A person often reads that low oil prices–for example, $30 per barrel oil prices–will stimulate the economy, and the economy will soon bounce back. What is wrong with this story? A lot of things, as I see it:
1. Oil producers can’t really produce oil for $30 per barrel.
A few countries can get oil out of the ground for $30 per barrel. Figure 1 gives an approximation to technical extraction costs for various countries. Even on this basis, there aren’t many countries extracting oil for under $30 per barrel–only Saudi Arabia, Iran, and Iraq. We wouldn’t have much crude oil if only these countries produced oil.
Figure 1. Global breakeven prices (considering only technical extraction costs) versus production. Source: Alliance Bernstein, October 2014
2. Oil producers really need prices that are higher than the technical extraction costs shown in Figure 1, making the situation even worse.
Oil can only be extracted within a broader system. Companies need to pay taxes. These can be very high. Including these costs has historically brought total costs for many OPEC countries to over $100 per barrel.
Independent oil companies in non-OPEC countries also have costs other than technical extraction costs, including taxes and dividends to stockholders. Also, if companies are to avoid borrowing a huge amount of money, they need to have higher prices than simply the technical extraction costs. If they need to borrow, interest costs need to be considered as well.
3. When oil prices drop very low, producers generally don’t stop producing.
There are built-in delays in the oil production system. It takes several years to put a new oil extraction project in place. If companies have been working on a project, they generally won’t stop just because prices happen to be low. One reason for continuing on a project is the existence of debt that must be repaid with interest, whether or not the project continues.
Also, once an oil well is drilled, it can continue to produce for several years. Ongoing costs after the initial drilling are generally very low. These previously drilled wells will generally be kept operating, regardless of the current selling price for oil. In theory, these wells can be stopped and restarted, but the costs involved tend to deter this action.
Oil exporters will continue to drill new wells because their governments badly need tax revenue from oil sales to fund government programs. These countries tend to have low extraction costs; nearly the entire difference between the market price of oil and the price required to operate the oil company ends up being paid in taxes. Thus, there is an incentive to raise production to help generate additional tax revenue, if prices drop. This is the issue for Saudi Arabia and many other OPEC nations.
Very often, oil companies will purchase derivative contracts that protect themselves from the impact of a drop in market prices for a specified time period (typically a year or two). These companies will tend to ignore price drops for as long as these contracts are in place.
There is also the issue of employee retention. In a sense, a company’s greatest assets are its employees. Once these employees are lost, it will be hard to hire and retrain new employees. So employees are kept on as long as possible.
The US keeps raising its biofuel mandate, regardless of the price of oil. No one stops to realize that in the current over-supplied situation, the mandate adds to low price pressures.
One brake on the system should be the financial pain induced by low oil prices, but this braking effect doesn’t necessarily happen quickly. Oil exporters often have sovereign wealth funds that they can tap to offset low tax revenue. Because of the availability of these funds, some exporters can continue to finance governmental services for two or more years, even with very low oil prices.
Defaults on loans to oil companies should also act as a brake on the system. We know that during the Great Recession, regulators allowed commercial real estate loans to be extended, even when property valuations fell, thus keeping the problem hidden. There is a temptation for regulators to allow similar leniency regarding oil company loans. If this happens, the “braking effect” on the system is reduced, allowing the default problem to grow until it becomes very large and can no longer be hidden.
4. Oil demand doesn’t increase very rapidly after prices drop from a high level.
People often think that going from a low price to a high price is the opposite of going from a high price to a low price, in terms of the effect on the economy. This is not really the case.
4a. When oil prices rise from a low price to a high price, this generally means that production has been inadequate, with only the production that could be obtained at the prior lower price. The price must rise to a higher level in order to encourage additional production.
The reason that the cost of oil production tends to rise is because the cheapest-to-extract oil is removed first. Oil producers must thus keep adding production that is ever-more expensive for one reason or another: harder to reach location, more advanced technology, or needing additional steps that require additional human labor and more physical resources. Growing efficiencies can somewhat offset this trend, but the overall trend in the cost of oil production has been sharply upward since about 1999.
The rising price of oil has an adverse impact on affordability. The usual pattern is that after a rise in the price of oil, economies of oil importing nations go into recession. This happens because workers’ wages do not rise at the same time as oil prices. As a result, workers find that they cannot buy as many discretionary items and must cut back. These cutbacks in purchases create problems for businesses, because businesses generally have high fixed costs including mortgages and other debt payments. If these businesses are to continue to operate, they are forced to cut costs in one way or another. Cost reduction occurs in many ways, including reducing wages for workers, layoffs, automation, and outsourcing of manufacturing to cheaper locations.
For both employers and employees, the impact of these rapid changes often feels like a rug has been pulled out from under foot. It is very unpleasant and disconcerting.
4b. When prices fall, the situation that occurs is not the opposite of 4a. Employers find that thanks to lower oil prices, their costs are a little lower. Very often, they will try to keep some of these savings as higher profits. Governments may choose to raise tax rates on oil products when oil prices fall, because consumers will be less sensitive to such a change than otherwise would be the case. Businesses have no motivation to give up cost-saving techniques they have adopted, such as automation or outsourcing to a cheaper location.
Few businesses will construct new factories with the expectation that low oil prices will be available for a long time, because they realize that low prices are only temporary. They know that if oil prices don’t go back up in a fairly short period of time (months or a few years), the quantity of oil available is likely to drop precipitously. If sufficient oil is to be available in the future, oil prices will need to be high enough to cover the true cost of production. Thus, current low prices are at most a temporary benefit–something like the eye of a hurricane.
Since the impact of low prices is only temporary, businesses will want to adopt only changes that can take place quickly and can be easily reversed. A restaurant or bar might add more waiters and waitresses. A car sales business might add a few more salesmen because car sales might be better. A factory making cars might schedule more shifts of workers, so as to keep the number of cars produced very high. Airlines might add more flights, if they can do so without purchasing additional planes.
Because of these issues, the jobs that are added to the economy are likely to be mostly in the service sector. The shift toward outsourcing to lower-cost countries and automation can be expected to continue. Citizens will get some benefit from the lower oil prices, but not as much as if governments and businesses weren’t first in line to get their share of the savings. The benefit to citizens will be much less than if all of the people who were laid off in the last recession got their jobs back.
5. The sharp drop in oil prices in the last 18 months has little to do with the cost of production.
Instead, recent oil prices represent an attempt by the market to find a balance between supply and demand. Since supply doesn’t come down quickly in response to lower prices, and demand doesn’t rise quickly in response to lower prices, prices can drop very low–far below the cost of production.
As noted in Section 4, high oil prices tend to be recessionary. The primary way of offsetting recessionary forces is by directly or indirectly adding debt at low interest rates. With this increased debt, more homes and factories can be built, and more cars can be purchased. The economy can be forced to act in a more “normal” manner because the low interest rates and the additional debt in some sense counteract the adverse impact of high oil prices.
Figure 2. World oil supply and prices based on EIA data.
Oil prices dropped very low in 2008, as a result of the recessionary influences that take place when oil prices are high. It was only with the benefit of considerable debt-based stimulation that oil prices were gradually pumped back up to the $100+ per barrel level. This stimulation included US deficit spending, Quantitative Easing (QE) starting in December 2008, and a considerable increase in debt by the Chinese.
Commodity prices tend to be very volatile because we use such large quantities of them and because storage is quite limited. Supply and demand have to balance almost exactly, or prices spike higher or lower. We are now back to an “out of balance” situation, similar to where we were in late 2008. Our options for fixing the situation are more limited this time. Interest rates are already very low, and governments generally feel that they have as much debt as they can safely handle.
6. One contributing factor to today’s low oil prices is a drop-off in the stimulus efforts of 2008.
As noted in Section 4, high oil prices tend to be recessionary. As noted in Section 5, this recessionary impact can, at least to some extent, be offset by stimulus in the form of increased debt and lower interest rates. Unfortunately, this stimulus has tended to have adverse consequences. It encouraged overbuilding of both homes and factories in China. It encouraged a speculative rise in asset prices. It encouraged investments in enterprises of questionable profitability, including many investments in oil from US shale formations.
In response to these problems, the amount of stimulus is being reduced. The US discontinued its QE program and cut back its deficit spending. It even began raising interest rates in December 2015. China is also cutting back on the quantity of new debt it is adding.
Unfortunately, without the high level of past stimulus, it is difficult for the world economy to grow rapidly enough to keep the prices of all commodities, including oil, high. This is a major contributing factor to current low prices.
7. The danger with very low oil prices is that we will lose the energy products upon which our economy depends.
There are a number of different ways that oil production can be lost if low oil prices continue for an extended period.
In oil exporting countries, there can be revolutions and political unrest leading to a loss of oil production.
In almost any country, there can be a sharp reduction in production because oil companies cannot obtain debt financing to pay for more services. In some cases, companies may go bankrupt, and the new owners may choose not to extract oil at low prices.
There can also be systemwide financial problems that indirectly lead to much lower oil production. For example, if banks cannot be depended upon for payroll services, or to guarantee payment for international shipments, such problems would affect all oil companies, not just ones in financial difficulty.
Oil is not unique in its problems. Coal and natural gas are also experiencing low prices. They could experience disruptions indirectly because of continued low prices.
8. The economy cannot get along without an adequate supply of oil and other fossil fuel products.
We often read articles in the press that seem to suggest that the economy could get along without fossil fuels. For example, the impression is given that renewables are “just around the corner,” and their existence will eliminate the need for fossil fuels. Unfortunately, at this point in time, we are nowhere near being able to get along without fossil fuels.
Food is grown and transported using oil products. Roads are made and maintained using oil and other energy products. Oil is our single largest energy product.
Experience over a very long period shows a close tie between energy use and GDP growth (Figure 3). Nearly all technology is made using fossil fuel products, so even energy growth ascribed to technology improvements could be considered to be available to a significant extent because of fossil fuels.
Figure 3. World GDP growth compared to world energy consumption growth for selected time periods since 1820. World real GDP trends from 1975 to present are based on USDA real GDP data in 2010$ for 1975 and subsequent. (Estimated by the author for 2015.) GDP estimates for prior to 1975 are based on Maddison project updates as of 2013. Growth in the use of energy products is based on a combination of data from Appendix A data from Vaclav Smil’s Energy Transitions: History, Requirements and Prospects together with BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015 for 1965 and subsequent.
While renewables are being added, they still represent only a tiny share of the world’s energy consumption.
Figure 4. World energy consumption by part of the world, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2015.
Thus, we are nowhere near a point where the world economy could continue to function without an adequate supply of oil, coal and natural gas.
9. Many people believe that oil prices will bounce back up again, and everything will be fine. This seems unlikely.
The growing cost of oil extraction that we have been encountering in the last 15 years represents one form of diminishing returns. Once the cost of making energy products becomes high, an economy is permanently handicapped. Prices higher than those maintained in the 2011-2014 period are really needed if extraction is to continue and grow. Unfortunately, such high prices tend to be recessionary. As a result, high prices tend to push demand down. When demand falls too low, prices tend to fall very low.
There are several ways to improve demand for commodities, and thus raise prices again. These include (a) increasing wages of non-elite workers (b) increasing the proportion of the population with jobs, and (c) increasing the amount of debt. None of these are moving in the “right” direction.
Joseph Tainter in The Collapse of Complex Societies points out that once diminishing returns set in, the response is more “complexity” to solve these problems. Government programs become more important, and taxes are often higher. Education of elite workers becomes more important. Businesses become larger. This increased complexity leads to more of the output of the economy being funneled to sectors of the economy other than the wages of non-elite workers. Because there are so many of these non-elite workers, their lack of buying power adversely affects demand for goods that use commodities, such as homes, cars, and motorcycles.1
Another force tending to hold down demand is a smaller proportion of the population in the labor force. There are many factors contributing to this: Young people are in school longer. The bulge of workers born after World War II is now reaching retirement age. Lagging wages make it increasingly difficult for young parents to afford childcare so that both can work.
As noted in Section 5, debt growth is no longer rising as rapidly as in the past. In fact, we are seeing the beginning of interest rate increases.
When we add to these problems the slowdown in growth in the Chinese economy and the new oil that Iran will be adding to the world oil supply, it is hard to see how the oil imbalance will be fixed in any reasonable time period. Instead, the imbalance seems likely to remain at a high level, or even get worse. With limited storage available, prices will tend to continue to fall.
10. The rapid run up in US oil production after 2008 has been a significant contributor to the mismatch between oil supply and demand that has taken place since mid-2014.
Without US production, world oil production (broadly defined, including biofuels and natural gas liquids) is close to flat.
Figure 5. Total liquids oil production for the world as a whole and for the world excluding the US, based on EIA International Petroleum Monthly data.
Viewed separately, US oil production has risen very rapidly. Total production rose by about six million barrels per day between 2008 and 2015.
Figure 6. US Liquids production, based on EIA data (International Petroleum Monthly, through June 2015; supplemented by December Monthly Energy Review for most recent data).
US oil supply was able to rise very rapidly partly because QE led to the availability of debt at very low interest rates. In addition, investors found yields on debt so low that they purchased almost any equity investment that appeared to have a chance of long-term value. The combination of these factors, plus the belief that oil prices would always increase because extraction costs tend to rise over time, funneled large amounts of investment funds into the liquid fuels sector.
As a result, US oil production (broadly defined), increased rapidly, increasing nearly 1.0 million barrels per day in 2012, 1.2 million barrels per day in 2013, 1.7 million barrels per day in 2014. The final numbers are not in, but it looks like US oil production will still increase by another 700,000 barrels a day in 2015. The 700,000 extra barrels of oil added by the US in 2015 is likely greater than the amount added by either Saudi Arabia or Iraq.
World oil consumption does not increase rapidly when oil prices are high. World oil consumption increased by 871,000 barrels a day in 2012, 1,397,000 barrels a day in 2013, and 843,000 barrels a day in 2014, according to BP. Thus, in 2014, the US by itself added approximately twice as much oil production as the increase in world oil demand. This mismatch likely contributed to collapsing oil prices in 2014.
Given the apparent role of the US in creating the mismatch between oil supply and demand, it shouldn’t be too surprising that Saudi Arabia is unwilling to try to fix the problem.
Conclusion
Things aren’t working out the way we had hoped. We can’t seem to get oil supply and demand in balance. If prices are high, oil companies can extract a lot of oil, but consumers can’t afford the products that use it, such as homes and cars; if oil prices are low, oil companies try to continue to extract oil, but soon develop financial problems.
Complicating the problem is the economy’s continued need for stimulus in order to keep the prices of oil and other commodities high enough to encourage production. Stimulus seems to takes the form of ever-rising debt at ever-lower interest rates. Such a program isn’t sustainable, partly because it leads to mal-investment and partly because it leads to a debt bubble that is subject to collapse.
Stimulus seems to be needed because of today’s high extraction cost for oil. If the cost of extraction were still very low, this stimulus wouldn’t be needed because products made using oil would be more affordable.
Decision makers thought that peak oil could be fixed simply by producing more oil and more oil substitutes. It is becoming increasingly clear that the problem is more complicated than this. We need to find a way to make the whole system operate correctly. We need to produce exactly the correct amount of oil that buyers can afford. Prices need to be high enough for oil producers, but not too high for purchasers of goods using oil. The amount of debt should not spiral out of control. There doesn’t seem to be a way to produce the desired outcome, now that oil extraction costs are high.
Rigidities built into the oil price-supply system (as described in Sections 3 and 4) tend to hide problems, letting them grow bigger and bigger. This is why we could suddenly find ourselves with a major financial problem that few have anticipated.
Unfortunately, what we are facing now is a predicament, rather than a problem. There is quite likely no good solution. This is a worry.
Note:
[1] For example, more dividend and interest payments are paid, tending to benefit the financial industry and the elite classes. More of the output of the economy goes to workers in supervisory positions or having advanced education. Other workers–those with more “ordinary” responsibilities–find their wages falling behind the general rise in the cost of living. As a result, they find it increasingly difficult to buy cars, homes, motorcycles, and other goods that use commodities.
Machine Gunning a Tesla
There is an episode of the TV show Top Gear involving a Prius hybrid and automatic weapons. God, I wish I could afford to do the same to a Tesla.
Unfortunately, I (and thee) are too poor to afford a Tesla. But that doesn’t mean we won’t continue to be forced to “help” Elon Musk build these mobile – just barely (and briefly) monuments to crony capitalism.
This is a company that bleeds money like a machine-gunned hemophiliac, yet doesn’t die because fresh transfusions are always available. Just last week it was announced the company lost another $100 million and change while delivering fewer than 10,000 cars.
Tesla has yet to earn – properly speaking – a single honest dollar. The money it takes in (a very different thing) is obtained chiefly via carbon tax credits ($130 million from the state of California alone; that is to say, from the pockets of the taxpayers of the state of California) and everyone knows all about the $7,500 per car subsidy Uncle dangles in front of prospects to lure them into buying one of these flashy, yet functionally useless, electric Edsels.
There are in addition state-level subsidies (in 23 states) ranging from $1,000 to $5,000 per “sale.”
Do you know what goes into making a Tesla’s lithium-ion electric battery pack? Caustic, highly reactive solvents and cobalt oxide, a nasty compound that is uber poisonous and carcinogenic. Carbon dioxide and water vapor have been accused of triggering “global warming” (oops, “climate change” now) but breathing either will not give you cancer or neurological problems.
Cobalt, on the other hand… . cobalt mining 2
And how do you get cobalt? By mining other materials such as nickel and copper. Then, using various noxious processes to separate out the cobalt, such as “froth flotation,” “roasting” and “leaching” with sulfuric acid.
Mmmm mmmmm good!
This form of Gaia-rape is ok, though, because it does not occur within sight of Al Gore’s house. Most of the cobalt needed to make Tesla and other electric batteries is located in places like China, Afghanistan and Africa. Those parts of the earth are ok to fist and finger.
You Must Read More….. You Simply MUST……
http://ericpetersautos.com/2015/02/19/machine-gunning-tesla/
“Carbon dioxide and water vapor have been accused of triggering “global warming”
Water vapor? WTF? Should we now sequester clouds to lessen global warming?
Increased water vapour is a consequence of global warming. In fact water vapour is THE most powerful greenhouse gas. It’s another positive feed back with consequences not fully understood but none of them good to say the least.
I’m no expert but pretty sure it’s not just the potency of a GHG that matters but how long it remains active. Yes, I was surprised when I realised H2O was powerful GHG but the hydrological cycle is one of the fastest, I believe, so it doesn’t remain a GHG for long. In the same way while methane is more powerful than CO2, it doesn’t hang around as long – it’s quickly oxidised (yes, into CO2 but you see what I’m getting at!). Furthermore, it’s not just industrial emissions that matter, but the fact we are destroying sinks with deforestation and land use change, all fuelled with fossil fuels, of course.
Thanks, Gail, this article has helped me understand some of the financial jiggery-pokery that goes on to sustain this crazy way of life. It seems, to me, that financial jiggery-pokery is all that’s keeping growth capitalism afloat. We’ve run off of the cliff but are still able to do the Wile E. Coyote flap! https://mandymeikle.wordpress.com/2013/09/23/speaking-the-unspeakable/
And why isn’t there a ‘make millionaires history’ campaign? It’d be something fun to do in the mean time… https://mandymeikle.wordpress.com/2014/07/02/what-makes-a-fair-society/
Thanks CP I do know all that and had a link ready but forgot to add it.
Hey Tesla ‘aint so bad, I just made some very nice margin selling parts to a subcontractor building their big new shiny battery factory. I took that commission and bought more emergency Whiskey, a new .308 upper and barrel for my AR and some #10 cans of Mountain House beef lasagna that were on sale at the local MEC. Hooray!
Most Excellent!
Resilience appears 79 times, surpassing growth (61), sustainable (27) and the rest of key words…
http://www.weforum.org/reports/the-global-risks-report-2016
Spanish “leftists” say “resilience” means “elites power”
Thanks for the link. 750 experts! Impressive. Surely they can’t ALL be wrong?
I’ve just gone through the document and holy mowly do they love that code word “resilience”. Should be replaced with elite resistance. Cannot wait to see how the “elites” that derive power from the masses go to war against basi laws of physics and reality. Reality is absolute. Also love the way how they’re panicking over “every man for himself syndrome” a natural response to TEOTWAWKI.
We need good news–whether it is true or not.
Zhou Hao, an economist at Commerzbank, said: “The electricity production remained sluggish and the crude steel output continued the weak trend in January, reflecting an ongoing deleveraging process in the industrial sectors.”
“In the meantime, China has started an aggressive capacity reduction in many sectors, which could add downward pressure on the bulk commodity prices over time.
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2016/feb/01/china-manufacturing-sector-shrinks-for-sixth-straight-month-january-figures-show
With manufacturing decelerating quickly, services have been a crucial source of growth and jobs for China over the past year, and analysts have been watching closely to see if the sector can maintain momentum in 2016.
Angus Nicholson of IG in Melbourne said: “It is quite concerning that the significant monetary and fiscal stimulus in 2015 has only managed to slow the rate of decline in China’s industrial activity
It is concerning that even with stimulus, they are not making much progress. This is a reason I am not visiting China this year.
