How should electricity from wind turbines and solar panels be evaluated? Should it be evaluated as if these devices are stand-alone devices? Or do these devices provide electricity that is of such low quality, because of its intermittency and other factors, that we should recognize the need for supporting services associated with actually putting the electricity on the grid? This question comes up in many types of evaluations, including Levelized Cost of Energy (LCOE), Energy Return on Energy Invested (EROI), Life Cycle Analysis (LCA), and Energy Payback Period (EPP).
I recently gave a talk called The Problem of Properly Evaluating Intermittent Renewable Resources (PDF) at a BioPhysical Economics Conference in Montana. As many of you know, this is the group that is concerned about Energy Returned on Energy Invested (EROI). As you might guess, my conclusion is that the current methodology is quite misleading. Wind and solar are not really stand-alone devices when it comes to providing the kind of electricity that is needed by the grid. Grid operators, utilities, and backup electricity providers must provide hidden subsidies to make the system really work.
This problem is currently not being recognized by any of the groups evaluating wind and solar, using techniques such as LCOE, EROI, LCA, and EPP. As a result, published results suggest that wind and solar are much more beneficial than they really are. The distortion affects both pricing and the amount of supposed CO2 savings.
One of the questions that came up at the conference was, “Is this distortion actually important when only a small amount of intermittent electricity is added to the grid?” For that reason, I have included discussion of this issue as well. My conclusion is that the problem of intermittency and the pricing distortions it causes is important, even at low grid penetrations. There may be some cases where intermittent renewables are helpful additions without buffering (especially when the current fuel is oil, and wind or solar can help reduce fuel usage), but there are likely to be many other instances where the costs involved greatly exceed the benefits gained. We need to be doing much more thoughtful analyses of costs and benefits in particular situations to understand exactly where intermittent resources might be helpful.
A big part of our problem is that we are dealing with variables that are “not independent.” If we add subsidized wind and solar, that act, by itself, changes the needed pricing for all of the other types of electricity. The price per kWh of supporting types of electricity needs to rise, because their EROIs fall as they are used in a less efficient manner. This same problem affects all of the other pricing approaches as well, including LCOE. Thus, our current pricing approaches make intermittent wind and solar look much more beneficial than they really are.
A clear workaround for this non-independence problem is to look primarily at the cost (in terms of EROI or LCOE) in which wind and solar are part of overall “packages” that produce grid-quality electricity, at the locations where they are needed. If we can find solutions on this basis, there would seem to be much more of a chance that wind and solar could be ramped up to a significant share of total electricity. The “problem” is that there is a lower bound on an acceptable EROI (probably 10:1, but possibly as low as 3:1 based on the work of Charles Hall). This is somewhat equivalent to an upper bound on the affordable cost of electricity using LCOE.
This means that if we really expect to scale wind and solar, we probably need to be creating packages of grid-quality electricity (wind or solar, supplemented by various devices to create grid quality electricity) at an acceptably high EROI. This is very similar to a requirement that wind or solar energy, including all of the necessary adjustments to bring them to grid quality, be available at a suitably low dollar cost–probably not too different from today’s wholesale cost of electricity. EROI theory would strongly suggest that energy costs for an economy cannot rise dramatically, without a huge problem for the economy. Hiding rising energy costs with government subsidies cannot fix this problem.
Distortions Become Material Very Early
If we look at recently published information about how much intermittent electricity is being added to the electric grid, the amounts are surprisingly small. Overall, worldwide, the amount of electricity generated by a combination of wind and solar (nearly all of it intermittent) was 5.2% in 2016. On an area by area basis, the percentages of wind and solar are as shown in Figure 1.
Figure 1. Wind and solar as a share of 2016 electricity generation, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2017. World total is not shown, but is very close to the percentage shown for China.
There are two reasons why these percentages are lower than a person might expect. One reason is that the figures usually quoted are the amounts of “generating capacity” added by wind and solar, and these are nearly always higher than the amount of actual electricity supply added, because wind and solar “capacity” tend to be lightly used.
The other reason that the percentages on Figure 1 are lower than we might expect is because the places that have unusually high concentrations of wind and solar generation (examples: Germany, Denmark, and California) tend to depend on a combination of (a) generous subsidy programs, (b) the availability of inexpensive balancing power from elsewhere and (c) the generosity of neighbors in taking unwanted electricity and adding it to their electric grids at low prices.
As greater amounts of intermittent electricity are added, the availability of inexpensive balancing capacity (for example, from hydroelectric from Norway and Sweden) quickly gets exhausted, and neighbors become more and more unhappy with the amounts of unwanted excess generation being dumped on their grids. Denmark has found that the dollar amount of subsidies needs to rise, year after year, if it is to continue its intermittent renewables program.
One of the major issues with adding intermittent renewables to the electric grid is that doing so distorts wholesale electricity pricing. Solar energy tends to cut mid-day peaks in electricity price, making it less economic for “peaking plants” (natural gas electricity plants that provide electricity only when prices are very high) to stay open. At times, prices may turn negative, if the total amount of wind and solar produced at a given time is greater than the overall amount of electricity required by customers. This happens because intermittent electricity is generally given priority on the grid, whether price signals indicate that it is needed or not. A combination of these problems tends to make backup generation unprofitable unless subsidies are provided. If peaking plants and other backup are still required, but need to operate fewer hours, subsidies must be provided so that the plants can afford to hire year-around staff, and pay their ongoing fixed expenses.
If we think of the new electricity demand as being “normal” demand, adjusted by the actual, fairly random, wind and solar generation, the new demand pattern ends up having many anomalies. One of the anomalies is that required prices become negative at times when wind and solar generation are high, but the grid has no need for them. This tends to happen first on weekends in the spring and fall, when electricity demand is low. As the share of intermittent electricity grows, the problem with negative prices becomes greater and greater.
The other major anomaly is the need for a lot of quick “ramp up” and “ramp down” capacity. One time this typically happens is at sunset, when demand is high (people cooking their dinners) but a large amount of solar electricity disappears because of the setting of the sun. For wind, rapid ramp ups and downs seem to be related to thunderstorms and other storm conditions. California and Australia are both adding big battery systems, built by Tesla, to help deal with rapid ramp-up and ramp-down problems.
There is a lot of work on “smart grids” being done, but this work does not address the particular problems brought on by adding wind and solar. In particular, smart grids do not move demand from summer and winter (when demand is normally high) to spring and fall (when demand is normally low). Smart grids and time of day pricing aren’t very good at fixing the rapid ramping problem, either, especially when these problems are weather related.
The one place where time of day pricing can perhaps be somewhat helpful is in lessening the rapid ramping problem of solar at sunset. One fix that is currently being tried is offering the highest wholesale electricity prices in the evening (6:00 pm to 9:00 pm), rather than earlier in the day. This approach encourages those adding new solar energy generation to add their panels facing west, rather than south, so as to better match demand. Doing this is less efficient from the point of view of the total electricity generated by the panels (and thus lowers EROIs of the solar panels), but helps prevent some of the rapid ramping problem at sunset. It also gets some of the generation moved from the middle of day to the evening, when it better matches “demand.”
In theory, the high prices from 6:00 pm to 9:00 pm might encourage consumers to move some of their electricity usage (cooking dinner, watching television, running air conditioning) until after 9:00 pm. But, as a practical matter, it is difficult to move very much of residential demand to the desired time slots based on price. In theory, demand could also be moved from summer and winter to spring and fall based on electricity price, but it is hard to think of changes that families could easily make that would allow this change to happen.
With the strange demand pattern that occurs when intermittent renewables are added, standard pricing approaches (based on marginal costs) tend to produce wholesale electricity prices that are too low for electricity produced by natural gas, coal, and nuclear providers. In fact, wholesale electricity rates for supporting providers tend to diverge further and further from what is needed, as more and more intermittent electricity is added. The dotted line on Figure 2 illustrates the falling wholesale electricity prices that have been occurring in Europe, even as retail residential electricity prices are rising.
Figure 2. European residential electricity prices have risen, even as wholesale electricity prices (dotted line) have fallen. Chart by Paul-Frederik Bach.
The marginal pricing scheme gives little guidance as to how much backup generation is really needed. It is therefore left up to governments and local electricity oversight groups to figure out how to compensate for the known pricing problem. Some provide subsidies to non-intermittent producers; others do not.
To complicate matters further, electricity consumption has been falling rapidly in countries whose economies are depressed. Adding wind and solar further reduces needed natural gas, coal, and nuclear generation. Some countries may let these producers collapse; others may subsidize them, as a jobs-creation program, whether this backup generation is needed or not.
Of course, if a single payer is responsible for both intermittent and other electricity programs, a combined rate can be set that is high enough for the costs of both intermittent electricity and backup generation, eliminating the pricing problem, from the point of view of electricity providers. The question then becomes, “Will the new higher electricity prices be affordable by consumers?”
The recently published IEA World Energy Investment Report 2017 provides information on a number of developing problems:
“Network investment remains robust for now, but worries have emerged in several regions about the prospect of a ‘utility death spiral’ as the long-term economic viability of grid investments diminishes. The still widespread regulatory practice of remunerating fixed network assets on the basis of a variable per kWh charge is poorly suited for a power system with a large amount of decentralised solar PV and storage capacity.”
The IEA investment report notes that in China, 10% of solar PV and 17% of wind generation were curtailed in 2016, even though previous problems with lack of transmission had been fixed. Figure 1 shows China’s electricity from wind and solar amounts to only 5.0% of its total electricity consumption in 2016.
Regarding India, the IEA report says, “More flexible conventional capacity, including gas-fired plants, better connections with hydro resources and investment in battery storage will be needed to support continued growth in solar power.” India’s intermittent electricity amounted to only 4.1% of total electricity supply in 2016.
In Europe, a spike in electricity prices to a 10-year high took place in January 2017, when both wind and solar output were low, and the temperature was unusually cold. And as previously mentioned, California and South Australia have found it necessary to add Tesla batteries to handle rapid ramp-ups and ramp-downs. Australia is also adding large amounts of transmission that would not have been needed, if coal generating plants had continued to provide services in South Australia.
None of the costs related to intermittency workarounds are currently being included in EROI analyses. They are generally not being included in analyses of other kinds, either, such as LCOE. In my opinion, the time has already arrived when analyses need to be performed on a much broader basis than in the past, so as to better capture the true cost of adding intermittent electricity.
Slide 1
–
Slide 2
–
Slide 3
–
Slide 4
Of course, as we saw in the introduction, worldwide electricity supply is only about 5% wind and solar. The only parts of the world that were much above 5% in 2016 were Europe, which was at 11.3% in 2016 and the United States, which was at 6.6%.
There has been a lot of talk about electrical systems being operated entirely by renewables (such as hydroelectric, wind, solar, and burned biomass), but these do not exist in practice, as far as I know. Trying to replace total energy consumption, including oil and natural gas usage, would be an even bigger problem.
Slide 5
The amount of electricity required by consumers varies considerably over the course of a year. Electricity demand tends to be higher on weekdays than on weekends, when factories and schools are often closed. There is usually a “peak” in demand in winter, when it is unusually cold, and second peak in summer, when it is unusually hot. During the 24-hour day, demand tends to be lowest at night. During the year, the lowest demand typically comes on weekends in the spring and fall.
If intermittent electricity from W&S is given first priority on the electric grid, the resulting “net” demand is far more variable than the original demand pattern based on customer usage. This increasingly variable demand tends to become more and more difficult to handle, as the percentage of intermittent electricity added to the grid rises.
Slide 6
EROI is nearly always calculated at the level of the solar panel or wind turbine, together with a regular inverter and whatever equipment is used to hold the device in place. This calculation does not consider all of the costs in getting electricity to the right location, and up to grid quality. If we move clockwise around the diagram, we see some of the problems as the percentage of W&S increases.
One invention is smart inverters, which are used to bring the quality of the electrical output up closer to grid quality, apart from the intermittency problems. Germany has retrofitted solar PV with these, because of problems it encountered using only “regular” inverters. Upgrading to smart inverters would be a cost not generally included in EROI or LCOE calculations.
The next problem illustrated in Slide 6 is the fact that the pricing system does not work for any fuel, if wind and solar are given priority on the electric grid. The marginal cost approach that is usually used gives too low a wholesale price for every producer subject to this pricing scheme. The result is a pricing system that gives misleadingly low price signals. Regulators are generally aware of this issue, but don’t have a good way of fixing it. Capacity payments are used in some places as an attempted workaround, but it is not clear that such payments really solve the problem.
It is less obvious that in addition to giving too low pricing indications for electricity, the current marginal cost pricing approach indirectly gives artificially low price indications regarding the required prices for natural gas and coal as fuels. As a result of this and other forces acting in the same directions, we end up with a rather bizarre situation: (a) Natural gas and and coal prices tend to fall below their cost of production. (b) At the same time, nuclear electricity generating plants are being forced to close, because they cannot afford to compete with the artificially low price of electricity produced by the very low-priced natural gas and coal. The whole system tends to be pushed toward collapse by misleadingly low wholesale electricity prices.
Slide 6 also shows some of the problems that seem to start arising as more intermittent electricity is added. Once new long distance transmission lines are added, it changes the nature of the whole “game.” It becomes easier to rely on generation added by a neighbor; any generation that a country might add becomes more attractive to a neighbor. As long as there is plenty of electricity to go around, everything goes well. When there are shortages, then arguments begin to arise. Arguments such as these may destabilize the Eurozone.
One thing I did not mention in this chart is the increasing need to pay intermittent grid providers not to produce electricity when there is an oversupply of electricity. In the UK, the amount of these payments was over 1 million pounds a week in 2015. I mentioned previously that in China, 17% of wind generation and 10% of solar PV generation were being curtailed in 2016. EROI calculations do not consider this possibility; they assume that 100% of the electricity that is generated can, in fact, be used by the system.
Slide 7
The pricing system no longer works because W&S are added whenever they become available, in preference to other generation. In many ways, the pricing system is like our appetite for food. Usually, we eat when we are hungry, and the food we eat reduces our appetite. W&S are added to the system with total disregard for whether the system needs it or not, leaving the other electricity producers to try to fix up the mess, using the false pricing signals they get. The IEA’s 2017 Investment Report recommends that countries develop new pricing schemes that correct the problems, but it is not clear that this is actually possible without correcting the hidden subsidies.
Slide 8
Why add more electricity supply, if there is a chance that you can use the new supply added by your neighbor?
Slide 9
South Australia had two recent major outages–both partly related to adding large amounts of wind and solar to the electric grid, and the loss of its last two coal-fired electricity generation plants. The first big outage came during a weather event. The second big outage occurred when temperatures were very high during summer, and because of this, electricity demand was very high.
One planned workaround for supply shortages was natural gas. Unfortunately, South Australia doesn’t actually have a very good natural gas supply to operate its units generating electricity from natural gas. Thus, the available natural gas generators could not really respond as hoped, except at very high prices. Some changes are now being made, including a planned Tesla battery system. With the changes being made, there are reports of electricity rate increases of up to 120% for businesses in South Australia.
