Economists have given us a model of how prices and quantities of goods are supposed to interact.
Figure 1. From Wikipedia: The price P of a product is determined by a balance between production at each price (supply S) and the desires of those with purchasing power at each price (demand D). The diagram shows a positive shift in demand from D1 to D2, resulting in an increase in price (P) and quantity sold (Q) of the product.
Unfortunately, this model is woefully inadequate. It sort of works, until it doesn’t. If there is too little of a product, higher prices and substitutions are supposed to fix the problem. If there is too much, prices are supposed to fall, causing the higher-priced producers to drop out of the system.
This model doesn’t work with oil. If prices drop, as they have done since mid-2014, businesses don’t drop out. They often try to pump more. The plan is to try to make up for inadequate prices by increasing the volume of extraction. Of course, this doesn’t fix the problem. The hidden assumption is, of course, that eventually oil prices will again rise. When this happens, the expectation is that oil businesses will be able to make adequate profits. It is hoped that the system can again continue as in the past, perhaps at a lower volume of oil extraction, but with higher oil prices.
I doubt that this is what really will happen. Let me explain some of the issues involved.
[1] The economy is really a much more interlinked system than Figure 1 makes it appear.
Supply and demand for oil, and for many other products, are interlinked. If there is too little oil, the theory is that oil prices should rise, to encourage more production. But if there is too little oil, some would-be workers will be without jobs. For example, truck drivers may be without jobs if there is no fuel for the vehicles they drive. Furthermore, some goods will not be delivered to their desired locations, leading to a loss of even more jobs (both at the manufacturing end of the goods, and at the sales end).
Ultimately, a lack of oil can be expected to reduce the availability of jobs that pay well. Digging in the ground with a stick to grow food is a job that is always around, with or without supplemental energy, but it doesn’t pay well!
Thus, the lack of oil really has a two-way pull:
(a) Higher prices, because of the shortage of oil and the desired products it produces.
(b) Lower prices, because of a shortage of jobs that pay adequate wages and the “demand” (really affordability) that these jobs produce.
[2] There are other ways that the two-way pull on prices can be seen:
(a) Prices need to be high enough for oil producers, or they will eventually stop extracting and refining the oil, and,
(b) Prices cannot be too high for consumers, or they will stop buying products made with oil.
If we think about it, the prices of basic commodities, such as food and fuel, cannot rise too high relative to the wages of ordinary (also called “non-elite”) workers, or the system will grind to a halt. For example, if non-elite workers are at one point spending half of their income on food, the price of food cannot double. If it does, these workers will have no money left to pay for housing, or for clothing and taxes.
[3] The upward pull on oil prices comes from a combination of three factors.
(a) Rising cost of production, because the cheapest-to-produce oil tends to be extracted first, leaving the more expensive-to-extract oil for later. (This pattern is also true for other types of resources.)
(b) If workers are becoming more productive, this growing productivity of workers is often reflected in higher wages for the workers. With these higher wages, workers can afford more goods made with oil, and that use oil in their operation. Thus, these higher wages lead to higher “demand” (really affordability) for oil.
Recently, worker productivity has not been growing. One reason this is not surprising is because energy consumption per capita hit a peak in 2013. With less energy consumption per capita, it is likely that, on average, workers are not being given bigger and better “tools” (such as trucks, earth-moving equipment, and other machines) with which to leverage their labor. Such tools require the use of energy products, both when they are manufactured and when they are operated.
Figure 2. World Daily Per Capita Energy Consumption, based on primary energy consumption from BP Statistical Review of World Energy and 2017 United Nations population estimates.
(c) Another “pull” on demand comes from increased investment. This investment can be debt-based or can reflect equity investment. It is these financial assets that allow new mines to be opened, and new factories to be built. Thus, wages of non-elite workers can grow. McKinsey Global Institute reports that growth in total “financial assets” has slowed since 2007.
Figure 3. Figure by McKinsey Global Institute showing that growth in debt in financial instruments (both debt and equity) has slowed significantly since 2007. Source
More recent data by McKinsey Global Institute shows that cross-border investment, in particular, has slowed since 2007.
Figure 4. Figure by McKinsey Global Institute showing that global cross-border capital flows (combined debt and equity) have declined by 65% since the 2007 peak. Download from this page.
This cross-border investment is especially helpful in encouraging exports, because it often puts into place new facilities that encourage extraction of minerals. Some minerals are available in only a few places in the world; these minerals are often traded internationally.
[4] The downward pull on oil and other commodity prices comes from several sources.
(a) Oil exports are often essential to the countries where they are extracted because of the tax revenue and jobs that they produce. The actual cost of extraction may be quite low, making extraction feasible, even at very low prices. Because of the need for tax revenue and jobs, governments will often encourage production regardless of price, so that the country can maintain its place in the world export market until prices again rise.
(b) Everyone “knows” that oil and other commodities will be needed in the years ahead. Because of this, there is no point in stopping production altogether. In fact, the cost of production is likely to keep rising, putting an upward push on commodity prices. This belief encourages businesses to stay in the market, regardless of the economics.
(c) There is a long lead-time for developing new extraction capabilities. Decisions made today may affect extraction ten years from now. No one knows what the oil price will be when the new production is brought online. At the same time, new production is coming on-line today, based on analyses when prices were much higher than they are today. Furthermore, once all of the development costs have been put in place, there is no point in simply walking away from the investment.