Note on peak OFW comments.
I did an analysis on the comments/day generated by Gail’s last six postings. I assumed that all comments for a posting stopped when Gail posted her next blog entry, except I stopped the total for today on the current posting.
I do not think the comment rate should be sensitive to the subject of the postings, as most discussions end up with BAU, post-BAU, survival strategies-especially farming, some ad-hominem back-and-forth, current economic news, and the fate of abandoned nuclear power sites.
You can see an increase in comments/day from the analysis. Here is the analysis. PLEASE don’t start a discussion of my methodology unless the criticism will affect the conclusion
In case the link is formatted badly here it is directly
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1jUhx5E6ZqyJCvN70796xqiiADwJ1j7gH6IlUj-KZb7k/pubhtml
That’s interesting. Remember that much like any comment section that doubles as a forum, there are a few prolific posters that beef up the numbers. We could also look at how many views each post gets. I know how to access that information, but quite honestly, knowing such things is of dwindling importance IMO.
Suffice to know that not many people think the way we do here. And if you try to tell others about any of this, they get that look on their face… like you’ve just murdered their dog.
Worst — you’ve murdered their, and their childrens’, future.
Yes, that would be more accurate.
Google Analytics is free software that can be dropped onto a site to provide detailed information on traffic….
The $30 oil price article and the end of the debt supercycle article have been very popular, in terms of number of views. Articles that are more difficult or that deal with less popular subjects don’t get as many readers. So the comment count seems to go along with general readership.
I can, but will not take the time, to analyze how many individuals commented on each posting.
Dear Finite Worlders
Do you think you might end up in this predicament?
“This little comic book features the top ten crops that every survival gardener should be growing.
It’s also funny, which you’re going to appreciate when everything collapses and we’re forced to eat bugs and mice while we wait for our crops to come in.
From corn to cassava, beans to potatoes, join David The Good and Chachi the demented camel for a fun look at the plants that’ll save your life in a crash.”
Go to this spot and sign up. Learn how the Tarahumara Indians in Mexico nixtamalize their corn to make tortillas and tamales…Don Stewart
http://www.homegrownfoodsummit.com
Will look at it, Don. I learn last monday on nixtamalization, interesting
“we’re forced to eat bugs and mice ”
I just wish there was a larger, more prolific, and easier to harvest species to eat.
Humans? Or did you mean rabbits? Maybe locusts…? taste like shrimp, so I’m told…
Check out what we ate during famines before the time of air drops of emergency food supplies and Oxfam…. http://listverse.com/2013/04/10/10-terrible-famines-in-history/
Of course…. that can never happen…. we’d never do that….
http://www.bloomberg.com/energy
At the time of Gail’s latest posting, ‘Why oil under $30 a barrel is a problem’, the price of oil was under $30, then a week later it went up to a 34 handle on rumor Saudi’s/OPEC and Russia would mutually agree to scale back production to increase price of oil. However, that possibility has been nixed and it has been going back down.
WTI today is -1.91 to 29.71 So it’s back under $30 a barrel again.
I’ve decided that they are unable to control the price. The price of oil seems to be controlled by some sort of gravitational force that is taking it to zero, They constantly find some reason to push the price up, but the force of gravity brings it back down again. Everything they do to save the world economy reduces oil demand. We are check mated by oil.
China’s banking regulator said on Monday that new non-performing loans (NPL) held by Chinese banks more than doubled in 2015 from the previous year, according to two people with direct knowledge of the matter.
The people, who declined to be identified as they are not allowed to speak to the media, told Reuters the regulator said at a government work conference that total NPLs reached 1.95 trillion yuan ($296.8 billion) in 2015
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-banking-npl-idUSKCN0UQ04D20160112
Although ‘Chinese banks are often accused of under reporting their non-performing loans by using methods such as re-financing unprofitable state-owned enterprises and under recognizing overdue debt to muddy the numbers’
So who can know the true numbers…..
European banks sitting on €1tn mountain of bad debt, survey finds
http://www.theguardian.com/business/2015/nov/24/european-banks-one-trillion-euros-bad-debt
Likewise who can know the true numbers…..
If commodity prices stay low, I expect there will be a lot more bad debt.
There is peak affordable oil
There is peak water
There is peak topsoil
There is peak debt
There is NO peak OFW comments
[repost]
“There is NO peak OFW comments”
While that is likely a joke, I am fairly confident that, if a chart were made of the amount of comments per article, it would be rising exponentially. whether it follows a bell curve or seneca cliff on the way down, I guess depends on whether the Internet shuts down or people gradually lose interest.
We’ll never peak, we are The Unpeakables!
At least we can say they’ve grown in exponential mode. When I first found OFW, in the spring of 2012, the comments numbered well below 100 per post. Now 1500. More than 15 x increase in less than four years. Only if every exponential growth were so harmless (and enlightening!) as this one.
We may get our first 2000 comment article….. I recommend Gail hold the next article till we break the record.
Done! Time to celebrate, I’m opening a bottle of fine Douro wine (actually, my contribute to this record was minimum, but hey, the wine doesn’t complain, and in an age like this we should never miss an oportunity to party, right?) Cheers.
This calls for —- a celebration — and a video…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GwjfUFyY6M
Let me dig around the cupboard and see if we have any decent swill….
BP Profit Falls 91%, Missing Estimates, as Oil Slump Deepens
Adjusted profit drops year-on-year for 6 consecutive quarters
Net-debt level rising as cash flow falls short of spending
BP Plc reported a 91 percent decline in fourth-quarter earnings after average crude oil prices dropped to the lowest in more than a decade.
Profit adjusted for one-time items and inventory changes totaled $196 million, the London-based company said Tuesday in a statement. That missed the $814.7 million average estimate of 10 analysts surveyed by Bloomberg, and compares with year-earlier profit of $2.24 billion. Shares fell 5.1 percent at 8:05 a.m. in London
While Chief Executive Officer Bob Dudley has trimmed billions of dollars of spending, cut thousands of jobs and deferred projects in response to the plunge in crude prices, BP’s cash flow still doesn’t cover spending and dividends. The company’s debt level is rising and BP was among several major oil producers given a negative credit outlook by Standard & Poor’s Monday. The slump has driven BP’s market value below $100 billion for the first time since the Gulf of Mexico oil spill in 2010.
“It’s very disappointing. We were expecting lower profit from upstream, but not a loss,” Ahmed Ben Salem, oil and gas analyst at Oddo & Cie in Paris, said by phone. “The dividend payout is probably safe for this year, but if oil stays around $30 then they would have to cut capex further.”
Profit has been lower year-on-year for six consecutive quarters as oil prices tumbled. The average price of benchmark Brent crude slumped 42 percent in the fourth quarter from a year earlier to $44.69 a barrel, the lowest since 2004.
PetroChina Co. said last week it expects 2015 profit to fall at least 60 percent. Chevron Corp. on Friday reported its first quarterly loss since 2002, while Royal Dutch Shell Plc said last month that fourth-quarter profit is likely to drop at least 42 percent. The European oil major is scheduled to report full earnings on Thursday.
BP started cutting costs and selling assets following the 2010 oil spill. In October, it lowered its 2015 capital-spending forecast to about $19 billion after investing about $23 billion in 2014. The company said then it expects to spend $17 billion to $19 billion a year through 2017.
The company’s ratio of net debt to equity jumped to 21.6 percent at the end of 2015, an increase of almost five percentage points from a year earlier. BP maintained its quarterly dividend at 10 cents a share and reiterated its commitment to sustain it throughout the downturn.
BP posted a net loss of $3.31 billion, reflecting one-time charges in its exploration and production unit and $450 million of restructuring costs. That compared with a loss of $4.41 billion in the fourth quarter of 2014.
BP’s shares have increased 3.7 percent this year following last year’s 14 percent decline. It’s the best performer on the eight-member FTSE 350 Oil & Gas Producers Index after BG Group Plc.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-02-02/bp-profit-falls-91-missing-estimates-as-oil-slump-deepens
Yoo hoo —- Elders….. we need a hero….
Yes, we do…I nominate Scott Nearing….
Opps…I forgot….sorry, Fast Eddy, you are the ONLY one that has any consideration here among us…so YOU nominate your hero
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=KJZuvJAkFGI
What a guy!
Mister Anti-BAU
Fortunately we have some new thoughtful contributors on the FW to start the year offsetting the dead wood….
Vince – what do you think about this ……
If you fly from New York to Shanghai — and jump back on the return flight immediately — do you think jet lag would be cancelled out?
What about if you flew NY to Shanghai — then you immediately jumped another flight and completed the circle returning to NY — would that cancel jet lag?
I take it that you will not respond to my questions….
Profit
free fallin
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1lWJXDG2i0A&feature=youtu.be&t=64
Saludos
el mar
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-25/20-dead-200-hospitalized-after-reports-us-lab-leaks-deadly-virus-ukraine
Not sure if this is old news or not, but a deadly flu has supposedly been released from a US bacteriological lab in the Ukraine. 20 dead from respritory failure and 200 hospitalized with respritory difficulty. The virus is call Californian Flu. Supposedly in a nearby city as well.
From the article…
>>>More than 20 Ukrainian soldiers have died and over 200 soldiers are hospitalized in a short period of time because of new and deadly virus, which is immune to all medicines. Donetsk People’s Republic intelligence has reported that Californian Flu is leaked from the same place where research of this virus has been carried out.
>>>Just since the beginning of this week more than 200 Ukrainian military have been taken to civil and military hospitals of Kharkov and Dnepropetrovsk. It is important to repeat that the DPR intelligence previously reported the research being carried out in a private laboratory in the locality Shelkostantsiya, 30 km away from the city of Kharkov, and involving US military experts. According to our information, it is there where the deadly Californian flu strain leaked from,” Basurin said.
Followed by the usual level of commentary on ZH for serious topics…
Among the jokes are some realistic considerations. If Russia is affected, this could be considered an act of war. If not contained, this airborne virus could be much more of a problem than ebola etc.
Key points…
deadly virus
immune to all medicines
near a warzone
private lab
involving US military experts
Move along now. Nothing to see here…
“If Russia is affected, this could be considered an act of war.”
I wondered about that too. Maybe Russia will demand release of the virus in the US. That would set up an interesting situation.
This is the stuff of sci-fi movies we think are too outrageous to actually occur, but here we are, it’s happening and where it stops nobody knows. Viruses spread fast, so we’ll see if they can contain it.
Too much panic here. It’s all a question of triage of the remaining resources, space, and infrastructure.
Stuff can be abandoned, towns can be abandoned, people can even be abandoned. It’s not a question of all or nothing, you don’t have to save the whole system.
Americans think you do, but you don’t. Ask people from other countries who have survived bombing, invasion, hyperinflation, loss of critical infrastructure, etc., and they will be happy to tell you how it actually works.
Yes! And while there is depression, war, tsunamis, famine, plague and revolution here and there, “rich” countries will still be able to maintain the grid and tend to others fuel ponds and have international trade.
Has anyone experienced a world where there are 7.3B people — and all forms of energy except wood — are no longer available?
This time is different.
Pointing to wars and depressions and the resets that followed —- it completely and utterly beyond useless
Dear Finite Worlders
Courtesy of Dr. David Perlmutter:
In a new report (recently published by the Department of Sociology, University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill), researchers, drawing on data from four large national studies of the United States population, evaluated the role of social integration versus social isolation in terms of impact on things like C-reactive protein (a marker of inflammation), blood pressure, waist circumference, and body mass index.
The researchers found that those individuals who experienced a higher degree of social interaction, meaning interaction with other people, had a dramatically lower risk of detrimental changes in the various measurements. Lack of social connections was associated with a significantly increased risk for inflammation, becoming overweight, and even developing high blood pressure.
In fact, this study revealed that the risk of high blood pressure brought on by social isolation was actually higher than the risk of developing high blood pressure by virtue of being a diabetic!
Co-author of the study Yang Claire Yang, a professor at the University of North Carolina, commented on the study by stating:
Our analysis makes it clear that doctors, clinicians, and other health workers should redouble their efforts to help the public understand how important strong social bonds are throughout the course of all of our lives.
Perlmutter’s comment:
So the message is clear. We’ve got to recognize that there is yet another important lifestyle choice that can pave the way for health and disease resistance in our future, and that is interacting with other people. I would suspect that this means actual face-to-face interaction as opposed to spending time each day on your computer doing social media. While Facebook is entertaining, I think what the authors have demonstrated is the importance of, for example, joining a book club, a hobby club, biking with a group of friends, traveling with others, sharing meals with friends, and various other forms of actual person-to-person interaction.
Back to me. I recently called your attention to Sherry Turkle’s book Reclaiming Conversation, about the perils posed by smart phones. Isolation and depression are now major global health issues.
I want to add my two cents on Peak Oil and isolation. When I moved to this house 20 years ago, I noticed that people got in their cars and drove into Chapel Hill just about every day. It wasn’t like they HAD to go, they just did. I don’t think they understood why they made the trip. But I became convinced that it was about looking for social interaction. Now, in our neighborhood, we have a coffee shop with some wonderful outdoor seating where people can go to meet other people. It is even popular with parents of small children, which gives us old people a reason to be optimistic about the world.
If transportation becomes very much harder to do, then the potential for increased isolation is very real. I know that I drive 6 miles to my co-op grocery store because I can always find some people to talk to. I could drive 2 miles to a chain store, but they try to move people around and out as rapidly as possible. As long as I have enough gas to go the extra 8 miles round trip, I will do it.
Toby Hemenway and his wife were homesteaders in southern Oregon for almost a decade. They finally moved to Portland, because Portland was where the street parties happen.
This is a serious issue, now and potentially in the future.
Don Stewart
Don, There is such a thing as “cabin fever” and. I experienced it myself…no joke ….it will drive you bonkers if one is conditioned to city stimulation and than are stuck watching the grass grow out on the boonies. Believe me we will be in a fix when the artificial entertainment disappears.
Speaking of the Late Roman Empire, citizens of besieged cities by barbarian tribes sent messenges to their Emperor pleading to continue their gladiator games and circus as more of a priority than actual dealing with invaders….hmmm….some things never change
I maintain a library of around 300 pieces of literature that I do not read. These are meant for post collapse cabin fever…. just in case…
Most of my reading in the run up is done via Audible of books not in the hard copy library — what better way to pass the time in the garden than listening to a good book…
The great thing about Audible is that if you don’t like a book for any reason — and you have not finished it — you can send it back and get your credit returned…. no more forcing your way through a mediocre book just because you hate to see the money wasted…
Believe me..those 70 books will just be toilet paper after you read them once….and I can easily read a book a day….Hey, Fast. Eddy, what did your hero and idol do?
You know, Ted the Unabomber. Maybe you can write something up and mail it….ugh…sorry you need BAI for that…?
FYI: Superman comics are not considered literature…
i based my entire lifestyle on superman
i am now disillusioned
🙂
Don, when about 60 or 70 muscle atrophy is something to avoid. It can be as fast as just two or three months of lessened leg muscle activity and the next time you go outside you slip and break your hip. So constant movement is something the body requires.
If all human contact is avoided the brain starts degenerating. If no human contact is the norm for several years, then all sorts of brain dysfunctions starts to appear.
Remember Tom Hanks Cast Away? Having a “Wilson” is something the human brain needs, just like the body needs fire (warmth and cooking).
“If transportation becomes very much harder to do, then the potential for increased isolation is very real.”
I think the opposite is true in many urban and suburban places. Lower mobility (and lack of the interwebthingy) will force people to interact with people where they live. Only really isolated rural areas are so low in density that social interaction isn’t easy on foot or bike.
louploup2
My concern about isolation ASSUMES that population density will get much lower as people have to get close to the place where they grow food. I don’t know if you have been reading the travel stories from Mexico by Marjorie Wildcraft. She travels to a village on the Vomit Rocket bus, so named because it goes at high speed around sharp curves and up and down. She remarks that the bus is jammed with people. Apparently, the rural people put up with the Vomit Rocket because they want to go to the ‘big city’ (about 6000 people)…some trade, some socializing, some just getting away from home, I imagine.
If there is not even a Vomit Rocket, then the isolation will be pretty severe.
Don Stewart
Yes, that has occurred to me (the need to be closer to food sources). Suburbs often are close to places capable growing a lot. There’s lots of good soil in lawns and waiting under relatively thin layers of asphalt.
I have not read Marjorie Wildcraft; Tarahumara stories look interesting.
I am trying to picture this….
Suburbanites with picks tearing up their tennis courts — then finding seeds — growing them to seedlings in their windowsills… then dropping them into the ground ….. then watering them with ….ah…. watering them with ….. no water will come out of the hose….
Let’s ignore that and assume all goes well — and you wait a few months for your crop…
Meanwhile the grocery stores are empty — the cupboards are bare — and there is total panic and chaos everywhere….
Somehow I don’t see the bucolic scene you are painting…
I have been setting up a small NZ farm for about 10 months – 200sqm of beds + nearly 100 fruit trees — I have hired people to assist — I have solid raised beds — gravity spring water — a large greenhouse — tools — mountains of compost —- all the bells and whistles are in place here
And I would not be able to feed 4 people off of this.
There ain’t no way a suburbanite is making it through the other side by farming on a torn up tennis court. No way in hell.
They’ll instead be looking for people like me — expecting me to share with them….
It’s not a bucolic. It’s hell and hard work and many would die young. But people will do what they must rather than die in short order. Some are likely to make it work. Everything is not predictable and negative. And even if it is, so what? Oh, Fast Eddy has to make sure everyone knows that he knows that to be so.
Anyway, unlike Don Stewart who actually engages in reasonable conversations and posts really well thought comments, by my definition you are a troll. Lots of repetition of the same negative points, lots of put downs. Basically you are boring. Your best post ever was the scenario of you driving into a brick wall at high speed with the last two liters of petrol at your disposal.
Post away…
I’ve provided you with a number of very solid reasons why what you are suggesting is impossible…
The best one – in my unhumble opinion – is the one that asks what people eat while they wait for the tennis court crop to grow…
Rather than accuse me of negativity — why don’t you address my criticisms of the Tennis Court Farming Initiative.
Of course you won’t – because you can’t.
Sorry but I do not live in Delusistan – I’d like to emigrate there as it sounds like a wonderful place….but I am unsure how to do that
I am trapped here in Realitystan….
“When it becomes serious, you have to lie.”
“I’m ready to be insulted as being insufficiently democratic, but I want to be serious… I am for secret, dark debates.”
“Of course there will be transfers of sovereignty. But would I be intelligent to draw the attention of public opinion to this fact?”
“If it’s a Yes, we will say ‘on we go,’ and if it’s a No we will say ‘we continue.’”
“We all know what to do, we just don’t know how to get re-elected after we’ve done it.”
– All quotes from Jean-Claude Juncker, prime minister of Luxembourg and president of the European Commission
Statements made by Juncker in his few lucid moments when not dead drunk…….
Or when drunk… There is a saying that kids, madmen and drunkards tell the truth
But, but, but, Krugman must be right.
http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2016/02/01/more-about-renewables/?module=BlogPost-Title&version=Blog%20Main&contentCollection=Opinion&action=Click&pgtype=Blogs®ion=Body&_r=0
The paper was said things like pumped hydro storage will be mostly used in the 3rd world where hydro power is being added. This makes no sense. Doesn’t the first world also need storage? The first world has already developed most hydro resources but storage does not need a river it just needs a high place and a low place in close proximity plenty of those in the first world.
I would love to read the internal reports generated inside Goldman Sacks about the economic viability of RE.
Gail, maybe you can interest Goldman Sacks in a talk for $200,000 like Ms. Clinton.
Right!
The manufacturing sector will likely face a tough year ahead on the back of overcapacity, weakening global demand, and government’s plans to tackle pollution,” said ANZ’s chief China economist, Li-Gang Liu.
The Australian bank expects Beijing will have to ease policy further, including a cut in banks’ reserve requirements sometime in the next two months.
http://fortune.com/2016/02/01/china-stock-market-manufacturing/
Mid-tier Chinese banks are increasingly using complex instruments to make new loans or restructure existing ones that are then shown as low-risk investments on their balance sheets, masking the scale and risks of their lending.
The size of this “shadow loan” book rose by a third in the first half of 2015 to an estimated $1.8 trillion, equivalent to 16.5% of all commercial loans, a UBS analysis shows.
China has a big loan problem!
Pingback: Porque o petróleo abaixo dos US$30 o barril, é um grande problema | NavalBrasil.com
“China factories continue to lose steam”
https://www.rt.com/business/330838-china-pmi-factory-economy/
PMI continues to head downward!
The desperation builds….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-31/bloomberg-op-ed-calls-end-cash
Squeezing water out of stones….
A cashless society is on the Christmas wish list of every central bankster. I have no doubt they will find a way to make it possible. They are preconditioning the sheep for the inevitable.
A few years ago big posters appeared in Britain – I saw one at the local railways station – saying:
‘Cash, it’s so…..DIRTY!’
