The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” story is based on a long list of misunderstandings and apples to oranges comparisons. Somehow, people seem to believe that our economy of 7.5 billion people can get along with a very short list of energy supplies. This short list will not include fossil fuels. Some would exclude nuclear, as well. Without these energy types, we find ourselves with a short list of types of energy — what BP calls Hydroelectric, Geobiomass (geothermal, wood, wood waste, and other miscellaneous types; also liquid fuels from plants), Wind, and Solar.
Unfortunately, a transition to such a short list of fuels can’t really work. These are a few of the problems we encounter:
[1] Wind and solar are making extremely slow progress in helping the world move away from fossil fuel dependence.
In 2015, fossil fuels accounted for 86% of the world’s energy consumption, and nuclear added another 4%, based on data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy. Thus, the world’s “preferred fuels” made up only 10% of the total. Wind and solar together accounted for a little less than 2% of world energy consumption.
Figure 1. World energy consumption based on data from BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Our progress in getting away from fossil fuels has not been very fast, either. Going back to 1985, fossil fuels made up 89% of the total, and wind and solar were both insignificant. As indicated above, fossil fuels today comprise 86% of total energy consumption. Thus, in 30 years, we have managed to reduce fossil fuel consumption by 3% (=89% – 86%). Growth in wind and solar contributed 2% of this 3% reduction. At the rate of a 3% reduction every 30 years (or 1% reduction every ten years), it will take 860 years, or until the year 2877 to completely eliminate the use of fossil fuels. And the “improvement” made to date was made with huge subsidies for wind and solar.
Figure 2. World electricity generation by source based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.
The situation is a little less bad when looking at the electricity portion alone (Figure 2). In this case, wind amounts to 3.5% of electricity generated in 2015, and solar amounts to 1.1%, making a total of 4.6%. Fossil fuels account for “only” 66% of the total, so this portion seems to be the place where changes can be made. But replacing all fossil fuels, or all fossil fuels plus nuclear, with preferred fuels seems impossible.
[2] Grid electricity is probably the least sustainable form of energy we have.
If we are to transition to a renewables-based economy, we will need to transition to an electricity-based economy, since most of today’s renewables use electricity. Such an economy will need to depend on the electric grid.
The US electric grid is often called the “World’s Largest Machine.” The American Society of Civil Engineers gives a grade of D+ to America’s energy system. It says,
America relies on an aging electrical grid and pipeline distribution systems, some of which originated in the 1880s. Investment in power transmission has increased since 2005, but ongoing permitting issues, weather events, and limited maintenance have contributed to an increasing number of failures and power interruptions.
Simply maintaining the electric grid is difficult. One author writes about the challenges of replacing aging steel structures holding up power lines. Another writes about the need to replace transformers, before they fail catastrophically and interrupt services. The technology to maintain and repair the transmission lines demands that fossil fuels remain available. For one thing, helicopters are sometimes needed to install or repair transmission lines. Even if repairs are done by truck, oil products are needed to operate the trucks, and to keep the roads in good repair.
Electricity and, in fact, electricity dispensed by an electric grid, is in some sense the high point in our ability to create an energy product that “does more” than fossil fuels. Grid electricity allows electric machines of all types to work. It allows industrial users to create very high temperatures, and to hold them as needed. It allows computerization of processes. It is not surprising that people who are concerned about energy consumption in the future would want to keep heading in the same direction as we have been heading in the past. Unfortunately, this is the expensive, hard-to-maintain direction. Storms often cause electrical outages. We have a never-ending battle trying to keep the system operating.
[3] Our big need for energy is in the winter, when the sun doesn’t shine as much, and we can’t count on the wind blowing.
Clearly, we use a lot of electricity for air conditioning. It is difficult to imagine that air conditioning will be a major energy use for the long-term, however, if we are headed for an energy bottleneck. There is always the possibility of using fans instead, and living with higher indoor temperatures.
In parts of the world where it gets cold, it seems likely that a large share of future energy use will be to heat homes and businesses in winter. To illustrate the kind of seasonality that can result from the use of fuels for heating, Figure 3 shows a chart of US natural gas consumption by month. US natural gas is used for some (but not all) home heating. Natural gas is also used for electricity and industrial uses.
Figure 3. US natural gas consumption by month, based on US Energy Information Administration.
Clearly, natural gas consumption shows great variability, with peaks in usage during the winter. The challenge is to provide electrical supply that varies in a similar fashion, without using a lot of fossil fuels.
[4] If a family burns coal or natural gas directly for winter heat, but then switches to electric heat that is produced using the same fuel, the cost is likely to be higher. If there is a second change to a higher-cost type of electricity, the cost of heat will be even greater.
There is a loss of energy when fossil fuels or biomass are burned and transformed into electricity. BP tries to correct for this in its data, by showing the amount of fuel that would need to be burned to produce this amount of electricity, assuming a conversion efficiency of 38%. Thus, the energy amounts shown by BP for nuclear, hydro, wind and solar don’t represent the amount of heat that they could make, if used to heat apartments or to cook food. Instead, they reflect an amount 2.6 times as much (=1/38%), which is the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be burned in order to produce this electricity.
As a result, if a household changes from heat based on burning coal directly, to heat from coal-based electricity, the change tends to be very expensive. The Wall Street Journal reports, Beijing’s Plan for Cleaner Heat Leaves Villagers Cold:
Despite electricity subsidies for residential consumers, villagers interviewed about their state-supplied heaters said their overall costs had risen substantially. Several said it costs around $300 to heat their homes for the winter, compared with about $200 with coal.
The underlying problem is that burning coal in a power plant produces a better, but more expensive, product. If this electricity is used for a process that coal cannot perform directly, such as allowing a new automobile production plant, then this higher cost is easily absorbed by the economy. But if this higher-cost product simply provides a previously available service (heating) in a more expensive manner, it becomes a difficult cost for the economy to “digest.” It becomes a very expensive fix for China’s smog problem. It should be noted that this change works in the wrong direction from a CO2 perspective, because ultimately, more coal must be burned for heating because of the inefficiency of converting coal to electricity, and then using that electricity for heating.
How about later substituting wind electricity for coal-based electricity? China has a large number of wind turbines in the north of China standing idle. One problem is the high cost of erecting transmission lines that would transport this electricity to urban centers such as Beijing. Also, if these wind turbines were put in place, existing coal plants would operate fewer hours, causing financial difficulties for these coal generating units. If these companies need subsidies in order to continue paying their ongoing expenses (including payroll and debt repayment), this would create a second additional cost. Electricity prices would need to be higher, to cover these costs as well. A family who had difficulty affording heat with coal-based electricity would have an even greater problem affording wind-based electricity.
Heat for cooking and heat for creating hot water are similar to heat for keeping an apartment warm. It is less expensive (both in energy terms and in cost to the consumer) if coal or natural gas is burned directly to produce the heat, than if electricity is used instead. This again, has to do with the conversion efficiency of turning fossil fuels to electricity.
[5] Low energy prices for the consumer are very important. Unfortunately, many analyses of the benefit of wind or of solar give a misleading impression of their true cost, when added to the electric grid.
How should the cost of wind and solar be valued? Is it simply the cost of installing the wind turbines or solar panels? Or does it include all of the additional costs that an electricity delivery system must incur, if it is actually to incorporate this intermittent electricity into the electric grid system, and deliver it to customers where it is needed?
The standard answer, probably because it is easiest to compute, is that the cost is simply the cost (or energy cost) of the wind turbines or the solar panels themselves, plus perhaps an inverter. On this basis, wind and solar appear to be quite inexpensive. Many people have come to the conclusion that a transition to wind and solar might be helpful, based on this type of limited analysis.
Unfortunately, the situation is more complicated. Perhaps, the first few wind turbines and solar panels will not disturb the existing electrical grid system very much. But as more and more wind turbines or solar panels are added, there get to be additional costs. These include long distance transmission, electricity storage, and subsidies needed to keep backup electricity-generation in operation. When these costs are included, the actual total installed cost of delivering electricity gets to be far higher than the cost of the solar panels or wind turbines alone would suggest.
Energy researchers talk about the evaluation problem as being a “boundary issue.” What costs really need to be considered, when a decision is made as to whether it makes sense to add wind turbines or solar panels? Several other researchers and I feel that much broader boundaries are needed than are currently being used in most published analyses. We are making plans to write an academic article, explaining that current Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROEI) calculations cannot really be compared to fossil fuel EROEIs, because of boundary issues. Instead, “Point of Use” EROEIs are needed. For wind and solar, Point of Use EROEIs will vary with the particular application, depending on the extent of the changes required to accommodate wind or solar electricity. In general, they are likely to be far lower than currently published wind and solar EROEIs. In fact, for some applications, they may be less than 1:1.
A related topic is return on human labor. Return on human labor is equivalent to how much a typical worker can afford to buy with his wages. In [4], we saw a situation where the cost of heating a home seems to increase, as a transition is made from (a) burning coal for direct use in heating, to (b) using electricity created by burning coal, to (c) using electricity created by wind turbines. This pattern is eroding the buying power of workers. This direction ultimately leads to collapse; it is not the direction that an economy would generally intentionally follow. If wind and solar are truly to be helpful, they need to be inexpensive enough that they allow workers to buy more, rather than less, with their wages.
[6] If we want heat in the winter, and we are trying to use solar and wind, we need to somehow figure out a way to store electricity from summer to winter. Otherwise, we need to operate a double system at high cost.
Energy storage for electricity is often discussed, but this is generally with the idea of storing relatively small amounts of electricity, for relatively short periods, such as a few hours or few days. If our real need is to store electricity from summer to winter, this will not be nearly long enough.
In theory, it would be possible to greatly overbuild the wind and solar system relative to summer electricity needs, and then build a huge amount of batteries in order to store electricity created during the summer for use in the winter. This approach would no doubt be very expensive. There would likely be considerable energy loss in the stored batteries, besides the cost of the batteries themselves. We would also run the risk of exhausting resources needed for solar panels, wind turbines, and/or batteries.
A much more workable approach would be to burn fossil fuels for heat during the winter, because they can easily be stored. Biomass, such as wood, can also be stored until needed. But it is hard to find enough biomass for the whole world to burn for heating homes and for cooking, without cutting down an excessively large share of the world’s trees. This is a major reason why moving away from fossil fuels is likely to be very difficult.
[7] There are a few countries that use an unusually large share of electricity in their energy mixes today. These countries seem to be special cases that would be hard for other countries to emulate.
Data from BP Statistical Review of World Energy indicates that the following countries have the highest proportion of electricity in their energy mixes.
- Sweden – 72.7%
- Norway – 69.5%
- Finland – 59.9%
- Switzerland – 57.5%
These are all countries that have low population and a significant hydroelectric supply. I would expect that the hydroelectric power is very inexpensive to produce, especially if the dams were built years ago, and are now fully paid for. Sweden, Finland, and Switzerland also have electricity from nuclear providing about a third of each of their electricity supplies. This nuclear electricity was built long ago, and thus is now paid for as well. The geography of countries may also reduce the use of traffic by cars, thus reducing the portion of gasoline in their energy mixes. It would be difficult for other countries to create equivalently inexpensive large supplies of electricity.
In general, rich countries have higher electricity shares than poorer countries:
- OECD Total – (Rich countries) – 2015 – 44.5%
- Non- OECD (Less rich countries) – 2015 – 39.3%
China is an interesting example. Its share of energy use from electricity changed as follows from 1985 to 2015:
- China – 1985 – 17.5%
- China – 2015 – 43.6%
In 1985, China seems to have used most of its coal directly, rather than converting it for use as electricity. This was likely not difficult to do, because coal is easy to transport, and it can be used for many heating needs simply by burning it. Later, industrialization allowed for much more use of electricity. This explains the rise in its electricity ratio to 43.6% in 2015, which is almost as high as the rich country ratio of 44.5%. If the electricity ratio rises further, it will likely be because electricity is being put to use in ways where it has less of a cost advantage, or even has a cost disadvantage, such as for heating and cooking.
[8] Hydroelectric power is great for balancing wind and solar, but it is available in limited quantities. It too has intermittency problems, limiting how much it can be counted on.
If we look at month-to-month hydroelectric generation in the US, we see that it too has intermittency problems. Its high month is May or June, when snow melts and sends hydroelectric output higher. It tends to be low in the fall and winter, so is not very helpful for filling the large gap in needed electricity in the winter.
Figure 4. US hydroelectric power by month, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
It also has a problem with not being very large relative to our energy needs. Figure 5 shows how US hydro, or the combination of hydro plus solar plus wind (hydro+S+W), matches up with current natural gas consumption.
Figure 5. US consumption of natural gas compared to hydroelectric power and compared to hydro plus wind plus solar (hydro+W+S), based on US Energy Information Administration data.
Of course, the electricity amounts (hydro and hydro+S+W) are “grossed up” amounts, showing how much fossil fuel energy would be required to make those quantities of electricity. If we want to use the electricity for heating homes and offices, or for cooking, then we should compare the heat energy of natural gas with that of hydro and hydro+S+W. In that case, the hydro and hydro+S+W amounts would be lower, amounting to only 38% of the amounts shown.
This example shows how limited our consumption of hydro, solar, and wind is compared to our current consumption of natural gas. If we also want to replace oil and coal, we have an even bigger problem.
[9] If we need to get along without fossil fuels for electricity generation, we would have to depend greatly on hydroelectric power. Hydro tends to have considerable variability from year to year, making it hard to depend on.
Nature varies not just a little, but a lot, from year to year. Hydro looks like a big stable piece of the total in Figures 1 and 2 that might be used for balancing wind and solar’s intermittency, but when a person looks at the year by year data, it is clear that the hydro amounts are quite variable at the country level.
Figure 6. Electricity generated by hydroelectric for six large European countries based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.
In fact, hydroelectric power is even variable for larger groupings, such as the six countries in Figure 6 combined, and some larger countries with higher total hydroelectric generation.
Figure 7. Hydroelectricity generated by some larger countries, and by the six European countries in Figure 6 combined, based on BP 2016 Statistical Review of World Energy.
What we learn from Figures 6 and 7 is that even if a great deal of long distance transmission is used, hydro will be variable from year to year. In fact, the variability will be greater than shown on these charts, because the quantity of hydro available tends to be highest in the spring, and is often much lower during the rest of the year. (See Figure 4 for US hydro.) So, if a country wants to depend on hydro as its primary source of electricity, that country must set its expectations quite low in terms of what it can really count on.
And, of course, Saudi Arabia and several other Middle Eastern countries don’t have any hydroelectric power at all. Middle Eastern countries tend not to have biomass, either. So if these countries choose to use wind and solar to assist in electrical generation, and want to balance their intermittency with something else, they pretty much need to use something that is locally available, such as natural gas. Other countries with very low amounts of hydro (or none at all) include Algeria, Australia, Bangladesh, Denmark, Netherlands, and South Africa.
These issues provide further reasons why countries will want to continue using fossil fuels, and perhaps nuclear, if they can.
[10] There has been a misunderstanding regarding the nature of our energy problem. Many people believe that we will “run out” of fossil fuels, or that the price of oil and other fuels will rise very high. In fact, our problem seems to be one of affordability: energy prices don’t rise high enough to cover the rising cost of producing electricity and other energy products. Adding wind and solar tends to make the problem of low commodity prices worse.
Ultimately, consumers can purchase only what their wages will allow them to purchase. Rising debt can help as well, for a while, but this has limits. As a result, lack of wage growth translates to a lack of growth in commodity prices, even if the cost of producing these commodities is rising. This is the opposite of what most people expect; most people have never considered the possibility that peak energy will come from low prices for all types of energy products, including uranium. Thus, we seem to be facing peak energy demand (represented as low prices), arising from a lack of affordability.
We can see the problem in the example of the Beijing family with a rising cost of heating its apartment. Economists would like to think that rising costs translate to rising wages, but this is not the case. If rising costs are the result of diminishing returns (for example, coal is from deeper, thinner coal seams), the impact is similar to growing inefficiency. The inefficient sector needs more workers and more resources, leaving fewer resources and workers for other more efficient sectors. The result is an economy that tends to contract because of growing inefficiency.
If we want to operate a double system, using wind and solar when it is available, and using fossil fuels at other times, the cost will be very high. The problem arises because the fossil fuel system has many fixed costs. For example, coal mines and natural gas companies need to continue to pay interest on their loans, or they will default. Pipelines need to operate 365 days per year, regardless of whether they are actually full. The question is how to get enough funding for this double system.
One pricing system for electricity that doesn’t work well is the “market pricing system” based on each producer’s marginal costs of production. Wind and solar are subsidized, so they tend to have negative marginal costs of production. It is impossible for any other type of electricity producer to compete in this system. It is well known that this system does not produce enough revenue to maintain the whole system.
Sometimes, additional “capacity payments” are auctioned off, to try to fix the problem of inadequate total wholesale electricity prices. If we believe the World Nuclear Organization, even these charges are not enough. Several US nuclear power plants are scheduled for closing, indirectly because this pricing methodology is making older nuclear power plants unprofitable. Natural gas prices have also been too low for producers in recent years. This electricity pricing methodology is one of the reasons for this problem as well, in my opinion.
A different pricing system that works much better in our current situation is the utility pricing system, or “cost plus” pricing. In this system, prices are determined by regulators, based on a review of all necessary costs, including appropriate profit margins for producers. In the case of a double system, it allows prices to be high enough to cover all the needed costs, including the extra long distance transmission lines, plus all of the high fixed costs of fossil fuel and nuclear power plants, operating for fewer hours per year.
Of course, these much higher electricity rates eventually will become unaffordable for the consumer, leading to a cutback in purchases. If enough of these cutbacks in purchases occur, the result will be recession. But at least the electricity system doesn’t fail at an early date because of inadequate profits for its producers.
Conclusion
The possibility of making a transition to an all-renewables system seems virtually impossible, for the reasons I have outlined above. I have outlined many other issues in previous posts:
- Intermittent Renewables Can’t Favorably Transform Grid Electricity
- Ten Reasons Intermittent Renewables (Wind and Solar PV) are a Problem
- EROEI Calculations for Solar PV Are Misleading
- Obstacles Facing US Wind Energy
- Eight Pitfalls in Evaluating Green Energy Solutions
- Eight Energy Myths Explained
- Scientific American’s Path to Sustainability: Let’s Think about the Details
- The real oil limits story; what other researchers missed
The topic doesn’t seem to go away, because it is appealing to have a “solution” to what seems to be a predicament with no solution. In a way, wind and solar are like a high-cost placebo. If we give these to the economy, at least people will think we are treating the problem, and maybe our climate problem will get a little better.
Meanwhile, we find more and more real life problems with intermittent renewables. Australia has had a series of blackouts. A several-hour blackout in South Australia was tied partly to the high level of intermittent energy on the grid. The ways of reducing future recurrences appear to be very expensive.
Antonio Turiel has written about the problems that Spain is encountering. Spain added large amounts of wind and solar, but these have not been available during a recent cold spell. It added gas by pipeline from Algeria, but now Algeria has cut back on the amount it is supplying. It has added transmission lines north to France. Now, Turiel is concerned that Spain’s electricity prices will be persistently higher, because he believes that France has not taken sufficient preparations to meet its own electricity needs. If there were little interconnectivity between countries, France’s electricity problems would stay in France, rather than adversely affecting its neighbors. A person begins to wonder: Can transmission lines have an adverse impact on new electricity supply? If a country can hope that “the market” will supply electricity from elsewhere, does that country take adequate steps to provide its own electricity?
In my opinion, the time has come to move away from believing that everything that is called “renewable” is helpful to the system. We now have real information on how expensive wind and solar are, when indirect costs are included. Unfortunately, in the real world, high-cost is ultimately a deal killer, because wages don’t rise at the same time. We need to understand where we really are, not live in a fairy tale world produced by politicians who would like us to believe that the situation is under control.
My aim is to cut through both the techno optimist nonsense and apocalypse nonsense, in this sense I find myself in agreement, generally, with doom luminaries such as kunstler, greer who see more of a long emergency style collapse, which is exactly what we are witnessing.
People aren’t motivated by energy. Energy is so abstract that only the most serious of thinkers can understand it. You almost have to be phd level in both hard sciences and humanities to do so. Here I’m talking about ability, not credentials per say.
People are motivated by primal urges: food, reproduction, work and status. As long as you can provide those in small doses, however homeopathic, there isn’t going to be a breakdown. Fail to provide these, and yes, you have problems quickly.
Except Greer seems to be changing his tune. In last week’s post he sounded more dire in his view of what could happen when industrial civilization comes grinding to a halt. The “too long did not read version”, he sounded a lot like Fast Eddy.
Maybe Greer reads FW
“…see more of a long emergency style collapse, which is exactly what we are witnessing.”
And the reason why is because whatever resources are available are competed for by those that can continue to afford it. As long as there is a functioning economy the have’s will purchase what they need to continue BAU. The whole overnight collapse scenario has no legs. There isn’t any way to describe exactly how that occurs or why it hasn’t occurred yet. I bought into the sudden collapse bit for a while but once I realized it was more of a gradual winnowing down, a sort of sick musical chairs game, then I figured it was a competition in which those falling off will suffer only to watch those that can continue to be in the game and enjoy life. My advice to people is get busy competing for a niche.
Instadoom by Van Kent, vol. 312, this time by using prof. Tim Garrett explanation;
Think of a bar of gold. It has some value, yes? But what if that bar of gold is under 3 feet of sand in the desert.. Does it have value there?? Value, is therefore determined by nodes of connection to other nodes of connection. Every node of connection requires energy to function. And also raw materials. We live in an material universe, still, despite Keiths wishes. As the economy grows, there are more and more nodes, everyone connected to everyone else. Wealth, value, money, currency are the ability to draw energy and raw materials from every other node out there. But more and more energy and more and more raw materials are needed to just keep the nodes alive. But also just staying in place, will stop energy and raw materials from flowing, keeping the nodes alive. There must constantly be more nodes, more growth, to keep the energy and the raw materials flowing to the nodes. But exponential energy and raw material usage ad infinitum on a finite planet is impossible.
OK??
Got it now??
At some point in time we are unable to provide enough energy and raw materials for the economy to grow. And when growth stops.. ALL energy and raw material flows will STOP.. to everybody, everywhere.. simultaneously
Think of it like a man is getting fatter and fatter. Every day. Every day he must increase his calorie intake to sustain his fat, but also to gain some more fat. But suddenly one Monday morning calorie intake stops completely. How long does it take until his heart stops?
One last try.. hurricane Katrina comes in for a visit.. when the energy in the system runs out, does
A. Katrina continue growing ad infinitum?
B. Katrina stops, but is still there as the hurricane Katrina ad infinitum
C. Katrina dies, but smaller pieces continue BAU lite ad infinitum
D. Katrina dies
Van Kent said:
Well the Marxists certainly believed this, even though it is doubtful that Marx himself believed it.
As Susan Neiman explains:
I’m not sure if Karl Marx really grasped that the ebb and flow of cultural belief structures still requires resources, energy and raw materials. I don’t remember from whom Karl Marx personally got his monthly stipend from. But in those words, there shines through the same contempt for the real workings of the real material world as can be found in the private journals of Virginia Woolf.
If it only was so.. if we could stomp our feet to the ground, think happy thoughts, create a new language, a new culture, a new set of ideals, ideas and ideologies.. and everything would just magically.. change..
Change the word, concept, by which the world is described.. and therefore to change the world.. at the innermost of truths, I think both Virginia Woolf and Karl Marx didn’t really live in THIS world. Maybe a good choice for them personally??
But, alas, the material world is coming to knock on our door nonetheless. If we decide to ignore the faint knock now. The next thing will be a bulldozer through the living room wall. Virginia Woolf and Karl Marx had the good fortune of living inside an another epoch. We don’t have that luxury
Well yes, as the philosopher of science Stephen Toulmin explains in Cosmopolis, the “psychological” novelists like Woolf did not “transcend” 17th-century dualism, rather, they accepted dualism, but voted “for the opposite side of every dichotomy.” Their view was that “human life that is ruled by calculative reason alone is scarcely worth living, and nobility attaches to a readiness to surrender to the experience of deep emotions.”
But as Toulmin goes on to explain, it’s time to put the 17th-century two-world theories to rest, since they are highly reductionist and hardly offer a realistic conception of human nature. We now know human nature is much more complex and nuanced than the 17th-century theorists believed, and cannot be reduced to simplistic two-world theories.
Van, your fat man analogy is excellent!!!!
I can hear Norman sighing.. first writing a book, getting it published.. and still not getting through to people.. and all it required was to show people a really really fat man..
Are you selling a book too?
The following excerpt certainly doesn’t sound like rainbows and unicorns from Greer, which according to his past writings, everything would work out OK in the end.
http://thearchdruidreport.blogspot.com/2017/01/how-great-fall-can-be.html
” This is what the decline and fall of a civilization looks like. It’s not about sitting in a cozy earth-sheltered home under a roof loaded with solar panels, living some close approximation of a modern industrial lifestyle, while the rest of the world slides meekly down the chute toward history’s compost bin, leaving you and yours untouched. It’s about political chaos—meaning that you won’t get the leaders you want, and you may not be able to count on the rule of law or even the most basic civil liberties. It’s about economic implosion—meaning that your salary will probably go away, your savings almost certainly won’t keep its value, and if you have gold bars hidden in your home, you’d better hope to Hannah that nobody ever finds out, or it’ll be a race between the local government and the local bandits to see which one gets to tie your family up and torture them to death, starting with the children, until somebody breaks and tells them where your stash is located.
It’s about environmental chaos—meaning that you and the people you care about may have many hungry days ahead as crazy weather messes with the harvests, and it’s by no means certain you won’t die early from some tropical microbe that’s been jarred loose from its native habitat to find a new and tasty home in you. It’s about rapid demographic contraction—meaning that you get to have the experience a lot of people in the Rust Belt have already, of walking past one abandoned house after another and remembering the people who used to live there, until they didn’t any more.”
“It’s about environmental chaos—meaning that you and the people you care about may have many hungry days ahead as crazy weather messes with the harvests,”
Europe is experiencing that scenario RIGHT NOW as there is a produce crisis because Spain lost most of it’s produce to extreme weather such as: droughts, floods, heavy rains, snow and extreme cold temperatures
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4190134/As-rationing-spreads-stores-ban-online-sales.html
http://heatst.com/world/severe-vegetable-shortage-deprives-europeans-of-spinach-broccoli/.
In the US, we get our vegetables from enough different directions that problems in one area get diluted out a bit more. We get produce from California, Florida, Mexico, and South America.
“which according to his past writings, everything would work out OK in the end.”
I never got that from reading him. He souunded like “we’re screwed, and nothing can save us” to me.
Gail tells us wind and solar will not ‘save us’ and it would also appear that Nukes will not ‘save us’ either..
http://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/02/03/national/fukushima-radiation-level-highest-since-march-11/#.WJUmk4oyDxB
The radiation level in the containment vessel of reactor 2 at the crippled Fukushima No. 1 power plant has reached a maximum of 530 sieverts per hour, the highest since the triple core meltdown in March 2011, Tokyo Electric Power Co. Holdings Inc. said.
Tepco said on Thursday that the blazing radiation reading was taken near the entrance to the space just below the pressure vessel, which contains the reactor core.
The high figure indicates that some of the melted fuel that escaped the pressure vessel is nearby.
At 530 sieverts, a person could die from even brief exposure. – ZAP – you’re dead.
Pingback: Weekend Reading: And… It's Only Week Two | Domainers Database
Pingback: Weekend Reading: And… It’s Only Week Two | It's Not The Tea Party
Pingback: Weekend Reading: And... It's Only Week Two | Zero Hedge
Pingback: Weekend Reading: And... It's Only Week Two - BuzzFAQs
Pingback: Weekend Reading: And... It's Only Week Two - Investing Matters
Pingback: Weekend Reading: And… It's Only Week Two | Earths Final Countdown
The Origins of Delusion.
Is delusion innate – is it a form of epic stupidity that is conveyed via the ‘jeans’ of stupid parents?
Or…
Is this widespread phenomenon caused by the exposure to facts and logic that are too terrifying to accept — is it a cognitive defense mechanism?
Read Fast Eddy’s entire PeeHDEE thesis at http://www.theoriginsofdelusion.com or buy the book at https://www.amazon.com/originsofdelusion-fasteddy/dp/0140053204
I’d say collective (and unconscious) cognitive defence mechanism
looked at another way Eddy, if the majority accepted and agreed with what’s happening, collective hysteria would bring about immediate collapse in an absolute sense.