(d) Storage capacity is limited. Production and needed supply must balance exactly. If there is more than a tiny amount of oversupply, prices tend to plunge.
(e) The necessary price varies greatly, depending where geographically the extraction is being done, and depending on what is included in the calculation. Costs are much lower if the calculation is done excluding investment to date, or excluding taxes paid to governments, or excluding necessary investments needed for pollution control. It is often easy to justify accepting a low price, because there is usually some cost basis upon which such a low price is acceptable.
(f) Over time, there really are efficiency gains, but it is difficult to measure how well they are working. Do these “efficiency gains” simply speed up production a bit, or do they allow more oil in total to be extracted? Also, cost cuts by contractors tend to look like efficiency gains. In fact, they may simply be temporary prices cuts, reflecting the desire of suppliers to maintain some market share in a time when prices are too low for everyone.
(g) Literally, every economy in the world wants to grow. If every economy tries to grow at the same time and the market is already saturated (given the spending power of non-elite workers), a very likely outcome is plunging prices.
[5] As we look around the world, the prices of many commodities, including oil, have fallen in recent years.
Figures 3 and 4 show that investment spending spiked in 2007. Oil prices spiked not long after that–in the first half of 2008.
Figure 5. Monthly Brent oil prices with dates of US beginning and ending QE.
Quantitative Easing (QE) is a way of encouraging investment through artificially low interest rates. US QE began right about when oil prices were lowest. We can see that the big 2008 spike and drop in prices corresponds roughly to the rise and drop in investment in Figures 3 and 4, above, as well.
If we look at commodities other than oil, we often see a major downslide in prices in recent years. The timing of this downslide varies. In the US, natural gas prices fell as soon as gas from fracking became available, and there started to be a gas oversupply problem.
I expect that at least part of gas’s low price problem also comes from subsidized prices for wind and solar. These subsidies lead to artificially low prices for wholesale electricity. Since electricity is a major use for natural gas, low wholesale prices for electricity indirectly tend to pull natural gas prices down.
Figure 6. Natural gas prices in the US and Canada, indexed to the 2008 price, based on annual price data provided in BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017.
Many people assume that fracking can be done so inexpensively that the type of downslide in prices shown in Figure 6 makes sense. In fact, the low prices available for natural gas are part of what have been pushing North American “oil and gas” companies toward bankruptcy.
For a while, it looked like high natural gas prices in Europe and Asia might allow the US to export natural gas as LNG, and end its oversupply problem. Unfortunately, overseas prices of natural gas have slid since 2013, making the profitability of such exports doubtful (Figure 7).
Figure 7. Prices of natural gas imports to Europe and Asia, indexed to 2008 levels, based on annual average prices provided by BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017.
Coal prices have followed a downward slope of a different shape since 2008. Note that the 2016 prices range from 32% to 59% below the 2008 level. They are even lower, relative to 2011 prices.
Figure 8. Prices of several types of coal, indexed to 2008 levels, based on annual average prices provided by BP Statistical Review of World Energy, 2017.
Figure 9 shows the price path for several metals and minerals. These seem to follow a downward path as well. I did not find a price index for rare earth minerals that went back to 2008. Recent data suggested that the prices of these minerals have been falling as well.
Figure 9. Prices of various metals and minerals, indexed to 2008, based on USGS analyses found using this link: https://minerals.usgs.gov/minerals/pubs/mcs/
Figure 9 shows that several major metals are down between 24% and 35% since 2008. The drop is even greater, relative to 2011 price levels.
Internationally traded foods have also fallen in price since 2008.
Figure 10. Food prices, indexed to 2008 levels, based on data from the United Nations’ Food and Agricultural Organization.
In Item [4] above, I listed several factors that would tend to make oil prices fall. These same issues could be expected to cause the prices of these other commodities to drop. In addition, energy products are used in the production of metals and minerals and of foods. A drop in the price of energy products would tend to flow through to lower extraction prices for minerals, and lower costs for growing agricultural products and bringing products to market.
One surprising place where prices are dropping is in the auction prices for the output of onshore wind turbines. This is a chart shown by Roger Andrews, in a recent article on Energy Matters. The cost of making wind turbines doesn’t seem to be dropping dramatically, except from the fall in the prices of commodities used to make the turbines. Yet auction prices seem to be dropping by 20% or more per year.
Figure 11. Figure by Roger Andrews, showing trend in auction prices of onshore wind energy from Energy Matters.
Thus, wind energy purchased through auctions seems to be succumbing to the same deflationary market forces as oil, natural gas, coal, many metals, and food.
[6] It is very hard to see how oil prices can rise significantly, without the prices of many other commodities also rising.
What seems to be happening is a basic mismatch between (a) the amount of goods and services countries want to sell, and (b) the amount of goods and services that are truly affordable by consumers, especially those who are non-elite workers. Somehow, we need to fix this supply/demand (affordability) imbalance.
One way of raising demand is through productivity growth. As mentioned previously, such a rise in productivity growth hasn’t been happening in recent years. Given the falling energy per capita amounts in Figure 2, it seems unlikely that productivity will be growing in the near future, because the adoption of improved technology requires energy consumption.