Laughable, but I’m sure many will buy that level of argument. They will attempt to legislate cash into a marginal position, and then…poof!
By ‘Dirty’ that person may have meant it’s used for purchasing illicit drugs & prostitution. If there wasn’t cash, what would be used to buy them? It’s an interesting question. The banks may not want bank runs, but I’m sure a much bigger incentive to get rid of cash is coming from the govt. and police who are trying to control crime on restricted budgets. What better way to push that idea than to simply have the banks do it for them?
Police trying to control crime, especially drugs? Lol. As somebody put it: “police doesen’t fight crime, it manages it”
What’s the difference?
The difference is that if they manage they wont be willing to get rid of cash, to begin with
Stilgar
Oh no, it literally meant dirty, germ-carrying and crumpled.
X, In that case it is laughable.
But what will the bankers use to snort blow if there are no longer $100 bills?
“But what will the bankers use to snort blow if there are no longer $100 bills?”
And politicians… I remember a newspaper article about Bundestag’s toilets. There were 32 toilets I think, and somebody did anlayzed the wipers used to clean them and found traces of coke in more than 20
“But what will the bankers use to snort blow if there are no longer $100 bills?”
Maybe AmEx can start doing cylindrical cards for bankers.
Drug $ is the only thing keeping the finacial system afloat. If they could ban cash they would have done it long long ago.
If they ban cash — I understand the purpose of doing so is to get people to spend there money…
Most people don’t actually have any savings — even in OECD countries most people don’t have much in the way of savings…
So let’s say those people blow what they have — and the more affluent people buy a new car — take a trip — and those with a lot of cash invest in property or the stock market…..
That would no doubt provide a nice surge of heroin into BAU — but the impact would be rather short-lived….
But then again — if it adds 6 months or even a month to BAU — then let’s do it….. but we need to do it quickly because BAU is moaning and sweating….
Here’s a fun idea — at the same time the Elders can magically put different amounts of cash into everyone’s bank account — do not announce it because that would panic the sheeple — just do it…..
And make sure the MSM does not report on the ‘mystery money’
Perhaps the sheeple will seee this as an act of god….. just when they were on the verge of having to eat grilled rat…. this cash suddenly appeared…. allowing them to order in 3 for 1 pizza and a family size red bull for dinner for the next two weeks….
http://www.ldcollett.com/graphics/rats.jpg
‘Whatever it takes’
Interesting graph … slow collapse people will want to examine what happened in 2008….
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2016/01/31/20160131_china1_0.jpg
I wonder if China’s relatively high PMI now is being held up by the fact that production of steel, aluminum, apartments, etc. is still continuing, even though the market doesn’t need them?
http://thesenecatrap.blogspot.it/
There’s a blog now devoted to the Seneca cliff. I just found it so thought some might want to ck. it out. Spoiler: the backside of peak is steeper than the initial, front side.
Firework displays always end the same way!
http://www.vox.com/2016/1/30/10872878/world-population-map
Watched it – right, just like a fireworks display. If anyone thought this trajectory was sustainable, they should watch that video.
If we could not feed 7.3 B people there would not be 7.3 B people.
Look what farming did to us.
What are you talking about? “Look what farming did to us.”
Boy, talk about throwing stones…for someone that has taken and sought out EVERY benefit of what he calls BAU and now has the audacity to reject the prime gift of just being alive.
http://www.worldhunger.org/articles/Learn/world%20hunger%20facts%202002.htm
Count you lucky stars, White Cheeks, you still are able to shop at Wally World to bail you out when you need eats.
You got that right – I am absolutely overjoyed to have been born into an era of plenty
What a GOOD LIFE I have lived so far…..
Thanks to good people who thousands of years ago stuck the first seed into the ground …. a big round of applause to the Scott Nearings of this world for delivering copious amounts of food and freeing humans up from their hunting and gathering activities allowing them to focus on innovation which lead to progress which allows me to live in the middle of nowhere and still be able to work…
In the words of ACDC – ‘I salute you’
In parting I would like to say that I am particularly overjoyed that I made the decision not to breed.
Because all good things must end….. and because of that first farmer and the Scott Nearings of the world we now have 7.3 B people on the planet …. which of course is far, far too many….
Which means that if I had children I would soon have to watch them starve and suffer and die….
I might have to watch as rioting gangs raped my daughter…. or smashed my sons face in with the butt end of a rifle then yoked him and sent him into the fields….
Yes farming has been very very good for Fast Eddy.
Thanks for pointing that out.
And what does this have to do with the fact that farming made enough food available to allow for a population of 7.3 B?
At this point, the blog seems to only be a reposting of three of Ugo Bardi’s posts on the subject.
If Ugo understood that the economy is a networked system, he could explain the problem better. Contraction is not at all the same as growth. There are many simultaneous effects that bring the system down.
http://cassandralegacy.blogspot.com/
Ugo Bardi’s blog
“This blog is dedicated to exploring the future of humankind. It is based on the belief that it is still possible to work for a better future if we don’t discount the alerts of the modern Cassandras. (and don’t forget that the ancient prophetess turned out to be always right).”
Looks like Ugo is a cornucopian – “work for a better future”, code for improving BAU.
Yes, I have seen quite a few cornucopian posts from Ugo. Also a lot of AGW concern.
“AGW concern”
What’s that?
Looks like some more financial damage occurring due to collapsing oil revenues. Nigeria with the rattling can out for some monetary relief via yet more loans. We’ll find out how desperate the World Bank is to keep BAU afloat. If they lend the money to Nigeria it’s a forgone conclusion that added debt will later default, so it will show us just how desperate the world economic situation is from their decision.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-31/time-panic-nigeria-begs-world-bank-massive-loan-dollar-reserves-dry
“Time To Panic”? Nigeria Begs World Bank For Massive Loan As Dollar Reserves Dry Up
Having urged “don’t panic” just 4 short months ago, it appears Nigeria just did just that as the global dollar short squeeze forces the eight-month-old government of President Muhammadu Buhari to beg The World Bank and African Development Bank for $3.5bn in emergency loans to help fund a $15bn deficit in a budget heavy on public spending amid collapsing oil revenues.
My understanding would be that Greece never really pays back the loans that they get. If they do it’s by being loaned more money out of which they pay back the money that they already borrowed.
Greece’s only genuine option is to leave the Eurozone with its neo-liberal policies and restart the drachma. They can declare they will not be liable for criminally imposed debt liabilities, because its true, and they will repudiate all loans created by fiat, out of nothing and not backed by any solid assets.
That would be a magic trick if they ever did pay them back.
There is also a story out about Mexico’s oil company already getting a big bail out and Brazil not ruling out a big bailout for its oil company. http://wolfstreet.com/2016/01/30/the-big-oil-bailouts-begin/
If you have an oversupply of oil, it is necessary that some companies fail, or the system remains oversupplied. The additional debt holds the system together a bit longer, until everything crashes.
“More to the point, how will its government, which has for decades used a state-owned company as a finance vehicle to fund 30% of its budget, begin bailing out that same company with funds that no longer exist?”
“If you have an oversupply of oil, it is necessary that some companies fail, or the system remains oversupplied. The additional debt holds the system together a bit longer, until everything crashes.”
Absolutely true that some companies need to fail or the system remains oversupplied. There seems to be an overriding world policy these days to bail out anything and everything that puts the fear of contraction into the TPTB, that their positions of power and wealth could be at great risk if they didn’t do something. The analogy of plugging holes in a dike is often used, but it also seems like a game of chess. Each naturally occurring fiscal move that would normally cause contraction (in the face of diminishing returns), is met with an equally forced move to counter contraction to continue BAU. The trouble with that strategy is it fails to acknowledge the root problem and ignores the fact it builds the situation ever closer to the edge of an abyss.
Another analogy would be a poker game. In the face of a lousy hand (cornucopia) is still trying to hold on to some growth, but the better hand (depletion) has time in its favor. The chips in the middle of the table represent loans and they just keep piling up because the only thing cornucopia can do is keep raising the stakes, because the worst thing that can happen to cornucopia is for both players to show their hands. Each time more money is lent to Greece, Nigeria, Brazil and other near collapsing economies, the stakes just get bigger. Why jump off a short cliff when you can jump off a really high one?
Really Stil I don’t think there is anymore growth. I’m pretty sure what we have been seeing since 2008 is creative accounting…..and in more ways than one, energy not the least. If companies or corporations merge, that is counted as growth, if a business bankrupts and another gains some business that appears to be growth. It’s simply a race to the bottom and governments lead the charge, they need to grow too, their revenue from business is shrinking so they go to the rank and file……us, business taxes are reduced (quite obviously to keep them in business) but an individual consumer going bust is of little concern…….it’s called kicking the can down the road, to allow someone or thing in the future to pick it up
There can’t be any growth because the net energy available is declining. We all know that to grow more energy needs to be consumed. The present oil glut is a fantasy, seized upon by economists but of course when we delve deeply or even shallowly into oil production, net energy is the key.
“Really Stil I don’t think there is anymore growth.”
I’m sure that is probably true. Adding QE, illegal street drug sales, borrowed stimulus, prostitution and new loans chasing bad one’s in the oil patch to GDP, probably does mean it’s non-growth or even worse, trying to cover up contraction.
“We all know that to grow more energy needs to be consumed. The present oil glut is a fantasy, seized upon by economists but of course when we delve deeply or even shallowly into oil production, net energy is the key.”
It’s all about net energy, for sure. Kind of strange understanding this stuff, knowing at the same time most of the general public is unaware, and when shtf they will really wonder what the heck happened. They’ll say, “But I thought things were ‘recovering'”, because they got that spoon fed to them by MSM on a daily basis.
It’s rather like knowing about germ theory when most people around believe that illness and infection come from not having made the right sacrifice to the gods or something.
One has to live on at least two levels: the public face and private knowledge.
Wen our civilization crashes, next to no one will understand even a fraction of the causes.
Kunstler’s latest missive;
http://kunstler.com/clusterfuck-nation/ground-control-to-captain-zhou-xiaochuan/?utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+clusterfucknation+%28Clusterfuck+Nation%29
Kunstler became a lot less amusing when he wrote this recently:
‘The cops present at several notorious incidents include black officers; a black female sergeant who was supervising the action on the sidewalk in Staten Island when her colleagues choked Eric Garner. (she did nothing to intervene); the several black policemen in Baltimore who took Freddy Gray on his fatal ride in the paddy wagon. It’s a scene fraught with ambiguity, to be generous.’
Let’s revisit that incident:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ajhpFT-lVZY
And the female officer was supposed to stop this? And then be a pariah in the force…..
Um…. perhaps cops should not kill people who are selling smokes on the street because nobody can afford a full deck these days…..
Kunstler and his tirades against tatooed slobs riding around on scooters is getting very old — what did he expect the end of the world was going to look like — are people supposed to look like they just stepped out of the pages of GQ?
Mr K is going to be very disappointed when he sees what comes next — and he better hope that the riffraff has not been reading what he says about them….
Often said it’s like putting lipstick on a pig. but the pig remains a pig and good to eat.
I would suggest it is more like the people with syphilis who used face paint and patches to cover up the symptoms of their condition until…..their nose fell off and everyone could see that only useless rottenness lay underneath.
Cover it up, hide the truth! Keep kicking that can!
Stilgar, I can tell you why. If you stop with little debt and ownership of your nations resources you are in better shape than if you stop with lots of debt and no ownership of your nations resources.
“ownership grows from the barrel of a gun”
Good analogy!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qAICmjSw6Qw
It Is Coming—Extinction
One of Salvador Dali’s melting clocks pictures. Later in life he was flat broke, but he still had a name, so he would go to a restaurant and live it up then write them a ck. and make the signature big. The restaurant would then have a piece of famous memorabilia, post it where people could see it and never cash the check. Pretty good scan, eh?
That video is as doomerish as it gets. I could only last 1:30 but I’m sure more doomerish posters could last longer.
correction: …pretty good scam…
Dali used to work with Fabergé on jeweled eggs and other dust collectors that the wealthy class would buy/trade/gift as a hedge against inflation/deflation and perhaps also as a tax dodge. So at one time, he literally had millions of dollars of jewel-encrusted gold, platinum and silver in his hands. Of all places, I once visited a Dali art collection with Fabergé eggs, etc. on the upstairs level of an Akiabara, Tokyo electronics shop on the kind invitation of the owner and merchant tycoon. He also had one of Mozart’s pianos.
I have been following OFW for many years and Iwould like to pass on my thanks to Gail and the many regular commenters on this site its so refreshing to read about the true state of things and not the bs mainstream media is ignorantly serving us.Many thanks everybody.
You are welcome. Glad to have you as a reader!
Dear Finite Worlders
This is for those worried about irrigation in a post-fossil fuel world:
http://articles.extension.org/pages/73436/growing-vegetables-and-fruit-without-irrigation-in-northern-california-and-the-maritime-pacific-nort
The free webinar is coming up shortly. A dry land farmer in Oregon will be a participant. I warn you that these are usually quite academic, with lots of attention paid to the scientific aspects. If you are allergic to science, you might keep that in mind.
Don Stewart
I’m actually more worried about 1000’s of people showing up at my gate begging for food…. is there a webinar on that?
Eddy, have you considered the possibility to draw electric wiring to explosives (makeshift landmines) that can be then detonated in some specific order to create shock and awe.
Also simple caltrops are surprisingly effective. People don´t look down to their feet when sneaking around at night.
Also having a bird´s nest position and a hunting rifle, is surprisingly effective.
And if you combine these three, with appropriate ditches and compacted earth walls to direct the flow of the movement, that would put you in the masters league.
No … I hadn’t thought of any of this.
Van Kent
I gave some serious thought to methods of defence after the violent gypsy invasion of a neighbouring village here in rural England last year, which went beyond anything which I thought possible: the police just didn’t want to know what was happening, and people were besieged in their homes while the cocky thugs strutted around and threatening to burn out anyone who challenged them.
Caltrops are a great idea: most people wear rather pathetic shoes these days not boots, with very vulnerable soles, but of course the real aim is not to penetrate but attach; and once they are stuck on them they will be immobilised and discouraged. They should be designed so as to be painful and awkward to remove.
They have the excellent virtue of being non-lethal: the police are still more likely to prosecute you for hurting or threatening a thug, than the thug for hitting you.
Defensive measures of a passive kind and avoidance of fire-arms are best, as even a fist fight can end in manslaughter or murder charges if someone bangs their head, etc.
I have devised several kinds of improvised razor-wire as well as caltrops to be deployed in a true emergency with threat of a house invasion.
None of the above being of the slightest use in averting robbery by banksters, alas…..
in the recent floods in uk—almost the first people to show up were looters
this time they were driven off—but what happens when everybodys affected come shtf time
Xabier,
A couple of days before Christmas the police in my city (York, UK) heard two rival gypsy families were coming to the city to fight that evening. Their response was to order the closure of the bars in one part of the city center. In the event, nothing happened. I talked to a gypsy late that evening who said the fight would only have been between one representative of each family anyway. A number of businesses lost a lot of money. The correct response would surely have been to arrest troublemakers and not punish businesses.
I don’t share the faith in the police that some commentators here have. Anybody with faith in the police is either wealthy or has had no dealings with them.
Another problem with renewables, is the missing ability of running in island mode. Most wind turbines(if not all) and most PV installations depend on the electrical grid being present to be able to function. Basically they need a stronger force to keep the voltage and frequency in check to avoid large fluctuations.
To some extent it is mostly just a technical problem, which could be solved – I work as an electrical engineer in a major wind power manufacturer and some of my colleagues are working on incorporating this feature. But that is actually just for off shore commissioning, so the turbines can keep themselves warm until the grid has been put in place (we use HUGE diesel generators for that now which due to politics sometimes can last for months). For PV installations part of the reason you don’t want them to run independent of the grid, is when repairs to the grid installations are needed, it is important to know that tension will not suddenly appear from the clients installation, even though you thought you had switched the power off entirely from your side.
But also, since each wind farm and PV installation does not have a dependable constant power production(it varies greatly with wind and sun input), and are small in power output compared to a power plant, they would be driven to the ground (i.e. the voltage would go to zero) if the load was too big. Think of it as a small car, that has to push a big train. At it’s peak power, it might be able to do it, but suddenly without warning, it would lose power, and possibly ruin itself and most of the connected appliances in the process.
The best solution is to connect all the wind farms and PV installations of the world together, so you would have fairly dependable average production all year round. But since the electrical grid is the most complex system already, I think even in a normal BAU situation it could quickly become unmanageable, and renewables will always only work as a supplement to a fully functioning coal or nuclear powered grid.
So I subscribe to Fast Eddie and Gails visions of the future. Chris Martenson was the one that opened my eyes – “technology is NOT energy” was like a grenade went of in my head when I heard it in his Crash Course – before that like everyone else I didn’t know how close we were to the limits of growth, but I was sure we would invent our way out of the problem. Sill I always found him to be overtly optimistic, but what Gail and FE writes makes more sense to me.
When I try engaging in discussions of Facebook with politicians and option makers, I find that nobody ever wants to discuss a finite world. I suspect some of them do know what is going on, but not all. A director of a major think tank in Denmark wrote that we had INVENTED oil, and disillusioned I realized further discussion with him would be a waste of time. But if I could go back and not know, I might also have chosen that option. It at least put a big divider between me and the (now ex-) wife when I started stoking up on food. She went totally nuts, just for me suggesting something could go wrong. Sadly, just as most of you guys it is just not in my DNA. I need to know the truth, no matter the consequences. So thanks to Gail for her huge effort!
Kenny, can you give us some estimates on wind power. Are they of any use in Post-BAU? What about spare parts? I´m just asking because there is a major wind farm near my brothers place and I don´t know what advantages that brings, if any, in Post-BAU.
Sorry to hear you having troubles with the missus. It is certainly a bittersweet thing, being aware, that she will be ringing at your doorbell (with or without her new boyfriend) as soon as SHTF.
I think they will be rendered useless quickly. If the grid fails, most likely the turbines switch off as a result. You usually also have a monitoring facility far away from the farm itself, which is needed to restart the turbines after a grid outage, so there is no possibility of breaking into one and connecting your house directly to one. And try keeping your food cold in the refrigerator on non windy days. One day without power and your food is ruined.
A wind turbine is a fairly sophisticated machine nowadays, so it depends on spare parts from a lot of places around the world. It costs 1000$ pr. hour to send a ship with technicians for servicing an off shore turbine. I think a helicopter is around 7000$ pr. hour. Just to give you an idea of how much goes into maintaining them with BAU working.
Thanks Kenny, thats pretty much how I imagined it would be, but had to ask. Do you have such detailed inside info concerning hydro? Any electrical engineer estimates on hydro?
Some months ago we had a hydro engineer on FW — he was commenting on how ludicrous it was to think that a hydro facility would be maintained post BAU…… it was a very detailed post that explained how complex such a facility was and how it relied on so many moving parts that break and could not be replaced… he also mentioned the complex grid that is required to deliver the power to where it was needed and there was absolutely no way that could be maintained post BAU
Yup, but I had to ask.
The grid is somehow the holy virgin mary mother of god of modern civilization and even mentioning that eventually we will not have the grid, and also, that it will never be back up again once it goes bye-bye.That is somehow beyond most peoples ability to cope. We can freely talk about a billion people starving, but mentioning, not having the grid ever again, instant cognitive dissonance. So when somebody actually can explain the finer details, I just have to ask how it works, and how exactly the different parts will fail.
I read where in mud huts in some parts of rural Africa, a single solar panel can provide light for a kid’s homework (not that I’m into homework). Can a couple panels run a small fridge, a small pump, or something similar?
“I read where in mud huts in some parts of rural Africa, a single solar panel can provide light for a kid’s homework”
A good desk lamp is only a couple watts. I think using a wind-up mechanism would be cheaper and more durable than a solar panel.
Often, it is not electricity you need; it is just that the grid is so convenient, we think that way. Often, what you want is the end product, and converting to electricity then to the thing we want is actually far less efficient. It is just so easy when everything is made with a plug, to a standardized system.
A fridge would require a battery — as it must run at night.
Have I told you about my experience with solar pumps…… waiting on the verdict from Lorentz… the pump is definitely damaged… trying to pin-point the cause….
“A fridge would require a battery — as it must run at night.”
If you use a large chest type freezer as a fridge, and fill it half full of water jugs, it may hold over night. Here, for nearly half the year, we store stuff in a cooler outside as supplemental storage to the fridge in the house. Of course, local conditions are a key factor in deciding what will work for you.
What happens if you get a series of cloudy or rainy days ….
Matthew and Don B,
Gail had mentioned a sort of pump-up light, but comments suggested it wasn’t very bright. I remember gas lamps from my childhood, but I think those can explode, although they were very bright.
I checked out those small fridges and coolers, but should have emphasized my curiosity about pumps instead. I’m concerned with how to run our town well without the grid. It’s not urgent to find the answer here, since the guys who run the system know a lot about solar and pumps. The awareness on FW that’s *entirely* lacking in my village is that the grid is perilously close to going away.