As it is, that majority will do a Wile e coyote act over the cliff, while the few who saw the cliff ahead might just salvage something.
Fraid it has to be BAU—until such time as there isnt any BAU
Sheee-et Norm…. you just cost me my private jet by giving away the ending of my book 🙁
I just got a call from James Cameron (who is an avid follower of FW) and he has cancelled Origins of Delusion – The Blockbuster Movie…
I almost had my Oscar acceptance speech finished ….
Anyway…. since the cat is out of the bag and I will soon be unable to feed myself — and Mrs Fast will leave me when she notices that there is no private jet in the paddock as promises…. we may as well let the entire cat out of the bag….
During my research I pulled together focus groups of average IQ 7 year olds (all with pretty mothers) and presented them with the facts — and they all ‘got it’
I then gathered profoundly mentally retarded adults — and presented them with the facts – and they all ‘got it’
Finally — I promised hard core heroin addicts that I found on the street a hit of high grade smack if they’d gather an listen to the facts for 5 minutes — they all ‘got it’
Then I assembled bankers, lawyers, PHDs, accountants, brain surgeons, MENSA members, rocket scientists, inventors, engineers etc… nobody with an IQ of less than 130.
I presented them with the facts — they started screaming at me ‘F*** you a$$hole — idiot – moron — clown…. they threw tomatoes at me …. then they walked out’ I interpreted this reaction as ‘not getting it’
And I concluded that in fact the smarter someone is — the more likely they are to understand the implications of ‘getting it’ — that results in an overload of fear and panic — which is like the bat signal to Mr Cognitive Dissonance — who rushes in to turn off the brain …
Low IQ people do not understand the implications …. therefore they can acknowledge the simple facts — without turning on the bat signal
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/64/4a/ed/644aed5700ef032be0a4e20ea39f9ef9.jpg
look on the bright side Eddy
when food starts to run short—just lecture bankers about the problem and with any luck they’ll throw even more food at you–not just tomatoes.
tinned goods might hurt a bit—but worth the pain I’d say
great conversation!
OMG I wish I could witness a debate between the guy in the links below and Norman or FE as they would proceed to rip this guy a new one….what delusion…even his face has a delusional look to it lolll:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Kxryv2XrnqM&feature=youtu.be
https://www.amazon.com/Clean-Disruption-Energy-Transportation-Conventional/dp/0692210539
On amazon.com, Norman’s book The End of More has 4 reviews and a 3.5 star rating, while this garbage has 101 reviews and a 4.5 star rating…we truly are surrounded by delusional people…thank Flying Spaghetti Monster that we realists have sites like this one!!!
lol
it’s a fact of life that most folks refuse to read/listen to stuff they dont want to hear.
i used to write/illustrate complex operating handbooks and manuals for a living, i can say with absolute certainty that nobody reached for the manual till the machine broke down
Norman — I’ve always wondered who wrote these manuals — and I often thought as I struggled to assemble something by following the instructions — that whomever wrote this must take delight in knowing end users around the world are muttering the most vile epithets ‘who the *&^&% wrote this!!!’
My most recent episode involved a video assembly of a bed — I followed Mr Handy all the way through — at no point did he use a drill — and at the end I was left with two screws…
So I called up the factory in Christchurch and they put me through to Mr Handy — and when informed about the two screws and the lack of holes he said — oh yes — you need to drill two holes ‘here and here’ and insert the screws….
I said – right o — but in the video there is no drilling of holes — there is no drill…..
Mr Handy — well… we put so many of these things together we just assume it would be obvious to everyone else….
I must say — I was actually amused….
ah—-figgers you never used one on my manuals
i always pinned the guy who designed whatever it was into a corner, and said
ok–you put it together while i watch.
that way there were never any problems.
So those guys do exist…. I knew it!
Sadly it’s what people want to believe that prevails. It’s a religion built on political promises just like when Vesuvius blew. “Everything is OK stay where you are”
these guys transfixed by ”transportation” miss the crucial point.
that transport must have a purpose.
when a stagecoach might travel 30m a day, then your purpose had to be damned important if that ”purpose” was 400m away.
which meant that few people went anywhere because few things were that important, and it cost a fortune
now its easy to travel 400m, so our purpose can be trivial, you want to sit on beach for 2 weeks, then come home again,
—but the nonsense persists that we will ”need” to travel post bau—for no better reason than ”travelling” is what we do, as if moving around on wheels is some kind of end in itself, or that as long as we keep moving we will continue to stay rich
post bau few people will travel anywhere
In the 80’s, I used to travel 60 miles to go to lunch in LA.
I must admit I traveled 8000 miles on a biweekly basis for a gig in Atlanta, so the masses could be entertained this year (filming was cheaper in Atlanta, and they gave us tax breaks).
This will soon end, although my comrades haven’t a clue.
Mr. Seba fails to mention the $500M or so in gov guaranteed loans Tesla rcvd. I wonder, if the technology is so disruptive, why didn’t Google make this investment instead of the US gov? Plus I hear Tesla is bleeding cash. Has he mad a profit yet?
Go to the Ted talk on peak oil. The guy makes a case that JUST BECAUSE we first had peak wood, then replaced by coal, then peak coal was replaced by oil, that peak oil will automatically be replaced by ???….by “something”.
These people are delusional. The grid will have to be maintained…as Germany is finding out.
Enjoy http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/tesla-bonfire-of-the-money-printers-vanities/
one source of heat must be replaced by another source of heat
when you’ve burned everything it’s game over, because thats when we start burning each other.
Germany’s decision to end nuclear power cannot really be related to environmental concerns post-Fukushima, as also stated above. It also makes no sense when France next door gets most of its electricity from nuclear and most of the nuclear power plants are on rivers, not the coast. Floods might be an issue, but the continent is relatively seismically quiet north of the Alps.
“Europe’s energy transition is well under way”
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_IP-17-161_en.htm
It has already achieved its 2020 final energy consumption target. The same is true for greenhouse gas emissions: in 2015, EU greenhouse gas emissions were 22% below the 1990 level. The EU is also on track in the renewable sector where – based on 2014 data – the share of renewables reached 16 % of the EU’s gross final energy consumption. Another important trend is that the EU continues to successfully decouple its economic growth from its greenhouse gas emissions. During the 1990-2015 period, the EU’s combined Gross Domestic Product (GDP) grew by 50 %, while total emissions decreased by 22 %.
It makes little sense to look at emissions on a national by nation basis or even a continent by continent basis. National economies are now localised expressions of a truly global economy. We have just outsourced our pollution to other parts of the world – especially China.
We may have outsourced a good bit of our energy consumption too.
This study concluded that only 40% of household energy consumption is “direct consumption.”
The other 60% is “embedded consumption,” energy which was used to produce the products and services we consume. Much of this embedded energy is imprted from other countries these days.
An Income-based Analysis of Historical US Energy Consumption
https://works.bepress.com/harry_saunders/27/
This intuitively makes sense to me. I want to read it and understand what it says. According to “Methodology, Briefly”
Who is this Harry Saunders?
I agree!!
I would imagine that if you were to outsource the manufacturing of solar panels to China and let them burn epic amounts of coal to create the electricity to refine the ore and to power the factories … your green house gas emissions would drop off dramatically.
What are your thoughts on this?
Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy : Germany’s electricity prices soar to more than double that of the USA because when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind does not blow they have to operate and pay for a completely separate back up system that is fueled by lignite coal http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-expensive-gamble-on-renewable-energy-1409106602
Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables
Even as Germany adds lots of wind and solar power to the electric grid, the country’s carbon emissions are rising. Will the rest of the world learn from its lesson? After years of declines, Germany’s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. That’s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal. https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/
Why Germany’s nuclear phaseout is leading to more coal burning
Between 2011 and 2015 Germany will open 10.7 GW of new coal fired power stations. This is more new coal coal capacity than was constructed in the entire two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The expected annual electricity production of these power stations will far exceed that of existing solar panels and will be approximately the same as that of Germany’s existing solar panels and wind turbines combined. Solar panels and wind turbines however have expected life spans of no more than 25 years. Coal power plants typically last 50 years or longer. At best you could call the recent developments in Germany’s electricity sector contradictory. https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/why-germanys-nuclear-phaseout-is-leading-to-more-coal-burning/
I can’t read the first article because it is for subscribers only. The highlights you gave for the second and third articles both show that Germany is phasing out nuclear power and replacing it with coal. So in order to talk about the effect of renewables on Germany’s electrical production, we have to be able to separate out the effect of the nuclear to coal conversion from any effect of renewables.
Drop this into a google news search Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy
Let’s play Logic.
1. Solar farms do not generate electricity when it is dark.
2. Solar farms do not generate much electricity during the winter in a place like Germany
3. Wind farms do not generate electricity if the wind is not blowing.
4. Most people in Germany demand that they have electricity 24 hours per day – 365 days per year.
5. ALL businesses in Germany do demand that they have electricity all the time.
6. Because of the above — Germany has realized that phasing out their nuclear installations has meant that either the country provides electricity intermittently — which would result in the collapse of the country — or they find some other way to provide electricity when the sun is not shining and the wind not blowing.
And the punchline:
Between 2011 and 2015 Germany will open 10.7 GW of new coal fired power stations. This is more new coal coal capacity than was constructed in the entire two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall.
The expected annual electricity production of these power stations will far exceed that of existing solar panels and will be approximately the same as that of Germany’s existing solar panels and wind turbines combined. Solar panels and wind turbines however have expected life spans of no more than 25 years. Coal power plants typically last 50 years or longer.
At best you could call the recent developments in Germany’s electricity sector contradictory.
https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/why-germanys-nuclear-phaseout-is-leading-to-more-coal-burning/
http://thebestyoumagazine.co/wp-content/uploads/THE-AHA-MOMENT-Marina-cooper-878×583.jpg
Germany is not on an isolated grid of their own.
http://www.amprion.net/en/european-interconnected-grid
They are tied into Europe which means they can use the grid to soak up or give back energy to smooth out their variable renewable output. In the same way that midwestern states like Iowa import/export electricity depending on whether the wind is blowing in Iowa or not.
One difference between me and you — is that when someone demonstrates I am wrong — I see that as a learning moment.
If it makes you feel better – some years ago I actually believe solar would save the day. I also believed the NYT was news.
There is still a chance for you
“One difference between me and you — is that when someone demonstrates I am wrong — I see that as a learning moment.”
Then learn about interconnected grids which reduce the need for electricity backup. Also, beware over over-confidence and excessive pride.
You know what really really irritates me?
It’s when I go to the trouble to demonstrate that someone is wrong — using irrefutable facts and logic — and still they argue their same losing position.
You know what that makes you?
https://stupid-studio.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/05/stupid_logo_bl.png
Hang in there kiddo.
stick to alternative facts
you won’t go far wrong
You should know.
If you mean the alternative to the facts as per DelusiSTAN then yes… I agree
since i embraced alternative factism
my life has been much more serene
And you didn’t address the fact that Germany is incurring extra costs by phasing out nuclear. If they kept their nuclear their current electricity costs would be lower.
I’d say not comment but… I prefer
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-only-two-things-are-infinite-the-universe-and-human-stupidity-and-i-m-not-sure-about-the-former-albert-einstein-56412.jpg
“I’d say not comment but… I prefer”
It would be better if you commented on why – in trying to make a case against renewables – you keep posting links to Germany incurring large costs converting nuclear to coal.
Why Germany’s nuclear phaseout is leading to more coal burning
POSTED ON JUNE 6, 2015 UPDATED ON JUNE 6, 2015
In September 2012 Germany’s Environment Minister opened a new lignite power plant, arguing the following: “If one builds a new state-of-the-art lignite power plant to replace several older and much less efficient plants, then I feel this should also be acknowledged as a contribution to our climate protection efforts.”
Peter Altmaier is not alone, recently the climate benefits of Germany’s new and apparently ultra-efficient coal power plants have been extolled not only by manufacturers such as Siemens and power companies including RWE, but even some of the German nuclear phase out’s most vocal proponents.
We are also now seeing increasing numbers of people suddenly noticing an uptick in coal power, and deciding it has little to do with Germany’s decision to move away from nuclear energy. These arguments however require both an alternative arithmetic, and an alternative history. Here is why.
In the aftermath of Fukushima, Germany prematurely shut 8 nuclear power plants. Respect for arithmetic and the intelligence of my readers dictates that I do not explain why this should lead to an increase in carbon dioxide emissions. However, the relationship between Germany’s nuclear phase out and the construction of new coal power plants deserves an explanation.
Between 2011 and 2015 Germany will open 10.7 GW of new coal fired power stations. This is more new coal coal capacity than was constructed in the entire two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The expected annual electricity production of these power stations will far exceed that of existing solar panels and will be approximately the same as that of Germany’s existing solar panels and wind turbines combined. Solar panels and wind turbines however have expected life spans of no more than 25 years. Coal power plants typically last 50 years or longer.
At best you could call the recent developments in Germany’s electricity sector contradictory.
https://carboncounter.files.wordpress.com/2014/01/coalvre1.png
These new power plants are sometimes blamed by nuclear proponents on the post-Fukushima decision to shut all nuclear power plants by 2022. This is a myth. Any large piece of infrastructure takes a long time to build, and Germany simply could not respond to Fukushima by building new coal power plants at this scale and speed. Investment decisions for these power plants were made in 2005-2008 (see table 2 here). In response supporters of the nuclear phase out claim this shows that construction of new coal power plants have nothing to do with Germany’s decision to phase out nuclear energy. This however is historical revisionism.
A terse history lesson. In the year 2000 the government of Gerhard Schröder announced that all of Germany’s nuclear power plants must close by 2022, and this was passed into law in 2002.. This policy was revised by Angela Merkel in September 2010 to extend the lives of nuclear power plants so that the phase out would occur by 2032. Then after Fukushima, Merkel wisely or opportunistically – take your pick – decided to revert largely to the earlier phase out plan, closing eight nuclear power plants immediately and ruling that all would close by 2022.
The policy to phase out nuclear power was vital to the decisions to build new coal power plants. Closing down a quarter of your electricity generation leaves a gap that must be filled by something, and Germany realised it would largely have to be filled by one thing: coal. This is more or less beyond doubt, because Germany’s then Environment Minister Sigmar Gabriel said so. Gabriel, now Germany’s Minister for Energy and Economics told climate scientist James Hansen that Germany had to build new coal power plants because of its nuclear phase out, and stated elsewhere that Germany would have to build 8 to 12 coal power plants to replace its nuclear fleet.
And this is exactly what he got. In the first half of this decade Germany will open 9 new coal power plants.
https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/why-germanys-nuclear-phaseout-is-leading-to-more-coal-burning/
And lots of banks are failing. The EU looks like it is falling apart. Something is wrong somewhere.
Gail, is there a list of these banks? Are they important ones?
It is European banks that are getting all of the publicity now. There are several in Italy, for example. I don’t think that US banks are particularly a problem.
Off the top of my head, Deutsche Bank (dubbed the world’s most systemically critical) and Commerzbank are both in difficulty, partly due to exposure to the troubled shipping industry – lots of job-cuts and restructuring there. In Italy banks like Monte Dei Paschi (the world’s oldest) and Unicredit are saddled with €360 billion in non-performing loans. Royal Bank of Scotland is in very poor shape… I read this fascinating article recently about how Deutsche Bank helped Monte Dei Paschi cover up some huge losses relating to the financial crisis:
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-01-19/how-deutsche-bank-made-367-million-disappear
Got to maintain our throughput of energy:
“The Republican-led Congress killed a controversial U.S. securities disclosure rule early on Friday aimed at curbing corruption at big oil, gas and mining companies.
“In a 52 to 47 vote, the Senate approved a resolution already passed by the House of Representatives that wipes from the books a rule requiring companies such as Exxon Mobil and Chevron Corp to publicly state the taxes and other fees they pay to foreign governments.
“Republican President Donald Trump is expected to sign it shortly…
“It should be lost on no one that in less than 48 hours, the Republican-controlled Senate has confirmed the former head of ExxonMobil to serve as our Secretary of State, and repealed a key anti-corruption rule that ExxonMobil and the American Petroleum Institute have erroneously fought for years,” said Senator Ben Cardin of Maryland, the senior Democrat on the foreign relations committee.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-regulations-idUSKBN15I1JF
Yep. Here’s how Gail put it:
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/44-trumps-solution-3.png
And here’s how the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr put it:
When you are desperate to get costs down, this is what you do.
When it looked like things were going well, then the “side” for more controls won.
US Transparency Reversal Stings Canadian, European Oil Firms
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=148352&utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2017-02-03&utm_content=&utm_campaign=feature_3
Gail seems to be ignorant of the efficiency of air-to-air heat-pumps (i.e. reverse-cycle air-conditioners) which produce up to 5 or 6 units of heat for 1 unit of electricity input (called Coefficient of Performance or COP), not 1 unit heat for 1 unit electricity as she details in this article. In Australia this means that it is now cheaper to run heating (and hot-water via similar heat-pumps) off electricity than gas, even with Australia’s very low gas prices, and they are just as cheap to install as gas heating units. This is quite common in the US too.
And how does that help? This is not an efficiency issue. This is a resource issue. Efficiency can stand in for growth for a time but it comes with the cost of complexity. What you demonstrate in your reasoning on COP comparisons is why people can’t comprehend EROEI. What you’ve left out is the increased cost to manufacture heat pumps install them and maintain them. You should also calculate this in. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
I got a heat-pump powered hot water system installed 9 years ago and it runs like a dream. Although it did malfunction one time when a centipede managed to crawl into the wiring and electrocute itself causing a short circuit. It uses less than a third of the electricity a conventional heating element type immersion heater needs, and because it runs on cheap night electricity, the running cost is less than a sixth that of the previous system.
The new system would have been quite expensive to purchase and install, but as the government was providing a 70% subsidy at the time i would have been a fool not to have taken them up on their kind offer. Thanks to the subsidy, I only paid about US$3,000 to get it up and running and I’ve saved more than that in bathwater heating costs since I began using it.
My woes will begin if I ever have to replace the thing with a new model at full cost.
As JT says,advances in energy efficiency are all very well, but they aren’t the be all and end all. They won’t stop the inevitable decline and fall of our economic system.
Can we discuss some specifics? Where does the unit pull its heat from? What is the material of the evaporator? What does it use as refrigerant? What is the material of the condenser? What size area does it heat? Are you using supplemental heat? Does it heat when it gets really cold? What heating method do you base your “savings” against?
Good questions, Jim.
This is water heating technology. I haven’t heard of it being used for space heating, although we have air conditions that operate on similar principles, either heating or cooling enclosed spaces.
There is a short Wikipedia article on “EcoCute” (cute name!) that answers most of them.
An EcoCute machine or system consists of a heat pump and hot water storage unit. The components are serially concatenated with sealing refrigerant CO2 gas in circulation.
At the first stage, a heat exchanger collects heat from the air outside to use as energy for the refrigerant. Air flow is usually obtained using a centrifugal fan; in cold areas with ambient temperatures around -20 to -25°C an auxiliary fan heater is attached.
A gas compressor is used to heat the gas CO2 refrigerant to around 100°C under pressure of 10MPa via adiabatic compression. The carbon dioxide becomes a supercritical fluid. Several types of compressors can be used, including dual layer cylindrical compressors, scroll compressors, and dual stage rotary compressors.
At the second stage a heat exchanger transfers energy from the hot refrigerant into water to produce hot water. Water temperatures around 5°C and up are suitable at this stage.
Finally, ejector or expansion valves reduce pressure on the refrigerant, letting it cool via adiabatic expansion and revert to CO2 gas.
The EcoCute can derive over two units of heat energy from ambient air for every unit of input electrical energy. In combination it can produce more than three units of hot water energy, resulting in reduced CO2 emissions compared to water heating via electricity or natural gas. To produce 90°C hot water, an EcoCute consumes 66% less electricity than an electric water heater, and costs 80% less than heating water via natural gas in Japan.[20] Also, by reducing use of fossil fuels, the EcoCute results in more than 50% reductions in CO2 emissions.
Not considering upstream losses of input source energy, the EcoCute’s COP is 3.8 in industrial use, while electric power water heating is 1.0, and gas boiler is 0.88 including pilot light loss.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/EcoCute
I live well out in the Japanese countryside where many people get their hot water from natural gas delivered in canisters and their space heating from kerosene. Traditionally, hot water was heated by firewood there was little space heating. People would wear six layers of clothing inside and use charcoal hibachi (literally “fire bowl”and/or a kotatsu (a low, wooden table frame covered by a futon, upon which a table top sits and with a heat source to create a warm space for the lower body). If the kids were cold, mother would tell them to go outside and play catch ball!
WIth the coming of cheap, reliable, always ON base-load nuclear energy, the utilities were anxious to find a use for all that extra night electricity they produced. The EcoCute, which was (I believe) invented by a Norwegian who sold the idea to the Japanese electric appliance industry, came along at the start of this century and was an ideal way to make use of this night electricity. It does its heating over two or three or four of the small hours and holds the hot water ready for the next day’s use. At the time, night electricity was sold at about 8 yen a kWH, which was less than a third of the highest daytime rate. It’s 11 yen an hour due to the shutdowns in the wake of Fukushima, but it could come down again if the nuclear power plants are ever started up again. So far only a handful of the 40 or so reactors have been put back into service due to widespread anxiety about nuclear safety, which is continually promoted by the Green lobby.
Thank you for your reply and your time! Im rather primitive compared to you. I have black military surplus water bags I hang in south facing windows. Its ok for bathing but nothing else as the reinforced polymer adds a weird taste to the water when it gets hot. Other times I use a cheap china made propane water heater intended for camping. I usually use the bath water to do laundry with a toilet plunger as a agitator. I let the water go to ambient then I use a hand operated wringer on my clothes.
I got a Stiebel Eltron heat pump installed around the same time. Has run like a dream ever since. 300 litres of off-peak hot water every day, for only a fraction of the cost, thanks to off-peak electricity prices. Mine cost $4250 installed, but because of various federal and state government rebates in place at the time, to encourage people switching to various alternative hot water systems, my final out of pocket was just $250!
https://www.stiebel.com.au/images/product/xwwk-300a-hot-water-heat-pumps.jpg.pagespeed.ic.RMdLe0isxV.jpg
I love it…
Right a fossil fuel subsidies. Work the real cost into the life cycle. Wash rinse repeat. Suddenly the gains are not so much.
It is the subsidies that make renewables look good. Hard to get anything to scale that depends on big subsidies.
The point is, in China, the costs were going up as the left the prior heating source and went to the new source. After thinking about the situation, I think they were using cogeneration before – just taking the heat made by the coal fired power plant (in the middle of the city, without pollution controls) and distributing it to homes. This would be very cheap energy– cheaper than air source heat pump heating. This is how they could get rising costs, even with air source heat pumps.
Pingback: Weekend Reading: And…It’s Only Week Two | RIA
A Primed Pump: Can the Mighty Permian Basin Live Up To The Hype?
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=148331&utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2017-02-02&utm_content=&utm_campaign=feature_1
Mr. Stehle, I wonder about the true costs of extracting shale oil out of Mexico. I am aware that there are outfits in the Eagle Ford making good money at $50 oil. But can the same be said for Mexico? Let’s accept for the sake of discussion that there is another “Saudi” worth of shale oil in Mexico. But do they have the infrastructure to support getting the oil out? Do they have the roads for the 18 wheelers to carry the fracking fluids in, and the oil out? What about the pipelines and refineries…and port facilities? In Tx we have a modern infrastructure that has been paid for and amortized over many decades. Mexico doesn’t.
This will drive the cost of Mexican shale oil up I think. How much I don’t know, but here in Tx you are benefiting from many decades of economy built on cheap energy.
I think this is part of the overall picture…that the true cost of oil…including shale oil, is greater then we currently know. I think the same principle applies to Potential Mexican shale oil.
This Oil and Gas Journal article speaks to the issue you raise, and yes it is important. In addition to a lack of infrastructure, there are other factors the article cites that are slowing down the development of potential Mexican shale oil and natural gas.
Unfortunately, I see where the O&G Journal has now put the article behind a paywall.
http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-114/issue-6/exploration-and-development/new-bid-round-accelerates-mexico-s-shale-potential.html
Mr. Stehle,
I’ve tried to understand your point of view from your numerous comments.
But however I look at them, you’re talking about 3-18 month shale production. 24 months at the peak of tehnological innovation capability of our species.
Umm.. ??.. ??..if you’re selling about 4 more months of BAU.. yes please I’ll take it. But that’s already something our central bankers will do for us.
What exactly do you imagine will happen? Shale and NG giving us perpetual growth ad infinitum on a finite planet??
Sorry to bother you, but I’m really grasping here, what exactly is the central point of your argument ??
Van Kent,
Matthew Schneider-Mayerson hit the nail on the head in Peak Oil: Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture.
Apocalypticism has greatly influenced the peak oil movement, Schneider-Mayerson concludes. It “constructs a connection between prophecy and fulfillment” that reflects “a desire for crisis among many peakists.” The expected crisis, therefore, becomes “a longed-for event.”
There is nothing surprising about this, since apocalyticism runs through American popular culture like a thread: millenarianism, dispensationalism, dispensational premillennialism, various Hollywood disater narratives, etc.
Granted, the longed-for apocalypse may eventually come. But if the world political economy doesn’t crash under the burden of $60 to $70 oil, it looks it’s probably going to be several decades into the future.
This may apply to the prepper crowd of clowns who despise BAU mainly because they failed in life and wish for an event that brings down everyone else who has not failed ….
But you will find those sorts of people are few and far between on FW….. there are perhaps a handful of these types who drop in who believe ‘the end of BAU is the beginning of the great adventure’ but they are peripherals…. they are not the core.
The core is are thinkers — and relatively successful.
And of course if you follow the conversations the overwhelming majority have no desire to see the end of BAU — most would do just about anything to squeeze out another decade of BAU.
I personally did not think about the end of days until the 2008 crisis hit — any fool knows that oil will peak at some point — but pre 2008 I assumed it would peak — and we’d get a gentle slope down…. of many decades — so I really didn’t give a shit — I’d be long gone before it really hit hard
But after much digging I began to understand the bigger picture — which of course is that there will be no gentle slope – we saw what 147 oil did in 2008. I watched as revenues from the various businesses I am involved in plummeted then fortunately stabilized and expanded when the central banks stepped in to save the day.
I have ZERO desire to see BAU end — I have a love affair with BAU — I enjoy eating — and driving — and security — and vacations — I like going the coast for the weekend…. BAU is fabulous…. why would I kick her out of bed?
But unfortunately facts and logic have lead me to conclude that BAU is dying — dying for want of more cheap to produce oil.
We are not finding any more of that – you may have noticed that oil majors are slashing capex because they cannot find oil that they can extract at a cost that allows them to make a profit.
If you cannot see that the writing on the wall then you are no better than those who wish for the end of BAU because what comes next is going to be like being hired as an extra in Little House on the Prairie — you are both living in ignorance — you are both completely delusional.
yup—me too
The author has missed the nail ….
https://otod.files.wordpress.com/2011/03/hit-my-thumb.jpg
Humans can feel. This sense is dulled but it remains. Humans can reason. Exponential population growth finite planet. You say the apocalypse is coming but “several decades out”. That is with most of our lifetimes and within all of our childrens lifetimes. Most have concluded we dont have several decades. Which is more crazy ignoring the soon to come collapse or ignoring it?
Karen Howza,
No, I did not say “the apocalypse is coming.”
What I said is the “apocalypse may eventually come.” There’s a big difference between those two statements.
It is totalitarian propaganda, Hannah Arendt explains in The Origins of Totalitarianism, that
HIGH PRICED OIL DESTROYS GROWTH
According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices. http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/high_oil04sum.pdf
+
OIL PRODUCERS NEED $100+ OIL
Steven Kopits from Douglas-Westwood said the productivity of new capital spending has fallen by a factor of five since 2000. “The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120,” he said http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
= Apocalypse.
Have you read my treatise on DelusiSTAN? For anyone unable to understand the simple formula above — it is a must — consider it an exercise in introspection.
“No, I did not say “the apocalypse is coming.”
What I said is the “apocalypse may eventually come.” There’s a big difference between those two statements.”
Well lets look at what you Wrote.
“Granted, the longed-for apocalypse may eventually come. But if the world political economy doesn’t crash under the burden of $60 to $70 oil, it looks it’s probably going to be several decades into the future.”
