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.
All treasury bonds in existence can be monetized by new dollars. The bonds aren’t bought by anyone, they simply mature or are monetized by the federal reserve.
Don’t tell that to the gold bugs.
“Why can’t you or any American president before you say that the Palestinians have a right to defend themselves against Israeli crimes?” he wonders. “The answer is very clear but you can’t say it because your lords will be very angry.” Indeed, Israel wields significant influence over American policy.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-09/911-mastermind%E2%80%99s-letter-obama-here%E2%80%99s-why-we-attacked-america
Exactly
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/politics/2002/03/23/from-us-the-abcs-of-jihad/d079075a-3ed3-4030-9a96-0d48f6355e54/?utm_term=.7f960eb71eb9
He is just stating the obvious. Any who is really informed knows the US created Jihad because of the failure in Vietnam. When you drop more munitions on three small Asian countries than where dropped during the entire WWII episode and lose something has to give. You can’t fight ideology with weapons. Instead you have to fight it with religious zealotry. The CIA figured this out this was the weakness in the communist system. If they were to be successful in stopping the spread of communism to protect private property and ultimately corporate interests they would have play the religion card. It’s interesting to note when the slogan “In God We Trust” was added to US currency. “Religion is a Snare and a Racket”. And “War is a Racket”
Moving away from endless delusional posts… let’s back to why The Core is here…
Foreign Governments Dump US Treasuries as Never Before, But Who the Heck is Buying Them?
http://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/US-Treasuries-net-foreign-transactions.png
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/02/09/foreign-governments-sell-u-s-treasuries-as-never-before-but-who-buys-them/
Good chart and an interesting dilemma. We’ve been hearing over and over in the MSM that the dumping is because of oil price decline. Clearly the dumping started before the price collapse in 2014. So the economy was already in decline which drove the oil prices below production cost. Things have not improved so all we need to do is calculate how much more in loses can the oil industry take before they close their doors.
JT Roberts says:
Nah. There’s been no change in the growth in the demand for oil since 2013.
What happened was that U.S. shale producers flooded the market with oil.
It’s a simple case of supply and demand.
Supply has, obviously, overshot demand but the the imbalance exists because accommodative policies by the central banks have stimulated more oil production than the heavily indebted and energy constrained wider economy can afford. That situation is going to get worse:
“China’s 2016 oil demand grew at the slowest pace in at least three years, Reuters’ calculations based on official data showed, the latest indication that demand from the world’s largest energy consumer has diminished.
“China’s implied oil demand growth eased to 2.5 percent in 2016, down from 3.1 percent in 2015 and 3.8 percent in 2014, Reuters’ data showed.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-oil-demand-idUSKBN15N05B
Let’s guess where China’s demand will be in 2017. The IEA is counting on China, India (with its currency problems), and a few other Southeast Asia Countries to push world demand along.
Glenn
If it brings you comfort your entitled to your belief. The reality is demand didn’t grow to meet supply as it has historically. Your supply glut is a function of demand destruction. Low prices should have rebalanced things already but instead they are getting worse. Your position is lacking fundamentals. For having so little to work with your endurance is admirable. Keep the faith Bro. because it’s all you got to work with.
Exactly JT. Even with low oil prices US oil demand has been dropping off a cliff since Jan 2015. It has dropped off so much recession is already implied. All this in spite of low oil prices. What is going to happen if oil prices continue to rise?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/goldman-stunned-collapse-gasoline-demand-would-require-us-recession
Really guys, this isn’t rocket science.
What is it that is so difficult to understand about this?
https://s23.postimg.org/to3c49ry3/Captura_de_pantalla_628.png
Or this?
https://s29.postimg.org/i3yvktszr/Captura_de_pantalla_630.png
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Wouldn’t a more relevant measure of oil consumption be that of ‘net oil available for the economy’….ie after the oil exploration and extraction component is taken out. I imagine that the net energy of a shale play to be lower than a conventional well by some margin, never mind the external costs (socialised costs ..water pollution, roading, other infrastructure etc).
How much of its own product does the oil industry consume; is this holding oil demand up while real world consumption quietly fades away?
The Red Queen will not be amused as she is required to run faster but still seems to be falling behind.
Taking the longer view, we have been hitting peak oil demand a nation at a time…
Oil demand grew by an average of 5.6% annually between 1960 and 1980.
From 1980 to 2010 the average increase was 1.6%.
The IEA has just upped its forecast to suggest that oil demand will grow by 1.4 million barrels a day in 2017, ie around 1.46%.
They are basing that forecast on long-term growth in China and India and renewed growth in Europe. At some point very soon, China’s debt problems come home to roost and the EU breaks up in acrimony. Oil demand growth will become a thing of the past.
Now that’s a nice trick, switching the conversation from what has happened in the past, which is knowable, to that which will happen in the future, which is unknowable.
As Hannah Arendt observed in The Origins of Totalitarianism:
I am demonstrating an on ongoing trend of slowing demand growth from 1960 to present day. Extrapolating forward from that, given what we know about debt levels alone, is hardly some cunning sleight of hand on my part. The future may be unknowable but does that mean we should not examine the possibilities with intellectual rigour?
This is what I was talking about in my Forecast at the beginning of the year. https://ourfiniteworld.com/2017/01/10/2017-the-year-when-the-world-economy-starts-coming-apart/
The wind ain’t blowing, the sun is shining and a heatwave across Australia is causing mayhem as load shedding is leaving a lot of Ozzies hot under the collar. The worst outcomes seem to be centred on Adelaide, SA. this is the State with the highest dependance on Alt Energ-E.
http://www.wattclarity.com.au/2017/02/load-shedding-occurs-in-south-australia-in-heatwave-conditions/
So the call is…burn more coal …what a predicament huh!
Fascinating twists and turns!
Actually they’ve just had such a strong power spike, owing to the extraordinary heat wave, that the NSW aluminium smelter has had to partly shut down this afternoon. There will be hell to pay for this. The CEO is fuming.
Save us oh mighty solar panel. Save us oh great wind turbine. Oh never mind, just give me some coal and we can get some real work done.
http://www.thehillsgroup.org/depletion2_022.htm
Most on here are familiar with the Hills Group and their ETP model, so I thought might as well take a gander at the ‘Petroleum Price Curve’ at the above link. If you go to the far right it has oil price in 2020 close to $20. a barrel as the price the consumer can afford. So then back up from the last dot by years 2019, 2018 then to the dot for 2017 which coincidentally just happens to be at about $55.00 dollars or what oil just happens to be selling at currently or close to depending on whether it’s Brent or WTI. So their graph works for this moment in time, and we’ll just have to follow it over time to see how it plays out.
Grant Williams generally has something interesting to day…
say…
Grant presents a pretty dire picture for US finances and baby boomer social security, and he presents a strong case for buying pet rocks while they’re still affordable. This analysis also supplies some more reasons—and maybe the biggest single reason—why Russia, China and Iran are in Uncle Sam’s bad books and why Saudi Arabia looks set to join them.
Corporate and consumer defaults both rising in alarming fashion in the US. Not a good time for interest rates to go up.
Is Russia still going to be “in Uncle Sam’s bad books”?
I thought Trump’s idea was to draw Russia into the US orbit, getting it to abandon Iran and China, and join in the fight against Islamic terrorism.
Of course if the US were to stop funding Islamic terrorism in its fight against Russia, Islamic terrorism would probably go away by itself, without the need for too much military intervention.
https://s28.postimg.org/q7o3zexi5/mccain_in_syria_2_detail_2.jpg
I remember back in 1985 and 1986 when Gorbachev delighted in saying: “We are going to present you Americans with a terrible dilemma. We are going to deprive you of an enemy.”
Well it didn’t work out quite that way, as the old diehard Cold Warriors like Hillary Clinton, John McCain, Marco Rubio and Lindsey Graham insisted on prolonging Russia as the US’s enemy #1.
Trump, however, has proposed a change of enemies. The new state enemies are China, Iran and Mexico, and then of course there’s that abstract, ethereal non-state enemy called “Islamic terrorism.”
One thing seems to be sure, and that is that Trump is as intent on realigning geopolitics as much as he did domestic politics. The techtonic plates are in motion.
How Europe fares in all this is anybody’s guess.
As Alejandro Nadal points out, one of the most influential persons on the Trump team is the economist Peter Navarro.
And as Nadal goes on to explain, Navarro’s first target was not Peking, but the mercantilist powerhouse Germany and its mercantilist guru, Angela Merkel.
Navarro has charged Germany and the ECB of manipulating the Euro down in order to gain a competive edge against U.S. producers.
Trump has attempted to talk the dollar down, with some small amount of success. But without some fundamental changes in policy, both domestic and abroad, most analysists I follow believe the effect will be ephemeral. Trump’s quest to reindustrialize the U.S., of course, is dead in the water if he can’t drive the price of the dollar down relative to other currencies.
https://s28.postimg.org/kblcsxijx/Captura_de_pantalla_627.png
I think Gail has captured the problem with shale. For the time being, some of it is profitable at the lowest production cost sites, of which the supply is not that great and will be removed more quickly than higher cost wells. You also have to consider well production that is uneconomical, but can pay off debt, so produces anyway at a loss in order to service debt. Also, another issue is that service companies have no pricing power and have lowered the prices they charge for drilling tools helping lower D&C costs at the well head. It’s not technological innovation driving lower well head costs or improved production rates. Simply that servicers are in a glut because drilling collapsed and now they have no pricing power. This is only a temporary phenomenon because eventually if prices don’t recover, capacity in the industry will shrink (through bankruptcy) and service prices will likely rise once that capacity is removed, regardless of oil prices. So wellhead costs aren’t likely to remain this low in the future, raising the cost of production for even those best spots like the Permian and Eagle Ford.
If one disregards the 6 million dollar or so upfront costs to sink the wells…. then I suppose one could argue shale is profitable.
Those are apparently the accounting rules in DelusiSTAN’s oil rich province of DerangISTAN
6 million for a well wouldn’t be so bad if it produced for 30 years. But, LTO wells don’t produce very long at all. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates that about 29 percent of U.S. oil production today comes from so-called tight oil formations. Production from these wells decline by 60 percent to 70 percent in the first year.
The high tight-oil decline rates mean the higher production goes, the more wells you need to offset the decline. Today the U.S. needs to drill 6,000 new wells per year at a cost of $35 billion just to maintain current production. If that 6000 number doesn’t register to you then consider Saudi Arabia oil rig count is about 72 wells. That fact alone should blast any sense of Saudi America right out of your head.
If U.S. drilling stops, shale production will fall off a cliff in less than a years time. Thank goodness 70% of oil produced in the U.S. is still from conventional decades old plays or we would be in a world of hurt. Shale oil isn’t saving us at all, it is the conventional cheap oil that is really keeping things going.
“If that 6000 number doesn’t register to you then consider Saudi Arabia oil rig count is about 72 wells. ”
And Ghawar produces 5 million barrels a day, more than twice the production of shale oil in the US.
And that is only one field.
But shale is STILL cheaper to produce than conventional
I’ve always wondered what color the sky is on the planet Glenn lives on?
Well it makes total sense that if you have to drill thousands of holes instead of just one to get the same amount of oil…. and in a couple of more years you need to again drill thousands of more holes to produce the same amount of oil as your one hole … that shale would be the cheaper way to go
It’s just common sense — which The Core is apparently lacking.
The fact that shale drilling is even happening in spite of facts you have laid out — the fact that conventional oil peaked in 2005 — leads one to suspect that the central banks are involved in funding this …
Just as they are making billions available to the oil majors at ZIRP.
‘Whatever it takes’
yeah, yeah, yeah –
not the Beatles
U.S. shale oil is less expensive (on average) to extract than U.S. conventional oil (on average).
Furthermore, this was true even before the advances in fracking and drilling technology that have taken place over the past three years.
This is illustrated in a graph that Gail used in this post she wrote back in January of last year.
The graphic, as can be seen below, was created in October, 2014, well before the most recent advances is drilling and fracking technology.
https://s28.postimg.org/gotrq8bil/Captura_de_pantalla_626.png
The graph also illustrates the dilemma that the IOCs (aka “major oil companies”) are trapped in, as most of their production falls on the high-cost end of the spectrum.
The dilemma the IOCs are currently caught up in was diagnosed over a decade ago in this study by Rice Univeristy, and of course it has nothing to do with the “theormodynamic oil collapse” explanation that SRSrocco is peddling.
The majors, like any big corporation, are not great innovators, so are late to the shale party. If the past is any key to the future, however, what is likely to happen is that the majors will buy out the smaller companies, acquiring thier acreage position. And in fact, this is what we are already seeing happening, evidenced by ExxonMobil’s recent $6.6 billion acquisiton of the Bass family’s holdings in the Delaware Basin.
A major problem which so many people in OFW are missing is the financialization of the economy.
The big companies can, and will be, bailed out as many times as seen necessary, and they will be given money , at near zero interest rate, to gobble up as many good assets as they deem necessary.
It is like playing poker with a person having an unlimited number of chips. You can’t win in the long run.
Sorry Glenn no it’s a ponzi.
Ponzi or not, possession is 9/10 of law. If they own the patch, they will get something out of it.
I guess you read that in the MSM… just like you read about Saudi America and swallowed that without a bit of doubt.
Can you demonstrate to me how mickey mouse shale companies are more efficient and smarter than oil majors?
They are Ponzi schemes…. schisters….
And you are a complete fool
I now know the purpose of FW — if I met you in person I would feel like saying that to your face — but for reasons of politeness — I would just walk away from you leaving you in your ignorance and stupidity…
FW allows us to vent against the idiocy of the world.
Sorry for being such a Debbie Downer.
I’m sure opening up our National Parks for drilling will turn us back into a 1950’s wonderland.
Every party has a pooper. 😜
Want to look at the books?
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
Glenn? Glenn? ………………… Glenn? Where are you Glenn….. we are waiting…. and waiting …. and waiting ….
Whoa a sea of red. REDROM REDROM. What say you Glen will your beloved 3.0 turn this red sea black?
What if interest rates don’t remain at zero?
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209d.gif
Good job everyone. Reality trumps dream world.
No need to worry — shale oil companies are huge innovators
If they can make money at 50 bucks by blasting away to get at the stuff that the oil majors rejected as not profitable …. even though these wells deplete in short order….
Then surely these shale players will soon send the oil majors the way of the dinosaurs as they move into the conventional oil plays (on a small scale of course – to retain their innovation and brilliance) ….
And not only will shale oil be profitable at 50 bucks…. conventional oil will profitable at an even lower price!
I am beyond myself with joy! I have joined the 50 Buck Club.
Note: I drank 3 litres of Roundup prior to this post — I am feeling a little disseeee …. Mark — I have walked in your shoes
The counties and cities in the west of my state are largely supported by the oil and gas industry. Their economies are collapsing a la 2009 right now. Both the county and city governments are handing out pink slips because tax revenue from the O&G industry is down so much.
Yet at the same time, there are conflicts over well pads encroaching on neighborhoods. The only places left to get the oil are near or under residential areas, so huge battles break out over all of the disruption. Before it was out in the middle of nowhere; now it’s in backyards because that’s all that’s left.
Seems like they’re scraping the bottom of the barrel to me…
“Want to look at the books?” – Holy smokers! That is a lotta red. Not sure I needed to see that. We are heading for a disaster.
What does red mean mummmy? said Glenn
It means they are losing money with oil priced at 50 Bucks you stupid little bastard – how many times does mummy have to tell you that before it sinks it!!!!
http://c1.thejournal.ie/media/2015/10/shutterstock_193825178-752×501.jpg
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209d.gif
The Bloodbath Continues:
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209b.gif
Of course shale is profitable — if one ignores that other chart demonstrating the bloodbath there as well….
Glenn? Glenn? Humour us with a silly comment would ya?
We are looking at these numbers and it is bringing us down…. a good jester would be able to sense the mood and spontaneously erupt with silly bullshit lifting the mood and bringing a smile onto the faces of his masters…
Does anyone has the link for the news reporting academic institutions buying guns?
The chart at the top of this page:
https://shaleprofile.com/index.php/2017/02/09/us-update-through-october-2016/
shows the “red queen effect” really well. Notice how steep the production from prior
years keep dropping off and greater and greater rates. It looks like a wave that is building and building to a crest. If we keep this up, at some point production will fall off a cliff. That graph is screaming: “this is unsustainable”!
The Shale Pom Pom Boys are shills for ponzi sociopaths and frightened simpletons seeking simple stores to help them sleep at night.
Who knows where Trump believes he’s going to get the oil to replace Iran’s 3.8 million bopd if he follows through with his sabre rattling:
Actually, nature really doesn’t care what you or I, or Cheeto Boy thinks.
“nature really doesn’t care what you or I, or Cheeto Boy thinks.” – Yep, that is what it boils down to. If the math of energy-in vs energy-out slides outside of a goldilocks zone then bad things will happen for us humans. Nature doesn’t care if we can’t find more oil. Nature doesn’t care if we can’t find replacements for oil. If the math doesn’t work we are finished.
The problem with your theology, which I am sure you believe in very strongly, is that it is not terribly realistic.
Here’s how the theolgian Reinhold Niebuhr explains it:
R.N. born/died 1892-1971,
hm those guys lived through living standard upgrade like ~ 1500%
not entirely realistic pessimism? certainly not affected the philosophic lenses one bit..
So let’s see.
R.N. born/died 1892-1971.
• WWI
• The Great Depression
• WWII
• The development of nuclear weapons and their use in Hiroshima and Nagasaki
• The Cold War
• The Vietnam War
Right, Niebuhr never lived through anything that would lead him to be pessimistic about the future of the human enterprise.
Glenn, you think the above quotation was an explanation?
I read it four times and finally gave up in exasperation, crying “It’s not ME, it’s HIM!”
Reinhold Niebuhr was a rough contemporary of Scott Nearing.
Let’s take an example of Scott’s prose:
For a long time, humans stored their grains whole, as they came from the threshing floor. The grain, if dry, kept indefinitely, and because of the hard shell which covered each kernel, lost little of its nutritive value. Whole-meal flower, however, will not keep. Oxidation alters its chemical character. The oil in the kernel becomes rancid or evaporates. In a comparatively short time wholegrain flour becomes sour and mouldy. Therefore, under ideal conditions, when bread is to be baked, the whole grain should be ground.
That’s what I call an explanation!
Also, RH didn’t personally take part in any military campaigns, did he? He was preaching and ministering to the car workers of Detroit during its golden age. The Model-T was a major advance on the horse and buggy, and living standards in the US were rising through most of his lifetime.But RH was a pessimist. He loved to look on the dark side of life.
As WIkipedia reports:
Because of his opinion about factory work, Niebuhr rejected liberal optimism. He wrote in his diary:
“We went through one of the big automobile factories to-day…. The foundry interested me particularly. The heat was terrific. The men seemed weary. Here manual labour is a drudgery and toil is slavery. The men cannot possibly find any satisfaction in their work. They simply work to make a living. Their sweat and their dull pain are part of the price paid for the fine cars we all run. And most of us run the cars without knowing what price is being paid for them…. We are all responsible. We all want the things which the factory produces and none of us is sensitive enough to care how much in human values the efficiency of the modern factory costs.”
Tim, Niebuhr is best known as a Christian realist. He was not only highly influential during his own lifetime, but continues to be influential to this day, as was evidenced by president Obama’s frequent references to him. Politicians for the most part don’t quite know what to do with him, whether to love him or hate him, because he challenged both the sweeping generalizations and the facile dualism that are the stock in trade of most politicans.
“To be a realist,” Duncan Bell notes in Under an Empty Sky — Realism and Political Theory, “is to assume a certain attitude towards the world, to focus on the most salient dimensions of a given situation, whether or not they conform to our preferences or desires.”
Every civilization believes its own propaganda, and ours is no exception. Realism “implies the will, and perhaps even the ability,” Bell explains, to dig beneath the propaganda and “to grasp the reality.” It suggests a “wariness of easy answers,” whether those answers spring from an unreflective optimism or an unrealistic pessimism.
The time before WWI, the Great Depression and WWII was a time of unbridled optimism in the Occident, which after those events gave way to disillusionment and a boding pessimism for many.
As Arthur Schlesinger Jr. notes:
Vibeke Schou Tjalve argues that Niebuhr was an exponent of “enchanted skepticism.” In response to totalitarianism and the disenchantment with the world, he sought to “initiate a spiritual public rebirth” comprising three main elements: “a recovery of transcendent purpose in civic discourse; a redefinition of patriotism as deliberate dissent against conformist consensus; and finally, a reconstitution of leadership as the potential stimulus of agonistic and dissenting debate rather than stifled and uniform compromise.”
The Niebuhr quote you cite is an example of the “deliberate dissent against conformist consensus” that Niebuhr championed. After all, there is hardly anything more conformist, more stifling, and more dehumanizing than behaviorism, McDonaldization, Rationalization, Scientific Management, Fordism, and Taylorism.
Glenn – I notice that you have not responded to the request to explain how shale producers are able to make money at 50 bucks because they have advantages over oil majors because they are smaller
Can you point these out?
Do they have bigger R&D budgets?
Do top engineers prefer to work for them rather than oil majors?
Do they get better prices for their equipment because they place much smaller orders than oil majors?
Are they due their small size, minimal assets and negative cash flows able to get better interest rates on their bonds?
You are in the lion’s den Glenn — you cannot get away with simply repeating what you read in the MSM and posting it here as if it was truth.
For a relentless critique of behaviorism, McDonaldization, Rationalization, Scientific Management, Fordism, and Tayloris, there’s this film by the anarchist filmmaker Scott Noble:
Human Resources
http://metanoia-films.org/human-resources/
Thanks Glenn. I only know Niebuhr as a name—and he wasn’t a household name in the UK where I grew up. I would like to get to know the basis of his thoughts, so I will definitely read some of his published work, even if I have to grow a few more neurons to get through it.
I wasn’t, for instance, aware that he was the author of the Serenity Prayer: “Father, give us courage to change what must be altered, serenity to accept what cannot be helped, and the insight to know the one from the other.”
Had I lived through the first half of the last century, I’m sure I’d have been fairly pessimistic. Compared with that, the second half was a party. But I wonder whether RN’s pessimism was not in large part related to his German American cultural roots?
Sorry, as soon as the word “theologian” is in the sentence, reality is now suspended, and fantasy is now the guiding theme.
Don’t like being called out on our theology, do we?
The more I read from you and the other DelusiSTANIs….
I begin to wonder if The Core are superior beings .. think about that — out of 7.5 billion people perhaps 15 truly get it…. I am always amazed that even when one of us opens the curtain for the masses to see — no matter their level of intelligence they cannot see what is so obvious to we few….
Why is it we can see — and almost nobody else can? We are truly special individuals — we deserve to be worshiped — we deserve thrones — and private jets….
But we don’t — so I take that to mean that we have a higher calling….
Who’s to say that we are not the Creators of this world?
Who’s to say that once BAU ends we will unveil a new world — one in which DelusiSTANIS exist to wash our feet…. fetch our cold beer… provide us with entertainment…
After all are we not truly gods? Is it not what gods deserve?
I get it – therefore I am. I am therefore I am a god.
Worship us now and forever Glenn. Kiss the rings.
http://pre03.deviantart.net/a0ab/th/pre/i/2013/023/2/3/kiss_the_ring_of_dracula_by_paulbaack-d5sgwv9.jpg
Glenn I appreciate your viewpoints. However your political bias detracts from your contributions. We know the left is crazy. We know the right is crazy. Consistently bringing forth examples of the left craziness with out craziness of the right demonstrates bias. There are ane arguments from both also. We dont really care. I did however appreciate your link to Tulsi but please tone down your trollish political campaign.
Another little habit you have, using quotes from long dead philosophers to avoid actually responding to interactions also detracts from your contribution. Placing people in boxes in order to quickly dispose of them by use of drawing on authority and tangling them in some dusty philosophers paradigm denotes a unwillingness to explore the truth. Every time you use that technique what you are really doing is sneakily asserting ; you are crazy your opinion is of no value. Its underhanded. Its disrespectful. I agree that people are crazy but do you think your viewpoint is unbiased? If you think you are sane and everyone else is crazy guess what that means…
😆
TwoMenEnter says:
And this is your response to a comment where I ask, “Who knows where Trump believes he’s going to get the oil to replace Iran’s 3.8 million bopd if he follows through with his sabre rattling”?