Another way of raising demand is through wage increases, over and above what would be indicated by productivity growth. With globalization, the trend has been to lower and less stable wages, especially for less educated workers. This is precisely the opposite direction of the change we need, if demand for goods and services is to rise high enough to prevent deflation in commodity prices. There are very many of these non-elite workers. If their wages are low, this tends to reduce demand for homes, cars, motorcycles, and the many other goods that depend on wages of workers in the world. It is the manufacturing and use of these goods that influences demand for commodities.
Another way of increasing demand is through rising investment. This can eventually filter back to higher wages, as well. But this isn’t happening either. In fact, Figures 3 and 4 show that the last big surge in investment was in 2007. Furthermore, the amount of debt growth required to increase GDP by one percentage point has increased dramatically in recent years, both in the United States and China, making this approach to economic growth increasingly less effective. Recent discussions seem to be in the direction of stabilizing or lowering debt levels, rather than raising them. Such changes would tend to lower new investment, not raise it.
[7] In many countries, falling export revenue is adversely affecting demand for imported goods and services.
It is not too surprising that the export revenue of Saudi Arabia has fallen, with the drop in oil prices.
Figure 12. Saudi Arabia exports and imports of goods and services based on World Bank data.
Because of the drop in exports, Saudi Arabia is now buying fewer imported goods and services. A person would expect other oil exporters also to be making cutbacks on their purchases of imported goods and services. (Exports in current US$ means exports measured year-by-year in US$, without any inflation adjustment.)
It is somewhat more surprising that China’s exports and imports are falling, as measured in US$. Figure 13 shows that, in US dollar terms, China’s exports of goods and services fell in both 2015 and 2016. The imports that China bought also fell, in both of these years.
Figure 13. China’s exports and imports of goods and services on a current US$ basis, based on World Bank data.
Similarly, both the exports and imports of India are down as well. In fact, India’s imports have fallen more than its exports, and for a longer period–since 2012.
Figure 14. India’s exports and imports of goods and services in current dollars, based on World Bank data.
The imports of goods and services for the United States also fell in 2015 and 2016. The US is both an exporter of commodities (particularly food and refined petroleum products) and an importer of crude oil, so this is not surprising.
Figure 15. US exports and imports of goods and services in US dollars, based on World Bank data.
In fact, on a world basis, exports and imports of goods and services both fell, in 2015 and 2016 as measured in US dollars.
Figure 16. World exports and imports in current US dollars, based on World Bank data.
[8] Once export (and import) revenues are down, it becomes increasingly difficult to raise prices again.
If a country is not selling much of its own exports, it becomes very difficult to buy much of anyone else’s exports. This impetus, by itself, tends to keep prices of commodities, including oil, down.
Furthermore, it becomes more difficult to repay debt, especially debt that is in a currency that has appreciated. This means that borrowing additional debt becomes less and less feasible, as well. Thus, new investment becomes more difficult. This further tends to keep prices down. In fact, it tends to make prices fall, since new investment is needed to keep prices level.
[9] World financial leaders in developed countries do not understand what is happening, because they have written off commodities as “unimportant” and “something that lesser-developed countries deal with.”
In the US, few consumers are concerned about the price of corn. Instead, they are interested in the price of a box of corn flakes, or the price of corn tortillas in a restaurant.
The US, Europe and Japan specialize in high “value added” goods and services. For example, in the case of a box of corn flakes, manufacturers are involved in many steps such as (a) making corn flakes from corn, (b) boxing corn flakes in attractive boxes, (c) delivering those boxes to grocers’ shelves, and (d) advertising those corn flakes to prospective consumers. These costs generally do not decrease, as commodity prices decrease. One article from 2009 says, “With the record seven-dollar corn this summer, the cost of the corn in an 18-ounce box of corn flakes was only 14 cents.”
Because of the small role that commodity prices seem to play in producing the goods and services of developed countries, it is easy for financial leaders to overlook price indications at the commodity level. (Data is available at this level of detail; the question is how closely it is examined by decision-makers.)
Figure 17. Various indices within US CPI Urban, displayed on a basis similar to that used in Figure 7 through 11. In other words, index values for later periods are compared to the average 2008 index value. CPI statistics are from US Bureau of Labor Statistics.
Figure 17 shows some components of the Consumer Price Index (CPI) on a basis similar to the trends in commodity prices shown in Figures 7 through 11. The category “Household furnishings and operations” was chosen because it has furniture in it, and I know that furniture prices have fallen because of the growing use of cheap imported furniture from China. This category shows a slight downslope in prices. The other categories all show small increases over time. If commodity prices had not decreased, prices of the other categories would likely have increased to a greater extent than they did during the period shown.
[10] Conclusion. We are likely kidding ourselves, if we think that oil prices can rise in the future, for very long, by a very large amount.
It is quite possible that oil prices will bounce back up to $80 or even $100 per barrel, for a short time. But if they rise very high, for very long, there will be adverse impacts on other segments of the economy. We can’t expect that wages will go up at the same time, so increases in oil prices are likely to lead to a decrease in the purchase of discretionary products such as meals eaten in restaurants, charitable contributions, and vacation travel. These cutbacks, in turn, can be expected to lead to layoffs in discretionary sectors. Laid off workers are likely to have difficulty repaying their loans. As a result, we are likely to head back into a recession.