The clear message I discerned from your writing is that $60 to $70 oil price would support prevent collapse but prices lower than that would create collapse sooner. No matter you are allowed to clarify your statements, I dont hold it against you. This is part of open and clear communication.
“It is totalitarian propaganda, Hannah Arendt explains in The Origins of Totalitarianism, that
raised ideological scientificality and its technique of making statements in the form of predictions to a height of efficiency of method and absurdity of content because, demagogically speaking, there is hardly a better way to avoid discussion than by releasing an argument from the control of the present and by saying that only the future can reveal its merits….
The scientificality of totalitarian propaganda is characterized by its almost exclusive insistence on scientific prophecy as distinguished from the more old-fashioned appeal to the past.”
If anything this statement is propaganda. It attempts to demean honest discussion. You have observations and you are making conclusions and opinions about outcomes. Others are doing the same. Defining one arbitrarily as “totalitarian propaganda” serves only as a attempt to silence a opinion, and free expression. It denotes a unwillingness to debate the issues based on their merits. It denotes a unwillingness to continue discussing the facts. That unwillingness usually is displayed by those with an agenda. Propaganda always seeks to silence fair debate.
Don’t you hate it when you win the argument and STILL …. the opponent refuses to say ‘no mas’
http://sugarrayleonard.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/10/NOMASMEME1-365×259.jpg
Propaganda always seeks to silence fair debate.
Karen, I think Hannah Arendt would have agreed with your statement, and I’m sure Glenn does too.
What I’ve taken from the discussion so far is that Glenn simply brought in Hannah’s words in order to make the point that apocalypticism, as in the form of the assertion ““the apocalypse is coming.” is a form of totalitarian propaganda. I don’t know whether he is implying that anybody on this site is a totalitarian propagandist or that they are trying to shut down debate. I personally didn’t get that impression from what he said.
Also, debate has manifestly not been shut down. We’re all free to comment here, thanks to Gail’s very broad acceptance of different opinions. The only thing that tends to stifle debate are the techniques of personally attacking other commenters, which is why propagandists and trolls love to use them.
I welcome Glenn’s contributions because I think he brings a much needed alternative perspective to some of the issues we like discussing here at FW. To a large extent, the opposition or dissent to Gail’s thinking here comes from people who are either propagandists (including for the renewables lobby on this thread) or trolls frustrated that she has the temerity not to share their particular outlook. Like Gail, Glenn is a scholar in the best sense, not a propagandist. His insistence that others shouldn’t twist the meaning of his words is clear evidence of that.
What particularly interested me was his statement:
if the world political economy doesn’t crash under the burden of $60 to $70 oil, it looks it’s probably going to be several decades into the future.
That can be debated on its own merits. Many people have argued that their is no longer any oil price that would allow both consumers and producers of oil to keep the show on the road, but IF enough reasonably not too expensive oil can be recovered, we may still have several decades to keep arguing about the end of BAU. Compared with the alternative of crashing now, that sounds appealing.
Lastly, getting back to that quotation from Hannah Arendt’s The Origins of Totalitarianism, it has reminded me that there are some parallels between the way some of today’s organized “green” movements and various other “progressive” movements operate and the way past totalitarian movements have operated. One of the most obvious, before we get to the stage of total immersion of the individual within the collective, the re-education camps, and the rest of the 1984 enchilada, is the total intolerance of and rejection of reasoned debate and its wholesale replacement by accusations, sloganeering and dogma. On top of that, totalitarians can’t abide humor. It’s like holy water and garlic to a vampire.
I think Glenn has tremendous potential. If he spends more time here he will begin to understand the the MSM is thought control. Then he can join us down the rabbit hole
There you are Glenn! You can have finer endorsement.
And there are still plenty of comfortable borrows available here down the FW rabbit hole, but the tunnels are narrow so we have to shed a lot of our illusions on the way in.
Harry Gibbs,
I’ve tried to figure out what theology or belief system informs the “deep green crowd.”
I’ve come to the conclusion that it’s a combination of animism and asceticism.
As the theologian Reinhold Niebuhr explains, “animism is as primordial as totenism in the history of religion.” Animism holds that flora and fauna, and even non-living beings like the earth, the sea, the wind, the rain, the streams, the hills and mountains, have spiritual lives which are just as deserving of veneration as the spiritual lives of human beings.
The religions of the indigenous peoples throughout the Americas were animistic. This animism, along with the syrectism of the native religions with Christianity that occurred after the conquest, is marvelously illustrated in this famous painting of the Cerro Rico in Potosi, Bolivia:
http://www.loupiote.com/photos_l/5042651315-la-virgen-del-cerro-virgin-mary-as-rico-mountain-potosi-bolivia.jpg
Ascetism can be traced to the early Christian saints during the Roman Empire. It resurfaced in the 13th century with the primitivist movements of the Cathari, Waldensians and Humiliati and the later Franciscans and Fraticelli. The Fraticelli were even more zealous in their ascetism than the Franciscans.
But as the historian Bryan Ward-Perkins explains, what modern-day ascetism typically produces is a great deal of hypocrisy: ascetism in name only, or ascetism for the flock, but certainly not for the high priests (like our jet-setting movie stars or environmentalist politicians, who preach ascetism but nevertheless live their opulent and lavish lifestyles):
Here’s Ward-Perkins:
“My conception of Roman civilization, and its demise, is a very material one, which in itself probably renders it unfashionable. The capacity to mass-produce high-quality goods and spread comfort makes the Roman world rather too similar to our own society, with its rampant and rapacious materialism. Instead of studying the complex economic systems that sustained another sophisticated world, and their eventual demise, we seem to prefer to read about things that are wholly different from our own experience, like the ascetic saints of the late and post-Roman worlds, who are very fashionable in late-antique studies. In their lifetimes, the attraction of these saints was their rejection of the material values of their own societies, and our world, which is yet more materialistic and ‘corrupt’, seems to find them equally compelling.”
But, as War-Perkin goes on to explain:
“We have no wish to emulate the asceticism of a saint like Cuthbert of Lindisfame, who spent solitary nights immersed in the North Sea praising God. But viewed from a suitable distance, he is deeply attractive, in touch with both God and nature: after his vigils a pair of otters would come out of the sea to dry him with their fur and warm his feet with their breath. This is a much more beguiling vision of the past than mine, with its distribution maps of peasant settlements, and its discussion of good- and bad-quality pottery.”
— BRYAN WARD-PERKINS, The Fall of Rome and the End of Civilization
The historian Jacques Barzun gives another example of the hypocrisy that is spawned by the combination of ascetism and animism so popular in American culture:
“To this day Walden is a name to conjure with; it means fleeing the daily grind, living at the heart of nature, free to breathe and contemplate. Self-reliant PRIMITIVISM is the intended message, but not the truth about Thoreau’s escape: he took civilization with him: clothes, nails, seed, and lumber, none of which he made.”
JACUES BARZUN, From Dawn to Decadence
The crash comes because of low prices–failing countries extracting oil, and quite likely debt defaults elsewhere. For example, Europe, Japan and China, besides the formerly oil exporting countries. It may take a while, but we cannot count on high prices fixing things.
Hell Karen, I don’t know when the longed-for apocalypse is coming or even if it will come.
That’s why I said it “may eventually come” instead of “it is coming.”
But as Schneider-Mayerson points out, the peak oilers have been predicting peak oil and and “Apocalypse Now” for almost forty years, and their much longed-for apocalypse still hasn’t happened.
Instead, looking in the rearview mirror, what has happened is that oil production and demand have continued to increase inexorably.
https://s28.postimg.org/s9pu1fobh/Captura_de_pantalla_565.png
https://s30.postimg.org/6l3cmz30x/Captura_de_pantalla_568.png
Glenn-
Reserves are not being replaced. That cannot continue.
Joebanana,
Yea, we’ve been hearing that one for the last 40 years too.
You will note that Gail predicted the 2008 collapse.
She also predicted the collapse in the price of oil.
Gail does not prep — because she recognizes the futility of it
FW is not exactly http://channel.nationalgeographic.com/doomsday-preppers/
Glenn, yes we have been hearing that one for 40 years now too.
However, in the tale of the boy who cried wolf, the wolf eventually turned up. Do you think the oil reserve replacement data is a matter of concern? Or in other words, are oil reserves being replaced fast enough to keep pace with production?
Actually that is wrong.
Correct me if I am wrong but Limits to Growth predicted things would fall to bits in about the time frame that we are in now.
Then we have the eminent Colin Campbell getting the date just about exactly right:
THE END OF CHEAP OIL Global production of conventional oil will begin to decline sooner than most people think, probably within 10 years Feb 14, 1998 |By Colin J. Campbell and Jean H. Laherrre http://dieoff.org/page140.htm (originally appeared in the Scientific American)
Most of us on FW were oblivious to the fact that the end game was approaching until after 2008
Tim Groves,
I don’t think fossil fuels have much of a future beyond a few decades.
But who’s to say the Positivists won’t be right, and some other energy source will be developed?
Humanity, after all, did win the energy Powerball once. I think it unlikely that it will do so again, but then again, I could be wrong.
“Longed for…” Hardly! Most of the many realists that I know are very keen on their hot showers and fresh groceries, and not at all thrilled at the prospect of losing them. I have two small children and this is not the future I had envisioned for them, to put it mildly.
The only group I know who long for the collapse of IC is the ‘deep green’ crowd, who (mistakenly IMO) believe that it will be advantageous for the flora and fauna with which we share the planet.
Harry Gibbs,
I got my threading wrong.
I posted my response to you here:
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/01/30/the-wind-and-solar-will-save-us-delusion/comment-page-9/#comment-114097
Does the 50 Buck Club ever wonder why the shale revolution is happening only in America?
There are plenty of pumped out abandoned conventional wells around the world that have dregs in them waiting to be blasted free and sucked out by thousands of straws
There are of course water issues in places like China …. but surely there must be other opportunities….
When I look here http://www.chk.com/ I see office exclusively in America. And I wonder why….
If money can be made at 50 bucks on shale plays —- and only massive losses on conventional plays — then why are the Oil Majors not piling into other countries getting in on the ground floor?
I sometimes think this preoccupation with logic that I was born with is a form of mental retardation … it makes me blind to what is so obvious to so many.
I would look for the “shale revolution” to occur around the world in shale with oil or gas trapped in it, not in exhausted conventional oil fields..
Good points! Also, who gets the royalties from the oil extracted from shale? In the US, the land owners get the royalties. This makes them willing to go along with the plan. In most countries, it is the government that gets the royalties. It is hard to get people living near by to go along, if they are not given a “cut” of the revenue.
The privitization of the energy sector in Mexico is highly unpopular with the public. Only 37% are in favor, according to this poll:
http://www5.diputados.gob.mx/index.php/camara/Centros-de-Estudio/CESOP/Opinion-Publica/Encuestas/Encuesta-Nacional-Sobre-las-Reformas-Estructurales
And according to this poll, 77% believe that the members of Enrique Peña Nieto’s government will be the ones who will most benefit from the energy reform. Only 40% believe there will be benefits for the general population, and only 37% believe their family will personally benefit from the privitization of Mexico’s energy sector.
http://www.informador.com.mx/mexico/2015/569592/6/encuesta-revela-supuesta-aprobacion-de-mexicanos-a-reformas.htm
Peña Nieto only has a 9 or 10% approval rating in Mexico, which is only slightly greater than Trump’s 3%.
The Mexican oligarchy is quite worried that Trump’s anti-Mexican rhetoric could trigger an anti-American backlash in Mexico, and that it will not be able to deliver on its commitment to deliver Mexico’s vast energy resources to the United States:
Corruption and oil-theft also huge problems in Mexico, of course:
http://www.insightcrime.org/news-briefs/mexico-state-oil-company-lost-billion-theft-2016
Harry,
Yep. It’s a big problem.
So shale is cheaper to produce than conventional?
And costs came down in the period of two years from $120+ to $43?
6:10AM BST 11 Aug 2014 http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
Oh – and if this is the case can you point out where Exxon has recouped the $41 billion in lost market cap from the XTO play? Well actually if shale is profitable at $43 they should have realized a massive increase in the value of that asset …. perhaps $100 billion+
Surely this should warrant a HUGE headline in the MSM….. I must have missed that…. Let’s me call on my assistant — yoo hoo Mr Google … can you please research this for me ….
Nothing on that Master Fast….. all I could find in terms of recent articles about XTO is this:
Exxon takes $2 billion charge from XTO deal
http://uk.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-mobil-results-idUKKBN15F1JR
WTF? Costs associated with shale extraction have reduced to less than $43 a barrel — and yet Exxon continues to take hits on XTO….
Walk me through illogic of your position. Help me to understand.
http://money.cnn.com/2016/04/26/investing/oil-companies-lost-67-billion-dollars/
https://www.caseyresearch.com/articles/hundreds-of-oil-stocks-could-go-to-zero-will-you-still-be-owning-one-of-the
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/bhp-billiton-admits-us-shale-not-a-good-investment/news-story/e1eca055e3864b0ae452aac5d46a8565
The entire PR department at Chesapeake should be fired immediately.
They obviously did not place any paid advertisements/advertorial masquerading as news with CNN and The Australian —- and this is what happens.
What were they thinking — Rig Zone? WtheF reads Rig Zone other than unemployed pipe fitters shacked up with retired whores in the Kootenays. Hardly the right demographic when you are building an oil Ponze.
Throw the bums out — and call in damage control — if the suckers see this stuff — they’ll pull their cash and the Ponze will collapse.
I wonder how much CNN would charge to pull a story down — now THAT is an interesting business model for traditional media — publish the truth — then send the sales people out to see how much PR departments will pay to have it removed. Or better still – THREATEN to publish the truth….
If anyone from the MSM is reading this please log on to Fast Eddy MSM Consulting Services (.com) — I have plenty of more ideas — and if you got the money honey — I got the time….
http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Y8I_XT7Elo0/UAG8Tvbh-xI/AAAAAAAABaE/JQ9ijnVy3IE/s1600/Kobayashi%2BMaru%2B7.jpg
https://oneinabillionblog.files.wordpress.com/2012/08/meltdown-secret-history-of-global-financial-collapse.png
When both sides of the argument are insane…
Fact Check: Turnbull’s Speech on Australia’s Energy Future
Yesterday Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull addressed the National Press Club, describing energy as a “defining debate of this parliament”.
The speech set out Turnbull’s vision for Australia’s energy future – covering renewable energy, “clean” coal, gas, power prices and electricity security.
https://youtu.be/pyhU0NGCSMI
A few years ago, Mr. Turnbull was very much against coal and favorable to renewables. But times change and he’s changing with the times.
Now, finally, in 2017 Malcolm Turnbull is saying the same thing as the skeptics he mocked years ago. This is how the “climate meme” dies, one unacknowledged step at a time. Gradually all the skeptical positions get picked up, years later and after burning billions at the altar of “climate control”. This is a big win for skeptics, but don’t expect Turnbull or the ABC to be honest enough to say so. This marks a major turning point in the discussion about coal in Australia which has mostly never got past the “coal is dying” and the “stranded assets” inanity which implied that coal has no future and our massive coal reserves were useless instead of being our major export industry.
Last week Tony Abbott, former PM, called for stop to subsidies for wind power – an end to the RET (Renewables Energy Target) certificates which stop normal competition in the electrical market and force us all to buy a power we don’t want at prices far higher than we need to pay. This week, with no acknowledgement that Tony Abbott is right, Turnbull does a major about face. He calls this “cleaner coal” but it has nothing to do with the futile fantasy of carbon capture. It is the newer high tech coal which Greens will hate (because it works and it solves the fake problem they pretend to worry about).
http://joannenova.com.au/2017/01/big-win-turnbull-wasted-billions-but-now-backs-super-critical-coal-copies-skeptics-5-years-later/
Make sure and not miss the conclusion of your linked article:
There is one heck of a backlash against the anti-energy left (and anti-energy right, like Turnbull):
He must have had an epiphany….
Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy : Germany’s electricity prices soar to more than double that of the USA because when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind does not blow they have to operate and pay for a completely separate back up system that is fueled by lignite coal http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-expensive-gamble-on-renewable-energy-1409106602
Turnbull has thrown down the gauntlet to the enviromnetalists, so the duel is on:
The currency becomes useless when you can buy only things, not energy, as currency is a thing, i.e. when you can not exchange things for energy.
Well, things embody the energy it took to make them and ship them to the point of sale. Recall E = mc^2.
The clash over higher energy prices cause possible fall of the actual Slovak government:
Danko Admits Possible Crisis in Coalition Due to URSO Chairman
http://195.46.72.16/free/jsp3/search/view/ViewerPure_en.jsp?Document=..%2F..%2FInput_text%2Fonline%2F17%2F02%2Ftbtbex220pb.dat_113700.1%40Fondy&QueryText=
Despite what you might think, automakers did not “cut back” on fleet sales. But keep an eye on Uber & Lyft.
Automakers sold 1.144 million cars and light trucks in January, down 1.8% from a year ago. But the “seasonally adjusted annual rate” (SAAR), the standard measure for monthly new vehicle sales, came in at 17.6 million units, right up there with 2016 annual sales of 17.55 million units, which had been a record, though all US automakers, and some of the largest foreign brands booked declining vehicle sales in 2016.
These sales are cars and light trucks that dealers delivered to their retail and commercial customers and that automakers delivered to large fleet customers, measured in vehicles, not dollars. It’s raw and unvarnished data, warts and all.
And there were some big warts. Compared to January last year, car sales collapsed for all three US automakers, and the largest Japanese automakers didn’t do much better:
GM -21.1%
Ford -17.5%
Fiat Chrysler -35.8%
Toyota -19.9%
Honda -10.7%
Nissan -9.0%
For all automakers combined, car sales sagged 12.2% from a year ago. Light trucks sales, which account for 63% of total sales, rose 5.7% but weren’t quite able to fill the hole in car sales.
More http://wolfstreet.com/2017/02/02/car-sales-crash-but-its-complicated/
For those who cannot comprehend why collapse – when it comes — will be lightening fast.
Car sales are crashing — this symptom is no doubt not auto-specific— people are just flat out broke and loaded with debt….
But let’s assume this impacts autos only.
If this cannot be stopped – and reversed — if the sales continue to fall we will get layoffs —- layoffs lead to fewer cars sold —- which leads to more layoffs …. not just at the car companies but all companies that supply the auto makers….
Auto makers have bonds that they need to make payments on —- declining auto sales eventually lead to defaults…. defaults lead to bankruptcy — bankruptcy of major companies can lead to banking crises ….
At some point you reach a tipping point — the entire industry goes up in flames — millions of jobs are lost…
Those millions default on their mortgages – credit cards – student loans — auto loans — personal loans…. again – a huge banking crisis erupts….
But the collapse trigger is pulled when confidence crashes and computer trading programs enmasse fire off sell orders… but there are no buyers…. the stock market implodes…. the world unravels and we go full chaos.
Then the famine and radiation start
Yes the central banks will do whatever they can to prevent this — perhaps they give people money to buy a new car — they obviously cannot allow this trend to continue — they will do whatever it takes…
But at some point whatever it takes does not stop the deluge…. at some point the problems become too many — and too massive — at some point the central banks will be powerless to stop the tsunami….
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/6d/1d/76/6d1d767748522559efe11fbce461fc7a.jpg
Perhaps the Fed can buy vehicles and dump them in the ocean?
It’s in spanish, but it seems Trump is pushing for another round of QE
https://actualidad.rt.com/actualidad/230204-dolar-presidente-trump-fallo-fed
This Australian analysist doesn’t give Trump’s attempt at jawboning the dollar down much change of success:
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/02/more-on-usd-weakness/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily%20MacroBusiness+CID_adc5d295d6a565804c91a8783c5405c2&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=More%20on%20USD%20weakness
one thing is certain: the person that took that picture got wet.
Who need cars as long as we have helicopters?
Hmmm… what can it be that is delaying my post…
‘The long-term economic growth of the world and the U.S. have never been reliant on cheap energy.’
Congratulations! You are this weeks winner of d.unse of the Week!
This is an incredible accomplishment in light of the deluge of ideeeotic entries we have received since this article went live.
Step up to the podium and claim your valuable prize
http://drunkencatcomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/drunken-cat-comics-logo.jpg
Aha – it made it …. I wonder if the prize has been claimed yet?
http://theworstthingsforsale.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/11/sack-of-shit.jpg
http://drunkencatcomics.com/images/drunken-cat-thumbs-up.png
When Gail talks about the inefficiency or electric heat, she is talking about electric resistance heat. This is what you get by using electricity to heat a wire, such as in a low cost heater that you plug into the wall. It delivers one unit of heat for each unit of electricity.
There are devices that can heat with much greater efficiency, heat pumps. From here it gets complicated, so I will try to go slowly.
What is a heat pump?
An air conditioner is a device that takes heat out of a cool building and delivers it to a warmer outside. In doing so it consumes power, usually electric. A heat pump does the opposite, takes heat from a cool outside and delivers it to a warm building. If you take a window air conditioner out of the window, turn it around and put it back in, you have a heat pump. Or more simply, you can have internal valves that do the same without having to move anything.
What’s the advantage of a heat pump?
Great efficiency. In an outside temperature of 50F/10C it can deliver 3.5 units of heat for each unit of electricity,
What are the drawbacks?
Cost and complexity. However if you are installing an air conditioner, you can get a reverse cycle unit (combination heat pump and air conditioner) for not too much more than a pure AC.
The big drawback it that the efficiency goes down as the outside temperature goes down. They become impractical below about 15F/ -10C ( depending on the design of the unit).
What happens then.
You need backup heat. Electric resistance, gas, or other heat sources,
Is there a way around this?
A “small g” (1) geothermal heat pump, also called a ground source heat pump, is a solution. Rather than using the outside air as a heat source/sink, you run pipes about 2m underground where the temperature year round is about 60F/16C making both heating and cooling very efficient.
The problem is the cost of this is often higher than the savings.
Give an example of a heat pump installation.
I replaced a dead AC in my house with a heat pump/AC with a gas furnace (which I already had) as backup. When the temperature goes below a certain point, where gas heat is less costly than a heat pump, the system switches over. When I installed it the cut-over temperature was 38F/3C. Now that the price of gas has fallen, the cut-over is at 45F/7C. I save less. If I knew then, what I know now, I might not have installed this hybrid system. I am saving less but it is still saving me some. I live in Washington DC, with mostly mild winters.
What about carbon savings?
Hard to calculate. My local electric utility uses 50% coal, 25% gas and 25% nuclear. I think it is a wash.
Summary
Heat pumps can deliver significant boost in electric heating efficiency in mild climates.
(1)There is “large G” Geothermal, which involves drilling deep into the Earth, extracting and using geological heat from the interior. It is impractical in most situations.
“geothermal works near active volcanos”
I didn’t take geothermal very seriously. The main reason is the stuff dissolved in the water which plugs up the pipes.
But a technical advance, using supercritical CO2 for the working fluid, makes a huge difference because the CO2 doesn’t dissolve the minerals that crud up the pipes.
I still don’t think geothermal will significantly contribute to solving energy problems, but it’s not as bad as it was before.
In Iceland, there is the smell of sulphur wherever geothermal water is found. Like Yellowstone.
Geothermal is the devil’s breath…. and oil is apparently his urine (see the last part of this https://srsroccoreport.com/a-large-crack-appeared-in-the-global-markets-and-no-one-noticed/)
Or perhaps geothermal is the devil’s fart….
Fast-
I think its more a shart….
A few comments on the article:
The drop in cement production (and perhaps consumption) in China is probably related to the lower coal consumption in 2015 and 2016 that I talked about in my article https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/01/10/2017-the-year-when-the-world-economy-starts-coming-apart/?iframe=true&theme_preview=true For one thing, it takes coal to make cement.
The article talks about World Bank GDP numbers in US$. The article shows a graph shows a downturn in world GDP in 2015.
https://srsroccoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Global-GDP-2015-World-Bank-UPDATE-768×579.png
The downturn of GDP in 2015 has to do with the low level of other currencies relative to the US dollar. This makes it expensive for them to buy oil. Most of the world GDP amounts that a person reads are PPP numbers. They give a great deal more weight to the “less developed” countries, which have in recent years grown faster than other countries. They continue to give positive world GDP growth.
I think I responded somewhere else to this comment.
In China, we know that the new heating costs considerably more than the old heating arrangement. What we don’t know is the details.
At first, I was thinking that the new heat must electric resistance heat. This would clearly be more expensive than burning coal directly.
But this is not the only possible thing that could be happening. China uses quite a bit of cogeneration–in other words, burning coal for electricity, but also using the heat to heat nearby apartments. With coal fired power plants in the middle of the city, this is easy to do. This approach is very cheap–basically using what would be waste heat (and creating a city with a lot of smog, with everything so close together). If China is moving electricity from coal out of the cities, they would be losing the benefit of inexpensive cogeneration. (The US doesn’t use it, because it doesn’t fit with the American profit-based approach well.) Even a change was made from cogeneration to air source heat pumps, the heat pumps would provide higher cost electricity.
My general, unsolicited advice: never make bets on any of this. Yes, one can make predictions, to be sure, but never put your money down on any of it.
For one thing, none of us can really predict the future, or timing. In addition, everything in this world is manipulated, massaged, papered over. Everything is now one giant lie.
If someone says “a year from now the dow will be 25000” and I will place a bet, he might very well win. But it’s meaningless, because the dow itself is meaningless, as are most other indices and indicators.
When the game is rigged, the best course of action is not to play.
The old story is a guy comes out of a casino complaining about the games being rigged. When asked “if the games are rigged why do you play there” he replied “it’s the only casino in town”. Dolf if one knows “this world is manipulated, massaged, papered over” then that is an advantage, especially if the “manipulators” don’t know that you know. Of course everything is not rigged, there are numerous games to play and plenty of people are still winning.
If nobody wins, no one will come to the tables. The slot machines are rigged in favour of the house, so are the tables, keno and lottery and stock markets but there are winners enough. There are winners and losers on Wall Street and it rises and falls accordingly. When everybody is losing, just like a rigged roulette game, then its game over…..time to “get outta Dodge”.
Attempting to predict the demise of it all is not worth the trouble. In the game of life we are playing the only game in town, with the cards we are all dealt. Gambling against your life doesn’t make sense, you can only win by losing. We are not all here to think tank the end of times. It’s plenty enough just to understand the ramifications of past and present human practices. It won’t do anyone any good to curl up in a corner and worry about it, it’s a predicament and, because as you say, we don’t know exactly when, we just know there is a when coming.
Reality is a bit more complicated. As we discussed in this earlier column, all-in costs for exploration and production companies include things like general and administrative overhead and interest charges, all of which must be borne by the barrels they produce. In addition, transportation costs can vary widely depending on where you’re drilling, where your refining customers are and whether the oil is being shipped by pipeline, rail-car or truck.So consider a driller in the Bakken with an average breakeven price of $52 a barrel. Add in, say, $4 for overhead and interest charges and assume the oil is being sent from North Dakota to refiners on the Gulf Coast by railroad at $12 a barrel. The all-in breakeven price for that barrel is $68. If there’s space on a pipeline available, then that comes down to maybe $63 (which is why President Trump’s push for new pipelines is welcomed particularly by inland drillers).In contrast, drillers in the Wolfcamp basin — part of the prolific Permian basin — enjoy average breakeven prices of about $42 to $43 a barrel on Wood Mackenzie’s projections. Add in $4 of overhead and interest but only $3 to ship the oil across Texas, and the all-in breakeven price is about $50. No wonder the Permian shale is the hottest area for E&P investment.Go back to the chart, and the other thing to notice is the wide range of breakeven prices. The average for the shale basins is $32 a barrel. Not everyone gets those lower average economics.Even if the message is a mixed one, though, it is still unwelcome to OPEC. Only a few years ago, breakeven prices in shale basins were estimated to be north of $80 a barrel or, for some, $100. On Wood MacKenzie’s numbers, even the upper end of the range is now in the low $70s.
https://www.bloomberg.com/gadfly/articles/2017-02-02/oil-prices-70-s-the-new-100-for-shale-breakevens
I still don’t get it….
The costs associated with the production of shale are higher than conventional oil… that is indisputable….
Big Oil primarily focuses on conventional oil — barely touching shale plays —- is losing billions quarter after quarter….
Surely Big Oil would be roaring into the shale space if that oil were profitable at $50.
The picture is crooked…. something is being left out of the equation ….