Go figure.
Glenn, my reality challenged friend, with 50 sizzlers (they have much more than that), Iran can crash the world economy in 15 minutes.
While important, I would not be that concerned with Iranian Oil Flow.
Sanctions have hardly made a dent.
TwoMenEnter,
And as to your anti-intellectualism, what can one say?
Anti-intellectualism, just like apocalyptic end-times theologies, run like a thread through American history.
Anti intellectualism eh? Are intellectuals on the protected species list? Is anyone who pontificates in a certain style to be unquestioned? Is a friendly communication about disrespectful behavior inappropriate when the behavior is exhibited by a “intellectual”?
“Anti-intellectualism, just like apocalyptic end-times theologies, run like a thread through American history.”
Step 1; Assign a “theological” box
Step 2; Demean that theology-been there done that.
Step 3; Avoid any true interaction and discard the box
It must be terrifically boring to so scared of genuine interaction.
You are a prime example
He may not want to replace it. He may want higher prices, for a variety of reasons. He may assume, like some do, if/when prices spike, the “free” hand of the market will provide. It is what he was taught/learned/observed all his life.
Low prices are the cure for low prices, until they are not.
High prices are the cure for high prices, until they are not.
School in session, but I’m not sure anyone is paying attention. They think they already know all the answers.
He may think Iraq is another Iran. A pushover, well maybe we get our hair mussed, worst case. He can grab their stuff and be a hero. I would not be surprised if some/many/all around him are encouraging this thought. Echo chambers may not be the best places to prepare battle plans from…
South Australia, another failed experiment brought to you by the renewables and “keep it in the ground” crowd.:
Thanks! Natural gas in Australia is a problem as well. Those drilling wells offshore have plans to sell to Japan instead.
The Inquisition continues its purging of science from The Chosen Path (The Free Market):
https://theintercept.com/podcasts/
Wrong link (but a good one)
This is correct:
https://www.bloomberg.com/politics/articles/2017-02-09/epa-officials-yanked-from-alaska-event-as-trump-team-weighs-in
You gotta love this zinger:
Apparently “the agency’s mission” is the same mission as that of the Sierra Club, otherwise why would the Sierra Club be protesting so much?
Who wudda ever thunk it?
So I take it you don’t like the Sierra Club?
They are a bit conservative for me.
These are my comrades:
https://deepgreenresistance.org/en/
I am a member of the Coal Burners Club — our goal is to save the world (or at the very least extend BAU a few more years) through the burning of more fossil fuels.
One of our rituals is putting on fancy dress and heading out on moonless nights looking for solar panels to smash with stones. We also enjoy taking hack saws to wind mill installations.
Serious or metaphoric joke?, what’s there in your neck of the wood/ocean?
Black or brown coal, shipped from Aussians? What’s the Sulfur and ash content you burn? Presume, there must be some varieties on the market, what you are liking best?
I’ll burn just about anything – no fetishes… anything that will make the steam rise and the wheel spin…. I am all for it.
The hypocrisy of the anti-energy left never ceases to amaze.
It is, after all, two of the leading advocates of the anti-energy left, Naomi Oreskes and Erik Conway, who suggested that a comand and control (and highly illiberal and anti-democratic) type of government like that of China would perform better in crisis conditions than a republican form of government like that of the United States.
So should we do away with our republican form of government, and let the scientist kings decide everything?
We’ve seen this movie before. How did rule by the scientist kings work out for Nazi Germany?
As invariably seems to be the case with apocolyptic ideologies, CAGW (catostrophic anthropogenic global warming) comes loaded with an illiberal political agenda.
The Collapse of Western Civilization
http://www.loe.org/shows/segments.html?programID=14-P13-00030&segmentID=6
Yea, that really worked out well for Nazi Germany.
https://s30.postimg.org/70z2k4yrl/Captura_de_pantalla_610.png
Glenn, thanks for all the excellent information.
Ok Glenn
So shaleprofile has analyzed 66,689 wells. Their cumulative production is 6,080,000,000 boe. A little simple math gives you an average production of 91,169 boe which at $50.00 per barrel equals $4,558,472.00 per well. Now the cost of drilling and completion is around $6,000,000.00 per well. Without even adding operating costs or royalties do you see a problem here? These companies are living off initial equity investments just like Madoff did. Except their not as smart they’re running around drilling holes in the ground rather than just spend it. As far as a business model goes it’s a waste of resources to drill a single well. But it’s been a nice service to society. When the investors figure this out we’ll see how much tight oil is still around.
The ultimate ponzi scheme.
Europe has abandoned all shale production.
Argentina, with government subsidization, has the best chance of at least extracting a bit.
The Permian, only in a few sweet spots, is close to breaking even.
Actually, some have realized that not drilling the well, you get have even more cash.
Why bother? You can get two G5’s.
According to the stats you cite, the shaleprofile analysis takes 66,689 wells completed between 2003 and 2016 and lumps their performance all together, coming up with “an average production of 91,169 boe,” as if wells drilled in 2016 performs the same as wells drilled in 2003.
But we’re no longer in 2003. We’re not even in 2014. We’re in 2017, and things have changed a great deal between 2014 and 2017, not to even mention between 2003 and 2017. Comparing the performance of a well drilled in 2003 to the performance of a well drilled in 2017 would be like comparing a Samsung Galaxy 3 to a Samsung Galaxy 8. You can’t take the performance of a Galaxy 8 and average it with the performance of a Galaxy 3, and say “this is the performance of Samsung’s newest phone.” It doesn’t work that way.
The Rystad Energy analysis, conversely, looked at the production profiles of “15,000 unconventional wells drilled and completed per year” for its analysis, so trends in well performance can be observed.
This from the Rystad report gives one an idea of the depth of data that was used in its analysis.
https://s24.postimg.org/4rz25qiyt/Captura_de_pantalla_623.png
Now, Glenn, you are familiar with first year depletion rates?
Inquiring minds want to know——
People are only now reading up on tight oil from controlled sources and they think it is new, revolutionary and is getting cheaper to drill as technology improves recover rates. Then, they come here posting this information like they found something new. What these posters don’t realize is that many folks on this site have been researching tight oil production for more than a decade now and are not easily fooled by misleading information. Tight oil is not a revolution for oil, it is a retirement party for oil. It is too expensive to extract, depletes too quickly and is generally too light for diesel fuel and huge debts are piling up for producers that extract it. It will work as long as investors keep the ponzi scheme going by pouring good money after bad.
I remember reading the glorious headlines about shale oil in 2009 and 10 and thinking …. this sounds too good to be true … ‘Saudi America’ ….. my spider sense began to tingle….
When that happens I realize that I am being fed a diet of lies by the MSM…. which usually provokes me into single malt fueled late night binges with my assistant google…. searching for the truth.
When one understands what shale is — it is impossible not to conclude that we are in a very desperate situation —- that the end of days is closing in.
Then again — the fact that we are desperate to drill deep beneath the arctic oceans and steam oil out of tar should make it obvious that the era of oil — is on its last legs.
Shale is a retirement party — the funeral is not far off
Duncan Idaho,
Well yes, believe it or not, I am “familiar with first year depletion rates.”
Here’s a comparison of what they look like for three wells completed at different times in the Midland Basin, the first completed using Fracking Version 1.0, the second completed using Fracking 3.0, and the third using Fracking Version 3.0.
https://s23.postimg.org/di5f96m7f/Captura_de_pantalla_625.png
The STS S 501H and Denise 205NH are offsets, with the same length of laterals, so it gives a very good comparison of the well performance achieved with Fracking Version 1.0 and Fracking Version 2.0.
The Sale Ranch 14B is located in a different part of the field and has a longer lateral, but it nevertheless gives an idea of the sort of well performance that can be achieved with a combination of Fracking Version 3.0, upgrading and longer laterals.
So, for the shinny fraq ver3.0 is that “only” ~20% drop for the first 21/2 yrs (and most likely delayed – accelerating drop afterwards)?
Cool, we can surely base a civilization or two on that !
Hm, I’d still rather go with the Russian uranium mox hot pots, that’s at least realistic can kicking project for few decades..
Carp Fishing on Valium.
Glenn – do you still believe shale oil is cheaper to produce than conventional oil?
And as I demonstrated yesterday – they all lose money.
Has the 50 Buck Club disbanded in light of that info?
https://usatftw.files.wordpress.com/2016/05/ap_books_ap_history_16092469.jpg
Glenn – if you want to stop getting knocked out like this …. might I suggest the following:
– stop believing what you read in the MSM is the truth — instead assume if they are publishing something that it came to them from a PR person with an agenda who is paying the MSM to publish it — or from the Ministry of Truth which has ordered them to publish it — if it’s in the MSM generally you can rule that option out as the truth so it is actually useful
– whenever you read a statement from someone who earns their living from shale — know immediately that the statement is a lie.
Feeling King-Kongish yet, are you up to it?
MSM? Are you kidding.
The ultimate arena for cruel reality check is that long dark hall leading to several forgotten, smelly and dusty cabinets. For instance, in one of these rooms you see tapes of “heroes” of several generations how they fix colorful transparencies on the windows of Earth orbiting module. In another cabinet you see lab glass with bits of brains pieces blown out of dead presidents, and the hall runs long and long distance still..
Everything I thought I knew about the moon landings and the JFK assassination was brought to me by the same lyin’, cheatin’, dirty-low-down purveyors of fake news who told us Saddam had weapons of mass destruction and fed his victims feet first into a giant shredder, and who assure us that renewables will save us and that the Bowling Green massacre never happened. Should I assume that they are lying about everything as a default setting, or should I factor in the possibility that they might occasionally be telling the truth just to keep us confused?
Amusingly — an anti-Trump mate was pounding on about how the pissing whore report from the CIA was surely true …
I could care less about Trump other than I demand he entertain me — and pissing whores qualifies so I want that to be true…
In any event I said but you do remember the WMD lies right? The CIA was the organization creating those lies…
And now without any evidence — you are accepting these statements as fact.
The cognitive dissonance kicked in and he began to speak in tongues…
My take on the MSM is that it is almost entirely lies — except the sports scores — and sometimes the weather …
However if one digs enough – as many of the core on FW do — there are nuggets of truth to be picked up … not sure why they bother to do that — perhaps they need to stick those in to keep the more clever in the audience on side?
If they plant a few truths – amongst a sea of lies — the clever say ‘see – there is truth — therefore all is truth’
The New York Times is the master of this…
I despise the NYT more than any other MSM because of this — it is a very sophisticated propaganda machine…. and it successfully sucks in a lot of very intelligent people.
So I guess shale is cheaper to extract than conventional oil ….. who would have thought!
And no wonder Tillerson is moving on from Exxon — he is clearly a total f&^%$ idiot as he missed the boat on shale and this is a face saving way of getting rid of this tired old moron
He was headed in the right direction with XTO …. but then he blew it …. as we all know Exxon has increased their cap by 250 billion dollars on the back of renewed value in the XTO investment (which initially dropped the cap 41 billion meaning it was a worthless acquisition)
Rex should been piling into shale — he should have bought Chesapeake etc etc etc… just buy up the entire industry
But nope — Exxon continued instead to focus on that really really really difficult stuff to extract – conventional oil and now they are on the verge of collapse.
Stupid stupid stupid!!!
Rex the Bozo – Rex the Clown — Rex the Jester — Rex the Fool
Pioneer Natural Resources, which is the largest operator in the Midland Basin and is not burdened with a lot of high-cost production outside the Permian Basin, published its 8k for 4Q16 yesterday.
Pioneer generated $537 million in operating cash flow in the three months ended December 31, 2016, and $1.498 billion in operating cash flow in the twelve months ended December 31, 2016.
https://s28.postimg.org/3w247ffod/Captura_de_pantalla_607.png
The Pioneer Natural Resources results offer confirmation of what Rystad Energy reported earlier in the year.
https://s24.postimg.org/6jd1pyb51/Captura_de_pantalla_607.png
https://s28.postimg.org/v5k3qw819/Captura_de_pantalla_608.png
https://s30.postimg.org/kn3tjrly9/Captura_de_pantalla_611.png
All of these prices are low, relative to what prices most producers need. The price levels for the fourth quarter of 2016 are better than for other quarters, but they are still too low for most producers.
We also have low prices for coal, uranium, and food.
True.
This graph is from 2014, but an approximation of what has happened over the past three years is that NAm Shale has moved from here:
https://s27.postimg.org/fw3y16ns3/Captura_de_pantalla_615.png
To here:
https://s30.postimg.org/t6mr45f4x/Captura_de_pantalla_617.png
Unfortunately for the majors, most of their portfolio is located in the more expensive places to produce oil, so they are in a world of hurt until oil prices rise significantly higher.
Hi Glenn,
This is very good stuff. Extremely interesting. Thanks for all the information you provide on the present situation and trends in the U.S. shale oil industry.
I participate in some technical groups that look at energy systems (electrical generation and transportation fuels), primarily in the U.S. The “problem” in these evaluations is that things are changing so fast. For example, cumulative worldwide photovoltaics production has doubled about every two years for the last >20 years. And costs for photovoltaics have been declining dramatically:
Unsubsidized Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE) —Wind/Solar PV (Historical)
So people who say things about the cost of photovoltaics that were very accurate even as recently as 2010 are way, way off on the high end in 2017.* A very similar situation is happening with battery technology. So people who say things about batteries for utility electrical storage and for electric vehicles can be way off, even if they were very accurate 5+ years ago.
That’s why it’s so valuable to people like me to have people like you providing cost and technical insights for industries with which I don’t routinely deal.
Best wishes,
Mark
*P.S. And perovskite photovoltaics have the possibility of producing electricity with a staggeringly low levelized cost. But we’re probably talking at least 5-10 years before they could become commercially significant. (If at all. Some other PV technology might come up.)
This is fascinating stuff…. it gives us tremendous insights into the workings of a community of DelusiSTANIS by allowing us to observe how they communicate — it is in par with the discovery of the Rosetta Stone
As we can see they reinforce each others delusions…. ignoring the facts and instead passing along lies and bullshit that they pick up from the MSM….
This in turn mutually strengthens each of their delusional states making them shall we say — Super DelusiSTANIS… impervious to any facts or logic whatsoever.
The great success story for renewables is Texas.
It has a renewables penetration in its power generation similar to that of California, and it has achieved this while lowering average per kwh costs to consumers who live in the state.
The thought of making some redneck Republican state like Texas the poster child for renewables is of course offensive to most progressives, so one hears little about Texas’ successful experiment in wind and solar. Instead we hear about Germany and California, whose wind and solar have not performed up to expectations, to say the least.
Given that a large part of Trump’s proposed infrastrucre spending package is for wind, solar and upgrades to the grid, Trump obviously believes that wind and solar have a future in “making the United States energy independent.”
If you’re not turned off by the success of some redneck Republican state like Texas, you might want to check it out (if you haven’t already). Here are some interesting links that I collected a couple of years ago.
https://www.texastribune.org/2013/10/14/7-billion-crez-project-nears-finish-aiding-wind-po/
https://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/Austin-Energy-Switches-From-SunEdison-to-Recurrent-For-5-Cent-Solar
http://www.fronterasdesk.org/content/10055/wind-powers-growth-texas-triggers-challenge-renewable-energy-mandates
http://www.utilitydive.com/news/austin-energy-gets-record-low-solar-bids-at-under-4-centskwh/401642/
http://www.southerncompany.com/news/2015-11-30-spc-roserock.cshtml
“it has achieved this while lowering average per kwh costs to consumers who live in the state.”
The way the pricing system works is that it does not provide enough money for the other providers in the state–the natural gas, coal, nuclear and hydroelectric providers. The rates go down, but the electricity companies providing backup generation go out of business. We saw this in South Australia, where they are now having blackouts. This follows several earlier sitatuations with loss of power.
http://reneweconomy.com.au/last-coal-fired-power-generator-in-south-australia-switched-off-88308/
http://www.adelaidenow.com.au/news/south-australia/blame-game-over-rolling-blackouts-as-south-australia-promised-dramatic-overhaul-of-energy-grid/news-story/6f659cfefcead66d2599f3449f1cb2d6
The cutoff of supporting electricity because of low prices happens everywhere.
California is importing more and more electricity from out of state, because of artificially low prices are driving needed backup generation out of business. Even more out of state power will be needed when its last nuclear plant closes, because low electricity prices make it non-economic to make necessary repairs, so the facility can be operated.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2016-06-21/pg-e-proposing-to-retire-california-s-only-nuclear-reactors
Texas, however, faces some rather significant challenges with integrating renewables into its grid as renewables penetration rises above 10%.
ERCOT has thus far resolved these challenges in the same way the British calvary generals did the machine gun — by ignoring it.
We’ll see how it works out.
https://s23.postimg.org/51reybesb/Captura_de_pantalla_1190.png
https://s23.postimg.org/qksd856ln/Captura_de_pantalla_1191.png
“Texas, however, faces some rather significant challenges with integrating renewables into its grid as renewables penetration rises above 10%.”
The year 2031 is a long way off, in modern electric utility terms. They may have dramatically under-predicted the penetration of photovoltaics. Also, there are the two huge questions of:
1) Electric batteries (both in electric vehicles and dedicated to the electrical grid), and
2) Smart grid applications that shift load away from peak periods.
Mark,
There’s a comment that got caught up in moderation, so you might want to check back later to get a more complete idea of my thoughts.
https://shaleprofile.com/wp-content/uploads/Oil-basins-excl-Bakken.png
The 109 Wolfcamp A and B wells that Pioneer Natural Resources completed in the Midland Basin in 2016 using Fracing Version 3.0 will produce over 250,000 boe in their first year of production, with EURs well in excess of 1 million boe.
These wells, with an oil price of $50 per barrel, easily payout their $7 – $8.5 million cost to drill and complete within the first year of production.
https://s24.postimg.org/j4b8h3aj9/Captura_de_pantalla_612.png
Diamondback Energy, another company that operates almost exclusively in the Perman Basin, reports similar performance in the lower Spraberry formation, with shorter horizontal intervals.
https://s28.postimg.org/lm2nm51kt/Captura_de_pantalla_614.png
It is possible to tap the easy to extract oil for a short period, before a producer has to move on to the more expensive to extract oil. I am sure amount paid to the government is down a whole lot too.
The price needs to be set at the marginal barrel–the price the high cost producers need, not the price the low cost producers need.
The thing is that the United States’ shale oil reserves are so vast.
https://s29.postimg.org/re0nqy2iv/Captura_de_pantalla_619.png
And after these are developed, there’s Mexico, whose shale oil and gas reserves could very well exceed those of the United States.
https://s23.postimg.org/hqqjndgd7/z1305_UOGRmex01.jpg
Those who work in the oil and gas industry are very skeptical of Trump’s claim that he can “make the United States energy independent.” That’s why Trump’s jingoistic rhetoric against Mexico and iran is of such concern for those who work in the oil industry. As Rigzone commented recently:
https://s24.postimg.org/gcdj8ul79/Captura_de_pantalla_622.png
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-vd6PD7qHQ04/UBQzqB2JgkI/AAAAAAAAB7k/mfmxcVwtHjg/s1600/Antitheist+George+Carlin.jpg
++++++++++++++++++++++
People! They learn nothing from history. Nothing at all I tell you. S&L, Dot-Com, housing, student loans and shale oil. All bubbles. Just like the fools that believe Democrats and Republicans are actually choices. Carlin was a very insightful person: you want a bowl of cereal you got choices but when it comes to electing a president you have no choices. He stated the obvious very well. The thing is people are so blind (stupid) they don’t see the obvious.
Current reality check:
https://shaleprofile.com/index.php/2017/02/09/us-update-through-october-2016/
Thanks Duncan.
Thought I logged into the wrong site for a second.
“The thing is that the United States’ shale oil reserves are so vast. ” – yes just as vast as the ignorance of the investors pouring money into this.
Red red red red red
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/blog170209e.gif
“It is possible to tap the easy to extract oil for a short period, before a producer has to move on to the more expensive to extract oil.” – Also consider that right now the U.S. needs to drill 6000 new wells annually JUST TO MAINTAIN CURRENT RATES OF PRODUCTION. This is a huge elephant in the room. This is a classic ponzi scheme. As oil producers move to more expensive plays costs are going to sky-rocket. And that is just to maintain production folks. Combine that with flagging demand and it is blatantly obvious this shale oil bubble is going to blow apart. How can people be so blind not to understand what is going on here?
Glenn — does it ever cross your mind that you are an id iot?
That you are unable to think logi cally.
That your ‘arguments’ are nothing but regurgitated li es pumped out by the shale industry?
Perhaps this fleetingly runs across your mind?
Do you ever suspect that you are being played? That you are a su cker? That you are making a complete a…ss of yourself?
Energy Consumption Vs. Core Populations – Trending Down Together
In this article, I want to spend a little time reviewing two of the most relatively reliable data sets, population size/growth and energy consumption/growth. I’ll compare the total energy consumption of nations / groupings of nations vs. their core (25-54yr/old) employed populations and total core (25-54yr/old) populations.
What’s the point? We are in the midst of a structural, secular change and policy makers / central bankers insistence that it is just a transitory issue in need of more rate cuts and more credit to ”restart the economy” is absolutely ridiculous. This is the story of cause (declining population, where it counts) and effect, declining energy consumption and economic activity. And this is about to really pick up speed to the downside (more on that, China, below). Plus, we can ponder if real economic “growth” coincident with declining consumption of energy is possible…or is that growth just debt and financialization? Also keep in mind while viewing the charts and data below, if not for the twenty six years of Federal Reserve (& CB’s worldwide) interest rate cuts incenting all the debt creation, energy consumption would have begun declining long ago.
Below, total US energy consumption (quadrillion BTU’s) vs. core employees. Correlation? Causation? Anyway, just is what it is. The US consumes 18% of global energy but US total energy consumption has been falling since 2007 and is now back to where it was 17 years ago, in 1999….likewise, the total number of 25-54yr/old employees peaked in ’07 and is now back to 1999 levels.
https://econimica.blogspot.co.nz/2017/02/sunday-discussion-point-energy.html
When I’ve been re-posting this very blog and its “demographics deflationary message for 2020-30” over here for months you went ape-sh.. crazy like a clockwork. I’m glad that after a long term digestion phase you finally see the light or perhaps only cherry picking from fast reading something else in there.
Now, another question is what we analytically make of it.
It could be simple and sudden deflationary bust – default scenario anyway, perhaps coming soon, i.e. triggered in the west. However note the demographic induced consumer slowdown impact from Asia is more pronounced with delay say after ~2025.
So it could be also avenue for further debt orgies going beyond todayz ~300-600% “GDP” to even much higher insane levels, what is essentially incorrectly called here the BAU-lite, in effect can kicking the slow grinding torture at least into ~2020-35 envelope for the industrialized world..
Thanks for the link.
I think the connection is that it takes energy to make good paying jobs. Typically, it has been the 25-54 year olds who get these good paying jobs. The US information showed how the employment of 25 to 54 year olds dropped, when energy consumption dropped.
The scales on the graphs for other countries are fairly different, represent different mixes of energy for different uses in different countries. The one with the scale closest to that of the US, and also the best fitting comparison (age 25-54 population versus energy consumption). This comparison is only telling part of the story, so I am hesitant to push it too far.
I very much agree with the paragraph:
Actually, we know that Chinese energy consumption was already falling in 2016. This is not a good sign, with or without the population decline. China, in theory, has a lot of unemployed migrant workers in the 25-54 year old age category who could be put to work, if China could keep growing its exports of finished goods rising at a rapid rate. This is part of its problem, too.
He posted a lot of such graphs over the past months/years, the Chinese consumer age bracket changes in these between 16-54 / 25-54, also the data seems gradually shifting – or closing on the earlier dates, stressing the 2020-25 peak period as opposed the more distant, 2025 on wards period, appearing in his blog earlier.
However, given the increased weight of China since 2000s in the global pie, we can’t underestimate the propensity to prolong – paper over the big demographic swing should it come indeed sooner before ~2025. So it’s still a bit broad brush. You can see the stalled stagnation and slow decay from the US-JAP-EU graphs, so China could be either a party pooper who ends the trend immediately as their top consumer age bracket snaps or rather function as the last man standing propping it up for a while for the whole global, i.e. forced extension via printing..