As we have seen above, it is not only oil prices that need to rise; it is many other prices that need to rise as well. Making a change of this magnitude is almost certainly impossible, without “crashing” the economy.
Economists put together a simplified view of how they thought supply and demand works. This simple model seems to work, at least reasonably well, when we are away from limits. What economists did not realize is that the limits we are facing are really affordability limits, and that growing affordability depends upon productivity growth. Productivity growth in turn depends on a growing quantity of cheap-to-produce energy supplies. The term “demand,” and the two-dimensional supply-demand model, hide these issues.
The whole issue of limits has not been well understood. Peak Oil enthusiasts assumed that we were “running out” of an essential energy product. When this view was combined with the economist’s view of supply and demand, the conclusion was, “Of course, oil prices will rise, to fix the situation.”
Few stopped to realize that there is a second way of viewing the situation. What is falling is the resources that people need to have in order to have jobs that pay well. When this happens, we should expect prices to fall, rather than to rise, because workers are increasingly unable to buy the output of the economy.
If we look back at what happened historically, there have been many situations in which economies have collapsed. In fact, this is probably what we should expect as we approach limits, rather than expecting high oil prices. If collapse should take place, we should expect widespread debt defaults and major problems with the financial system. Governments are likely to have trouble collecting enough taxes, and may ultimately fail. Non-elite workers have historically come out badly in collapses. With low wages and high taxes, they have often succumbed to epidemics. We have our own epidemic now–the opioid epidemic.
Okay so there’s been some monstrous hurricane activity this past past month in the Atlantic, with many records being set for sheer level of devastation visited on the U.S. with Texas and Florida bearing the brunt of it.
However the most recent super storm, Hurricane Maria, which just ravaged the island of Puerto Rico has left 100% of the island’s inhabitants without power. The prospects for full restoration of the supply are considered as much as six months away. Jeez Louise…
Already the inhabitants of the U.S. territory are feeling the effects, with fresh water and sanitation systems, which rely on electricity, completely knocked out. Meanwhile people are running short of cash. Vendors are only accepting cash, as credit card machines, which also rely on electricity, are effectively reduced to the status of paperweights, with long lines forming outside the few remaining banks that are both operational, and have still money to dispense.
With Puerto Rico totally broke, this place presents an interesting real-time experiment in how places will likely confront the coming collapse. The only difference being that P.R. still has a lifeline to the outside world, which has not also collapsed, so some aid will be filtering through. Be that as it may, it will be a total sh#t fight there over the coming months, that’s for sure.
“With Puerto Rico totally broke, this place presents an interesting real-time experiment in how places will likely confront the coming collapse.”
Good point psile, and as we will see as time marches on people will go from offering a pleasant helpful hand to frayed nerves, fisticuffs, anger, rage, thievery etc., then once things to get back to normalcy they will have to somehow go back to trusting one another.
Ever see the Twilight Zone episode, ‘The Shelter’. A suburban dinner party is interrupted by a bulletin warning of an impending nuclear attack. As the neighbors scramble to prepare themselves, they turn against the one family that installed a permanent bomb shelter. After the bomb scare is called off one of the intruding neighbors says, “Ok, great, we can all go back to our lives again like nothing ever happened.” The owner of the fallout shelter says, “I really wonder if we can. Maybe we lost something here tonight we won’t be able to get back.” Of course that word is trust.
Human beings are works in progress from moment to moment with fluctuating personalities, ethics and morals depending on the circumstances. The good people of P.R. will find their interaction with one another will be a much more challenging experience than just acquiring food, water and shelter, and they will never be the same after this historic hurricane.
Yes, I often reflect on that classic episode of the Twilight Zone, the b & w really added to the feelings of panic and dread felt by the characters.
Those who have arrived at an understanding of our predicament are in a similar position to physicians pre-antibiotics: they possess a good idea of what is likely to occur, but can do nothing much about it, except sit by the bedside and offer soothing words…..
(Of course, physicians had some pretty strange ideas about causation then. A bit like politicians today?).
This is why women live longer.
His wife drove him to it….. 🙂
Lol
More evidence of the tattoo-IQ link.
that’s why they invented kerosene.
Good video, quick transition from happy count down to “are you ok”…
A 2nd camera farther back would have been a plus, did find a good tip in the youtube comments section: by biggdogg35810
“If you change the settings to the slowest speed, you can really see how much of the explosion force he took!”
Wow! on that slow speed it’s even more brutal. lol
Here’s another one to try – siphon gasoline and swallow a tiny amount. It’s a gawd awful experience.
These people have dreadfully exciting lives – beats my weekend!
Grow or die….
HP is dying….
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/09/22/hewlett-packard-enterprise-to-lay-off-10-of-staff/
You know you are in trouble when…- Un-Denial (Good Read)
https://un-denial.com/2017/01/06/you-know-you-are-in-trouble-when/
Someone actually gets the Macro Picture!
A good site. Been reading it for some months now.
Well and elegantly expressed summary of our predicament, or Doom to be exact.