“Gail had mentioned a sort of pump-up light, but comments suggested it wasn’t very bright.”
Brightness is to some extent a matter of contrast; the darker it is, the more effective a smaller light is. Here is a program from a university professor not far from me, he has been going for years to Malawi, setting up solar panels with lamps. It seems they make them around 5 watts; he was saying they often move further away, since it is so bright for them, compared to what they are accustomed.
http://www.ledafrica.org/solarlighting.html
I just don’t see solar panels and batteries being as cost effective or as end-user serviceable as a crank system; an average person on a bicycle can produce 100 watts, and could sustain that for an hour. If you had a 50% efficient counter-weight as storage, that would power a 5 watt lamp for 10 hours.
Or in their example, one person slowly pedaling could power a whole classroom at 40 watts.
A “fridge” is a motor. As most know it, a motor is a AC device.
Why do you need a “fridge”?
Meat
Give up the meat and dairy and the need for the motor disapears
DC DC DC DC DC DC DC DC DC DC
“Why do you need a “fridge”?
Meat
Give up the meat and dairy and the need for the motor disapears”
Bread and lettuce last much longer under refrigeration. Soup can be kept for days. Otherwise, you need to cook food every day, using more energy and time and labour. Even your canned foods, once opened, should be refrigerated. Otherwise, you have to consume a whole jar of sauerkraut or pickles in one day.
I think if it can be maintained, a local ice factory is probably the best solution. Just one large facility in a town, providing blocks of ice for local use. Then, you just have a well insulated room – or maybe two or three, if you have some stuff to keep frozen, and some at 4 celsius, and some at maybe 8 or 10. Works better with intermittent energy, instead of trying to make power at night or using chemical batteries.
“Bread and lettuce last much longer under refrigeration.”
Bread doesnt go moldy for weeks unrefrigerated- lettuce- you eat that?
Otherwise, you need to cook food every day, using more energy and time and labour.
So you dont cook every day?
” Even your canned foods, once opened, should be refrigerated. Otherwise, you have to consume a whole jar of sauerkraut or pickles in one day.”
Your two examples keep just fine unrefrigerated.
Would you really have a hard time consuming a whole can of lima beans in a day?
A lot of the world doesnt have refrigeration. They get along just fine. Refrigeration is necessary for health consumption of just meat and dairy although I have witnessed distribution and consumption of those in countries that dont have refrigeration also.
Refrigeration is a luxury not a necessity.
“Bread doesnt go moldy for weeks unrefrigerated-”
Wonderbread maybe doesn’t go bad for weeks unrefrigerated. Real, fresh bread without preservatives and low sodium goes moldy within a couple days. I don’t think the Wonderbread factory is going to be running post-BAU.
“So you dont cook every day?”
We are talking about after the grid goes down. If you are going to be spending four hours a day weeding and four hours a day hauling water, do you also want to spend two hours a day cooking food over a campfire?
“Refrigeration is a luxury not a necessity.”
So is indoor plumbing, irrigation, electric lights, shoes. What is your point?
I knew a guy in Bali who tried to live off grid — no panels no nothing ….. he went to bed very early and woke up very early ….
He had no fridge … he cooked on a fire …
The experiment did not last very long….. first he started to keep food in a cooler box…. then eventually he connected a wire to his house and then there was light … and a fridge…
Part of the Fast Eddy Challenge involves not using a fridge or stove….. try that for a week….
“Wonderbread maybe doesn’t go bad for weeks unrefrigerated. Real, fresh bread without preservatives and low sodium goes moldy within a couple days. I don’t think the Wonderbread factory is going to be running post-BAU.”
I have personally eaten 100% whole wheat bread many weeks old many many many times. No mold.
We are talking about after the grid goes down. If you are going to be spending four hours a day weeding and four hours a day hauling water, do you also want to spend two hours a day cooking food over a campfire?
A troll like you has many hours to endlessly argue abourt BS so whats a few hours cooking?
“Refrigeration is a luxury not a necessity.”
So is indoor plumbing, irrigation, electric lights, shoes. What is your point?
You as usual are providing examples that dont match the topic because you are a troll of the worst type. The effort to provide a system of AC power to enable refigeration is not a good use of time. The effort to produce the items you mention may or may not be worth it. My point was simple. A DC based PV system may be worth the time and expense. An PV system that has to have a inverter and enough capacity to drive motors is not.
Mathew you occaisonally provide some value to this forum but the vast majority of your endless comments are clearly driven by your need to argue. This is by definition is what a internet troll is.
“The effort to provide a system of AC power to enable refigeration is not a good use of time. The effort to produce the items you mention may or may not be worth it. My point was simple. A DC based PV system may be worth the time and expense. An PV system that has to have a inverter and enough capacity to drive motors is not.”
No one was arguing against this point. You are creating imaginary arguments in your head. I never said anything about needing the grid, or preferring AC over DC. I did say chemical batteries are a terrible idea, and that it would be better to use lots of insulation, heat sinks, or a local ice factory instead.
I disagree – while I do disagree with Matthew at times — he is willing to come around to a new position if the facts dictate….
He makes some very good points regarding The Fast Eddy Challenge.
‘I have personally eaten 100% whole wheat bread many weeks old many many many times. No mold.’
Perhaps your whole wheat bread is actually this:
How much sugar is in your ‘healthy’ brown and wholemeal bread?
A Telegraph analysis reveals that many brown and wholemeal loaves of bread contain more sugar than their white equivalents, prompting concern from campaigners and nutritionists
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/health/10716212/How-much-sugar-is-in-your-healthy-brown-and-wholemeal-bread.html
“Part of the Fast Eddy Challenge involves not using a fridge or stove….. try that for a week…”
Well the fridge i have done not for a week but for years although I an running one now. The stove not so much. by the way I have taken tthe FE challenge of living without electricity of any kind for months and its really quite enjoyable(but never in the winter). I did have lots of canned and dry food. I did cook using fossil fuel. I have cooked on campfires it can be done but its a real art. flipping the breaker is not a real challenge as long as you have water dry food and a way to cook it-.
Most heating systems dont work without the grid and that would be problematic in the winter.
‘I did have lots of canned and dry food. I did cook using fossil fuel’
‘as long as you have water dry food and a way to cook it’
The Fast Eddy challenge also includes cutting trees and splitting them with an axe and dragging them by hand and piling the wood….
Washing clothes by hand.
No petrol allowed for any purposes — no buying anything in a shop – no doctor — no medicine allowed —- you eat what you produce – nothing else…. you preserve using a camp fire – not a stove….
I wonder in a cold climate how many cords of wood one would need to keep warm and cook? How many hours would be required to cut and split that much wood…..
I suspect you’d find that if you followed the Challenge there would not be enough time in the day to get everything done that needs doing — and that by the end of the day you would be exhausted…
At least that’s what I gather from the various books I have read about people who lived the Fast Eddy Challenge….. people who were born into that sort of life — tough completely unpampered men and women —- even they struggled and suffered profoundly much of the time….
I doubt anyone here has even the slightest idea of how hard such a life is….
At the most some people are taking the Fast Eddy Challenge Lite — they are picking and choosing which parts of BAU they continue to make use of — and they make assumptions that unplugging from BAU completely would be only slightly more inconvenient.
Oh and don’t forget — no pumping water using electricity either…. water comes from a gravity feed…. or from a bucket from the nearest source…. or from roof catchment
‘Oh and don’t forget — no pumping water using electricity either…. water comes from a gravity feed…. or from a bucket from the nearest source…. or from roof catchment”
Can I wipe using charmin or must I use my hand? ( a under rated aspect of minimalism by the way)
FE your challenge is deceptive. You use it as argument to demonstrate that people dont possess the skills necessary to survive post collapse. I am not necessarily in disagreement with that argument. There will be assets of the easy oil age for a long time post collapse. Those items may or may not ease a transition into a non BAU life for our species. Realistically however a great deal of assets will still continue to be available post collapse. Your challenge is not realistic it assumes that all assets disappear in a puff of smoke post collapse. Thats omost as crazy as a kumbyah smoker. While those assets are still available they may provide our species time to develop the skills and methods to live without them. Or not. If you are saying none of these things will be available 100 years post collapse I agree but several generations will have time to adapt then. Asking us – a species weaned on easy energy- to take your challenge as it applies to future generations is a deceptive argument.
Oh ya… there will be washing machines … and pick up trucks…. and irrigation pumps and all sorts of great stuff…
But there will be no oil – there will be no electricity …. so that stuff will not be helpful
When the financial system busts — and it will bust — the oil that is in the ground — will remain in the ground
Of course there will be shovels and hammers and other tools and axes — which will be helpful — but these are things been available for hundreds of years… (as we know we cut down most of the forests in Europe to make metal tools possible….)
Which returns us to the Fast Eddy Challenge — washing clothes without a washing machine — chopping and splitting trees with an axe…
And so on…..
I sense that most of the people on FW planning for such an outcome are well over 60 — I doubt any of you will last a week when the power goes off — no disrespect but this is not an old man’s game …. even a fit 20 year old would struggle to make it to the end of the week living without BAU.
Let’s not continue talking about this — can someone please walk the walk here…
Go out back – flip off the mains…. toss the car keys in the drawer…
We’ll wait for your report when you come back online in a week
“There will be assets of the easy oil age for a long time post collapse. ”
Which assets and for how long?
How many years of toilet paper? How many years will the solar panels last? How many years the irrigation system?
Do you know how long the gasoline will stay good, so you can use it to power a chainsaw, before you have to switch to using a bow saw?
I think part of the purpose of the Fast Eddy Challenge is to ask yourself, if you really want to survive post BAU, is it really worth it. It is at least as much psychological and thought experiment as it is practical. It is also a good way to find flaws and holes in your plans, to make improvements, if you are determined that attempting survival is worth the effort and hardship.
Spot on with that comment.
I am not mocking doomsday preparedness —- I am helping those who have taken this path….
What could be worse than believing you have what you need in place — then when the SHTF you find that you are hopelessly out of your depth?
The Fast Eddy Challenge is a dry run — it gives you a chance to recognize the weaknesses of your plan — and hopefully be able to adjust your preparation plan while BAU is still on offer…
“No one was arguing against this point. You are creating imaginary arguments in your head. I never said anything about needing the grid, or preferring AC over DC.”
BS. Your trollish argumentative behavior speaks for itself. Now you try to avoid discussion of your behavior. Nor is your behavior a isolated incident. It exemplifies the definition of a troll exactly. In particular this episode of your behavior demonstrates that you actually agree with what I posted, you just found a supposed flaw so you wasted everbodies time in a argument.
Ill explain it to you like a child.
This would be a non trollish response.
89t I disagree with your opinion that AC and non refigeration are a no go. I am running the yf inverter and ljiyfsolar panets. They cost me iugf. The outg refrigerator I use uses only iutg watts!
It cost luf. This outlay of expense is compensated foor by kepping our ,ljhf cold which nourishes us greatly.
This imaginary post would demonstrate personal experience legitimate knowledge and benefits the community.
Another example of a non trollish response would be.
Screw any PV! I use those assets to buy top ramen and cat food for fluffy kitten!
Here personal opinion is being given but no faux numbers are pulled out of a hat. The poster is stating their opinion and choices not creating faux numbers to support their argument in a area where they have no actual legitimate experience.
I stand by my statement. mathews behaviour is trollish 9 out of ten posts. He will argue water pours up in Australia for the sake of argument. Such behaviour is appropriate in a jr high debate class but demonstrates very questionable maturity. If he is willing to change his behavior, stop wasting peoples energy, I would welcome any genuine constructive input or legitimate knowledge he has.
Did I tell you about the solar pump that cost me a few thousand dollars + the 15k rig that was put into the creek along with it …. that bust after 3 weeks….
The electrician is coming out to test the system next week…. another big bill coming….
I am not a big fan of solar — all it takes is a single small part to bust post BAU — and you’ve got yourself and worthless pile of junk….
I have 4 panels capable of producing 400 watts output at 12 volts. That is more than enough to power a small fridge/freezer – with power to spare for topping off a battery. You will find that there are dedicated 12 volt units available. That way you avoid inverter losses.
Artleads,
Check out the ARB line of fridge/freezers and see what you think.
Don B
I think thats the way to go DC only. Personally I dont find refrigeration to be a basic need. How many start amps does your DC compressor pull?
Extremely useful comments — we’ve also had an engineer involved in hydro electric power generation who threw all sorts of similar wrenches into the turbines when people suggested hydro could continue post BAU
Now what we need is a spent fuel pond expert to explain how it will be impossible to manage those post BAU …
I have a new reasoning on the SFP issue, which I suppose PaulWeeWillyWinkyTooFastEddy will not like very much, but which I guess others could appreciate.
SPF are unlikely to be manned for more than a couple of days or weeks once the grid is gone in a given place or worldwide, so they will be left abandonned. However it is likely that operators will dry pipes and ponds before leaving -as it was done in Chernobyl after the blast- to completely prevent H and steam explosions and reduce the chances of criticality (they would do it in their own behalf, given they and their families usually live nearby).
The point is that without explosions there is no breaking of the envelope and radiation is kept inside the building. But explosions can still happen because of criticality, and I found somewhere a guy that sustained the blast in reactor 1 at Fukushima was not H induced as it is officially sustained (his maths said there was not enough H in the room to propel up the roof so many feet high as it happened, so he concluded a fizzle did it).
There are many differencies among plants and pools however, and a very few pools have even no ceiling at all.
Chernobyl accident didn’t was a criticality accident, but it was much, much worse than the supposed fizzle at Daichi number 1. So, how much criticality are we to expect and how bad can it go? It is of course hard to predict, but I found a reference:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Background_radiation
It is asseverated there that humans received an average radiation dose of 0.04 mSv from Chernobyl accident in 1986, which would have fallen to 0.02 nowadays. So a thousand Chernobyls would represent an average dose of 40 mSv (unlikely to fall so quickly as Chernobyl’s, because nobody will be repairing the enveloppe and -even if it would be colder- material will continue to be taken away by wind and possibly rainfall.
40 mSv is an important dose, but it is only seven times the average dose a US resident is getting anually (same source: 6.24 mSv). For the average human, however, it would be 14 times the average dose of today.
A thousand simultaneous Chernobyls -which are possible but do not seem probable- wouldn’t wipe out mankind, that’s for sure.
Edit: “which would have fallen to 0.002 nowadays”
Yup. A killing does is 5000 mSv.
Nuclear radiation for now is less important than the radiation exposure by our cell phone networks, Wi Fi ,even cordless phones. This modern phenomenon is causing a lot of anxiety in some quarters. A leading Neurosurgeon is forecasting brain tumours will be the leading cause of death in the under 40’S:-
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/10/081020093456.htm
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/11/101105213809.htm
http://www.slideshare.net/YaelStein1/ehs-human-rights
https://youtu.be/dpQegD1D34k
See what you think?
I think that 48,000 Chernobyls will be far more devastating than cell phone radiation….
I know someone who died from cell phone radiation — he was a broker and on his brick far too much talking to clients …. a tumor showed up right behind his phone ear … and he died within months…. he had just retired….
Not 1000 – 48,000.
The Harvard study examines what happens if only one site is successfully attacked — it thus assumes that we will have the full force of BAU available to eventually control the situation …
That is not the way it is going to happen — they will all go down — BAU will go down — and they will billow radiation for decades…
So 48,000 Chernobyls is a best case scenario…
I am not clear as to what you are trying to say — do you mean that if the fuel is just left dry it won’t explode?
If so then you might want to read this:
What are the risks and vulnerabilities?
If a malfunction, a natural disaster, or a terrorist attack causes the water to leak from the pool or the cooling system to stop working, the rods will begin to heat the remaining water in the pool, eventually causing it to boil and evaporate. If the water that leaks or boils away cannot be replenished quickly enough, the water level will drop, exposing the fuel rods.
Once the fuel is uncovered, it could become hot enough to cause the metal cladding encasing the uranium fuel to rupture and catch fire, which in turn could further heat up the fuel until it suffers damage. Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment. This would start in more recently discharged spent fuel, which is hotter than fuel that has been in the pool for a longer time. A typical spent fuel pool in the United States holds several hundred tons of fuel, so if a fire were to propagate from the hotter to the colder fuel a radioactive release could be very large.
The spent fuel pools in boiling-water reactors are located only within the secondary containment of the reactor—the reactor building—and not within the more robust primary containment that is designed to keep radiation released from the reactor vessel during an emergency event from escaping into the environment. Thus, any radiation released from a spent fuel pool is more likely to reach the outside environment than is radiation released from the reactor core. Moreover, because it is outside the primary containment, the spent fuel pool is more vulnerable than the reactor core to certain terrorist attacks like deliberate aircraft crashes.
Continuing to add spent fuel to these pools compounds this problem by increasing the amount of radioactive material that could be released into the environment. A large radiation release from a spent fuel pool could release more cesium-137 than the Chernobyl disaster, resulting in thousands of cancer deaths and hundreds of billions of dollars in decontamination costs and economic damage.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear-power/nuclear-waste/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel#.Vq7q1lLTTT8
Again — this article would assume that we can eventually get a compromised pool under control….
That won’t be possible
“I have a new reasoning on the SFP issue”
Oh Boy.
“However it is likely that operators will dry pipes and ponds before leaving -as it was done in Chernobyl after the blast- to completely prevent H and steam explosions and reduce the chances of criticality”
Water is both a moderator and a coolant. Draining out the water would increase radioactivity and heat, increasing the likelihood of the zirconium catching fire, and all the fuel melting together into a giant slag heap at the bottom.
“A thousand simultaneous Chernobyls ”
The reactor at Chernobyl had something like 180 tonnes of fuel. There are over 200,000 tonnes of fuel in ponds and reactors throughout the world, so the 1000 times is not far off. However, Chernobyl was met with a massive response – 600,000 people, tens of billions of dollars, hundreds of pieces of heavy machinery, and who knows how much cement, borax, etc. It was quickly contained. What we are talking about is decades of smoldering, gases in the sky, contaminated water flowing through the destroyed structures.
A more reasonable thing to do if you had the machinery, fuel, and a couple weeks time, might be to remove all the cooled down fuel – about 160,000 out of the 200,000 tonnes worldwide (as of 2009, so bigger numbers now) and spread out the remaining fuel in the ponds. The reactors have to be kept with circulating water for maybe five years, then you can move their fuel into the in-reactor spent fuel pond for a few years, then out to the main common spent fuel for another five years.
I think the optimal thing would be to be able to dry cask the ~160,000 tonnes that are ready during those few weeks, and have the dry casks on hand for the next 10-15 years so if anyone is able to dry cask the remaining 40,000 tonnes plus all the fuel currently in the reactors. Otherwise, cut holes in the roof to allow rain in and steam out, and try to set up a gravity fed system to keep the water levels topped up. Of course, without proper decommissioning, it would all leak after a few decades anyways, but it might be orders of magnitude less severe than letting them catch fire.
But since this is calculated over a decade or two, general disorder (national and international), and disease, would also have to be considered too.
Fuel to run machinery can be stored in nearby communities, and subjected to a sequenced schedule of replacement…
When things start to tank, economy wise. just drop the rods in an ocean trench. It’s not legal now but who’s going to worry about that then? Eventually they will be subducted into the crust.
I think you’re probably on the right track. I mean we’re talking desperate measures here.
I’m assuming that you would have the spent fuel dry casked before loading onto ships and dumping it. 200,000 tonnes of fuel is going to need a looot of dry casks. And I take it they haven’t been manufactured yet – JIT economy and all that.
If not, then how do you move the rods less than 3 yrs old?
Also, once dry casked all the spent fuel can be left in situ at the station.
Unless, of course, you’re referring to a staggered operation of dumping the oldest fuel first – still,how? – and the latest fuel after 3 or more years during possible post BAU conditions.
There is a vitrification process for containing toxic waste but I don’t think it’s viable for spent fuel. So, dry casking it is, and it needs to be done asap before BAU goes away…
My hunch is that none of this will get done in time. Many processes in the supply chain will fail. The humans involved will abandon their posts and take their chances alongside everyone else.
It may be that the levels of radiation are survivable by some. I would expect there to be more survivors in the southern hemisphere than the north.
I suspect dropping so much spent fuel into the oceans would poison them and in turn the planet….
I would have thought there will be masses of unused tankers. Fill them with water and place the rods in them. You have to wait years for dry casking. You just need a crane on board to get them out of the ship. Or you could scuttle the ship. It won’t be useful afterwards.
Spent fuel ponds are not just swimming pools with water pouring into them …. they are high-tech:
The maximum temperature of the spent fuel bundles decreases significantly between 2 and 4 years, and less from 4 to 6 years. The fuel pool water is continuously cooled to remove the heat produced by the spent fuel assemblies.
Pumps circulate water from the spent fuel pool to heat exchangers, then back to the spent fuel pool. The water temperature in normal operating conditions is held below 50°C (120°F).[2]
Radiolysis, the dissociation of molecules by radiation, is of particular concern in wet storage, as water may be split by residual radiation and hydrogen gas may accumulate increasing the risk of explosions.