As I have postulated — the central banks have determined that shale MUST happen —- and as we have seen they will move heaven and earth to convince us that a circle is a square —- or that shale is profitable at $50.
It makes no sense.
Does Wood MacKinzie have it right? Or will rising fees by Haliburton etc. and rapidly draining cheap to extra wells quickly make the estimates too low? We can’t live on oil from shale alone, either–not enough diesel. We will see.
“can’t live on oil from shale alone, either–not enough diesel.”
Do you have a pointer to an article about this? Given what I know about the whole refining process, it seems like the light fractions could go into jet fuel and some of the heavy fractions that go into jet fuel could go into diesel and fuel oil.
It seems like the question is whether the proportions available would be enough, to go into diesel and fuel oil.
This is one breakdown of types of products with varying number of carbons. http://www.gcsescience.com/o5.htm
Slide 24 of this presentation gives the crude oil assay of Eagle Ford, Bakken, and Other Light Oils. https://inside.mines.edu/~jjechura/Refining/02_Feedstocks_&_Products.pdf
There clearly is some diesel, VGO, and Residual Fuel Oil in tight oil.
The United States has been a heavy user of gasoline, because of all of the private passenger cars that run on gasoline. We tend to import gasoline an export diesel now. So we in the US could get along with less diesel. The question is how much less. Europe is trying to run a lot of their private passenger autos on diesel, rather than gasoline. Their mix clearly would not work well with only tight oil.
So let me get this straight… Because we don’t have enough of the only limitless resource on the planet (money, which is created out of nothing on computer screens and bits of paper), we can’t do anything about the energy crisis, because it would cost too much which would affect the economy, which isn’t going to be affected by the energy crisis at all…
Ponder the second sentence:
THE PERFECT STORM
The economy is a surplus energy equation, not a monetary one, and growth in output (and in the global population) since the Industrial Revolution has resulted from the harnessing of ever-greater quantities of energy.
But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel.
http://ftalphaville.ft.com/files/2013/01/Perfect-Storm-LR.pdf
QE and ZIRP and other gimmicks can hold off the inevitable for a time — but eventually we get to the pushing on string phase
the powers that be are now realizing that the recovery is not going to come from the current gimmicks they will probably all end at the end of this year and be replaced with the universal basic income or helicopter money and pray that that works
I think the fed already knows the gimmicks won’t work. But, they will buy some time like bluffing a poker hand. If helicopter money comes to pass you know the end is nigh.
I don’t think they ever expected a recovery …. the best case scenario was always a multi-year holding pattern…. followed by
http://gotinjured.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/Asiana_Airlines_Plane_Crash.png
“But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel.”
Wanna bet?
I will bet you $20 to your $10, every year starting in 2017, as long as we’re both alive, that the world economy will grow faster than the world population. In other words, for every year that the world per-capita GDP goes up, you give me $10. For every year it goes down, I’ll give you $20.
Here’s a World Bank website that shows the world per-capita GDP growth rate. For every year that the value was above zero, you would have paid me $10, for every year it was below zero, I would have paid you $20.
http://data.worldbank.org/indicator/NY.GDP.PCAP.KD.ZG?end=2015&start=1960&view=chart
One requirement of the bet…the person who is overall ahead in the bet can’t cancel the bet. Only the person who is behind can cancel the bet.
How about it?
I am not clear what this has to do with Colin Campbell’s paper — btw — I have noticed his presence on FW from time to time — so if you have any questions or you disagree with Perfect Storm — you might engage him directly.
Just start with ‘yoo hoo Colin…..’
As for your bet – no I won’t bet you — because I agree with you. Population increased by 1.13% last year
Global GDP increased by 3%+ last year.
If global GDP drops to around 1% and stays there for any length of time — the global economy will collapse — the Great Famine will kick off — the water on the spent fuel ponds will boil off…
And you be dead — I be dead.
Actually — got my wires mixed up — it’s Tim Morgan you need to yoo hoo…..
“Actually — got my wires mixed up — it’s Tim Morgan you need to yoo hoo….”
You’re the one who quoted him! Why did you quote him that, ““But the critical relationship between energy production and the energy cost of extraction is now deteriorating so rapidly that the economy as we have known it for more than two centuries is beginning to unravel.”…
…if you didn’t agree with what he was saying?
Do you think the world per-capita GDP is going to stop growing, or don’t you?
Where does he say that GDP will not grow faster than population?
Perhaps I am losing my sight — yoo hoo — I don’t see the world population in that paragraph….. where are you population? Allo — Allo …
Why don’t you take an hour and find a nice quiet place and read the entire paper…. he’s not got it exactly right —- Gail has fine tuned things considerably —- but if you read that paper it might change the way you think about the situation we are facing.
Or you can just continue plead with me to take your bet.
I am hear to learn — not to bet on nonsense with people who have not the slightest clue ….
“Where does he say that GDP will not grow faster than population?”
“Why don’t you take an hour and find a nice quiet place and read the entire paper….”
I have a better idea…why don’t you take as long as you need to read the *subtitle* of the paper?
“perfect storm | energy, finance and the end of growth”
What do you think “…the end of growth” means? The end of hair growth? The end of fingernail and toenail growth?
“I am hear to learn — not to bet on nonsense with people who have not the slightest clue ….”
You don’t even know me, so I don’t know how you can tell that I “…have not the slightest clue.” But if you’re indeed here to learn, you should be happy to bet me. And if you lose–which you almost certainly will–you’ll have learned something. You’ll have learned that things are not nearly as bad as you think.
And in the (unlikely) event I lose, I’ll have learned something. I’ll have learned that the conclusions I’ve drawn based on my fairly extensive research and analysis of trends in long-term world economic growth, and the basis for those trends, are wrong.
Mark – I will assume you have not read Tim’s fine piece of work — unless you are a world record speed reader.
I will try to explain in the length of a tweet — tweets for twats — not sure how long that us but this will have to do…
Perfect Storm explains how the end of cheap to produce oil ended growth – ramming us into the wall 2008. It also explains how the ongoing massive programs of QE Zirp and bail outs have delayed the total collapse of the economy. But collapse – in its totality — it will.
https://62e528761d0685343e1c-f3d1b99a743ffa4142d9d7f1978d9686.ssl.cf2.rackcdn.com/files/92935/width754/image-20150825-15916-11qk431.png
Unless you believe that Ben Bernanke invented a new economic system that is not based on cheap energy — rather one based on the perpetual printing of trillions of dollars — a system that guarantees prosperity for eternity.
If that is the case — then why has been not been awarded the Nobel Price for Economics for his Perpetual Prosperity Machine.
You really should read Tim’s paper.
Or maybe you want to win the Prize of the Week?
http://www.buzzle.com/images/crafts/paper-hats/mark-d-for-dunce.jpg
“It also explains how the ongoing massive programs of QE Zirp and bail outs have delayed the total collapse of the economy. But collapse – in its totality — it will.”
Yeah, right. When? This year? In 5 years? 10? 20? 50? 100? 100+?
“Unless you believe that Ben Bernanke invented a new economic system that is not based on cheap energy…”
The long-term economic growth of the world and the U.S. have never been reliant on cheap energy.
But that fact is irrelevant, because there’s essentially zero evidence that the cost of energy in the U.S. and the world is likely to increase dramatically for a prolonged number of years in the next 4+ decades.
Here’s a graph of expenditures on energy as a percentage of personal consumption expenditures (PCE) in the U.S. I’d be happy to bet you $100 against your $2 every year (until one of us dies or wants to stop the bet if behind) that the percentage will not exceed 10% in that year.
http://www.calculatedriskblog.com/2014/02/energy-expenditures-as-percentage-of.html
This is a longer time series I put together, using the same table (BEA 2.3.5). It shows the same long-term downward trend. The last year is 2016.
The footnote is not very clear what is in the Energy portion. I called it Personal Energy. It is gasoline plus electricity plus some unspecified other things–presumably fuel for heating homes. PCE is closely related to wages plus transfer payments.
There are some other versions of this chart available for food and energy products combined, as a percentage of GDP. They show a long-term downward trend in food and energy. My interpretation is, “For growth to occur, food and energy need to take up less of the total over time. Falling energy prices will allow food to be produced more cheaply, as well.”
If you subtract the finance sector which makes up around 40% of the eCONomy, which is all that’s keeping the gears from grinding stuck, GDP is already negative and has been been for some time.
Once the next financial calamity blows, thar she blows!
http://www.sciencealert.com/images/articles/processed/MobyDick_web_1024.jpg
Tim Morgan is actually speaking of ‘GDP vs. debt’
One and the same now.
Fast Eddy does not bet. I tried and tried … I think he also stopped making predictions. Me – summer of 2020. Until then, a slow collapse of the periphery.
“Fast Eddy does not bet. I tried and tried … I think he also stopped making predictions.”
Yes, I know the type. The Internet is full of them. They bloviate, but when asked to bet or to make falsifiable predictions, they won’t. Because they’re aware they’ll likely be shown to be ignorant and wrong.
“Me – summer of 2020. Until then, a slow collapse of the periphery.”
OK, starting in 2020, would you like to bet $10 each year that the global per-capita GDP growth will be less than zero, against me betting $20 it will be greater than zero? (The bet continuing every year, until the person who happens to be on net behind decides to stop the bet.)
You may notice that I agreed with you…. GDP won’t fall below population growth — until the last minute…. at which point we all get to die.
Do I win by default? Shall I pass you my bank account details?
GDP is, obviously, a gross metric and fails to take into account our burgeoning debt load, which is serving to mitigate ever worsening energy and resource constraints. It also ignores the environmental cost of human, economic activities (seen what’s been going on in the Arctic recently?).
Furthermore GDP figures are easily massaged. Did you know that many European countries now include estimates of criminal activities like drugs and prostitution in their GDP stats? And how is the UK, for example, boasting a positive GDP when the entire North Sea oil industry, which formerly constituted 6% of government tax receipts, is now tax negative, ie a burden on tax-payers?
I think it is very possible that we still have a positive GDP rating in the US when our terminal Minsky moment hits.
No bet. Gdp is an easily manipulated number.
The economy only has two modes: grow or crash. I suppose the question is whether you can actually collect on this bet, after the economy starts on its tailspin.
Because we cant generate enough end demand for low (energy) return Oil.
…what I think you are really getting at is Why arent we using Helicopter money to create more demand? We’ve arguably already started .. eg student loans, “free” capital gains .. but comes a time where the handouts undermine any incentive to actually work for a living … im guessing
every doomster coming in here should be issued with a pair of spectacles
on the inside of which is written:
LH lens: Money cannott create surplus energy
RH lens : Surplus energy supports money
Only after 6 months minimum sentence in here should the glasses be allowed to be removed.
And even then only on parole
Norm, I would add another – technology does not create energy, technology uses energy.
Don’t write that on your spectacles,because it is not correct. It is true that technology doesn’t create energy. However,it does allow us to access it. Would the industrial revolution have occurred without the technology to access fossil fuels and use them
in ways which served human needs? The same applies to nuclear power,etc.
If you call oil extraction technology, It still takes energy to get oil out of the ground. The difference was that one barrel of oil produced a 100 barrels of oil using very old and primitive technology. Now, the latest technology is doing well to get 15 barrels for every one barrel extracted. Technology uses energy. And diminishing returns bites hard.
I posted my comment quickly before,and when I went out,I realised that I was imprecise.
I should have written that your comment was incomplete or misleading. Technology uses energy,of course. My point was that technology is essential to access the energy of fossil
fuels or nuclear energy,etc. Best wishes to you.
Thanks to Gail for the essay .
Technological advances won’t work without markets. Discover all the energy you like but GROWTH is paramount. When the technology was available to exploit oil, markets were required and they were created along with the population explosion, all the way to overshoot, they worked hand in hand, one required the other. Consumers with purchasing power are required to support everything. Everything from Wall Street to Financial institutions to drug manufacturers, to grave diggers.
There was an Outer Limits show to that effect. A guy time travels back to Oklahoma, and knowing what he knows about the oil prospects there, buys up a bunch of cheap property on the outskirts of town. Then he learns that he’s too early. There’s no technology around to exploit the oil, and the market for the oil has not been well developed yet. The locals are entertained by the dumb guy from out of town, gladly taking his money. There’s a lesson or two there.
Norman – here’s the thing…
In our daily life …. we all encounter people like Guy … people with opinions based on bits and pieces of bullshit that they pick up from CNN… BBC… NYT…. CNBs…. etc….. essentially they have not the slightest clue — they are just regurgitating vomit….
BUT — they are adamant that they are correct. There is no reasoning with such people. If you try it only ends in animosity….
One feels like screaming at such people ‘What’s wrong with you — are you mentally retarded? Did someone beat you with a stupid stick as a child? This is not difficult stuff’
Can’t do that though — well actually you could — if you think you could beat the shit out of the person when they come at you in a rage fueled by stupidity — I strongly advise not to hit such a person in the head — they have extremely thick skulls and you will break your hand — better to hit the soft parts…. stomach, kidney area ….
Assuming you prefer not to engage in violence …. the advisable course of action is to just change the topic — write them off as brain dead inferior beings — think of them as below maggots….
However on FW the rules are totally different —- no need to be polite — and no chance of things turning violent —- so you get to unload bomb shells on such people…. everything you wanted to say to that maggot who called you a fool in person —- you get to say on FW.
All the pent up fury and frustration —- can be blown off with a few hundred well placed strokes of the keys. Finished up with ‘Post Comment’
Isn’t it wonderful?
++++++++++
It is indeed wonderful advice, and very practical.
On top of that, it is very reassuring to learn that I’m not the only one who gets the occasional urge to beat stupid people who are convinced they have the right to lecture others on the head over and over again like those ape men did at the start of 2001.
I reckon Trump’s next executive order should involve Diplomatic Immunity in Perpetuity to selected Finite World members… we get to carry hand guns … whenever we encounter idiots we can shoot them dead… with the big picture in mind (whatever that is).
It would be even more enjoyable than shooting this:
The way things are going in the world, people are going to have lots of opportunity to off who they choose, and there will be nobody to stop them. Look out for people with an axe to grind!
You would do well to read Tim Morgan’s piece that FE gave you the link to. Unless you were just joking with the above statement. It turns out unlimited money doesn’t help. Look at the last 8 years. All that money creation and the economy is contracting. It’s following the net energy decline. If you take away the artificial financial growth from debt creation the real GDP has been in contraction for some time now. Money has to be linked to value the primary value is work plain and simple. Because net energy is declining less work can be done. So as Limits to Growth expressed it industrial output per capita would decline. Before the EROEI even comes close to 1:1 the system will break. I really feel sorry for people who have worked hard and saved their whole lives for an opulent retirement that will never come. And for the children in school today planning for a life that doesn’t exist. This is a very sobering reality but it is the result of man’s attempt to live beyond his limits. Acts 17:26
If money can’t even buy me love …. how in the hell can money buy us more BAU?
“Life is cheap but death is free.
Die, die, die – come die with me!”
Satirical song. 😉
Think of cost, not as dollars, but as energy. Energy is the key not money.
We have an interconnected system. Money is a promise for goods made with future energy products. The problem is that non-elite workers are not getting enough money to buy goods (like cars and homes) that use energy products enough to keep the prices of energy products high enough to encourage extraction. We are not adding enough additional debt either.
The economy is definitely going to be affected by the energy crisis. Financial institutions will collapse when debt cannot be repaid. We are already seeing problems with this in Europe.
Guy has removed his OFW newbie glasses and broken his parole:
LH lens: Money cannot create surplus energy
RH lens : Surplus energy supports money
Only after 6 months minimum sentence in here should the glasses be allowed to be removed.
And even then only on parole
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000171/full
– Civilization inflation-adjusted wealth is sustained by global energy consumption and grows only as fast.
– Some combination of price inflation and unemployment is related to rates of civilization decay.
– Rates of return on wealth decline in response to accelerated decay or increased resource scarcity.
– Rapid rates of current growth act as a drag on future rates of growth.
– Rates of return grow when there is “innovation” through technological change.
– The GWP grows when energy consumption grows super-exponentially (at an accelerating rate), or when global energy reserve discovery exceeds depletion.
– If growth rates of wealth approach zero, civilization becomes fragile with respect to externally forced decay. This appears to be particularly true if prior growth was super-exponential.
It might seem that the same conditions that allow for the human system to respond especially quickly to favorable conditions are the same ones that allow the system to rapidly decay when conditions turn for the worse.
An innovative economy that enjoys relatively rapid technological change with a growth number G > 1 might alternatively be viewed as a “bubble economy” that lacks long-term resilience. Whether collapse comes sooner or later depends on the quantity of energy reserves available to support continued growth and the accumulated magnitude of externally imposed decay. By contrast, an economy that is less innovative, has a lower risk of rapid rates of decline, it lies “farther away” from the modes of collapse.
Nice comment. We have never lived in contraction. So the old rules don’t apply. In a growth phase high price increases supply low price increases demand. Development increases smoothly on an incline based on time and investment. In contraction high price decreases demand and low price decreases supply. Investment is used to substitute for profit. There is no limiting factor to the decline. Rather the system reaches insolvency and crashes.
Yup.
Prof Tim Garrett says its not a question of IF our civilization will collapse, but a question of WHEN it will crash and burn.
He has some beautiful graphs on thermodynamics http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/enhanced/figures/doi/10.1002/2013EF000171#figure-viewer-eft223-fig-0002
And some nice graphs on growth/ collapse of dissipative systems http://d1czgh453hg3kg.cloudfront.net/content/royprsa/468/2145/2532/F3.large.jpg?width=800&height=600&carousel=1
I understand FEs patiance is wearing thin with all the commenters who desperately want there to be a solution to our predicament. But of course there is no solution. Cheap and plentiful Oil and Coal were a wonderful free ride while it lasted. But alas, this wonderful ride will soon crash and burn. And nothing can prevent that from happening. So says simple thermodynamic laws, free for anybody to see, who wants to see them.
“But of course there is no solution.”
You lack imagination.
Imagine
Imagine there’s no heaven
It’s easy if you try
No hell below us
Above us only sky
Imagine all the people living for today
Imagine there’s no countries
It isn’t hard to do
Nothing to kill or die for
And no religion too
Imagine all the people living life in peace, you
You may say I’m a dreamer
But I’m not the only one
I hope some day you’ll join us
And the world will be as one
Imagine no possessions
I wonder if you can
No need…
I hear this is really popular on your planet Keith….
It is a beautiful song though. Unfortunately, it is a looong way from the reality of the human condition. The energy bonanza gave us a lot of free time to dwell in the arts. But, its back to the grindstone soon.
Yep.
“A Song for Lennon,” by the metal band, Voidhanger.
WELCOME TO THE WORLD RUINED DREAMS
WHERE DREAMERS ARE DESTINED TO FAIL
THIS ONE IS MEANT FOR ONE OF THEM
LOOK INTO THE FUTURE
WHAT WILL PREVAIL ?
IMAGINE THERE IS HEAVEN
IMAGINE THERE IS HELL
IMAGINE WORLD STARVATION
IMAGINE MAN EATING MAN
IMAGINE THERE IS SUFFERING
ALL THE GRIEF AND SORROW
IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE
WHO’LL FU**ING DIE TOMORROW
BELIEVE MY WORDS , NO LIFE IS SACRED
BE SURE THERE ARE CONFLICTS
I WONDER IF YOU CAN IMAGINE
ALL THE PEOPLE KILLING AND KILLING AGAIN
IMAGINE THERE IS HATRED
IMAGINE THERE IS PAIN
IMAGINE ALL THE PEOPLE
GOING DOWN THE DRAIN
DO YOU REALLY THINK THE WORLD IS GONNA CHANGE ?
COLLAPSE IS IMMINENT , THE PEACE IS DEAD , MY FRIEND
I’LL BE SITTING HERE JUST WAITING FOR THE FALL
WELL , I FU**ING HATE THIS WORLD AND I DON’T CARE AT ALL
WHAT THE FU*K DID YOU EXPECT TO SEE ?
THE FINAL TRIUMPH OF HUMANITY ?
THE BROTHERHOOD OF MAN WILL COME
WHEN WE’RE ALL FU*KING DEAD!
THINK OF HARMONY
THINK OF PEACE
IMAGINE THERE IS NONE
IMAGINE WAR
IMAGINE MURDER
IMAGINE THERE IS NO LENNON
Thanks excellent – if you can work in the words ‘rape, famine, and radiation poisoning’ you could flog that to Metallica for good money I reckon
Change the title to End of Days in a Finite World
“So says simple thermodynamic laws, free for anybody to see, who wants to see them.” – Exactly! Anyone who WANTS to see them. Just like a drug addiction where you first have to admit to yourself you have a problem.
Greg-
Let Homer straighten them out https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6vxHkAQRQUQ
“We have never lived in contraction.” – ++++++ Exactly. The human brain has not guide other than forever upwards and onwards to moar and moaaarrrr moooaaaarrrr!
Huh … This is all just theory …. wait until Practice arrives …….
This is from Prof. Tim Garrett’s paper, “Long-Run Evolution of the Global Economy.”
The abstract says (among other things):
This paper shows that the key components that determine whether civilization “innovates” itself toward faster economic growth include energy reserve discovery, improvements to human and infrastructure longevity, and reductions in the amount of energy required to extract raw materials. Growth slows due to a combination of prior growth, energy reserve depletion, and a “fraying” of civilization networks due to natural disasters. Theoretical and numerical arguments suggest that when growth rates approach zero, civilization becomes fragile to such externalities as natural disasters, and the risk is for an accelerating collapse.
Interesting! Garrett is in the field of climate change, so see things through a climate-change lens. I think you get to the same end without the climate change problem.
When Gail talks about the inefficiency or electric heat, she is talking about electric resistance heat. This is what you get by using electricity to heat a wire, such as in a low cost heater that you plug into the wall. It delivers one unit of heat for each unit of electricity.
There are devices that can heat with much greater efficiency, heat pumps. From here it gets complicated, so I will try to go slowly.
What is a heat pump?
An air conditioner is a device that takes heat out of a cool building and delivers it to a warmer outside. In doing so it consumes power, usually electric. A heat pump does the opposite, takes heat from a cool outside and delivers it to a warm building. If you take a window air conditioner out of the window, turn it around and put it back in, you have a heat pump. Or more simply, you can have internal valves that do the same without having to move anything.
What’s the advantage of a heat pump?
Great efficiency. In an outside temperature of 50F/10C it can deliver 3.5 units of heat for each unit of electricity,
What are the drawbacks?
Cost and complexity. However if you are installing an air conditioner, you can get a reverse cycle unit (combination heat pump and air conditioner) for not too much more than a pure AC.
The big drawback it that the efficiency goes down as the outside temperature goes down. They become impractical below about 15F/ -10C ( depending on the design of the unit).
What happens then.
You need backup heat. Electric resistance, gas, or other heat sources,
Is there a way around this?
A “small g” (1) geothermal heat pump, also called a ground source heat pump, is a solution. Rather than using the outside air as a heat source/sink, you run pipes about 2m underground where the temperature year round is about 60F/16C making both heating and cooling very efficient.
The problem is the cost of this is often higher than the savings.
Give an example of a heat pump installation.
I replaced a dead AC in my house with a heat pump/AC with a gas furnace (which I already had) as backup. When the temperature goes below a certain point, where gas heat is less costly than a heat pump, the system switches over. When I installed it the cut-over temperature was 38F/3C. Now that the price of gas has fallen, the cut-over is at 45F/7C. I save less. If I knew then, what I know now, I might not have installed this hybrid system. I am saving less but it is still saving me some. I live in Washington DC, with mostly mild winters.
What about carbon savings?
Hard to calculate. My local electric utility uses 50% coal, 25% gas and 25% nuclear. I think it is a wash.
Summary
Heat pumps can deliver significant boost in electric heating efficiency in mild climates.
There is “large G” Geothermal, which involves drilling deep into the Earth, extracting and using geological heat from the interior. It is impractical in most situations.
It is amazing how complexity works to counteract efficiency. It would be nice if increasing the efficiency of our gadgets didn’t require more complexity.
The large G geothermal works near active volcanos, and other places where it is truly hot underneath.
I am thinking now that it is possible that the people using electric heat were using air source heat pumps. The reason why the cost is so much higher than previously is because their previous heat came (may have) come from cogeneration. China builds coal plants in the middle of cities. I know that they use (some) cogeneration, most likely making use of the coal plants in the middle of cities. If China wants to solve the smog problem, they have to close down the coal plants in the middle of cities. This means that they lose the benefit of cogeneration.
Making this the perfect place to doomsday prep…
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/736x/52/90/3e/52903e223486b7c5adf5d53375470d02.jpg
Just when you thought it was safe to bet on fossil fuels …
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-energy-technology-demand-idUSKBN15H011
“The Grantham Institute at Imperial College London and independent think tank Carbon Tracker Initiative analyzed cost forecasts for electric vehicle (EV) and solar photovoltaic (PV) technology, government policies and the impact on road transport and power markets, which account for half of global fossil fuel consumption.
“Fossil fuels may lose 10 percent of market share to PV and EVs within a single decade. This may not sound much but it can be the beginning of the end once demand starts to decline,” Carbon Tracker said in a statement.
A 10 percent loss of market share caused the collapse of the U.S. coal mining industry and Europe’s five biggest utilities lost more than 100 billion euros ($108 billion) in value from 2008-2013 because they were unprepared for renewable energy growth, it added.
The report said that electric vehicles could make up a third of the world’s road transport market by 2035 and that solar PV could supply 23 percent of global power generation by 2040, entirely phasing out coal and leaving natural gas with only a 1 percent market share.
Growth in the number of electric vehicles could lead to 2 million barrels per day (bpd) of oil demand being displaced by 2025, the report estimates.
That would be similar to the volume of oversupply that led to the 2014/15 collapse in oil prices. By 2040, 16 million bpd could be displaced, rising to 25 million bpd by 2050, it said.”
“…This may not sound much but it can be the beginning of the end once demand starts to decline”
so true!
Carbon Tracker doesn’t realize that demand already has major problems, because wages are not rising by very much.
“Fossil fuels may lose 10 percent of market share to PV and EVs within a single decade. This may not sound much but it can be the beginning of the end once demand starts to decline,” – That is kind of a moronic statement as it takes fossil fuels to make electric cars and photovoltaics.
Richard the problem is we don’t have 10 years! I’ve been driving electric for the last 6 years and here’s what I’ve learned: electric cars make up only 1/10 of 1% of cars purchases here in Canada and that’s with $5,000 in cash grants and basically free fuel, is hard to keep warm in an electric car, do you turn on the heat and see your range plummet? The repair costs are insane, my car is in the shop going on 3 weeks with a potential $7,000 repair bill and that is not a battery replacement! When my battery needs replacement in another year or two that will be another $5,000. FYI my cars value prior to the repair was $14,000 the purchase price was $40,0000 and my mileage is under 50,000 miles. You do the math – electric cars are too complex for their own good and they are definitely not an option to gas powered vehicles.
lol—when electric cars first began to appear
my first thought was Heat./aircon vs range limit
I never did find a satisfactory answer to that
“when electric cars first began to appear my first thought was Heat./aircon vs range limit” – One could always light a fire inside the car for heat. You could make it really green and burn old newspapers on the drivers seat (since there is rarely a passenger). Hey recycling works!
Jarvis
Thanks for your comment. The reality of this green energy revolution is quite different then the brochure stated. We may have already peaked in renewables. If there is additional market disruption it will eat into existing efficiency. This would push the net energy problem even faster.
🙂 I kinda figured electric cars out after I managed to hit 70 mpg in a conventional petrol engined car on a longish journey. That said, there are two ways at looking at the forecast. There may not be that many fossil fuelled cars around by 2030.
Good point! Or roads!
This is why so few people buy EVs http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/10/automobiles/stalled-on-the-ev-highway.html
That article is from 2013. Tesla has a lot more charging stations now. But if someone wants to take their car on “road trips” an EV is not the vehicle. But they are fine for a commuter car with a commute within the range of the vehicle.
I think the issue was more that in moderately cold weather — the battery capacity drops off dramatically.
yup—I’m old enough to remember dates when a car had no heater (passion killer there) or aircon
” when a car had no heater”
I am impressed. My first car was older than I am, a 1937 Dodge, and it had a heater.
So what is your $7,000 repair bill for if it wasn’t for a new battery? EVs would appear to have less maintenance issues versus a modern gas engine with all the pollution control equipement.