The German Army document on fuel constraints is well worth reading in full – utterly hegative – realistic – in all respects.
thanks for that link Cliff—hadn’t come across that before
If those who hired illegals were thrown in jail there would be no need for a wall or billions spent on enforcement.
https://www.usatoday.com/border-wall/story/environmental-impact-endangered-species-jaguar/582602001/
We might be short of food as well. Also workers in other fields.
Fracking “technological breakthrough” is theft
In effect, the fracking companies have been drilling into oil deposits already owned by conventional oil companies… and damaging the existing wells in the process. This is likely to result in lengthy court disputes that will add to the financial woes of the fracking companies.
http://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2017/09/22/fracking-technological-breakthrough-is-theft/
I cannot believe how energy intensive our finite world has become. I just saw a commercial for Dodge Ram trucks (on a TV mounted on a gas pump ). It depicts a sod (grass) farmer cultivating a crop of grass. He was using his new shiny waxed and polished Dodge Ram (a tandem axle heavy duty no less) to deliver it. The grass was used as turf grass on a high school football field. At the end of the commercial the farmer (next to his glorious new RAM truck) beams with pride as he looks on to the kick off of the high school game on his freshly grown sod. What a colossal waste of energy. Totally misguided pride. Guts, Glory … RAM. What a mess!
I have been seeing a new Citibank commercial on prime time sporting events. That they say there are ‘limits’ to fossil fuels. And then they promote offshore wind power as a solution. But I was shocked to see a major commercial discuss limits to fossil fuels at all.
Why surprised? It is now acceptable to discuss it, because the orthodox propaganda is that turbines and panels will fix the problem, miraculously.
It is questioning the solar and wind narrative that is now forbidden.
http://billlabrie.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/05/rambuckle.jpg
https://imgur.com/a/u4FNW
https://imgur.com/UOJGdji
BLOOMBERG: ‘I cannot for the life of me understand why the market keeps going up’
http://www.businessinsider.com/stock-market-news-michael-bloomberg-2017-9
I suppose there is no where else to get a “return” on “investment”. It is the everything bubble and it has peaked. Financialization – is all that is left There is no productive investment left. Just seems to me like the market is essentially going up due to a lot of stock buy backs using borrowed money at near zero percent interest.
Just seems to me like the market is essentially going up due to a lot of stock buy backs using borrowed money at near zero percent interest.
That is exactly what Dr Paul Craig Roberts has been claiming. He is getting somewhat old and is a little bit of a right wing nutter. But he was the Treasury secretary at one point, so I assume he does have some knowledge of how the finical system works.
It’s not that hard to end up as ~nutter if you witnessed all the eCON changes only for past 4-5decades as an adult, and as has been often times said here, time-space travelers to and from our reality would be simply astonished from what now seems to pass as normal..
Markets always going up and financialization? Elementary, Watson..
The overproduction, specialization, and progress is just nauseating for many.
There is a relatively large caste of people who exchange new luxury cars just every other few years, the same for houses-estates, yachts, chalets, spouses – kids and what have you.. This is massive inflationary and reflationary push as long as the primary energy is there to feed this wurlitzer circus.. not mentioning the relative betterment of the ~2B peoplez, and the existence of the rest, another ~5B+
“Time-space travelers to and from our reality would be simply astonished from what now seems to pass as normal..” – I agree. Even I, living at the normal passing speed of time, am astonished at what passes as normal.
US companies spent $4T buying back their own stock
http://nypost.com/2017/08/19/us-companies-spent-4t-buying-back-their-own-stock/
Just have to take the NY Post with a huge grain of salt though. They are not a very reliable source but bad sources can be right some times and good sources can be wrong.
And the volume keeps going down.
Meanwhile, it seems that elderly Dutch cyclists are falling off their brand-new e-bikes and killing themselves because they can’t cope with the POWER………
Perhaps too flat country and hence high speeds for their own good/detriment. I found 250-350W level assist adequate, however for heavier guys (and or plus cargo) and even with combination of heavy duty full suspension dirt bike, one might want to consider upgrade into 500W + category..
It’s amusing: the Dutch policeman quoted said that it used to be one kind of Dutchman riding one kind of bike, now it’s just crazy out there – so many types and speeds…..
I think it’s one of the smaller bits “out of the left field” which might extend pseudo BAU by a great deal (few years – decade), somewhere.. Assisted Ebikes commuting/cargo shopping plus rail and tram, voila you are suddenly cutting large gasguzzling allowance of the yesterday..
Might not be much gained “breathing space” anyway if the coming depletion freefall would be quite severe and JITs for core infrastructure ricocheting overnight. We just don’t know exactly yet..
I still find it humiliating, being taken over by one-legged grannies on e-bikes, while peddling my rusty old bike….. 🙂
(PS I agree, it will be tried as an urban stop-gap, pseudo- ‘Transition’.)
Peak-Oil and Ecological Economics (Kerschner & Pérez 2017)
https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Christian_Kerschner/publication/316991314_Peak-Oil_and_Ecological_Economics/links/592d3798a6fdcc13a800a7db/Peak-Oil-and-Ecological-Economics.pdf
They have you in this paper Gail!
Thanks! My articles are mentioned in quite a few academic papers and textbooks.
I am sure I could write more academic articles, if I wanted to take the time to do so.