The irony of the situation is that Australia is a major natural gas exporter. Businesses expected that they could make more money selling the natural gas abroad as LNG than they could by providing natural gas to the citizens of South Australia. These exports are now being curbed, to try to help fix the South Australia natural gas problem.
These issues point out how interconnected all of the different types of electricity generation are, and how quickly a situation can become a local crisis, if regulators simply assume “market forces will provide a solution.”
Slide 10
An expert panel in Australia has recommended an approach similar to this. It simply becomes too difficult to operate a system with built-in subsidies.
Slide 11
–
Slide 12
Timing makes a difference. The payments that are made for interest need to be made, directly or indirectly, with future goods and services that can only be made using energy products. Thus, they also require the use of energy products.
Slide 13
–
Slide 14
There is a real difference between (a) looking at the actual operating experiences of an existing oil and gas or coal company, and (b) guessing what the future operating experience of a system operated by wind panels and solar panels might be. The tendency is to guess low, when it comes to envisioning what future problems may arise.
It is not just the wind turbines and solar panels that will need to be replaced over time; it is all of the supporting devices that need to be kept in good repair and replaced over time. Furthermore, the electric grid is dependent on oil for its upkeep. If oil becomes a problem, there is a real danger that the electric grid will become unusable, and with it, electricity that is generally distributed by the grid, including wind and solar.
Slide 15
–
Slide 16
Economies and humans are both self-organized systems that depend on energy consumption for their existence. They have many other characteristics in common as well.
Slide 17
We know that with humans, we really need to examine how a new medicine or a change in diet works in practice. For one thing, medicines and diets aren’t necessarily used as planned. Unexpected long-term changes occur that we could not anticipate.
Slide 18
The same kinds of problems occur when wind and solar are added to a grid system. We really have to look at what is happening to see the full picture.
Slide 19
Anyone who has followed the news knows about medicine’s long history of announcements followed by retractions.
Slide 20
A fairly similar situation can be expected to happen with proposed energy solutions.
Slide 21
There is a whole package of costs and a whole range of direct and indirect outcomes to consider.
Slide 22
As far as I know, none of the attempts at producing a system that operates on 100% renewable energy have been a success. There has been some reductions in fossil fuel usage, but at a high cost.
Slide 23
A 2013 Weissabach et al. EROI analysis examines a situation with partial buffering of wind and solar (approximately 10 days worth of buffering). It leaves out several other costs of bringing wind and solar up to grid quality electricity, such as extra long distance transmission costs, and more significant buffering to allow transferring electricity produced in spring and fall to be saved for summer or winter. These authors calculated a partially buffered EROI of 4:1 for wind, and a partially buffered EROI range of 1.5:1 to 2.3:1 for solar PV.
Of course, more investigation, including looking at the full package of needed devices to provide non-intermittent electricity of grid quality, is really needed for particular situations. Improvements in technology would tend to raise EROI indications; adding more supplemental devices to bring electricity to grid quality would tend to reduce EROI indications.
If the cutoff for being able to maintain a modern society is 10:1, as mentioned earlier, then wind and solar PV would both seem to fall far below the required EROI cutoff, if they are to be used in quantity.
If, as Hall believes, an EROI as low as 3:1 might be useful, then there is a possibility that some wind energy would be helpful, especially if a particular wind location has a very high capacity factor (can generate electricity a large share of the time), and if pricing problems can be handled adequately. The EROI of solar PV would probably still be too low in most applications. In any event, we need to be examining situations more closely, instead of simply assuming that hidden subsidies can be counted on indefinitely.
Say what you want, life is good (at least mine was and is), IC is a fairy world turned true, but this insanity must go asap. We must go. It’s disgusting. Even if we can say it’s not our fault, since we were genetically and culturally programmed to do what we do, the fact is we are a disgusting species. In the past I believed people like Newton, Rembrandt or Tolsty redeemed us, that they excused us all and “justified” the horrors of civilization. I don’t believe that anymore. I do not long for the collapse, of course, but the fact is that there is nothing to mourn in the extinction of our species. The great achievements of human intelligence, the arts and the sciences do not justify the destruction of such a precious almost miraculous planet. We must go, and the sooner the better.
Tolstoy and Anarchism:
https://theanarchistlibrary.org/library/brian-morris-tolstoy-and-anarchism
Newton had a few screws loose, but he helped physics as long as one didn’t look too close.
Rembrandt? I’ve viewed his work– impressive, not Tolstoy or Newton.
But that is probably me– I’m more of a Vermeer fan.
I like Tolstoy as novelist much more than as a social reformer. The puritanism and sanctimoniousness of his later years horrify me, what a bore he must be. But despite his faults and shortcomings, it is impossible not to admire him.
Vermeer is a great painter, as Pieter de Hooch and many other dutch painters, but Rembrandt is in another league i think.
But then one could say that one great painting by an Old Master represents the forced labour of millions of peasants and miners and sailors in Europe and the New World, and innumerable mules and oxen worked to death, trees felled. The Venetians were very cruel people, although perhaps not quite as bad as the Genoese for whom Van Dyck painted beautiful portraits.
A large painting required a palace to house it, and a palace required…….
The Dutch Empire was also incredibly cruel and rapacious – they also sent their trash out to rule it, most of them drinking themselves to death in short order,and the death rate among the sailors who shipped the goods was terrible as their Amsterdam bosses cheated them on food and pay. It’s a very unedifying tale.
On the whole, though, the desecration of the world to make, transport and throw away sneakers with lights in is certainly the lowest level Mankind has ever reached. So much destroyed for nothing.
At least we can still enjoy what is in the great museums, for a time, and here in England it’s still free.
Yes, that’s true. As an admirer of the best products of the human spirit (arts, literature, science, history, etc.) I always felt that that admiration was only possible in a state of cognitive dissonance. Without slavery and serfdom there would be no Herodotus nor Montaigne or Durer. Without FF there would be neither Kafka nor Gail Tverberg (nor me!), and without mountaintop removal mining and other environmental horrors there would be no coal nor shale to prolong BAU.
To me it has always been an uncomfortable position, that of loving the products of civilization but not its ways and means. It’s a contradiction that can not be solved, that can only be solved by collapse of IC.
“I always felt that that admiration was only possible in a state of cognitive dissonance.”
++++++
Very true. Very well stated all of the above. The technological marvels that I personally seem to find most aesthetically pleasing, well I’m a computer geek, so the modern smartphone is a wonder, but all the unseen crap that goes into making one, it’s just insane. Cognitive dissonance indeed.
I know a few Green Grooopies who are verging on Green Terrorists … who would be okay with beheading someone like me who uses capsule coffee…..
But who have a full range of Apple products from a desk top — laptop — pad and phone – and who are regularly replacing them…
http://img08.deviantart.net/cae9/i/2004/225/1/e/if_i_had_a_rocket_launcher.png
On going bananas
hi JMS,
“… do not justify the destruction of such a precious almost miraculous planet. We must go, and the sooner the better.”
so, you do realize, you know, that, in the future, not only will humans be extinct, but…
get this…
Nature is going to destroy the Earth.
you know, that yellow star in the sky is getting old and will turn red.
you ever heard of a red giant?
so, you know, that natural star is going to burn the Earth to a crisp.
but hey, have a nice day!
oh, and JMS,
yes, life is good.
BAU in IC is AOK.
Taking that very long perspective, one can rise above sheer disgust at Mankind.
Then If someone pointed you a gun you’d just smile and say go ahead friend, we all must die.
If someone bombed the Louvre you would think it would not hurt, since those pictures would end up rotting one day.
Or if Trump decided to nuke the Himalayas, just for the fun of it, that would not cause you the slightest heart acceleration, since nothing lasts in this world.
Your detached perspective is admirable, just as enviable is the equanimity that supposedly accompanies it.
Pity that both (perspective and equanimity) seem so phony and childish as the treasure at the end of rainbows.
The fatal attractions of Nihilism…..
I’ve never met a Nihilist who was able to create anything – perhaps that would disturb the equanimity? Which is largely rhetorical, I suspect.
++++++++++++++++++
It’s too bad we were not wiped out before we filled up the ponds with spent fuel….
Wow, Dubai! Taking BAU to new heights.
http://printestimating.info/livinthedreamband/wp-content/uploads/2014/09/LTD-Keep-Calm.jpg
https://2static.fjcdn.com/pictures/Livin+the+dream+a+mini+and+his+hog_b946ec_5576354.jpg
btw this city got made by south asia slaves
here is the documentary by vice when it was good
https://youtu.be/gMh-vlQwrmU
You sound like the unibomber….another reason to make sure you never bring this up among your peers.
You’re suppose to be trying to have 8 children to save Western Civilization from the barbaric Muslims. Get it right.
Amen brother.
Ah, persecution! Poor solar!!
http://thehill.com/blogs/pundits-blog/energy-environment/345450-dirty-energys-quiet-war-on-solar-panels
It’s been converted to a moral, emotional, rather than a scientific narrative: Evil will obviously persecute the Good; the Dirty will attempt to besmirch the Clean.
I recently saw a magazine ad for ‘The Good, Clean Energy Company’, or maybe it was a bank investing in wind turbines, something like that. Ridiculous.
This is also why I suggest it is best to keep quiet about one’s rational doubts regarding the Great Solar Future; everyone is getting increasingly irrational,and there will be scapegoating when it fails to materialise, possibly violent.
People have set up an idol, and they won’t be happy when it wobbles and falls.
Exactly so, Xabier. I am constantly being reminded how “clean” and “green” everything I do supposedly is. “70% Post consumer content!” Recyclable! (Not green at all, uses energy). It’s like it has to be beaten into us that everything we do is somehow good for the planet. Good at all. As if! In the first world anyway. “Embrace Extreme Poverty” is not a motto that would go over well to those who want to “live sustainably”. It is the poorest of the poor that are the “greenest”.
‘Recycle’
More spin from Don and Eddie….
End of the day we end up subsidizing these programs because they require more energy and effort — and create more pollution — than making the materials from scratch.
But it makes the sheeple feel as if they are doing something constructive — throw in the solar and the wind and EVs — and hey — we are on the right track.
Try to explain to them that recycling — one of the main pillars of their religion — makes no sense — and get ready to be called a monster — evil …
Keep in mind those hurling the insults have been indoctrinated since kiddie garten with the blue box as the symbol of salvation — to them it is as sacred as the cross…
They’ve been indoctrinated to believe a lot of things since they first started to speak – I wonder if Doctor Seuss has anything on G W…
https://www.theguardian.com/childrens-books-site/2015/apr/20/which-books-deal-with-cli mate-cha nge-for-younger-children
BOLIVIA’S FOREMOST EXPORT IS NO LONGER COCAINE:
https://vvattsupwiththat.blogspot.com/2017/08/thats-lot-of-batteries.html
https://gfycat.com/LargeDiligentHaddock
Someone on reddit told me “Meadows built the limits to growth models to collapse because he wanted it to happen, I can build a computer model anyway I want as well”. LOL
https://media.giphy.com/media/CXAPW8vCQzYkg/giphy.gif
another conspiracy theory lurking there cliffhanger
I think his wife at the time Donella (who died several years ago) played a very major role in the model building.
I have heard Dennis Meadows say the that he was convinced at the time the book was published that the world would immediately adopt the optimistic scenario included in the book–that is the one with the mandatory birth control to keep population level, and a fast transition away from fossil fuels, presumably to nuclear.
Insane: Germany Will Need 3,000 Wind Turbines To Replace This Workhorse Nuke Plant
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/03/21/the-little-reactor-that-could-germanys-grohnde-nuclear-plant/#31211afb21a4
Germany has been very unimpressive lately.
that VW scam to allow their cars to pollute at high levels was obscene.
now, apparently they have decided to close their NPPs and burn more coal.
bizarre.
So,what is your point? What exactly is bazarre? VW allowed their cars to pollute at “high” levels…That is ridiculous.They closed their NPPs as a result of Fulishima which could be called rational thinking or irrational thinking depending on your point of view. Their renewable experiment is not working that well and yes, they are going back to coal? So what exactly is bazarre?
Germany is bizarre when they agree to the “2015 Paris climate agreement” and yet they are closing their NPPs leaving them with no choice but to burn more coal.
bizarre.
so don’t get me started on Fuk-u-shi-ma.
or Fukyoushima, however it’s spelled.
Germany is bizarre when they agree to the “2015 Paris klimate agreement” and yet they are closing their NPPs leaving them with no choice but to burn more coal.
bizarre.
Climate treaties aren’t real agreements.
Of course they are not — every so often leaders go through the motions…. then every year we set new records for the burning of car bon.
You gotta ask yourself — why do we go through this endless charade…. what purpose does it serve?
Why did the MSM kick this off by with a dog and pony show fronted by Al Gore?
Gail has nailed it — to shift our focus to something that has ‘solutions’
In 2005 conventional oil peaked — that is fact — Al Gore premiered the next year.
Think about it
Is it just me, or is ‘moderation’ getting immoderate on here?
Perhaps our Moderator has an immoderate respect for the concept of free speech.
Both.
The ‘Green Elite’ should have stuck with local issues, but instead they went all corporate in line with their ego’s. So now we have the tragi-comedy of virtue signalling dipsticks all over the issue with their fake green credentials.
I think that all you can confirm regarding increased Carb.dioxide concentrations is that there is likely an effect on ocean acidification. But climate hysteria is intended as a means to achieve behaviour modification, as others have pointed out.
Experts have never been credible sources of information regarding living systems, and are only able to parrot the latest ‘fad’. They should have stayed in the lab with their theories and experiments.
My grandmother knew that antibiotics were a bad long-term idea, and now the ‘human biome’ is all the rage. Have no fear, Nature will sort this shambles out.
My grandmother used to enjoy saying, “a little bit of what you fancy does you good” and “what you don’t know can’t hurt you.” The two “rules” are not foolproof but they gave her all the excuses she needed to keep calm and carry on with whatever minor sins she was fond of indulging in.
I worked with a number of environmental/green organizations as a translator in the 1980s and 90s, and I remember quite clearly that sometime around 1995, the WWF and Greenpeace both suddenly switched their main emphasis from protecting wildlife and ecosystems from hunting, development and pollution, to saving the planet from CO2.
During this period, my understanding is that following the Carnival at Rio (the 1992 Earth Summit) they were being co-opted into the Green Blob. Money and favorable publicity would be showered upon them from on high on the understanding that they had to all sing from the same hymnbook on GW. And after all, it was all in a good cause, the recipients argued, and who could say for sure that there wasn’t some truth to the scare? So what harm could it do to take the money and sing the hymns?
All except Partick https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(environmentalist)
I’ve been coming here for a long time. Yes, it’s been informative.
But you guys are wasting your life. I know this because I see the problem in myself, and I see the exact same thing in you and it breaks my heart.
Nobody cares about collapse! Collapse is a hobby, nothing more. Treat it like a hobby. Don’t waste your life on it.
Hi Dolph, do you think it’s not going to happen any time soon?