It’s Nissan Leaf which is by far the most popular electric car out there. Between the battery and motor there are charge controllers, inverters and an elaboration wiring harness The problem is there are not enough trained ev mechanics so they get a system warning light and a subsequent shut down and their solution is to replace everything! Like changing out an engine because of a fouled plug! The dealership has had the car for 3 weeks and it could be another’s month before parts arrive. EV’s are like solar systems – you have to own one to learn it’s limitations.
I will believe it when I see it.
All we can do now is to hide long life food in secure areas the die-off and violence is going to be un-imaginable i think we are very close to total collapse and the end of the world as we know it everyone that comes to this site should be doing this regardless of their convictions and beliefs if humanity is going to have a chance at rebuilding we need to understand one thing and that is not many humans are going to make it unless their prepared to do whatever it takes to survive while theirs still time to do so.The die-off could be in the order of 99.9 % once this takes hold, jesus is not going to save you only your sensible preparations now.
Adonis, Get a grip, stay calm….all will be fine….follow Fast Eddy…
Buy a 20 foot steel container…pack it with tuna cans…
And spend all you free time on doomer sites…enough said😵
Don’t forget the high powered rifles and crates of ammo …. I also recommend two pump action 12 gauge shot guns — those are more suitable for close range action —- great for fending off would be wife and daughter rapists….
Now, now…no need for violence…we are civilized people. Look at the end of Industrial civilization as a new start in the road of human development in both mind and spirit.
Things may look a little bleak at first, but if we all pull together and share our talents and cans of tuna…we ll pull through it all.
We don’t want to waste this opportunity to regress after all the strides we achieved in the last hundred years of societal formation!
Fast Eddy thinks he is THE Prophet of DOOM…but don’t follow false prophets.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=PQSBeiehigs
I forgot to mention… don’t waste all your ammo on the bad guys…. they will just keep coming and you will run out…
At some point you need to make a call —- when do you start putting bullets into members of your family to save them from these types… (google image search rapist for more)….
It will be so much harder if you have run out of bullets…
I highly recommend that you maintain a fueled vehicle…. the rock cut is so much more eloquent…
https://pbs.twimg.com/profile_images/3062081627/f7e9b71459b6ceb2c25509b216b995d3_400x400.jpeg
http://i1.dailyrecord.co.uk/incoming/article5563636.ece/ALTERNATES/s615/Rapist.jpg
https://images.stv.tv/articles/w384/108032-review-rae-had-a-catalogue-of-previous-convictions-before-he-moved-to-scotland.jpg
Don’t fool yourself —- these are the sorts that will be on the lose….. along with violent criminals… violent military men and cops….
The dregs will rise to the top when the electricity goes off…. the sputum…. the vile…. the cruel… the monsters ….
This will not be a game … it will not be an adventure.
It will be nothing less than a real live nightmare
So I’ll be safe as long as I surround myself with blacks? Got it. Thanks.
See Fast Eddy has regress real FAST
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=CTjN7brIE_E
See, there IS a future after all…some things never change
!2 gauge pump, the weapon of choice of the storm troopers everywhere.
The 50 Buck Fracking Brigade has gone a little quiet…. must be late wherever those folks are….
I am crying tears of joy. Fast Eddy is back!!! All you newbie Delusistaners shall now feel the wrath of FE. And, you will get no turkey! Welcome back FE – we missed you!
++++++++
yup
Eddy was even alienating the aliens who abducted him
so they gave up on their experiments and took Elon Musk back to Mars instead, and let him return to OFW
Fast-
I hope you stood up to the probing better than this guy! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=beqdxDlNnVs
It has been more than 50 years since the US produced as much oil as it consumed.
I think it is a lot more than 50 years since the US produced as much oil as it consumed. This is one report showing crude oil imports since 1920.http://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRIMUS1&f=M
There was month during WWII when imports went to zero.
Fast Eddy,
A lot of smart people bet against the US shale industry — the Peak Oil crowd, the Saudis, most of the major oil companies.
They all lost. They have been consistently wrong in their predictions. The shale oil industry lives.
The biggest loser by far, however, was Saudi Arabia. What an unbelievably costly miscalculation the Saudis made, getting into a price war with the US shale producers.
Now Saudi Arabia is having to reverse course, and the shale oil industry is lean and mean and on the rebound.
“…the shale oil industry is lean and mean and on the rebound.”
I think slowly drowning in debt is nearer the mark:
“The breakeven point for the industry is, depending on location, estimated by the consultancy firm’s analysis to be between $47 and $79 per barrel, which *does not take into account interest payments on debt*. Research from J.P. Morgan Asset Management suggests that for the largest shale basins in the US, profitability is scant for prices below $80.
“…the current trend of improving operational efficiencies, reducing costs and cutting debt can mean that, given the protracted low prices and a decreasing access to new lines of credit to roll over debts, the number of defaults within the sector is expected to increase.”
http://www.consultancy.uk/news/12521/us-energy-companies-in-crisis-as-continued-low-oil-prices-take-their-toll
Harry Gibbs,
It looks like ExxonMobil has decided to take the other side of that bet. This, by the way, is only one of several major acquisitions ExxonMobil has made in the Permian Basin in the last couple of years:
But there is a caveat. As Rigzone explains, making ExxonMobil’s new acreage productive will depend on its ability to defang regulatory agencies like the EPA and the Interior Department, undoing extremely costly and burdensome federal regulation:
Key in rolling back anti-energy regulation is getting Trump’s supreme court pick confirmed before April, and Trump has called on the Senate to invoke the nuclear option in order to do that.
ExxonMobil and the other majors are late to the party, and are now spending tens of billions of dollars to acquire acreage positions in the Permian Basin.
That is the reason shale acreage in the Middland Basin has skyrocketed from about $10,000 per acre, a mere three or four years ago, to an average of $89,000 now.
They are, I’m sure, gambling on a significant rise in prices a year or two hence, and that is understandable given the cratering of investment and paucity of discoveries these past few years. Some sort of supply-crunch with concomitant price-spikes would seem to be on the cards. Unfortunately the wider economy, leveraged to the nth degree just like the oil industry, cannot cope with those – and so it seems likely the whole system will fail.
Harry Gibbs,
Well I don’t think there’s any doubt that the global economy struggled under $100/barrel oil — the hallowed “new civilization” (as Carlos Slim recently called it),”knowledge economy,” or “service economy” was a bust for all but a small minority (e.g., Carlos Slim. Jeff Bezos, Mark Cuban, Bill Gates, etc.). All the economies of the OECD countries are in crisis, and all the economists are scratching their heads, trying to figure out why all the beautiful promises didn’t come true.
Notice in this diagnosis that there’s nary a mention of energy inputs:
So will the world economy fare any better with oil prices in the $60 to $70 range? I don’t know.
Trump quite obviously believes energy inputs are important to the economy and in the production process, and is doing everything in his power to lower energy costs. Abundant and cheap energy is one of his principle policy goals: In the first day of his presidency, for instance, he declared:
So we will see. Time will tell.
Council on Foreign Relations: Saudi Arabia’s Break-Even on Oil is Approaching $120 per barrel
http://www.cfr.org/oil/fiscal-breakeven-oil-prices-uses-abuses-opportunities-improvement/p37275?cid=ex-cgs-oil_breakeven_discussion-levi_use-113015
http://i.cfr.org/content/Breakeven_figure_Saudi_Arabia.jpg
Fiscal break even is well over 120 now….
Here’s an idea — why not just wipe out the fiscal obligations —- basically wipe out everything except the oil production facilities.
Do this in all MENA oil producing nations — call the plan Modern Day Crusades: Whatever It Takes.
If this would add a few years to BAU — as much as I abhor the idea — I would support it — we are all going to suffer and die when BAU ends — so what does it matter if a few hundred million go first so we get to live? They’d do the same to us if in our position….
Admittedly, quite a lot of money is needed for taxes. But taxes are a necessity in a country with a lot of otherwise poor people, who depend on food imports.
I think Nate Hagens is giving at least some input regarding energy-related issues to the Trump administration.
As Kopits explained in the earlier article – break even is $120.
Using this IMF research — work out the impact of a ‘sustained increase in the price of oil from $25 to $120’
According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices. http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/high_oil04sum.pdf
Exxon bought XTO in 2009.
And their market cap dropped by the same amount as they paid for XTO — which tells them that essentially XTO is worthless.
Fast forward 8 years — if the price for shale plays is far higher now — and Exxon is buying — and they know they need 120 oil to break even — why would they or any other Major get into Shale now?
I’ll tell you why – because they are desperate and will do anything to stay alive. And because the central bankers have determined that we need that oil.
They lose money on every conventional barrel pumped — so why not lose money on every shale barrel pumped? It’s all about getting oil onto the market – losing money no longer matters when you are fighting for your life. When you are fighting for another day in a warm bed — with food — and security.
So why not tap into the bull shit —- dive into shale claiming that Saudi America is a big part of the future for Exxon
As has been demonstrated already – the central banks are standing by with unlimited free money to support these projects
As they should.
There is no shale oil/tight oil party for Exxon to be late to! The “big” find, Wolfcamp shale that was in the news as having 20 billion barrels wouild loose 500 billion dollars at today’s oil prices if it were all extracted. Source: http://www.artberman.com/permian-giant-oil-field-would-lose-500-billion-at-todays-prices/
In a different basin: Eagle Ford is now an “also run.” Adanarko sold Eagle Ford Shale Assets to Sanchez for about $15,000 per acre recently.http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSFWN1F20VW It was supposed to last for decades but lasted for 9 years. I suppose getting rid of regulations (such as not flaring gas) would reduce costs, however.
Yes all stock no cash.
http://www.artberman.com/permian-giant-oil-field-would-lose-500-billion-at-todays-prices/
Average cost $75.00 per barrel.
Art Berman offers a touching testament to those who would put such an inordinate amount of faith in the findings of the US’s “scientific” agencies under the administration of Barak Obama.
I mean, you really couldn’t make this stuff up. The USGS is giving wells completed in the Wolfcamp A and Wolfcamp B EURs of only 167,000 boe.
https://s27.postimg.org/6psofljo3/Captura_de_pantalla_560.png
The reality, of course, is something entirely different.
Take the performance of the latest 29 wells Pioneer Natural Resources has completed in the Wolfcamp B. They have produced an average of 167,000 boe in the first five months of production, and are on target to have EURs well in excess of 1,000,000 boe.
https://s30.postimg.org/iypbrkdox/Captura_de_pantalla_561.png
http://investors.pxd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=90959&p=irol-presentations
I would bet that it oil were $200 or $300 per barrel, we would find a way to extract more than what the USGS suggested. But at today’s prices, it is hard to believe things are all that good.
ExxonMobil has to keep replacing reserves. Otherwise they have nothing to borrow against and they will just eventually go out of business. That doesn’t mean they will ever develop any of the acreage.
If the central banks stopped making ZIRP cash available to Exxon — Exxon would be vapourize in a matter of seconds.
It would force them to eliminate the dividend — it would force them to sell assets — it would force them to cut through the bone on capex…. in a normal world they would be quickly taken over by a competitor….
But this is not a normal world — all oil majors are in the same boat — they are clinically dead and being kept alive with machines.
Here is a shot of BP and Exxon
https://metrouk2.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/life-support-pic.jpg
EPA regulations are put in to protect Americans from immoral business people. Taking them away would not be “defanging” it would be letting some rich guy pollute more or pump chemicals into drinking water or rivers, or whatever else they would do in order to save a buck.
Regulations certainly make a difference. China with its lack of regulations was able to take over a lot of the making of solar PV, as well as the mining of rare earths.
I didn’t see anything in the article linked about the need to roll back regulations, but wouldn’t be at all surprised if you are right. Was that comment in an earlier version of the article linked?
My recollection is that I was responding to a poster who used the word “defang”, not something I saw in an article, with regard to regulations. But I don’t see it above and with this comment software I can’t even tell who I replied to.
I agree Harry! Art Berman – “Shale oil is not a revolution, it is a retirement party”
Glenn – again – you read like a troll for the shale industry — or someone enthralled by the Saudi America fable who is bloated and riddled with diabetes from gobbling up the sugary spin as fast as it comes off the spindle….
Love how you have picked up the catch phrases including ‘lean and mean’…
Have you seen the facts that state that the number of wells required to extract the same amount of oil from shale is exponentially higher than the number of wells required to extract most conventional plays?
Have you seen the facts that state shale wells deplete very quickly (peaking within a few years of being sunk) while conventional wells can take many decades to peak?
How in the flying F-UCK can shale be ‘leaner and meaner’ given the above?????
“How in the flying F-UCK can shale be ‘leaner and meaner’ given the above?????” – It isn’t. Any educated person knows it isn’t. That is why the title of Gails’ post ends with the word “delusion”. That is the kind of thinking that is out there FE. Delusional thinking.
All one need do is read: http://www.artberman.com/permian-giant-oil-field-would-lose-500-billion-at-todays-prices/ and learn the truth of our predicament. But Delusitanis won’t read. They just spout ignorant comments. But, they are commenting in the hornets nest here.
Greg – you have dropped a bunker buster into the midst of the 50 Buck Shale Club convention ….
http://i2.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2011/images/11/16/t1larg.massiveordnancepenet.jpg
There are body parts everywhere …. this is one hell of a mess you’re rained down on these folks….
Glenn? …………………… Glenn????? …………………….. are you still there?
Go get ’em FE. They must return to Delusistan.
“Leaner and meaner” refers to current shale production techniques versus prior shale production techniques. Comparing shale to conventional or talking about how quickly a shale well depletes, will not change the fact that they have learned how to more efficiently extract shale oil.
So producing shale oil is lower cost than conventional oil?
Neither of them will win in the long run, however. The question is, “Who is ahead now?”
So….
The sexy rocks in petroleum geology have always been porous sandstones and limestones, easy formations eager to surrender their goods. In contrast, black shales, the original wellspring of all petroleum wealth, have been neglected, even though geologists knew them to be everywhere.
Yes, you could drill them, and a few did, but generally you were pouring money down a rat hole.
Shales are stubborn, stingy, and impermeable. Their physics are torturous. The pore throats, or passageways, of some shales are barely bigger than a single methane molecule. Until very recently, trying to harvest gas from shale was like trying to breathe through Saran Wrap, an exhausting enterprise with no upside.
http://www.resilience.org/stories/2013-02-25/the-shale-phenomenon-fabulous-miracle-with-a-fatal-flaw/
Big Oil left the shale oil in the rocks that formed the reservoirs — because it was too expensive a process to extract….
What a huge mistake! They sold off the leases leaving behind billions of barrels of cheap to extract oil!!!
And now they are stuck with their legacy conventional wells — and production costs of well over $100…. and they are headed for bankruptcy ….
And watching enviously as shale companies make money at the measly price of $50.
Who would have thought that blasting rock — pumping in sand and water and chemicals — into thousands of holes in the ground — would have been cheaper than just sinking a few holes and waiting for the oil to gush out.
Well Bloomberg and the FT and CNBC and the entire MSM is saying it is so — therefore it must be so.
A little bit of this going on Shalies?
http://mindbodycoach.org/wp-content/uploads/2014/02/coping-thoughts.jpg
Pingback: Daily Reading #79 | thinkpatriot
Now that armageddon is getting closer, there’s no one way to look at it which is correct. Everything moves up in the same motion, everything moves down in the same motion. Allowing, of course, for the various nodes to defend themselves and proclaim themselves immune from the systemic contagion.
Perhaps from our viewpoint, peak oil + debt based financial collapse is the correct version, (which amounts to global net energy becoming zero to negative) but one could just as easily look at other indicators like population, declining returns on complexity/technology, cultural and political fragmentation, religion and racial conflict, etc., and all of them basically point to the same picture…we are nearing the end of our system.
Unfortunately, I think you are correct. We are dealing with a self-organized system, and all pieces head the same direction.
I have the solution people.
Man cannot save himself.
Only Jesus can save him now.
The tribulation will be a naturally occurring event.
The lake of fire will be the oil wells under Kuwait.
Proof Armageddon Will Happen:
https://penzu.com/p/5a59bb84
If I click that link is Jesus going to infect my computer?
I would ask the Talking Snake (my go to guy when dealing with Iron Age Fiction).
He hangs out with the Rib Woman under that Magical Tree.
Perhaps. There are a lot of views regarding the end times.
Reblogged this on Por mis finanzas and commented:
Muy interesante, Nos da una idea de la crisis energética que se avecina.
Thanks!
Pingback: Breaking News And Best Of The Web - DollarCollapse.com
Gail, I’d be interested to hear, perhaps in a subsequent post, an analysis of the impact of alternatives to our current models of electric consumption. Specifically, I’m thinking about the assumptions in our built environment. Typical buildings are not very energy efficient — they were constructed in an era with different assumptions about energy sources, availability and comfort. We know in our own history and in different cultures the energy consumption of buildings was lower and the assumptions about how to achieve comfort were different.
Presently we know how to build much more energy efficient buildings using super insulation and radiant heating strategies. I understand that replacing or converting the existing building stock has its own energetic implications, but I’m wondering about how current assumptions about building energy use factor in your analysis and how it might change if those assumptions were different.
It seems to me that you are thinking about the problem, by going in the wrong direction.
There are two directions we can go:
(1) More energy intensity in the building; less day to day use of fuel.
(2) Temporary buildings, with very little energy intensity; only as many of these buildings as we can really support, with available fuel supplies.
There is no way we can build and maintain (1). The buildings are likely to be in the wrong place, once we build them, and our needs change. Or someone will throw a stone through a few windows, and replacement windows won’t be available. The “less fuel” that is needed won’t really be available, because the supply chain will not work. The price will be too low to justify the cost of production.
Instead, we will need to rely on our own resources, to build the simple buildings we can afford to build and heat. We can’t build very many of them. Thus, the population will likely need to be lower. Option (2) is our only real alternative, unfortunately. Peak Oilers have told the wrong story about how the economy works. This story has been believed by most sustainability groups. But it is not really a feasible outcome, because prices fall too low, rather than rise too high.
I think it’s interesting how many are unable to comprehend why intermittent renewable power can never replace fossil fuel based power. Beyond the simple EROEI comparative discussion is the issue of how markets are actually made which most don’t understand. First of all Supply Side and Demand Economics are actually the same thing. Either you subsidize the production through capital creation or you subsidized the consumption through capital creation. There is no difference between the two other than political froth. Capital creation is not economy, surplus energy is. Reaganomics was not successful because of any policy change, rather a huge reduction in the cost of oil that resulted from highly efficient production (ie Saudi). The Soviet System collapsed not because of the low oil price rather a production slump because of not having access to Enhanced Oil Recovery technology which they received after the 1991 collapse and explains Russia’s present surplus now. It’s important to understand how things work. Anyone who has a bird feeder knows more about economic theory then all the economists at The Federal Reserve.
If you ever bought a bird feeder what is the first thing you’re told? You have to be committed. Why? Because the birds will grow to depend on the supply of food. If we have ever had a bird feeder we have learn this to be true. When you first set it up and fill it with seed it takes a few days to attract birds to it. If we are committed to it by filling it each day the birds will become more and more regular until they reach equilibrium with the supply being offered. Now if we are not committed and only fill the feeder occasionally maybe a day or two each week the birds will adjust accordingly. They come less often, if at all and once again reach equilibrium with the supply. So what is the point? Supply creates Demand. The Temper Tantrum economics that the majority of the world relies on believes that Demand will create Supply. That’s why people will protest in Greece and Detroit over pension funding. They can’t comprehend that the system is broke and their Demand for Supply won’t reward them with the candy they desire.
So how does this apply to renewable power? Like a bird feeder that is regularly supplied with seed, the same holds for any product that generates economic activity. For example if a company builds a 100mw coal fired plant he can guarantee 100mw of power 24/7 365 days of the year. Let’s say that the plant only has a 50mw demand load. The owner has a problem called under utilization or over capacity. Economically this is a huge problem for him because his fixed cost is based on total production design. The rate of depreciation now is spread over an unproductive portion of capital investment. In addition to that, the efficiency of electrical production declines under partial load conditions. So he must create demand through pricing or expanding his market with additional grid ties. It has been in this way that the whole US grid has spontaneously developed. But this only possible because of the stable supply offered by a coal fired plant, or similar stable source. You cannot create or find demand without a stable supply. Even Birds know this. Once the supply becomes intermittent as it is with renewable energy the demand will shrink. This plays a big part in any EROEI comparative assessment just like an underutilized coal plant wind and solar depreciation is spread over the unproductive resource. You simply can’t jigger the system to make it work because you have lost control of the supply and therefore you have lost control of the demand. The belief that, surely renewable energy will have to work because we have no other choice, is Temper Tantrum Economics.
Now it’s worth adding that Supply has and will always precede demand. This was true with anthracite, petroleum, smart phones, and if your wife (or your husband) shops at TJ Max. So Demands never precede or are never met with Supply which proves the opportunistic nature of humans as a species. The same as with Birds if a supply ceases to be available they either die or migrate, or migrate then die. We see this happening consistently in the world today. Another vital point to understand is that the cost of production is what sets the price of a good or service, not Supply and Demand. If you have spent thousands of dollars getting your Masters Degree in Business or Economics and are now flipping hamburgers at McDonalds, you likely believed the garbage they taught you. The reality is the cost of production defines the lower price boundary of any good or service and all goods and service will be priced at or just above that boundary. There are no exceptions to this rule. Energy has historically been priced at this boundary, particularly oil, unaffected by the net return on value to the economies it has served for the last 150 years. Energy is also unaffected by the dependency that has resulted from its use. In effect energy has no feelings. So in a world that is consistently being driven more by feeling then reason, which explains the present gender confusion, we are about to enter the greatest Temper Tantrum period ever seen. People will all demand their right to an energy system that no longer exists. This will be incomprehensible to the vast majority. And by majority we’re talking 99.9999% even policy makers can’t grasp it. Now the importance of understanding the lower price boundary is that when it is broken there is very little time left for any production. In essence the system is in liquidation, turn out the lights, close the door, and take down the shingle, you’re out of business. Oil crashed through the lower boundary in 2014. It will not and cannot recover. Like the Titanic it will list for a time but then will suddenly break in two and sink like a rock.
JT Roberts said:
I don’t think the answer is (a) or (b), but all of the above.
A very good lecture on this can be found by the heterodox economist, Steve Keen, here:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kUdzH47Mpow
As Keen explains, none of the reigning, dominant economic belief systems — Classical, Marxist, Neoclassical, Post-Keynesian o Kummel-Ayres-Voudouris — takes into account energy inputs:
https://s27.postimg.org/merx3lprn/Captura_de_pantalla_543.png
Keene concludes that we need economic theories that take into account not only labor and capital, but also energy inputs and technological innovation, and that “income and wealth…is fundamentally created by the exploitation of free energy.”
https://s28.postimg.org/6bjd0hwx9/Captura_de_pantalla_544.png
Keen is one of the few that gets it. But even he understands limits to growth and the eventual economic collapse. He is right about a debt jubilee band aid though and if the politicians get it they’ll play it for all it’s worth. The uneducated masses who still believe that money is true wealth will all be dancing on the tracks when the thermodynamic express comes through. Marx is one Keen often quotes and his labor theory postulates that labor eventually reaches subsistence level then declines below that which is very messy. Energy is labor it is labors leverage the same holds true for energy. That’s why cost of production has and will set pricing. Keen also refers to the Physiocrates who viewed agricultural surplus as the only true wealth generation. If we just say that surplus agriculture is simply surplus energy haven’t we made Tim Morgan’s case? Debt has been a wonderful tool to bring us past the natural decline rates and has kept the system functioning till now but it has a hard limit and it is no longer able to grow GDP as Keen points out. Debts that can’t be paid won’t be. Really if we’re honest the planning and choices being made now are irrelevant it’s all froth. The market mechanisms are all cooked in it does not matter which economic camp we follow it won’t work.
JT Roberts said:
This is sometimes true, but not always true.
The way oil prices have been set since 1935 provides the perfect example as to how your rule doesn’t always apply. Oil prices have been kept high — well above the cost of extraction — by restricting supply. The book to read is Bless the Pure & the Humble by Nicholas George Malavis.
The chore of restricting the supply of oil fell mostly upon the Texas Railroad Commission from 1935 until the 1970s, at which time it passed to OPEC.
I’ll give you that example in the short term but it never was a market value function. It was rather collusion to control price swings. The Federal Reserve had a similar function in currency. If we look at it more broadly any surplus created by WTI or OPEC was absorbed by future investment in production which is still cost of production. This includes E&P as well as EOR.
To add to that — shale oil ‘flooded’ the market long before the price crashed to 30 bucks…
The price of oil is exactly where the central banks want it to be — not too low as to result in the near term collapse of the industry —- not too high as to result in a massive recession and collapse of BAU.
JT Roberts said:
This is what happens when the market is allowed to work freely, which in oil markets since 1935 has seldom been the case.
Nevertheless, it is what we are seeing happen now. It looks like the cost of extraction of that marginal barrel of oil from shale, what with Fracking 2.0 and Fracking 3.0, is going to be somewhere in the $40 to $60 range, and there are vast reserves of oil that can be produced in that cost range.
If there are no unexpected supply disruptions (like Trump cutting off Iran’s 4 million BOPD of supply with new sanctions), it looks like we’re looking at a maximum price of oil of around $70 for a number of years into the future, maybe for a couple of decades.
http://investors.pxd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=90959&p=irol-presentations
https://s30.postimg.org/8uasf4fwx/Captura_de_pantalla_552.png
Shale oil and gas wells have rapid decline and depletion rates. According to Pete Stark, a geologist and analyst at IHS, Inc., production from the average shale oil well declines by 50 to 78 percent after its first year, and by 50 to 75 percent after the first year for shale gas wells.Jun 2, 2014
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/The-Questionable-Staying-Power-Of-The-U.S.-Shale-Boom.html
A former Canadian government geoscientist has just published new research showing that US shale oil and gas production has peaked
https://medium.com/insurge-intelligence/us-shale-boom-has-peaked-says-former-govt-geoscientist-4c2d23c7412f#.dvc3ok5hj
Arthur Berman: Why Today’s Shale Era Is The Retirement Party For Oil Production A leading geologist delivers the hard facts: February 7, 2015
http://www.artberman.com/arthur-berman-why-todays-shale-era-is-the-retirement-party-for-oil-production-a-leading-geologist-delivers-the-hard-facts-february-7-2015/
Collapse Of Shale Gas Production Has Begun
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Steve-1.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Steve-2.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Steve-3.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Steve-4.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Steve-5.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Steve-3.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/01/Steve-8.jpg
Fast Eddy,
Comparing the well performance achieved with the latest drilling and fracking technology to that of June 2014 (your first reference) or February 2015 (your second reference) is like comparing the performance of an iphone 5 to an iphone 7. The new wells completed with Fracking 3.0 are producing at rates about double those completed with Fracking 1.0, with reserve figures doubling too. Also, the number of days required to drill a well has also declined significantly, bringing drilling costs down.
Why do you believe it is that Texas oil production has already turned the corner and is on the upswing again, and this with an oil price between $40 and $50 per barrel?
http://peakoilbarrel.com/texas-update-january2017/
https://s29.postimg.org/fsm0x6yt3/Captura_de_pantalla_558.png
Fast Eddy,
And this increase in production has been achieved with a rig count about 1/3 of what it was in November 2014.
Things have changed since November 2014, and they’ve changed a lot. The articles you are citing are now obsolete.
Are you suggesting that Kopits info is out of date and wrong — that oil production break even is not $120 — rather $50 — because of better technologies?
If that is the case then feel free to explain this:
END OF THE U.S. MAJOR OIL INDUSTRY ERA: Big Trouble At ExxonMobil
The era of the mighty U.S. major oil industry is coming to an end as the country’s largest petroleum company is in big trouble. While ExxonMobil has been the most profitable U.S. oil company in the past, it suffered its worst year on record.
For example, just four years ago, ExxonMobil enjoyed a $45 billion net income profit in 2012. Now compare that to a total $5 billion net income gain for the first three-quarters of 2016. If Exxon continues to report disappointing results for the remainder of the year, its net income will have declined a stunning 85% since 2012.
Actually, the situation at Exxon is much worse if we dig a little deeper.
Profitability Is Much Less When We Factor in Capital Expenditures
To understand the real profitability of a company we have to look at its cash flow, or what is known as free cash flow. Free cash flow is calculated by deducting capital expenditures (CAPEX) from the company’s cash from operations. ExxonMobil’s free cash flow declined from $24.4 billion in 2011 to $1 billion for the first nine months of 2016:
So, here we can see that Exxon’s free cash flow of $1 billion (2016 YTD) is down 95% from $24.4 billion in 2011. The reason for the rapidly falling free cash flow is due to skyrocketing capital expenditures and falling oil prices. But, this is only part of the picture.
