenza virus detections dropped dramatically from April 2020 (Fig. 1), with a ~99% reduction compared with previous years despite roughly similar levels of testing2. Behavioural changes (social distancing, mask wearing and hygiene measures) and travel and movement restrictions are thought to be the major factors driving the reduction in influenza incidence, which was also observed for other common respiratory infections such as respiratory syncytial virus.”
      https://www.nature.com/articles/s41579-021-00642-4

      But hey, ‘social distancing and masking don’t work’ goes the claim. They may not be worth the cost, but they do work. If you have a cold or flu symptoms, please social distance as able, and please wear a mask when in public, and wash your hands frequently. Be considerate. Is that so hard?

      No government, including highly authoritarian regimes, want to put their populations into lockdowns. What is highly concerning is politicization and loss of trust in expertise hobbling the effectiveness of public health. We made incredible progress in public health during the 20th Century. We eradicated the smallpox virus in the wild. we’ve rendered measles, mumps, rubella, rabies, tetanus and many other deadly diseases impotent, and we were on track to completely eradicate polio – now, thanks to ignorant anti-vax meme contagion – that potentiality may be gone for good.

      Public health requires cooperation. Ultimately the cultures that act cooperatively and with concern for the health and well being of others as well as themselves will have better outcomes.

      1. Bob

        Personally I believe in prevention, such as eating well and exercise, I also think that vaccinations are a form of prevention so I get any I need, why not?

        The greatest health concerns globally are all diet and lifestyle linked.

        Obesity is linked to diet and exercise, diabetes is linked to obesity diet and exercise, heart disease is linked to diet and exercise and diabetes. Conpromise immune systems are linked to lack of exerciese, diet and obesity.

        These factors kill 35 million people each year. Flu kills people who are immune deficient and nearly all fall in the groups above.

        The UK is spending more and more on treating sick people, it is an ever increasing burden. What exactly is a doctor supposed to do when a 22 stone person with heart disease visits them?

        The costs are just staggering.

        https://www.bmj.com/content/380/bmj.p523

        Covid deaths were highest in countries with the highest obesity and diabetes. Countries with lowest rates of obesity and diabetes had rates of death 100 times lower.

        https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/data/mortality

        There is also much to be said regarding traditional food preservation. Countries with highest consumption of fermented foods tend to have lowest cancer rates, obesity rates and covid deaths.

        1. No argument. Healthy diets and regular activity prevent disease, increase quality of life, and extend lives. People should adopt healthy lifestyles, and governments should do what they can to promote them.

          What specifically does that inform us about what the appropriate government response is to epidemic and pandemic viral disease? Let the herd be culled? We may not be so lucky with the next pathogen. We just went through a learning curve. Lessons will be applied, but no doubt the next big bug will school us in new ways, and it could just as easily kill the young and healthy as the old and infirm.

  43. Battery cell prices plunge in August, close to tipping point for the end of ICE vehicles

    The price of battery cells has plunged in the last month, taking it below a key benchmark for the first time in two years, and close to the “tipping point” where the price of battery-powered EVs can match that of internal combustion engine cars.

    According to leading analysts Benchmark Lithium, the global weighted average price of lithium ion battery cells fell 8.7 per cent in August, taking it below the $US100/kWh mark for the first time since August, 2021.

    It is now priced at $98.2/kWh, a 33 per cent drop from the recent high in March last year of $US146.4/kWh, and is the result of a drop in key commodity prices, including lithium, nickel and cobalt.

    Importantly, it is now not far from the $US80/kWh cell price that is crucial to delivering a $US100/kWh battery pack – the level that is considered a tipping point because it will allow EV makers to build electric cars that cost the same as petrol and diesel alternatives.

    “The energy and transport revolution continues!” said Gerard Reid, a leading energy analyst and head of Alexa Capital. Reid said the price of lithium battery cells have fallen 80 per cent in a decade, and will continue to fall as they deliver better performance.

    “That is why the death of the internal combustion engine is near,” Reid wrote on LinkedIn.

    Lithium Deposit In Extinct Nevada Volcano Could Be Largest In The World

    On August 30, 2023, three researchers — Thomas Benson, Matthew Coble, and John Dilles — published a paper in the journal Science Advances in which they report the discovery of what may be the largest lithium deposit known to exist anywhere in the world inside the caldera of an extinct volcano in Nevada near the Oregon border. If their discovery turns out to be accurate, it could have a dramatic impact on America’s ability to manufacture batteries without relying on Chinese sources. Here’s the abstract from their paper:

    Talk about unknown, unkowns!

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