Cheers, Lizzy
A hobby?
Collapse is the most important event since the beginning of time…. it deserves respect.
‘Like you, I find it troubling that gl wa supporters by and large ignore any other problem except gw”
And that is the whole point — was it Xabier who mentioned that in his call centre days his colleague asked him if pe ak o il was real — and when he explained yes it was — she was unable to function and had to go home….
The commanders and their MSM minions understand the human psyche — they understand that you cannot allow thoughts of imm inent doo m to pervade the population — that is Bad for Business.. Bad for BAU….
So what they do is dream up a monumental problem — but one that has solutions — solutions that we need to strive for
So we get G w — a massive problem — a planet ending problem — BUT — unlike pe ak oi l — there are SOLUTIONS!!! There is hope
Of course the solutions are EVs and Re newable Energy.
Why do you think the MSM is constantly pumping rene wabl e energy and Tesla — why did they anoint Elon as a go d?
For f789s sake — renewa ble en ergy and Tesla should NOT exist. They would NOT exist if the commanders were not backing them
But they do exist because they are mainlining HOPIUM into the brains of the sheeple.
Problem >>>> solutions.
And it works — because the sheeple want there to be a future so badly — they absolutely do not want to think about peak oil… they want something beyond pet rol eum
And that is what they get
http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_FbGuzzQIG2Y/TAhcqPmOn2I/AAAAAAAAA5E/W9c2RTYVlmk/s1600/beyond+petroleum.jpg
https://4.bp.blogspot.com/-bRPWGMYWAlo/WYIxbJ2n1CI/AAAAAAAAxGo/MPjLryFMDRgxIYRhyPAErh_NdDv5GCyQACLcBGAs/s640/Screenshot%2B2017-08-02%2Bat%2B1.08.35%2BPM.png
Show someone this
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/icbkDFACM4iA/v2/800x-1.png
And how do they react?
Oh no problem — we have solar and wind!!!! And we have EVs
The formula has worked perfectly
Fake Problem — Fake Solutions.
Actually, if the price goes high enough, in theory we could extract a lot of unconventional oil that we know about. We don’t really need the new conventional oil discoveries. In fact, this would be cheaper than wind and solar.
Yes — but if you then showed them this
According to the OECD Economics Department and the International Monetary Fund Research Department, a sustained $10 per barrel increase in oil prices from $25 to $35 would result in the OECD as a whole losing 0.4% of GDP in the first and second years of higher prices. http://www.iea.org/textbase/npsum/high_oil04sum.pdf
They would revert to the same fall back….. well… not to worry — we have solar and wind and EVs
The MSM has done an outstanding job of conditioning the masses….. they react just like Pavlov’s dog
Mention peak oil or g w…. and they IMMEDIATELY respond as they have been trained…. solar wind EVs
They get a shot of hopium mainlined into their brains when they respond correctly — and it feels so much better than despair
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/FcYajN9GVdY/maxresdefault.jpg
Hi Gail, I have seen you say that a few times, and I was wondering if even that would help (having high oil prices to get to unconventional plays profitably). The price needed to get to these unconventional plays (in a profitable way) is high, because there is so many inputs required. Thus when you take into account all the resources that it took to get to these unconventional plays, those resources are not available to grow the rest of the economy. What I am trying to say is high prices for unconventional plays and lower EROEIs are two sides of the same coin but just approached in a different matter. Therefore what is left over after extraction is not enough to grow our economies (which the financial system needs)…what I am trying to say in a convoluted way is can we run IC (and its software, the financial system, which needs growing economies) on unconventional, when in reality what we need are new Ghawars type of oil, not that unconventional junk from Canada and the US…
I agree with you. The limit on energy extraction is really a cost of production limit. The lower limit on EROEI is a rough approximation to the same thing.
We can’t really grow our economy on expensive-to-produce oil; there isn’t enough left for the rest of society. We need a rapidly growing supply of cheap-to-produce oil to grow the economy.
Show someone the chart that shows almost no new oil discovered in 2016
And how do they react?
Oh no problem — we have s olar and wind!!!! And we have E Vs
The for mula has worked perfectly
F ak e Prob lem — Fak e Soluti ons.
The shee ple are calm. There is a gl ut of oil — and re ne wables and E Vs are on the cu sp of replacing oil anyway.
LOOK the UK is banning ICE cars!!!!
LOOK Hawaii is powered by s olar!!!
LOOK Tes la will solve Australia’s electri city probl ems
This is Do n Dra per dry hu mp ing Eddie Ber nays and coming up withe Mo ther of all P R campaigns
It is absolu tely brill iant
And it is su ckin g in some of the be st m inds on F W.
The chart
https://assets.bwbx.io/images/users/iqjWHBFdfxIU/icbkDFACM4iA/v2/800x-1.png
FE- We have a bunch of Global Elites doing a last man standing game over the dregs of a collapsing resource.
We have turned a lot of hydrocarbons (thanks Haber) into people.
When the hydrocarbons go away, so do us homo sapiens.
Survival is not necessary or probable.
We shall see- the feedback’s are immense.
Oh and of course the latest solution
LOOK we are going to Mars!!!
http://media.gq.com/photos/57eac35d9228bbed3f6f4ee5/master/w_2000/elon-musk-is-a-rocket.jpg
We’ve even got the big guns of mind control on board…. Hollywood
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mission_to_Mars
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_Carter_(film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Martian_(film)
once again … when you want to turn a lie into truth — repeat it — use the MSM — use Hollywood…
Remember all those John Wayne movies with the Indians as the villains?
Hey hang on … the Indians were already living on that land — and we stole it from them… who’s the villian?
Ah right the Indians — because Hollywood and the MSM say so…
I get it
Ok, only 7 so far but the night is young.
Yes, it’s a complete full court press of total delusion to keep the sheep believing that these issues are just minor blips in the inexorable flow of human progress.
This is really important — let’s repeat it because it does not only apply to the CC discussion … it applies to all discussions on FW…
It is a phenomenon that each and every one of us needs to be aware of — and to fight against….
Because the only way to advance yourself intellectually — is to recognize CG — and beat that MOF down as you might pound a frail old lady with a baseball bat before stealing her purse…..
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5b/fa/4a/5bfa4a4372adb6d1e3393a71c69a8846.jpg
I dont dislike any of them — in fact I think Al and Leo are awesome — they understand that in order to keep BAU ticking — we need to b urn more fo ssil fu els every single year
And they are doing exactly that. (meanwhile they answer the call of civic duty to help distract the sheeple from the immin ent slaughter)
As am I — got another long haul flight lined up in two weeks.
People who want us to stop burning FF are basically stew pid ign orants… because to even slow our rate of burn would mean sui ide.
Does anyone want to suffer and die – hands up?
I agree, fly all you want (I do).
Who wants a slow death?
So Shale Oil and Gas are not profitable, Nuclear is unprofitable, Coal is unprofitable, renewable’s are unprofitable..America’s energy future ‘Golden Age” or “Stone Age” ?
But we can go on for decades…and to hell with the software facilitating all of our IC, ie our Global Financial System…no need for that….
Right now, we are pretending that profits aren’t needed, and good paying jobs aren’t needed. The growing companies are Amazon, Uber, Facebook and other following the low-profit model. This can go on for a while, but not forever. If nothing else, it becomes hard for governments to collect enough taxes to keep the system going. Non-elite workers aren’t earning enough. Neither are the businesses.
Nothing is profitable, so why doesn’t IC collapse?
Intervention of CBs, which have kicked the can a few years…but papering over our problem will be less and less effective..so when the next 2008 hits, it will be permanent…
The global economy is growing — a huge number of companies have been generating profits since 2008 — the businesses I am involved in are doing ok…
When the global economy stops growing — and the CBs can do nothing to reverse course — that is when profits collapse — and BAU collapses
Unless the CBs have more tricks planned — that moment does not seem to be far off… the US auto industry is collapsing….
Exactly it is growing because of the crutches provided by CB intervention…had they not been there, we would not be here discussing anything..
And that is why we are on the cusp of total implosion.
the only real profit that anyone makes is that of energy surplus after a work task has been carried out.
thus a farmer produces energy in the form of food. If his food production ”task” only produced sufficient food for himself and and his immediate family, then he would make no profit. And we would have no cheap food
As it is, the profit the farmer makes supports everyone else because his ‘work’ is multiplied by oil.
This is why, pre oil, food was expensive relative to total income, because the food producer had only human or animal muscle for help, thus producing far less food for effort input.
The same equation applies to, say, coal miners or any producer of raw basic energy. The more help you have, the more surplus you have to call ‘profit’.
We wouldn’t have cheap oil if oil itself didn’t carry within itself the surplus energy to process itself. (That, in case any doomsters don’t get it, is the basis for our current perpetual motion machine.)
Real Profit can only be surplus energy, not money
But—try to move that equation to any other form of business, and it doesn’t work. The ‘profit’ from a newspaper business for instance, is based on the amount of ‘surplus’ money that customers have to buy your goods. (and of course keep employees working) That ‘surplus’ is itself dependent on the spare cash you have left over after you’ve provided the basics of living—food, heat, clothing and so on.
So all profit hinges back to energy availability. When there isn’t any surplus, business as we know it will be over.
It has nothing whatsoever to do with the amount of oil available. Surplus is the killer factor.
“renewables ‘ won’t cut it because energy produced is too diffuse.
https://www.engadget.com/2017/07/24/india-ban-driverless-cars-protect-jobs/
Good choice! Will probably save lives too, if the driverless cars have a lot of accidents.
Imagine an SD car trying to navigate this
http://thedailynewnation.com/library/1435424862_1.jpg
+++++++++++++++++++
Nuclear power as we know it is finished
http://www.houstonchronicle.com/business/columnists/tomlinson/article/Nuclear-power-as-we-know-it-is-finished-11727465.php&cmpid=twitter-premium
Nuclear power is finished in the parts of the world that demand very high level of protection from potential problems such as airplanes intentionally running into the facilities and causing a problem. It still may grow a while in China, India, and other places that don’t worry as much about safety.
Correct about the *past justification, but I think the on the ground evidence tells us there, even the “lesser countries” are going to be ordering the full containment equipped versions of NPP into the future only. At least that’s my understanding from reviewing the past bids from Egypt, Gulfies, Vietnam and other countries, incl. China/India. They all want gen3+ installation only, i.e. properly sealed reactor vessel inside full proper containment dome building (airplane crash worthy), plus various passive and active safety systems.. Several of these are already about to be constructed in richer countries as well. Besides the vendors nowadays offer only this anyway, apart from much smaller units <50MWe suitable for vessels etc.
As I wrote earlier it's not a problem to run nuclear at ~1/4 costs in the graphite style reactor without truly sealed reactor vessel nor containment bldg (ala Chernobyl), it has been worked up even upto larger scale ~1.5GWe version, the updates are known and available, running on the grid as we speak. But the world simply moved on, to build from now VVER design and similar only. For example, even the most savaged country (per capita) by nuclear accident ever in history, Belarus, returned – upgraded to nuclear power in that fashion.
—-
* well there could come semi dystopian future alternative in which some entities will have to go back to such graphite reactors out of necessity, perhaps even scaled down in power as well, e.g. impossibility to build large precision turbines-generators etc..
The things you miss when you are gone.
When did Fast Eddy become a Cli .t .mate Change denier?
The last time I checked, he believed it was happening but it was pointless to try to stop it.
There are activists exaggerating the degree of change based on bad environmental models that assume that fossil fuel consumption could continue indefinitely but that did not disprove that it was happening.
The shrinking ice sheet was a major sign that the Earth was warming, or so I thought.
This was my position, as well.
What has made Fast Eddy change his mind changed?
I think he just needed a little stimulation. He seems a little obsessed with it though. I just don’t think it matters much but it allows him to knock out another 10 or so comments a day.
Nah… I must admit… it is more than a little disappointing to see FWers rejecting the evidence… and digging heels in deeper when the facts dictate a change of position — or at least raise a bit of doubt.
If I can think back to my journey — how did I conclude that solar was futile? I probably came across a fact that raised bit of doubt …. that sent me off down the rabbit hole… and I unearthed a deluge of facts and logic that required that I reject solar panels
The same thing with Doomy Prepping … the evidence just piled up against it…
And likewise with GW — the cracks appeared soon after I started to have slight doubts — inspired by Tim’s excellent posts — these send me down the rabbit hole… and look what I came up with
http://sheppeywildlife.co.uk/wp-content/uploads/b5.jpg
Alas for some people the GW thing is just too deeply ingrained in their hard drive… very much like solar panels and EVs are ingrained in the hard drives of people
There is no erasing it.
It is a religion…Deprogramming is time consuming and expensive. Burns coal tho
He is merely gullible, ignorant of the basic science, or perhaps an intentional ideological shill suffering a severe case of cognitive dissonance and several other psychological and/or personality disorders.
And lets be honest, not the brightest porch light on the block from the genetic lottery.
Have you noticed that Gail and I are aligned on this issue?
So let me correct your comment:
Fast Eddy and Gail are merely gullible, ignorant of the basic science, or perhaps intentional ideological shills suffering a severe case of cognitive dissonance and several other psychological and/or personality disorders.
And lets be honest, not the brightest porch lights on the block from the genetic lottery.
Your learning! Now with some rudimentary knowledge of thermodynamics and evolutionary biology you might be able to carry on a basic conservation, as long as you stay in the shallow end of the pool.
Why don’t you address your comments to Gail?
Perhaps you could ridicule her?
After all — one of the reasons I decided to kill that rabbit that was down the hole was because she — and Tim — have mentioned on numerous occasions that this was a fake issue
When participants on FW of the calibre of those two people suggest that I am wrong — then I have no choice but to re-examine my position …. and if I then find facts that indicate I am wrong I change
But Duncan you are a lightweight — you are a Green Groopie clo wn…. you do not deal in facts. No matter what facts are presented you will not have the slightest bit of doubt about your beliefs
You cant even recognize that even if you were right — we need to burn more coal — otherwise we die.
You are no deserving of intellectual respect.
And seriously who gives a f789 that you can still do that when you are 70 – you could go hiking for the next twenty years and leave FW and nothing would be lost… not the slightest kernal of truth… just more Greeen Groooopie rubbish — and that belongs in the blue box anyway….
http://img11.deviantart.net/59b1/i/2013/045/6/4/wreck_it_ralph___you_re_my_hero_cookie__big_one__by_susensd-d5uy4b7.jpg
When are we going to see you have a go at Gail on this issue?
Come on — throw down the gauntlet — bring it
Come now, my delusional friend.
One need not be ideologically crippled for life–
You will need to scream in a fetal position for a while, but reality is refreshing, and you don’t have to lie to yourself any longer.
Duncan, you really want to know who changed FE’s mind over glo.bal war.ming?
More than anybody, it was you.
How do you do that?
First of all, by frequently raising the issue by posting the latest propaganda talking pints—thereby inviting others to highlight their shortcomings and raise alternative viewpoints.