Rednecks will buy anything for a political statement. If you find a pallet of clearance bricks at Lowe’s. Buy the pallet and say every brick they buy keeps them out of the hands of a Black Lives Matter activist. They’ll buy the whole damn pallet. Won’t even realize what they’ve done for years. Hand them a free confederate flag with it. When they pull out their wallet to pay, make an off hand comment on how those flags are going to be banned soon and they won’t even count their money. They’ll hand it to you while they talk about how sensitive the “liberals” are and something about the constitution and their buddy’s newest gun. You make a 1000% profit and they get the feeling everyone else is a sucker. I’ve seen it a million times.
https://i.redd.it/4vtziutpjdnz.jpg
Yes, he even has the proper corporate soda in his back pocket to keep his mind enslaved and unable to think critically. Looks like they are feasting on potato chips and hamburgers with fake meat and fake bread too. WOW. They don’t even realize they are being used and played like rats in a maze game.
Why wind and solar won’t save us : TreeHugger
https://www.treehugger.com/green-architecture/why-wind-and-solar-wont-save-us.html
Lots of nuclear hopium and should have, would have, could have in the comments section. The jist of the article though is “we will use less stuff, we will have less stuff, and we will use less energy.” Which is true. But, that implies a massive die-off which is not clearly stated.
But, that implies a massive die-off which is not clearly stated.
Don’t forget mass hysteria and chaos as well!
I think we need to use more energy …. every year we need to break the previous year’s record… or else…
Kris De Decker is really good!
I do like Low Tech Magazine!
“I suggested that instead of investing so much in increasing renewable energy supply, we should be doing everything we can to reduce demand — for instance, building our homes as super-insulated thermal batteries that require very little heat at all and can go for days without much heat input because they are so well insulated. It is also why I promote bicycles as the ultimate form of transportation technology, because they use very little energy, take very little space, and make the rider healthier.”
Buildings can be much better insulated–perfect answer, but bicycles seem problematic in times of extreme cold or snow, or on hilly terrain. They don’t work when mixed with cars–it should be either all cars or all bicycles. Rearranging work/transportation could do with some study though.
If we have to deal with intermittent electricity, I expect work will need to be very near home. It will not be possible to have predictable work schedules.
So, while these could be the last days of stable energy and telecommuting could be increased now, there’s no way (especially no timely way) to substitute for the current system of producing fossil fuels that could make telecommuting doable for the longer term?
And I see where storm clouds could be rising for large tech companies, as they are constrained by Washington–re their data collection and enabling of so called terrorism, etc. So is that one more negative for telecommuting? Are we thinking of some kind of economic system without stable energy to run the internet? Or does everything crash when the internet goes away?
Trying to read between the lines…you seem to be hinting that the HG lifestyle is the only survivable one, while also enabling a sort of elite, highly compensated technological class to manage over complex tech. That might rule out equality, unless a way was found to avoid it. Actually, the HG and the IC lifestyle might be able to coexist if we learn to think very weirdly.
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Extinction
http://conceptodefinicion.de/wp-content/uploads/2014/04/urea.jpg
http://www.power-eng.com/content/dam/Pennenergy/online-articles/2013/June/SpentFuelPool.JPG
Can anyone give me some confirming info re why spent fuel will kill most, without IC?
A link or two and/or quotes from experts? I’ve poked around, but can’t find anything solid.
It’s not that I don’t believe it, I would like to argue it in an (unrelated religious) subject, and will need some back up.
Thanks.
snorp
Here is a link to a good article in the wake of Fukushima: http://www.totalwebcasting.com/tamdata/Documents/hcf/20130312-1/Reducing%20the%20risks%20of%20spent%20fuel%20storage.pdf
Thank you, just to be clear, I don’t want to argue the collapse/timing etc.
Fact: Reactors/pools REQUIRE IC
Take that away from the world all at once, and the backup systems run out of fuel, then why would it be a problem of the whole hemispheres, rather than local or regional contamination?
That’s what I’m looking for. (And I get reproductive problems associated)
Personally, I haven’t seen anything other than speculation – either for why such a sudden global collapse would happen (vs staggered) or why these would be beyond a regional issue, so I can’t help you. If you find anything legitimate I’d love to know – but I’ve only found speculation (i.e. global electrical grid fals akin to an emp, and for some poorly established reason regional catastrophes effect global jet streams). It’s a pretty scary scenario – but relies on an excess of surety about theoretical complex factors. I’d like to see someone really connect the dots.
This is the most simple way to understand it that I have found.
I guess the most likely scenario is the realistic aka the mixed one..
Meaning there is elevated probability some of the spent fuels facilities might eventually get beyond serviceable threshold, especially in countries under ongoing trend of dysfunction on many areas incl. infrastructure upkeep, overall hubris etc.
On top of that if include the scenario of abrupt IC reset, which in itself is rather a fluid concept even here (not total agreement on precise timing) because of regional differences, sequencing etc, nevertheless the overall probability something going bad on that front is simply high from single human lifetime horizon, and elevated within decade on decade timing as well.
I agree. I think a sober outlook is that all/most reactors failing catastrophically is as unreasonable as thinking no reactor will ever fail. Some countries are already doing much better in this regard. One or more failures in this regard could lead other nations to prioritize.