Pingback: Why the ‘Transition’ to Wind & Solar is Nothing More than a Cruel Marketing Myth – STOP THESE THINGS
Negawatt site in english:
negawatt.org/en
Republican Coalition Proposes a Carbon Tax to Fight Climate Change
https://www.planetizen.com/node/91113/republican-coalition-proposes-carbon-tax-fight-climate-change
Wow, and I thought R’s were too dense to understand GW, too heartless to care what would happen once it goes too far, too self involved to shoulder extra costs to help a transition and too radically right to consider the accuracy of the science.
Other Possible R programs
The places in America most exposed to a trade war
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/business/trade-exposure/?tid=ss_tw
But I thought climate change was a chinese hoax? Surely this will get veto’d?
The “negawatt” french organisation has a very different view, considerably more optimist. It estimates a 100% renewable (and nuclear-free) France possible as soon as 2050.
It not only acts on supply but on demand (with measures that can reduce by 2/3 existing building energy consumption). Personally in a few months (living in Canada but *without* improving my home insulation or putting solar panels) I have been able to reduced by 2/3 my electricity consumption with all costs required totally paid (+ supplementary profit) by expected savings without any noticed change in my comfort.
Site (in french): negawatt.org
English executive summary: https://negawatt.org/IMG/pdf/negawatt-scenario-2017-2050_english-summary.pdf
I would be delighted if Gail and others could give a critical opinion on this approach
I think the ‘negawatt’ term was first coined by Amory Lovins. If we are going to apply energy technology to present society then demand management has be the highest level of priority, not relegated to an after thought as is invariably the case. Think in terms of ERoEI. The net energy return on most energy saving investment is way, way higher than that of any supply side technology. In some cases 300:1.
I don’t see demand management as a panacea, all the same. It’s all too little too late. Especially considering that most governments and most business enterprises and most people and most energy debates are fixated on supply technologies.
Amory Lovins. has wet dreams about our techno fantasy world.
He is the ultimate techno narcissist.
(well,may maybe Kurzweil has longer and more intense orgasms)
We need more demand. Demand management needs to somehow to allow the poor afford the output of the economy, so that we can use up resources more quickly and more completely. The benefit is that this approach may put off collapse a bit.
+++++++++++++++++++
Burn baby burn!!!!
Gosh, there’s a beautiful or very sad irony in that idea, Gail. As the Earth’s resources are badly flailing we need to pump up more demand. And yes we do need to do that if we demand equity. Yet in the end there’s precious little equity in collapse. I would have thought that the longer collapse is artificially held off the harder the fall.
How did you reduce your consumption by that amount?
Actually super simple things
I did a thorough analysis of all kw used (a pluggable meter was immensely useful).
I changed all light bulbs to led, changed lamps to maximise light coming from them (I now light my entire living room with a single 9w placed strategically near where I read but light more lamps when visitors)
I changed my old refrigerator to a considerably more efficient one (even though it is much bigger!)
I got rid of my air conditioner: this is something I never thought I would do. I always thought I could not live in the summer without air conditioning set at 22C. To my big surprise, I found out that the body adapt immensely to temperature over time. Now in the summer the temperature varies from 25 to up to 31C and I don’t really feel it anymore (I do use a small portable fan when it is too hot). It actually love it more! Because living in sort of the countryside, I can leave the windows open and smell great summers smells and as a second benefit, I go outside more because I don’t have to deal with an unpleasant abrupt change of temperature (which I did with air conditioning) when I step out.
Then another (very) worthwhile steps was to change my gas furnace to another gas furnace. Why? Because my analysis led me to realize that the motor of my furnace was extremely energy inefficient. I reviewed industry data of all major furnace brand and found one (only one!) that had an extraordinarily more energy efficient motor. Also my furnace was oversized for my home (a quite frequent occurrence in many homes) The kwh saved (verified post-installation) from that change will amazingly pay (including profits) for the cost of the new furnace.
I turn off items I am not using, and found that my electric piano and an electric bed (quite surprisingly – only a motor not in action was consuming++) were using considerable energy when idle. I also got rid of very energy inefficient desktop computers.
I plan in the future to relocate my hot water tank which is very far away from the faucet.
All and all, I went from 30 kwh/day (yearly average) to 10 kwh/day, a change that really stunned me because I actually enjoy it more now (because I appreciate summer more without the air conditioner).
If the electricity stops, you will be left with new more expensive appliances, which you presumably still be expected to pay for. I expect that you will also be left with a lot of debt. None of your devices will actually work, though. The one big thing you have gained is learning to live with the windows open in summer. This will be helpful, even without electricity.
Our problem is too low demand, for energy products of all types, and because of this, too low prices for producers to be able to make adequate profits to remain in business. While sustainability folks would say your actions are great, in fact, you are adding to the low demand problem.
If our problem were falling supply, at ever rising prices, your actions would make sense. If our expectation is a complete cut-off in supply because of inadequate prices for producers, your actions tend to work in the wrong direction.
If one is to believe possible the negawatt.org scenario then we could be heading in a third possibility: lower demand and matching low-cost supply, mainly by drastically increasing solid biomass and biogas production (we additional recycling benefits).
In that scenario, my actions would eminently make sense.
And irrespective of what will happen in 30 years, I will have repaid all my incurred expenses way before that with the electricity savings: the rate of return is higher than most low-risk alternative investments! A true win-win situation for my comfort, the planet, and my pocket book.
Do you think the negawatt.org scenario possible (assuming, and that is a big IF) political feasability?
Francois-
I’m impressed. 10 kwh/d per day is extremely low consumption. I’m going to assume you are living alone because getting it down that low and heating water with electricity is a challenge I can’t seem to win with a wife and three teens. Heating 20 gallons of groundwater from 7C to 32C is the average requirement for a shower in my house.
I’m with you on the air conditioning. I don’t even use it in the car. A fan or a trip to the basement works. You really do get used to the heat if you give it a chance, at least in these parts.
There are 1.25 people living in my home.
I started this process after reading a kindle book (Miss Minimalist, Francine Jay) about simplicity. I started simplifying my life in all aspects of it. This energy “simplification” was only a part of it. I have discovered, I am considerably more happy with a simple life. I absolutely thoroughly enjoy it. I don’t see people around me interested in it at all. Actually quite the opposite. And I think I know why: television + publicity. It is virtually impossible to change your lifestyle if you watch television or live in a publicity-full environment. I was blessed with the fact that I got rid of my television 20 years ago. I think television (and publicity in all its forms) is extraordinarily destructive for individuals. You will never succeed changing the lifestyle of teenagers (or anyone else for that matter) if they watch television instead of reading instructive books and having considerable idle time to start thinking randomly about everything.
You and your wife are midgets?
You are a single parent with a four year old?
You bring home lady company every fourth day?
I have not had a Tee Vee for nearly a decade now … but other than that I aspire to burn as much carbon as possible — I like to take double long haul flights in airplanes — I lay awake at night overwhelmed with the disappointment of not being able to afford a private jet….
I am buying stuff that I don’t really need —I usually forget to bring bags to the grocery store and forever am using new plastic ones…. I am destroying the environment …. in short I am going all the things that need to be done to keep BAU ticking along….
I would never consider downscaling …. that would be betraying my wonderful mistress BAU — she abhors living small — it is anathema to her….
There is great joy and gratification in the pursuit and realization of living as large as possible — ‘go large within your means’ is my motto.
Many people consider pets to be people too. A medium dog might count as 0.25 people. Some people would even consider pets superior to many people…
Vegans …
Anyway, pets don’t demand much electricity.
Not to mention the basics, as we know at least from ~1850s long term usage of shower / hot water to only 32C is kind of suicidal for domesticated people in terms of germs..
World-
My hot water heater storage is 48C but that is too hot to shower with so it gets mixed with cold water.
Not meant as continuous operation, you just have to zap the micro world co-passengers of your home regularly..
Good, congratulations. I did ~3/4 of the same and other stuff as per different local conditions. Drastic reduction in certain domain of personal energy consumption is surprisingly easy. Plus what our gracious host and others don’t appreciate is the fact, as soon as you drop to 10kWh/d or lower, suddenly wide array of methods how to generate/store them opens up to you at reasonable cost. Again, further enables severing/shortening the link with the outside.
Is it selfish, counterproductive inside nice grid centralized system busting scheme, while some sections of the society are so boxed in they can’t unfortunately replicate that ?
Obviously in hard crash scenario, you then only count the lucky dayz before the last spare part or remnant gov or local thug comes to visit: “..hey boy, what a nice system we have here I like it very much..”
I am delighted to state that they are best case delusional – worst case — stupid:
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
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/
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/
The negawatt.org detailed study (in french, only the executive summary appears to be available in english) address the variability of wind/solar energy supply with a process using the Sabatier reaction (CO2 + 4 H2 -> CH4 + 2 H20) also called “methanation”. This process converts the excess grid electricity (with added benefit of CO2 removal) to methane which can supply the gas pipelines.
Have they explained what they will do about the fact that the sun does not shine at night — and that the wind frequently does not spin the windmill blades?
Yes they have.
Mainly: Biogas + solid biomas.
You can also use the methane from the daytime methanation as direct natural gas to heat the homes at night or (much less efficiently) reconvert it in electricity.
Sounds like utopia is right around the corner!
You are definitely living the dream
I’d come to save you but you are so deep into DelusiSTAN territory … our satellites are showing you are actually in DerangiSTAN…. I am afraid you are a lost cause … we cannot bring you out…
Enjoy your hovel and your fart gas contraption …. you’ll get used to fried worms for breakfast … and cold showers… and sleeping on dirt…. eventually …. it will feel like … living large
Electricity generated by Biogas in Germany in 2014 = 53 TWh
more than:
wind 51.4 TWh
solar 32.8 TWh
hydro 18.5 TWh
Does this Biogas tech, like wind and solar, require huge amounts of FF? Can you build a new biogas plant with the out put of an existing biogas facility?
The world does not run on oil – it runs on cow shit 🙂
Yes, absolutely.
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC3638281/
I must say, the Germans try hard to defy the laws gravity.
But we need to remember that this is one of the world’s most powerful industrial economies and it utterly relies on fossil fuels to maintain that status. 12.6 percent of its primary energy (for all purposes) comes from renewables in total, and that includes bio-fuels.
That’s a celebrated achievement, for sure, but it also illustrates how far Germany would still have to go now that the low hanging fruit has been picked.
Francois, I side with you totally on the prior need for demand management. A kilowatt-hour saved is invariably cheaper, and cheaper on the planet, than any supply-side technology can deliver.
Celebrate? Paying the highest electricity costs in the world is cause to celebrate?
Hmmm…. as a business-minded person … I smell opportunity here….
I’ve got a wooden stool — it’s a really awesome wooden stool …. I’ll tell you what — you can have it for …. $1800…. in fact I have two of them — I’ll give you them both for a total price of $5500.
Sold!!!! you say
Shall we celebrate your purchase — why not — champagne is on me
If only I could find more customers like you I’d have that private jet in no time…. how about if we set up a multi-level marketing business — surely you must move in the right circles to make this work…. I can supply unlimited chairs at very high prices
https://gailtheactuary.files.wordpress.com/2016/08/euan-mearns-europe-electric-price.png
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
I think that’s unnecessarily combative. The main point I was making is that the German economy utterly relies on the burning fossil fuels, despite its much vaunted energy revolution.
Owning to a multitude of Facebook posts that throw up simplified statistics many alternative energy enthusiasts actually believe that Germany obtains nearly all of its energy from wind and solar and they block their ears to the real story. Such is the compulsion to hear a good news story.
Tell the full story and they think you are acting for the coal lobby. I’ve written many posts to the effect that the celebration of Germany’s renewables ‘achievement’ is rather misguided.
To Dr Fast Eddy
Just want to know, in your calculation of non-renewable energy, have you included the cost of the 500 billions us military budget to maintain domination of the middle east and access and control of maritime routes? Did you also included the cost of inherent disaster that will inevitably occur when a nuclear plant eventually explodes due to a technical error or a natural catastrophe (or get hacked or get attacked by a terrorist) and contaminates a densely populated region with a radio-active atmospheric release or a contamination of waterways? What numbers did you use?
Clearly your ways to dump all costs to the public domain while keeping the profits private is typical of a mindless psychopathic way of thinking that is destroying many countries, and most visibly the USA.
When you are the biggest tax payers surely you deserve a little service in return?
No wonder President Obama loves to bash Big Oil. Thanks to high crude prices, America’s big three oil companies are raking in the profits. Last year ExxonMobil churned out net income of $41 billion, while Chevron netted $27 billion and ConocoPhillips $12.4 billion. With profits like that, these guys couldn’t possibly be paying enough taxes, right? So says the president, who in late March urged Congress to take away their tax breaks, insisting that doing so could bring in $25 billion in additional tax revenue over 10 years. “They can stand with big oil companies, or they can stand with the American people,” the president said.
http://www.forbes.com/sites/christopherhelman/2012/04/16/which-megacorps-pay-megataxes/#3f581a1e7a7e
ExxonMobil in 2011 made $27.3 billion in cash payments for income taxes. Chevron paid $17 billion and ConocoPhillips $10.6 billion. And not only were these the highest amounts in absolute terms, when compared with the rest of the 25 most profitable U.S. companies (see our slideshow for the full rundown of who paid what), the trio also had the highest effective tax rates. Exxon’s tax rate was 42.9%, Chevron’s was 48.3% and Conoco’s was 41.5%. That’s even higher than the 35% U.S. federal statutory rate, which is already the highest tax rate among developed nations.
To Chris Harries:
“the celebration of Germany’s renewables ‘achievement’ is rather misguided.”
Why is it misguided?
In a mere 15 years, they were able to transform 10% of total energy consumed to renewable energy. If that is not an incredible achievable I don’t know what is.
In 2050, they expect the number to be 60% and given the success so far and the quality of their government and industry, I would bet a lot that will even surpass it.
Unlike other countries, the german government is a very effective government that is able to think and act with determination and with tangible results to show.
They also understand the big picture and the true cost of things and their early developpement of renewable technologies will put them in a very competitive position to export their knowhow which should further increase their incredible trade surplus (250 billions!), while other countries are plagued with ideologies and private interests that paralyse them and saddled them with huge trade deficit (think USA with a 500 billions trade deficit a difference with germany of 3/4 trillion even though germany has 1/4 of its population)
I sponsor a student – he is 15 now — he is able to understand this — why can’t you?
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
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/
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/
Hi Francois, you should’ve read my posts more closely. It’s the popular belief that Germany is almost sustainable that is misguided. It’s is still light years from that goal. I know that this belief is based on wishful thinking and we would all like it to be true but we should not allow lies to persist all the same. Celebrate what’s true, not what’s untrue.
As for whether or not Germany can get there, most readers of this site would say absolutely no. Not without sacrificing it’s economic status.
I do look with admiration on Germany’s organised and determined culture. They’ve thrown more at the renewables race than almost another place. This doesn’t mean that they can achieve 100 percent renewables status, all the same.
To Dr Fast Eddy, FF industry rep
If you compare what your companies are paying in taxes (your numbers) with the subsidies they receive from governments, you clearly see that this industry survives only because of government welfare assistance, you can see how the true cost of FF is way above the renewable energy cost and that doesn’t even count ecological devastation!
USA government fossil fuel subsidy = 600 Billions per year!
Source:
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0305750X16304867
Dr Fast Eddy
What’s your point with your study links?
Replacing nuclear energy with coal (decision made years ago) was a smart move if you want to do it quickly and not wait for a disaster.
Expect this to be soon be changed to natural gas when the Nordstrem2 russian pipelines feeds germany directly and avoids Ukraine.
Natural gas including underground reservoir for natural gas are expected to solve the intermittency problem of renewals.
Germany is solving current problems efficiently while marching efficiently toward its 60% renewal (likely complemented with natural gas for the intermittency problem until even better solutions are found).
Growth in gas-fired electricity generation in Australia has been outstripping growth in wind power. This is causing some consternation in environmental circles because, although gas is often touted as a transition fuel, its carbon emissions are calculated to be fairly close to that of coal-fired generation.
If it really is a transition energy source that could be seen to be ok, but what is playing out in practice is that we are just tapping into the third available form of fossil fuels that can be burned – being already up to our axles in burning coal and oil.
I remain rather sceptical about the ‘transition’ sales pitch re gas. I think the gas corporations have other ideas. They just want to sell stand burn it. All of it.
Australia has natural gas off shore, that can be accessed as (expensive) LNG. But my understanding is that the quantity of onshore natural gas is not doing well.
I have heard a lot of complaints about prices in the recent past. http://www.abc.net.au/news/2016-08-01/gas-prices-higher-in-australia-than-in-export-destinations/7680106
The issue we are likely to run into next is natural gas prices too low for onshore producers, so no natural gas will actually be available for the new generation. This low-price problem exists many places, especially where intermittent renewables are part of generation.
I will explain this as I would to a child…
There is a place where the people decided they’d make their electricity from solar panels.
Everyone thought how wonderful – lots of cheap clean electricity.
These very stupid people did not know that solar panels are made by burning very polluting black rock-like stuff but that’s for another day.
The people were happy. They turned off all their electricity plants that use a very dangerous type of rock called uranium. So they felt safe. And very very happy. The clapped their hands there were so happy. Come on children – lets clap our hands!!!
But there was one problem that they did not think of because these people are very very stupid. Even more stupid than donkeys!
Can anyone tell Dr Fast?
I see little Tommy the retarded boy in the corner has his hand up — Tommy what do you think?
Sir…. I think solar panels only make electricity when the sun doesn’t shine — and the sun does not shine at night. So what did the people in happy happy land do at night when they wanted to turn the lights on.
Great questions retarded Tommy!
You are so bright! Much brighter than most adults.
Well they had a problem didn’t they.
So what they did was they built a lot of electricity factories that use something called coal. Look I have a piece of coal – pass it around — see how dirty it is!
http://s1.ibtimes.com/sites/www.ibtimes.com/files/styles/lg/public/2013/02/06/coal.jpg
What they do in the factory is they burn this coal and it makes electricity – and that is very very dirty
https://2.bp.blogspot.com/-yx334YSiRUw/Vrq6eFGUYvI/AAAAAAAA8nk/A65ssyU40CM/s1600/Coal-fired-power-plant-belching-pollution.jpg
Yuck …. says the class….
Retarded Tommy puts his hand up and says ‘but sir — why don’t they just burn the coal all the time instead of doing two jobs to get electricity all the time?’
That’s a god damn good question Retarded Tommy. As you can imagine it is very costly to run two systems — and it means that your mommy and daddy have to pay a lot more for electricity …
And it means you don’t get that new bike you were expecting for your birthday — because mommy and daddy don’t have any spare money after paying the power bill.
If you cannot get that chief — then I seriously wonder how you make it through a day without doing yourself harm
TO Dr Fast Eddy
I can understand that at your level of science ignorance you can only teach kinder garden.
Understanding basic chemical reaction such as the Sabatier reaction that can be used to solve the intermittency problem (as well explained elsewhere) is way beyond your capacity of comprehension.
I suggest you just read the blog but contribute only when you get up to speed on your science knowledge. There are likely some adult class at your local college that could be useful for you and some good science books at your local library (though I doubt you could understand them without some private tutor)
I am a slow learner — no matter how much you try to teach me to be stupid — I cannot get it
Gail Tverberg says:
….Australia….my understanding is that the quantity of onshore natural gas is not doing well…..
The issue we are likely to run into next is natural gas prices too low for onshore producers, so no natural gas will actually be available for the new generation.
Australian gas prices are plenty high.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wrey.png
This offers a better explanation of why Australia’s “onshore natural gas is not doing well.”
Josh Frydenberg calls on states to lift gas exploration, fracking bans
http://www.theaustralian.com.au/business/mining-energy/josh-frydenberg-calls-on-states-to-lift-gas-exploration-fracking-bans/news-story/a5375c5cb8c0a1617c1172d0a4c01851
Federal Energy Minister Josh Frydenberg has called on the states and territories with moratoriums on gas exploration and fracking to lift their bans, saying increased gas extraction would lead to greater energy security and job creation.
The Victorian government introduced a bill last year to permanently ban fracking and coal-seam gas exploration, which is due to be debated in parliament on Wednesday. Tasmania introduced a five-year ban in 2015, and the Northern Territory instituted a moratorium on fracking in October. Both stood firm yesterday.
While there is no ban in South Australia, Mr Frydenberg’s fellow Liberal, Opposition Leader Steven Marshall, has vowed to introduce a 10-year moratorium on gas exploration in the state’s southeast if elected in 2018, putting the pair at embarrassing odds….
“We’ve said we would like no moratoriums or bans, whether they’re in South Australia, Victoria, Northern Territory or Tasmania where they currently exist,” Mr Frydenberg said. “What we do want is more gas extraction, because that can lead to more jobs.”
He called on all governments and opposition parties to support unconventional gas extraction.
“The whole reason South Australians are experiencing high electricity prices is because of the scarce availability of gas because there are moratoriums in place in NSW and Victoria,” he said.
Rock lobster exporter Andrew Ferguson, who showed Mr Frydenberg around his western Adelaide factory….
A frustrated Mr Ferguson has seen costs skyrocket this year when he could have been spending the money on business growth — electricity bills doubled to $600,000, he has spent close to $100,000 to upgrade generators, and invested $300,000 on solar panels. “I’d rather spend $300,000 on upgrading our factories, increasing tanks, buying more boats, than putting in infrastructure which should be supplied by the government,” he said.
“It slows this business down and it’s very disappointing. There’s been a push by the government to supply food into Asia and we’re being held back from doing that.”
Victorian Resources Minister Wade Noonan said his state’s agricultural export market and jobs would be at risk if policies changed.
“Our ban on fracking is what the community wants,” he said.
As long as people believe that wind and solar will save us, it is easy to pass legislation discouraging natural gas exploration/production. Whether it is legislation or price, natural gas is being discouraged in quite a bit of the world.
What happens with the methane?
2 options:
1) you inject it in natural gas pipelines (natural gas is mostly methane)
2) you generate electricity with it in a natural gas generators
CH4 + ?? -> ??
To DJ:
You just burn the methane: CH4 + 2O2 = CO2 + 2H20
If you combine this with sabatier reaction, the big picture is that you are electrolysis the water (using surplus electricity) and reconverting back to water (regenerating the electricity), CO2 and CH4 become intermediate products that are reused.
Are you saying that you hook a pipe to your butt every time you need to fart — collect the gas in a cylinder — then light it producing heat which heats water creating steam which turns a micro generator — and you use the resulting electricity to power a low consumption lifestyle?
Very cool!
To know more about promising energy source for the future:
Biogas:
http://www.renewables-made-in-germany.com/en/renewables-made-in-germany/technologies/biogas.html
http://www.lemvigbiogas.com/BiogasHandbook.pdf
Solid Biomass:
http://www.renewables-made-in-germany.com/en/renewables-made-in-germany/technologies/solid-biomass/solid-biomass.html
I despair for you… I truly do.
Francois, there was a time when at least some “excess” of “biogas/biomass” was left on the field, pasture, compost for a good reason..
Francois,
I can’t understand how this eliminates CO2.
When I say: “you can use it to remove the CO2”
I should more explicitly say: “it can prevent the net production of additional CO2”
Obviously it can also remove the CO2 if you use the natural gas produced as input to a petrochemical production (plastics, etc)
I didn’t say it removes the CO2. I presented methanation as a form of stocking electricity to solve the wind/solar intermitency problem.
But yes, it can also be used to remove the CO2
If you burn X amount of natural gas extracted from the ground you get Y amount of CO2
But if you create the natural gas using the sabatier reaction you need Y amount of CO2 to produce X amount of natural gas (through the reaction which requires CO2) and when you burn it you get again the Y amount of CO2. So all in all: -Y to produce, +Y to burn so:
-Y + Y = 0
So in comparison of burning existing natural gas, creating de novo natural gas and burning it is carbon neutral.
It would be nice if this approach worked. Unfortunately, its diagnosis of the problem is wrong.