For this reason the air in the room of the pools, as well as the water, must be continually monitored and treated.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spent_fuel_pool
Something for the experts to resolve. Or do nothing, which is your choice, no?
If there were a way to resolve this then we would not have spent fuel ponds at all.
The fact that we continue to drop spent fuel into these facilities indicates that there is no other option….
Wow, I didn’t imagined these few paragraphs would get so much reactions!
All those ideas of dry casking, ocean dumping, storing diesel, rocketing to space and such have already been discussed here. Perhaps it is not impossible for one of those “solutions” to partially take place, but I see absolutely no evidence it will. Not a single bit of it: dry casks should be built at two orders or magnitude faster than now, fresh spent fuel can’t be moved at all, etc, etc. Rich countries won’t do a s..t about pour countries stuff, and rich countries own 90% of the spf anyway. As far I can see, facilities will be left abandoned without significant measures, at least in 90% of cases.
It seems most of you doesn’t understand what happened at Chernobyl. Please take a look:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chernobyl_disaster
The major problem was not the explosion, but the fire. It took 18 days to extinguish it. Radiation release was a function of the graphite fire, not of the initial explosion. And this core got an incredibly high temperature, because of the bizarre experiment it underwent. So I am comparing oranges and apples when I use Chernobyl to “model” the abandonment of the facilities, because this kind of fire will not be produced. However, I use it just because it was the worst nuclear disaster that had ever happened.
Sure drying the pools will make zirconium catch fire (a very very small fire if compared to Chernobyl’s) and the fuel will melt and fall to the bottom of the pool. And so what? No problem with that, it’s just that nobody will be able to get into the building, no problem because facilities will be abandoned forever. Some pools are located in a different building with poorer radiation shielding… so, those buildings will emit more radiation than the others. I saw a study that estimated a re-racked and not chess-boarded pool (so, the worst case) needs at least 2 years of cooling after having stopped receiving used rods to be sure zirconium will not catch fire in case the pool goes dry. Who and how will do it? What for, anyway?
Do you know why Japanese are washing the melted cores and dumping the s..t in the ocean while Ukrainians didn’t? Because they can: there is no sea at Chernobyl. So Ukrainians did had to suffer all their s..t staying in place.
I see this is to be highlighted: it is not only that Ukrainian operators didn’t tried to wet their melted core, they prevented rain getting into; they also dried off a pool, an operation that took the life of 3 men that did knew they will die in doing it but sacrificed themselves. Why? Because water is fine in normal situations, but not in exceptional situations: it produces blasts and criticality if not properly managed, which was absolutely impossible to do in that case. Most important of all: keeping facilities accessible is the first goal of existing protocols, which is not relevant if you are to abandon them.
Regarding your question, you whichever your name happens to be -we could call you by a sign, as with Prince- I understand it depends on the kind of fuel. Most used fuel has far less chances of criticality in dry conditions, but this would not be so much true for MOX fuel. Japan uses MOX, that’s also why they considered better to wash it when already melted. And I see nothing in the paragraphs you are quoting that say the fuel will explode. Radiation release to the environment… through the walls we should assume, in case the envelope is intact? Through the venting holes? So they should be sealed off at that point.
I wonder if there is any protocol addressing facilities abandonment, but I would be surprised if it doesn’t go in line with what Ukrainians did (and they didn’t used boron, just dried off).
Reg. “abandoned facilities will emit radiation for decades”. This is only partially relevant, and not only because of decay but also because the cells (animal cells, at least) have some ability to repair the damage radiation makes. The problem is when the rate of damage overwhelms the rate of repair, and that’s why a massive dose of say 5000 mSv is far much worse than 10 consecutive doses of 500 mSv. This is a basic fact of radiation diseases.
At least, that’s how I see it now
“Sure drying the pools will make zirconium catch fire (a very very small fire if compared to Chernobyl’s) and the fuel will melt and fall to the bottom of the pool. And so what?’
It would be extremely useful if you would back up assertions with a reference.
Otherwise I assume you are just making stuff up because it makes you feel better…
What you have posted is absolutely NOT correct:
Once the fuel is uncovered, it could become hot enough to cause the metal cladding encasing the uranium fuel to rupture and catch fire, which in turn could further heat up the fuel until it suffers damage. Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment.
This would start in more recently discharged spent fuel, which is hotter than fuel that has been in the pool for a longer time. A typical spent fuel pool in the United States holds several hundred tons of fuel, so if a fire were to propagate from the hotter to the colder fuel a radioactive release could be very large.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handling-nuclear-waste/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel.html#.VUp3n5Om2J8
If any of the spent fuel rods in the pools do indeed catch fire, nuclear experts say, the high heat would loft the radiation in clouds that would spread the radioactivity.
“It’s worse than a meltdown,” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked as an instructor on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan. “The reactor is inside thick walls, and the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out in the open.” http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16fuel.html
If you don’t cool the spent fuel, the temperature will rise and there may be a swift chain reaction that leads to spontaneous combustion–an explosion and fire of the spent fuel assemblies. Such a scenario would emit radioactive particles into the atmosphere.
Pick your poison. Fresh fuel is hotter and more radioactive, but is only one fuel assembly. A pool of spent fuel will have dozens of assemblies. One report from Sankei News said that there are over 700 fuel assemblies stored in one pool at Fukushima. If they all caught fire, radioactive particles—including those lasting for as long as a decade—would be released into the air and eventually contaminate the land or, worse, be inhaled by people. “To me, the spent fuel is scarier. All those spent fuel assemblies are still extremely radioactive,” Dalnoki-Veress says.
It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly to temperatures at which the zircaloy fuel cladding could catch fire and the fuel’s volatile fission product, including 30-year half-life Cs, would be released. The fire could well spread to older spent fuel. The long-term land-contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than those from Chernobyl.
http://science.time.com/2011/03/15/a-new-threat-in-japan-radioactive-spent-fuel/
Pay particular attention to “It’s worse than a meltdown,”
You seem to have a lot of interest in the issue, and more information (correct or not) than 90% of the population put together.
As with most other big subjects, the complexity has spun far beyond control (in every way that I can perceive). Preparing to die is one fairly logical prescription. The alternative (not guaranteed by any means to avoid extinction) is to assemble the facts of the case, absolutely without prejudice. Just state what you know with scientific accuracy. Getting in to the weeds at this point, with no mechanism for comparison and rational decision-making doesn’t seem helpful
What do you know? What do you not know? What is unclear?
The ONLY thing that is clear to me is that the issue is out of control and overview by any agency is beyond dysfunctional. I also know that this is a death sentence, since the prevailing order doesn’t “add up.”
So, OK, we start there. What’s the next step? Waiting and preparing for death is certainly an option.
I think Gail has suggested that the best way forward is to make the best of the time we have remaining….
I agree with that because the odds are very highly stacked against any of us being alive post BAU no matter what measures we put in place to prepare.
I also saw a comment recently about how knowing there is no future leads to loss of purpose and a degree of despondency ….. I also agree with that.
“but I would be surprised if it doesn’t go in line with what Ukrainians did (and they didn’t used boron, just dried off).”
From the article that you linked on Wikipedia, Chernobyl Disaster:
“The fire was extinguished by a combined effort of helicopters dropping over 5000 metric tons of sand, lead, clay, and neutron-absorbing boron onto the burning reactor and injection of liquid nitrogen. ”
So, it is clear that you do not even read the links you provide, let alone the links provided by others.
Radiation is a complex issue, as there are many different things going on. Being dosed directly by high levels of gamma radiation is one thing. Ingesting radioactive elements that go into your bones and thyroid is another thing.
Dear Artleads,
I think you summed it up best here…
The ONLY thing that is clear to me is that the issue is out of control and overview by any agency is beyond dysfunctional. I also know that this is a death sentence, since the prevailing order doesn’t “add up.”
Even if the SFP issue is only one of many factors wittling down the post BAU population, the result is more or less the same – a situation where if one life threatening factor doesn’t get you another will.
As some here like to suggest, severe levels of climate change would be the cherry on top that renders the planet unable to sustain most life forms. You could conclude that a stable climate is what led to the success of our species and now nature is simply balancing the books…
Fast Eddy,
>>>I think Gail has suggested that the best way forward is to make the best of the time we have remaining….
Yup. Totally agree with that conclusion. There are too many factors beyond our control to think that our actions will make a difference.
>>>I agree with that because the odds are very highly stacked against any of us being alive post BAU no matter what measures we put in place to prepare.
You have a knack for stating things succinctly sans padding and BS.
>>>I also saw a comment recently about how knowing there is no future leads to loss of purpose and a degree of despondency ….. I also agree with that.
THAT is a healthy response from a sane and rational being given the evidence leading to the above conclusions.
Someone else, on the other hand, might want to donate to the Lifeboat Foundation – safeguarding humanity!
http://lifeboat.com/ex/main
$563,478.36 and counting…
Should be enough to save the world, don’t you think?
“Someone else, on the other hand, might want to donate to the Lifeboat Foundation – safeguarding humanity!”
That is amazing. From a quick glance, my impression is they want to try to make sure that any full on sentient, self-aware AI is friendly and does not try to exterminate humans.
I think if I had to bet on who is going to survive, I’d say the descendants of Russian Oligarchs is a good bet. They have been spending billions per year since at least the 1970s building a giant underground city carved into solid granite in the Urals. It supposedly has capacity to maintain a population of 60,000. They have already tested in the real world with people locked in isolation systems for growing algae to recycle air – 8 square meters per capita. They have done research on growing food and recycling water, and tested them in enclosed environments.
The descendants of high-ranking Freemasons are a distant second, with their Denver International Airport project. The Chinese seem to have mostly given up on making their giant underground cities workable.
Even if there is the radiation problem and runaway global warming, a few tens of thousands of Russians could make it out the other side, if they can manage to stay alive and hopeful for a few centuries underground.
Wow – nearly 600k…..
I wonder if there is any transparency in terms of how the cash is being spent…. not that I would contribute (my lifeboat involves a whiskey collection) …
However frequently with organizations that are not properly audited a big portion of the funds raised are spent on directors remuneration …. junkets to Vegas etc…. and almost nothing on the issue at hand….
Well, well, well… I only accept Matt’s critic as a good one: the truth is after having posted this I started thinking “are you sure they didn’t used boron in Chernobyl?”. They did.
But I don’t take for good Time’s claims of the fuel in combustion: combustion is fire, and the problem is criticality, which is an absolutely different phenomenon.
“Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment.” Which environment? Inside the envelope or outdoors? What is it meant by “large”?
I am affraid I can’t back my assertion graphite fire was three or four orders of magnitude worst than zirconium, unless you accept an email dialogue I had with a nuclear physicist (in french)
I don’t know, I did made some “suggestions” to three nuclear physicists, one of them belonging to an important french NGO and the other two to the International Atomic Energy Agency. I’ve also suggested here who and why could help whith this s..t. But I live faraway from most nukes, if people living nearby doesn’t want to do anything about them… Hasta la vista baby
Based on what the other research papers indicate ‘large’ means catastrophic….
One of those papers indicates 8 – 17 x worse than Chernobyl….
So again we get to the 4000 x 12 = 48,000 Chernobyls….
Nobody will be stating that because nobody could imagine that all spent fuel ponds could go up in flames at the same time….
And to reiterate — these papers assume a single pond is attacked — and that we can control it… so I think the 48,000 is nowhere close to the amount of radiation that will be released….
Chernobyl was contained — if it were not it would to this day be billowing massive amounts of radiation into the atmosphere…
Fukushima is somewhat contained — if they stopped pumping water onto those exposed cores there would be massive amounts of radiation blasting out of Japan
How much?
Revealed: secret evacuation plan for Tokyo after Fukushima
‘Spine-chilling’ thought of an uninhabitable capital pushed Prime Minister to scrap nuclear power
The Japanese government feared that millions of Tokyoites might have to be evacuated during the worst of last year’s nuclear crisis, but kept the scenario secret to avoid panic in some of the world’s most crowded urban areas, according to an internal report.
It warned that if the situation spiralled out of control, compulsory or voluntary evacuation orders would have to be issued to residents living within 250 kilometres (155 miles) of the damaged facility, a radius that would have included the Tokyo metropolitan area that is home to around 30 million people.
The directive would also have covered several large cities to the north and west of the plant, including Sendai. Some of the areas would be contaminated for “several decades”, the report warned.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/revealed-secret-evacuation-plan-for-tokyo-after-fukushima-6295353.html
It is important to note that it was a reactor involved in the Fukushima accident. Reactors hold a fraction of the amount of fuel compared to ponds….
I suspect that if even a single fuel pond were to explode — and there was no way to get it under control —- that would wreak havoc — these things do not quickly burn out …. what would decades of radiation emissions on this scale do to the planet?
Imagine the cancer rates …. http://allthingsnuclear.org/lgronlund/how-many-cancers-did-chernobyl-really-cause-updated
There is no way to cask the fuel …. so if there is no way to keep these 4000 beasts alive post BAU …..
Then the takeaway is —– we really really need to get the most out of the time we have left…. because there ain’t nothing left once the fat lady sings….
In some respects this is good news…. it takes all the prepper pressure off…
And did anyone really look forward to live with our lovely Ms BAU? Grinding away pulling weeds and barely having enough to eat….. who wants to have to send their family and friends away when they show up at the gate…. and is anyone here truly up to pulling out the rifle and taking on the violent gangs who will inevitably show up?
Nah — the ponds are our salvation….. they will put us out of our misery….
All hail the BAU provided ponds!
I wonder if the Elders will distribute suicide pills as their last act….their ‘Plan B’
I would not be surprised…. (actually I hope so)
“But I don’t take for good Time’s claims of the fuel in combustion: combustion is fire, and the problem is criticality, which is an absolutely different phenomenon.
“Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment.” Which environment? Inside the envelope or outdoors? What is it meant by “large”?
I am affraid I can’t back my assertion graphite fire was three or four orders of magnitude worst than zirconium, unless you accept an email dialogue I had with a nuclear physicist (in french)” – Christian
I’m sorry, I don’t understand. Are you saying that a fire can occur inside a building, and no smoke will get out?
The combustion makes the radioactive particles become airborne, and damages the structure containing the radioactive material, so that water can flow through and gases can flow out.
If the zirconium burns at a lower temperature, this just means more of the radioactive material will be left to melt together in a slag heap at the bottom, which may be hot enough to melt through the concrete floor, instead of being cast to the wind. Less radiation downwind, more radiation downstream. Does not seem like much of a victory.
humans deal with their problems three ways
Burn it
bury it
drop it in the sea
Nothing has changed
“Are you saying that a fire can occur inside a building, and no smoke will get out?” Of course, in case the envelope is sealed…
“The combustion… damages the structure containing the radioactive material” Source? Chemistry?
“Less radiation downwind, more radiation downstream. Does not seem like much of a victory.” Remember politics are interest-guided, and I don’t live by the sea but I could be hurt by winds… And my French advisor wasn’t positive about chances of this miss going through the concrete floor… (not sure he was right, but he is the specialist…)
Mathew, I heard about the Russian underground cities and the base at Denver. Always wondered how well protected they would be post BAU and the kinds of systems they would employ for air, food and water. Thanks for piquing my interest again.
I thought they were built to survive nuclear fallout or plagues so that after the worst was over, people could resurface. Hazmat suits would be handy for the preliminary excursions… but yes, it’s an interesting real world example of prepping+lotsamoney.
Thanks very much for your comments. It is helpful to get input from an engineer.
a breath of fresh air instead of hot air
Intermission from Gloom and Doom
The “Good Life” by the group One Republic…nice tune and beat…of course, Fast Eddy will dies,
He’s such a Party Poopper.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jZhQOvvV45w
The gloom and doom intensifies…
Chatting with the organic man earlier and he was discussing a bug that affects potatoes and the tomato family plants… I forget the name… but it is all through the north island of NZ and will at some point make it to the south island
‘It may be difficult at some point to grow these vegetable varieties without sprays’
That in itself is troubling ….. but thinking more broadly …..
How many plant diseases and infestations are kept at bay because we spray millions of tonnes of herbicides and insecticides on crops around the world….
How many noxious weeds are kept in check by mass spraying of glyphsoate and tordon and various other toxins?
All of these things have been held back behind the gates of hell by chemistry…..
Now fast forward to the end of BAU —- none of these chemicals will be available….
And these diseases and pests and weeds are going to absolutely EXPLODE our of control….
Anyone starting to feel like they should have opted for a Miracle Barge?
Killer!
General Custer actually had a phone, but technology couldn’t save him.
“LOL…See, Fast Eddy, will claim he is the problem, thxs”
General Custer represents the epitome of what is wrong – genociding indigenous people to clear the land for farmers, to produce more food, to grow more population, to consume more resources.
Cortez may be responsible for the deaths of far more people, but for the most part that was probably unintentional as they did not know about Germ Theory. Custer was all intent.
Yes – we can most definitely blame the homesteaders for the genocide of the natives of America….
In fact Little House on the Prairie was made possible by genocide….
America even has a holiday celebrating this genocide – it’s of course called Thanksgiving….
So, Matthew, no doubt General Custer got what he dished out…but the sad irony of his death backfired on the Indian nations. All out war and extermination was now brought down on them for this massacre. So, what else do you wish to add now?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-29/negative-interest-rates-show-desperation-central-banks
“The Bank of Japan’s surprise decision Friday to start charging depositors for parking excess reserves at the central bank triggered a global equity rally. But several monetary policy watchers and market strategists worried that the move was an acknowledgment that the world’s central banks are running out of ammunition in the battle against deflation.”
“The country is desperate to increase spending and investment.”
That’s an interesting approach. Negative interest rates are intended to get people to spend and or invest to combat deflation. But what if those investments go belly up? What if someone thinks, “I’m being charged for my money in the bank, so I’ll put it all into stocks.” But what if those stocks lose most or all of their value due to a bear market, bankrupt companies or a market crash? Then those people are in even worse shape than they were when they were getting charged for their savings.
Sometimes situations compound themselves:
– Diminishing energy returns reduces wages, profits & taxes collected
– Combatted by ever greater loans and debt levels
– When conventional lending isn’t enough to generate growth, QE is used to juice the system
– Leads to limits to lending due to risks of defaults
– Reduced lending leads to even lower growth
– Commodities sales plummet
– Causes deflation
– Leads to negative interest rates to spur investment and spending
– Pushes people to invest in risky equities because real estate is stagnant
– At some point the banks, the govt’s and the people are ‘all in’ so to speak
– Something panics the herd…
If central banks are lending at negative interest rates that obviously means the the debtors have to return less than they received in debt. If the stock market loses 5 percent, but the debtor is returning negative 10 percent the debtor still comes out ahead and the system is accommodating de-growth. This is obviously total insanity. The debt system is broken.
Creedon, depositors are being charged negative interest rates.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-31/question-should-not-be-difficult-one-answer
This article states that the BOJ is buying up corporate at negative interests.
“That’s an interesting approach. Negative interest rates are intended to get people to spend and or invest to combat deflation. ”
Or more likely, bank runs. Trying to force people to invest their savings seems a bad idea. Instead, people may put the money in their mattress, where it at least maintains its face value. For the savers, deflation means their savings increase in value just by sitting there.
“For the savers, deflation means their savings increase in value just by sitting there.”
True, unless it’s offset by an equally compensating negative interest rate. Then again there is lots of deflation for commodities but household expenses are still rising due to increases in healthcare, utility bills, food, etc. All roads lead to using and abusing the masses. Make them work for pay that helps them barely get by, then squeeze them for more with negative interest rates. It’s amazing how things negatively and incrementally change over time while people seem to just accept it without protest. The more things go against their best interest and the longer they just take it, the higher these negative interest rates will rise and the number of banks using them. People need to get mad as hell and demand they are not going to take it anymore.
Personally, I’ve been talking to the wifey about converting part of our savings into one ounce silver coins. I figure at some point negative interest rates will be coming to our town’s banks and or there will be a huge flight from savings, and in either case precious metals will go up. Once shtf metals should skyrocket, that is unless they are grossly manipulated.
“For the savers, deflation means their savings increase in value just by sitting there.”
True, unless they are offset by an equally compensating negative interest rate. Hey, I just had an idea, maybe that’s the point? Maybe the higher the inflation the greater the interest on savings and conversely, the higher the deflation the higher the negative interest rate.
It’s amazing how this situation just keeps working against the working stiff. Stagnant to slowly rising wages along with greatly increasing healthcare, utility bills, food, education, etc., along with almost no interest or negative interest rates for savings. Yet people seem to just keep taking it as things incrementally get worse with no protest.
The future can only make the little guy, even smaller. Quantitative easing, ZIRP, bailouts, eternal wars, it all in the end taxes the little guy, and since the price of oil = the wealth of the average little guy the price of oil can only go down. Anything that the big guys do, will only drive the price of oil lower. I don’t think that the big guys know that yet. By the way credit for these ideas go to Steve Ludlum.
“True, unless they are offset by an equally compensating negative interest rate. ”
If I take my money out of the bank and shove the bills in my mattress, how does the negative interest rate reduce my savings?