If we include dividend payouts, Exxon’s financial situation drops down another notch. While free cash flow does not include dividend payouts, the money Exxon pays its shareholders must come from its available cash. By including dividend payouts, the company was $8.3 billion in the hole in 2015:
Now, even though Exxon stated a $45 billion net income for 2012, its free cash flow minus dividends was only $11.5 billion. Moreover, the company didn’t make any money in 2013 or 2014 after dividends were paid to their shareholders. Thus, deducting dividends from the equation provides a more realistic picture, especially since Exxon has been forking out serious sums of money to its shareholders.
That being said, there seems to be something seriously wrong going on at Exxon when we look at the long-term chart below:
More https://srsroccoreport.com/end-of-the-u-s-major-oil-industry-era-big-trouble-at-exxonmobil/
Are you saying that shale is cheaper to extract than conventional?
And if so then would you recommend that Exxon and the other majors that are all on the verge of collapse not bother with the conventional oil — should they flare it off like natural gas….
Then just frack the oil that remains in the rock formations?
Ahem. This article published at Oilprice.com is from Dec. 2016…is it obsolete too?
Not So Prolific: U.S. Shale Faces A Reality Check
“The collapse of oil prices has forced the U.S. shale industry to slash production costs. In order to improve the “breakeven” costs for the average shale well, the industry has deployed three general strategies: improving techniques and technology, such as drilling longer laterals or using more frac sand; focusing drilling on the sweet spots; and demanding lower prices from oilfield service companies. All three of those strategies led to a decline in the breakeven price for a shale wells.
But while the industry plays up the efficiency gains, highlighting enhanced technology and better management, merely focusing on the sweet spots has been “nearly twice as important as better technology in reducing well costs,…”
The 50 Buck Shale Brigade…. has left the building.
What a bunch of maroons…
http://s3.crackedcdn.com/phpimages/article/2/4/1/106241_v1.jpg
I also see in that article:
This I can believe. They are draining everything they can for a low price. If they want to keep extracting oil, the price will have to move up.
Let’s grab a little more of this and force the 50 Buck Club to read it (they won’t click the link to the article that’s for sure…)
The collapse of oil prices has forced the U.S. shale industry to slash production costs. In order to improve the “breakeven” costs for the average shale well, the industry has deployed three general strategies: improving techniques and technology, such as drilling longer laterals or using more frac sand; focusing drilling on the sweet spots; and demanding lower prices from oilfield service companies. All three of those strategies led to a decline in the breakeven price for a shale wells.
But while the industry plays up the efficiency gains, highlighting enhanced technology and better management, merely focusing on the sweet spots has been “nearly twice as important as better technology in reducing well costs,” as The Post Carbon Institute (PCI) notes in a report published on Monday, “2016 Tight Oil Reality Check.” This is a process known as “high-grading.” In fact, the so-called efficiency gains over the past two years are a lot less impressive once you dig into the causes.
Speaking at the National Oil-equipment Manufacturers and Delegates Society (NOMADS) in Houston a few months ago, IHS Markit’s associate direct for Plays and Basins, Reed Olmstead, poked holes in the notion that the industry has dramatically upended the cost of shale production. He broke down the cost reductions into a few categories: “One of these factors is high-grading, where operators are drilling only the better acreage,” said Olmstead. “This item accounted for about 35% of the break-even price reduction.” Arm-twisting oilfield service companies accounted for another 40% of the lower break-even price. Meanwhile, operational efficiencies – the things that would ensure cost reductions are sustained over time – only accounted for 20 percent of the savings, while learning in the field made up an additional 6 percent of the cost reductions.
In other words, about three-quarters of the cost reductions have come from trends that will not ultimately improve the overall recovery of oil. First of all, oilfield service companies will start demanding higher prices as drilling rebounds, which will lead to a rebound in drilling costs.
But more importantly, even the much-ballyhooed advancements in technology and drilling techniques are a mirage, at least when it comes to the overall recovery of oil from a shale basin, PCI argues in its report. Indeed, shale companies have come up with innovative ways to make shale wells more productive, but while drilling longer laterals and improving the recovery of the average well is great for an individual company, it doesn’t necessarily mean that more oil will ultimately be recovered from the entire basin.
“Longer horizontal laterals with higher volume treatments drain more area and reduce the ultimate number of wells that can be drilled without interference,” the report concludes. Sucking more oil out of an average well will simply frontload recovery – instead of the same oil being recovered from more wells over time, it is being recovered much more quickly from fewer wells. The same is true for high-grading – drilling the best spots today makes it appear as if the basin is getting more productive, leaving the markets with the impression that the shale play can produce indefinitely. But maybe we are just burning through finite reserves at an accelerated rate.
Even if production is to continue to rise, it will require steadily higher crude oil prices. Not only will the underlying resources deplete faster from accelerating recovery, but producing the best oil during times of low prices means that “progressively higher prices will be needed, along with much higher drilling rates, to access poorer quality portions of shale plays and maintain production.” We are producing cheap oil today, leaving costly oil for tomorrow.
This is like picking the fruit that has fallen to the ground….and claiming victory…
I am still not buying the $50 break-even… even on the above basis …. there is no bloody way that shale production could be lower cost than conventional….
Glenn, are you sure this $40-$50 price point is not due to DUCs? Drilled but Un Completed wells. A well that was drilled in that last Shale Rush, but then capped, and sold of at a fraction of its “cost”. Now a new company gets a “new” well at almost no cost, so sure, easier to make a profit @$40-$50. We need to compare apples to apples and make sure this profit @$40 to $50 is on newly drilled wells, not wells that have been drilled already and the wellhead costs already written off. Are we including the price to rebuild the road system these Fracking 3.0 trucks are destryoying? Or do the oil companies make a profit and leave the state to fix the destroyed roads out of Taxpayer bucks? What about all the damage the fracking wastewater / leaking old wells is doing to the the environment/drinking water supply. I think there may be a town that has to get all its drinking water trucked in cause the public water supply was contaminted?
Fracking 2.0 and 3.0 sure seem to have some nifty new tricks up their sleeve, but it also seems like they may be trying to pull a fast one or two.
Any public shale companies making a profit? Last one I looked at was eating $250 million a quarter. Its easy for a private company to make a profit on paper, they don’t have to show you the books. Let’s see the books of one of these profitable shale public companies and see what’s really going on…
psile,
If one follows the references used in the Oil Price story you linked, one finds this chart:
https://s30.postimg.org/md494kkgh/ihs_markit.jpg
The chart ends in January 2016, so it is already a year out of date. Shale oil producers are now experimenting with Fracking 3.0, so they’ve already moved on from the results illustrated in the chart (which captures the performance enhancement achieved using Fracking 2.0). Early testing reveals that wells completed using Fracking 3.0 are outperforming those completed with Fracking 2.0, it looks like by 20 or 30%.
Nevertheless, one can clealry see the great gains which have been made in well performance in the two years between January 2014 and January 2016. In the Permian, using the metric IHS uses in the chart, well performance increased by about 65% during that period. That’s no small feat.
Just what is it about this that Nick Cunningham — a “Vermont-based writer on energy and environmental issues” — and the rest of the anti-energy left doesn’t understand?
The experience of the oil majors, outside the shale areas, hasn’t changed all that much since 2014, however. The major are in no rush to come back into the market, with the small uptick in oil price.
I am skeptical that your metaphor that the difference between two models of a consumer electronic device over a three year period applies to depletion of a physical resource. The differences between two consumer electronic devices may well be radical as that is a function entirely controlled by its design and implementation in a manufacturing process. Fracking oil that has been undisturbed for millions of years underneath the earth is not subject to the whims of a design or engineering process. Could you please cite what differences in the oil extraction method known as fracking have occurred that support your claim of reduced depletion rates?
Part of your problem is that you do not understand what shale oil is…. Fracking involves high tech costly processes to get at the oil that remains in depleted oil reservoirs…. essentially smashing the rock to free up the oil that could not be extracted by conventional methods… sucking up the dregs….
http://www.explainthatstuff.com/fracking.html
Try googling fracked oil depletion rates…
US Shale Oil: drilling productivity and decline rates
http://euanmearns.com/us-shale-oil-drilling-productivity-and-decline-rates/
Bakken Decline Rates Worrying For Drillers
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Bakken-Decline-Rates-Worrying-For-Drillers.html
My take on shale is this.
When conventional oil peaked — the ‘shale revolution’ kicked in soon after.
It is not as if shale oil was a new thing — Big Oil knew about it for decades — it is effectively slurping up the dregs of old oil wells —- an expensive process.
But it was determined by the central banks that this needed to be done — just as we needed to extract oil from tar in Alberta even though it is a very expensive process.
The MSM got on board — and the financing was made available so that fracking happened.
I see Big Oil losing money hand over fist with oil at $50 — yet I am to believe that shale plays are profitable at $50.
Now I find that really strange — if shale oil was cheaper than conventional plays — then pray tell why Big Oil left all that easy to extract oil in the ground when their conventional properties played out?
I call bull shit.
Steven Kopits from Douglas-Westwood said the productivity of new capital spending has fallen by a factor of five since 2000. “The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120,” he said
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
Claiming $50 break even is like Apple claiming that its cost to produce an iphone would be the sum total of the actual parts + labour — say $200. So that if they sold at $201 they turn a profit.
If anyone does not understand how that is bull shit — and need me to explain how that is just wrong — then you probably have trouble tying your shoe laces.
I would imagine that we are not being given the full story here.
These are desperate times. Which call for desperate measures.
We have seen that many global corporations are tapping free CB cash which keeps them in business when revenues and profits are falling….
Big Oil companies are borrowing massively at ZIRP to pay dividends… buy back shares … and stay alive…
Given the extreme effort that the central banks went to to make Shale happen — you can bet your life that they will do whatever it takes to keep this Frankenstein alive — just as they are keeping Big Oil alive….
You really should reconsider your reliance on the MSM for information on shale —does not the fact that the MSM referred to scraping the bottom of the oil barrel as ‘Saudi America’ tip you off that this is bull shit?
I recall reading that — and I recall at the time thinking — this sounds too good to be true — and unlike you — I did not accept this pronouncement — I went after the truth …
The MSM can be your friend though — for the most part whatever is written there usually allows you to rule that version out as being the truth.
Fake News applies in huge dosages to the Shale Oil ‘revolution’
Let’s repeat this in case you missed it the first time
Steven Kopits from Douglas-Westwood said the productivity of new capital spending has fallen by a factor of five since 2000. “The vast majority of public oil and gas companies require oil prices of over $100 to achieve positive free cash flow under current capex and dividend programmes. Nearly half of the industry needs more than $120,” he said
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
Fast Eddy,
Well once again, you cite an article from August 2014 to make your case.
The information you are using is completely out of date.
It is obsolete.
I am waiting…. and waiting… and waiting….
For you to reply to my other questions….
I hope the logic in those arguments has not caused you to have a stroke…. in rare instances when facts crash into delusional thinking …. that can happen.
But I heard it from Brian Williams!
Now back to the shoelace dilemma. Is it the right lace over and under or the left lace over and under? Wait don’t tell me I know I can figure this one out on my own.
https://img.clipartfest.com/a3c78be19bc96c75e80f2bddfc8ad624_15-crazy-smiley-face-clip-art-crazy-smiley-face-clip-art_728-814.jpeg
Once the shoe lace lesson has been absorbed then perhaps we could teach these people to walk.
Which foot goes first when stepping —- is it the left or the right?
Then on to Lesson 3 – how to chew gum.
The price cannot exceed what people can afford. We will be lucky if the world economy can afford $70 per barrel. Affordability determines how much oil can be extracted. Without enough energy from all sources, the world economy collapses.
“Oil crashed through the lower boundary in 2014.”
Why?
I don’t think there’s any mystery there. The U.S. shale producers flooded the world oil markets with oil, and the growth in oil consumption wasn’t fast enough to absorb all the new production they were bringing on line.
https://s23.postimg.org/ghntcx2nf/Captura_de_pantalla_1253.png
lack of DEMAND?
There was no change on the DEMAND side.
The only change was on the SUPPLY side.
https://s28.postimg.org/qsbge99st/Captura_de_pantalla_354.png
https://s23.postimg.org/spkzrusgb/Captura_de_pantalla_99.png
You don’t get it at all. THERE WAS NO DEMAND FOR EXPENSIVE OIL, there was and still is plenty of demand for cheap conventional oil. Shale oil was/is expensive oil, it’s why they are going out of business. The world needs cheap, easy to produce oil. I would buy more of the most expensive cuts of steak if it was cheaper……
If there was no change in demand, how did consumption (from more supply) increase? Unless it’s going into storage it’s being consumed. Keep in mind the graph is showing ‘increase’ in supply & demand above zero. If both are plotted on the graph above zero, then both are increasing.
What is fascinating is for all the talk about increases in renewables, oil consumption keeps rising which means carbon emissions from burning oil continue to rise. This gets back to Jevons Paradox in which more efficient energy usage leads to greater usage of available energy. In other words more renewables just leads to greater overall energy usage. The reason why is because people are always seeking profit and how to leverage the system to generate more profit, which leads to confirmation of Jevons Paradox.
Stilgar Wilcox,
In the vernacular of the International Energy Agency, Demand = Consumption.
What goes into or comes out of storage the IEA marks up under “Stock” changes.
https://www.iea.org/oilmarketreport/omrpublic/currentreport/
If one has followed the montly IEA Oil Market Reports over the past few years, one can see that there has been inexorable, constant growth in Consumption since 2009.
Like I said, there has been no change on the Demand side: Growth in oil consumption has been steady since 2009. The change ocurred on the Supply side.
bandits101 says:
Going out of business?
Back in 2010, Concho Resources bought out Marbob Energy’s 158,117 net acres in the Delaware Basin for $1.65 billion. That amounted to $10,443 per acre.
Now, acreage in the Delaware Basin is selling for an average of $49,000 per acre.
That’s a five-fold increase in the cost of acreage between 2010 and now.
Why do you believe the price of drilling leases has increased five-fold over the last six years in the Delaware Basin, and even more in the Midland Basin?
Could it be that companies buy into the hype of Saudi America?
Happens to even the biggest most savvy players….. when Exxon bought shale play XTO…. their market cap dropped basically the same amount as the purchase price (seems investors didn’t buy into the hype)….
And they are still writing that disaster off…
http://www.businessinsider.com/r-exxon-boosts-capital-budget-but-takes-2-billion-charge-from-xto-deal-2017-1/?r=AU&IR=T
Clearly an increase in production from the US and Iraq were pivotal in the collapse of oil prices but Gail made the case that so was a fall in demand relative to where producers would have expected it to be:
“If oil producers had planned for 2014 oil consumption based on the recent past growth in oil consumption growth, they would have overshot by about 1,484 million tons of oil equivalent (MTOE), or about 324,000 barrels per day. If this entire drop in oil consumption came in the second half of 2014, the overshoot would have been about 648,000 barrels per day during that period. Thus, the mismatch we are have recently been seeing between oil consumption and supply appears to be partly related to falling demand, based on BP’s data.”
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2015/06/23/bp-data-suggests-we-are-reaching-peak-energy-demand/
Also interesting is that the ‘half-price’ oil bonanza of recent years has not *increased* demand growth globally and nor has it dramatically stimulated economic growth or led to any deleveraging of debt – further evidence, if any were needed, that even circa $50 oil is not cheap enough for the system as it stands.
It has been a truism of the American economy for decades: When oil prices rise, the economy suffers; when they fall, growth improves.
But the decline of oil prices over the last two years has failed to deliver the usual economic benefits.
As oil prices have fallen to levels not seen since 2003 — sagging below $27 a barrel on Wednesday before rebounding to about $30 on Thursday — many experts now say they do not expect lower prices to bolster the domestic economy significantly in 2016.
“We got this wrong,” John C. Williams, president of the Federal Reserve Bank of San Francisco, told an audience in Santa Barbara, Calif., this month.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/22/business/energy-environment/this-time-cheaper-oil-does-little-for-the-us-economy.html?_r=0
The old rules no longer apply — the economy was gutted in 2008 — and is on life support.
The situation is not that much different from kicking an old nag of a horse that only wants to lay down and die …. you kick him and he’ll get up and walk a little further…. then he tries to lie down again and you kick him and he ignores you so you take the lash to him…. he might even gallop for a bit… but then he tries to lay down again ignoring the lash ….. you pull out a syringe filled with a cocktail of adrenaline speed liquid crack and pump that into him…. he bucks and bellows for a bit … then he lays down again …. and no matter what you do to him … no matter what you give him…. he will not get up again … he barely flinches …. death cannot come soon enough.
Why wasn’t the growth fast enough?
Hell, I don’t know.
Why did the sun set last night in the west and rise this morning in the east?
I’m just pointing out what has happened.
Diminishing returns for investment; wages of workers not rising fast enough to afford goods and services made with oil product (such as houses), end of Quantitative Easing by the US slightly changed interest relativities among countries. It no longer made sense to borrow US dollars to invest elsewhere. The lack of growth in debt (as measured in US dollars) was part of what held growth back.
The true cost of production of an average barrel is $81.00. More than that in real sustainable cost. So we’re in liquidation.
JT Roberts,
The “true cost of production” of an average barrel of Angola deepwater may approach $81.00, but the cost to produce an average barrel of shale oil is between $40 (Permian) and $60 (Bakken). ( http://investors.pxd.com/phoenix.zhtml?c=90959&p=irol-presentations )
The economically recoverable reserves of shale oil in the United States at an oil price of $70 are enormous, and when that’s gone then there’s Mexico, whose shale oil and natural gas reserves could very well dwarf those of the United States.
The U.S. Energy Information Agency conducted a study back in 2013 which concluded that Mexico’s shale natural gas reserves were sixth in the world and its shale oil reserves were seventh in the world.
However, a great deal has changed since 2013. There have been significant improvements in drilling and fracking technology since then, and more data is now available that helps to flesh out Mexico’s shale potential. Mexico’s propinquity to the United States could also prove to be highly advantageous to the exploitation of these reserves.
As this recent article in the Oil & Gas Journal explains, more recent information indicates that Mexico’s shale oil and gas reserves could be significantly greather than the EIA estimated back in 2013.
The 2013 EIA study found 104 billion boe of risked, technically recoverable resources in Mexico. That in itself is no small number. Consider, for instance, that Saudi Arabia only has about 260 billion boe of proved oil reserves.
With Fracking 2.0 and Fracking 3.0, and the more recent data collected on Mexico’s shale reservoirs, I would not be surprised if Mexico’s shale oil and gas reserves are now in the 200 to 300 boe range — in the same range as Saudi Arabia!!!!
Maybe one has to be in the oil and gas business and have knowledge of what’s going on in the U.S shale plays to understand the enormity of Mexico’s shale oil and gas potential. As the Oil & Gas Journal article explains, one of Mexico’s shale formations, the Pimienta, is 1000 km long, between 50 and 200 km wide, and maybe have more than 200 meters of shale thickness, double the typical Eagle Ford thickness in South Texas.
Oil & Gas Journal: New bid round accelerates Mexico’s shale potential
http://www.ogj.com/articles/print/volume-114/issue-6/exploration-and-development/new-bid-round-accelerates-mexico-s-shale-potential.html
One of the confusing things in all of this is the high level of taxes that somehow need to be paid, but are not usually listed in these reports. These are a couple of slides from a 2013 presentation I gave (back when oil prices were higher). Quite a bit of the taxes are fixed amounts. In North Dakota, the state tax rate depends on the price of oil. As I recall, there is a single price break, so there is only a choice of “low” or “high.” Taxes did drop down to the low price with the drop in price. I am guessing that they would rise again to the higher prices at $60 per barrel. I believe that the government take amounts shown on the second slide are based on North Dakota taxes, plus federal taxes
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/oil-and-gas-company-taxes-as-pct-of-government-revenue-estimate-in-2013.png
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/high-taxes-play-a-role-in-the-us_-2013-analysis.png
Thanks for the short list for project Whatever It Takes
Mr Tillerson will of course have brought this list with him to the white house.
Perhaps this is what the open borders policy in Europe is all about – get those nasty brown people committing atrocities then wipe the whole lot of them out — then of course there is Trumps ludicrous ban on Muslims (I wonder if his list of countries matches the one below?)
Imagine the PR benefits of another 911 episode right now….
I can hear in the streets of New York ‘JUST DO IT DONALD — JUST DO IT DONALD — JUST DO IT DONALD — USA USA USA USA’
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T2l47jTKB38
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/11/oil-and-gas-company-taxes-as-pct-of-government-revenue-estimate-in-2013.png
Rule nothing out.
I meant to paste only the top of that chart — ending with Iraq….
That said — I can see the pleasure that many would get from including the US — but that won’t happen as that would collapse BAU — these other countries are full of useless feeders —- we could incinerate every last one of them —- and so long as the oil was secured —- we would not notice the loss.
‘But we must kill them. We must incinerate them. Pig after pig. Cow after cow. Village after village. Army after army.’
Gail,
If one drills a well on University of Texas land (which is public land — the University of Texas owns about a million acres in the Permian Basin) one would be subject to the following royalty and tax regime:
So the total government take is most likely somewhere around 40% to 45% of gross sales.
After Hillary Clinton rammed through the privitization of Mexico’s oil industry while she was Secretary of State, private companies can now lease lands from the Mexican government and drill oil and gas wells.
I have not, however, been able to discover just how much the Mexican government’s take on these lands will be. Such is the way things work when one has a government as corrupt and opaque as that of Mexico.
The Mexican government, however, does not have a good track record in this regard. Where Mexico has allowed other minerals to be extracted by private companies, like silver (Mexico is the world’s biggest silver producer) and gold, the government’s take is a measly 2 or 3%.
Some U.S. oil and gas folks are concerned that Trump’s anti-Mexicanism could backfire, and that Trump could wreck Clinton’s carefully laid plans for future US participation in Mexico’s energy party, which most oil and gas people agree will be no small thing.
There’s a good video on how the transnational companies rob countries of their natural resources by reducing their take to almost nothing:
Stealing Africa – Why Poverty?
That is a good documentary – I have seen it some time ago.
When I first watched it I abhorred what Glencore was doing …. I actually met Simon Murray CEO of Glencore (he was sponsoring an ice hockey tournament I was playing in when I lived in Asia)… Can’t recall if he was with Glencore then (I think Hutchison…) but if I’d seen that video I’d have felt like I was shaking hands with the devil….
That must have been when I thought the New York Times was not a propaganda rag…. and solar energy was viable (I spent a little time in DelusiSTAN in my 30’s….)
Anyway — I have no problem with Robbing Africa….
They are weak — we are strong — therefore we should take from them….. because it’s a zero sum game and there is not enough for everyone.
If we don’t thrash these primitive people then the Chinese will — or the Russians —- which could lead to us becoming weak — and then we’d be thrashed and our large lifestyles would vanish….
That would suck. Big Time. Instead of dreaming of a private jet I’d be dreaming of a push bike…
Here’s the documentary for those who are interested:
I have heard that the Mexican government badly needed funds, so left Pemex with little money to upgrade refineries or drill new wells.
Quite often, taxes depend on how much governments think that they can reasonably get away with. Canadian Oil Sands taxes have been relatively low, because the cost of extraction is high, relative to what they can sell the price for.
This article gives the result of leasing in December 2016: http://www.oilandgas360.com/mexico-successfully-completes-first-deepwater-gom-auction/
http://www.bizjournals.com/sanantonio/news/2016/12/05/historic-offshore-lease-near-u-s-mexico-border-to.html
It does look like there will be some more production in the GOM. We will have to see how Trump’s policies work out.
I talked to a guy from Saudi Arabia, a former Aramco employee who was well off and visiting his two college aged sons in the USA. He didn’t believe that Saudi Arabian oil would peak anytime soon. I would guess that is a dominant belief in Saudi Arabia which is probably hurting their adoption of solar. They are probably the best place in the world for solar. And there is some storage or night time production with concentrated solar (mirrors heating water).
And I recall speaking to an employee of Haliburton at a bar in Bali a few years ago — he was regaling me with tales of ‘you can’t imagine the technology we are using these days to get the oil out — we won’t run out any time soon’
I pointed out that running out was not the problem — it was the high cost of extraction that was the problem.
And I got one of those blanks stares.
Don’t expect to much from someone – particularly if their living is dependent on oil not running out.
Let’s visit The Fast Eddy Library:
THE TRUTH BEHIND SAUDI ARABIA’S SPARE CAPACITY
http://www.forbes.com/sites/greatspeculations/2011/03/04/the-truth-behind-saudi-arabias-spare-capacity/
THE DECLINE OF THE WORLD’S MAJOR OIL FIELDS
Aging giant fields produce more than half of global oil supply and are already declining as group, Cobb writes. Research suggests that their annual production decline rates are likely to accelerate. http://www.csmonitor.com/Environment/Energy-Voices/2013/0412/The-decline-of-the-world-s-major-oil-fields
Why the Oil Industry is Running Into Major Trouble
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2014/06/joe-costello-oil-industry-running-major-trouble.html
WORLD IS SLEEPWALKING TO A GLOBAL ENERGY CRISIS
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2014/jan/17/peak-oil-oilandgascompanies
Oil and gas company debt soars to danger levels to cover shortfall in cash
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
FORMER BP GEOLOGIST: PEAK OIL IS HERE AND IT WILL ‘BREAK ECONOMIES’
http://www.theguardian.com/environment/earth-insight/2013/dec/23/british-petroleum-geologist-peak-oil-break-economy-recession
Gail,
Fascinating info in the link about the results of the Mexican oil and gas leasing round in December. I hadn’t realized that China won two of the blocks.
Maybe that’s one of the reasons why Trump is sore at Mexico? He can’t be very happy about China messing around in the US’s patio atras.
https://s30.postimg.org/9brqtwwwh/Captura_de_pantalla_593.png
https://s23.postimg.org/kkvfcvhaj/Captura_de_pantalla_594.png
https://s28.postimg.org/t4s4wtczh/Captura_de_pantalla_353.png
At what price Glenn at what price?
Technically recoverable means absolutely nothing. If there was oil on the moon it would be technically recoverable. Which presents an interesting opportunity for Wall Street bond markets. Maybe Elon Musk could head that up he seems to understand the perpetual junk bond market he learned it from Madoff.
JT Robers said:
I really can’t speak to price, which depends on markets which are succeptible to manipulation as well as highly irrational market forces.
I can, however, speak of costs.
The Eagle Ford shales have far better reservoir qualities than the Bakken shales, and the Permian Basin shales have far better reservoir qualities than the Eagle Ford shales.
Shale producers are currently extracting oil from Permian for an average cost of $40/barrel and from the Eagle Ford for $50/barrel.
According to the Oil and Gas Journal article, the Pimienta in Mexico has better reservoir qualities than the Eagle Ford, plus it is twice as thick. But my hunch is that the reservoir quality of the Pimienta is not as good as that found in the Permian, and certainly not as thick, since the Permian shales have a thickness of around 4,000 feet.
So my guess is that you’re probably looking at a cost to extract a boe from the Pimienta of about $45 with today’s technology.
$40-$50….
So you believe that the cost to produce shale came down from the $120+ to less then half — since this article was penned in late 2014?
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/11024845/Oil-and-gas-company-debt-soars-to-danger-levels-to-cover-shortfall-in-cash.html
So you believe that the cost to produce shale is less than producing conventional oil?
I am assuming that because Big Oil is losing money on conventional oil — with the price at 50 bucks…. so if shale producers are making money then clearly it is cheaper to produce shale.
There is no logic to your arguments.
I can see that the MSM spin has captured you — you are ignoring facts and logic and simply repeating what they tell you.