Yep, the options are many. Some countries won’t even attempt to triage and fail with most their complexity nexus instantly. While others try and succeed in protecting such most key sites for a “brief moment” and others try but don’t manage. You see, that’s three simple outcomes of the situation, near-mid term. And reality will be more nuanced than that obviously..
In longer term it might get blurred into overall single collapse narrative as always in history, though.. I don’t dispute that..
There is no ‘mixed’ one.
When the financial system collapses — and it will — within a very short period of time — literally hours — the world will shut down — the power will go off.
The electric grid is a very complicated system — one part fails — and the entire grid goes down.
Think of how many thousands of people are working to keep grid electricity from going down. Every day parts are breaking — people need to attend to these problems — they require vehicles and helicopters and spare parts from a JIT supply chain.
Does anyone think these people are going to stay on the job when the financial system has collapsed and there is chaos on the streets?
Of course not – they will be with their families.
No power = no cooling for spent fuel ponds = massive releases of radiation = you will breathe it — you will drink it — and everything you eat will be chock full of it = extinction.
You cannot run from it – you cannot hide from it….
And the ecosystem will be riddled with this stuff for years and years and years….
And we claim that we are smart animals…..
But we are smart: inventors of an entirely novel way of doing ourselves in!
Just one spin-off from our unprecedented innovation……..
My post will be held as it is long and contains many links.
The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe could have been far worse, it turns out, and experts say neither the nuclear industry nor its regulators are doing enough to prevent a calamitous nuclear fuel fire in America https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/05/20/19712/scientists-say-nuclear-fuel-pools-around-country-pose-safety-and-health-risks
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.” Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse. They feared that spent fuel stored in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/burning-reactor-fuel-could-have-worsened-fukushima-disaster
Assuming a 50-100% Cs137 release during a spent fuel fire, [8] the consequence of the Cs-137 exceed those of the Chernobyl accident 8-17 times (2MCi release from Chernobyl). Based on the wedge model, the contaminated land areas can be estimated. [9] For example, for a scenario of a 50% Cs-137 release from a 400 t SNF pool, about 95,000 km² (as far as 1,350 km) would be contaminated above 15 Ci/km² (as compared to 10,000 km² contaminated area above 15 Ci/km² at Chernobyl).
A typical 1 GWe PWR core contains about 80 t fuels. Each year about one third of the core fuel is discharged into the pool. A pool with 15 year storage capacity will hold about 400 t spent fuel. To estimate the Cs-137 inventory in the pool, for example, we assume the Cs137 inventory at shutdown is about 0.1 MCi/tU with a burn-up of 50,000 MWt-day/tU, thus the pool with 400 t of ten year old SNF would hold about 33 MCi Cs-137. [7]
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/364/radiological_terrorism.html
Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUSBRE97D00M20130814
The problem is if the spent fuel gets too close, they will produce a fission reaction and explode with a force much larger than any fission bomb given the total amount of fuel on the site. All the fuel in all the reactors and all the storage pools at this site (1760 tons of Uranium per slide #4) would be consumed in such a mega-explosion. In comparison, Fat Man and Little Boy weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained less than a hundred pounds each of fissile material – See more at: http://www.dcbureau.org/20110314781/natural-resources-news-service/fission-criticality-in-cooling-ponds-threaten-explosion-at-fukushima.html
Once the fuel is uncovered, it could become hot enough to cause the metal cladding encasing the uranium fuel to rupture and catch fire, which in turn could further heat up the fuel until it suffers damage. Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment. This would start in more recently discharged spent fuel, which is hotter than fuel that has been in the pool for a longer time. A typical spent fuel pool in the United States holds several hundred tons of fuel, so if a fire were to propagate from the hotter to the colder fuel a radioactive release could be very large.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handling-nuclear-waste/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel.html#.VUp3n5Om2J8
According to Dr. Kevin Crowley of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, “successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. If an attack leads to a propagating zirconium cladding fire, it could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material.”[12] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the September 11, 2001 attacks required American nuclear plants “to protect with high assurance” against specific threats involving certain numbers and capabilities of assailants. Plants were also required to “enhance the number of security officers” and to improve “access controls to the facilities”.
The committee judges that successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. If an attack leads to a propagating zirconium cladding fire, it could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material. The committee concluded that attacks by knowledgeable terrorists with access to appropriate technical means are possible. The committee identified several terrorist attack scenarios that it believed could partially or completely drain a spent fuel pool and lead to zirconium cladding fires. Details are provided in the committee’s classified report. I cannot discuss the details here.
http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-mass-destruction/nuclear-spent-fuel-pools-secure/p8967
If any of the spent fuel rods in the pools do indeed catch fire, nuclear experts say, the high heat would loft the radiation in clouds that would spread the radioactivity.
“It’s worse than a meltdown,” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked as an instructor on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan. “The reactor is inside thick walls, and the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out in the open.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16fuel.html
If you don’t cool the spent fuel, the temperature will rise and there may be a swift chain reaction that leads to spontaneous combustion–an explosion and fire of the spent fuel assemblies. Such a scenario would emit radioactive particles into the atmosphere.
Pick your poison. Fresh fuel is hotter and more radioactive, but is only one fuel assembly. A pool of spent fuel will have dozens of assemblies. One report from Sankei News said that there are over 700 fuel assemblies stored in one pool at Fukushima. If they all caught fire, radioactive particles—including those lasting for as long as a decade—would be released into the air and eventually contaminate the land or, worse, be inhaled by people. “To me, the spent fuel is scarier. All those spent fuel assemblies are still extremely radioactive,” Dalnoki-Veress says.