Banks have a work around for that too,
Already cash payments are limited. So unless you only have a few dollars you won’t be able to stash a cash amount without getting your hands on it before any banking operation
We have little experience with a prolonged bout of negative interest rates. Personally if it was costing me money to have my money in the bank I’d think seriously about removing it. As you surmised many interesting (pun?) scenarios could arise, like a move to gold, a decline in credit card use as cash is relied on, government legislation to stop bank runs, as surely cash in hand would be better than losing it to negative interest. You would think that it would lead to a deflationary death spiral.
Could various competing economies and currencies, look to take advantage by offering “guaranteed” returns. Maybe that is where more legislation would be required. I wonder what Gail thinks of the big picture here, or maybe there is a “real world” economist around to enlighten.
If you have $10000 it’s not worth the trouble to put it in the mattress. If you have ten millions you can’t take the risk having it stolen or the house burned down.
I think they’ll do just “fine” with negative rates until -3% or so. By then cash will be banned.
Isn’t most of this money that is borrowed from the central banks, borrowed by institutional investors like, the investment banks, pension funds and foreign entities?
Credit unions might get a boost, I’m positive they couldn’t survive on negative interest rates. People could save or deposit with a credit union and borrow from a bank. I’m really at a loss to understand how an economy can function like this. Denmark has 0.65%, Japan I think 0.1% so they charge other banks to deposit their money with them. What happens to pension funds? Governments must have a huge hand in this type of behaviour, things could get out of hand quite quickly you would think. But as I said I’m at a loss to understand the ramifications or even the overall plan (if there is one). Maybe it’s a final kick of the can, I have no idea.
Central banks don’t lend. They buy. That’s how money gets injected into the economy. Apart from banknotes they don’t “print” money, nada, nil. Commercial banks don’t create money per se. They create credit and debts but only when there are customers.
Musk Gets Rock Star Greeting From Students Vying to Design Hyperloop
In 2013, Musk first unveiled his vision of a transportation system in which capsules hurtling on a cushion of air would whisk people at 700 miles (1,130 kilometers) per hour, traveling from San Francisco to Los Angeles in half an hour. Musk and his followers see the Hyperloop as a “fifth mode” of transport, and it’s quite possible that the first Hyperloop could be built somewhere else, or abroad.
“All of the other transportation systems — cars, planes, trains, boats — run on fossil fuels,” said Rorisang Posholi, 20, who traveled to Texas from the University of Pretoria in South Africa. “The Hyperloop is a transportation idea that solves all kinds of problems. It’s low energy at high velocity.”
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-01-31/musk-greeted-as-rock-star-by-students-vying-to-design-hyperloop
Meanwhile Fast Eddy is holding his own contest called Hyperrich…. students from around the world will gather down at the farm in NZ to work on the revolutionary technology that changes sheep shit into gold nuggets…
“Hyperrich is an idea that solves all kinds of problems. It’s money for nothing chicks for free.”
https://img0.etsystatic.com/000/0/5343173/il_fullxfull.182315864.jpg
The way I see it the human organism is suffering bizarre morphine induced visions of heavenly utopia complete with fast travel vacuum tubes, space based solar platforms and mars colonies just before the doctor unplugs the life support…
Yes, to ease the pain of death.
No, no, no, the future of the human race is for everyone to make a guest appearance on the American TV show “Glee”. Once this is accomplished, there is no reason to continue living on.
Musk is the Millenial/technophile’s Donald Trump…. when there are no jobs and no future you grasp at anything that offers salvation — the more radical the better…
Musk spews utter utter UTTER nonsense about colonizing Mars and building a hyperloop…. he runs a car company that should not exist http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/tesla-bonfire-of-the-money-printers-vanities/
These are right up there with Trump’s promise to bring Apple factories back to the US.
It’s all total insanity.
But it seems to be what the masses want to hear…. because reality is so horrible…. these men offer an escape into …
Delusistan.
And we all know how appealing life in Delusistan can be….
Let’s all stand for the national anthem of Delusistan:
“There are several ways to improve demand for commodities, and thus raise prices again. These include (a) increasing wages of non-elite workers (b) increasing the proportion of the population with jobs, and (c) increasing the amount of debt. None of these are moving in the “right” direction.”
—–
The elephant in the room is the complex metastatic tumor that is the welfare state—for efficiency gains, dismantle the über-complex welfare state, then keep kicking the can along, until you run out of road.
Admittedly, and begrudgingly I might add, massive capital misallocation in the form of aids research, mosquito nets, food, clean water and efforts to combat sickle cell anemia cause huge market distortions in the form of unchecked low-IQ-population-bubbles.
population-bubbles = William Catton-esque OVERSHOOT
…..coupled with Open-Borders™—masquerading as progressive humanitarianism—this is a recipe for wage annihilation, not to mention the extra bonus of the fun times to be had in the shadows of the Kölner Dom.
The welfare state is the only buffer between society staying manageable and civil unrest.
Anyone who wants to dismantle it is just a Neo-Liberal troll.
Dear ejhr2015;
You nailed it.
Thanks,
Pintada
@ejhr2015
Just a few comments…
Firstly, just a tip, the only way to win an argument is to tackle it intellectually, not through ad hominem.
Secondly, to understand any of the arguments made Mrs. Tverberg on this blog, you should have at least a basic understanding of Systems Dynamics/Thinking, Law of the Minimum and ecology—if you had this understanding, you would see that the behemoth welfare state and its accompanying inefficient complexities was only made possible by the glut of energy unleashed by the fossil fuel age. As the system evolves, and its sustenance shifts from high-grade to low-grade energy resources/reserves, it will inevitably lead to diminishing returns. The welfare state is coming down whether you like it or not. Civil strife/war/balkanization is coming whether you like it or not. Now, we can either dismantle the system in an organized and orderly fashion to “harvest” some efficiencies, or, as you suggest, we can allow it to strangle on its own complexities and be shredded to pieces. Also—and dozens of papers have been written on this—the support for welfare states correlates positively with ethnic homogeneity and negatively with increasing diversity/decreasing trust (see what’s happening in Europe).
Thirdly, **communism/egalitarianism doesn’t work, it’s been tried and it has killed 100’s of millions (see Stalin, Mao, Pol Pot, NK..etc). Why, you ask? → See Liebig’s Law of the Minimum (i.e. artificial constraints, or “scope-reduction” in Catton parlance). To properly/efficiently allocate resources means to have a handle on an almost infinite number of variables, which is impossible.
(**if you want to bring up “utopian” hunter-gatherer societies, forget it—egalitarianism/altruism/trust only works for the in-group)
TANSTAAFL, ‘cuz reality sux, get used to it…
I am in agreement
Very nicely put.
But lets assume that ejhr2015 knows what you’re talking about. Lets say that he/she has an understanding that we have reached limits and have entered a deflationary death spiral. Since we’re already in this predicament, removing any of the artificial pillars that prop up the crumbling house of cards would only excacerbate the problem at this point. You said…
“…for efficiency gains, dismantle the über-complex welfare state…”
Do you believe that any nation state is going to do that at this late stage? Imagine what would happen if you cancelled the EBT card program in the states. Or remove the nationalised health care systems across Europe. Any upsetting of the fragile structure at this point would bring the whole rotten building down overnight.
If you’re referring to some kind of structural replacement strategy involving basic income schemes and the like, I think it’s too late for such measures and there is not enough evidence that they would work anyway i.e. the gains from abolishing admin costs still don’t amount to much when spreading the net further and wider. The lower half of the population would still find it hard to cover costs and find gainful employment.
What I think ejhr2015 means (correct me if I’m wrong) is that the “administrators” have no choice but to keep all of the pillars intact until the building finally implodes. As FE says, there’s no other option but to keep BAU going at full speed until we hit the wall. That’s just the practical reality of our situation – abstract ideals be damned!
You are on the right track, Mr G. And regarding macroeconomics I do happen to be well informed, unlike opponents like FE, even Gail. Macroeconomics is the framework we need to understand in order for collapse [yes, it’s inevitable] to be managed for an indeterminate time between the inescapable signs it’s on and the inescapable signs of ruin.
I am advocating that government make plans in good time rather than be caught like rabbits in the headlights. It’s going to be a command economy with total control exercised by it to manage this drop. For example rationing food, and fuels, paying for the coupons needed, paying stipends to everyone so they can buy essentials that do not need rationing. Keeping the police, army and medical services operational will all be essential. Very like wartime.
IMO the crash will happen gradually but eventually build up more and more speed. We are already in collapse mode, seeing dysfunction and waste all around us. It began in about 1971. It will be uneven across the globe, depending on resources, food and fuel availability. The safest places will be where those who have the least to lose live. .
ejhr, excellent! Can you please describe the coupons for international trade?
Also how banking works without a currency is of great interest to me. Making payrolls without banks and currencies got me worried there for a while.
Who gets the oil and coal? What is traded in return, and how? Are Norwegian and UK oil workers now landslaves?
Thanks ehjr, its good to have a central banker on board.
EJR, rationing will be a godsend for criminals. Black markets and Mad Max are a certainty and completely unavoidable, command economy or not, when and if rationing is introduced. Really in the long run, safe places will inevitably be those with the most/best defence, weapons and authority……they by definition must be ruthless and singleminded. I’ve said it time and again, there will be no islands of plenty in a sea of want.
Keeping the military and police force supplied and intact is a nice fantasy but they will inevitably be cut back, to protect the core. Just as health, education, welfare, fire and rescue services and maintenance of government infrastructure as in roads, bridges, courts, parks, reserves, fisheries and so on. Governments now have grown so huge and dependant on taxes and growth in taxes that there is simply no going back or resetting to a lite version…..all my opinion of course and just speculating, because in truth, it’s what we are all doing.
We may soon see the mother of all ‘welfare’ programmes….
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-06/it-begins-desperate-finland-set-unleash-helicopter-money-drop-all-citizens
If everyone does this at once, perhaps the price of oil can be bid up a little! Debt hasn’t been rising enough lately.
Does that include welfare for the big corporations?
The U.S. Empire is in serious trouble as the collapse of its domestic shale gas production has begun. This is just another nail in a series of nails that have been driven into the U.S. Empire coffin.
Unfortunately, most investors don’t pay attention to what is taking place in the U.S. Energy Industry. Without energy, the U.S. economy would grind to a halt. All the trillions of Dollars in financial assets mean nothing without oil, natural gas or coal. Energy drives the economy and finance steers it. As I stated several times before, the financial industry is driving us over the cliff.
The Great U.S. Shale Gas Boom Is Likely Over For Good
Very few Americans noticed that the top four shale gas fields combined production peaked back in July 2015. Total shale gas production from the Barnett, Eagle Ford, Haynesville and Marcellus peaked at 27.9 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in July and fell to 26.7 Bcf/d by December 2015:
https://srsroccoreport.com/another-nail-in-u-s-empire-coffin-collapse-of-shale-gas-production-has-begun/
Does Mexico have any promising shale oil formations?
In an article (https://www.dailyfx.com/forex/technical/home/analysis/usoil/2016/01/28/WTI-Crude-Oil-Price-Forecast-Slippery-When-Bid-as-Oil-Pushes-Past-34-bbl-Levels.html) by Tyler Yell I found this amusing tidbit “When I was growing up in West Texas in the early 1980s, there was a common bumper sticker that said, ‘Please God, give me one more oil boom. This time, I promise not to piss it away.’ ”.
Tyler then notes: “Oddly enough, in 1930, a cartel of the world’s largest Oil companies at the time had to come together to broadly cut production to reverse the flood of market supply that was fueled by new discoveries and worries that the world would run out of Oil in the 1920s.”
As Gail noteed ” [9]. Many people believe that oil prices will bounce back up again, and everything will be fine.” I guess since we’ve been worrying about this for almost 100 year, many experts just see recent events as BAU. The collective face of the oil industry and all associated government agencies should be Alfred Neuman:
You don’t agree that it is certain that relatives, friends and neighbours are going to show up at your gate?
Fast Eddie,
Have you brought up your views with your family? Are at least you and your wife on the same page. You might want to know how Mrs Eddy will react should you decide to turn away family.
It’s hard for me to comment here because at age 63, leaving the party before the party is over is always a possibility. I’m mentally prepared for that eventuality in a way a younger person might not. Just the same, I’m axious to extend my stay as long as possible, have put away some provisions and hope to fish from Lake Michigan and the many streams we have in WI. With no family and most of my years behind me, I intend to help anyone who needs it, to the extent I am able. For what it’s worth.
Cheers,
Don B
The thing is…
I would not turn family away – they are most welcome …. I’ve standing invites to my brothers to come south anytime …. with a hint that a good time would be just as the economic collapse hits…
My wife’s mother is coming in May for an extended stay…..
I’ve told a couple of good friends in Hong Kong that they are also welcome to come here when the SHTF…. they are the only two who have a sense of the doom that is imminent (although they reject the oil thesis)…. others are welcome but I don’t mention this as they do not buy into the collapse theory at all…..
If they all make it down it could be quite a wake! I am thinking of buying a tee vee (haven’t had one in years) specifically for the purpose of pulling up the MSM online news feeds of the world unraveling in ultra high def….. I must get down to Wally’s World soon though….
Does my wife know that I have virtually no confidence in the hedges I have in place?
Absolutely not.
She kinda things the farm will keep us going — but I sense she struggles with that …. she has no interest in discussing any of this…. even though she understands exactly what the problem is and how dire the implications are….
You’ve done about all that you can, FE. My preparations are probably futile, but I had to do something. I have heard that action is the antidote to despair.
I’ve become moderately proficient in sailing keel boats (the fuel thing) and even became a ham radio operator on the HF bands using a 12 volt tranciever. Did you know that by using Morse code, you can be heard around the world while drawing only 10 watts of power. The ham operators of the world will be the last to go silent.
Anyway…
..-. .- … -.-. .. -. .- – .. -. –. -·-·–
Hi Stilgar,
Are you a ham too?
-. -…. -.. — -…
Oop,s the m closed over.
I wish I could claim so, but actually there is a translator via a Google search that translated the word Fascinating! into morris code.
However, on occasion I use to listen to shortwave radio and tune into radio stations far and wide. Might be good to have one of those post collapse, except one can only listen, not transmit.
Your translator also ended in CT, a term for start copy, something a radio operator might use. Amateur radio is fun.
.- – – – … .- – – .- – . – . – –
Syphilis Rates Soar To Record Highs
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-30/peak-sharing-economy-syphilis-rates-soar-record-highs
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2016/01/29/20160130_std_0.jpg
This sort of behaviour will need to stop post BAU or else….
http://www.eonline.com/eol_images/Entire_Site/2013730/rs_560x415-130830150852-1024..miley-cyrus-twerk-vma.ls.83013.jpg
Is this a photo of your last fantasy night with the Mrs? 🙂
I’ll show it to her and see what she thinks…
I can tell you myself….that’s raunchy..Her parents must be real proud (sarc).
The sad truth Smiley is a great talent and if that is what needs to be done now a days to be noticed by the target public.
Exactly, Now this is better
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=EI7YOkPMCzM
“The sad truth Smiley is a great talent and if that is what needs to be done now a days to be noticed by the target public”
Or it was a stunt to try to get Disney to release her from contract. Turns out most musicians are well above average intelligence, and often do things for reasons that are not apparent to outside viewers.
Like David Bowie producing artsy, non-commercial albums to screw over his former manager who had a 50% stake in his records, and then as soon as that contract expired, making massively profitable, popular albums.
Everyone can find a reason to justify their actions, noble, decent or otherwise.
Sorry, does not hold water in my book.
It is sex, drugs and pop music – and Miley Cyrus is fine with it that way now that the provocative singer has shed her innocent Disney star image along with most of her clothes.
Cyrus, 21, who has grabbed headlines in the past year for her admitted drug use, sexually suggestive dancing and wearing as little as boots in a music video, said she was surprised by the scrutiny her new persona has attract
http://mobile.reuters.com/article/idUSBRE9BP0H420131227
When I was no longer employed by anyone, that’s when I was like, ‘O.K., I’m going to do my own thing.’ But I waited until I felt like I had respectfully finished out what I was supposed to do, you know?” she said.
Cyrus signed with label RCA this year after releasing her first three albums on Disney’s Hollywood Records
‘a great talent’
Neil Young is a great talent….
Has she ever written a song?
She is a dime a dozen pop artist… who tries to stand out in a crowd of mediocrity by acting the slut…. when do we get the ‘leaked’ sex show?
No way, she has a wonderful singing voice, pretty and dynamite personality.
Everyone has an opinion.
How do you feel about Brittany Spears?
Who do you think will win American Idol?
Why ask? Does of matter…you already know how I feel about Helen and Scott Nearing.
Why do I associate you with this scene….
“How do you feel about Britney Spears?”
Best joke I ever heard about Britney can be found on YouTube. Scroll to 28 seconds, to see that photo of her after she has shaved all her hair off. Then the skinny comedy contestant on the left gives his suggestions why – not particularly funny. Then, coming up to 36 seconds, the fat guy on the right suggests the reason why – comic genius!
Why? You ask Fast Eddy….because you are out of you mind…that’s why..see a Doctor
Do you think I should take a handful of Abilify …. then put on Cyly Miruses greatest hits looping round and round….. do you think that would help?
See, you got, Little Eddie, just giving the public what they feed on…
Eddie, betcha folks are asking what ever happened to Fast Eddie?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=tXGMWQPYTJw
Miley probably will end up like that….
Let’s all give her the clap she so richly deserves! 🙂
I’ve always thought her father was the real talent in the family. Achy breaky heart…
yes that is a classic song…. it will live on post BAU…. (ultra sarc)
Dear Finite Worlders
The foundation of a health-promoting diet is fruits and vegetables. Barry Sears, the author of the Zone books, says that we need to consume 2 or 3 pounds of fresh vegetables and fruits daily. For a family of 4, that makes 10 pounds per day or thereabouts. Sears’ reasoning is that we now understand the role of phenolics in the promotion of health…something we knew practically nothing about 15 years ago. And it takes a lot of fruits and veggies to get the phenolics we need.
But phenolics are more or less proportional to the BRIX score, which measures total sugars. And, as I have described, Christine Jones found wheat in Australia with BRIX scores up to 25 while neighboring farms had scores of 3. Do a little arithmetic and you can estimate that, if we maximize the BRIX score in fruits and veggies, we can cut the pounds per person significantly.
Here is a link to a study from UC Davis about the nutrient retention in fruits and veggies.
http://www.fruitandvegetable.ucdavis.edu/files/197179.pdf
In short, nothing beats a fruit or veggie harvested from a garden and eaten promptly. Beyond that, nutrients are inevitably lost, with some methods losing more than others. A veggie harvested in California and flash frozen in the field with mobile equipment and shipped to Manhattan is likely to have more nutritional value than a veggie from New Jersey shipped unrefrigerated and displayed in front of a greengrocer.
If we think about all this from the perspective of a post-fossil fuel world, we can see that getting as close as possible to classic gathering is the goal…along with some preservation by fermentation. A home garden is the best way I know to preserve the gist of gathering in a crowded world where gathering wild plants is not going to feed a lot of people.
But the goal of the gardening needs to be clearly delineated. The skill you are trying to develop is a garden with a continuous harvest over a long period of months…along with fermentation skills (e.g., to make sauerkraut out of cabbage). The small farm I worked on had an elaborate planting and harvesting schedule in order to maximize revenue from our direct sales. It doesn’t do to show up at the farmers market with a whole field of cabbages for sale. If you have had no experience with a small farm, it might be worthwhile to work on one for a while. Otherwise, get busy in your garden and learn by doing and copying others who do it better than you do.
Don Stewart
PS Maximizing phenolics is a big deal in the wine business. Search on ‘phenolic ripeness’ if you are interested. It involves leaving the grapes on the vine for longer, because the phenolics are maximized later than total sugars.
Don Stewart
By 2030, Renewables Will Be The World’s Primary Power Source
http://thinkprogress.org/climate/2016/01/27/3712181/renewables-surpass-coal-2030/
Where are the Fast Eddys of the world?
“By 2030, Renewables Will Be The World’s Primary Power Source”
This is probably true; the missing piece of the puzzle is that, while percentage-wise renewables will be the primary source, the total amount of energy being used by humans could be less than 10 percent of current levels.
Meanwhile, between now and 2030, there will be a lot of compost production scattered over various formerly high population density areas.
And that 10% would be made up mostly of chopping down and burning firewood. Go renewables!
“And that 10% would be made up mostly of chopping down and burning firewood.”
It is entirely up to the people cutting and (hopefully) replanting the trees as to whether firewood is renewable or not. If it is being done renewably, that’s fine.
“It is entirely up to the people cutting and (hopefully) replanting the trees as to whether firewood is renewable or not. If it is being done renewably, that’s fine”.
Do you actually think that there will be a forrest industry where “the people” studiously head up to the hills to cut themselves down a tree or two and replant as they go. It will most definitely not be “up to the people”. They will be doing it out of necessity and survival and I can assure you “renewable” will not enter a conscious thought.