Our problem is that wages are not rising sufficiently to make up for diminishing returns with respect to fossil fuels of all sorts. This leads to a situation where the prices of fossil fuels fall below the cost of extraction. In fact, this happens for uranium and for food and well. The problem is an affordability problem, especially by the “non-elite” workers–those without advanced degrees, and without supervisory responsibilities. In fact, some of the people are unemployed.
What tends to happen is that the whole system tends to collapse. We lose 100% of production using our current system, because of low prices. (This is the opposite of producing a little at high prices.) The new more energy efficient (but also more energy intensive) devices don’t really solve the problem. We find that we cannot afford to keep up the infrastructure, such as the long distance transmission lines. Debt can’t be repaid with interest, so we have a lot of failing banks.
Peak oil people and others came up with a “wrong diagnosis” of the problem long ago. A big part of our problem is increasing complexity. Increasing complexity increases wage disparity and wealth disparity, because it requires more high priced devices to work, and because only the wealth can afford them. Also, only some of the workers get the training so that they can benefit from the new complexity that raises the wages of some of the workers. They system can’t work, because the lower-paid workers cannot afford the output of the system.
“A big part of our problem is increasing complexity”
I agree and would had “unnecessary” complexity. Part of the reason is that the current economic system requires that anyone “gets a job” to get some money and live which means in many case complexify simple processes to justify the work . Be we are already producing much more than we need to live a comfortable and happy life. We already are in a leisure society but we act as if we are not. We could all afford to work considerably less. Instead we are pushed to produce always more (by publicity and economic incentive) which result in unnecessary products being pushed, unnecessary services (unnecessary medical operations and medications, interminable and costly legal procedures for things that 50 years ago were solved much more efficiently, etc).
But we could “decomplexify” our society.
Biogas and Solid biomass energy are simple (especially compared to nuclear energy!) energy solutions and are used countries as economically different as Germany and India. They are much more easy to “localise”. They are compatible with a “local circular economy” which greatly reduce countries interactions (including resources war) and permits local currencies. The debt problem ceases to exist in those situation.
I really like this approach. But it requires that a large number of people adopt this “less is more” mentality if one wants to decomplexify society, not a simple task. It would involve that people take the red pill and understand our predicament for starters.
I refer you to my esteemed colleague Norman for what a world where people enmasse decide to use less looks like:
You won’t like downsizing
Our most recent history shows that the slightest slowdown of our current economy by just a few percentage points brings an immediate chaos of unemployment and global destabilisation. Yet somehow that won’t apply to a permanent ‘downsizing’; that seems to follow a different set of social rules, as if we can do it and still retain a civilised existence.
More http://www.endofmore.com/?p=1464
“what a world where people en masse decide to use less looks like”
The key word is “decide”. It is quite a different situation psychologically where you “decide” to adapt mindfully to a probable future situation in the comfort of a familiar context and structure then it is to suffer a catastrophic collapse for which you didn’t prepare.
One of the reason I decide to “simplify” now even though there is no objective obligation for me to do so, is that since I do believe we will be facing a resource crisis (not just oil, pretty much everything), I feel I should start to shrink my resource usage now since I can do it leisurely and painlessly (I actually enjoy it). I am doing it step by step over many months/years which gives me time to thoroughly think about it and time to adapt seamlessly – everything is going through the ecological/resource filter (using bicycle to shop, pressure-cooking, local food directly from a farm, reduced usage of car, etc…)
This is what society should do now. We still have the infrastructure and energy and human resources to do that (since we actually considerably overproduce useless stuff, and this production could be reoriented). We should get rid of a lot of lawyers, a lot of money-making pharmaceutical industry puppets doctors (not all are), marketers, etc and reorient education toward sustainable resource usage, simple living and promote new ways to be quite happy (as lots of folks were a lot more in the pre-hollywood world).
For energy, I really think negawatt.org and similar organizations are really the way to go.
We can achieve it slowly but in a determined way when we have the resources now, we will not be able to do so in a collapsing society.
As for the citizen acceptability of this, this is highly problematic (especially in the USA) mostly because mind-control (through tv (including product/lifestyle placement), newspaper, marketters, political process) is controlled by more a less a dozen of mostly psychopathic billionnaires . But the internet offers an incredible alternative to bypass the locked system and enables to network likeminded people even though the final political manifestation of it has yet to express itself through a truly democratic takeover of government.
This is where delusional thinking leads to…
You think that you are helping by downsizing… when in fact you are not only not helping … you are contributing to accelerating the deflationary death spiral.
You on your own are not a danger — and because 99.999% of humans would never choose to downsize — there is no danger of us willfully destroying BAU through downsizing…
However as the system unravels loads of people are going to be forced to downsize to the point where they are living in studio apartments in the ghetto and eating frozen pizza for dinner. They will be buying almost nothing because they have no munny —- they will want to buy stuff of course … but they will have no choice…
So ultimately you and them are the same — except that you chose to live small (and in misery)
Big picture — people consume less — that leads to job losses — which leads to layoffs — laid off people buy little – more layoffs — eventually companies end up bankrupt – more layoffs — more bankruptcies — financial system collapses — entire global economy collapses… famine — spent fuel ponds — extinction…
‘
You are not helping — you are part of the problem.
Now get off your ass and start living properly … Get a credit card — go to the Mall – shop — drive an SUV.
WTF is wrong with you? You have betrayed BAU.
You are a traitor — I ought to come out there and drag you out of your hovel and march you down to Walmart — give you 200 bucks and not let you out till you spend every last cent of it.
One strand of this approach has been already coined as “collapse now avoid the rush” – there is likely a problem with turning or chopping down (distributed style) this huge legacy juggernaut of over-exctractive civilization in any realistic fashion now.
Simply, it has been likely taken too far, too little time for corrective action or way past the threshold, last chance perhaps was 1970s to launch serious plateauing plan.
As you have witnessed already, some people here hedonistically await the carnage, other down-scale more or less according to your line with the idea of only easing the pain for short time after the collapse and before the bloodthirsty human animal is released into wild again.
Therefore illusions about mass adoption of corrective action are very rare here..
It is never to late to emerge from the rat hole and rejoin BAU….
“because 99.999% of humans would never choose to downsize ”
A very long time ago people would have wrote:
” 99.999% of humans would never choose to spend their limited timed and hard-earned money to purchase magazines to know about celebrities living details, instead of living and enjoying their own life”
It’s amazing how things change.
Ask the next 10 people you meet if they would accept the following if offered:
– 10 luxurious estates in locations around the world — all expenses paid
– private jet all expenses paid
– USD20 million per year inflation adjusted till they die
How many do you think will decline?
Now let’s jump in the Fast Eddy (Dr) time machine and go back to 1880 – we try this test:
– 1000 acre farm with the best soil — reliable water supply — good climate
– free tractor latest model every year for the rest of your life
– USD100,000 per year inflation adjusted rest of your life
How many do you think will decline?
Tatler is a British glossy magazine published by Condé Nast Publications focusing on fashion and lifestyle, as well as coverage of high society and politics.
It is targeted towards the British upper-middle class and upper class, and those interested in society events, and its readership is the wealthiest of all Condé Nast’s publications.[2] It was founded in 1901 by Clement Shorter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tatler
And there would have been other equivalents to celebrity mags and tee vee long before Tatler….
“purchase magazines to know about celebrities living details,”
I have not even thought about how one might prove this in EP terms. But if I was generating an argument about the topic, it must have been rather important at one time in our evolutionary past to know what the high status people in the tribe were doing.
Francois-
Absolutely not going to happen and too late anyway. Look at Obunghole with his billionaire buddy whooping it up down south. Look at our own Dear Leader flying his family all over hell and creation for vacations. If they believed what they spew they would set an example and stay home.
I agree, the likelihood of voluntary downsizing in the USA, a country that can’t even provide health care to all its citizens, is very low.
But the USA is not the world.
And I believe it will start at a smaller scale in other countries (perhaps even in the USA), with small towns first. (It is already occurring in many places in Europe).
You will see everywhere smaller jurisdiction replacing increasingly unmanageable big bureaucratic governments as meaningful organisation in the life of citizens.
I have explained to you why downsizing would result in total collapse and a return to a very primitive state.
Yet you persist with this rubbish.
Therefore I must in Caesar like fashion give you a thumbs down and feed you to the lions.
If there is a god then can someone ask him why he made so many stupid people.
Would this not not just kick the can down the road? Let us say everyone takes the red pill and simplifies. In 25 or 50 or 100 years would we not run into other issues? Overfishing the oceans, run away climate change (if some are to be believed we have passed the tipping point already), depletion of aquifers, soil, phosphouos, etc.
It seems we need a sustainable system plus the ability to fix the issues we already created. This seems like a tall order to do in a low energy output economy, however it might be a good model if we were to be able to colonize another planet on one of Elon’s future rockets.
“Overfishing the oceans”
Don’t need to happen. Read about Aquaponics.
“run away climate change ”
If the negawatt.org scenario is implemented it won’t happen.
“It seems we need a sustainable system plus the ability to fix the issues we already created”
Yes, and it is possible.
Let’s make the planet great again!
“This seems like a tall order to do in a low energy output economy”
The important parameter is not the energy output, but the excess disposable energy output (output – energy used). With life/society simplication demands drops. And you can produce alternative energy (biomass/gas) that will not only cover the demand but leaves excess energy for any desired new usage if needed.
‘Let’s make the planet great again!’
That is damn funny! One of the funniest most delusional comments I have ever read…. hee haw that is a good one!
Would you like to try- out for the FW court jester?
It would be good to have more than one — competition is always a good thing — you can Glenn could vie to come up with the most illogical factless ridiculous insanity on a daily basis.
At the end of the year The Core will vote on a Jester of the Year Award.
Make the planet great again —- hahahahah hohoho …. I think I’ve ripped myself a new ass holio I am laughing so hard…. Madame Fast please don’t come near me with that hair blower — as you can see I am standing in a puddle of piss….
http://data.whicdn.com/images/103881571/original.jpg
Hence why some insider gov head shots are slowly testing the waters for launching UBI for real. Obviously, firstly in posh supposedly avantguard societies as motivational example, then quickly spreading out..
This will be the last ubermega Ctrl+P of all time in this little Solar system..
Francois probably needs an exorcist… he is too far gone
Get ready for 45 degree heat, Australia
http://cdn.newsapi.com.au/image/v1/ba67471bb6af6e4ff180bb0498f8ce61?width=650
A band of hot air more than 2,000 kilometres wide is expected to sweep across South Australia, Victoria, New South Wales and Queensland, bringing heatwave temperatures – sometimes over 45 degrees – for vast areas in those states over the next few days.
http://www.quickmeme.com/img/52/52b48e1bea6b99cf751d09230c2ec9fb88fa3c32e95fe7d20df3a33acea2ac7b.jpg
This is actually happening on mainland Australia. Unheard of summer heat. My relatives there are getting well and truly cooked. Not far south, here in Tasmania, we’re having a cooler than average Summer. Welcome to the new normal – chaos and unpredictability. More records broken that in the Olympic Games.
The dinosaurs had hot days too. We know that from their sun tans. Its a normal cycle. Titanium sun umbrellas are way cool! Turn the central air up a few more degrees. Carry on.
here on the south island of new zealand the ‘summer’ has been exceptionally cool…. last week evening temps were down around 12C … some people were putting the fires on —- nobody I speak to can ever remember putting on the fire in Feb!!!
Temps continue to hover between 18 and 25 during the day …..
Did a bit of time in Twizel , Fly Fishing.
Loved the place. Queenstown reminded me of a tourist town just about anywhere.
Really liked Christchurch also.
West coast of the south island is my favourite area — very few people — wild weather …
Now if I wished to do harm to an economy — and bitch smack the western world…. I know where I would be right now …. and what I would do….
That is if I did not ultimately take my orders from the CIA….
We will add some long distance electricity transmission lines, so that we can smooth out random variations in weather. I wonder how far these lines would need to go, to be effective? Alaska?
I always say if New York State wants PV panels the correct place to put them is Nevada along with a continent spanning bipolar DC underground transmission line (~3000 miles long).
Hey Glenn….
The evidence provided in this article showing the continued financial disintegration at these top three oil companies suggests that the U.S. energy sector is in serious trouble. We must remember, the top oil companies are supposed to be the most profitable.
However, if we take a look at what is taking place in the top shale oil and gas producers, the situation is even more dire. I have republished this chart from a previous article showing that the shale oil and gas industry hasn’t really made a profit since 2009:
https://srsroccoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/12/Large-Cap-Energy-EP-Operating-Cash-Flow-Table-2015-768×365.png
While some of the companies made free cash flow profits in various years, as an industry, these oil and gas producers have been in the RED since the U.S. Shale Energy Industry really took off in 2009. So, the notion that rising oil production from increased drilling rig activity is going to change the SEA OF RED taking place in the entire U.S. energy sector, suggests individuals or the market has gone completely insane.
https://srsroccoreport.com/the-blood-bath-continues-in-the-u-s-major-oil-industry/
How’s the 50 Buck Club doing? Big meeting this week?
God I missed you when you were gone. I think your style has improved. No more bragging about being the champ. Just laying it down day after day chop chop chop. A master hoping maybe some day a student will come in that makes him use both hands. But no …disappointed again…yawn…chop chop chop
I second that emotion.
Who should be awarded the Nobel Prize for Doom – Fast Eddy or Guy McPherson?
All of us should beware of and try to avoid turning doom-mongering into a perverse form of entertainment. Getting our kicks in life from ‘how bad it’s going to get’ is a negative pathology that’s not healthy. That’s not to discourage people talking openly and frankly about the seriousness of the human predicament.
Nobody doom-mongers full time, and a bit of humour never hurt anyone.
Actually, some do. I forget where I read it, but spreading doom as form of entertainment is a recognised pathological condition – more usually connected with the religious notion of Armageddon. I don’t take this idea too far because I believe that our civilisation is seriously threatened and most commentators here treat the issue with a profound sense of grief rather than to get their kicks life. For people who won’t turn off I turn it off for them and turn the conversation to more creative subjects – for their own mental health’s sake.
Chris-
I say this sincerely; you seem like a very kind individual. Some here, myself for sure, do sound flippant about it sometimes, but it is like when you laugh at a funeral. The sense of sadness is still present. When you get your head around the seriousness of it how can it not effect your mental health?
It is good there are people like you who give a pat on the shoulder.
Thank you for that, Joe.
I met up with a young teen in the last year who has been through hell and back as a result of developing a psychotic condition triggered by her angst over the state of the world. Wouldn’t wish her experience on anyone. We could say this is what everyone is going to have to confront and go through with, but all the same I have learned to tailor my messages to each audience. Some people are just so fragile there’s no point in giving out doom messages. They need messages about how nice life could be if we turned away from modern chaos.
For uni students I find it’s best to prefix serious state-of-the-world stories with another reality, and that is life for humans has never been secure. This seems to soften some of the depression and despair that otherwise follows from dire messages about the future.
I agree — most if not all dogs are best left asleep…. it’s probably only best to enlighten someone only if they are seeking the truth…. forcing it on them will likely have no affect — but in the rare instance where they do see the light —- a life can be ruined.
“When you get your head around the seriousness of it how can it not effect your mental health?”
Y’all need to read some history. Just a few examples:
1) The 1918 flu epidemic killed approximately 40 million people, out of a population of 1.5 billion. That’s equivalent to killing 200 million people in today’s population of 7.5 billion.In contrast, the ebola outbreak of 2013-2016 killed about 10,000 people in 7.5 billion. In other words, the 1918 flu about *20,000* worse, per unit of world population.
2) In the battle of Berlin–when it was absolutely beyond question that the Nazis were defeated–both the Germans and the Soviets lost approximately 100,000 men.
3) More than 20 million people died of starvation in China from 1959-1961.
4) In 1900, less than 25% of U.S. households owned a horse, and far, far less than 1 percent owned an automobile. Today, 80% of U.S. households own at least one automobile.
5) In 1901, the life expectancy at birth in the U.S. was 49 years, and the life expectancy for people who made it to age 45 was only 70 years.
If I were to be completely honest with myself…. I definitely don’t want the end to come …. but part of me is excited …. tremendously curious to see how it all plays out…. there is an element of schadenfreude … a hint of I told you so…. I don’t feel any sadness … none whatsoever.
I don”t have a problem with my own death. The sadness comes from thinking about the death of others. It is not going to be pretty.
Maybe the Nobel Prize committee would consider splitting the Doom prize, McPherson for Climate Change and FE for Finance and Unattended Fuel Ponds?
Just crickets FE. That’s all I’m hearing. StAngelo nails it on this issue. But remember don’t squeeze the bunny to hard like Lenny did.
Thanks! That is a good report.
THE BLOOD BATH CONTINUES IN THE U.S. MAJOR OIL INDUSTRY
The carnage continues in the U.S. major oil industry as they sink further and further in the RED. The top three U.S. oil companies, whose profits were once the envy of the energy sector, are now forced to borrow money to pay dividends or capital expenditures. The financial situation at ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips has become so dreadful, their total long-term debt surged 25% in just the past year.
Unfortunately, the majority of financial analysts at CNBC, Bloomberg or Fox Business have no clue just how bad the situation will become for the United States as its energy sector continues to disintegrate. While the Federal Government could step in and bail out BIG OIL with printed money, they cannot print barrels of oil.
Watch closely as the Thermodynamic Oil Collapse will start to pick up speed over the next five years.
According to the most recently released financial reports, the top three U.S. oil companies combined net income was the worst ever. The results can be seen in the chart below:
In 2011, ExxonMobil, Chevron and Conocophillips enjoyed a combined $80.4 billion in net income profits. ExxonMobil recorded the highest net income of the group by posting a $41.1 billion gain, followed by Chevron at $26.9 billion, while ConocoPhillips came in third at $12.4 billion.
However, the rapidly falling oil price, since the latter part of 2014, totally gutted the profits at these top oil producers. In just five short years, ExxonMobil’s net income declined to $7.8 billion, Chevron reported its first $460 million loss while ConocoPhillips shaved another $3.6 billion off its bottom line in 2016. Thus, the combined net income of these three oil companies in 2016 totaled $3.7 billion versus $80.4 billion in 2011.
Even though these three oil companies posted a combined net income profit of $3.7 billion last year, their financial situation is much worse when we dig a little deeper. We must remember, net income does not include capital expenditures (CAPEX) or dividend payouts.
If we look at these oil companies Free Cash Flow, they have been losing money for the past two years:
https://srsroccoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Top-3-US-Oil-Companies-Free-Cash-Flow-2011-2016-NEW.png
Their combined free cash flow fell from a healthy $46.3 billion in 2011 to a negative $8.7 billion in 2015 and a negative $7.3 billion in 2016. Now, their free cash flow would have been much worse in 2016 if theses companies didn’t reduce their CAPEX spending by nearly a whopping $20 billion. I don’t have a chart to show their capital expenditures, but here are some of the annual figures:
Top 3 U.S. Oil Companies Total CAPEX Spending:
2013 = $87.2 billion
2014 = $85.4 billion
2015 = $66.0 billion
2016 = $46.6 billion
The combined CAPEX spending from these three oil companies fell 29% in 2016 versus 2015 and 46% since 2013. Basically, ExxonMobil, Chevron and ConocoPhillips have cut their combined CAPEX spending in half in the past three years. This is bad news for either building or at least maintaining oil production in the future.
NOTE: Free Cash Flow is calculated by subtracting CAPEX spending from the company’s operating cash or profits.
Even though these companies slashed nearly $20 billion in CAPEX spending in 2016, they still suffered a negative free cash flow of $7.3 billion. However, this does not include dividend payouts to their shareholders. Not only did these companies pay a total of $46.6 billion in CAPEX in 2016, they also forked out an additional $21.4 billion in shareholder dividends. Dividend payouts do not come out of thin air.. they must come from cash from operations.
If we include dividend payouts, this would be the net result on these companies Free Cash Flow:
https://srsroccoreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/Top-3-US-Oil-Companies-Free-Cash-Flow-Minus-Dividends-2011-2016.png
More https://srsroccoreport.com/the-blood-bath-continues-in-the-u-s-major-oil-industry/
The Beast is dying….
Yup good post.
Still don’t know why we’re against ETP from the hills group.com. Seems complimentary to me
Methodology badly flawed.
FE and NP. Looks like the delusistani has buckled. Tim Morgan and Alice Friedman have been dealing with one on there sites. Pretty determined to prove Thorium is the solution. Haven’t convinced him to bring his arguments here.
http://energyskeptic.com/2017/nuclear-power/#comment-37430
Arguments are based on facts and logic…. I see no arguments…. perhaps that is why he refused to join us?
If you recall, we have had similar discussion here as well recently.
One thing is theoretical not even experimental stuff and PR chatter, another thing is down to the Earth practice (e.g. already existing fleet of Russian breeders), yet another layer is time-frame reference / scale – ok but is it any good vs. fossil depletion, net energy cliff and ever sliding consumer PPP of Today?
It’s not very encouraging (sad) to witness old warrior doomers kept uniformed, failing in 2/3 of these categories, it’s like explaining to Gail 4-5x COP heat pump is nowadays just another run of the mill appliance on the market, lets have debate is it mass adoption ready or not just a mere dead end ’cause too late / too costly, solving only fraction of the overall problem, .. etc.
We need higher energy prices, to match the cost of production. How is reducing demand going to produce higher energy prices?
You appear to argue the 3rd part (and the most important) of the question correctly, as you should, there is no problem. I just warned against uninformed or not very clever discussion on the first and second part, as I listed it above.
Otherwise critically thinking people looking into it for the first time (newcomers) are just put off, ” he/she is not correct/precise on 1/ & 2/ part therefore why should I ever believe it and put any credence to the concluding part 3/ ” ..
Nuclear is the only technology that alone could generate every single kWh consumed worldwide for the next several hundred years. Of all the flavors of nuclear, liquid fluoride thorium reactors have the most positive aspects:
– operation at atmospheric pressure (no pressurized reactor vessel cooling system)
– no need for a containment building that can be pressurized up to approximately 60 psig, and therefore needs to be 3-4 thick of reinforced concrete
– fail-safe operation, in that the safety plug melts and the liquid fluoride goes into a container where is can cool naturally
– no steam explosions possible
– air cooling possible (so no need for a cooling water supply such as a river, ocean, or cooling lake)
– etc. etc.
Only someone who knows very little about energy systems would dismiss liquid fluoride thorium reactors at this point. (They are essentially untried…although the little experience with them has been very positive.)
I dismiss them.
Think of the gargantuan rewards that would go to the country — or individual — or company (big oil?) if they could make this work.
The fact that very little effort is being made indicates that this is just more pie in the sky bull shit.
Particularly given we are running on empty … particularly given the men who control the world have known for a long time when the tank was going to run dry.
They are clearly willing to do ‘whatever it takes’ — absolutely anything to keep BAU alive — if they have not pursued thorium it is because they know it is not workable.
Thorium is an energy sink — that’s all I need to know.
I dismiss your dismissals, except for possibly one. But it might be a big one.
The only non logical fallacy argument you bring up is running on empty. Which sadly, might be enough to sink it/us.
The others?
Thorium is too big for any individual, or company, to accomplish. It needs state level development to happen. Which is happening, but I think it needs a deep pocket, accelerated program, with the best minds around on it. I’m not sure if that is happening. It needs an Oak Ridge type environment I think.
Sadly I think the projects that are ongoing are mostly reinventing the wheel we threw out decades ago. So no surprise not much is happening on it, coupled with the above point.
I think the ‘whatever it takes’ is within reason, more FF, more solar and other “renewables” that people seem to, to a degree, really like. Thorium falls into the “nuclear” category, which has huge negatives these days, so don’t touch that with a ten foot pole even if it might save the day, we’ll be lynched before it happens. So for the moment, the ‘whatever it takes crowd’ doesn’t seem to have nuclear options on the table, of any type. Otherwise would we not be building out a fleet of new reactors to go with our new solar and wind farms?
The research seems to show it is a 100-1 ish EROEI energy source, not an energy sink, once it has a viable design.