JT Roberts,
The rig count in the Permian Basin has almost doubled since April, after the price of oil rose above $40 per barrel.
https://s28.postimg.org/6y1ocx0j1/Captura_de_pantalla_555.png
And oil and gas producers are not massively subsidized by the federal and some state governments the way wind and solar energy producers are.
https://s29.postimg.org/6n9j91f9j/Captura_de_pantalla_557.png
Glenn
It is being subsidized by Wall Street. None of these frackers could exist without the junk bond markets. The real deal is that the pension system is in a yield crisis. If some company will guarantee a dividend they’re all in. Look at the condition of Exxon’s balance sheet. They’re borrowing they’re entire dividend payments. About 1/3 of the shale players are in bankruptcy. Breakeven is not IN BUSINESS. What your witnessing is cannibalation of the entire system to keep it in operation. Any fool who has ever invested in these shale plays will never and I mean never get his equity back. Might as well invested in Madoff. Some investors have figured this out and are pumping their bankrupt plays as fast as possible to limit their losses. Now as to no demand growth. OIL IS TOO EXPENSIVE! Historically oil has been near $20.00 per barrel not $50.00. There is simply not enough net value to drive demand growth. Part of the problem is also the shale “crude” is garbage. It is very light. >.41-45 only 15-20% of US refinery capacity can deal with the stuff. That’s why the export moratorium was lifted so we could ship the garbage elsewhere. It’s not heavy enough to make Diesel its being used mostly as a feed stock for plastic. People have to stop reading headlines and start reading.
You are right that the oil from shale doesn’t make diesel. It has mostly short molecules. We can crack long molecules to make short ones, but we don’t do well at making short molecules into long ones. That is why heavy oil is popular. It can be made into diesel or whatever else is desired. Heavy oil tends to be cheap, also, so that it is worthwhile to crack the long molecules.
I completely agree.
Tesla follows the same formula — hire a good PR firm — create massive hype — fools rush in believing its a gold rush —- even though Tesla losing big bucks on every vehicle they sell — IN SPITE OF MASSIVE SUBSIDIES — the fools continue to rush in — the hype continues to create momentum for something that by all rights should be out of business already
http://davidstockmanscontracorner.com/tesla-bonfire-of-the-money-printers-vanities/
Such things can go on for a very long time — particularly when the central banks are sanctioning them…..but….
‘If something cannot go on forever, it will stop.’
temper tantrum economics—i like that
my version of the same is “being convinced that prosperity can be voted into office”.
good analysis JTR
Yes good one like Truth can be established by consensus. Truth can only be discovered. It’s interesting that only homosapiens have the capacity of irrational thought. Why?
Subscribing, thanks JTR
Excellent comment JT Roberts. Most people, myself included assumed that as oil depleted, relative scarcity would drive the price up to reflect extraction, processing and distribution costs, otherwise why stay in business. People need to remember that we are talking about the next barrel, the marginal barrel, not legacy fields with most of the sunk costs spent decades ago but those fields are depleting 5-8%/yr and EOR is driving their costs up but their cost of production is still far below new wells in the Permian formation in west texas, our so called next marginal barrel. When the price curve dropped below $30 we all knew something was terribly wrong in the oil industry with most of the majors losing money right now.The bit players are defunct or soon to be without rapid price recovery. If the production costs and more importantly the energy costs of oil extraction exceed the delivered energy, it is as you say in Melbourne, game, set, match.Oilfield depletion is a fact of life and new discoveries have not matched world consumption since the US peak oil year of 1970. What does that tell you? The high energy and production costs are every year delivering less wealth and energy surplus to society though low cost oil may be with us for a while until equilibrium sets in. The middle east producers are 75% or more dependent upon oil revenues to feed their restive and feckless hordes and they have to sell the stuff no matter what the price. What else do they produce? I suspect that oil prices potentially could rise to hundreds $/bbl at the tail end of the oil age because there are people who will pay almost any amount but the high cost will abrogate any benefit to society. There are analysts like HSBC and the Hills Group who think that this scenario could be played out in 15 years. We have burned through 1.3 trillion bbl so far but that was easy cheap oil. What;s left will cost us more every year and if we can’t pay it, we’re done unless Orange Hair decides to send in the Marines to secure the oil fields because we need it more than those guys do with their pet falcons and camels.
Funny I just read your whole post 1-7 this morning. Rare birds are getting very rare.
JT the bird analogy is nice and you make the point on price but to simplify and sum up, there is another caveat and that being, the seed must be readily accessible, not on top of Mount Everest for an extreme example. In other words the energy must be plentiful, easy and cheap and of the correct variety…..cheap (pardon the pun). Simply knowing the seed is there is not enough, if too much energy is expended getting to it, the free seed is not as free as it initially appears.
Thanks for your long comment. I added lines between the paragraphs. Otherwise it becomes impossible to read. You might think about making shorter paragraphs, just for online readability.
You make a good point about capital goods being a subsidy. I hadn’t thought of it that way, but we need to use debt or (or shares of stock, which are in many ways like debt) in order to finance capital goods. Without capital goods, there is much less need for debt. Even war is in some sense like a capital good–financed in advance, because of the benefit it might provide. If we had to operate the economy only on solar energy and burned biomass without debt, all of our expenditures would come back as wages. If burning biomass added to our output, goods and services per capita would rise (or population would rise). But debt changes the relationships, and helps move money to “capital owners.” Land ownership does the same thing, and it also is a way of adding debt.
Intermittent output certainly cannot be counted on. In fact, it needs very expensive work-arounds to bring it to the non-intermittent state that is needed. Engineers tend to look at the problem from the point of view of, “Theoretically, can it be done?” Of course it can. It just costs too much. That is what is the deal killer. But that gets left out of the feasibility analyses.
I think supply and demand are more iterative than you indicate. The supply of biomass, coal, oil, gas, uranium, is always in some sense available. Some set of actions has to build up the entire economy in a way that allows these resources to be used. Someone has to have an idea how to make fire with biomass. Someone has to have an idea regarding how fire might be used–cooking, fighting away wild animals, warmth, sharpening tools, etc. The share of human energy that can be devoted to getting these resources is determined by the value that the finished good have to the economy. This puts an upper bound on how much effort can be devoted to obtaining these resources. At the same time, there is also a cost involved. This cost tends to rise over time, as diminishing returns occur. The value of the resource to the economy can also be affected by efficiency efforts. If a more sparing way of using resources can be determined, then more resources can be used to extracting the resource.
The deal-killer comes when the cost of production rises above the value to society. This is when prices tend to fall too low, for commodities of all types. This is what is happening now. It is a sign that the value to society is not as high as the cost of production.
You are at least partly right, about the price of resources being set by the cost of production. I think it is really the marginal cost of production — in other words, the cost of the high cost producer, if this doesn’t rise above the value to society of the resource. If this marginal cost of production on a worldwide basis is above the cost of production for some local producers, the governments are free to tax to the profits for some local producers, to try obtain funds to operate their economies in such a way that they can extract the resources, and to better the life-styles of the people living in the area.
You are right about us living in a world of Temper Tantrum Economics. Many would like to believe that the value to society of intermittent renewables is a great deal more than it really is.
You probably heard of Nikola Tesla…
But chances are, you might not know what was so special about him… that made him an even greater genius than Albert Einstein.
And why he was practically deleted from most history books and text books, forgotten by the very world he dedicated all his life to freeing.
It’s impossible to think of a world without Tesla.
Every time you turn on the TV, or heat a sandwich in your microwave oven, or you make a simple phone call… you’re using Tesla technology.
He’s the uncelebrated discoverer of alternating current (or AC) – the “juice” that’s powering up 99% of today’s appliances.
And although people are remembering Marconi for giving us the radio… it was Tesla who had the first patent for a radio device. In fact, when Marconi made his famous trans-atlantic radio transmission… he was using 17 of Tesla’s patents.
Yet even after coming up with all these amazing inventions that changed the world… Tesla was still unhappy.
He had envisioned AC and the radio as the pure expression of freedom: freedom to be informed, to know what’s going on in the world, to be independent from the elites.
Yet with each day passing by, Tesla was seeing the opposite. Instead of liberating the masses…. the power companies were using his discovery of the AC to enslave people, and to force them to pay unfair monopolistic rates.
So The Inventor Embarked On A Secret Mission.
His grand plan: to provide the entire world with free energy… so that the people won’t have to pay thousands of dollars a year, for power that should be free.
Without his backers’ knowledge, he intended to develop a small, simple device that would cost under $500, and that people could use to get free electricity forever… save tens of thousands of dollars over a lifetime, and effectively bankrupt the power companies.
He had all the reasons to believe this would work. In fact, Tesla was quoted as saying…
“Electric power is everywhere present in unlimited quantities, and can drive the world’s machinery without the need for coal, oil or gas”.
But the big banks, especially his main sponsor, billionaire J.P. Morgan, knew very well what this meant.
Free electricity was something that the electric companies couldn’t meter… couldn’t sell… and couldn’t make any money from.
So when he started working on his Wardenclyffe Tower project, Tesla told his backers that this would be an experiment on wireless telephony.
In fact, little did everyone know that the inventor was secretly working on something way bigger: a device that would not only “capture” the immense cosmic energy that had never been tapped before… but also turn it into free electricity that anyone could use to power up their homes.
dont forget about his deathray and the ‘tunguska event’ tesla was a genius well before his time the only thing that doesn’t make sense is why free energy is non-existent in today’s age
Well, because of the First Law of Thermodynamics?
“the only thing that doesn’t make sense is why free energy is non-existent in today’s age”
Wow….really? Read the article, perhaps?
free lunches were on yesterday’s menu
pity you missed it—we had crowds in
Every bit of electricity that Tesla worked with came from fossil fuels directly or indirectly. Characterization of Big energy as “evil” along with elaborate conspiracy theories is a testament to the degree our species will adopt delusions that allows unchecked energy usage. The realities of a finite world and exponential population growth are inconvenient to unchecked energy usage and are discarded for elaborate fairy tails. This takes nothing from Teslas work. Tesla couldnt flap his wings and fly however. Belief in Tesla or Harry Potter is much easier than than accepting the reality of the situation. Every cult leader worth his salt incorporates one or the other.
Ignore the intro, jump in at the 3:50 mark. The Twin Towers turning to dust in 20 seconds also gets a mention.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o3hjSEOeBZ8
I well remember the BBC news in circa 1979 / 1980, featuring the water-powered car driving around Australia. What happened to that? But if everybody had free or low-cost energy, how would the military-industrial complex get to enjoy its war games in the Middle East? Or follow its “manifest destiny” to control the world by owning the dollar and forcing oil and all metals to be priced in it?
Did you ever think that if there was an alternative to fossil fuels — that the Oil Majors in cahoots with NATO would seize that technology and make it their own?
Because if they did not — then the Chinese — or the Russians would seize it.
And then the West would join the 3rd world.
Oh, the Elders wouldn’t like the common people getting freebies, you know. Nor would the kleptocrats of China and Russia. They have ways of manipulating things, too.
The Elders would just be weak old men if they were to not embrace a new cheap energy source… because someone else would take it and there would be nothing the Elders could do about that …
China and Russia are armed to the teeth…
What you are suggesting is totally illogical.
Now, we seem to be on a similar quest; we are trying to capture the “free” energy from the sun, either directly from its rays, or indirectly. The catch is that conversion to a usable form, and transference to where it needs to be used, is too expensive.
“is too expensive.”
Exactly.
Which is why I have always kept my eye on the cost. If power satellites will not make power for less than coal, then we need to keep them in the “design to cost” phase till they do.
Some of the long process to get the cost down is recorded on The Oil Drum and other places.
The cost of solar keeps dropping.
So we are told.
1. The world does not run on electricity – it runs on cheap oil. How does solar dropping in price fix the fact that we are not finding any cheap oil
2. Funny – the price of producing panels is dropping — but when countries deploy significant numbers of panels their electricity prices sky rocket….
Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy : Germany’s electricity prices soar to more than double that of the USA because when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind does not blow they have to operate and pay for a completely separate back up system that is fueled by lignite coal http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-expensive-gamble-on-renewable-energy-1409106602
The cost of solar dropping – along with batteries for storage, and EVs for transportation means we can substitute for oil.
I only see one country – Germany – that is doing more than increasing renewables. They are also getting rid of nuclear. Getting rid of nuclear has a big cost.
Swapping nuclear for coal:
Why Germany’s nuclear phaseout is leading to more coal burning
Between 2011 and 2015 Germany will open 10.7 GW of new coal fired power stations. This is more new coal coal capacity than was constructed in the entire two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The expected annual electricity production of these power stations will far exceed that of existing solar panels and will be approximately the same as that of Germany’s existing solar panels and wind turbines combined.
Solar panels and wind turbines however have expected life spans of no more than 25 years. Coal power plants typically last 50 years or longer. At best you could call the recent developments in Germany’s electricity sector contradictory.
https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/why-germanys-nuclear-phaseout-is-leading-to-more-coal-burning/
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/euan-mearns-europe-electric-price.png
You are in the running for next week’s Dunce of the Week Award… keep it up
If only the cost of long distance transmission would keep dropping, and the problem of replacing needed back up generation would go away. We have to operate a double system, used very inefficiently–kept staffed, but not used much of the time.
Wow! Doomer writing is on fire today. Just check out this juicy book review by Alice Friedman.
Failing States, Collapsing Systems BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence
Some excerpts… 🙂
Since the 2008 financial crash, there’s been an unprecedented outbreak of social protest: Occupy in the US and Western Europe, the Arab Spring, and civil unrest from Greece to Ukraine, China to Thailand, Brazil to Turkey, and elsewhere. Sometimes civil unrest has resulted in government collapse or even wars, as in Iraq-Syria and Ukraine- Crimea. The media and experts blame it on poor government, usually ignoring the real reasons because all they know is politics and economics.
In the Middle East, experts should also talk about geology. Oil-producing nations like Syria, Yemen, Egypt, Nigeria, and Iraq have all reached peak oil and declining government revenues after that force rulers to raise the prices of food and oil. This region was already short on water, and now climate change (from fossil fuels) is making matters much worse with drought and heat waves causing even greater water scarcity, which in turn lowers agricultural production. Many of these nations have some of the highest rates of population growth on earth at a time when resources essential to life itself are declining.
The few nations still producing much of the oil – Russia, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. are about to join the club and stop exporting oil so they can provide for their domestic population.
https://i2.wp.com/energyskeptic.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Ahmed-2017-peak-oil-fresh-water-population.jpg?w=693
The author, Ahmed says that so far after peak oil production, Middle-Eastern economies have declined as revenues declined, leading to systemic state-failure in roughly 15 years, more or less, depending on how hard hit a nation was by additional (climate-change) factors such as drought, water scarcity, food prices, and overpopulation.
Saudi Arabia, and much of the rest of Arabian Gulf peninsula, may experience state-failure well within 10 to 20 years. If forecasts of Saudi oil depletion are remotely accurate, then by 2030 the country will simply not exist as we know it. Coupled with the accelerating impacts of climate-induced water scarcity, the Kingdom is bound to begin experiencing systemic state-failure at most within 20 years, and probably much earlier.
It is difficult to avoid the conclusion that as we near 2045, the European and American projects will face escalating internal challenges to their internal territorial integrity, increasing the risk of systemic state-failure. Likewise, after 2030, Europe, India, China (and other Asian nations) will begin to experience symptoms of systemic state-failure.
Thanks, but it also nicely illustrates today’s complete mess of ideas, believes and realities when reading something like this. Yes, the author overheard some concepts like peak oil, climate change, etc., now just puts everything in one pot and makes very disgusting soup out of it. For instance, there is no definitive/major proof “climate change of fossil fuels” of lately destroyed the ME countries through drought and heat waves.
Similarly, that recently linked article on Resilience.org, which goes seemingly fine through Gail’s and Hill’s Group arguments, suddenly concludes with some nonsense about ready “ngeni” miraculous power instruments, completely renewables based grid for Ireland soon etc.
Simply, we have to expect exactly that, as near the apex many freaks just inhaling on the trendy doom stuff and running with it around like crazies do, it’s almost like the FE/TM’s hippie pictures of ecstasy.
Syria’s conflict was exacerbated by drought and the stretched capabilities of its water delivery systems in its metro areas. Source: “Out of the Mountains” – David Kilcullen
wait till Saudi oil runs out.
Then they’ll find out what drought is like
Well, more rational hypothesis (like 99% probability given the facts on the table) is not drought (of msm excuses list in the west) but rather that the entire carnage was about axis of Gulfies+US desperately wanting a natgas pipeline through “liberalized” Syria to a new hub in the Eastern ClubMed for further easing of transport complexities and costs.
While on the other hand the renewed coalition of Russia, “non-partly liberalized Syria”, Iran, Egypt, .. having different opinion.
I agree that pipelines are popular things to fight about.
Part of Syria’s problem is financial, related to a loss of oil exports.
Syria also produces some natural gas. Its natural gas production peaked in 2010, and has decreased every year since. This chart isn’t up to date, but give an idea of the relative size of oil and gas. (Oil is also worth several times as much as gas per unit of production.)
the plunging oil output/revenue clearly mirrors conflict
exactly what will be repeated across the world
If it was just a matter of building a pipeline from the Persian Gulf through US-friendly countries, then Saudi Arabia => Jordan => Israel fits the bill nicely.
Also, increasing population is the brontosaurus in the room. Many of these ME countries already grow less than 20% of the food they eat and they rely on the international markets or on food aid for the remainder, yet still the people keep increasing their numbers without paying any heed to how the extra mouths are going to be fed.
People like Kissinger and Albright are very useful …. they are able to subvert emotion and make Spock-like decisions….
If logic dictated that the populations of MENA be exterminated…. I am sure there are those who would give the order — without a second thought… without remorse….
If you doubt me —- watch this:
I agree. And US policy has been to create strife in the ME at least since the 1979 Iranian revolution. They’ve been intent on exterminating states or regimes who don’t kiss the ring. Any population loss that ensures is merely collateral damage. For Maddy and Heinz, it’s a price worth paying and in any case, covert action should not be confused with missionary work.
Having said that MENA population has continued to rise steeply throughout the period. This is totally unsustainable and once the oil stops flowing and the food stops arriving, that particular ecological unbalance will right itself within the general framework of traditional Arab cultural practice.
All just fake news, huh?
http://gif-finder.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/02/Steve-Carell-Facepalm.gif
I never really read the Resilience.org article. Once I figured out (from a linked presentation) that it depended on the Hill Group stuff, I figured I didn’t need to read more.
I have had some limited correspondence with the author, Tim Clarke. He tells me, “I am long-term renewable energy consultant whose working life and philosophy has been framed by Limits to Growth. I am a friend of Colin Campbell who has stimulated a lot of my thinking about oil and economy – as have you.” His company seems to have its website here: http://www.wasteworks.ie
Anyone whose life profession is renewable energy hasn’t figured out how the economic system works. The economy can’t revolve around endless subsidies. High priced energy cannot substitute for lower priced energy. The limit on price is its value to society. Subsides can’t hide this.
Gail Tverberg says:
Good for you.
It’s amazing how many people believe in the Hill Group nonsense.
“Subsides can’t hide this.”
Agreed. However, subsidies are a good idea if you want to hurry the development of something. The price of PV, for example, has fallen along a “learning curve” so long we can project the cost out a decade or more. It’s now down to the point the “balance of system” cost is more than the PV itself. Subsidies didn’t work to get the cost of PV solar to less than coal, but we didn’t know that in advance.
It’s probably best that he not land on FW…. a life time of delusion risks being shattered into a million pieces… leaving Tim with no meaning in life… no reason to wake up ….no desire to work… no way to feed himself … and he’d end up with these fellas…
http://image.al.com/home/bama-media/width960/img/birmingham-news/photo/2012/10/-5d7877aa90a748d7.JPG
I guess Springer thought that these time frames were sufficiently far away, so that they wouldn’t be too scary to readers. They are no doubt based on oil in the ground, not on how much exports the economy needs, at what price, in order to sustain itself.
Yes, I found the notion of even more money printing/accounting hacks/fraud etc. holding back the day of reckoning for yet another 20-25 years, without incident, as totally ludicrous. Otherwise, an interesting piece.
Pingback: The “Wind and Solar Will Save Us” Delusion | Stephen Hinton Consulting
We need to understand where we really are, not live in a fairy tale world produced by politicians who would like us to believe that the situation is under control.
Unfortunately, we humans prefer to believe in perpetual-motion machines and “sustainable growth,” especially if it looks like reality is getting too oppressive. The phenomenon of the “spoiled brat” is not confined to the most affluent. Keep people or nations on welfare or in overpaid positions for a few years, and they will come to feel entitled to it all, a feeling their Robin-Hood-like politicians will pander to.
A gentlemanly (or ladylike) way of life is not something sustainable for more than a very few. Once the masses believe they have a birthright to a historically temporary, cushy lifestyle, then when it evaporates, the result is not acceptance but disbelief. In addition, an artificially propagated illusion of such a utopia becomes a magnet for ThirdWorlders.
For fueling a whole civilization, as Gail (among many others) has shown, subsidized “renewable” energy sources are counterproductive — a dead end. But the dilemma is made incalculably worse by our Kübler-Ross-like denial of that fact. As workers’ ability to pay for the lifestyle to which they have become accustomed evaporates even despite technological complexification, ecological devastation, widespread crime and the customary collapse behaviorisms are bound to appear. We can expect imaginary “solutions” bordering on the mythical to be proposed by the pulpiteers, but all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not be able to put Humpty together again.
You may be right.
I agree. I was thinking today about the 1930s and 1940s when electrification really took off. That was when my parents first got electric power. It was only 20 years before I was born. But, it may as well have been a million years before I was born. Once you are born into a world with electricity your brain tells you it was always this way because you cannot remember a time without electricity. The same is true for TV’s, phones, computers and cars and a number of other modern appliances. But, they are all a very recent phenomenon. They all have zero track record. But, even so there is a blind faith in technology. It is unfounded.
this is why people vote for political promises—they are totally convinced that prosperity….infinite growth…can be voted into office
Yes and the politicians take advantage of this emotional response. Not one of them tells the truth. The whole issue of energy limits is conveniently swept away. Of course this is the will of the people. As has been stated. “Democracy is a pathetic belief in the collective wisdom of individual ignorance.” And American Exceptionalism’s ability to develop truth through democratic means. “My ignorance is as good as your knowledge “. One man one vote. Ship of fools.
‘We can expect imaginary “solutions” bordering on the mythical to be proposed by the pulpiteers, but all the king’s horses and all the king’s men will not be able to put Humpty together again”. They have always been there but you are right they will be out in droves, they are the bandits.
Donald Trump is a perfect example. He is only an example though, there will be many more that will offer you their path to salvation, be it a simple belief, promises of unlimited energy if their plan is followed but the worst will be the scapegoaters.
They will offer blame as a solution, be it religious, racial, ethnic or economic. It’s inevitable everyone will want someone to blame and it definitely will not be themselves. This is not nice thinking I know but probably it needs to be considered……….. Muslims currently blame the West. I don’t think the West will ever get to blaming Muslims but when blame begins being dished out in earnest, there will be serious collateral damage…..a sort of “might as well take them out while we’re at it”…..
Wind and solar are nice supplements to peaking grid power but are many decades away from being a significant source of electricity.Coal and gas need to be phased out which leaves only nuclear as a growth source of electricity. Other countries, most notably China, are moving in that direction. We invented the technology but now are in political gridlock in implementing it in this country. For some reason nuclear technology got labeled with a political party. What party is your microwave oven? It emits more radiation than you will ever get from a nuclear plant.
I’d be interested in your take on this — as more of a psychology experiment to determine what happens when facts crash into delusion….
Just clatter out onto the screen whatever comes into your mind when you read the article….
Renewable energy ‘simply won’t work’: Top Google engineers
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/google-gives-up-on-green-tech-investment-initiative-rec/
Fast Eddy–I really am glad you’re back. You’ve given me some good laughs today!
Yes, we need to “laugh” because our situation is so dire….
Maybe this Simpsons explanation needs to be posted again…
Cartoons sometimes are more effective…
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=9D420SOmL6U
For the most part renewables require large up front costs, thus large debt loads …are not maintenance free, and require fossil fuels to be manufactured and diminishing metals, and other raw materials to be created. Without the industrial working infrastructure that is made possible only with fossil fuels….we would largely be left with a cloths line and a basin of water warming in the sun.
Very clear explanation. Hardly surpassed.
This has been explained time and time again.
The fancifully named “renewables” including nuclear power cannot stand alone. They are fossil fuel extenders and parasites and were never ever a consideration when FF’s were plentiful, cheap and easy to produce. Now all they are is a means to continue the burn until beyond when the burning should have petered out……like sails on a steam ship, an electric motor in and ICE vehicle, an electric motor on a bicycle, solar panels on a roof, wind generators connected to FF based grid………..and it’s a good thing they came along when they did, as they have delayed the inevitable long enough for me to make old bones, probably not much older bones though.
Well, we have come a long way since the first grid operated nuclear power plant, USSR/Russia 1954 @ 5MWe/30MWthermal, the US and UK followed shortly in few years. Many slightly different designs have been invented and put to work since then. We are currently at GEN3+ as the highest available level completed design, first running power-plant/s and ready to be mass copied deploy-able elsewhere. It’s good enough stuff, not sure there will be enough push to GEN4 in next decade or two given the overall climate in the industry and societies as whole. For example when such former giants as France are now stagnating on that front. Remember most of the world’s fleet from 1960-1980s is aging rapidly, so if you need to replace (upgrade) old units, time is of the essence. Also let me remind you, usually plant replacement automatically equals not only leapfrogging particular generation specifics (passive-active safety) but predominately it’s about power output upgrade per plant, since < .6-1GW smaller reactors of the past are no longer manufactured today..
At this point, two of the big companies doing installation of nuclear power plants are getting out–Toshiba and Areva (French). The plants are getting so expensive and time consuming to build, it is a huge problem. Countries cannot afford their costs, now with all of the safety features included. There are still other companies–I am sure at some of these are Chinese. But it is going to be harder and harder to find anyone to build you a nuclear power plant. The companies are losing money doing so.
Pingback: Destroying The “Wind & Solar Will Save Us” Delusion | US-China News
Factories use a lot of electricity….
If China would like to drive factories to countries that are willing to burn coal to produce cheap electricity….
Then they should follow the lead of Germany —- go heavily into ‘renewable’ energy — this is a guaranteed path to bankruptcy and collapse…
On the bright side… the skies would be blue 🙂
Germany’s Expensive Gamble on Renewable Energy : Germany’s electricity prices soar to more than double that of the USA because when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind does not blow they have to operate and pay for a completely separate back up system that is fueled by lignite coal
http://www.wsj.com/articles/germanys-expensive-gamble-on-renewable-energy-1409106602
Germany Runs Up Against the Limits of Renewables
Even as Germany adds lots of wind and solar power to the electric grid, the country’s carbon emissions are rising. Will the rest of the world learn from its lesson? After years of declines, Germany’s carbon emissions rose slightly in 2015, largely because the country produces much more electricity than it needs. That’s happening because even if there are times when renewables can supply nearly all of the electricity on the grid, the variability of those sources forces Germany to keep other power plants running. And in Germany, which is phasing out its nuclear plants, those other plants primarily burn dirty coal.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/601514/germany-runs-up-against-the-limits-of-renewables/
Why Germany’s nuclear phaseout is leading to more coal burning
Between 2011 and 2015 Germany will open 10.7 GW of new coal fired power stations. This is more new coal coal capacity than was constructed in the entire two decades after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The expected annual electricity production of these power stations will far exceed that of existing solar panels and will be approximately the same as that of Germany’s existing solar panels and wind turbines combined. Solar panels and wind turbines however have expected life spans of no more than 25 years. Coal power plants typically last 50 years or longer. At best you could call the recent developments in Germany’s electricity sector contradictory.
https://carboncounter.wordpress.com/2015/06/06/why-germanys-nuclear-phaseout-is-leading-to-more-coal-burning/
Would you like to borrow my hanky?
Now that is damn funny!
Makes me want to go get my chainsaw and take down a few big ol trees — just to hear the sound of them crashing to the ground.
TIMBER!!!!
now that’s more like it – your inner light shows through
One must remain positive… in the face of adversity
China is well on their way to a green future 🙂
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/06/china-energy-consumption-by-fuel-to-2015-line1.png
You mean a Soylent Green future.
That too.
Is that really you FE?
Aren’t we all supposed to be dead now?
I think that is 2020 not 2017. But, who’s keeping score?
Like Jesus Christ…. I have risen….
….and just in time, too. There are new commenters here proposing efficiency improvements will save us. If we could just figure out how to conquer all those frictional heat losses, why, I’d join them in a singalong of Kumbyeyah, y’all.
FW articles that involve ‘renewable energy’ draw out the lurking crazies….
pure entertainment
How can people be fooled so easily into believing the “green” energy renewable snake oil bs? I guess the old saying there is a sucker born every minute is true.