If and probably when electricity delivery fails, trees will last about as long as there is food to cook. No food, then starvation then trees live. If somehow there is still enough food to support a given location (everywhere is overpopulated when it comes down to living without FF’s), then trees stand little chance in the short term and replanting and waiting twenty years………well it was stupid to mention it in the first place.
Crude oil and natural gas are also renewable fuels, if you wait long enough. What we have here is a failure to appreciate rates of consumption versus rates of “production” aka extraction. The same fate never occurred to those St. Mathews Island deer, either. Stupid deer…
“The same fate never occurred to those St. Mathews Island deer, either. Stupid deer…”
If the humans had put a small pack of wolves on the island when there was a few hundred reindeer, their population could have been kept in check and a sustainable ecosystem established.
Perhaps humanity should work on genetically engineering an apex predator, so post-BAU, the surviving humans will be kept in balance.
“Do you actually think that there will be a forrest industry where “the people” studiously head up to the hills to cut themselves down a tree or two and replant as they go. It will most definitely not be “up to the people”. ”
First, it seems so many of you are obsessed with conditions occurring during the first ~year or so after BAU, as if they are the conditions that will exist for millions of years.
Second, in places where strong central authority exists, forests can most certainly be used as a renewable resource. Of course, if the land is all divided up into little lots and each person left to do their own thing, or the land is held as commons, it may certainly be depleted and not replaced.
“Central authority”. You are dreaming. Forests with many billions of less people were used without the slightest effort to maintain any semblance of sustainability. The only thing that saved the forests of Europe was the exploitation of the new world and subsequently the use of FF’s.
And yet Oxford was able to replace its oak roof beams every couple hundred years, with new roof beams of oak that were grown for hundreds of years.
The problem, I think, is when people – society as a whole – gets too soft. If you are not willing to execute poachers, then the resources will be depleted.
Ownership of resources and the protection of said resources through the use of violence is the way over population is stopped.
I’m with you. It totally depends on how many humans survive in any given area as to how intensive the harvesting of firewood will be. Trees take a long time to replenish even if an organised effort is made. By that time most of the remaining humans may have perished for other reasons than lack of firewood…
If the human population dwindles below a certain level, then the tree population starts to rise again. Only at those levels would the energy source be truly renewable. If there are no humans left, then there is no one around to label anything as “renewable” so it doesn’t really matter what the trees do at that point.
Now this is a group of people worth emulating post BAU ….
https://www.good.is/articles/isolated-sentinelese-people
Not Scott Nearing or Toby Hemmingway or Joel Salatin …. they are part of the problem….
We really need to drop this plugged into BAU farming idea …. the one where we stockpile tools and solar panels and pumps and pipes and other BAU items… in what will be a futile attempt to extend a scaled back version of BAU….
We need to recognize that BAU is done … we need to change our ways….
We cannot try to recreate BAU by destroying the forests to make charcoal to try to rekindle the industrial revolution (lite) …. that is a dead end …. there will be no second industrial revolution because the fuel for it is gone ….
All we will accomplish is Easter Islanding the earth and extincting all life….
What is with you? Are you just a agitator heckler…Do NOT continue this line EVER…
You understand…Gail, herself, requested you respect other views and took the time to write you personally, Fast Eddy, to refrain.
Once again, Scott Nearing was NOT part of the problem, Bud, but is PART of the SOLUTION. If you continue to repeat the big LIE, over and over again, things will go downhill from here. Capisce?
Your reasoning is all messed up, just like your attempt at “farming”. LOL
I see I have touched a nerve….
Respect the views of others?
How about you respect the logic I am using to destroy your false god and attempt to debate the issue instead of ranting like a lunatic and calling mommy Gail to help you out of that deep hole.
I have used every method I can think of to explain how you are wrong. I have used facts — I have used analogies…
Do you understand what logic is?
Here’s a lesson:
Scott Nearing was a farmer.
Farmers are to a large extent responsible for the human population explosion because they ensured there was a dramatic increase in the supply of food for humans to eat.
Farmers are part of the problem
Scott Nearing was a farmer therefore part of the problem.
I am unclear why people insist on pointing to him as the way forward.
If we return to farming post BAU we will cut down every single tree on the planet trying to make the plows and shovels and other metal tools that Scott Nearing used — that every farmer uses.
“Now this is a group of people worth emulating post BAU ….”
I think these people also disprove theories of genetic deterioration. Only a few hundred inhabitants at a time, living in isolation for thousands of years, and yet they are able to bear viable offspring that are able to survive in their environment with practically no technology.
Agree. And thank you.
The solution is at hand – like I have been saying…. hunting and gathering is where it is at.
Not Scott Nearing and his cement and his hammers and shovels and saws and his winter junkets in the sun…
NOOOOooooooooo…. that is not sustainable…. it is one of the main reasons we are in the position we are in
Death to farmers…. they need to be eliminated along with engineers, bankers, teachers and anyone who attempts to promote ‘progress’
I promise — if anyone points to the hunter gatherer lifestyle as the way forward I will stand down…. because it is the only way…
If humans are to survive — if the forests are to survive — if the planet is to survive —- we must return to our roots…
I can envision only one problem —- these guys
http://www.roughguides.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/10/Final-West-Papua-Jungle-IndonesiaDF3D8M-1680×1050.jpg
Will not likely know how to maintain spent fuel ponds
http://www.energyweb.cz/web/rao/images/043.jpg
“I think these people also disprove theories of genetic deterioration.”
But hunter-gatherers is exposed to natural selection. Of course they can conceive and give birth, otherwise they would be gone. We, in the industrial world, who help people with such problems helps these genes to spread, among other less desirable genes.
“For an individual to construct such a fabrication of reality and deem it factual and insist on going on as a fixation indicates a severe mental neurosis. ”
Wait, what am I missing here?
1) hunter-gatherers are constrained by their environment
2) all other human societies rise above the limits of food, conquer all predators, overcome disease, and expand exponentially until they have consumed all available resources
3) therefore, hunter gatherers are the only proven sustainable way for humans to live.
I’m pretty sure the UnaBomber already covered all of this in great detail. Or for those of you who like Hollywood, Brad Pitt as Tyler Durden in Fight Club. The only flaw in their plans is the needed ~15 year transition period to safely store all the nuclear waste, before converting to anarcho-primitivism.
‘I’m pretty sure the UnaBomber already covered all of this in great detail.’
In 1971, he moved to a remote cabin without electricity or running water, in Lincoln, Montana, where he lived as a recluse while learning survival skills in an attempt to become self-sufficient.[7]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ted_Kaczynski
Unlike others we idolize — Ted actually walked the walk…. not only did he reject BAU — he attempted to take it down….. of course he could have written books and made money and flown to Florida each winter…. but he didn’t…. no faux rebel here….. he looks to be as unplugged as you can get….
Matthew,
” The only flaw in their plans is the needed ~15 year transition period to safely store all the nuclear waste, before converting to anarcho-”
Suppose not the whole world collapses in the same day? Maybe over a period of 20-50 years aka slow “collapse”. Then richer countries (UN etc?) could take care of poorer countries nuclear waste. Not out of generosity, but own interest.
” Maybe over a period of 20-50 years aka slow “collapse””
I think we would call that a decline rather than collapse, if it takes 50 years.
For sure, if the periphery starts to fall and somehow the grid and oil flows keep going in the core developed countries, they should certainly aid the collapsed countries with setting up long term storage, and work on their own.
DJ,
“Suppose not the whole world collapses in the same day? Maybe over a period of 20-50 years aka slow “collapse”. Then richer countries (UN etc?) could take care of poorer countries nuclear waste. Not out of generosity, but own interest.”
On the day that the whole world collapses, obviously there won’t be any countries rich enough to avoid the collapse, so it is difficult to see how they could be rich enough to take care of other countries’ nuclear waste problems.
Fast Eddy proclaims
Unlike others we idolize — Ted actually walked the walk…. not only did he reject BAU — he attempted to take it down….. of course he could have written books and made money and flown to Florida each winter…. but he didn’t…. no faux rebel here….. he looks to be as unplugged as you can get
Really now? He was hooked up to BAU as much as the Nearings, if not more so. Spent most of his days holed up in the cozy local town Library, with electricity, heated and light with fossil fuels, running water and flush toilet, no charge. Hmmm, another fantasy in the Fast Eddy make believe tower of BAU.
‘He was hooked up to BAU as much as the Nearings’
So I assume this is the last we are going to hear about the Nearings? ‘hooked up — BAU’
The thing with Ted is he was unplugged from BAU – he was attempting to live like a hunter gatherer….
That all changed when BAU imposed itself on him…… that’s when he lashed out….
‘Kaczynski’s original goal was to move out to a secluded place and become self-sufficient so that he could live autonomously. He began to teach himself survival skills such as tracking, edible plant identification, and how to construct primitive technologies such as bow drills.
He quickly realized that it was not possible for him to live that way, as a result of watching the wild land around him get destroyed by development and industry.[7]
He performed isolated acts of sabotage and initially targeted the developments near his cabin. The ultimate catalyst which drove him to begin his campaign of bombings was when he went out for a walk to one of his favorite wild spots, only to find that it had been destroyed and replaced with a road. About this, he said:
The best place, to me, was the largest remnant of this plateau that dates from the tertiary age. It’s kind of rolling country, not flat, and when you get to the edge of it you find these ravines that cut very steeply in to cliff-like drop-offs and there was even a waterfall there. It was about a two days’ hike from my cabin. That was the best spot until the summer of 1983. That summer there were too many people around my cabin so I decided I needed some peace. I went back to the plateau and when I got there I found they had put a road right through the middle of it… You just can’t imagine how upset I was. It was from that point on I decided that, rather than trying to acquire further wilderness skills, I would work on getting back at the system. Revenge.[7]
Shall we now officially replace Scott Nearing with Teddy K?
The only reason it may be a renewable source post BAU is because the human population will be so small as to not make a significant impact in the energy source.
And as times goes by I’m assuming that the human impact on this resource will diminish…
Agreed — however small populations quickly become large populations … particularly when farming is involved…. and farming means metal tools which means pressure on the forests….
Any attempt to counter such nonsense would be met with a deluge of vitriol…. better to stay on the friendly home court and run off these koombaya klowns when they come to town….
What about the Monsanto?
By 2030. Wow, that would be a game changer.
Temporarily
Stilgar,
the line between capitalism and communism isn’t blurred at all: as was revealed in 2008, it’s socialism for the 1% and wild capitalism for the rest of us (I suspect it’s been so for a very long time).
http://www.theguardian.com/books/2014/aug/29/socialism-for-the-rich
Bernie Sanders also said it recently:
http://crooksandliars.com/2015/11/bernie-sanders-says-we-already-have
Econ. 101 & 102 taught us in a capitalistic system companies that go bankrupt are replaced by competing companies. However, during the mortgage meltdown they bailed out Wallstreet and now this bailout for oil companies. But doesn’t bailing out companies smack of communism? One for all and all for one? In the desperation to hold the world economy ship together, are the lines between capitalism and communism blurring?
Stilgar, there are no such things as capitalism or free markets anymore. They went bye-bye a few years ago. Nor will we have such things ever again. What we have is a global system where the masses of peoples are happily ignorant and devoid of reality, but happily enjoying BAU. And the elites are in constant threat of apocalypse like a sword of Damocles, living hour to hour, day to the next day.
” In the desperation to hold the world economy ship together, are the lines between capitalism and communism blurring?”
There is virtually never a 100 percent pure free market, likewise very few pure 100 percent command economies. Most systems are somewhere along the spectrum.
Government acting on behalf of corporations, which pay off the politicians and bureaucrats, is a fundamental part of fascism, which could better be labeled corporatism (government of the corps, by the corps, for the corps).
Yes, corporatism is what Benito Mussolini called it.
Here’s a link to what I am referring to:
Notice the title of the article;
http://rootforamerica.com/what-capitalism-really-looks-like/
‘What Capitalism Really Looks Like’
“But there is one good thing to come out of all these depressing (and shocking) headlines- they prove that in Las Vegas, we still practice capitalism. You see failure is a natural (and unfortunately, necessary) part of capitalism. Failure plays just as big a part in a capitalist system as success. Companies succeed and fail every day in a capitalist system. Companies are allowed (and are supposed) to go bankrupt without the government jumping in to save them. Bankruptcy serves a useful purpose. It doesn’t mean that a company is going out of business. It might mean that the company is restructuring and shedding unprofitable contracts, or bloated union contracts under the protection of bankruptcy court. It might mean that the company is becoming leaner and meaner. It might mean that a competitor will buy the company out of bankruptcy.
That’s precisely how capitalism has worked for centuries. That’s precisely why capitalism works. In a free market capitalist system, businesses and businessmen are allowed to succeed and fail without government interference. Some people soar, while others flop. That’s precisely how you figure out the winners and losers- you leave companies (and people) alone and allow them to succeed or fail. If they fail, someone new will come along to pick up the pieces and do it better. How would anyone learn from these failures and mistakes, if government doesn’t allow anyone to fail in the first place?”
Barry Goldwater, the old time Republican icon and Presidential candidate in the 1960’s, remarked the Chinese Commies would become like us Capitalist here in the USA, and we in turn would morph their system to ours. Remarkable how correct he nailed it.
No commies again, only the capitalism using money creation for capital injections can surpass the limits of ever harder to get energy and resources. The cycles of the money creation and bankruptcy are the very revolutions of the energy and resource excavator. When this machine stops, the system starts to implode.
Only works if energy is very cheap, and you can keep adding a lot of debt. Otherwise it falls apart.
Hi Gail, I think you will have either ban or reduce the number of videos posted. The bandwidth is badly compromised and the site is practically unreadable. Maybe get them to post links instead of the actual video.
“Maybe get them to post links instead of the actual video.”
They are just links, your browser is just being helpful by inserting the video box, or in some case, super helpful by automatically playing the video links. Probably a way to how it just show a standard link instead of displaying the embedded video playback box.
Yeah it’s probably the case. I have an iPad and the videos seem to get automatically embedded. I’ve used 4 different browsers and it’s the same with all of them……thanks.
Thanks for the information. I am thinking that I need to take my Presentations/Podcasts sheet and break it into small sheets by date or some such thing. I expect it has a bandwidth problem as well.
I could cut the number of comments per page, if that would help the bandwidth problem. In fact, I did reduce the number of “top level” comments per page just now to 10 per page. That will mean more pages, but perhaps they will load better.
There may be an option in your browser about whether or not links are pre-loaded. For me the videos are just links until I selected them.
“Government acting on behalf of corporations, which pay off the politicians and bureaucrats, is a fundamental part of fascism, which could better be labeled corporatism (government of the corps, by the corps, for the corps).”
Agreed Matt, corporatism, a fundamental part of fascism.
Ed, ol’ Benito, an interesting fascist for sure. Some of Trump’s mannerisms remind me of Benito.
I added the link and information because it wasn’t included earlier.
emergency loan package?????? WOW, what in the world is going on really?????
http://seekingalpha.com/news/3059186-imf-world-bank-move-forestall-oil-led-defaults
That sort of makes sense. After COP21 Paris, governments hands are tied. But since large portions of U.S. shale oil businesses are in danger of filing chapter 11 within months now, money needs to be provided from somewhere. U.S. controlled IMF could do it alone, but it looks better if its a joint venture from IMF, World Bank and AIIB.
Quite nicely done actually. If that package can be put in place fast enough, we might have BAU all the way untill September/ October. Just as long as the high-frequency trading AIs can keep the U.S. stock market from crashing. And China will enforce its “illegal-to-short” policy. Yey, a few more months of BAU.
From elsewhere on the web I found this a piece of history that I missed
Maria Engström
I’m a swede and I can honestly say that I’m extremely embarrassed and disillusioned. In the 1980s I used to be proud of my country, we worked together towards a common goal of bettring our way of life and our society. Then in mid 1980s there was a Neo-Liberal state coup, the credit market was totally deregulated, the central bank was given to the Rothschilds, a few months later the CIA murdered our last truly democratically elected Prime Minister. All the companies we owned together as a population was given away to friends and relatives of corrupt politicians. Population was frightened into voting for joining EU or Sweden would “go under” (something that no longer exist cannot “go under”)… After that it has only gone more downhill at an ever increasing slope. Nowadays all “swedes” compete against eachother and working against one another rather than cooperating.
There is no Sweden any more, I call it Former Sweden. I have no positive feelings for Sweden, and a distant country like Syria, the Cradle of Civilizations, Birthplace of Christianity, last place on Earth where the Language of Jesus is still being spoken means 1000 times more for me than Former Sweden ever could.
But you gave the world ABBA….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=l72P5dtahAw
They, at least, are still giving the Sweden we know and love.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ujrrZdHKWtM
I just found out that Mr Bean started out a member of Abba.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wYkxvU66c3s
We should all watch and memorise a thousand YouTube clips each, so that we can act them out as entertainment, after the collapse of BAU.
Meanwhile, over in England in 1978, Kate Bush made a budget video for her first hit. She bought a flat-pack time-machine from IKEA and travelled to a deindustrialised landscape of the future. Though the lyrics suggest she is pining for Heathcliff and Wuthering Heights, she is actually pining for pre-collapse BAU.
I asked Kate if she could recommend any simple technology to Fast Eddy for his farm of the post-BAU future. She suggested a cloudbuster. In the video, Donald Sutherland plays Wilhelm Reich, and (bizarrely) Kate plays his 10-year-old son.
Let me give you my version:
I am born in the early 80ies so my experience is maybe not as long as Maria’s.
“Then in mid 1980s there was a Neo-Liberal state coup, the credit market was totally deregulated, the central bank was given to the Rothschilds”
To my knowing the swedish central bank is still owned by the swedish state. I don’t understand what event she refers to. Maybe someone else does?
“a few months later the CIA murdered our last truly democratically elected Prime Minister.”
She refers to the murder of Olof Palme in 1986. He did not have a shortage of enemies. In sweden you either hated him or loved him. He also had enemies in israel, south africa and USA because he expressed himself rather indiplomatic towards these countries. Nobody is yet sentenced for the murder but an alcoholic swedish petty criminal was the prime suspect. Palmes wife claimed she recognized him. Killing Palme was easy since he was on his way home from the evening cinema with his wife without any security guards. Escaping must have been more difficult. This would typically require more professionalism than what you find in an alcoholic petty criminal (sometimes unproffesionals can of course be lucky). Probably you also need to know the geography of stockholm pretty well. It’s more likely you find the murderer in the swedish police force where many people disliked Palme. To blame CIA is to exaggerate the importance of a swedish prime minister. Maybe CIA did not mourn his death.
“All the companies we owned together as a population was given away to friends and relatives of corrupt politicians. Population was frightened into voting for joining EU or Sweden would “go under” (something that no longer exist cannot “go under”)… After that it has only gone more downhill at an ever increasing slope. Nowadays all “swedes” compete against eachother and working against one another rather than cooperating.”
There is undeniably a big difference between Sweden version 1986 and what we have today. Many things happened. Globalization, immigration, segregation, credit expansion, real estate bubble, diminshing returns, deteriorating education system, mass media turning more and more imbecile and inefficient police force among other things.
Just blaming the Rothschilds, CIA and the EU seems somehow to be a simplification. I am sure that Sweden is not alone doing this kind of metamorphosis. Maybe the best explanation is that what we have experienced is a (slow) collapse which is what happen to all societies in the world history. This time it’s the western culture that’s caught in the process of collapse.
Sweden has the Wallenberg family, don´t know anything about Wallenbergs being in cahoots with the Rothschilds. Also somehow many swedish banks have disproportionately large amount of former German noble families sons in their employ in Europe, but again, don´t know what that has to do with the Rothschilds.
Riksbank was given rights to issue the legal tender currency in 1897. Again, don´t know what that has to do with the Rothschilds.
And also the Riksbank issues/gives the Nobel prize in economics, and again, don´t know what that has to do with the Rothschilds..
“given rights to issue the legal tender currency” move along nothing to see here.
Re: compost…. and there not being enough of it…
A lamb died here a couple of months ago — our neighbour suggested burying it in a hole and planting a fruit tree in that hole next season.
7.5 billion humans — let’s pretend only most die….
One per hole…. compost problem solved….
Do not ever, ever, throw meat in to the compost! Rotting and decaying corpses attract rats from miles away. Rats can go through steel enforced concrete if they smell meat. That´s pretty much true for all foods, but meat is somehow a more potent rat attractor then anything else. If you gotta have rotting meat in the compost, then use biochar or peat, or something with the molecule C that neutralizes the odors from the decaying meat.
Six feet under, as per cemeteries might work, however.
Yup, that works well enough.
Another thing with corpses is that when a corpse is inside a apartment building for a longish time, without access to microbes, worms etc. to break down the flesh. The body “melts” from the gut microbes. That is a impossible odour.. If such a thing happens in crucial production facilities or something like that. Then in Post-BAU circumstances I would recommend scavanging the local McDonalds, they have ozonization equipment either in the kitchen air vents and/or in the wastecompactor. Ozone should not be inhaled, actually, it should not be on if somebody is in the room, but if left on running for a couple of days, that ozone pretty much takes away all odors. Then the production facilities can be used again without people throwing up constantly.