But I digress on all of the above, and will try to end this as I have seen you end other discussions. The man that invented nuclear power, thought this was worth doing, and the whole program was shut down before it got a chance to build a full scale reactor due to politics. If you could give me a good reason why we should not try to continue the program that the man that helped invent the technology our current nuclear reactors use thought was a good idea, I would buy that argument. But I don’t think any of the reasons you mentioned above, except for our starting to peak slide down the energy curve, is a very good answer. And even that answer would seem to say, hey, lets find a new energy source. Thorium might be it, only one way to find out.
Sometimes people are wrong, and the costs seems lowish, what could it hurt to give Thorium a shot? If it did indeed pan out, it might be able to solve our energy problem, depending on how much time we have left. If it takes 5 years to come up with a viable design and 5 years to build out a fleet or LFTRs, do we have that much time? Maybe it takes longer to impliment the Thorium Solution. We might be too late to put out this dumpster fire, I’ll def give you that. Between collapse, soil, climate change, ocean, and others, there are a lot of things that seem to be waiting to do us in that we might be past the point of no return on.
You are kinda preaching to the choir here, we love cheap energy. There are either two reasons this thorium thing is not happening.
1) it is not cheap enough
2) TPTB (ie political reasons) are stopping it for whatever reason. I don’t see how one could change their minds.
There’s also another factor, Rainydays. If any one technology is going to make a significant dent in fossil fuel burning it is necessary to have not just one generator up and running but, in the case of Thorium reactors, at least 10,000 generator sets and these would need to be distributed all around the world close to where electricity is consumed.
It’s one thing to build a reactor in China or America, it’s altogether another thing to persuade 200 countries to follow suit and enable this to happen within their jurisdiction. There isn’t enough political control for this to happen and many poorer counties barely have control over anything. If security is a mandatory issue in relation to any mooted technology then what you need is very robust political stability and tightly controlled administrative systems.
Again, all this comes back to timeframe and money, even if these political considerations were to miraculously evaporate.
Or, as FE likes to constantly remind, human stupidity. Perhaps this tech just slipped through the cracks, for whatever reason(s), and now, it is in the “if it isn’t being done it isn’t worth doing” category. There are plenty of examples of things that weren’t being done because it wasn’t done that way, till someone did it that way and changed the paradigm.
I guess at the end of the day, the end result is the same, if its a valid tech that got/is getting overlooked, or it just doesn’t work, either way we don’t get any energy from it.
Perhaps if India or China or another player that is doing research (small scale?) on it and gets a significant breakthrough/net energy output, it will be revisited. Or we end up having to bail out the oil majors, and shift into some sort of limited command economy and realize we are desperate enough, the oil dividends game has dried up, maybe its time to raid the back catalogue and see if there is anything we missed. I could see some oil bigwigs wanting to drown this tech, to keep their current shell game going, until they pump the last drop they can. They wouldn’t make as many big bucks if a new energy kid with a great EROEI rode into town and stole their lunch, unless they controlled the tech, and that seems unlikely without massive investment in unproven tech they can’t justify in the current thermodynamic environment. It would seem however, if we get that desperate, we might not be able to flip the Thorium switch fast enough, even if it were to be viable.
I just don’t buy the “it’s not worth doing because no one is doing it” rationale, if that is the only real argument against it, especially with all the positive’s it has and support it had until the plug got pulled, again for political reasons.
I just think it would be the height of irony if we had a tech that would possible get us out of this predicament, and possibly give us time to solve other finite resource issues, but we didn’t develop it because we thought it wasn’t worth developing because no one was developing it…
Not to say we wouldn’t deserve that outcome, given the way we have acted and behaved to this planet and each other.
ItBegins, I’m confident that IF Thorium is so good that it is held back by Big Oil/TPTB then they will unveil it when it is needed to save the day. Otherwise it is just another energy mirage.
And if we were to invent X technology to make energy too cheap to meter, we would rev up our heat engine aka civilization even more and destroy the ecosystem even faster than today… Maybe it is just better to slow down now, so some species may survive at the end of this decline.
Utopian energy technologies. How does that even work?
People and corporations decide to NOT get filthy rich and powerful.
Is it like a jwe con-spiracy some are so fond of talking about?
Why the infatuation with thorium when there are dozens of other suggested solutions?
If you are correct then if only nations would get behind these other solutions then we could kick the can and I’d get my 78 years.
As someone who has dabbled in a bit of venture capitalism — and who has dealt with serious venture capitalists over the years included the likes of Black Rock
The reason that none of these technologies are pursued — is because the due diligence has been done — and it has been determined that these technologies will not deliver — or are such long shots that they are not worth pursuing.
At the end of the day — if the US had info indicating that thorium – or any other technology — could get us out of this hole — then why would they not initiate? — as we can see money is no issue – just print another trillion or two….
Humans have this grand view of themselves — they think that where there is a will there is a way — if only enough money was available … if only enough scientists dedicated themselves to _____ we could solve it.
Well sorry but this is bull shit.
The list of things we cannot do is infinite — it would appear that generating cheap clean energy from nothing — is one of them.
You can pound on for as long as you want — but at the end of the day it is not and will not be pursued — because someone has determined it is a waste of time and filed it under G for garbage… along with Space Solar
On one hand you claim humans are stupid, on the other, they are smart and wouldn’t leave game changing tech in the history book? Which is it? Would not humans leaving the tech that could kick the can down the road in the history books be a prefect example of how stupid they are?
I appreciate your blind faith in the thoroughness of big business to look under every rock for every cent of profit, and since they are not doing this it it not worth doing. But big business makes mistakes sometimes, does it not? could this not be one of them?
I think the reason we are not initiated is many fold, simple in its complexity.
We passed on this tech in the 70’s, for bad reasons.
Since we passed on it, it got swept under the rug, and forgotten.
The tech we passed it up for had problems (cause it was the wrong choice).
Nuclear in general has a negative view by the public now.
The costs are huge (for a business) to get the tech going, so they haven’t even looked at it.
We aren’t doing it so it must not be worth doing mentality.
So who has determined it is a waste of time? The decision made by non scientist in the early 70’s to go with an alternate breeder tech that fizzled out? If so, I think we need to revisit it. If someone(s) more recently, was it done in secret? I think you put too much faith in business to properly evaluate the playing field given the current situation. It is a complex situation you are trying to give a simple solution too. I do agree that normally, big business is efficient, and doesn’t do things it shouldn’t and does the things it should (money wise anyway). I’m just saying I think this is the exception to the rule. I also think this project is too big for bushiness to even look at. Oil companies do oil company things, they don’t have the ability or desire to stick their next in the nuclear power backyard, too many landmines.
We do have indications that thorium could get us out of the hole but, it is not (for the reasons above) an easy solution. And since it is not just an issue of money, we need to have the will, that is what is stopping us. In the 50’s/60’s/70’s people were crazy FOR nuclear, and more than willing to spend lots of money on it. Now not only do we not have the money to spend on it (so cut something else, not popular, or go into more debt, not popular), we HATE nuclear. So all of the above reasons are why we are not doing it, not because it is not viable looking. Its just the barrier to entry is too high at the moment. And everyone thinks we are just in a cycle, and in a year or two or three things will be back to normal.
It actually is being pursued by a few countries/entities, but the resources/budgets they are putting on it and the programs they are doing may not be what is needed to revive the program back to where it was when it was cancelled in a timely fashion.
https://www.technologyreview.com/s/542526/china-details-next-gen-nuclear-reactor-program/
Also, which you have not addressed yet, the grandfather of PWRs thought it was a viable tech and worth taking to the next level to see if it could live up to its promises. Why not go with the guy that invented nuclear power and not some secret cabal that tells bushiness what to do and not to do?
Nuclear power at first had a very high EROEI, it is now much lower, mainly due, I think, to aging plant designs, old plant themselves, uranium mining, waste buildup, etc. The original plan was to upgrade out nuclear plants to newer better designs, but nuclear power fell out of public favor, so we just duct taped the plants we had instead of replacing them with better designs. Which led to problems, which led to more fear of nuclear.
If we got rid of the mining requirement (LFTR make their own fuel once seeded), and used a modern, safe, efficient design (LFTR), we may not got free energy, but we may get a much higher EROEI energy source. What we would do with that is another issue.
I think, instead of it not being done because it is not viable, it is a complex mess of simple reasons above, and now most, like you, assumes because we aren’t doing it it isn’t worth doing or won’t work. But it would be difficult and expensive to start up a program to get it working, and people like simple instead of difficult almost everytime.
Google wanted to sell themselves to Excite for $1 million back in the day, they even lowered the price to $750,000, but no takers. I guess they got the due diligence wrong?
Buisness doesn’t always get it right…
It is not being done. it is not going to be done.
My take on it is that it has been evaluated and it has been determined to be not feasible.
The same goes for space solar.
The End.
I guess we will have to agree to disagree, but perhaps in the near future, if things go on long enough, some of the current projects, or perhaps new ones, will shed further illumination on the subject. You have been wrong before about certain things, so I guess you can’t rule out the possibilty you are wrong on this, however august your convictions seems to be at the moment. But the same could be said about my own views on the subject, so we seem to send up right where we started. I happened to find an interesting article on the subject that appears to mimic, to some degree our discussion. It seems others are divided on this as well. If/when a thorium reactor comes online and produces net energy, and we get to see what/if any issues arrise, the subject can be revisted.
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/Thorium-Energy-Savior-or-Red-Herring.html
Technically, maybe. Now enter the two most vital ingredients of all, timeframe and money.
For any sort of nuke (or anything) to be effective it needs to be upscaled all around the world by tomorrow evening at the latest. Then let’s talk about the capital investment required to transition the whole world energy production from one form to another just t get us to where we are.
After that, we need to look at the energy trap, the amount of energy (most of which would have to be fossil fuelled) that would be required just to undertake that massive transition.
Now we’re speaking.
But, yes, this may be a technical solution that we can talk up that ticks the physics and safety boxes.
What about all the carbon expelled into the atmosphere? The habitats, species and even entire ecosystems laid waste to mine all the minerals needed for this gargantuan task, which would probably take between 30 and 50 years to accomplish.
What about the existing economy, run by fossil fuels? Which must be supported during the transition phase. Where will the sacrifices be made, and who will make them? I guarantee that if the West decides to sweep most of the consequences onto the third world, or the increasingly poor at home, that the backlash will make today’s social unrest seem like a sideshow bagatelle.
What of political will? Or popular will? 30-50 years is a LOT of election cycles, assuming the luxury of democracy lasts that long. Will future generations or politicians have the endurance to stay the course, especially if it becomes obvious that although there were enough fossil fuels to get started, there aren’t enough to finish the job, and still leave a somewhat habitable planet, again assuming affordable fuels were there to begin with in the first place?
F#ck I could go on and on, but would rather watch a movie…
https://cdn.meme.am/instances/66409748.jpg
Your pulling our legs! The Emperor would never say that!
Emperor Trump sure would!
Mark, I have a few working commercial thorium reactor now and they are giving our country “too cheap to meter” electricity. We are busily converting CO2 and H20 to form jet fuel, gasoline and fertilizers. We are also actively clearing our trash and recycled all the “hard-to-salvage” rare earth, aluminum, steel iron and a lot of stuff that is too energy intensive to recycle.
Next monthly, we will be shipping our locally made Lexus, BMWs, Bentleys, luxury passenger jets and yachts to your country and sell them at 80% discount and we will also throw in a year’s supply of jet fuel and petrol.
Oh, before I forget, our gadgets are top notch and since energy is free in our country, we will also ship to you our phones, appliances with a 90% discount.
Oh one more…. since we have free fertilizer and our “too-cheap-to-meter” electricity is giving us tons of desalinated water, we could ship grains, vegetables, food to you at at 95% discount. We will also throw in free transport.
I am pretty sure your population will be happy though your competitiveness will be whacked and deflation in your country will kill you in a few month’s time.
***
What we are experience is not “expensive energy” but we are so stretched financially that even if you offer your populace a 50% discounted vehicle or zero interest loans, there is no appetite for them. Demand is not there due to debt that pulled in demand from the future.
“I am pretty sure your population will be happy though your competitiveness will be whacked and deflation in your country will kill you in a few month’s time.”
I don’t know how you think deflation kills people, or why you think deflation is some sort of untreatable problem.
Deflation is a reduction in the general level of prices in an economy. If that’s such a big problem, the relatively straightforward solution is to print more money.
Holy f@@k, Mark you just do not get it. Deflation and the destruction of credit cannot simply be papered over by printing money without the destruction of the currency. Why do we even bother to pay taxes? Just let the government print the money and pay them for us. If it is that simple why wait for a big deflationary shock and just start handing out money?
“Deflation and the destruction of credit cannot simply be papered over by printing money without the destruction of the currency.”
“Destruction of the currency?” The currency spontaneously combusts if too much of it is printed?
Printing more money causes inflation, which increases prices. The “problem” of deflation is solved.
“If it is that simple why wait for a big deflationary shock and just start handing out money?”
Because without an existing situation of a reduction of general prices, just handing out money would cause inflation. The amount of money created needs to be at a rate that avoids either inflation or deflation. Scott Sumner has put it very eloquently:
“Put simply, we assume that a big crop of new currency lowers the value of money (i.e. its purchasing power) for the same reason that a big crop of apples lowers the value of an apple.”
P.S. Notice he said nothing about “destruction” of the currency…merely that it’s value (i.e., its purchasing power) was lowered.
“Printing more money causes inflation, which increases prices. The “problem” of deflation is solved.”
Money is credit and credit is based on confidence. You cannot force people to take loans and spend, most especially when they become fearful of their future security. In 2008 we saw just a glimpse of deflation and were literally hours away from credit markets seizing up. Central banks had some ammo then but very is little left now.
The Japanese have been fighting deflation for over 25 years now and cannot escape its grip. The only reason they have not collapsed is because BAU has been going on around them. The have spent an obscene amount. One good deflationary pulse and what are they going to do?
“Money is credit and credit is based on confidence. You cannot force people to take loans and spend, most especially when they become fearful of their future security.”
It’s very simple. There’s deflation, and the government wants inflation. It starts sending $1000 a week to every citizen of the U.S. A couple months later, bingo, we have inflation. Keep it up long enough, and we have *lots* of inflation.
“It’s very simple. There’s deflation, and the government wants inflation. It starts sending $1000 a week to every citizen of the U.S. A couple months later, bingo, we have inflation. Keep it up long enough, and we have *lots* of inflation.”
Sorry, but if it was that simple governments would have no need to borrow money.
“Sorry, but if it was that simple governments would have no need to borrow money.”
Governments borrow money because they want to do things (and don’t want to collect taxes to pay for them). If their sole aim was to regulate the money supply such that there was neither large inflation or large deflation, they would not need to borrow money.
“There is a very big problem humanity is facing. Everyone should work very hard to resolve that issue…”
What very big problem do you think humanity is facing, that everyone should be working hard to resolve?
“Governments borrow money because they want to do things (and don’t want to collect taxes to pay for them). If their sole aim was to regulate the money supply such that there was neither large inflation or large deflation, they would not need to borrow money.”
Your not answering the question. Why borrow money at interest when they can just print what they need?
Wow — two DelusiSTAN Hall of Fame comments in two days!
I really don’t know what to say…
If I only had a daughter I would offer to breed her with you…. hypothetically … if I did have a daughter and I asked nicely would you do me the honour?
I am already swelling with hypothetical pride.
Mark, you have destroyed your credibility here. You may want to use a different name here. First, when you post, you don’t have any real facts or supporting documents. Second, you missed the point of discussion and talk about something else. Third, there are many people like you before on this discussion, when pressed, cannot conduct a constructive debate. Fourth, when you think deflation is not a problem, you are just merely regurgitating what you have been told without understanding it. i.e. your job is just to troll this site.
If I am being sent by an alien race to give a report on “human life form”, I will definately include people like you. There is a very big problem humanity is facing. Everyone should work very hard to resolve that issue but instead, we have people like you coming in and trolling which is totally counter productive. It is just like picking up coins in front of a gigantic steamroller and you are saying that I should be picking up the quarters and there is no steamroller but the smoke (from the steam roller) is just the factories producing more coins.
http://24.media.tumblr.com/e52cbc7c76113c998a45f6db972e372b/tumblr_mj0ahdTva01rr8ieao1_500.gif
Except that we don’t have working examples. The claims are extremely iffy.
Let’s fix that, build a test reactor, and see if the iffy claims pan out or not. Is that not the whole point of science? Come up with an idea based upon observations, then test it!
Sometimes interesting things happen.
http://megacancer.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/01/Wax_anatomical_model_of_human_head_Europe_Wellcome_L0059770.jpg
Wax model. Photo from Wellcome Trust.
Humans have one of the largest and most capable brains on earth, the most complex structure in the Universe. I asked the specimen above, “What is the meaning of life?” He responded, “Hey dude, where’s the party?” The dopamine was surging in his brain as he imagined the raucous good times and the lovely girls at the imagined destination. I couldn’t bring myself to inform him that his legs were gone and that it was far too late, that the party was almost over. As the last of the glucose was burned he fell asleep still dreaming of good times and then decay set in.
It may be that the technological fossil fuel ape will burn its last BTU with a bang and the survivors, if any, be forever trapped within the ecosystem, whatever remains of it, to cyclically emerge, grow, party and collapse until something eventually causes extinction of the species.
James puts out amazing, sad, hilarious, insightful stuff. One of my all-time favorites, along with here of course.
http://megacancer.com/ is a great site.
His ecological perspective is just amazing, a real eye-opener.
This is a paragraph from an earlier post: http://megacancer.com/2017/01/03/energy-doesnt-flow-matter-doesnt-cycle/
Civilization is no more than an accelerator of gradient reduction. Unfortunately, because everything is seen as a gradient to be reduced and armed with our new arsenal of technological tools, we are consuming most everything in our omnivorous metabolism. Energy has flowed, but mostly through fossil fuel gradient reduction which will soon be over. The matter in the nutrient cycle of civilization never has flowed, it has been dispersed in an entropic manner. Soils and phosphorus have ended-up in the oceans while most everything else has ended-up in a landfill. Mature ecosystems have been consumed and replaced with monocultures whose days are limited. Your average farmland has had the life squeezed out of it and depends upon technologically produced additives to be productive. Additionally there’s no way to render harmless most of the technology relatedl pollution which accumulates in the biosphere. Each city is building a waste mountain, like giant cellular waste vacuoles that will fester long after the technological organism dies.
http://img1.izismile.com/img/img5/20120915/1000/funny_set_of_gifs_to_share_your_appreciation_07.gif
I have read the “Wind and Solar…” Delusion, and frankly I do not agree with the contents. Reading the piece seems impossibile that the world ever change. The reasoning goes like: if we are here and now, it is beacuese this is the most efficient energy mix. Any change to this mix will be less efficient. Well I strongly disagree with this way of reasoning. First of all, the energy mix we are having now is due to the investments that big companies we have done 10 or 20 years ago. So our mix now is the state of the art of some 20 years ago. The state of the art of energy production today is the result of technological progess and will produce the energy mix of tomorrow.
Technological progress is clearly evident in the cost and efficiency of solar panels.
– Contrary to coal they do not produce PM10 (tell it to the milions of chineese that will die of pulmonar diseases in the next 20 years).
– Contrary to fossil fuel they produce energy without emitting CO2 (and if we continue to disperde in athmosfere all the carbon that Mother Earth stoked in the ground for millions of years, we risk canceling life on this planet … maybe this risk is worth a couple of cents/Kwh).
– Contrary to uranium they are not radioactive.
If you produce energy with solar panels on the roof top of your home, store it in lithium-ion batteries in your home, use the energy to activate a heat pump (with a COP of 3 compared to the 0.70 of a normal gas heater) to heat water that than will flow to a low temperature high efficiency heating floor in your house, and will charge the lithium-ion batteries of your electric car, probably the efficiency of the system will improve. You will reduce your dependance from the electric grid and thus the energy loss from transmitting energy from producers to consumers.
Maybe in 20 years time, it will become evident to everybody.
Regards
Well, I agree the world can change as well as the energy mix. Don Stewart few days ago sort of in back of the envelope calculation fashion stated we can after all live few more extra decades on the remaining net energy of oil. However, yes it’s coming, there is a little catch attached, you will have to reroute your today’s overall personal energy consumption into the production sphere of core factories, infrastructure upkeep etc., which will be most likely decided by something like Central Wise Committee of Survival.
The price for such a change is not that unrealistic, simply the westerners/industrialized 1-2B of people will have to immediately lower their living standards to approximately of Chinese factory slave of the early mid 1970s. No personal carz, almost no appliances, no vacation, no mansions, not much of a pension or advanced health care, almost no nothing, all sacrificed just to keep fraction of the infrastructure running in command style/war effort few more decades..
Good deal or not? Realistic?
The peak oil slow decline model is nonsense, IMO.
I’d differentiate a bit, ~war effort style totalitarianism attempted for a while is not only likely, but very probable early reaction. Otherwise my response above to “a new visitor” was clearly meant as an unlikely outlier model to be followed in global coherent fashion.
Martial law will collapse demand and take down supply chains and financial world. You need to have great visualizing skills to understand that.
This is called a command economy, where one central entity calls all the shots, and directs what resources goes where and what gets built and who does and gets what. It allowed the Manhattan Project to go from nothing to a bomb in just a few years, some argue without such a system in place it would not have been possible to accomplish that. War footing allows for amazing results, but also requires huge amounts of debt.
Of course, it only works if everyone agrees to do what the shot caller says, and there is also some discussion as to how long it can be sustained. People need to see an achieveable goal I think, to stay motivated and commited, otherwise, they start thinking, why bother suffering/sacrificing so much.
Command economy works when you are not so interconnected and consumer driven. If you give me a good thought and think deeply, you will realize that in this current economy, a “internet is down” will have a very large impact on the economy. Do you think we have the will power, resources and the opportunity to do it? Most people do not even attempt to have deep critical and analytical thinking. They just blurt out what is in their mind and most likely, it is an empty rhetoric. A good example will be Thorium reactors which I just say that “if I have one now, will it help us?”
If we dedicated a trillion dollars to developing a Star Trek like transporter system that would allow a man to be sent from Beijing to Rio in 3 seconds do you think we could be successful?
I would suggest that no matter how much funding was directed at this the odds of it actually being successful are very near to absolute 0. But I cannot absolutely rule out success.
Would you be ok with your government levying a $5000 tax on each and every citizen of your country to fund this?
CTG has had some interesting insights into this idea on an earlier post….
I’ve already stated in previous posts, even given if we were to solve the Thorium issue shortly (if it is crackable, which, at the moment, based on the info we have, does look doable, but with serious costs/issues), it may/most likely will not be enough to save the day. Too late and too expensive to build out a new power infrastructure? Sometimes things that work out on paper and are technically feasible, fail miserably in the real world. Even if enough to starve off collapse now, based upon how far away that event is, but even if that happens, there are so many other issues, it might just slightly delay the inevitable?
So yes I will concede, and already have in other posts?, even if handed viable high EROEI LFTR tech, it might/probably not be enough, and I could even see a scenario(s) in which it accelerated events, caused a harder quicker collapse, cause humans acting like humans.
I will also concede, that we may not have the wherewithal to enable/sustain a command economy, even if we had the resources, energy and material, to make it happen. If people had to go to a red-pill matrix style lifestyle to save the planet, everyone has next to nothing, untasty gruel for food, limited entertainment options, no aspiring to be the next beyonce and no beyonce? If you smashed people’s current delusions and had absolute proof unless we pull off this hail mary our collective goose is cooked? I could see a larger percentage checking out in a variety of ways. I could see that failing spectacular, without everyone on board an pulling their weight, the command economy just doesn’t work. Its like an ant hive/nest, if most of the ants don’t do anything productive, it just doesn’t work.
Throw in our biological evolution ability to not handle non-immediate issues, illustrated very well by NJ Hagens:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tShiBI5diIA
Besides critical thinking, it seems our bodies/brains are hard wired to deal with the immediate threat, and discount far off threats. Can’t get a six pack of beer today? Riot. Economic collapse sometime in the future? Meh, maybe I’ll go get a six pack and play some Xbox, can’t be bothered to worry about something in the future. Besides, no one else is worrying about it, so it can’t be worth worrying about, right? It seems we are fighting against nature (our nature) to try and solve this issue. That seems to be a fight that is rarely won, and if so, not for long.