And secondly, by going off the point and resorting to exaggeration and even hyperbole or insults when somebody disagrees with something you’ve said, as you often do. This kind of debate tactic is generally counterproductive if the aim is to convince the uncommitted that you have a handle on the facts. It plays well to the base, but they are going to agree with you in any case.
Take this comment:
He is merely gullible, ignorant of the basic science, or perhaps an intentional ideological shill suffering a severe case of cognitive dissonance and several other psychological and/or personality disorders.
And lets be honest, not the brightest porch light on the block from the genetic lottery.
How is this kind of thing supposed to reassure anyone that you are even interested in honest argument? Perhaps you are trying to honestly put forward the facts as you see them, and you’ve become exasperated because your adversaries are not lapping it up. And at that stage, it’s reasonable to inject the occasional “MOREon” or “XXXtard” into the conversation. Most of us do that from time to time.
But when you launch into a pop psychology tirade in order to invalidate the opposition, neutral observers tend to take that a an indication that you are descending to character assassination because that’s all you’ve got. so I think on the whole that’s counter-productive tactic.
But the good news is that it’s never to late to change. Every time you resist the urge to say something hurtful and replace it with something constructive or else sweet silence, it gets easier next time.
I agree ARBP, I am surprised by that stance as well…but again as I have said here before, whether you believe it or not is unimportant as there is absolutely nothing we can do…so if you don’t believe it, well there’s nothing to do since it’s not happening (in their opinion), and if you do believe we are the cause (as I most certainly do, and I am definitely not one who follows MSM, or those 2 clowns Gore and Di Caprio), well again there is nothing we can do about it either (barring the collapse of IC, where then it’s over for all of us and probably the biosphere as well with all the nuclear meltdowns across the world)…
Yep – Fast turned on a dime because the FACTS required the switch.
Let;s see if I can summarize without digging out all the links — although I may make a quick reference library to save for future refernence
– NASA and other scholarly sources I have referenced indicate the cl ima te has not warmed in nearly 20 years.
– a scientist recently blew the whistle on his colleagues who faked data when they found that the cli mate was not warming — and the MSM was more than pleased to publish these lies — without fact checking them — kinda of like how they publish lies about the job situation
– Scientist and Green Guru James Lovelock has stated that the models were all wrong and that he has changed his mind on CC – virtually no mention of this in the MSM
– the president of Greenpeace in HK has done the same — he has also changed his mind on GMO and nuclear — the Greenpeace is rather pissed at him for this — I am sure that they would hang him for sedition if they could — these Green Grooopies are really cra zy bast ards – again next to nothing on any of this in the MSM
– but the most important signal that made me recognize my folly was the understanding that when the MSM wants to turn a lie into a truth — they repeat it over and over and over… for a long time… and that is what they have done with solar EVs — and of course CC
– then there is Gail’s explanation of why they want to turn that lie into a truth — to deflect from the insurmountable problems with resources that are coming to a head
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-when-the-facts-change-i-change-my-mind-john-maynard-keynes-52-12-54.jpg
Most people just get angry.
https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/5b/fa/4a/5bfa4a4372adb6d1e3393a71c69a8846.jpg
Here are my thoughts on driver-less cars,Mars colones,AI,Tesla’s,Renewable energies etc.
And if you gaze long enough into the abyss the abyss will gaze back into you. -Nietzsche
At some NPP visitor program guided tours, they even let you directly see the “Cherenkov lights” – the bluish glowing electrons effect inside the pool at – on site spent fuel pond. It’s very magical, you are staring into it, lots of question start to pop up immediately as you mentioned above.
One of them necessarily should be, are we advanced enough, what are we thinking?
Isn’t it hubris just few thousand years of attempts at civilization and ~.5M years (or perhaps bit more) as humanoid animals using, slowly perfecting tools and now feeling bold enough trying re-assembly such internal forces of the universe and of our own substance.. ?
Yes, hubris. What’s that we hear? The wings of the ‘Kindly Ones’ beating and they are coming our way.
Civilization has mostly consisted of whipping, chaining, beating or otherwise constraining and compelling humans and other animals to produce and distribute crops, move earth, stone, wood and water – not exactly sophisticated stuff.
As it relates to driver-less cars, it’s probably a foregone conclusion that if collapse doesn’t occur, some day in the future it will be illegal to operate a car independent of it’s driverless programming. AI will replace many jobs and there will be colonies on Mars. But that’s IF there isn’t a collapse.
Have a look at this – the robots are programmed to carry out repetitive actions — they do not think — they cannot think — they simple do exactly what the programmers have programmed them to do
The number of actions that they are programmed to carry out would be fairly limited.
It is IMPOSSIBLE to program a SD vehicle to react in a certain way to every single potentiality that would arise when directing a vehicle — because the potentialities are infinite.
If it were to encounter one of the infinite potentialities it would not know how to deal with it —- and it would result in a crash.
Basically these cars will never happen because they would be like playing Russian Roulette — you might get by for a week without a crash — maybe two … but it is absolutely guaranteed that within a short period of time you will have a pile up.
You’d have to be drinking some serious Koombaya juice to get into the back seat of a SD taxi …
Imagine trying to get insurance on something like this — try calling up your insurance company and asking them if they will insure your new SD Tesla — see what they say
Over at Tesla, Google, and Uber — and now the contagion has reached Ford, General Motors, Chrysler and beyond — the smartest guys in the room are talking autonomous vehicles.
Over at every hedge fund, venture-capital and wealth-management shop in the universe, the smartest guys in the room are throwing money at the concept. Why? Because it’s the Next Big Thing, that’s why.
Billions of dollars are in play.
Which is why we are seeing an avalanche of faux-news stories about the coming era of driverless cars, how they’re on the streets now, how well they are doing in testing, how soon there will be nothing but driverless cars on all our roads.
And all this chum in the financial water has served its purposes: the hedge fund sharks, and the Masters of the Universe they serve, are in a feeding frenzy; and the gullible public is giddy with anticipation.
Meanwhile people with a lick of common sense are saying, wait a minute, doesn’t this sound oxymoronic, like clean coal, or safe sex? In today’s world, people with licks of common sense do not get funding to answer their questions, and therefor the skeptical questions you might have about “driverless cars” are almost unanswerable. Until right now, right here:
Is there such a thing as a “driverless car?” Not yet, there isn’t. The conditions for allowing “driverless cars” on the public roads in a few states unanimously specify that the driverless car has to have a driver who is ready to instantly take control of the vehicle. Moreover, what they are driving and testing are prototypes and jury-rigs; no one has yet built an autonomous vehicle. (Tesla cars offer “auto-pilot,” but it isn’t.)
So almost all the stories you have read and seen about “driverless cars” on the road are fake (some fastidious journalists write about testing cars that are capable of becoming autonomous, but most people read right through the fastidiousness).
How are the potentially driverless cars doing in their testing? Awful. For example, in the first week of March, Uber’s 43 test cars in three states logged some 20,000 miles on public roads. Their drivers had to intervene and take control away from the software, an average of once every mile.
Critical interventions, required to save lives and property, were counted separately; they occurred every 200 miles. Which makes your life expectancy, as a passenger in a truly autonomous car, approximately four hours.
How much will a driverless car cost? No one has a clue, because no one has built one yet. As Consumer Watchdog put it in its devastating report on the imaginary industry, “No completely self-driving vehicle is offered for sale today, and notwithstanding a great deal of marketing hype, no manufacturer has set a firm date when it will market a passenger vehicle that is able to operate in all conditions without human intervention, or, importantly, what it will cost to buy.”
Just to hazard a guess here, my bet is that the early adapters to driverless cars are going to have to choose between buying the car and buying that second fully-staffed luxury yacht.
Would driverless cars need new infrastructure? You bet your booties. No one has even begun to plan, let alone estimate the cost of, a national network that would support the car-to-car, car-to-road and car-to-satellite communications that would be required by tens of millions of driverless cars. Figure that out, and then specify who is going to pay for the staggering cost, while our bridges collapse, our interstate highways continue to rot, and our potholes continue to eat 18-wheelers. Then you’ll have a plan.
What about insurance? Worry not, the insurance companies are on this, 24/7, with a full-court press in every state. Not, as you might think, to figure out how to equitably insure the vehicles and arbitrate liability; but to demand that all the state immediately suspend regulation of and restrictions on the insurance companies lest — and this is a quote from a top insurance lobbyist — the regulators “chill this promising technology and the huge advances in overall public safety it promises.” Speaking of chill — did you just feel one? You should have.
Bottom line: “driverless cars” are not here, and not coming. Like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, genetic engineering and other “next-big-thing” oxymorons, what we’re really talking about here is a high-tech con, designed to separate real morons from their money.
http://www.dailyimpact.net/2017/08/03/the-self-driving-car-is-only-an-oxymoron/
How are the potentially driverless cars doing in their testing? Awful. For example, in the first week of March, Uber’s 43 test cars in three states logged some 20,000 miles on public roads. Their drivers had to intervene and take control away from the software, an average of once every mile.
Exactly. This is all about as likely as a week with two Tuesday’s, given that there is NO commercially available vehicle anywhere on the horizon. If anything it seems to be a total con job designed to roll back consumer protection laws, jack up car insurance rates and separate the gullible from what little money they have left.
Self Driving Vehicles – THE THREAT TO CONSUMERS
http://vinylzart.com/shop/images/P/WallQuotes-AlbertEinstein-Onlytwothings.jpg
Is The EIA Exaggerating U.S. Oil Production
http://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/Is-The-EIA-Exaggerating-US-Oil-Production.html
Until one these EIA government analysts can state what the economy can afford to pay for a barrel of oil, they might as well be throwing darts! If the price gets too high the economy slows, and demand falls. They want to assume that the economy is not going to react to the price. By assuming that pigs can fly they can put a price on air born bacon. The economy will react to the price and there is a maximum price that it can afford to pay for petroleum. Anything above that, and the economy slows enough to drive the price back down. We won’t mention the energy considerations involved; they haven’t figured out the supply and demand side of it yet.
The EIA uses models on the weekly data. I have had problems before with weekly oil consumption not matching up to monthly. Even weekly crude oil supply balances do not balance to monthly, when the monthly come out. It is not surprising that in a time of change, the weekly oil production numbers look to be “off” as well.
Insane: Germany Will Need 3,000 Wind Turbines To Replace This Workhorse Nuke Plant
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2016/03/21/the-little-reactor-that-could-germanys-grohnde-nuclear-plant/#546571d921a4
In fact not only 3000 wind turbines, but the corresponding back up power plant.
Yep, the premature winding down of both the W&E German NPPs in aggregate totals huge GW capacity loss, which have to be replaced somehow pronto. So, putting aside the wind+PV buildup, eff conservation, and imports from neighbors (NPP, coal, hydro), they MUST be now freaking out from the prospect that their cherished natgas power plants security plan (standby for renewables and baseload) might be threatened by this new US-Congress embargo. Suddenly, yet another unpleasant situation, lolz..
Perhaps I am not up to date on what is going on. I presumed that the major push would be for increased LNG exports from the US, in an attempt to raise US natural gas prices.
For example, Are the latest US sanctions on Russia about forcing US LNG on Europe?
sometimes i feel that German politician and bureaucrats are more retarded than
politician and bureaucrats of my country [india]
Yes, TWP. The truth is, human beings don’t really amount to very much, and to much less than they imagine about themselves. Germans, Indians, Yanks, Chinese, Arabs, it doesn’t seem to make much difference.
We can dream of Utopias, where decisions are made by far-sighted, fair-minded and dispassionate administrators, but then reality steps in.
Inventive monkeys, who can’t quite understand what they have made, or where they are, or the consequences of any of it.
When we were less powerful, it really didn’t matter one bit. But now is the Banquet of Consequences.
I want all those bad boys shut down that stuff needs to be safe for 100 thousand years.
Check out what Finland is doing
Facility for housing Finland’s nuclear waste.
Now, what to do with the rest.
If there is a readers digest version of that perhaps someone can post it…
Because the reality is — you cannot store spent fuel rods anywhere other than in a spent fuel pond — and it must remain in one of these high tech facilities for five years or more…
So let’s say we shut down all nuclear plants today — and moved the fuel to ponds — waited five years then dry casked the entire lot
Do we have five years before BAU ends?
And in the meantime nuclear energy provides a sizable chunk of our electricity — how do we fill the gap?
Build more coal plants? Expensive
And what of the cost of coal if we reverted to burning so much more coal?
Obviously it is not being done because it is not feasible.
Our bed is made
We will die in it — from radiation poisoning
Just watch the vid Fast It even has scary music.
Go look at some of Gails charts we do not get much from NPP. NZ gets 0 from NPP . Coal is way cheaper.
I do not think we have 5 but it is good to have insurance
yep, as I posted elsewhere, for example the first attempt in Germany is just postponed disaster in relatively shallow, water leaking salt mine, although they are building a “proper one” now..
basically, countries with great mining experience (most of the NPP operators anyway) could and should prepare ahead for it and do it properly in deep granite formations, and offer this also as paid service for the others lacking the ability..
Also, huge amounts of long distance transmission, some of it underground or underwater at huge cost. And probably some type of buffering, over and above the backup plants, if Germany is not going to make its neighbors angry the surges of unwanted electricity that they need to export. It is really important to figure out all of the costs in advance, and make a reasonable analysis of how the comparative costs work out. Germany didn’t do that. No one else did either.
Most of German’s neighbors are now in fast pace finalizing “blocking transformers” on their borders, so Germany won’t be able to force (priority on) other countries to take there energy surpluses generated by spiking renewables production situation. It’s not cheap to build it but to let them continue rock your own grid is not pleasant or cheap in maintenance either..
Not sure what happens next, perhaps an event in which the German Fed grid fractures into their local sub division networks (Bavaria, Saxony, Rhineland,..), and accordingly some of their biggest energy consuming points then had to shut down at that point, perhaps it is not far away.
Remind you the other countries are struggling already as France is closing more NPPs than expected, Swiss are sometimes on low water head etc.. so essentially the whole continent seen as network is getting less resilient to such energy flow fluctuation in the future..
That has been my impression of what is happening.
At some point, the real world starts intruding on the idealistic view that people have about wind and solar.
GERMANY’S RENEWABLES REVOLUTION DESTABILISES NEIGHBOURS’ ELECTRICAL GRID
https://www.thegwpf.com/germanys-renewables-revolution-threatens-neighbours-with-grid-collapse/
German, Czech grids say managing cross-border power flows better
http://af.reuters.com/article/africaTech/idAFL5N1F7257
Something more about the solution:
http://yadda.icm.edu.pl/yadda/element/bwmeta1.element.baztech-afd65da1-5eca-42a1-a462-f98c2f4e69b7/c/bpasts-2016-0014.pdf
http://pe.org.pl/articles/2015/8/41.pdf
Thanks very much for the interesting links. It is helpful to have academic documentation of the problem.
3,000 wind turbines. Wow! Get busy building thousands of wind turbines and installing them or get busy making that nuclear power plant operational.