Particularly when the intermittency issues and the need to operate two complete power generation systems are explained…
There should be a Cirque du Delusion for these people….
Models can be used to prove anything. Variability will go away, if we build enough. When oil prices rise, renewables will become (relatively) affordable. Alternative A is better than Alternative B (but neither one is really possible).
Also, intermittent renewables have high EROEIs, if you ignore the intermittency problems.
LOL…they’re are always there but as soon as “renewables” is mentioned, it’s like a fuse in their brain blows and reason is instantly nullified. They then have a single focus that will not be swayed. Some have their fixation on nuclear, some thorium, some space solar, PV and windmills, some even think that shale oil is the great saviour and finally there is the belief that JC is coming to make it right. Each has their own agenda, none will be deterred and all have the immutable conviction that they are right and everyone else is wrong.
https://image.spreadshirtmedia.com/image-server/v1/compositions/102521655/views/1,width=300,height=300,version=1478496810/brain-fuse-men-s-t-shirt.jpg
be careful or somebody will roll your rock back
greg machala says:
February 1, 2017 at 11:02 pm
“How can people be fooled so easily into believing the “green” energy renewable snake oil bs? I guess the old saying there is a sucker born every minute is true.”
Its funny how the gullible quote that saying, as if they are expressing a deep seated fear, that they too, will fall victim to a scam, thus embarrassing one·self
The KSA, unable to make ends meet much below $100 per barrel…nutcracker tightening.
End of tax-free living in Saudi Arabia as oil revenues dry up
https://cdn.rt.com/files/2017.01/original/589055e3c46188f37f8b45a0.jpg
Saudi Arabia has introduced a value-added tax (VAT) with the approval of the International Monetary Fund (IMF), indicating the end of life without VAT across the Gulf.
The decision was taken on Monday and implies a five percent levy on some goods across the six-member Gulf Cooperation Council, which unites Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates.
Other Gulf countries are also expected to follow and introduce the VAT system by the beginning of 2018.
The move has IMF backing, which recommended the Gulf States impose revenue raising measures. The countries have already introduced taxes on tobacco and fizzy drinks.
“A Royal Decree has been prepared,” the official Saudi Press Agency said.
The tax on tobacco, now at 50 percent, will be increased to 100 percent, the same level as those for energy drinks and sodas.
Residents of the region had enjoyed the tax-free period before the oil prices more than halved. The price of a barrel of crude oil fell from over $114 in 2014 to just over $55 currently.
‘Bird Army’: Saudi royalty buys airfare for 80 hawks + other astonishing pets on planes https://t.co/KklXl8PEWspic.twitter.com/9G15whtigf
— RT (@RT_com) January 31, 2017
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C3fyF-NW8AAjt49.jpg
Last year, the world’s largest crude exporter announced some austerity measures. Saudi Arabia froze major infrastructure projects, slashed ministers’ salaries and imposed a wage freeze on civil servants. Riyadh managed to reduce the budget deficit from a record $98 billion in 2015 to $79 billion last year.
The country also made unprecedented cuts to fuel and utility subsidies, as it seeks to diversify its revenues to balance the budget by 2020.
I can hear 21,000,000 wasps beginning to buzz….
http://saudigazette.com.sa/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Saudi-population-info.jpg
Given the importance of the KSA…. I would expect the authorities to do ‘whatever it takes’ to prevent chaos… including shooting dead anyone who dares to try to tip over the cart….
Here’s the model:
At least 51 protesters killed in Egypt as army opens fire ‘like pouring rain’
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/jul/08/egypt-clashes-morsi-muslim-brotherhood-military
It’s been rather quiet in Egypt since the military let fly….
Current pop is 32.5 million!
http://www.worldometers.info/world-population/saudi-arabia-population/
10m are expats…. they will be served at the BBQ….
They’ll be so much stranded meat, just like the nationals. But the expats are usually the construction workers, and day labourers. So they will outdo the nationals, who’ve grown fat and happy (dumb is assumed) these past few decades.
A reverse BBQ!
Roast camel. A Saudi specialty!
http://www.ndtv.com/cooks/images/roast-camel_article.jpg
Confucius say: “He who eat camel will soon be walking in sand.”
He also say: “It does not matter how slowly you go as long as you do not stop.”
Read more at: https://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/authors/c/confucius.html
And you gave me the award “Dunce of the Week?”
The hypocrisy is breathtaking.
Here on this page, and other pages of this website, your inane and irrelevant comments are everywhere.
Maybe you should award Dunce of the Week Contest to yourself.
Yes I know, that would be self-interest at worse.
As a neutral observer i can see that, self-interest is the least of the problems on this wacky website
You deserve the Dunce of the Week Contest, each week!
Actually, you deserve to be Crowned Dunce of all-time.
As we all know DelusiSTANIS operate in a world bereft of facts and logic — up is sometimes down … sometimes sideways… sometimes it is blue … often it is a square…
Whatever it is — it makes no sense…. one might assume DelusiSTANIS speak in riddles — but that would be greatly overestimating them…. even they often have no idea what they are babbling on about —- they appear to be content so long as they are blabbering incoherently…
Fortunately I have Super Juice — when I drink a glass of it I am able to understand and translated DelusiSTANI comments into a format that most people can understand….
As follows:
And you gave me the award “Dunce of the Week?”
The brilliance is breathtaking.
Here on this page, and other pages of this website, your outstanding facts and tremendous logic are everywhere.
Maybe you should present the Mr Wonderful award to yourself.
Yes I know, that would be self-interest at worse but you deserve it
As a delusional observer i can see that, the pursuit of excellence what makes this a most brilliant website – unfortunately there are some really stupid morons who pollute the greatness
You deserve the King of the Castle each week!
Actually, you deserve to be Crowned King of the World for all-time. And the King of DelusiSTAN should pay for your private jet.
and prince delusi just got made king of delusistan
and has now basing his rule on alternative facts
I love this blog for its timely and relevant comments. Peter is obviously not a neutral observer and has an agenda. This blog deals in logic and facts not delusional thinking. It is obvious by reading your posts that you are not very well educated (or mis-educated) about energy. So, why are you even here commenting Peter? Do you require attention?
Good grief, jetting birds, my god man. Diminishing returns are gonna be knocking hard at Saudi Arabia’s door. A desert with nothing to offer outside of oil.
Elite behaviour, human behaviour, never changes. Payback will be a bitch…
“Peter is obviously not a neutral observer and has an agenda. This blog deals in logic and facts not delusional thinking. It is obvious by reading your posts that you are not very well educated (or mis-educated) about energy.”
Hypocrisy alert.
“Do you require attention?”
And of course, the feckless and gormless only have enough intelligence to make Ad-hominem.
What about your fellow disciple of this cult, Fast Eddy??
He’s mad rants are acceptable, huh?
the biggest advantage of being mad—is the mad person is the only one unaware of it.
Ha ha ha.
So, you know that from experience, right?
Ha ha.
Now that is what you call a humiliating come back!
http://www.mhsarc.com/sites/all/themes/creative-responsive-theme/images/SARC_Logo_NEW-colors-web.png
My rants against madness and delusion are of course acceptable.
Would you like some Purple Kool-Aid?
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/6YpBjccQDho/hqdefault.jpg
This is one of the kinds of things that holds down growth in world energy consumption.
Pingback: Destroying The "Wind & Solar Will Save Us" Delusion | The Daily Digest
Wonderfully bogus!-I can’t really list all areas NOT covered in this .Including some financial bits ,for instance-Gail,What is the overall thermal efficiency of our(any of them )crapmobiles hauling fat arses doom a highway? Ignore wind drag,ignore idling consumption at designed to waste fuel kill zone intersections, ignore the transport increment for the fuel(which is to the 4th power-that’s a hint)
just how much % of the fuel heat is actually used usefully?
The case in point is a mere example-all other areas of consumption show this same pattern.
Actual sources for this subject can be found. But not here.
What is your point Todd? Are you saying that if we increase efficiency we are saved?
How exactly does your plan resolve the fact that:
The break-even on oil is $120
The global economy cannot exist if oil is priced at $120
Just curious….
I can’t really list all areas NOT covered in this.
No you can’t, can you Todd?
Because any list you made—even if it was as long as the Encyclopedia Britanica—would not be totally comprehensive, and then someone else could chime in by writing “I can’t really list all areas NOT covered in Todd’s list.”
Gail wasn’t claiming or intending to be comprehensive or to have covered all the bases, so the criticism of her post as “bogus” for not measuring up to your personal notion of full coverage is itself bogus, although not wonderfully so. If I had to employ an adjective, I would plump for “unimaginatively” bogus.
just how much % of the fuel heat is actually used usefully?
Aaagh! A not unintelligent question!
My answer is, it doesn’t matter. As far as the economic/financial system is concerned, “actual useful use” is neither an objective criteria nor a major consideration.
From many people’s personal standpoint, most other people in the First World “waste” a lot of their time, money, potential, opportunities, and gasoline on all manner of trivial pursuits. But at the same time, a lot of this “waste” is absolutely necessary in order for the system to function well, or even for it to function at all.
The Beast has little interest in whether specific economic activity is useful or efficient or productive or beneficial or satisfying for the people indulging in it. On the contrary, the Beast demands more and more and more economic activity regardless of its utility value.
Jevon’s Paradox is likely a new term for Todd… https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jevons_paradox
++++ FE. Yep, that is what I was getting at by my comment on increasing efficiency. Jevons paradox shows that increases in efficiency lead to more consumption – not less. But, Todd never responded to my question if he thinks efficiency will save us.
“Gail wasn’t claiming or intending to be comprehensive or to have covered all the bases,”
Thats not what Todd was referring to.
What he’s referring to, and what is starkly obvious, is that this industry hack and shill, such as the author of this crap, cherry picks facts, and then she put them through the shill machine, and then Abracadabra, we have some disingenuous and misleading conclusion; Coal good- wind solar bad.
Just one of many examples, is that this hack claims that its too costly to erect high transmission lines through parts of China.
No, the cost is not prohibitive.
It’s the corruption and political arguments, which is preventing the construction of these transmission lines.
But hey, as the old saying goes, “Don’t let the facts get in the way of a good story.”
However, this is not even a good story.
It’s pure crap!
“Corruption and political argument”…..go on.
Peter — did I tell you that I love the smell of burning fossil fuels? Oil – coal – gas — I love them all!
Because they smell like growth. They smell like life. They smell like prosperity
We must burn more — every year…. otherwise…
I am not paid by the fossil fuel industry — but if you happen to know anyone over there I can pass along my bank account info.
Imagine -getting paid to support a cause that one is sincerely passionate about – a dream come true!
Well, how do you reply, to someone who is clearly delusional, and is only thinking vicariously, through their limbic system?
Maybe just simple advice.
Hey Eddy, disregard the blue, and red pills, and just stick with a white ones.
Let’s roll out the nuclear option …. the one that eviscerates ‘renewable’ energy….
What do you think Peter? Can we get a real time reaction to this?
Replacement of oil by alternative sources
While oil has many other important uses (lubrication, plastics, roadways, roofing) this section considers only its use as an energy source. The CMO is a powerful means of understanding the difficulty of replacing oil energy by other sources.
SRI International chemist Ripudaman Malhotra, working with Crane and colleague Ed Kinderman, used it to describe the looming energy crisis in sobering terms.[13] Malhotra illustrates the problem of producing one CMO energy that we currently derive from oil each year from five different alternative sources. Installing capacity to produce 1 CMO per year requires long and significant development.
Allowing fifty years to develop the requisite capacity, 1 CMO of energy per year could be produced by any one of these developments:
4 Three Gorges Dams,[14] developed each year for 50 years, or
52 nuclear power plants,[15] developed each year for 50 years, or
104 coal-fired power plants,[16] developed each year for 50 years, or
32,850 wind turbines,[17][18] developed each year for 50 years, or
91,250,000 rooftop solar photovoltaic panels[19] developed each year for 50 years
The world consumes approximately 3 CMO annually from all sources. The table [10] shows the small contribution from alternative energies in 2006.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil
Renewable energy ‘simply won’t work’: Top Google engineers
Two highly qualified Google engineers who have spent years studying and trying to improve renewable energy technology have stated quite bluntly that whatever the future holds, it is not a renewables-powered civilisation: such a thing is impossible.
Both men are Stanford PhDs, Ross Koningstein having trained in aerospace engineering and David Fork in applied physics. These aren’t guys who fiddle about with websites or data analytics or “technology” of that sort: they are real engineers who understand difficult maths and physics, and top-bracket even among that distinguished company.
Even if one were to electrify all of transport, industry, heating and so on, so much renewable generation and balancing/storage equipment would be needed to power it that astronomical new requirements for steel, concrete, copper, glass, carbon fibre, neodymium, shipping and haulage etc etc would appear.
All these things are made using mammoth amounts of energy: far from achieving massive energy savings, which most plans for a renewables future rely on implicitly, we would wind up needing far more energy, which would mean even more vast renewables farms – and even more materials and energy to make and maintain them and so on. The scale of the building would be like nothing ever attempted by the human race.
In reality, well before any such stage was reached, energy would become horrifyingly expensive – which means that everything would become horrifyingly expensive (even the present well-under-one-per-cent renewables level in the UK has pushed up utility bills very considerably).
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2014/11/21/renewable_energy_simply_wont_work_google_renewables_engineers/
http://techcrunch.com/2011/11/23/google-gives-up-on-green-tech-investment-initiative-rec/
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-only-two-things-are-infinite-the-universe-and-human-stupidity-and-i-m-not-sure-about-the-former-albert-einstein-56412.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-sbN7t_YX8ec/UFGmQifIBNI/AAAAAAAAJe4/5BJqAywvPWg/s1600/Danger+-+Stupidity.jpg
http://www.lovethispic.com/uploaded_images/105648-Im-Allergic-To-Stupidity.jpg
Even better, imagine getting paid by fossil fuel industry in cash they’ve taken from saps like Todd Millions and Peter “Potty Mouth” Harris who despite their delusions of Green grandeur are paying hand over fist for the privilege of joining in the feast of fossil-fueled prosperity.
Peter, if you had any half decent arguments, you wouldn’t have any need to curse, swear or smear your betters.
More importantly, if renewables such as photovoltaics and wind turbines were as good as the hype says they are, we would not be discussing the issue because the Sustainable, Renewable, Clean, Green People’s Ecotopia would already be a reality.
What me, “potty mouth?”
What did I say that was potty mouth??
You are a shrinking violet, ain’t you.
Maybe you should build a bigger wall around your safe space, or just simply drop out of Internet forums altogether, because, not only you can’t mount a cogent argument, but clearly you are way too sensitive.
“More importantly, if renewables such as photovoltaics and wind turbines were as good as the hype says they are, we would not be discussing the issue because the Sustainable, Renewable, Clean, Green People’s Ecotopia would already be a reality.”
Ha ha ha.
That has got to be the dumbest comment I’ve heard for a long time.
What, have you never understood, how right-wing governments in developed countries stymie renewable energy?
That rock (on Mars), must be getting a little smelly by now.
Peter, I come from Germany, I hope it counts as a developed country for you. And because it is not ruled by devilish right wingers, Germany is heavy into renewables for more a decade. And, how shall I say, it does not work. Was discussed here, I think in the comments of last post. You see, renewables are just derivatives of fossil fuels. They cannot be produced without them, transported without them and they cannot uphold a grid without them. If you are into renewables you are by necessity into fossil fuels. Not acknowledging this is what is needed to become a small minded political bigot like you. Your sneery attitude towards our host and other people here is despicable and not welcome.
As Germany is finding out…
‘We can ignore reality, but we cannot ignore the consequences of ignoring reality.’
How does the average person feel about this – are they aware that ‘renewable’ energy is the culprit?
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/euan-mearns-europe-electric-price.png
Thanks for your vote of support, and the point about the need for fossil fuels to make renewables.
Congratulations Peter — these fabulous comments have earned you first prize in the Dunce of the Week Contest here on FW.
This award goes out to the DelusiSTANI who posts the most illogical factless comment of the week.
https://m.popkey.co/390fea/oGme8.gif
Another one bites the dust…
http://www.letsgohorseracing.com.au/images/DEAGON%20DEAD-UP.jpg
There is surprisingly little we as society can do to decrease consumption, without rebuilding society (which would cost energy).
I am not trying to solve the transportation problem; just look a little at the heating problem.
“I am not trying to solve…”
No, but you are doing your best impersonation of an industry shill.
I say “best interpretation,” because your disingenuous and inane arguments, are so transparently obsequious, designed to serve your masters (and in a vain hope that you may get some little gratuity on the side), that your “research” could only be best described as feckless and gormless.
And you’re doing your best impression of a gibbering idiot.
Which is it to be then, Peter: “best impersonation” or “best interpretation”?
Or doesn’t it matter anyway because you can’t tell those two long words apart?
Also, your characterization of Gail’s “arguments” as “disingenuous” is both ridiculous and hilarious. The word “disingenuous” means not candid or sincere, typically by pretending that one knows less about something than one really does, rather like the renewables insiders who pretend they don’t know that the technology they peddle as a solution to our energy problems is no such thing. Gail makes no such presence to ignorance. Implicit in the principle objections raised against her work—unjustly IMHO—is the notion that she pretends to more knowledge than she actually posses, not less.
Here’s a tip, when trying to strike a plausibly intelligent pose while trolling, stick to words of two syllables or less. That will be less embarrassing for you in the long run,
nothing like a good rant to get things off your chest
it helps facts to go away, for a little while anyway
Peter Harris
Is there something you’d like to contribute to the discussion? This has nothing to do with one industry vs another. Do you understand that? There have been a number of intelligent well researched comments and posts on this site arguing various positions. The site itself is geared to a simple unavoidable truth. We live in a finite world. How about building an argument that we can have infinite growth on a finite planet sustained with renewable energy system that never wear out or need replacement or maintenance or installation. In retrospect my apologies that’s what you were all ready doing.
If we exclude the insane, then sane people have no measure of themselves.
Of course this theory broke down last Nov 8
Oh, i see, just like a cult, you block comments that you disagree with.
Hi Peter
I would appreciate you contacting me off list. hkeithhenson at gmail.com
i detect the formation of an offshoot cult.
give it ten years and we will have General Eddy forming defences to protect our territory from invaders and takeover.
Hopefully Keith is setting up a new site — and like the pied piper — the DelusiSTANIS follow him to the promised land
One can hope
“Hopefully Keith is setting up”
I already did, a Google group, power satellite economics. It’s where we are trying to solve the problems. The current discussion is on cosmic ray radiation shielding for construction workers in a 6 hour orbit. The next problem may be the high traffic out to the construction orbit causing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kessler_syndrome
To keep that from happening, power satellites have to constructed from dense packages coming up from LEO and we may have to engage in some active removal of the space junk. The dense packages can dodge existing satellites, a full sized power satellite is likely to be hit multiple times.
I’ll be back
a google group….. I see
Are you also planning to appear as quarterback in the super bowl tomorrow? Perhaps stepping in to win the day when Brady falters?
Do you strongly believe that you have super powers – that you should have your own cartoon tv show?
It seems that only cult members can make negative comments with impunity, and newbies such as myself, cannot reciprocate.
And you allow Fast Eddy to write any old mad rant, that he wishes??
This website has all the characteristics of a cult.
Peter-
You have to get a thicker skin. If you have a point you can defend, just make it.
“You have to get a thicker skin”
Oh, and that’s another characteristic of a cult; Incredible hypocrisy.
And everyone here has a thick-skin, don’t they?
That’s why my replies were blocked.
It seems some pussys around here, can dish it out, but when it comes to blow-back, my comments get blocked.
@ Peter
This cult could be worse
at least we’re not holed up in some hideout somewhere, with big hats, long beards (well most of us aren’t like that) challenging the feds to come and smoke us out.
so as cults go, I’d say this was one of the safer saner ones (everybody here believes in sanity claus you see)
And you never know, one of us might just turn out to be the messiah after all, who will announce him/her self in due course.
(or just a naughty boy)
I am quite sure your comment was blocked because of an illegal word and will be released next time Gail sits down by the computer.
@Norman Pagett.
“at least we’re not holed up in some hideout somewhere”
No, well not in the traditional sense.
However, you “hideout” in a 21st century digital equivalent.
well—personally i don’t
my book—for what it’s worth—is out there under my own name, telling the truth about our crazy situation for all to read or deride as they see fit
I’ll be the first to admit I could be wrong, but so far, except for a few minor details, pretty much everything I’ve written has come up trumps, (as one might say).
To avoid being bogged down in an endless doomathon though, I do try to inject a bit of light humour sometimes.
Since we’re all doomed in any case—individually if not collectively— why not eat, drink, clown around a bit, and be merry?
yup
have booked venice and canada this year, so am burning my share of available resources now
Tim Groves,
Your comment has resonances of James Baldwin:
“Life is tragic simply because the earth turns and the sun inexorably rises and sets, and one day, for each of us, the sun will go down for the last, last time. Perhaps the whole root of our trouble, the human trouble, is that we will sacrifice all the beauty of our lives, will imprison ourselves in totems, taboos, crosses, blood sacrifices, steeples, mosques, races, armies, flags, nations, in order to defy the fact of death, which is the only fact we have. It seems to me that one ought to rejoice in the fact of death — ought to decide, indeed, one’s death by confronting with passion the conundrum of life. One is responsible to life: It is the small beacon in that terrifying darkness from which we come and to which we shall return. One must negotiate this passage as nobly as possible, for the sake of those who are coming after us.”
— JAMES BALDWIN, The Fire Next Time
Most of us are using the window of opportunity to live life to the fullest — I am on the 8th year of bucket-listing….
As far as I can see… verry few FW members are dedicating their days to doomsday prepping.
++++++ Exactly FE!!!! All we can do is savour each day BAU is in place, because they are most definitely coming to a close soon…and the it’s Grim Reaper time for all of us…
Peter-
Another long word giving you some trouble?
Impunity: exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action
Exactly how have you been punished?
I can see a string of your negative comments on this thread that have not been blocked, including the initial one in which you burst into our sacred temple, defame our blessed guru as a hack and a shill and describe her scriptures as “c**p”.
What makes you think you have the right to talk to anyone that way? If I’d used language like that in the presence of my granny, she’d have washed my mouth out with soap. One of the few upsides of the end of BAU is that among the survivors, the practice of washing the mouths of unruly boys who use profane language will be back on the agenda.
Trump obviously never had a granny like that
“Another long word giving you some trouble?
Impunity: exemption from punishment or freedom from the injurious consequences of an action
Exactly how have you been punished?”
It seems you have trouble reading, contextual English.
Nice try at flipping, but like everything you stated, you failed.
“One of the few upsides of the end of BAU is that among the survivors, the practice of washing the mouths of unruly boys who use profane language will be back on the agenda.”
It seems you found your place in this world.
Residing here amongst all the other weirdos, and social misfits.
Again, Fast Eddy is acceptable.
Me, not so.
‘Weirdos and social misfits’ —- I’ll take that as a compliment — it puts us in some esteemed company…. I’ll know I have made it when someone tries to burn me at the stake.
“our sacred temple, defame our blessed guru”
Hmm.
Truth disguised as sarcasm?
try worshipping at the temple of of the vestal virgins peter
it might get rid of your angst
You are as acceptable or as obnoxious as you care to make yourself, Peter. The choice is entirely yours.
For many decades I’ve lived with a family of dogs and cats. At one time we had 14 cats here. We are down to 7 at present. Once the resident cats become familiar with each other, they are usually quite amiable, although there is some back biting and bullying and a semi-hierarchy among them.
Kittens that come into the group for the first time are usually well tolerated, but when a new adult cat tries to enter, especially if its a young male, all hell can break lose. We have the feline equivalent of scenes from a spaghetti western. A series of confrontations which may involve staring, menacing, growling, screaming, and finally coalescing into an animated ball of scratching, kicking and biting that results in a liberal flying of fur. This sort of thing goes on over a period of days or weeks until the new guy has either gained his place within the group or else been forcefully ejected.
Humans are not as different from felines as we like to pretend we are. The outsider attempting to infiltrate a new group can be subject to many kinds and levels of prejudicial treatment. They will not automatically be treated equally with established members, there is no guarantee they will be welcomed, tolerated or treated fairly.
However, the nicer they act, the more nicely they are likely to be treated. And the more confrontational they act, the more they are likely to get dumped on, all other things being equal. Moreover, the more disrespectful they are to the head of the group, the less they will be tolerated by the rest of the group. And the more they stand on what they assume are their rights, the less they are likely to be respected by established insiders whose default assumption is that those rights have to be earned.
This has nothing to do with right and wrong, justice and injustice, or how things should or shouldn’t be. That’s just the way the human world operates. If one goes into new territory in some of the deeper mountain valleys in New Guinea or Darkest Africa and demonstrate oneself to be hostile to the natives,one may end up as their new king, but there’s no point complaining if one ends up scalped, skinned, butchered and served up as long pig.
If you read Grimm’s fairy tales or some of Roald Dahl’s children’s stories, you’ll find the same principle at work. The obnoxious usually end up suffering in the end.
When you start to apply facts and logic to your rants — then I expect they will be published.
If they are just senseless rants involving attacks on others without merit —- you will be eternally frustrated.
“When you start to apply facts and logic to your rants — then I expect they will be published.”
Ha ha ha. . . Thats hilarious hypocrisy.
You and Glenn make quite the team…. I hear that the traveling circus is looking for clowns….
Nice Article. There are interesting alternatives.
Storage of Solar and Windpower:
http://www.heindl-energy.com
Basically pressurized water lifts a huge rock. If U want energy, use this water in turbines and the rock goes down. It scales with 1/r^2 when it comes to the costs of storage which ist extreme! Just make it big enough and your storage costs are negliglible. It is quite doable.
In my opinion, sun and wind are free, but u have to collect it. So this is basically consuming much area, which is not that good for the environment. In the desert this would be ok.
What better? Fusion is not right there. But this project is a cool hybrid approach between NIF and ITER. It reduces the quality of the components needed. -> cheaper, easier to control.
-> General Fusion
Nuclear Power is quite a nice form of power. (Ultra high Energy density) But were doing it wrong. The origin of the powerplants we have are small reactors in submarines for the military after WWII. These were cooled by water, because the ocean is free. But we can do so much better right now with this design:
http://dual-fluid-reactor.org
It’s better in every way. They were kicked out of some idea contest where people could vote for them. And they where the winners. But the jury changed the rules because it was a “green” energy idea contest and kicked them out.
And there is the option of saving energy. Better insulation or newer technologies. Wouldn’t it be way more efficient to heat the people in a house instead of the entire house? It is the same with cooling. And do we really need to have lights at night everywhere in the streets? Night vision goggles would be orders of magnitude more efficient. Do we really need to fly to other countries as telepresence technology gets developed further?
There is also a political side to it. Because the cost of the damages of emitting carbon should be internalized. Say, a carbon tax, that increases with time. Things would change really fast as incentives to innovate grow.
But our global order as it is now won’t allow that. There has to be some phase transition on our panet.
Did I mention that geothermal power grows quite exponentially?
That phase transition is known as overshoot and collapse.
What is overshoot in environmental science?
In population dynamics and population ecology, overshoot occurs when a population temporarily exceeds the long term carrying capacity of its environment. The consequence of overshoot is called a collapse, a crash or a die-off in which there is a decline in population density.
http://angrybearblog.com/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/overshoot.png
Did I mention that even if all of this could be scaled up …. it would not solve the problem which is — we are out of cheap oil.
I hadn’t heard about lifting the large rock. It sounds like it would take a lot of energy to move the rock to the desired location, and to build the appropriate apparatus to hold it in place for the lifting procedure.
The Japanese have been putting heaters under table cloths for a long time, to heat people instead of rooms. This isn’t a new technology.
Affordability of goods made with energy products falls with time. In fact, we cannot afford fossil fuel products now. This is why oil, natural gas, coal, and even uranium prices are lower than the cost of production for most producers. There is no need for a carbon tax for this purpose. This falling affordability will ultimately bring the system down, I am afraid.
Gail, this is a variation on gravity storage of energy. Similar to pumped storage. You don’t move the rock at all, just cut a huge block loose from the surrounding rock and lift it with water pressure. The physics and economics scale right. The engineering, well, it depends. If you can find a place with a cubic mile of uncracked granite maybe.
We have Stone Mountain in Atlanta. I don’t think we would have water to pump it up, though. There may be cracks as well.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Stone_Mountain,_the_carving,_and_the_Train.jpeg