In my village, there’s a community cemetery, which I think is free. A fair number of indigent here historically. They just place the body in the hole and fill it up.
Not in the compost…. buried a metre under the ground….
Re Potatoes….. the Irish tried that potato diet … it ended rather badly….
“Re Potatoes….. the Irish tried that potato diet … it ended rather badly….”
Only because the English landlords exported the barley to mainland Europe, where people were able to pay the higher price. Otherwise, it would be the story of how the Irish avoided the European famine by growing two different staple crops.
The suggestion was to live off of drought resistant potatoes… see the ignoring history conclusion
http://evolution.berkeley.edu/evolibrary/article/agriculture_02
“The suggestion was to live off of drought resistant potatoes…”
It is pretty amazing the decisions that lead to such fragility. Not just being dependent on a single crop, but on a single strain of a single crop.
That is a big part of the ideas like permaculture; having different varieties of each crop, and a variety of different crops grown together, to mitigate these kinds of risks.
The disheartening part is that this lesson must be learned, over and over and over.
As mentioned… the problem most will encounter is the lack of irrigation water post BAU …. so crop diversity becomes a problem …. you would need to focus on drought resistant crops….
“As mentioned… the problem most will encounter is the lack of irrigation water post BAU …. ”
Or rather, people will spend several hours a day hauling water. 4 hours hauling water, 4 hours pulling weeds.
Dear Finite Worlders
In the midst of all the stuff about financial Armageddon, I will offer a few specula5ions about the only growth sector in the American economy: healthcare.
I will take off from the interview by Mark Hyman of Dr. Michael Roizen. I will add some background information known to me, but not covered in the interview. I will conclude that the stage is set for a collapse in the percentage of our GDP devoted to traditional healthcare.
Dr. Roizen delivered an address to some business people where he said that the US manufacturing sector collapsed when health care became about 10 percent of the economy, because manufacturing companies could not afford that level of costs when foreign countries had much lower costs. He also said that US services would disappear overseas when healthcare got to be 18 percent of GDP. Healthcare is now about 20 percent of GDP.
Now I want to explore a little the unsatisfactory conversation between Mark Hyman, representing orthodox Functional Medicine and Michael Roizen representing steely eyed science and economics. Hyman preaches about genetic differences between individuals and N of One prescriptions. The notion is that rather than prescribing for the millions, improved data collection and knowledge about all the ‘omics’ revolutions will permit wise Functional Medicine doctors to lay out a comprehensive treatment, including lifestyle changes, for each individual. For example, some people may need, or at least tolerate, quite a lot of meat in their diet, while others may react negatively to meat…all based on genetics.
But, as Roizen points out, Dr. Hazen’s findings are not really much influenced by the genes in the human…they are a function of the gut bacteria. And if you steadily feed the gut bacteria with red meat, you are going to grow a large population of a certain kind of gut bacteria, which will digest the red meat and make TMAO, which does evil things to ALL humans (at least almost all humans).
In short, the Functional Medicine paradigm dates back to the 1990s and all the way back to the 1960s when people thought that the human genome was the whole story. The best and the brightest now understand that the gut bacteria have lots more genes than the human they inhabit, that their reproduction rate is extraordinarily fast, and that they dominate what happens in the human. Which leads a Silicon Valley Disrupter to the conclusion that a whole bunch of Functional Medicine doctors running around doing tests and prescribing for an N of One is simply a waste of time and money. The ‘McDonalds-i-zation’ of medicine may be a much more attractive proposition.
There still are diagnostic tests, but the basic notion is that science will develop a better understanding of how to keep the microbes happy and congruent with the needs of the human body….and the job of the medical person is to simply communicate the program to the patient. If the patient refuses to follow the advice, then society pretty much washes its hands of them.
Such a paradigm goes diametrically opposite the notions embedded in Medicare and Medicaid and Obamacare. Instead of being an unfortunate accident, a patients condition is deemed to be what they deserve to get. (Acute treatment, such as broken legs, continues as it is currently practiced.)
There are always going to be exceptions, such as children born with severe handicaps, but the pendulum may swing because our society simply won’t have the fossil fuels needed to power a society which can spend roughly 5 times more on health care than it needs to. If the economy collapses, then the ratios will change but the principle will remain the same….minimum social expenditure to fix what is deemed to be stupidity on the part of the patient. And society won’t have the resources to have very expensively educated people hand-hold people as they deal with social and mental problems which prevent them from doing what they need to do.
Don Stewart
Great post Don! Too many humans dependent on too few resources (especially considering they’re hardly distributed evenly!) equals a lot of dead weight to be managed and/or eliminated. In the end, having lorded our “primal species wisdom” over the rest thus far, maybe we should at least exhibit the moral courage to do it to our own as well, don’t ya think?
In the end, Armageddon won’t be brought on by a fear of too little, but rather by a naive belief in too much. Humans aren’t special in that regard. Just another species, albeit one with a f***ing chip on their shoulders!
It’s always dangerous to play God.
Although I do it all too frequently.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-29/zika-outbreak-epicenter-same-area-genetically-modified-mosquitoes-released-2015
I’ll just put the link for this article without pasting, but it’s about the Zika outbreak occurring in the same area as genetically modified mosquitos were earlier released. Yikes!
Guess Homo Collosus God complex is getting us into trouble.
“Only the male modified Aedes mosquitoes are supposed to be released into the wild — as they will mate with their unaltered female counterparts. Once offspring are produced, the modified, scientific facet is supposed to ‘kick in’ and kill that larvae before it reaches breeding age — IF tetracycline is not present during its development.
But there is a problem – tetracycline was present. Didn’t see that coming.
“But there is a problem – tetracycline was present. Didn’t see that coming.”
In blood or the water they were hatching in? that does seem like an odd but not too improbable situation. I guess they never saw Jurassic Park …
The Hairless Mutation Hypothesis Explains Not Only the Origin of Humanization from the Human/Ape Common Ancestor but also Immature Baby Delivery
“Only bipedal hominins can rear an immature baby
Apes must deliver a baby that is sufficiently mature to cling to its mother for itself. The head of archaic hominins was as small as that of a chimpanzee. Therefore, mothers with a small birth canal were able to give birth to such babies. Climate change might have compelled archaic and later hominins to shift their major life from arboreal to terrestrial, i.e., from woody lands to more savanna-like openly lands. Terrestrial life was full of dangers; they had to be vigilant for the approach of predators. Escaping from predators must have been the greatest concern of hominins. They must not have been hunters; rather they were hunted.”
“Only bipedal hominins were able to adopt the second strategy because mothers would be able to hold an immature baby with both hands.”
“Of the many crises in the history of life on Earth, the impact of one species, H. sapiens, is the greatest and potentially the most devastating. Earth’s capacity to sustain life is reaching its limit. We are changing the world faster than many species can adapt. Can our large brains resolve the crisis which our brains have produced and in which we are inextricably involved?”
Source: http://www.omicsonline.org/the-hairless-mutation-hypothesis-explains-not-only-the-origin-of%20humanization-from-the-human-ape-common-ancestor-but-also-immature-baby-delivery-2161-0436.1000111.php?aid=14998
I think we’ve at least evolved the ability to explain it. But I think we’ve equally CLEARLY not evolved the ability to control/contain it. I also think we’re about 100 years or so past that critical decision point, so most of this is just so much “whistling past the graveyard,” the idiom of which is also likely of about the same vintage.
Dear MG and James;
On this forum, I haven’t posted my theory about why there are no actual alien visitors – until now:
The theory is easiest described as a mind experiment. Imagine if you will a creature in the sea, a swamp, or the savanna and for some reason it begins to get intelligent. Lets stick to the swamp creature. Since evolution selects for the stronger trait, the animal would get better and better adapted to the swamp. And since it is intelligent, it will leverage tools and build shelter initially in harmony with the swamp, but later it will adapt a lifestyle different than its ancestors were used to. Eventually, it might launch satellites that measure the amount of rain the swamp is receiving and do other wonderful things with its ever more complex and powerful tools.
The problem is that evolution takes many generations, and our experimental subject is adapted to the swamp, not the technological society that it has created. Since it is – by definition – not adapted to its current environment, our swamp creature becomes ill, the society weakens, and eventually collapses.
The interstellar trips that might have happened don’t, and we get no Ferringi ships on the White House lawn.
So, you see, our current predicament isn’t our fault. It is a natural course of events that is happening beyond the control of anyone.
Yours in evolution,
Pintada
Dear pintada,
it may be that the mutation causing hairlessness created the need of human species for additional energy, which was further strengthened by climate chanes. On the other hand, this additional energy helped the human race to develop technology and fight its various weaknesses arising from cummulating mutations.
Now, the human species is doomed to extinction without the additional energy, as all the technology rests on the availability of additional energy.
Isn’t it so that hairlessness is an adaption to being day active on the savannah? Also good sight but bad night vision.
MG,
I tend to see it the other way round: the fire sarted to be controlled by Erectus 1.8 million years ago, i.e. faaar before Sapiens appeared. We can imagine that 200.000 years ago the basic techniques related to fire were quite well mastered, and then why not conclude that Sapiens couldn’t have appeared nor thrived without this reliable supply of external energy.
We can’t exist without fire, and this is still valid today, even worse. Some would say we’re the Sons of Fire, I’d say we’re simply by-products of combustion.
Just like smoke, we’ll simply vanish when the fire extinguishes.
Dear Stefeun,
having hair and making fire excludes one another – the hair can catch fire. That is why it is more logical that the man started to use fire only after the human species became hairless…
“We can’t exist without fire, and this is still valid today, even worse.”
The Sentinelese have lived for over 60,000 years on their island, and they supposedly do not use fire. Unless they are actually not homo sapiens, it kind of disproves that theory.
One thing we sure wouldn’t learn from the Sentinelese is how to make fire — apparently they haven’t picked up on that particular skill, although they could show us how to keep embers lit by a lightning strike smoldering for long periods of time in hollowed-out trees.
http://people.howstuffworks.com/most-isolated-culture1.htm
Good point Matthew,
but I don’t see it as contradictory. I know nothing about those Sentinelese, but let me try a hypothesis: they are living in a special environment, and it could be that what allowed them to survive over such a long period IS actually the fact they don’t use fire.
They don’t need fire to fight against cold weather, and I assume they don’t have major predators to keep at bay. As for food, maybe they’re using techniques of fermentation/conservation/..? of fish, or they spend most of their time chewing large amounts of green leaves, plus some berries, insects, etc… That’s pure speculation, but I guess that if you don’t eat meat, or very few, you can make it without fire.
Maybe they consider fire as evil, if the only one they know was caused by storms and destroyed their resource. Such a lifestyle makes them fully part of their ecosystem, never exceeding their share, as there is no input of external energy, and their output is 100% recycled. Moreover, they probably are conscious of the finiteness of their island(s?) and know there isn’t any possibility for expansion.
Add to that a good piece of luck, as they didn’t have to face invaders (human or viruses), and their genetic heritage didn’t suffer from harmful mutations. That wasn’t the case for the rest of us, who had very good reasons for using fire and other destructive techniques, thereby forcing us to constant expansion and ever bigger use of external energy. Until today.
And here we have an example of how things fall apart (and won’t be repairable post BAU)…
An excerpt from the solar pump manufacturer in Germany:
‘Ok, so even though it was a likely root cause, dirt/debris in the pump seems not to be a problem then. Unfortunately this could mean something is damaged.’
Less than 2 months into operation — we’ll likely be requiring a new rotor and seals….
Dear Finite Worlders
Early this morning I listened to Mark Hyman interview Dr. Michael Roizen. Roizen is the doctor for the Cleveland Clinic, in terms of the corporate practices they should adopt to foster good health within their staff.
I think it is a tragicomic interview. It begins with Roizen describing just exactly what Stanley Hazen’s discovery that our gut microbes process animal products into TMAO, a disease causing chemical, means in terms of healthy eating. What it means is that no matter how small the portion of steak you eat, you cannot also eat an egg. And you can’t have the steak every day…more like once a week. In other words, if you truly value health, you will just about totally quit eating animals.
Hyman has just published a book which claims that the ‘low fat’ craze was a gigantic mistake, killing millions of people with bad advice. He wants to say that ‘clean meat’, such as might be grown in a green pasture, is good for you in moderation. And the saturated fat in an egg yolk or the saturated fat in dairy get a clean bill of health if the chickens and the dairy cows were raised in natural circumstances rather than in feedlots. In other words, he wants to talk his new book. Hazen’s discovery comes at an inopportune time for Hyman’s book.
Roizen says that, as we speak, the drug companies are spending 2 billion dollars to try to find a way to short-circuit the metabolic path from animals going into the gut through gut microbe digestion to metabolic products like TMAO going into the human body.
Hyman’s strategy is mostly denial or looking for escape clauses. One of the weakest of his attempts at escape is to say that ‘association doesn’t prove causation’. But the associational studies have been ongoing now for decades. What Hazen did is provide a mechanism. That mechanism has been tested by about 5 other leading laboratories, and confirmed.
What Hazen has promised is that, now that we know HOW animal products produce ill-health, we can invent some mechanism to short circuit the process…just as the drug companies are trying to do. Time will tell on that issue…many half-baked interventions have turned out to kill more people than they saved. And, of course, Gail would quickly add that Limits to Growth means nobody is going to be eating much meat anyway.
Dr. Roizen himself appears to have adopted a ‘no meat’ practice in his own meals.
Early this afternoon, I picked up my book The Hidden Half of Nature again, an exploration of the microbes from both a gardening and a health perspective. The authors are describing the bitter opposition Lynn Margulis had to overcome with her revolutionary revisions to classical Darwinism. Margulis demonstrated to most professional’s satisfaction (after the old guard died) that multi-celled creatures really are a result of a few key mergers between single celled critters. Margulis called it ‘symbiogenesis’…classical Darwinism was strictly governed by competition between individuals and mutations of individual genes…with some odd behavior by hives.
The authors point out that if two microbes can manage to merge, they double their cell count and increase their complement of genes by a large amount. But if a complicated animal managed to merge with a single celled microbe, the increase in cell count would be very small relatively.
Most of us have probably experienced the diminishing returns gained by mergers. The Bible claims that two people are stronger than one, and ‘a threefold cord is not easily broken’. But after we get about 7 people in the group, increasing it to 15 introduces all sorts of problems. Bigger suddenly become ‘not better’.
I drew a line on a piece of paper, with Love at one end and Hate at the other. Then I listed some of the ways of behaving which fill the spectrum between those two poles. A mother sacrificing her life for her infant is purely Love, while Doing Unto the Other Before the Other Can Do It to You is purely hate. Warlordism falls toward the Hate end of the spectrum. Regulated Capitalism is toward the Hate end, but with attempts to enforce, by law, some standards of behavior. Symbiotic behavior between mitochondria and our cells proper falls toward the Love end, but so far as we can tell is pretty much You Scratch My Back and I’ll Scratch Yours. Sports teams tend a little toward the Love side, but are riven with conflicts as each player is in competition with other members of the same team. Sexual relationships are initially blinded by Lust, which may turn into Love, but the separate identities seldom disappear. Most relationships fall somewhere in the middle, as drivers on a highway all more or less obey a common set of conventions, and stores mostly tell the truth to shoppers, and so forth.
What was happening when Hyman talked to Roizen? Roizen, I think, is coming across as basically a very honest guy in this circumstance. Hyman is trying to defend his book against a serious new scientific finding. Hyman is not learning anything from Roizen. Unlike the cell a few billion years ago forming a union with a microbe, he is unable to see any benefit from cooperation. I think we have only to look at the relationship between the US and Russia and China to see similar inability to perceive the benefits of cooperation….located somewhere on the continuum. Will Hyman get over his myopia? Or will it take a new generation to sort things out? Or will the drug companies discover a new treasure trove of drugs to sell to Medicare?
Don Stewart
Don,
Humans are inherently biased toward humans. THAT’S the problem! Love or hate among humans is not the issue. HUMANS ARE the issue. Only humans worship their own graven image in the form of another human! Wanna see the problem? Take a look in the mirror!
James
The Shipping News Says the World Economy Is Toast
In October 2008, as the repercussions of the financial crisis were starting to ripple through the global economy, I noticed a press release from Swedish truckmaker Volvo saying that its European order book had fallen by more than 99 percent between the third quarters of 2007 and 2008 — to just 155 from 41,970.
That prompted me to study various other real-world activity measures ranging from shipping to air freight, and to conclude that “the news is all bad and getting worse, fast.” The same exercise today, I’m afraid to say, leads me to a similar conclusion about the growth outlook.
Here’s a chart showing what’s happening to the cost of shipping containers from China’s ports, one for the country and one for Shanghai. Both indexes are compiled by the Shanghai Shipping Exchange and cover shipments to the rest of the world including Europe, the U.S. and Africa; the broader China index is down more than 40 percent from its peak in mid-2012:
http://assets.bwbx.io/images/iHsgsl85EhuQ/v1/-1x-1.jpg
The traditional global shipping measure is called the Baltic Dry Index. Shipping purists (who rival gold bugs in their dedication to minutiae) will tell you it mostly reflects how many vessels are afloat on the world’s oceans; a glut of shipbuilding means more boats available, which drives down the cost of shipping bulk raw materials such as iron ore, steel and coal. But given the fragile state of the global economy, it’s hard to shake the feeling that the index has been trying to tell us something important about global demand in recent years:
More http://www.bloombergview.com/articles/2016-01-28/shipping-news-says-world-economy-is-toast
The trend toward lower shipping of goods continues!
For Mining Chiefs, Doomsday Scenarios Could Become Reality
Copper, iron-ore prices approach levels described by executives as ‘doomsday’
LONDON—Mining executives, welcome to your worst-case scenarios.
Glencore PLC Chief Executive Ivan Glasenberg rejected predictions that copper would fall below $4,000 a metric ton, dubbing it a “doomsday” price. Rio Tinto PLC Chief Executive Sam Walsh last year said the idea that iron-ore prices would fall to $30 a metric ton was from “fantasy land.”
Since Mr. Glasenberg’s comments in September, copper prices have tumbled nearly 20%, falling close to $4,300 a metric ton. It has risen in recent days, but was down 1.3% at $4,530 in London on Thursday and an increasing number of analysts are now saying prices will go below $4,000 soon.
Iron ore was changing hands for more than $60 a metric ton when Mr. Walsh made his remarks last February, but it plummeted to below $40 a ton in recent weeks, and now $30 a ton appears within reach. It fell 1% on Tuesday to $40.80, and some analysts think it could fall into the $20s this year.
Spokesmen for Glencore and Rio Tinto declined to comment.
The vicious decline in commodity prices is upending the forecasts of the leaders of the world’s top commodities companies and scrambling their plans to cope with the worst rout in decades. Some of the world’s biggest miners have slashed their dividends, sliced off billions of dollars in debt and scaled back millions of tons of production as their assumptions about how low commodity prices could go turned out to be wrong.
“I’ve been going through hell!” Richard Adkerson, chief executive of American mining giant Freeport McMoRan Inc., said at a London metals conference last October, referring to a Rodney Atkins song lyric, “If you’re going through hell, keep on going.”
More http://www.wsj.com/articles/for-mining-chiefs-doomsday-scenarios-could-become-reality-1454045416
So many commodities down at the same time!
Now would be a good time to be looading the barrels of diesel onto the Thomas Malthus….
That obviously means that the dollar is strengthening. I have recently been argued with that it represented diminishing demand. The dollar must strengthen before ultimate collapse, although when that collapse occurs I have no idea.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-29/here-why-everyone-was-shocked-boj-announcement
I always love a good laugh, and this one got me chuckling. Two headlines – two opposite outcomes. No to NIRP, Yes to NIRP, Up down, east west, north south, across slantways, black white, Yea nay, yup nope.
How long before we get NIRP here in the US as one of the last ditch fiscal folly efforts to shock the economic system back into coherence? Trouble is, how does one snap something back into coherence when the underlying situation of diminishing returns insists on contraction, not growth?
Maybe negative 12 percent interest rates would change things.
Pay people interest if they take out loans….
That would be incredibly stimulative…..
Just thought everyone here could use a good laugh. Shale 2.0 !!!
http://nextbigfuture.com/2016/01/technological-progress-in-big-data.html
The fellow who has this blog used to comment on The Oil Drum frequently. His big thing then was that nuclear was going to save the world.
Even if he is correct, I doubt there is enough shale in the ground to compensate for the diminishment of conventional oil reserves. Can some one correct me if I am wrong?
Dear Kurt;
Interesting post, I had never seen this before. The author presents a terrifying scenario where fossil fuels are available long enough that the crash when they do run out would be many times worse than if our host is correct and the end of BAU comes soon.
I read as much of the report as I could stand. Thankfully, the pile of techno-utopian lies just got to big to wade through. Whew!
His enamor with the fact that petabytes of data has been generated, is perhaps the only relevant take-away. Many techno-utopians truly believe that data can do things. Data can drill for oil. Data can frack shale more efficiently. etc. Nope, sorry.
Thanks,
Pintada