The wind turbines don’t really give you much of anything in carbon emissions, once a person gets all of the other pieces of the system in place. There is a cost limit to any kind of energy. The system also has an ongoing need for fossil fuels for maintenance. Unless the economy is operating properly, these fossil fuels will not be available (to operate helicopters, to make roads, to provide lubrication for the wind turbines, etc.).
You have been very restrained and subtle in your hints as to what would make the economy operate properly. It would be nice to see something a little more on the risky side, some sort of itemized set of recommendations. Some of us will have points of disagreement, but it would give us a start in figuring out what are the best steps to take at this time.
The economy right now is in a huge credit bubble. Keeping interest rates very low, and feeding it more and more cheap debt, is the way to keep it going (if anything is). Of course, using this debt to finance cheap-to-extract energy production and pay wages of non-elite workers is important as well. The economy can perhaps go on along for a bit longer, until it hits a bump in the road. This debt is what keeps commodity prices up, besides paying wages.
One bump in the road I worry about is the US budget and debt ceiling coming up about the end of September. We know that problems with government funding have brought down governments in the past. Another thing is raising interest rates and selling QE securities (which is another way of raising interest rates). As long as legislators cannot agree on anything, it is hard to imagine that anything will be passed.
Absurdly high healthcare costs are part of the problem, but it is hard to see a way of fixing this problem. Healthcare does contribute jobs and GDP. Cutting it back to something reasonable would be hard to do, and would adversely affect GDP.
Thanks Gail and Norman.
“Absurdly high healthcare costs are part of the problem, but it is hard to see a way of fixing this problem. Healthcare does contribute jobs and GDP. Cutting it back to something reasonable would be hard to do, and would adversely affect GDP.”
What could puzzle average understanding (like mine, perhaps) is that there is, simultaneously, need to spend and need to save or conserve.
I’ve read but not filed news of very rich people doing extraordinary things they consider altruistic. It brings up the question of whether rich businesses can continue to function while scaling back on CEO pay, etc. Another way of seeing this is to substantially tax higher incomes. So there are the carrot and the stick prospects. (I’m just suggesting what the average person can understand.)
So it’s clear that health care is ridiculously wasteful and expensive. And there are a lot of commonsense measures average people can take to have better health results. We can also vote for things like single payer (for what it’s worth).
But there are many other ways to save: smaller houses better located, better zoning to obviate such lengthy commutes. And a whole lot more.
We don’t need a hundred brands of toothpaste like they sell in stores. We could simplify many things, tax the rich more, help the poor more, buy more of the useful things, etc., etc.. The average person won’t understand why more sensible economic measures are so hard to pull off. When you lose health care jobs, why can’t some be substituted for in the same or some related industry?
Anyway, thanks for the continued patience. I’m merely looking for something I can easily explain to family and acquaintances that they can understand. 🙂
the healthcare problem is best set out in al bartletts blog about 16 minutes in—sums it up perfectly
The US manages to have a much more expensive version of healthcare than other countries, however. It is sort of an “outlier.”
Bartlett is incredibly valuable for thinking straight. I only project for growth because everybody says we’ll die without it. My idea of growth and that of others seem to have nothing in common.
a functioning ‘economy’ is very simple to understand.
you locate elements and compounds in the earth, then you dig them up and refine them, using heat, into ‘things’ we think we need.—-hence businesses are created to do that, and money-fortunes are made by this process.
you create the concept of infinite debt to enable us to buy those ‘things’.
once the economic ball is rolling, you keep on digging up stuff to make things and create more money to maintain momentum. (and ‘belief’ in the system)
this works fine until the stuff you dig out of the ground gets scarcer and scarcer, while the number of people wanting to play economic musical chairs gets bigger and bigger. (That is where the credit bubble comes from, denying that that is happening)
that is the only economic system we have, it also explains why it has to fail.
Say hi to all my fans in DelusiSTAN!
http://www.swiss-miss.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/tattly_mike_lowery_boo_who_web_design_01_grande-480×480.jpg
Despite the continued increase of atmo spheric gre enh ouse gases, the annual-me an glob al temper at ure has not risen in this century, challenging the prevailing view that ant hrop ogenic forcing causes cl im ate war mi ng.
http://hl-128-171-57-22.library.manoa.hawaii.edu/handle/10125/33072
Previous analyses of glo ba l temp erat ure trends during the first decade of the 21st century seemed to indicate that war mi n g had stalled.
http://science.sciencemag.org/content/348/6242/1469
Glo bal war ming first became evident beyond the bounds of natural variability in the 1970s, but increases in glob al mean surface temp eratures have stalled in the 2000s.
http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/2013EF000165/full
For anyone who thinks that the cli mate is war ming….. YOU ARE WRONG.
Here is a comprehensive list of scholarly articles that state that the cl ima te has NOT war med since the turn of the century
https://scholar.google.co.nz/scholar?q=global+warming+hiatus&hl=en&as_sdt=0&as_vis=1&oi=scholart&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwjD-oCsub_VAhVIp5QKHVrgC_gQgQMIJTAA
You are of course not going to find this in the MSM — just like the MSM is NEVER going to publish the research paper stating that Tesla cars are more polluting than ICE vehicles.
http://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-when-the-facts-change-i-change-my-mind-john-maynard-keynes-52-12-54.jpg
Well — the facts have CHANGED.
Be brave enough to admit it.
Hey FE, why did you delete the post where I showed you why your argument against AGW boiled down to an appeal to authority, and why the global warming hiatus you and others keep referring to is a non-issue?
It contained no insults, no logical fallacies, etc. Is this blog supposed to be off-limits to people who acknowledge the existence of AGW? In any case, here’s the link again.
http://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/1/e1601207.full
Fast Eddy doesn’t delete comments. I do. I have been trying to get rid of climate change articles. I have not been not very good at getting rid of all of them.
The point is that this is not a climate change site. Even if climate change is taking place, there is nothing we can do about it. Climate change is not caused by humans (thus the term AGW does not make sense); it is caused by the laws of physics and the way dissipative structures work. The climate models are woefully incomplete. They do not include the feedback loops that will cause the end of fossil fuel use (likely prices that are too low for those doing the extraction). Instead, they assume unrealistically high fossil fuel energy use.
Not necessarily Gail. There is momentum from the moment of burning FF to the added heat in the atmosphere penetrating the oceans to when that energy feeds back into the weather system. That momentum has a lag time of 30-40 years and is called Thermal Inertia. We may have already cooked our goose, but it doesn’t seem like it now because the weather isn’t too bad yet, but even if FF burning stopped today, we’d have to wait that lag time to find out just how much we juiced the weather. With feedbacks kicking in during that time we may find out nothing we can do will stop runaway GW.
But the cli mate is not war ming —- so WTF are you going on about?
It’s like me saying there is no snow on Cardrona mountain this morning — so I did not go skiing — yet when you drive up to the mountain you see there is a record amount of snow and hundreds of skiers there
And you say to me – WTF are you going on about???? You are an id iot. You should be skiing this morning – conditions are awesome
Please stop quoting anecdotal cherry picked bull sh it that says it is really hot in such and such a place today.
That is what MOREons do.
https://www.nationalreview.com/sites/default/files/151201_Global%20warming%20-%20Satellite%20temperatures%20show%20no%20warming%20between%20Feb%201997%20and%20Oct%202015.png
We already know that there is nothing we can do. We also know that the economy as a self-organized system will likely collapse, as energy consumption becomes constrained. That is pretty much the only control on the system, and that is coming in the near term, whether we do anything or not.
Hi Gail. Regardless of who deletes comments, my previous comment wasn’t trolling or flaming.
I agree that fossil fuel availability is likely to drastically decline in the coming years or decades, thus cancelling the conclusions which are currently extrapolated from the continued high FF-use scenarios. Like you, I find it troubling that AGW supporters by and large ignore any other problem except AGW. It’s like noticing that the electricity has gone, while being oblivious to the sofa which has caught fire.
However, I see no reason not to believe that AGW is occurring and will continue to do so as long as massive quantities FFs are being used. The study I posted debunks the claim which FE and others make so often regarding a warming hiatus from ’98 to 2013, as well as NOAA scientists being corrupt for having tried to hide that fact from the public.
My point is that AGW = anthropogenic global warming is not really the case, at least in the sense that humans do not really have control over the issue.
We live in a self-organized world. Humans want their children to live to maturity. They want to be warm when it is cold out, and they want to be comfortable when it is hot outside. They want things like roads and electricity and airplanes. All of these things require fossil fuels. There is nothing we really can do to fix the problem, especially if wind and solar PV are not really solutions. The economy self-organizes to dissipate as much energy as possible.
So the situation may be climate change, but it is not AGW. It is beyond the control of humans.
It has been said before — but let’s say it again…
Those who are complaining about G W…. are you still buying stuff in shops — do you drive a car — do you take a bus or airplane — do you have electricity — is your home made from straw – do you have a source of heat in winter — an AC in summer….
Basically I will assume all of the moaners on FW are knee deep in the burning of fossil fuels — every single one of us is a mini version of Al Gore….
And as we can see — there is no way in hell we are going to stop the pillage — because on an individual basis it means living a grim existence.
So again — it does not matter what your position is on this issue — nothing is going to change — you are not going to unplug from BAU that is for sure — I for sure will not ….
So Relax and Burn More Coal — and please stop moaning.
https://gyemgh.files.wordpress.com/2013/07/coal-plant.jpg
++++++++++++++
And as you have pointed out — the reason we are inundated with GW rubbish by the MSM is to deflect us from the actual end of the world problems that we are facing due to resource depletion.
And btw – I was speaking to a couple over breakfast — they had just finished 7 days in Fiordland on a cruise….. there was ice on the sea where fresh water was pouring in from various sources….
The captain told them ‘I have not seen that in nearly 20 years’
And yes — we are very near the end of the era of fossil fuels — but we will not stop burning because Al Gore and Leo tell us we are going to wreck the planet …
We will stop burning because the costs are beyond what the economy will tolerate
And when that happens — the GW crazies dreams will come true — there will be brilliant blue skies over China ….
And the Green Grooopies will be gazing up at this wonderful development — as they slowly starve to death….. as they are raped … as they are murdered… as they vomit out their internal organs due to radiation poisoning.
Burn more coal. A little pollution is a small price to pay to have civilization.
Doh….
I agree. Way too much time wasted on GW/CC comments. It is irrelevant either way. We are reaching other much more pressing limits than GW/CC.
I think the G W conversation does have merit in the bigger picture….
The bigger picture being the issues related to how the MSM attempts to control our thought processes — and how we can develop strategies to recognize when we are being played — and how to overcome the MSM’s ‘brain washing’
This is not so much about g w – at least for me it is not — rather it is about how I beat cognitive dissonance which is truth-blocking me…
End of the day that is what FW is all about — trying to reach the pinnacle of truth….
I’ve opened another door over the past month —- which door will be next….
@Gail,
My point is that AGW = anthropogenic global warming is not really the case, at least in the sense that humans do not really have control over the issue.
Yes, it is likely too late for humans to control the issue, but it’s still anthropogenic because it is happening due to the activities of humans. Anthropo + genic = human originated/produced.
Anyway, I will respect your wishes in the future and avoid discussion of climate change.
I responded to your nonsense… perhaps it has been deleted
De-conditioning causes pain. Pavlov taught us that.
There will be MOREons — who will glance at those research papers — and respond with ‘but it is really hot in ____ this week therefore I reject the findings’
They will reject the facts.
James Lovelock and Patrick Moore former Green Grooopies saw the facts — and they changed their positions. As did Fast Eddy
Too fast Eddy,
Try reading the abstracts even, rather than just copying in your googling results! The Science Mag of your comment says this:
“Previous analyses of global temperature trends during the first decade of the 21st century seemed to indicate that warming had stalled. This allowed critics of the idea of global warming to claim that concern about climate change was misplaced. Karl et al. now show that temperatures did not plateau as thought and that the supposed warming “hiatus” is just an artifact of earlier analyses. Warming has continued at a pace similar to that of the last half of the 20th century, and the slowdown was just an illusion.”
Your fixation on GW, given its irrelevance in overshoot, sits uneasily with your insistence on facts and logic. Too fast Eddy, too fast…
someone has read the sanity claus
at last
Sorry but…..
The report claimed that the ‘pa use’ or ‘slow down’ in glo…
b…. al war…. ming in the period since 1998 – revealed by UN scient ists in 2013 – never existed, and that world t.e
mper..atures had been rising fa ster than scien tists expected.
Launched by NO
AA with a public rela tions fanfare, it was splashe d across the wor ld’s media, and cited repeatedly by politic ians and po licy makers.
But the whis..tle bl ower,
Dr Jo hn B ates, a top NO A A scie.ntis t with an impe ccable repu tation, has sho wn The M ail on Su nday irref uta ble evid ence that the paper was based on mis leading, ‘unveri fied’ data.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/sciencetech/article-4192182/World-leaders-duped-manipulated-glo bal-wa rming-data.html
You’ve got one of the chief scientists at NO AA stating that there has been no wa rming in two decades … and that his colleagues faked data…
You are up sh it creek without a paddle buddy.
https://neaststyle.files.wordpress.com/2011/11/shitcreek.jpg
“The Great Escape: Foreign oil and gas companies are fleeing Canada due to low prices:”
https://news.vice.com/story/foreign-oil-and-gas-companies-are-fleeing-canada-due-to-low-prices
“But the fact of the matter is, the oil and gas glut is here to stay. Our dependence on oil, especially in North America, is tapering off (some say it’s inversely correlated to the rise of electric cars).
In the last three years, global oil consumption has only grown by less than 1 percent, a sharp deviation from the 1.8 percent norm over the previous 10 years. That begs the question — what exactly is Canada’s back-up plan?”
“The oil sands account for about 0.13 percent of global greenhouse gas emissions. Sure, that might seem negligible, but in order to meet the International Energy Agency’s 450 scenario (limiting global increase in temperature to 2 degrees Celsius) global oil consumption will need to peak by the end of this decade, and fall by nearly 25 percent over the next two decades.”
“The recent carbon tax plan announced by the federal government in October has added even more uncertainty to the future of the oil sands. The impact of the carbon tax will largely depend on the price of oil.”
Hasn’t the IEA been reporting on oil supply declining after 2020? I find it interesting that their 450 scenario coincides with their predictions for global oil supply decline. “…global oil consumption will need to peak by the end of this decade, and fall by nearly 25 percent over the next two decades.” Sounds like they’re rooting for decline (for the sake of the planet, they say) while at other times warning about it. What if the global warming narrative is simply convenient cover for declining energy reserves? If so, future leaders will be able to tell their people “we’d love to get the oil production back on line, however, we’re bound by those global warming agreements and carbon tax plans.” They won’t have to bother explaining the history of the rise and fall of cheap oil.
That is what I believe its all about. the global warming fear mongering is all about. Its to get public support and funding for renewables and try to get us off of non renewable sources without telling the public we are going to be running out soon.
There is no such thing as renewable energy — therefore there is no getting off of fossil fuels.