It seems relatively, the money isn’t even that much, its the other issues. But a trillion to get LFTR tech viable seems like a bargain(were it even to cost that much, other estimates have it in mid/low billions), and various countries spent trillions yearly, or over the course of a few years, all the time, on what many would argue is frivolous things/waste/corruption/greed etc.
I get you don’t think this tech is viable even with near unlimited funds, but other, smarter (no insult intended, just that some people know a lot more about the science and math etc of this, I’m not one of those, but I have read/listened to what they have analysed,said) people, think it is total doable. Worst case you have to throw the reactor out every decade or so, but hey, we complain about trying to run nuke reactors too long now away, so I”m not sure that is a deal breaker, besides, the reactors are small and cheap if the tech worst like it looks like it can, remember, they had one of these things in a plane in the 50’s flying around powered up (just not hooked up to jets), so in theory it would be more like swapping out a big block crate engine…
I think it would be trivial (in all except “human” issues – aka financial) to fund this, either by spending a few billion less cooling tents in the desert, or going into debt/taxing, and again in theory it would be closer to a $500 tax, which is much easier on the budget.
But yes, at the end of the day, we don’t have anything working now, there was some promising research back in the day when we had the resources and public opinon but cancelled it cause cronyism, and the research going on now is misguided? Looking into pebble bed instead of liquid? Is it even fully funded on a fast track? I don’t really know but it doesn’t seem like Thorium, even if it could deliver on its promise, will be able to.
I just don’t get with your burn, baby, burn attitude you are not behind this 100%. If anything wastes rescources, its frivolous research…
A few months ago in my blog I evaluated the alternative you describe under the label “Command BAU Light”, against a set of other alternatives. Evaluation criteria included political, economic, and social feasibility, consistency with the expressed vision of leaders, and resiliency.
It rated very poorly. Just about the bottom of the pile. No one, from politicians/elites to the common man would be willing to accept the necessary sacrifices. Not to mention the feasibility issues of maintaining a shrinking economy.
The alternatives that rated the highest were continuing BAU until it crashes, attempting to integrate renewables via market economics (even though it accelerates collapse), and “Winner Take All BAU”, where world war over scarce resources consume most of our efforts.
Agree in general, but the realities of human nature/historical account speak as follows.
Namely, “Command BAU” and “Winner Takes All BAU” are basically just stages of the same line of process..
Completely agreed, I think any difference may be in semantics only.
They’ll try to increasingly micromanage and militarize us as things become more desperate. What really causes the scenario to fail is attempting to manage the “light” aspect of BAU light. There is no de-growth: only growth or collapse.
Your espousing the general party line in your comment. Unfortunately it’s built on ignorance of the true energy inputs required to build and maintain a renewable system. But think of it this way if technology is getting better how come our cell phones only last 4 years and our cars 15-20? You think all the lithium has been recovered from all the batteries that have been disposed of? Where will your renewable non reality be without continuous mining? Will Musk attach a shovel to his Tessa’s? If lithium batteries are such a game changer why does it weigh 1200lbs to store the energy of two gallons of diesel? Would you like to calculate the lifting weight of a 747 running on Tesla batteries? Or would it be easier to calculate the length of the extension cord? Suffice it to say your a victim of democracy which believes that ones ignorance is equal in value to ones knowledge. Feelings can’t trump reason. Then again maybe they can but not in Our Finite World.
Good post.
If lithium batteries are such a game changer why does it weigh 1200lbs to store the energy of two gallons of diesel? Would you like to calculate the lifting weight of a 747 running on Tesla batteries?
https://media.giphy.com/media/qIXVd1RoKGqlO/giphy.gif
Here is the current state of the art electric plane. It can only hold the pilot and can only stay aloft for 1 hour @ ~ 200 mph.
https://www.nytimes.com/2016/06/18/science/nasa-electric-plane-x57.html
I have debunked this last year in one of Gail’s articles. So, how to scale up to large commercial airlners?
It can’t.
I was trying to be ironic, I guess that did not come through well.
Since it is state of the art and battery storage is a matureish tech without a paradim shift, it can’t get much better. Can batteries get 10% better? Sure. 100%? Not with what we have on the drawing board…
Any change to the mix that requires subsidies will lead to a less optimal mix, IMO. Where do we get tax revenue to support this big boondoggle? Fossil fuels are what keep our current system going.
Exactly Gail. It isn’t just the net energy decline. It’s the financial surplus that created the renewables that seems to be the first to go. It appears that renewables have peaked as is being demonstrated by new coal production being planned in many places. It’s very reminiscent of what the oil majors are doing. Go back to where you know the oil is and stay there till it’s gone. Go back to what you know works slash subsidies to alternatives spend the balance on social programs until the fire goes out, then what for the wolves.
Speaking of taxes, the poor UK is limping along now with its weak £, weak productivity, nearly £2 trillion in government debt and now bereft of revenue from the North Sea oil industry. How are the good households of Blighty going to stump up when they are themselves so indebted?
“The government is on course to impose steep cuts in public spending and increase taxes by the end of the decade to their highest level in 30 years to combat the UK’s persistent budget deficit.
“But slower economic growth after the Brexit vote and lower than expected tax receipts will still leave the UK with one of the largest shortfalls in public spending in the developed world, according to the Institute for Fiscal Studies.
“The leading tax and spending thinktank said downgrades in GDP growth over the next four years would strain the public finances, which are already on course to be £13bn worse off in this financial year than forecast.”
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/feb/07/ifs-warns-steep-cuts-tax-rises-40bn-black-hole-uk
The paradoxes of advanced stage of the oil age and globalism: an ex-colony Indian capital group (surely leveraging some additional global capital) revamped failing UK brand and made it with undoubtedly the local British talent in few years time one of the best if not currently the best carz in the world Jaguar – Land Rover. Now to tide it with Brexit, this success and recent spike in demand for that product has lead the brand to increase production, which will take place no in the UK (only), but at big new green field factory somewhere inside the CEE.
I agree with your post, Riccardo. It’s easy to get stuck in the cheap energy from FF scenario, however as the energy mix changes over time I think many will be amazed at how much that mix changes and for the better. The problem as I see it is we’ve left it late in the game as GW warming with arctic ice melt and rising methane emissions will make it harder going forward economically to make those changes. But there is no other game in town, so let’s have at it – do what we can to successfully transition.
It changes for the better all the time..
For instance the citizens of the 4th Reich proper already practice the betterment via joyfully paying 2-3x more for electricity than others. Not mentioning some very timid extra cash spending on influx of “refugees” these dayz, that helps the successful transition too, especially the longer term one, into a neo-caliphate enclaves on former Western Europe territories.
Dead whale with plastic bags in stomach
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4185038/A-whale-30-PLASTIC-BAGS-stomach.html
More rank hypocrisy from the anti-energy left:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bo2AAjxnddQ
Controversial Dakota pipeline to go ahead after Army approval
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-north-dakota-pipeline-idUSKBN15M2DU
http://www.artberman.com/the-keystone-xl-pipeline-a-risky-bet-on-higher-oil-prices-and-tight-oil/
Care to comment?
That is a good article.
I would also point out that I am sure that the builders of the pipeline expect that there will be a long-term need for the pipeline–probably 50 years or so. It is hard to see how this can possibly be true. Berman points out some of the problems, but there are others as well.
Add more oil to the world pool of oil, and drive prices down further.
++++++++++
For those who rely on higher oil prices to pay their bills and feed their families, that is what keeps them awake at night.
Rising U.S. shale-oil output threatens OPEC’s production pact
http://www.marketwatch.com/story/rising-us-shale-oil-output-threatens-opecs-production-pact-2017-01-17
Al-Falih is certainly correct about cuts in capital expenditures to the non-shale sectors of the upstream oil and gas business. There is no recovery in sight for off-shore and the mega-projects that the majors are so fond of:
Is the Era of Oil and Gas Megaprojects Over?
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?a_id=148326
Forecasts of growing world demand depend on China and the rest of Southeast Asia continuing to buy more. This view seems iffy at best. (Not to mention the growing supply you talk about.)
Are merging markets losing their grip? It seems to me that if economic growth in the emerging markets stalls out, we’re in a world of hurt.
http://cdn.static-economist.com/sites/default/files/images/2015/12/blogs/graphic-detail/20151205_woc663_1.png
I should have said that if economic growth in the emerging markets stalls out too we’re in a world of hurt.
https://s29.postimg.org/7ffx6td6v/Captura_de_pantalla_604.png
https://s29.postimg.org/oqr20spif/Captura_de_pantalla_601.png
What is your point? We all know that. Of course they will leave garbage there, they are after all members of the same entitlement culture that is encroaching upon this planet. Of course they will thing someone else ill come and clean up their mess. Or you mean to tell us that if these people were manifesting for some right-wing cause they would clean after themselves?
The “anti-energy/freedom/guns left” or the “pro-life/guns/drilling/energy or whatever else right” are members of the same tribe. On this site we are beyond that discussion.
On this site we are discussing the PREDICAMENT of the human species and evaluating the chances of life continuing to exist on this planet after humans are gone. We are also grieving and offering each other emotional support that we cannot find in our immediate circles. We are not practicing mud-slinging at this or that political faction. This is not about politics. This is about staring death in the face.
Thank you for your post.
++++++++++
Stnging Nettle said:
I’m certainly aware that apocalyptacism has its fair share of adherents on this forum, probably more than its fair share.
Nevertheless, I don’t believe that everyone who visits this forum buys into that doctrine.
Things evolve, in the beginning the core group resettled over here
to this sanctuary from other sites, for number of reasons, namely:
– very few trolls penetration, well that worsened a bit lately but bearable
– other notable authors tend to often deviate from the main thread of the story, have rather strong personal biases, pursuing tangential interests all the time, for the good as well as for the bad, sometimes they commit visible factual mistakes which irritates people here to the bone, e.g. Kunstler, Greer, Bardi, Orlov, ..
– if you “have seen it all” since ../1990s/2000s, Gail as prolific thinker and writer always finds some new angles and fresh interpretations to these studies without too much deviation (or blatant errors) sliding away from the main road
– is it going to stay that way for ever?, prolly not as everything decays in nature even net publications/communities
= the above sort of in default mode explains large part of the apocalyptic tendencies
There are a number of DelusiSTANIS on this site….. you can identify them quite easily …. they believe in such things as alternative energy and BAU Lite….. there are also the Scott Nearing types who believe that prepping and organic farming will save the day….. then we have those who are in denial about spent fuel ponds — they usually just brush this off as not a problem — or they make up some ridiculous solution such as dumping them in the deepest ocean trenches (yet failing to explain how you transport fuel from the pond to the trenches — and conveniently forgetting that even if this were possible it would sterilize the oceans killing everything in them)
Then there are the ones filled with bravado — they think the end of BAU is going to be the adventure of a life time ….they just can’t wait!
So yes you are correct – there are many who believe this is not an apocalyptic situation at all.
Someone mention spent fuel?
I enjoyed the webpage below:
Jonathan Bastien-Filiatrault asks: What if I took a swim in a typical spent nuclear fuel pool? Would I need to dive to actually experience a fatal amount of radiation? How long could I stay safely at the surface?
…as far as swimming safety goes, the bottom line is that you’d probably be ok, as long as you didn’t dive to the bottom or pick up anything strange.
But just to be sure, I got in touch with a friend of mine who works at a research reactor, and asked him what he thought would happen to you if you tried to swim in their radiation containment pool.
“In our reactor?” He thought about it for a moment. “You’d die pretty quickly, before reaching the water, from gunshot wounds.”
https://what-if.xkcd.com/29/
Nice one.
Disposing of the spent fuel waste would be quite challenging. In theory, it could be sent to regional processing centre’s, casked/processed into some sort of glass/ceramic matrix, then “shot” (think torpedo pointed straight down) into perhaps the pacific mud flats, where it would entomb itself in “mud” fairly deep, and be geologically stable for millions of years, no danger to anyone but any unlucky microbes nearby that didn’t happen to like radiation much. I think this could only be done with the “cooled” spent fuel, the hot spent fuel, still a problem? And it would cost zillions and take unprecedented international cooperation. There is some sort of research paper on this, as an alternative to Yucca Mountain. So while I would not go so far as to call it ridiculous, I would say (agree) it is (highly) unlikely to happen. But if it removed a large amount of the spent fuel from the cooling ponds and turned an extinction level event into local areas denial event, perhaps it would be enough to allow the great adventure?
Of course, this would require acknowledgment of our current predicament, and immediate marshaling of all available resources and a global command economy, to implement, so there’s that…
If you are saying, even if we had a technical solution, it will most likely not be implemented due to our species various shortcomings, I would have to agree with that.
Offshore Drillers Still Seeking Recovery Enjoyed by Shale
http://www.rigzone.com/news/article.asp?hpf=1&a_id=148408&utm_source=DailyNewsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_term=2017-02-07&utm_content=&utm_campaign=feature_1
Offshore drillers need assurance that oil prices can be higher for longer. Any big project that has not yet been started needs that assurance. Oil from shale can be started up pretty much immediately, with available drilling rigs, fracking equipments, rail transport in the US. Not so much elsewhere, however.
Yes Glenn — shale is profitable at 50 Bucks — and conventional oil is not …. if you repeat that enough times you might believe it — but nobody else on this site will.
I have a face saving way out of this losing position for you.
All you have to do is change your username on Finite World. Nobody will know — so long as you stop posting any delusional thoughts – but that would assume that you have used your time here to date to learn — to understand how you were so very wrong in your thinking.
If your mind has truly absorbed the facts and logic that should be no problem — there will be no slipping back into delusional thought — all delusional thoughts will have been purged.
If you can pass this test then you can apply for membership to The Core.
Join the cult of The Core Glenn…. be all that you can be.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/4R6_QYkcPmo/maxresdefault.jpg
China’s plans to reduce coal and steel production have been significantly scaled back.
China had planned to reduce steel production by 1 – 1.5 billion tons. Now it’s planning a 140 million ton reduction in steel production.
China had planned to reduce coal production by a billion tons. Now it’s planning an 800 million ton reduction in coal production.
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/02/china-cuts-back-steel-coal-cuts/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily%20MacroBusiness+CID_f243ad8954e949b0ea4c9a7945a939b2&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=China%20cuts%20back%20its%20steel%20and%20coal%20cuts
I expect China has figured out how difficult it is to find jobs for laid-off workers elsewhere. Also, debt repayment becomes a huge problem.
Whether or not China wants to cut capacity, it might be forced to, if there are not buyers for the apartments it builds and the goods it creates for export cannot find a market.
And the game begins.
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/goldman-stunned-collapse-gasoline-demand-would-require-us-recession
The ETP fan boyz of the old forum (PO) are supposedly parked in put options on 2018.
True there are many red hot alerts screaming about the high time now for another recession, including this gasoline demand slide, if it’s not an anomaly of sorts.
But at the same time the powers of the debt-cartel (and their leverage over helpless govs) are not exhausted completely yet. So we ca easily run it undamaged till 2020s for some real accident to damage the front windscreen eventually and out of the sudden.
I tried to look at the EIA website to get more information. I wasn’t getting good response time, though–perhaps the site is overloaded right now.
Of course, winter is when gasoline demand is normally low. That is at least part of the problem.
It’s not only winter effect, you can compute it from the chart, the y/y slump for this January is clearly bigger % vise.. But it could be corrected tomorrow with more data available or more round of obfuscation till Q2, Q3,.. (should it be serious)..
Cracks Are Appearing In Australia’s Trillion-Dollar Property Debt Pile
https://3r8md7174doo44lgpk3kou79-wpengine.netdna-ssl.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/OzMortgageMachine.jpg
The Reserve Bank of Australia frequently seeks feedback on the health of the economy. It might want to call the debt counsellors soon. Homeowners, consumers and property investors around Australia are making more calls to financial helplines as three warning signs back up the spike in demand: mortgage arrears are creeping up, lenders’ bad debt provisions have increased and personal insolvencies are near an all-time high. “It’s steadily out of control – I don’t know of too many financial counselling services where demand doesn’t exceed supply,” said Fiona Guthrie, chief executive officer of Financial Counselling Australia, who says the biggest increase in calls is from people suffering mortgage stress. “There are more people who have got mortgages that they can’t afford to pay.”
https://i.imgflip.com/sqtko.jpg
Australian household debt “out of control”
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/02/australian-household-debt-control/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily%20MacroBusiness+CID_f243ad8954e949b0ea4c9a7945a939b2&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=Australian%20household%20debt%20out%20of%20control
Just to give you an idea of the size of the ponzi going on here. In the US house prices went up for 6 years before crashing in 2008. This one is in in 16th straight year and Aussies are the most personally over-leveraged people in the OECD. Even ahead of Canada and Sweden.
Maybe you mean Switzerland and not Sweden. A very commonn mistake to do. Wolfstreet had an article on this some weeks ago:
http://wolfstreet.com/2017/01/22/these-are-the-countries-with-the-biggest-debt-slaves-and-americans-are-only-in-10th-place/
Wolf is actually not fair to Sweden. In Sweden apartments are owned “cooperatively”, if you buy an apartment you buy a membership in the cooperative owning the apartment. Of course, also these cooperatives have debt so when doing an international comparison like this, this debt should be included. But it’s usually not included as houshold debt. I believe you should increase swedens debt by around 10%-points.
The housing bubble in Canada is mostly confined to the big cities. In the rural areas houses can be had for very little.
House prices depend a whole lot on interest rates. (So do stock prices, plus probably a lot of other asset prices.) If a whole lot of cheap debt is available, prices can skyrocket.
It eventually gets to the point, however, that the central banks are pushing on a string.
The Negative Rates of Europe’s Central Banks
http://www.investopedia.com/articles/investing/040215/understanding-negative-rates-europes-central-banks.asp
Economists Mystified that Negative Interest Rates Aren’t Leading Consumers to Run Out and Spend
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2016/08/economists-mystified-that-negative-interest-rates-arent-leading-consumers-to-run-out-and-spend.html
Why quantitative easing and negative interest rates will fail
https://www.creditwritedowns.com/2015/01/why-quantitative-easing-and-negative-interest-rates-will-fail.html
People who can’t afford things don’t buy much. They can’t afford higher priced energy supplies, or the goods that those higher-cost energy supplies produce.
Not good. I know in the US, builders are building homes for higher-income people. Also, cities are demanding big up front payments for roads, schools, etc. that need to be financed in with the housing costs themselves. This tends to push prices up as well.
High housing costs crush Australian millennial’s dreams
http://www.macrobusiness.com.au/2017/02/high-housing-costs-crush-australian-millennials-dreams/?utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Daily%20MacroBusiness&utm_content=Daily%20MacroBusiness+CID_f243ad8954e949b0ea4c9a7945a939b2&utm_source=Email%20marketing%20software&utm_term=High%20housing%20costs%20crush%20Australian%20millennials%20dreams
And then there’s this:
Jobs! Jobs! Jobs!
There won’t be much of the local economy left after this one finally blows. The housing ponzi is all that’s propping Australia up now.
A quick check of the world’s most over-priced market….
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-02-08/new-home-buying-frenzy-defies-efforts-to-tame-hong-kong-market
We need to keep pumping up these bubbles — a recession is unthinkable because we have used all the ammo fighting total collapse since 2008 — massive stimulus — ZIRP and NIRP…. if growth stops now —- there will be no way to start it again…..
And why are there no Jobs! Is it possible that the phony debt driven economy of the last 30years resulted in speculative asset inflation? Now home ownership is out of reach. The real economy is built on energy flows not cash flows. There are no jobs not for lack of money I think the last 10 years has proven that. It’s lack of cheap energy.
JT Roberts,
You should take a look at this:
The anti-energy left believes that by creating something as abstract and man-made as money — whether created with debt or by other means, such as simply printing it up or with the stroke of a keyboard — that it can create real, physical things in the world, like energy.
This may seem like a fantastical creed, and so it is. What is more fantastic is that it is still widely believed.
I don’t think the right has any other creed other than printing money and grabbing the oil from the arabs.
The left and the right share one great lie; that they are different from each other. Obama was exactly the same as Bush. The left scares me a bit more. I wouldn’t really put trump in with the right. I think he could be the best we ever see. He could just be a lying puppet like Obama but I doubt it. The trouble is the ships taking water and its not going to stop. If a politician gets up and says”we have a problem we live in a finite world” they’d sharpen the guillotine for him her. The people demand lies. The best we can hope for is competent triage. That might buy us a couple years.
The media is thirsting for trumps blood. Ive never seen such a blatant bias.Yet supposedly thinking people eat it up. Families self destructing because half believe trump is satan and the other half Thomas Jefferson.
I don’t see how the hate the media propaganda is spawning can not create major social unrest for four years. Every thing destructive to trump is heralded as “brave”. The judge issuing the refugee policy restraining order a “hero”. Why didnt that judge issue a order restraining the unconstitutional- no vote of congress- arming of the Syrian jihadists? That WOULD have been brave. If Obama hadn’t blown the country to pieces there wouldn’t be refugees. Bush,Obama and Hillary all neck deep in blood. USA people are sick of it but thats not allowed. The people pulling the strings seem pretty fond of civil wars. What are they trying to incite in the USA?
If Jeb Bush had been elected I dont think we would see a tiny fraction of the media incitement that we are witnessing. That tells me Trump is the real deal. The people pulling the strings would rather see the USA burn than to allow a non puppet.
I will believe Trump is the real deal when:
– he does not exercise the US veto when the UN sanctions Israel
– he stops all aid to Israel including the billions of free weapons sent their annually
– he audits or directly challenges the Fed
– an assassination attempt is made on his life
Talk is cheap — he’s rolled back many promises already — Obamacare is not being repealed — let’s see if he takes on Big Pharma …
As for the MSM attacks on him …. I am left wondering if those might not be orchestrated to some purpose — perhaps to play up Don the Rebel — that definitely resonates with a lot of people….
End of the day one man is not going to change the power structure in the US…. actually of the world… the Elders have all the cash — they have the CIA the FBI the MSM on their side… what does Trump have other than a big mouth?
We shall see…
there is a saying, that a man is promoted to the level of his own incompetence.
we might just be seeing that right now in the white house.
But there are others in the white House who are more than competent to take things on to the next level and beyond.
These are the dangerous people, who lurk in the shadows of the leader, content to have him “in charge” for the time being.
It is important to know where these people are coming from, and why, and that overshadowing the endless argument about solar panels vs thorium reactors and stuff, there is a danger few dare speak of:-
that all warfare is over resources of one sort or another. and Bannon (in particular) is screaming “war” on a regular basis. He may be silenced–let’s hope so. But things are unravelling towards conflict
It is important to recognize that there is a law that governs all nations, whether they admit to it or not:-
—–If a nation does not produce sufficient energy from within its own borders to satisfy the aspirations of its citizens, it must beg buy borrow or steal it from somewhere else, or revert back to a level of existence that can be sustained on the energy available.—–
The USA produces 10Mbd of oil, but uses 18MBd. Forget the ranting rhetoric, that hard fact is your drumbeat of war.
It also explains why the USA has $18 Trn of debt that can never be repaid, because there is not enough oil to service that debt.
There is no vast sea of oil under the Midwest, or 400 years worth of coal to make the country solvent again.
It is this reality that the government faces, that the industrial infrastructure is oil driven. If there is not enough oil available, industry will grind to a halt. When (not if) that happens, social cohesion will disintegrate, because the food supply for 330 m people is entirely oil dependent. (as it is for most of the other 7Bn too
And no, Solar panels and wind turbines will not provide sufficient energy to prevent that happening, no matter how many arm wrestling contests there are over it.
This means that the nation in its current form is unsustainable.
The people in power know it—just as well as the real thinkers in here know it.
Forget single digit unemployment, there will be majority unemployment. And that will inevitably bring about civil disorder, because the USA has intentionally neglected any form of safety net for the long term unemployed, other than limited food aid. Socialism, however benign to peoples elsewhere in the world, has been anathema to the American government.
Civil disorder on a mass scale will require military intervention, because states are widely disparate in their response to any catastrophe—and this will be a catastrophe like no other.
Military intervention will require (temporary) suspension of civil liberties and introduction of martial law
So with a collapsed government, and an incompetent president, the country will be run by those who are competent. The president himself will be removed, voluntarily or involuntarily. He will have served his purpose.