As Gail has stated – and I agree — this is all about encapsulating all of our problems under the umbrella called G W….. then offering solutions in the form of renewables and EVs…
To keep the masses from going collectively out of their minds as we approach the end of fossil fuels – the collapse of BAU — and death.
This is a hugely important project because if the commanders were to fail — then despondency would engulf the planet and BAU would go down prematurely.
‘
The pigs always walk:
U.S. court tosses murder conviction of Blackwater guard Nicholas Slatten in massacre of 14 unarmed Iraqi civilians
https://boingboing.net/2017/08/04/blackwater-slatten-un-murderer.html
https://i1.wp.com/media.boingboing.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/06/20140618T185854Z_1_LYNXMPEA5H112_RTROPTP_3_BLACKWATERIRAQLEGAL.png
And that’s what you get when your country refuses to destroy its WMD program.
I really do not know why he was arrested in the first place.
Why didn’t the US just nuke Iraq over these WMD?
Yep—
“The barrage of anti-Russian news on the mainstream media has clearly had some effect, bringing 70% of Americans to have an unfavorable opinion of Russia. So, propaganda still works, it seems.
Yes, but only within some limits. If we compare these data with those for Iraq, we find that in 2003, 93% of Americans (!!) declared to have an unfavorable opinion of Iraq. That was a true triumph of modern propaganda that could obtain this result on the basis of a complete fabrication: that of the “weapons of mass destruction” allegedly deployed in Iraq. Such an extreme view of Russia seems unlikely to be attainable today.
So, could it be true that propaganda doesn’t work anymore so well and so smoothly as it did in the past? Or is it Trump the maverick who is disrupting everything? The only thing we can say is that propaganda may have weakened a little, but it is still the formidable weapon it has been from the time when it was developed in its modern form by people such as George Creel and Edward Bernays.
Yet, in the long run, even the most wondrous contraptions are subjected to the Seneca Collapse. And one of the reasons why empires collapse is because of the mountains of lies that the elites tell to their subjects. It has happened in the past, it may happen again. It probably will.”
It’s working very well with GW thank you very much.
It is also working quite well re EVs and renewable energy
these oil exporting countries want higher prices:
https://www.cnbc.com/2017/08/04/saudis-and-russians-are-getting-tough-with-fellow-oil-exporters.html
other powerful entities in the world must want lower prices.
the oil market seems to be disconnected from supply and demand.
there is manipulation, like in the gold market.
will next week be a game changer?
I doubt it.
but we shall see.
his conclusion:
“The Asians will shed their USTBonds, in favor of both RMB bonds and Gold bullion. The game will change in a way to make clear the end of the King Dollar Era. The great transition from Western sovereign bonds to Gold bullion will begin in earnest. Forty years of exported inflation will be reversed, and wreak havoc upon the USEconomy. The United States will be compelled to create and launch a new domestic only dollar, all in time, complete with official denials. Let it be dubbed the New Scheiss Dollar, complete with a long sequence of devaluations. The $500 billion annual trade deficit will become a major talking point. It will open the door for the United States to the Third World.”
we’re doomed!
but when?
SOON!
how soon?
nobody knows.
Today, “US military” means airplanes. American ground forces are small, not rapidly deployable and–if I may lapse into rural accuracy–pussified, obsessed with homosexuality, girls in combat, trans this and trans that, and racial and sexual quotas in the officer corps. The Pentagon has trouble finding recruits physically fit enough for combat arms.If the war remained conventional, the outcome might boil down to which population could best survive privation–the Chinese,Russians,Iranians, only a generation or so removed from living hard, or America’s squealing millennials, looking for safe spaces.
http://imgur.com/lIzPKhO
The elite are responsible for that. Feminism and lgbt politics seem to be coming from Ivy League schools. There are a few billionaires who support “Progressive” groups such as Black Lives Matter and are funding activists who want transgender bathrooms.
The turning point was the 2004 election in the U.S., when the elite decided to spend less money on Republican candidates, and predictably, Conservative groups lost a lot of face-time on media. Predictably, the Left reminds us now of Right, at the height of their power, in the late 1980s and 1990s. The difference being that the policies of the Left require more complexity and more energy. That is what Telsa Motors, the cashless economy, and transgender bathrooms have in common.
The Illuminati conspiracy theories, promoted by working class African Americans and blue collar whites, seem to have some basis in reality;
If American men are being pacified it, is by design. China is terrified of civil unrest from its large pool of working age men. The U.S. must similarly be worried…but has chosen to identity politics as means to pacify a group most prone to commit violence. Guilt is powerful deterrent to violence and is effective on a large segment of the population. However, the elite do not have complete control hence the insanity since Trump has been elected.
Gail, be a dear and release my comment….if you want to, of course.
I checked and I don’t have any of your comments off line. Perhaps something else went wrong. Try again.
The hordes have been pacified for a long time — they must be pacified… otherwise civilization would be torn to shreds…
When the MSNBC lady says — we tell them what to think — people were offended.
The MSM is doing EXACTLY what is should be doing — it should not be informing you — absolutely NOT
Because the masses cannot accept the truth — they want to be coddled with fairy tales.
They do not want to know that we must blow babies to pieces in Syria or Libya or wherever to ensure that we get to live large
Nope. They want to believe that we deserve to live large because we are superior.
They do not want to know that peak oil is upon us — nope — that would make them craz y
Nope – what they want are fables of g w and hopeful solution stories of solar panels windmills and EVs and colonies on Mars.
They eat that stuff up — and it keeps them sane
They absolutely do NOT want the truth — they cannot handle it
Some people can handle the truth — not many — and even fewer find it
This is useful viewing
I once met a woman who was the first female infantry captain in the British army: she left soon after, disgusted with constraints on training, lack of ammunition, etc.
She told amusing stories of how new recruits complained about having to get up so early, how the boots hurt their feet, etc. Now, what on earth did they imagine infantry life would be like?!
within a year this financial system will have transformed into a new system that will make america overnight into a second or third world country so i am on the same page with you david
I say in a few decades.
you sure we’re on the same page?
Chinese Leverage to Kill the Petrodollar by Dr. Jim Willie
http://news.goldseek.com/GoldenJackass/1501471342.php
Well over half a century ago (I am not sure of the exact year) a Kyoto department store was planning to open a low-priced dining hall-type restaurant, and they waned to minimize the need for staff. So they approached a local company named Tateishi Denki (the current Omron), and the latter came up with the idea for an automatic ticket vending machine.
This proved so popular that it was soon widely adopted by similar establishments across Japan, at which point a railway company asked Omron to develop a variation that sold train tickets. By the 1970s, these train ticket vending machines had become ubiquitous in Japanese railway stations and later they spread around the world, so I expect almost everyone reading this has experienced using one. The restaurant machines didn’t spread nearly so far, but they are still fairly commonplace in Japan in cheaper diners and coffee shops, especially those inside public facilities. Here’s short video of how to use one on your next trip to Tokyo.
https://youtu.be/KB2aPjwW4PY
Omron is still going strong as a maker of electronic components, factory automation equipment, and healthcare equipment such as portable blood pressure monitors and the like. Along with an army of other tech companies, they also now have a department specializing in automatic driving technology, They obviously think self-driving cars are the future an they want to share in the profits by making it happen. Within their own narrow field, this looks doable technically. Every year, the abilities of autonomous vehicles are getting better.
However, I have no idea if anyone in the industry is bothering to look at the bigger wider world where, as Norman points out, we are currently burning ten times as much oil as we are discovering each year, and where, as Gail has been pointing out for some years, financial issues are undermining the ability of the current paradigm to continue, and where, as many here have noted, renewables are predicated on and dependent on the continuing availability of both fossil fuels and financing.
In the modern industrialized world, everything is compartmentalized and specialized, which is great for motivating people to focus their talents and expertise on achieving specific targets and goals. But it leaves no place for generalists who take a much broader view. The specialists, which is almost everyone in industry today, are working in a conceptually infinite world (they assume it might as well be infinite for all practical purposes as their own focus is so narrow) in which they can keep doing what they are doing in the assumption that somebody else will take care of any problems that stand in the way of their inventions being implemented in the real world. The idea that nature or the laws of physics or economics or finance are going to throw up absolute barriers that cannot be overcome goes against a century of their shared belief and experience that with enough ingenuity and planning we can make anything happen.
These existed in New York City sometime ago. They were called automats. I do not know why they died out.
“In the modern industrialized world, everything is compartmentalized and specialized, which is great for motivating people to focus their talents and expertise on achieving specific targets and goals. But it leaves no place for generalists who take a much broader view.”
sure, many individuals are very intelligent.
but as a group, humanity often is stupid.
there was a generalist who called this The Tragedy of the Commons.
“In the modern industrialized world, everything is compartmentalized and specialized, which is great for motivating people to focus their talents and expertise on achieving specific targets and goals. But it leaves no place for generalists who take a much broader view.”
sure, many individuals are very intelligent.
but as a group, humanity often is very far from intelligent.
there was a generalist who called this The Tragedy of the Commons.
Wingpawn Global cooling update?
Melting glaciers in Swiss Alps could reveal hundreds of mummified corpses
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/aug/04/melting-glaciers-swiss-alps-could-reveal-hundreds-mummified-corpses
FE,
What is the purpose in antagonism? Machine learning is going in a number of directions, but the progress in incredible; drones are an interesting example. There is a certitude amongst some on this blog which is puzzling. That there will be changes is certain, how they will play out is really unknown.
Have you had an opportunity to read “Coming Apart” by Charles Murray?
If Western Civilization gave rise to our current life, what is likely to come afterwards with the changes so noted?
If Murray is correct with his distributions, is it a good idea to bet against very bright guys? Most of the people in AI/machine learning seem to be guys if you hadn’t noticed and historically they have come up with some pretty clever solutions to issues at hand.
Dennis L.
Why antagonize? I need to feed on DelusiSTANIS — or I die….
https://media.giphy.com/media/5hHRy2wXG5gI0/giphy.gif
The difference is perhaps this: they came up with ‘solutions’ in a very generous margin of natural resource wealth, and the solutions were merely an excess of complexity, and an accelerated consumption of finite resources.
That wealth has largely been destroyed, and is now but a pitiful fragment of what it once was.
Can it renew itself? Maybe. Perhaps the Earth will escape the fate of Mars. .
But clearly not in a short enough time-frame for Aspergery scientists to triumph once again. They were just actors in a play, – convincing and exciting while it lasted – and the performance is nearly done.
They will have to step off the stage, hand in their costumes, and resume their true role: as hairless, fire-dependent , animals on a gravely depleted planet.
Parallels ….
I sometimes read the Mish blog — as I do Wolf – they do have some useful info … I almost never post
But Mish recently wrote a fat article on self driving cars and how by the early 2020’s they would be ubiquitous — I chimed in with a post that surely you do not believe this…
He absolutely believes it. As do most people on his site. As no doubt to most people in the general population – it’s just a matter of time
Someone posted a very good article about the delusion of self driving cars on FW – so I dropped into onto the Mish site.
To howls of anger and recriminations — I did it knowing that the FACTS and LOGIC in that article would have no impact on what these fo ols believed… I did it to antagonize them…. like sticking a bomb in a crowded cafe and walking away …. although I was getting alerts by email for responses to my post…
So you see — no matter what logic you present — no matter what facts — they will NOT see the light.
Remind you of anyone?
FE, of course there will be self driving trucks and cars. Neural nets are stupid. But they can deal with simple sensory input as in the car is too far to the right so steer left. the car is down the center line keep going. No long chain of logic or reasoning.
Holy cow I am in moderation.
A self driving car is called a tram…
In case you had not noticed… the auto industry is on the verge of collapse … because BAU is on the verge of collapse
This talk of self driving cars is just another misdirect — to keep the sheeple’s minds off the slaughter that is imminent
Cars are NOT smart — they need to be programmed to react in a certain way — they are literally infinite numbers of potentialities that require split second thinking to deal with when driving a car.
You cannot program for all of them — and since a computer cannot think on its own — it is absolutely inevitable that there would be massive numbers of accidents and deaths caused by self crashing cars.
I have gone 30+ years driving cars without a single accident — no f789ing way am I putting my life in the hands of computer…. that would be a death wish.
FE, “self-driving cars” is “The Next Big Thing”. It is technically feasible but totally impractical because it will be resented by almost everyone who drives today. And, as you say, Ji-hadis any anyone else who wants to cause mayhem will love it.
So I’m guessing that the people in charge of spying on us all and controlling our choices are thinking, “This is wonderful. This is another huge advance in establishing our web of 1984-style total control over the proles. Let’s make it happen.”
The trucking and transport and taxi companies love it because it will eliminate millions of pay packets, which they think will be great for the bottom line. Also, the automotive industry loves it because it’s research and development that keeps their labs busy and will result in products they can look forward to selling as part of the next revolution. And governments are subsidizing this R&D with seed money from their deep coffers because they think it will help transform the economy. (I know for a fact the Japanese Government for one is actively funding and guiding this research.)
What’s more, we must never underestimate politicians’ (and bureaucrats’) logic: “Something must be done. This looks like something. Therefore we must do it.”
But I’m also guessing that they haven’t thought this thing through so it may well all end in tears. But for the moment, it is The Next Big Thing.
There will be self driving cars by the time the first shipload of human rats leaves for Mars.
That ship will be called the Mayflower
All this talk of autonomous vehicles and AI taking over, not to mention drones, hyperloops and flying cars as another manifestation of fake news.
Yep – along with solar energy job numbers,, EVs and GW…. fake news
Ooops … sorry … GW is not fake… everything else is but not GW (sarc)
Ok, not GW. But maybe the way it’s being cynically used to perpetuate the final looting of the planet, right before dieoff hits, by the elites.
Why would solar and EVs be considered fake —yet not GW?
All 3 are endlessly repeated by the MSM
Because GW is real FE, and can’t be faked. The evidence is all around. What is fake is the political reaction to GW, in that decisions to deal with it in any meaningful way are delayed or ignored, because of the existential threat it poses. Not to future generations, but to today’s profits and profligate lifestyles. Which is why the Daily Mail and Forbes etc print so much rubbish about it. Because any efforts at really dealing with it are a threat to their owner’s existences, and the class they belong too. Have you not noticed that overwhelmingly the top 1% are rabidly anti anthropogenic GW?
There is evidence that solar works all around — I have panels on my garage – they pump water…they work….
Thousands of scientists tell us it works — Germany and Spain and Norway are spending fortunes on solar — they are generating energy from it… it works…. it is real….
Yes of course there are a few brave souls out there who are disputing that it works…. but almost everyone believes that it works. That is just needs a bit of tweaking. I don’t think I know of anyone who does not think solar is the future aside from a few people on FW.
How is that different from GW? Most people believe in it — even though there has been NO warming for 20 years — and that is FACT.
Just because the MSM and scientists say it is real — does not mean it is real.
WMD were real.
Solar is real.
EVs are real.
You have a brain – use it – oh but sorry you are human — once you have been indoctrinated you generally do not change your mind. Logic does not matter.
No glo bal warm ing at all for 18 years 9 months – a new record – The Pause lengthens again – just in time for UN Summit in Paris
http://www.clim—-atedepot.com/2015/11/04/no-gl——obal-war—-ming-at-all-for-18-years-9-months-a-new-record-the-pause-lengthens-again-just-in-time-for-un-summit-in-paris/
https://lh3.googleusercontent.com/-xAdiohdkcU4/VjpSKNYP9SI/AAAAAAACa8Q/639el4qIzpM/s720-Ic42/monckton1.png
It’s all around us? Where? The cl imate has NOT war med.
Ok FE. Let’s leave it at that.
http://www.thehummingnotes.com/upload_files/files/2016/07/churchill-v-for-victory-ap410827011.jpg
FE same thing happened to me I live in Michigan and have a close friend who works for Ford. I shared him that article and he replied . By 2021 fully autonomous cars would be on the roads and in 20 years every car will be automated. Then he said ‘i should know I work for Ford”. He is totally delusional and he works in the IT department. lol There is no convincing the sheep they will always claim the technology will make major breath through ahead and that the check is in the mail.
Once someone believes something … once the MSM indoctrinates them…. no matter what facts you put in front of them…. they will not change their minds…
I could list a dozen issues like this off the top of my head…. where people have been hammered by the MSM for years — and they will believe what they believe until they die …
They have not even the slightest bit of doubt…
e.g. GW
Not to mention the Russians will hack them and drive them around like a video game.
And not a peep from the MSM about how the NSA records communications globally and uses said recordings to no doubt blackmail/control people as they see fit.
There is a bit of projection going on here — it is the US that does all the things that the MSM is accusing the Russians of doing.
But not a peep on that from the MSM…. not a peep.
And yet people here on FW — swallow much of what the MSM feeds them …. without questioning it.
Rather disappointing …. one would have thought that those who landed on FW would be la creme de la creme ….
It seems not — it seems that with some issues they are no better than the blunt people they are forever mocking …
FWers get so pissed off when they attempt to explain how the oil is running out of how EVs and solar are futile — they bleat on and on — it is so frustrating to deal with such people — oh whatever shall I do — I have pulled half my hair out — and STILL they will not see the light — no even a silver of light or doubt makes it through!!!!
They refuse to accept facts and logic — they have made up their minds and they will never change them — no matter what
And what’s worse -they get ANGRY with me — they insult me — they ridicule me — because I am providing facts that prove they are wrong — or that at least should convince them to think a bit more deeply about the issue — but nooooooo they get angry!
Oh I hate such people — they are so stewpid and ignorant. Dogmatic. Pathetic.
But when the tables are turned — our supposedly open=minded — almighty FWers — well what do they do?
Yes of course — they reject the facts.
They react in the exact same way as people they despise.
This is priceless!!!! Well actually — it is shameful
https://www.brainyquote.com/photos_tr/en/j/jeanjacquesrousseau/406104/jeanjacquesrousseau1.jpg
Wrong
I changed my position on GMO Monsanto – when the facts and my understanding of the issue changed. I then realized how I had been such a MOREon before. To this day I am embarrassed by how I argued with people over this issue
I changed my position on renewable energy – when the facts and my understanding of the issue changed. I then realized how I had been such a MOREon before. To this day I am embarrassed by how I argued with people over this issue
I changed my position on AGW – when the facts and my understanding of the issue changed. I then realized how I had been such a MOREon before. To this day I am embarrassed by how I argued with people over this issue
Gail has done an excellent job of working out the reason why we are fed this pack of lies.
Tim has done an excellent job of presenting many of the facts that lead to my escaping from my state of MORonism with respect to this issue
Thank you Gail and Tim — and a tip of the hat to James Lovelock and Patrick Moore as well as my trusty assistant http://www.google.com
It takes a monumental effort to ‘see the light’ — I can see clearly now…
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FscIgtDJFXg
Meanwhile so many remain mired in the muck and slop and ooze …. suckered by Leo and Al… and the MSM…. and the forces of illogic.
I disagree. The sooner we bite the bullet the less the human suffering. Collapse now! Collapse now for the common good.
I say yes we can! Collapse now!
and, human extinction is inevitable.
the sooner we go extinct, the less the human suffering!
So you think 4000 spent fuel ponds boiling and burning up will be a good thing?
Spent fuel ponds — another example of how people will never change their minds…
The facts and evidence are overwhelming — there is no way to stop these from burning up post BAU — and the release of radiation will be catastrophic,..
But yet people just gloss over all of that…. they just pretend that cannot happen — because they don’;t want to happen
The human brain should have its own Cirque du Soleil — it can perform some amazing feats
Hm, again, the spent fuel cartridges at temporary ponds at the NPP site are there for 3+ yrs (max ~10yrs), depending on the type of reactor-fuel mix, most of the NPP sites are purposely placed near vast pool of flowing water, there are several redundancy systems in place for water circulation to these pools. We can perhaps get the data on the necessary m3/h pumping throughput or kW/MW demand of it all in 365/24 fashion, relatively speaking it won’t be much anyway for semi collapsed society to allocate resources to this temporary goal.
Hence on the assumption there will be enough people and fuel available to cool these pools, it’s not that pressing issue. So, is the scenario of universal instantaneous abandonment (doom) of all infrastructure (incl NPPs) legit? Yes it is, but with certain probability, given the above I put it in my book as relatively low probability.
Much more pressing concerns are bogged spent fuel (mid-long term) depositories across the world. For example even the supposedly hitech and green powerhouse W/Germany has got one, which is probably under worse standard than in North Korea! These corrupt idi#ts just used an old and shallow salt mine (~700m) and literally dumped the spent fuel barrels into the pit (up, down, sideways), only after few decades they somewhat started to place it correctly. Nevertheless, the porous salt mine structure is leaking water all over throughout, it’s a time bomb. Now, they recently opened a proper one in better geological site elsewhere, but the first one is so huge already it won’t be likely solved in time. Typical German mentality, evidently the higher “misplaced priority” has been for past 30yrs rather to dismantle perfectly working reactors in the Eastern part, instead of using available methods to safety upgrades, running it easily till ~2030s..
Well crippling the landscape with wind+PV, stressing stability of neighboring grid networks, eventual coal renewal.. and or natgas quarrels with the US/RU.. apparently very worth it. What an island of sheer logic in that crazy country again..
And of course Dicaprio — another spokesperson for the GW Kult…. prances about the planet in a private jet…
http://dailycaller.com/2014/09/21/leonardo-dicaprio-pauses-private-jets-yachting-with-oil-rich-sheikhs-to-join-peoples-cli mate-march/
And of course there is Elon — another front man for the Kult —- who flies around in this
http://www.private-jet-fan.com/n628ts%20royal%20king-1.jpg
Hello people…. if the world were really burning up — do you think that the key spokespeople would be behaving like this? The men who are urging us to Take Action!!!!
Think about it!
You have been played
He’s a hypocrite who can’t seem to realise that his lifestyle is the problem.
Make ’em all fly economy class and bring in a 95% Greenie Tax on all income for anyone who waffles about the need to make sacrifices to save the planet. Sorted!
How can he not realize that his lifestyle is a problem – he is not re tar ded.
The reason these guys live massive is because they know that a) GW is a scam and b) even if it were not a scam there would be no stopping it because without burning fossil fuels BAU ends.
They are doing EXACTLY what one with their knowledge would be expected to do — help calm the sheeple by misdirecting them — think of it as public service messages — kinda like Charlie Sheen fronting for the Say No to Drugs campaign —- and meanwhile living large.
This is all theatre — and the sheeple are just too stooopid to recognize it.
You do not live in a f789ing house of that size — if you believe in GW
No bloody way
You’re thinking about this too deeply. WYSIWYG with humans. The same way they cannot understand they are living in a bubble created by the one time release of fossil fuels, they believe that the modern IC is a permanent condition of human beings, and that no significant change is required, beyond exchanging carbon credits & lifestyle change at the individual level. No systemic reform is deemed necessary, or even possible. That’s what makes them sheeple, delusistanis etc. You know?
My thinking is on the money.
Al Gore is a front man for GW. He was asked to perform this service for the world.
Just as Elon Musk has been asked to be the front man for the relocation to Mars.
Do you think that when someone suggests to Elon that it is not possible for humans to live for long periods in space due to cosmic radiation — and he ignores the question — that he is not aware of this?
Of course he knows this is utter nonsense. That’s probably why he takes Ambien and red wine cocktails — it helps him hold a straight face when he has to explain the Mars project.
Both of these men are doing their part to help make sure the sheeple don’t get spooked.
How much more obvious can it be?
Once again —- there is NOTHING that could be done about GW if it did exist. NOTHING. We MUST burn coal and oil — we MUST. Or we collapse and die.
So pray tell why the MSM is constantly harping on about GW — about how we have to do something about it???
When there is nothing that can be done.
Anyone? Anyone?
https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2014/08/terraforming-_mars.jpg
look like oil and gas sector has collapse of pakistan
No oil, gas exploration lease awarded in past 4 years
The government didn’t award any oil and gas exploration lease during the past four years of its tenure, it has been learnt.
Although haughty claims were made by various government officials, however ground reality is totally different as no fresh Exploration lease was granted by the Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources, official sources told The Nation. Directorate General of Petroleum Concession is responsible for award exploration leases and bringing new investment, however it hasn’t produce any tangible results. There are several challenges faced by the DGPC which includes the shortage of workforce, companies employees are deputed to work in the most sensitive department, delay in reorganisation of DGPC.
http://nation.com.pk/business/31-Jul-2017/no-oil-gas-exploration-lease-awarded-in-past-4-years
IMHO Pakistan will be the first major country over the cliff.
and they have nuclear weapons?
what could possibly go wrong?
this will not end well.
Before Venezuela?
Holy cow ba tman — this guy could be me — maybe he is Fast Eddy?
Recall that I too at one point thought of Mo nsanto as a villain — but then when I realized that TI NA when you have 7.5 billion people who need to eat….
I changed my tune — and determined GM O Ro un dup and all the rest of the chem icals required to make sure the food supply was reliable — were necessary evils.
Gen etic ally modif ed foods[edit]
In 2006, Moore addressed a Biotechn ology Industry Organization conference in Waikiki saying, “There’s no getting away from the fact that over 6 billion people wake up each day on this planet with real needs for food, energy and materials”, and need genetically engineered crops to this end.[47]
You gotta respect a guy like this — WHEN THE FACTS AND INFORMATION THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO CHANGE — YOU CHANGE YOUR POSITION.
Let’s have a peak at how the Ko om baya K ult reacted to one of its Pope’s suggestion that reli gi on is bull sh it – as expected…. he is a tra itor — c orrupt – an i d iot…
What a f78 9 ing j oke!
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-statement-on-patric/
Not only the grains are required, the but maximum exploitation of resources to keep the combines and trucks rolling, to harvest, store and distribute.
A large % of historical famines were the consequence of wastage in storage, and the inability to ship grains to where they were needed, in time and at a low-enough cost to be viable – even within so compact a country as England, the North could be well-fed and the South starve and vice-versa until the development of superior road and canal networks in the 18th century.
Exactly.
It is amazing how absolutely stewpid I once was …. I used to rant and rave against Monsanto… I called them the devil …. I was a dedicated Green Groooopie!
But then I realized that without the likes of Monsanto — Malthus would have already been right.
And that dictated that I embrace Monsanto… well not quite embrace… I prefer not to get too close so I try to avoid GMO and pesticides….
Those are for the other 7.5 billion feeders… because the last thing I want is for them to starve and eat me…
Let them east GMO – after all they are pretty much all stewpid MOREons anyway — ideally one could get away with feeding the lot of them rat poison.
again go look at the results of varieties of crops and you will find that GMOs under perform. They have not changed the green revolution. Malthus was stalled by Haber-Bausch.
Even if they have failed to increase crop yields… I am still for any franken-experiment that is aimed at keeping the 7.5 B and counting population fed cheaply….
Saudi Aramco CEO believes oil shortage coming despite U.S. shale boom
http://www.foxbusiness.com/markets/2017/07/10/saudi-aramco-ceo-believes-oil-shortage-coming-despite-u-s-shale-boom.html
International Energy Agency Chief warns of oil shortages by 2020 as discoveries fall to record lows
https://www.wsj.com/articles/iea-says-global-oil-discoveries-at-record-low-in-2016-1493244000
HSBC Global Bank warns of Oil shortages by 2020
https://www.research.hsbc.com/R/24/vzchQwb
UBS Global Bank warns of Oil Shortage ahead
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/newsbysector/energy/oilandgas/12136886/Oil-slowdown-to-trigger-supply-crisis-by-2020-warns-bank.html
The Oil Age may come to an end for a shortage of oil. -Saudi Oil Minister Sheikh Yamani
the arithmetic is simple
we burn 25bn barrels a year
we find 2.5bn barrels a year
therefore we are living high on grandma’s legacy. we have no other income.
I thought we burned 32 billion barrels a year.
Actually it’s even more than I thought;
https://www.iea.org/about/faqs/oil/
“For 2016, the IEA Oil Market Report forecasts worldwide average demand of nearly 96 million barrels of oil and liquid fuels per day – that works out to more than 35 billion barrels a year.”
We better get busy finding those extra Ghawar’s.
We only use around 80 million barrels a day of crude. The IEA just counts anything oily that burns, pretty soon they will be counting baby oil and scotch whiskey in their totals.
“35 billion barrels a year”
and the low end estimate for recoverable conventional oil is about 1,000 billion barrels.
do the math.
that’s about 30 years at today’s level of production.
that’s why, when calculations are done using all available data, peak oil is estimated in the mid 2020’s and declining production will continue for decades afterwards.
oil is finite, but the math says decades more.
it doesn’t work like that
bau means infinetly increasing ”forward motion”—-decline means slowing down, but slowing down means loss of industrial activity = growing unemployment. Up to now, we have had increasing fuelburning=increasing employment. That must go on or we’re in trouble.
That will be a cascading problem, not a gradual decline to an ultimate zero in 100 years time, because we cannot have jobs without fuelburning.
as jobs go, social unrest will increase, which itself will make commercial cohesion impossible within a very short time—irrespective of how much oil is ”down there”
there is a ‘critical mass’ of unemployment, before a nation collapses in on itself, because its support system is no longer functioning—taxation, government funding and so on.
individual nations get imf loans to stave this off, (eg Greece) but imf loans are based on a supposition that they will be repaid.
And how can they be repaid?
From future energy resources, which will be in decline or simply not there.
So loans ultimately cannot work because they are ”money creation schemes” with no energy backup, in say 10 or 20 years
—lenders know this, so will not lend in the short term either
so financial confidence evaporates, and the world commercial system become dysfunctional
I think Norman’s right.
We can’t have Granny’s endowment and eat it.