And as with all dictatorships, reasons will have to be found for every crisis as it arises.
Already we have Mexicans and Muslims to blame—get rid of them and all will be well
Climate change is a hoax, ignore that and all will be well.
“The nation is at war”. We must continue to fight, and soon all will be well:-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/steve-bannon-apocalypse_us_5898f02ee4b040613138a951?
this is a man sitting next to a president totally obsessed with self image and flattery, in charge of the most powerful war machine there has ever been.
It is the echo of Germany (and Japan) in the 1930s, as they slaughtered ‘inferior races’ in their outward thrust to grab the food and oil resources needed to sustain themselves and the thousand year Reich.
The pattern has been well established in the past, lessons well learned, though not the ultimate lesson that all such grandiose schemes fail, because they require the out thrust of indigenous energy, which itself is finite.
Warfare is seen as the self perpetuating machine of industry and oppression, so otherwise empty political systems will always promote it with promises of an infinity of “More” once the war has been won. Hence the “conflict focus” at the top of the current political heirarchy.
Except of course that there is no more to be had anywhere, The oilparty really is over, which is what Ive tried to explain in my book.
Apologies for the political rant folks—but politics and its unpleasant fallout will trump (sorry) all the arguments in here about alternatve energy sources.
and then some.
By the way, the comparison “The USA produces 10Mbd of oil, but uses 18MBd,” isn’t really right, because the 18 MBD figure is an “all liquids” figure (which includes NGPL, ethanol, and “refinery expansion”), and the 10 MBD figure is a crude oil figure. The 10/18 ratio comes out to a little less than 56%.
If we look at Btu figures for 2015, our “Petroleum” consumption (which includes both oil and NGPL) is 35.603 quads. Our “oil” production is 19.647 quads, our “NGPL” production was 4.567 quads. So comparing oil + NGPL production to petroleum consumption, our production amounted to 68% of petroleum consumption in 2015. If we were to include biofuel production (2.161 quads) and consumption (2.145 quads) in the comparison, it would bring the ratio up to about 70%.
‘in charge of the most powerful war machine there has ever been’
Only if he is the chairman of the board of the Elders…. he is not of the tribe though….
No kidding!
They are endlessly ridiculed…. but perhaps they are more switched on to the situation than their elders who continue to believe the green shoots are around the corner….
WHY MILLENNIALS AREN’T BOTHERED BY ANYTHING…
…refugees, money, jobs, anything!
Facebook recently surveyed Millennials and discovered that 86% were saving – not for a pension mind you – but for a vacation. Neither Millennials nor Hipsters appear to have a pension plan, which is of grave concern to the Financial Sector.
Whilst it’s tempting to see this sort of hand-to-mouth behavior as short-sighted, hedonistic stupidity. In actuality, it is the most rational response to the environment my youthful generation finds itself in.
Why pay for a deckchair on the Titanic when you can sip whiskey and make love by the fireplace in the first class lounge?
Given that the value of land in Northern Europe and America is totally out of proportion with reality; largely the result of unjustifiably loose monetary policy and successive governments pandering to the boomers who in their great financial prudence own nothing except a house (or two, which they rent out to us for half our income.) According to one Millennial “I can even support a 70 year old accosting me at gun-point and taking half my wages each month. There is a certain intellectual honesty in this. What I cannot stand is boomers telling us we are spending it all on vacations. At least look me in the eye when you rob me.”
Given that mainstream academia has become utterly perverted; safe-spaces, trigger-warnings, compulsory PC ideology for all students (there is more adherence to truth and reason on a building site than on most university campuses). Not to mention virtually no monetary value whatsoever to your piece of paper at the end (in a great many cases).
Given that vast numbers of military age Muslim men are pouring into Europe by the day, not to mention Mexicans in the US, and the effete elite, totally insulated from their decisions by ivory towers of moral hazard are doing nothing to halt it. Millennials, not all naïve, expect low wages when cheap laborers are imported, expect less personal space for more money when population surges.
Given that the western sexual market has become totally de-regulated and your chance of finding an emotionally stable, monogamous, lifelong mate to raise a stable and happy family with is virtually zero in the OECD world.
Given that I’ve got no money. And what’s the point? I live at the wrong end of the consumer economy built to feed the cavernous appetite & largesse (healthcare, pensions, housing props) of boomers at the other. The millennial’s job is to provide the collateral so they can leverage it, distracted & palmed off with a cool beard, the odd vacuous trinket & a Facebook page to keep them on hook. All will be well unless ‘the hipsters’ clock they’re being had.
Why grind away your one stint at consciousness in the mindless drudgery of the corporate machine, saving for one’s grand retirement?
For what? Dinner parties discussing the “free money” of house price gains are a well-worn joke. The boomers have “loved” it but am I bothered to save a deposit? For a computer modeled, mass produced house in some Bell way managed estate, uber high taxes to pay for the opulent lifestyle of the boomers, neurotic spouse doped up on depressants to soothe the comfortably numb life; and to cap it off, years in the plague ships of the modern world; being force fed slop and medicated by someone who doesn’t even speak my language until my lonely eventual death. No thanks, oh great prudent boomers.
They might not be able to articulate it, but deep in their limbic systems, the Millennials know this life is over.
Why not enjoy the decline?
Stuff academia, stuff corporate life, stuff buying property in the West. Live totally debt free, run your own business; live in Eastern Europe where life is cheap and the women are beautiful.
I’m just sipping cocktails while Rome burns, any sensible youngin would do the same.
You got student debt? Don’t worry. Come see me in Chile. Where whiskey is cheap and the women! And if you’re a girl, even better! 🙂 There’s room by the fireplace
https://beforethecollapse.com/2016/02/16/why-millennials-arent-bothered-by-anything-refugees-money-jobs-anything/
At some point, this has to happen.
An example of the lies propagated by “renewable” energy proponents:
https://cleantechnica.com/2017/01/08/dutch-trains-now-run-100-wind-power/
Effectively debunked here:
http://euanmearns.com/do-the-netherlands-trains-really-run-on-100-wind-power/
Thanks! I generally agree with the views of Euan Mearns.
Yorchichan, I think every advocate trends to overstate their case. I thin it’s unnecessarily adversarial to call them all liars. I take everything that those on the left and right and green and developmental ends of the political spectra with a grain of salt, knowing this human frailty. Renewable advocates, like alternative nuclear advocates, are very earnest and well meaning. I think most of them wake up in the morning and worry about the state of our civilisation.
No doubt their intentions are good — just like Space Solar Keith would like to save us…
But we do not do well intentions on FW — we do facts and logic – reality.
This is the Super Bowl of energy discussions — we are all ramped up on steroids and hgh …. there is no room for the feeble-bodied weaklings here —- they get smashed and severely injured if they step on the field with nothing more than ‘good intentions’
I’m afraid that everyone that talks about new technologies misses the point, and this has been said over and over.
It is in fact, technology and resource extraction which has led us to overshoot. As such, no amount of new technology or resources can solve the problem. We will simply grow more and exhaust whatever resource is needed for the new technology.
What about mitigation? Not worth it. What exactly are you maintaining- Trillions of dollars for bankers? Wars around the planet? Hollywood and Sports?
Collapse and decomplexification is the solution. Let’s get this thing over with already, our civilization is really sick and just needs to die, quite frankly.
“Collapse and decomplexification is the solution.”
A step in the right direction? But I wouldn’t say it was enough
There are elements of “our” society that I like. I do agree 99% of the human population needs to be removed for the good of Gaia.
Most of Homo Sapiens existence we have had around 3 million (down to possibly 2000 70,000 years ago- we just about went extinct).
Might be time to go back to the norm.
Our fellow Earthlings would really appreciate it.
“It is in fact, technology and resource extraction which has led us to overshoot. As such, no amount of new technology or resources can solve the problem. We will simply grow more and exhaust whatever resource is needed for the new technology.”
There is no resource that puts a practical limit on the size of the world economy.
you see folks–Mark gets it right and tells it as it is:-
——“There is no resource that puts a practical limit on the size of the world economy.”‘—–
Being converted to alternative factism has changed my life—I am now at peace with myself at last
I am currently having alternative facts printed into small volumes, and this weekend I start going door to door recruiting converts to my new faith.
Any Infinite Worlders willing to contribute to my new church will receive a weekly alternative fact free of charge for life, to use as they see fit.
Norman-
Since the “free human mind” is going to power all this progress I suspect we will end up looking like this guy. https://microfilums.files.wordpress.com/2010/01/2260894625_ea1feecb2a.jpg
“Being converted to alternative factism…”
Norman, I don’t think you understand how science works. In science, one person makes a statement about future events. For example,
1) “If I put an atomic clock on a mountain, 3000 meters above sea level, it will keep time slower than an atomic clock that’s in a valley, 100 meters below sea level.” Or…
2) “There is no resource that puts a practical limit on the size of the world economy.”
Then another person makes a competing statement about future events. For example,
1) “No way, that’s crazy! An atomic clock will keep the same time, whether it’s on a mountain or in a valley. Everybody knows that!”
2) “No way, that’s crazy! The current world per-capita GDP (purchasing power basis) is $16,000, and we’re already in a serious overshoot. There’s no way the world will ever get to $30,000.”
Then we put one atomic clock on a mountain and one below sea level, and see what they say. Or we wait to see if the world economy ever reaches a per-capita GDP of $30,000. That’s how science works. People make competing falsifiable predictions of future events, and we test to see which person is right.
So my statement had absolutely nothing to do with “alternative facts.” It was a falsifiable prediction of future events (i.e., that no resource will ever result in a practical* limit to the size of the future economy).
P.S. If you’re wondering what “practical limit” might mean, here’s a prediction that outlines the nature of “practical limit”. That is, $1 million or $10 million…who really cares?:
Predicted 21st century economic growth
“That’s how science works. People make competing falsifiable predictions of future events, and we test to see which person is right.”
Exactly! I predict I’ll develop a third ear in my forehead till 2025, and that my dog will grow a strawberry nose in December 3, 2023, at 4 A.M.
And yes I’m ready to bet 10 000 maravedis on that.
JMS, the many worlds interpretation of quantum theory predicts that in an infinite number of alternative universes, you will develop that third ear, and in another infinity of universes, you already have it.
That’s wonderful news, Tim! It means we are saved! We just need to find a way to get there, to one of those infinite alternative universes. And it shouldn’t be hard, because if they are infinite in number, I’m sure there’s entrances to them in every backyard.Tomorrow I’ll start looking in mine.
🙂
I think I get it. You didn’t specify upper or lower limit to size. I stupidly thought you meant upper limit.
I agree with, to a point, FE’s “If this is so great, why isn’t anyone already doing it” thoughts, but sometimes, the world is just that way. How many times in the past has someone invented something, and people go “why didn’t anyone do this before?” FE, if you truly want this dumpster fire of a civilization we have to keep going on as long as it can, and this has even a small chance of working, is it not worth the risk? It seems like a very small bet with a very large(potential) payoff, and the downsides seem very low. 5 billion gets lost by the military, like weekly?
http://energyrealityproject.com/lets-run-the-numbers-nuclear-energy-vs-wind-and-solar/
Or for just $1 Trillion, we could power the entire country with MSRs.
The Molten Salt Reactor was invented by Alvin Weinberg and Eugene Wigner, the same Americans who came up with the Light Water Reactor (LWR). The liquid-fueled MSR showed tremendous promise during more than 20,000 hours of research and development at Oak Ridge National Labs in the late 60s and early 70s, but it was shelved by Richard Nixon to help his cronies in California, who wanted to develop another type of reactor (which didn’t work out so well.)
Today’s MSR proponents are confident that when research and development is resumed and brought up to speed, assembly-line production of MSRs could be initiated within five years. The cost of all this activity would be about $5 Billion—substantially less than the cost of one AP-1000 reactor in Vogtle, Georgia.
Several cost analyses on MSR designs have been done over the years, averaging about $2 an installed watt—cheaper than a coal plant, and far cleaner and safer as well. A true Gen-4 reactor, the MSR has several advantages:
It can’t melt down
It doesn’t need an external cooling system
It’s naturally and automatically self-regulating
It always operates at atmospheric pressure
It won’t spread contaminants if damaged or destroyed
It can be installed literally anywhere
It can be modified to breed fuel for itself and other reactors
It is completely impractical for making weapons
It can be configured to consume nuclear “waste” as fuel
It can pay for itself through the production of isotopes for medicine, science and industry
It can be fueled by thorium, four times as abundant as uranium and found all over the world, particularly in America (it’s even in our beach sand.)
Since it never operates under pressure, an MSR doesn’t need a containment dome, one of the most expensive parts of a traditional nuclear plant. And MSRs don’t need exotic high-pressure parts, either. The reactor is simplicity itself.
Overall, an MSR’s steel and concrete requirements will be significantly less than an AP-1000, or any other solid-fuel, high-pressure, water-cooled reactor, including the Small Modular Reactors.
While SMRs are a major advance over the traditional Light Water Reactor, and are far safer machines, the liquid-fueled MSR is in a class all its own. It’s a completely different approach to reactor design, which has always used coolants that are fundamentally—and often violently—incompatible with the fuel.
Like the old saying goes, “Everything’s fine until something goes wrong.” And the few times that LWRs have gone wrong, the entire planet freaked out. In the wake of those three major incidents—only one of which (Chernobyl) has ever killed anyone—the safest form of large-scale carbon-free power production in the history of the world was very nearly shelved for good.
The key differences in MSR design is that the fuel is perfectly compatible with the coolant, because the coolant IS the fuel and the fuel IS the coolant, naturally expanding and contracting to maintain a safe and stable operating temperature.
They used to joke at Oak Ridge that the hardest thing about testing the MSR was finding something to do. The reactor can virtually run itself, and will automatically shut down if there’s a problem—an inherently “walk-away safe” design. And not because of clever engineering, but because of the laws of physics.
Wigner and Weinberg should have gotten the Nobel Prize. The MSR is that different. Liquid fuel changes everything. Liquid fuel is a very big deal.
ItBegins, I saw a NOVA special on nuclear and they covered this. What an unfortunate mistake not to have deployed this technology.
Money is clearly not an issue — we have printed many trillions of dollars since 2008 — there appear to be no limit.
The Elders want to live — they want their children to live — and their grandchildren.
They do not want to starve to death.
They will leave no stone unturned looking for a way to kick the can.
The logical take-away is that thorium is not considered an option — because like a great many things (e.g. growing bananas in snow) — it has been determined that it is not feasible – no matter how much cash is thrown at it.
You will note that huge amounts of cash have been thrown at other technologies including solar and nuclear — so the will and the cash are there….
Perhaps Thorium is the cosmic banana peel. A great, game changing technology that somehow got left on the floor in our mad dash for progress. It never got developed/deployed, so it was never able to prove it was developable/deployable. I think your argument is more circular than logical. It got shutdown in alpha, it never made it to beta, so it never got a chance to show what it could do in a full size gigawatt class reactor. Perhaps it will fail spectacularly, perhaps there is some hidden gotcha that will only show up when it is scaled up. Unless we try it though, we’ll never know if its all positives and few negatives like it appears to be.
So we have the money.
So we have the will.
So we could try to deploy it? Ramp the project back up, Manhattan Project style, throw a few billion at it and see what happens when we build a full scale production reactor, after working out the kinks in a small test reactor? Worst case, we are right back where we are, minus a few bucks, best case, we get a chance to solve our finite resource issues with an affordable high EROEI energy source.
Seems like a bet worth taking, logic or no.
But you keep comparing it to crazy things, but the fact is, the man that helped develop our current nuclear tech thought it held enough promise to take it to the next level, as much cannot be said about your crazy bananas, and we never did. It seems like it would be crazy to NOT follow in his footsteps, in the snow or otherwise, and 5 billion or even 50 billion seems like a bargin given all the facts.
It’s very, very, very, very, very, very, very simple, say again very, very very, very simple.
There HAS to be a MARKET. Unlimited free energy would be relatively instant catastrophe, markets would be instantly destroyed, there are few buyers of free stuff.
It would probably need to introduced over the same period that current expensive energy use evolved. There is far too much at stake for big business. A lack of exhuberance to fund something that will destroy life as we know it, is understandable.
Silly rant over…….
Would thorium really help us in our current predicament if suddenly an alien gave to me a 100% working reactor? Will thorium reduce our debt level, spur consumption, fix US health care fiasco, fix European economic and social issue? Will it help Japan”s debt level, China debt issue? What would the excess and cheap power do to spur people to splurge on stuff that they don’t need or buy another car? Will it fix the high employment in developed countries? Super cheap energy will make deflation even worse.
Good points!
+++++++++++
There are loads of ideas out there that we are told will generate energy.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alternative_energy
But the reality is none of these ideas have been proved to be able to support BAU
Solar does not work.
Nuclear does not work — if the actual costs were borne by the industry then like Tesla – it would not exist.
Thorium does not work.
The only things that work are those involving the burning of organic matter — biomass produces energy — but BAU cannot run on biomass energy (keep in mind we have gotten energy from biomass from the time man harnessed fire… nothing new here)
The only thing that can fuel BAU is the burning of fossil fuels — period.
I would argue that the men who run the world know full well that all of these other theories are exercises in futility
They know – and have known for a very long time — that once the cheap fossil fuels are gone — so are we…. they fight vicious wars over fossil fuels — they murder children.
They throw a few scraps to the alternative energy crowd not because they expect salvation — they do it because they know the masses are stupid — but not so stupid as to not get spooked when they recognize that fossil fuels are not eternal
And if no alternative is put forward — the masses panic — and panic is not good for BAU.
So they feed the masses hopium…. many different flavours…
Remember the stories about how Japan was going to start hauling frozen gas from the depths of the ocean?
We all know that solar is a joke — (I hope) — yet how many people do you know who believe that solar is the future?
Of course a lot of people understand that solar energy is not going to save the world because they drive cars powered by petrol.
No problem – enter Elon Musk — and the Tesla — brought to you courtesy of billions of dollars of government cash.
And we get a crescendo of positive stories about Tesla in the MSM….. do you not see how this is all orchestrated? It could not be more obvious….
Voila – we now have an infallible solution — solar power and electric cars. The masses love it!
And then there is the Mars Colony — anyone with half a brain knows that is just total nonsense. Yet the MSM is pumping it hard — because again the masses are not so stupid as to recognize unlimited growth on a finite planet is not possible (Glenn is one of the few exceptions) so what to do? Elon Musk is again our man — we can all move to Mars!
Has anyone noticed that every so often we get a global story about yet another ‘earth-like planet’ being discovered? Ya – there are Edens all over the universe!!!
All part of the campaign to calm the masses.
It is a very successful advertising campaign — most people are buying.
I am not.
It’s not an easy thing to second guess the Elders. But give ’em their due, they are the Elders because they’ve survived, prospered and held their place as the kings of the castle up till now.
I go back to the Georgia Guide-stones with their monumental instructions, one of which is to keep the human population below 500 million. Sounds like it would be good advice if we were at 500 million now. At 7.5 billion it kinda begs the question: How do we get from here to there?
Launch thorium molten salt reactors and other advanced energy supply systems now, and we might never get down to 500 million. So perhaps the Elders have decided to thin the herd prior to introducing the new technology. I wouldn’t put it past them. And while this thinning process goes on, they can hang out with you in New Zealand, which they’ll protect as their safe space.
This intentional thinning/culling hypothesis is interesting, regardless to the additional theoretical – crazy stuff like hidden/suppressed technologies or fossil fuel set-aside for the transition.
Namely, by now it’s evident even the world’s industrialized societies are not homogeneous, the thresholds by which a western European, Scandinavian or USian is going to not take it anymore and rebel are still quite murky and wide. From that follows at the moment of crash some societies will be already in state of almost ready civil war, others will continue calmly sit and die politely curled as good pacifists.
Therefore it logically follows, should for example the jet set escaping the US for NZ return somewhere post the apocalypse, they have to calculate which place is accepting or more precisely which place is still somewhat working and accepting former billionaires. And here is the clincher, should such place exist, by definition it must have relatively good working ruling structures on whatever level now imaginable. So, the likelihood such incoming surviving hermit will be taxed like at least 95% to allow entry into the sanctuary is evident.
Anything is possible — but I think this scenario is highly unlikely —- a collapse in population gets us back to Korowicz’ Trade Off paper….
We’d get a deflationary crash and implosion of the financial system — and once that gets underway it is impossible to put humpty back together again.
Given the extreme efforts being made to keep BAU alive for as long as possible by any means possible — I am doubtful that a Plan B exists
Thorium has been “eminent” for at least 25 years.
India has really put a lot of resources and very smart people on the project.
There are no Thorium Reactors producing commercial electricity that scales.
“Or for just $1 Trillion, we could power the entire country with MSRs.”
Their numbers are essentially dreams, since there isn’t even a single commercial liquid fluoride thorium reactor (LFTR) in the U.S. In fact, there isn’t even a pilot scale LFTR. The U.S. power grid requires the electrical energy equivalent to approximately 450 reactors of 1 GW (1000 megawatts) each. So for $1 trillion, that’s saying a capital cost of about $2000 a kilowatt each. It’s believable, but pretty darn speculative since there isn’t one commercial reactor in the entire world…and I think even the pilot scale reactor in China is still under development.
P.S. Don’t get me wrong here. If the Trump administration and Congress got together and put in a couple billion dollars to have competing teams build a 2-4 small (say 10 megawatts thermal) LFTR reactors, no one would be more thrilled than I. I don’t think they *will*…but I’d be thrilled if they did.
Guys, sorry for disappearing for a few months. Took me a while to read through all the comments. Read so many comments about the alternative energies but all of us missed one very important point that Gail has been flailing her arms all this while – DEBT.
DEBT has been a proxy for energy for years, especially after peaking of oil in US in the 1970s. I cannot tell if it is done on purpose (some top people know about this) or it is just plain lucky that we expanded debt. Debt is “future energy promise”. We are running out of luck and out og debt soon.
I have mentioned a few times in the previous post and I am repeating myself. If by any miracle, we have unlimited energy sources, cheap and clean falling down to our laps tomorrow – solar, wind, tidal, thorium, geothermal, frozen nitrates, power satellites, zero-point or other unworldly, exotic super duper energy sources that we can utilize immediately (not like “10- months/years later” or “soon to be produced”), will it help us? The quick and dirty answer is NO. We are too deep and too interconnected and we cannot extricate ourselves out of this mess without a major or even “extinction level event” type of chaos. Will super cheap energy help in
1. Resolving debt issues in Europe, China, Japan and all other countries?
2. Will improve demand of goods and services?
3. Resolve the Fukushima radiation issue?
We are all mired in “delusions” when we think about moving ahead with new and exotic energy sources that will only materialize in future. Think about NOW.
What if scenario #1- Tomorrow Japan announces that they have a new energy source that is clean and fantastic. It is too cheap to be metered and they can use that energy to combine CO2+water to form hydrocarbons, they can easily harvest all the landfill and with the super cheap energy, they can recover all the metals, plastics, etc. Therefore, right now, they can sell to you Lexus at 70% discount, cameras at USD50 and mobile phones at USD30. What will happen?
1. Social, political and economic disruption of unseen magnitude. Does it help in reducing the debt burden of Japan? What will happen to the bonds? What will happen to the bonds of other countries? Carry trade? Trade relationship with other countries? Supply chain? All other car manufacturer will suffer big time, perhaps totally bankrupt.
2. Too much debt. If you cannot afford it, would like like to buy a new Lexus at half price.
3. What will happen to commodities, oil, etc? Does it mean that Japan will be debt free. Can Japan thrive if all other countries in the world failed ? (i,e, who wants to buy BMW at full price)?
If we are in year 1800, then Japan will be the uber-king of the world but not now when we are so interconnected where bringing down one part will also bring down other parts.
Scenario #2 – Saudi Arabia suddenly find a super super giant oilfield that dwarfs Ghawar and it is so easy to extract that just poking a straw in, the oil spurts out. What will happen? Oil price will crash? How about other oil producing countries? How about the supporting industry? Our finance industry (banking, pension, etc) are so interconnected that bringing down the price of oil will definately bring down other parts of the world. How about the political fallout when Saudi becomes the kingmaker?