The endowment — future affordable fossil energy resources — is being progressively depleted, and yet our current economic and financial arrangements implicitly assume that these resources will remain accessible at an affordable price indefinitely, which they won’t, and the continued survival of this economic and financial system that supports all our lives, depends on that assumption being true.
whats a billion or few between doomsters
Patrick Moore (born 1947) is a Canadian activist, and former president of Greenpeace Canada. Since leaving Greenpeace, Moore has criticized the environmental movement for what he sees as scare tactics and disinformation, saying that the environmental movement “abandoned science and logic in favor of emotion and sensationalism.”[4]
He has sharply and publicly differed with many policies of major environmental groups, including Greenpeace itself on other issues including forestry, biotechnology, aquaculture, and the use of chemicals for many applications.[5] According to Greenpeace, he is “a paid spokesman for the nuclear industry, the logging industry, and genetic engineering industry” and is an outspoken proponent of nuclear energy and skeptical of human activity as the main cause for climate change
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Patrick_Moore_(environmentalist)
Holy cow batman — this guy could be me — maybe he is Fast Eddy?
Recall that I too at one point thought of Monsanto as a villain — but then when I realized that TINA when you have 7.5 billion people who need to eat….
I changed my tune — and determined GMO Roundup and all the rest of the chemicals required to make sure the food supply was reliable — were necessary evils.
Genetically modified foods[edit]
In 2006, Moore addressed a Biotechnology Industry Organization conference in Waikiki saying, “There’s no getting away from the fact that over 6 billion people wake up each day on this planet with real needs for food, energy and materials”, and need genetically engineered crops to this end.[47]
You gotta respect a guy like this — WHEN THE FACTS AND INFORMATION THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO CHANGE — YOU CHANGE YOUR POSITION.
Let’s have a peak at how the Koombaya Kult reacted to one of its Pope’s suggestion that religion is bull sh it – as expected…. he is a traitor — corrupt – an idiot…
What a f789 ing joke!
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-statement-on-patric/
If you actually took the time to look at the GMOs you would find that their productivity is far below that of non GMO crops. Most GMOS were for herbicide resistance and internal pesticide production. Mot are now failing and new ones must be created. They were mostly a mechanism to control seeds and agriculture in general. Normal selective breeding is a better way to go as there are less additional genetics added to the genome of the target plant. But hey if you feel comfortable eating GMOs I won’t stop you.
For all you Kool-Aid drinkers out there, who believe
“Russia Did It!”
isn’t the massive American volume of “Russia did it” just blatant xenophobia?
Can we get something for all the Kool Aid drinkers who are convinced that GW must be fact — because the MSM repeats it over and over and over again
Kinda like they repeat the ‘fact’ that Putin is the ant-christ over and over and over…..
Hang tight — if they continue for long enough everyone will eventually believe it is true — and heaven forbid anyone should state that it is a hoax….
Nope — there is not unconvincing someone once they are convinced
Case in point ______________
hi Eddy,
the MSM can repeat whatever they want, but there is no proof that carbondioxide causes GW.
correlation is not causation.
I’d rather ignore the MSM.
there are some very smart persons on both sides of this issue.
I suspect that means the Earth is not fully understood by scientists.
Really, my illiterate friend?
Some basic physics:
The energy from the photon causes the CO2 molecule to vibrate. Shortly thereafter, the molecule gives up this extra energy by emitting another infrared photon. Once the extra energy has been removed by the emitted photon, the carbon dioxide stops vibrating.
This ability to absorb and re-emit infrared energy is what makes CO2 an effective heat-trapping greenhouse gas. Not all gas molecules are able to absorb IR radiation. For example, nitrogen (N2) and oxygen (O2), which make up more than 90% of Earth’s atmosphere, do not absorb infrared photons. CO2 molecules can vibrate in ways that simpler nitrogen and oxygen molecules cannot, which allows CO2 molecules to capture the IR photons.
Th warms the atmosphere– get it?
Reality doesn’t care what you think.
that’s just a partial understanding of Reality.
I stand by my claim:
there are some very smart persons on both sides of this issue.
I suspect that means the Earth is not fully understood by scientists.
It’s well understood.
https://3.bp.blogspot.com/-NMWfj-_VIyk/WYQC36LCniI/AAAAAAAAxI0/mXaR3795p-oAfqMshS3t_wHFZTURUM5KwCLcBGAs/s640/images%2B%252849%2529.jpg
More than 6,300 stores are shutting down — here’s the full list
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/more-6-300-stores-shutting-160718646.html
holy shit radio-shack had so many stores
even after bankruptcy in 2015
That represents a lot of employees.
I never shopped at any of them…They could of done a focus group.
That being said Sears made me a ton of cash shorting them.
Althou Bratislava, the capital of Slovakia, is one of the richest regions of Europe as regards GDP per capita:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Bratislava
“The Bratislava Region is the wealthiest and economically most prosperous region of Slovakia, despite being the smallest by area and having the second smallest population of the eight Slovak regions. It accounts for about 26% of the Slovak GDP.[6] The GDP per capita (PPP) is 188% (2016) of the EU average which is the third highest of all regions in the EU member states.[7] Statistics are though deformed by centralisation in Slovakia, where almost all governmental institutions as well as private companies in the country have their headquarters in the capital and by lower number of official inhabitants as compared to estimates.”
There is a rising trend of child abuse in Bratislava. And, surprisingly, in most cases, the culprit is mother:
http://hnonline.sk/slovensko/1005928-tyranych-deti-v-bratislave-pribuda-agresorom-je-najcastejsie-matka
why is child abuse is rising the answer is in the article
Due to the worsening situation in Slovakia, children are being abused. They may not be bad parents, but stress from mortgages, loans or job losses may result in psychological abuse or neglect
this ls called effects of late stage capitalism which mean it dog-eating dog world
Exactly, the life dependent on debt makes the population growth a suicidal activity.
can you tell how big was impact of financial crisis of 2008 in slovakia
any article or documentary
There are various articles about it on the internet, but my personal experience was e.g. that suddenly there was a radical fall in tourism, as the hordes of the tourists suddenly disappeared, or there was a lack of shoppers in the shops. The whole crazy growth before 2008 halted. After 2008, the people started to build smaller houses like bungalows and the small flats became popular. The prices of bigger houses and flats fell considerably. The energy saving and so called green energy became more and more visible, the people went into more and more debt, the ageing of the population continued. More various strange individuals with tatoos, piercings, excessive makeup, anorectic bodies etc. can be seen.
My opinion is that the depopulation will simply continue: there will be less and less permanently inhabited houses and flats in the marginal areas of the country in the mountains and away from the industrial western part of the country and the forest will be covering larger parts of the country due to the lack of animals or persons to care for the plots and the countriside.
You have your answer…I think
I can tell you that in my city it was a boom I remember telling people about it and they told me to add a s tag.
Halifax NS Canada
One can see how parents were driven to eat their children during famines.
When the state subsidizes fertility via various incentives, then, no wonder, when these incentives are ceasing and stopping, the peole realize, that their dreamed marriage, children and family are the product of subsidies (i.e. the external energy that is disappearing).
Very few things I read make my mouth fall open in astonishment anymore. This is one:
https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/07/department-of-energy-risks-michael-lewis?mbid=nl_th_5977c39b7c67a060584ba939&CNDID=36849623&spMailingID=11559140&spUserID=MTMzMTgyOTAzNDE4S0&spJobID=1202330385&spReportId=MTIwMjMzMDM4NQS2
I looked at this; it struck me as very strange in many ways.
Obviously, a person would expect the Trump administration to take more of an interest in the department they are taking over. But there are other issues as well.
What is the world is the Energy Department doing, with so much nuclear oversight in its mix? Who should be doing this? The EU is in a similar situation, with their oversight mostly (or all) in England, and England leaving the EU. Nuclear is having a huge problem worldwide right now. This is part of a much bigger worldwide issue.
And then we have all of the proposed renewables. I can kind of understand the Trump administration wanting to take a step back on these.
It seems like the Energy Department should be doing something, but after half a year, the Trump administration doesn’t seem to be very far along on figuring out what it should be.
The Amazon Era: No Profits, No Problem
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jonmarkman/2017/05/23/the-amazon-era-no-profits-no-problem/#39afe3df437a
If interest rates are zero, perhaps required return on investment is also pretty much zero. We are not getting enough energy profit to keep the system going.
Patrick Moore is not a cofounder of Greenpeace…
And the original G W scientist https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Lovelock#Career
Also CHANGED HIS MIND:
Green Guru James Lovelock reverses belief in ‘glo bal warm ing’: Now says ‘I’m not sure the whole thing isn’t crazy’
He is of course _____________ fill in the blank with crazy – stewpid – an id iot — corrupt — insane….
If Jesus were to appear on earth and explain that religion was a hoax — that we are just characters in a computer simulation …
He would be tied to a stake and burned.
When people are indoctrinated by the MSM — they seldom change their views…
James and Patrick did …. Fast Eddy did
Remember how 20 years ago most of you believed that solar panels would save the world — remember how you watched Who Killed the Electric Car and thought – those bastards!!!!
You are capable of change.
Holy cow batman — this guy could be me — maybe he is Fast Eddy?
Recall that I too at one point thought of Monsanto as a villain — but then when I realized that TINA when you have 7.5 billion people who need to eat….
I changed my tune — and determined GM O Roun dup and all the rest of the chemicals required to make sure the food supply was reliable — were necessary evils.
Genetic ally modif ed foods[edit]
In 2006, Moore addressed a Biotechnology Industry Organization conference in Waikiki saying, “There’s no getting away from the fact that over 6 billion people wake up each day on this planet with real needs for food, energy and materials”, and need genetically engineered crops to this end.[47]
You gotta respect a guy like this — WHEN THE FACTS AND INFORMATION THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO CHANGE — YOU CHANGE YOUR POSITION.
Let’s have a peak at how the Koom baya K ult reacted to one of its Pope’s suggestion that reli gion is bull sh it – as expected…. he is a traitor — corrupt – an id iot…
What a f789 ing joke!
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-statement-on-patric/
Holy cow ba tman — this guy could be me — maybe he is Fast Eddy?
Recall that I too at one point thought of Mo nsanto as a villain — but then when I realized that TI NA when you have 7.5 billion people who need to eat….
I changed my tune — and determined GM O Ro un dup and all the rest of the chem icals required to make sure the food supply was reliable — were necessary evils.
Gen etic ally modif ed foods[edit]
In 2006, Moore addressed a Biotechn ology Industry Organization conference in Waikiki saying, “There’s no getting away from the fact that over 6 billion people wake up each day on this planet with real needs for food, energy and materials”, and need genetically engineered crops to this end.[47]
You gotta respect a guy like this — WHEN THE FACTS AND INFORMATION THAT YOU HAVE ACCESS TO CHANGE — YOU CHANGE YOUR POSITION.
Let’s have a peak at how the Ko om baya K ult reacted to one of its Pope’s suggestion that reli gi on is bull sh it – as expected…. he is a tra itor — c orrupt – an i d iot…
What a f78 9 ing j oke!
http://www.greenpeace.org/usa/news/greenpeace-statement-on-patric/
LOL!
The spectator? Owned by the Daily Mail”
http://www.dailyimpact.net/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/Titanic_sinking_painting_by_Willy_St%C3%B6wer.jpg
“This is the Captain speaking. First, let me make this absolutely clear: there is no reason to worry.”
If the country were open on its borders, new forms would certainly immigrate, and this would also seriously disturb the relations of some of the former inhabitants. Let it be remembered how powerful the influence of a single introduced tree or mammal has been shown to be.
-Charles Darwin, The Origin of Species
http://imgur.com/a/dNZdv
From the graph it would appear that both populations are the same species of mammal – H.sapiens. Introducing Asian carp species into the Mississippi drainage area is an example of exotic species powerfully influencing and disturbing the relations of some of the former inhabitants.
just did a litmus test on the ocean near Byron Bay 6.4
If Fast Eddy can get his car up to 750mph before he hits the rock cut, being atomized looks like a painless way to die.
The Mahatma on how to solve our heat, power and energy problems:
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-i-have-learned-through-bitter-experience-the-one-supreme-lesson-to-conserve-my-anger-and-as-heat-mahatma-gandhi-328435.jpg
Increasing entropy.
May have worked against the British Empire, but how about Idi Amin?
Or Hitler? Or Pol Pot?
Gandhi would be a footnote in history (South Africa) under those conditions.
Anger is a expensive emotion, and would be selected against if it did not bring genetic fitness,
“Inflation in the Group of 20 largest economies fell to its lowest level in almost eight years in June, deepening a puzzle confronting central banks as they contemplate removing post-crisis stimulus measures.”
https://www.wsj.com/articles/global-inflation-hits-lowest-level-since-2009-1501754403
I expect that wage growth has probably fallen to its lowest level as well–we just don’t have as good a way of tracking it on an up-to-date basis. It needs to reflect unemployment as well. (In Europe, the unemployment levels tend to be higher than the US, because of higher minimum wages and the power of unions.) And debt growth of the G-20 countries is likely down as well. Raising interest rates is a good way to make debt growth fall further.
The US-EU statistics are not comparable, the US gov issued long time unemployment rate as including dozens millions of discouraged and not seeking work are way above the official “unemployment” numbers, I hoped this has been cleared here while ago..
There are professionals following it in detail, could be easily googled..
That could be. I know that there are several different ways of defining unemployment, and the US data excludes “discouraged workers.” If no job that is available pays enough to cover transportation costs to the job, a person will likely be discouraged.
I have not studied EU data as much as US data, so I feel less comfortable working with it.
‘Inconvenient’ – Al Gore’s Home Devours 34 Times More Electricity Than Average U.S. Household
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-08-03/inconvenient-al-gores-home-devours-34-times-more-electricity-average-us-household
Does this sound like something someone would do who was gravely concerned about what we are doing to the planet?
You are being played.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/DCtFwNDXoAA1-4F.jpg
Thanks for sharing Tim! LOL
Don Draper at work — get the sheeple to scream about a fake problem — then invent fake solutions (EVs solar wind) — and keep them focused on that — and oblivious to the real problem — then end of cheap energy — and of the world.
Don’t get me wrong — I am behind Don all the way — the last thing we want is for the sheeple to get wind of the pack of wolves that is trying to squeeze through the gap in the fence
We are not sheeple on FW — such things do not spook us because we can see the wolves are about to breach the fence.
http://images.politico.com/global/2013/02/22/070225_gore_dicaprio_oscars_ap_605_978.jpg
Somebody meme this.
Damn Al, you are a better actor than me.
Fast Eddy:
A physical phenomena is not less true just because a bunch of people whom you dislike are popularizing it, and because it does not fit your prejudices about the world.
And no, I don’t agree with them all the way, especially when they are trying to sell the hopium to the masses, and getting richer in the process. And they do represent the system that brought us here, and are hypocrites, etc, etc, etc. But you and I are, more or less, responsible too, and hypocrites to boot. Actually, I am more responsible than you, because I have children, and you don’t.
But the physical phenomena ( I now feel like a Florida state employee) we are talking about is not less real. And is the last time I will post on the topic.