Talking about new energy sources is pointless when we are so deep in debt (proxy for future energy use). We have already pull in demand from so far into the future that we have exhausted our needs for any new stuff. Even if you were to lower the prices of stuff, people are not willing to buy. If this new energy source is available in 1970s when the debt level is very low, then we will have a very “good and bright” future as that energy source will be used accordingly and we don’t have to use debt to substitute high energy costs.
To cap it, even if petrol/gasoline is at USD1/gallon, does it really matter if you are broke and you have no jobs?
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/goldman-stunned-collapse-gasoline-demand-would-require-us-recession
I never joined any discussion on new energy sources because practically everyone that I have met do not have the “multi-dimensional” thinking of reading between the lines. If super cheap energy sources would not help our current predicament, what more to think about an energy source that will come online in 5 years time.
Another example – if someone invented Star Trek “transporter beam”, will it help us? No. It will never as it will cause chaos that will destroy our human civilization. There will be no need for any transport or travel industry anymore. Our supply chain is so long that with both transport and travel industry gone, the rest of the industry will also be dead. Will the travel agency buy any new computers if travel agencies are obsolete? The factory that produces the tiny chips that powers the devices that goes into aeroplanes will be idled as planes are obsolete. So, will the employees have money to buy food? The repercussion of a long supply chain on the economy and jobs is now global and the effects are felt almost immediately.
I’m thankful or your thoughts here CTG. Putting aside any particular planet-saving technology, I think it’s important for us to focus on the nature of the human predicament. Our core problem is to do with values and cultural behaviours that are not compatible with a sustainable civilisation. So long as society is driven by an underlying demand (and belief) for endless growth and consumer wants then focussing on technology can only be a mere band aid. It’s a very blokes thing to say that this technology or that one can keep the industrial juggernaut on the rails.
So long as we relegate technology to where it should belong then we can sensible discuss it’s role in a post-industrial society. Even that’s a pretty hard ask when nobody knows how and when the crash will come and what form or scale the remnant civilisation will take. Allow know is that it will have to be much simpler and disaggregated.
Let’s revisit Rat Island:
100 rats live on an island 500km from any other land mass.
An abandoned ship filled with grain washes up on the island and bursts open.
The rats rush in and have a grand party feasting on the grain — they also discover some whiskey in the hold and a solar powered disco ball going round and round in the captain’s quarters — what would a rat party be without female rats … the sexiest female rats wanting some grain offer themselves to the male rats… which results in more rats being added to the colony…
This goes on for months and months — until we now have many thousands of rats….
Then one day the grain is finished and all the rats die of starvation. But not before they turn on each other in a frenzy ripping and tearing at flesh.
We are NO different — we are animals. We have the same drives — don’t think so — go down to the Mall and try to tell people to stop shopping — tell them they have enough already — WTF do you need that for — you are wrecking the F999&^% planet!
Then head over to the fast food restaurants in the mall with a blowhorn and scream ‘you right fat bastards look at you —- stop stuffing yourselves!!! – stop I say!!!’
Oil is our grain ship.
One other thing — once you get onto the ‘progress’ treadmill — the growth treadmill — there is no reversing without returning to a very primitive type of existence (after billions die)….
And when you overshoot to the level we have — and you put the brakes on —- the likelihood of extinction is high because there will be so little to eat and so many chasing what remains….
Then of course there are the spent fuel ponds —- and the fact that there will be no way we can manage those without BAU.
I don’t dispute the logic but for many people who have access to dwindling resources this all leads to fending off the other rats, savagely if necessary. There have been books written on the extent to which humans behave cooperatively or dog-eat-dog when under pressure, and what triggers each response. Much of that is innate to the particular culture. I think we are being cultured into the latter behavioural patterns. ‘Me First!’ is not just Trump’s slogan it’s in most Western people’s heads.
Excellent stuff – welcome back to The Core.
Good points! Welcome back!
https://twitter.com/savannastc/status/827946297453899777/photo/1?ref_src=twsrc^tfw
Well, if we are going to go all Trump style, I like the one of the right. Might as well put my order in early since we are practically their already. I can’t figure out what to do with them but any transgender chicks have got to fill a niche somewhere too.
Look at this poor man doing his part for the environment. I’m quite sure he paid somebody enough money to offset his carbon footprint through tree planting. The planter being a handicapped, first nation, fair trade, lesbian, legal prostitute. Its all good!
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-02-07/peoples-president-spotted-vacationing-private-island-billionaire-buddy-branson
Obama …taking a break before he begins his multi million dollar/year speaking circuit…. his reward for kowtowing to the Elders.
If he had halitosis, it would have been perfect. A nation cannot be truly inclusive while it holds its nose in the presence of the differently fragranced.
I Think you need some primary experience.
Let me know.
I’m living down in PV Mexico, where this wouldn’t raise a eyebrow (or anything else).
Margaret Atwood’s “The Handmaid’s Tale” is the best-selling book on Amazon
(Knocked 1984 off the top)
https://boingboing.net/2017/02/07/margaret-atwoods-the-han.html
Our view of what could happen in the future seems to change, as we get closer to that future.
I remember reading 1984, back when 1984 was in the future.
t 242 PM PST…THE Madera County REPORTED THAT the earthen dam on
Lewis Fork north of Yosemite Forks has or will fail shortly.
THIS IS AN EMERGENCY
The whole Levee system in the Central Valley of CA is in disrepair.
It would be interesting if it becomes a large lake.
(I wonder if the population will get the F150 out in time–a trip to get Cheetos and Bud may delay the response)
I am sure that we have not been keeping up repair on quite a few of these dams.
Pingback: L’écologie™ du spectacle et ses illusions vertes : les énergies dites « renouvelables » | État du Monde, État d'Être
“Dream within a dream” of slow torture, this guy has been apparently right the past 40+ yrs.
He gets the deflationary push aka boom times as well as the helicopter money scam, but not the other layers of the FW. But as we have seen recently on the graph going back to 1300s, even 40+ yrs is just a few dots, barely nothing on the continuum if we zoom out far out enough..
I read it in the Daily Mail:
Urban Farming
https://archpaper.com/2017/01/dsgn-agnc-phoenix-spaces-of-opportunity/#gallery-0-slide-0
Too big. Too much control. Not sufficiently “organic”, ubiquitous or innovative. It’s an approach, frankly, that is a royal pain in the rear. But for many people, it might show that there is more than they tend to believe in urban food growing.
this should scare everybody
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2017/01/trump-science-epa-review
I don’t see it as any less scary than the idea we can painlessly transition to a “green” economy. We should have been scared of the people that sold that snake oil years ago.
The Dear Leader of my country says we have to get our oil to market in one province, and in another, says we have to phase it out. We are going to burn every last drop of oil we can and there will be no transition but he will go on attending conferences and talking about the environment. All the while enjoying tips to the Caribbean.
To quote her royal highness Killory, “What difference, at this point, does it make?”
Not Much–
Mangostan will just make the train wreck crash into the wall faster.
Might be a good thing, as the survivors (if any) will have more resources.
I agree HRC would of been just a slow death (probably)
Under Obama, climate “science” became 60% politics, 30% theology and 10% science.
Trump is not to blame for the debauchery of science.
Really?
Did the Talking Snake tell you that?
The public had already tuned out the activist “scientists” well before Trump ever began his campaign.
You can’t blame their failures on Trump.
https://s29.postimg.org/4jtx5mkif/Captura_de_pantalla_256.png
So?
Reality is not a game show.
The bewildered herd knows something is wrong— they just prefer simple stories to make them feel alright is a groundless and freighting world.
I have compassion for you— you must be terrified.
“The bewildered herd”?
You mean “the deplorables”?
http://thumbs.picclick.com/00/s/NTAwWDEwNDQ=/z/1GsAAOSwUKxYfuaX/$/Proud-Deplorable-Pro-Trump-Vinyl-Decal-Sticker-for-_1.jpg
Well, you deserve a wingnut Badge of Courage:
“I’m a ignorant idiot, and proud of it”
A good citizen of Mangostan.
Maybe professor Henrik Svensmark’s solar-cosmic-ray-theory is well known to the FW-audience?
http://principia-scientific.org/strong-evidence-that-svensmark-s-solar-cosmic-ray-theory-of-climate-is-correct/
Interesting! This is the kind of thing that doesn’t get into climate models.
I know that Ugo Bardi comments in his book “Extracted” that climate over the historical period seems to be a lot less variable than might be expected, based on changes of various types. I don’t have the book in front of me know, but it seems like the increasing radiation from the sun over time was one of the issues he mentioned. He came to the conclusion that there were built in feed-back loops that tended to stabilize the climate. (But I also know now that Ugo is very worried about climate change.)
My experience with Peak Oil models is that they are very badly wrong, (high prices, oil will “run out”) even though the people who put them together were well meaning, and followed the thinking of the day. I can believe that exactly the same problem is occurring with climate models. A person doesn’t get any attention or funding by predicting more of the same. It was also very convenient to have “climate change” to point to as a reason to move away from fossil fuels, rather than “they are becoming too expensive to extract.” The expense of extraction will crash the economy, but not in the way we expect. Commodity prices will remain too low, rather than rising too high.
There are a lot of things that “don’t get into climate models.”
Instead, what we get are highly simplistic, reductionist climate models from our current crop of climate “scientists,” as if CO2 is the one and only possible cause of climate change. Climate scientists are every bit as orthodox and doctrinaire as economists.
Looking at the current state of climate “science,” one can’t help but be reminded of this passage from Tolstoy’s War and Peace:
“The human mind cannot grasp the causes of phenomena in the aggregate. But the need to find these causes is inherent in man’s soul. And the human intellect, without investigating the multiplicity and complexity of the conditions of phenomena, any one of which taken separately may seem to be the cause, snatches at the first, the most intelligible approximation to a cause, and says: ‘This is the cause’.”
The Talking Snake says green energy is our future.
If climate change is due to burning fossil fuels then I am all for more climate change — because burning increasing amounts of fossil fuels means we are growing — and that means more BAU for me — I love BAU
The Ministry of Truth has arrived…life imitating art….
War is peace.
Freedom is slavery.
Ignorance is strength
1984 is 2017
Again, the best part of Trump is turning the mirror on the obscene hypocrisy of the West.
The ministry of truth has been in charge so long nobody knew there was such a thing. He is going to rip that bandaid right off and its going to hurt.
Lets hope.
Our neoliberal Masters are even worse that our Flat Earth Mangostan Idiots.
Its pretty easy to get assaulted talking about climate science. I don’t do it. Its like having a trump bumper sticker in Oakland. It doesn’t really matter. On one hand you have the god entitled drill baby drill duck dynasty creatures. On the other hand you have the technology/wind/solar will save us PC nazi creatures. From my viewpoint we will burn every last bit of fossil fuel we can extract as there is no alternative. If the PC technology/wind/solar will save us PC nazi creatures are right were going to fry. If the god entitled drill baby drill creatures are right we are not going to fry( from GW anyhow). We are toast regardless. Its not worth getting my skull fractured over regardless so i nod politely and eye a exit when a creature is making the words that manifest self righteous violence. I keep my dress neutral. I wonder if i could sell hillary trump reversible bumper stickers? Hillery in oakland trump in boise.
One might choose to worry if we are actually headed into a mini ice age. My BS meter pegs when I hear the climate change mantra repeated to enable more regulation and taxes. I am ok with real science…not politically doctored science.
We are in an inter-glacial warming period. We have been lucky…so far.
One day our little warming period will end…a mathematical certainty.
Imagine drilling for oil through miles of ice.
Sorry Frycook but I have to break the news to you that the election is over and one of them won. Clinton and Sanders are history, so those bumper stickers are only useful as keepsakes.
All the same, I wouldn’t be a shrinking violet. Say what you believe and believe what you say. But do it carefully and know when there’s no point saying anything at all.
Its not worth getting my skull fractured over
Oh boy, things in the US are worse than we thought.
Here in the Far East, the worst that could happen is that your adversary would cross you off their Christmas card list.
(might be time to bring back the much maligned Inquisition– certainly shut up Galileo)
If You Liked the Inquisition, You’ll Love the House Science Committee
http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/01/house-science-committee-lamar-smith-climate-change-exxon
Actually, it was the activst “scientists” and their political cohort that attempted to pull off an inquisition, and Lamar Smith and the House Science Committee thwarted it.
If climate “scientists” didn’t want to fight these political battles, then why did they politicize their “science”‘? As the old saw goes, “You live by the sword, you die by the sword.”
Exxon Mobil Fights the Abusive Behavior of Democrat Attorney General’s Climate Inquisition
http://dailysignal.com/2016/10/21/exxonmobil-fights-the-abusive-behavior-of-democrat-attorney-generals-climate-inquisition/
Exxon’s Inquisitors Feel the Heat
https://www.wsj.com/articles/exxons-inquisitors-feel-the-heat-1466117071
Legal Group Claims Exxon Inquisition Is Meant To Protect Obama’s Climate Rules
http://dailycaller.com/2016/08/09/legal-group-claims-exxon-inquisition-is-meant-to-protect-obamas-climate-rules/#ixzz4Y2Mmyawu
The Climate Change Inquisition: An Abuse of Power that Offends the First Amendment and Threatens Informed Debate
http://thf-reports.s3.amazonaws.com/2016/LM-193.pdf
Creationist Paleontologists Discover Dinosaur Saddle
http://www.avantnews.com/news/35092-creationist-paleontologists-discover-dinosaur-saddle
Duncan-
I’m one the deluded Christian doomsters here, although one who has no issue with evolution. Back in the day the wife ordered some books to start homeschooling the oldest boy. One has a picture of two Brontosaurus walking up the plank of Noah’s Ark. You just reminded me of that so I’m smiling. Might be the same saddle:-)
Come now, don’t you now the truth?
http://www.dailysquib.co.uk/most-popular/1236-scientists-prove-jesus-walked-with-dinosaurs.html
My go to sources for peer review science are the:
(This would make Kafka blush)
Hertiage Foundation
Daily Signal:
The Daily Signal is a conservative American news website founded in June 2014. The publication focuses on politics, culture, and other stories. It is published by The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank. Very strong right bias in reporting and wording. Does not always source to credible information.
Daily Caller:
The Daily Caller is an American news and opinion website based in Washington, D.C.. It was founded by Tucker Carlson, a libertarian conservative[2][3] political pundit, and Neil Patel, former adviser to former Vice President Dick Cheney. The site’s sections includes politics, business, world news, entertainment, sports, education, technology, outdoors, and energy.
Wall Street Journal?
Please, that is embarrasing
Got anything from Nature Science, or Cell?
You know where peer review actually checks the facts?
If the activist “scientists” didn’t want to fight these political battles, then why did they go picking political fights?
The activist “scientists” can’t have it both ways. They slapped the bear, and they can’t expect the bear to roll over and play dead.
So, you have no peer reviewed papers that counter the Flat Earth Idiots rsponse?
You are embarrassing yourself.
DELINGPOLE: NOAA Scandal Gives Trump The Perfect Excuse To Drain The Climate Swamp
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.mx/2017/02/climate-change-denier-james-delingpole.html
Here you go, from Scientific American:
Do you seriously believe these “well-known climate scientists” were ignorant of the political consequences of their involvement?
“Power is not only what you have but what the enemy thinks you have.”
(you are obviously frightened)
— Sal Alinksy, Rules for Radicals: A Pragmatic Primer for Realistic Radicals
Ok Glenn you dont believe in greenhouse gas global warming. No need to be so coy and holier than thou about it. So the climate scientists that have dedicated their life to studying this all have a agenda and have abandoned respect for science? I believe greenhouse gas global warmingto be true but do I know for sure-nope. Convince me about this vast conspiracy. Quit dancing around the bush. Were not afraid to get naked here. And the record breaking lack of ice? Peer reviewed please.
One big issue is that all of the models assume a great deal more burning of fossil fuels than is really possible in the future. This is even true of the so-called “Peak oil” models.
Another issue is the fact that the conditions that allowed human populations to increase required the use of more energy products. It is not that humans “caused” global warming. Humans would not be alive today, without a high use of energy products. We are not in control of the situation, in order to “fix” the situation, so this presents a problem. Also, the “alternatives” presented (wind and solar) don’t really work. What are we supposed to do?
Climate is constantly cycling from one stage to another. Diminishing returns with respect to energy products mean population is likely to drop dramatically in the near future, regardless of what we do. Thus, few will be around to see the problem. We know that humans lived through ice ages in the past, so if humans continue to live on earth, it is likely that they can adapt to changing conditions. We spend an awfully lot of time worrying about something that we don’t have a good way of fixing.
Climate modelers are trying to model one piece of the world system, without understanding the overall system. Their results will be iffy, at best.
TheOtherGuy says:
Where did I say that?
You shouldn’t engage in these dishonest strawman arguments. They do nothing to advance your cause.
“TheOtherGuy says:
Ok Glenn you dont believe in greenhouse gas global warming.
Where did I say that?
You shouldn’t engage in these dishonest strawman arguments. They do nothing to advance your cause.”
Glenn you have been openly making references that the climate scientist are influenced by politics. What about my questions was dishonest? Your shale play advocation and your comments about compromised science would lead me to believe that you dont believe in greenhouse gas warming. I willing to explore your beliefs. Why are you not willing to discuss it? The way you are presenting is bothersome to me because you hint but never say. Its dishonest to have a agenda and not discuss it when asked. If you do dont or whatever thats fine. You are entitled to your beliefs. Laying hints and not being willing to discuss things shows a unwillingness to explore truth. Only one layer is exposed that suits you and you want to avoid the layers below.
“We are not in control of the situation, in order to “fix” the situation, so this presents a problem. Also, the “alternatives” presented (wind and solar) don’t really work. What are we supposed to do?”
Gail for me it is important to understand what we are. I think your BLOG works toward that goal. I think exponential population growth and a finite world denotes limits and I think that are denial of limits is a denial of the truth. The two sides of the global warming camp actually share a common belief. They deny limits. The difference is the “green” side admits limits but only with a impossible solution presented as fact.
Personally I find the planet quite beautiful. It is painful to me when I see beauty destroyed. Its probably a personal problem but It is what I am. Whether it is global warming or another aspect of our existence it is clear to me things can not continue. As far as your question”What are we supposed to do?” I dont have a answer. There are obvious actions that could be taken when one discovers ones very existence destroys beauty. I feel it is important that we at least admit limits as a species, that we are not deluded as we pillage our way to nonexistence. As unprobable as it is I still believe change is possible. A miracle. I see admitting limits as work towards a miracle. Perhaps this is akin with belief in the tooth fairy. This is what i think is important about the climate science debate. A sinner must realize their sin of their own free will. It is a personal belief but there it is.
The only solution is to go shopping — to run up the credit card — drive more — fly more — because if we fail to live large then we collapse — and the spent fuel ponds will poison the beautiful planet
Here’s my response (from lower in the thread).
My point is that I don’t buy into the highly simplistic, reductionist brand of mathematical modeling that our current crop of climate “scientists” use to explain something as chaotic and complex as the world’s climate.
AGW (anthropogenic global warming) is of course not the difficult sale for the climate “scientist.” The difficult sale, as Dr. Judtih Curry explains in this video, is CAGW (catostrophic anthropogenic global warming), because there is such a small amount of empirical data to back it up.
“So the climate scientists that have dedicated their life to studying this all have a agenda and have abandoned respect for science?”
In a word, yes. The scientists who assert or imply that the Representative Concentration Pathway (RCP) 8.5 scenario is a plausible scenario have indeed abandoned respect for science. The IPCC’s whole existence is dependent on ridiculous assumptions of future coal use:
Coal and the IPCC…the big lie
I try hard not to talk about climate change issues (yes, there are more than one of them) here because it detracts from the main FW issues and reading inconvenient facts makes some grown men cry. Also I’m not a card-carying “climate scientist” with a career that has, up until the day Trump took over, been dependent on kowtowing to the so-called 97% consensus . But I’ve studied climate issues for well over 20 years and found the alarmist warnings to be mostly hype. That’s good enough for me, even though I’ve often been mocked on that account by people who find my views anathema. And as Eddy likes to remind us, even if we are going to fry the planet, that’s not going to stop us burning fossil fuels as long as its economically feasible to do so. So the climate catastrophe issue in essence is academic.
As for the elite researchers at places like NOAA, NASA and the CRU of the University of East Anglia, if they’ve been fiddling the figures, dishing out dodgy data, or willfully misrepresenting the actual situation in pursuit of a political agenda, and if the political will exists to investigate and uncover such wrongdoing, then they should be disciplined, punished and/or prosecuted as a warning to others. They need to be investigated (regardless of the prospects for catastrophic climate change) for the good of science, to ensure the public sector is defended against fraud, and because the data they are churning out is the basis of vitally important economic and political decisions that have ramifications for all of us.
At the close of the 17th century, to defeat rampant money counterfeiters, who were as slippery as a bucket of eels and a canny as a cartload of monkeys, the Royal Mint appointed a real scientist, Isaac Newton. Today, people of a similar calibre are needed to cleanse counterfeit climate science of the stench of corruption.
Back in 1695, England’s Royal Mint discovered a serious problem: A massive portion of the circulating currency was phony. As counterfeiting methods grew increasingly clever, the Mint turned to England’s brightest mind for a solution. Isaac Newton was appointed Warden of the Mint, a one-man army who waded through London’s underbelly to restore the currency’s integrity. Most counterfeiters were easy prey for Newton, but William Chaloner, a shadowy kingpin, kept eluding his grasp.
Chaloner had trained as a nail maker’s apprentice, but he found a more lucrative application for molten metals: coining 30,000 guineas. The counterfeiter’s self-made wealth enabled him to pose as a gentleman and gave him an ego to match his intellect.
Newton wanted nothing more than to destroy Chaloner, and the feeling was mutual.
Chaloner appeared before a parliamentary committee, where he insinuated that Newton was incompetent and blamed Mint employees for the epidemic of phony coins. Enraged, Newton intensified his efforts.
When Chaloner set up a coining facility in Egham, 20 miles outside of London, Newton sensed an opening. He began studying Chaloner’s sophisticated casting method—which involved pouring molten metal into brass molds before filing down the molds’ faces, resulting in much sharper images on the phony coins.
By September 1697, Newton had enough evidence to lock Chaloner up—but not for long. Working through intermediaries inside the prison and out, Chaloner bribed the prosecution’s star witness into fleeing to Scotland. Chaloner was released and accused Newton of framing an innocent man.
This attack on Newton’s integrity was the last straw. If Chaloner was going to play dirty, then so was Newton. Acting more the grizzled sheriff than an esteemed scientist, Newton bribed crooks for information. He started making threats. He leaned on the wives and mistresses of Chaloner’s crooked associates. In short, he became the Dirty Harry of 17th-century London.
After nearly two more years of relentless pursuit, Newton’s extreme measures had gathered enough evidence to put Chaloner away for good. This time, the charges stuck. On March 3, 1699, the counterfeiter was found guilty of high treason. The next day he was sentenced to hang. In the days before the execution, Chaloner wrote Newton a long, rambling letter proclaiming his innocence. The condemned counterfeiter begged his old rival for mercy, writing, “O dear Sir nobody can save me but you.”
Newton felt no pity. He snubbed his rival by not attending the hanging. As Newton had written during Chaloner’s first trial, the counterfeiter had formed “a confederacy against the Warden.” Chaloner could have lived a long, honest life had he “let the money & Government alone.”
With Chaloner dispatched, Newton torched the records of his investigation, likely to cover up the murky steps he took to help save the pound. In 1703, he gave up crime fighting and returned to academia as president of the Royal Society. England’s currency was once again safe from scoundrels like Chaloner, and criminals and thinkers alike had learned a valuable lesson: You don’t mess with Isaac Newton.
http://mentalfloss.com/article/13035/isaac-newton-17th-century-london%E2%80%99s-dirty-harry
I am “obviously frightened”?
The thing is that a brick and mortar type guy like Trump, unlike those high-flying orthodox economists, or Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders, believes that cheap energy inputs are important to the economy.
Trump’s main campaign promise to the American people was “Jobs, jobs, jobs.”
Look for anything that stands in the way of that goal — including climate “science” and the bewildering array of regulations it spawns — to not do well for the next four years. If Trump delivers on his promise of “jobs, jobs, jobs,” you can make that eight years.
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