It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly to temperatures at which the zircaloy fuel cladding could catch fire and the fuel’s volatile fission product, including 30-year half-life Cs, would be released. The fire could well spread to older spent fuel. The long-term land-contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than those from Chernobyl.
http://science.time.com/2011/03/15/a-new-threat-in-japan-radioactive-spent-fuel/
Today there are 103 active nuclear power reactors in the U.S. They generate 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear waste per year and to date have accumulated 71,862 tons of spent fuel, according to industry data.[vi] Of that total, 54,696 tons are stored in cooling pools and only 17,166 tons in the relatively safer dry cask storage. http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/the-growing-problem-of-spent-nuclear-fuel.html
Spent fuel fire on U.S. soil could dwarf impact of Fukushima
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/spent-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima
A fire from spent fuel stored at a U.S. nuclear power plant could have catastrophic consequences, according to new simulations of such an event.
A major fire “could dwarf the horrific consequences of the Fukushima accident,” says Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. “We’re talking about trillion-dollar consequences,” says Frank von Hippel, a nuclear security expert at Princeton University, who teamed with Princeton’s Michael Schoeppner on the modeling exercise.
….the national academies’s report warns that spent fuel accumulating at U.S. nuclear plants is also vulnerable. After fuel is removed from a reactor core, the radioactive fission products continue to decay, generating heat. All nuclear power plants store the fuel onsite at the bottom of deep pools for at least 4 years while it slowly cools. To keep it safe, the academies report recommends that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear plant operators beef up systems for monitoring the pools and topping up water levels in case a facility is damaged. The panel also says plants should be ready to tighten security after a disaster.
At most U.S. nuclear plants, spent fuel is densely packed in pools, heightening the fire risk. NRC has estimated that a major fire at the spent fuel pool at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania would displace an estimated 3.46 million people from 31,000 square kilometers of contaminated land, an area larger than New Jersey. But Von Hippel and Schoeppner think that NRC has grossly underestimated the scale and societal costs of such a fire.
All kinds of cheerful material about spent fuel pools and nuclear reactors.
It’s my hobby….
Assuming a 50-100% Cs137 release during a spent fuel fire, [8] the consequence of the Cs-137 exceed those of the Chernobyl accident 8-17 times (2MCi release from Chernobyl). Based on the wedge model, the contaminated land areas can be estimated. [9] For example, for a scenario of a 50% Cs-137 release from a 400 t SNF pool, about 95,000 km² (as far as 1,350 km) would be contaminated above 15 Ci/km² (as compared to 10,000 km² contaminated area above 15 Ci/km² at Chernobyl).
A typical 1 GWe PWR core contains about 80 t fuels. Each year about one third of the core fuel is discharged into the pool. A pool with 15 year storage capacity will hold about 400 t spent fuel. To estimate the Cs-137 inventory in the pool, for example, we assume the Cs137 inventory at shutdown is about 0.1 MCi/tU with a burn-up of 50,000 MWt-day/tU, thus the pool with 400 t of ten year old SNF would hold about 33 MCi Cs-137. [7]
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/364/radiological_terrorism.html
The Fukushima nuclear catastrophe could have been far worse, it turns out, and experts say neither the nuclear industry nor its regulators are doing enough to prevent a calamitous nuclear fuel fire in America https://www.publicintegrity.org/2016/05/20/19712/scientists-say-nuclear-fuel-pools-around-country-pose-safety-and-health-risks
Japan’s chief cabinet secretary called it “the devil’s scenario.” Two weeks after the 11 March 2011 earthquake and tsunami devastated the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant, causing three nuclear reactors to melt down and release radioactive plumes, officials were bracing for even worse. They feared that spent fuel stored in the reactor halls would catch fire and send radioactive smoke across a much wider swath of eastern Japan, including Tokyo. http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/burning-reactor-fuel-could-have-worsened-fukushima-disaster
Assuming a 50-100% Cs137 release during a spent fuel fire, [8] the consequence of the Cs-137 exceed those of the Chernobyl accident 8-17 times (2MCi release from Chernobyl). Based on the wedge model, the contaminated land areas can be estimated. [9] For example, for a scenario of a 50% Cs-137 release from a 400 t SNF pool, about 95,000 km² (as far as 1,350 km) would be contaminated above 15 Ci/km² (as compared to 10,000 km² contaminated area above 15 Ci/km² at Chernobyl).
A typical 1 GWe PWR core contains about 80 t fuels. Each year about one third of the core fuel is discharged into the pool. A pool with 15 year storage capacity will hold about 400 t spent fuel. To estimate the Cs-137 inventory in the pool, for example, we assume the Cs137 inventory at shutdown is about 0.1 MCi/tU with a burn-up of 50,000 MWt-day/tU, thus the pool with 400 t of ten year old SNF would hold about 33 MCi Cs-137. [7]
http://belfercenter.hks.harvard.edu/publication/364/radiological_terrorism.html
Containing radiation equivalent to 14,000 times the amount released in the atomic bomb attack on Hiroshima 68 years ago, more than 1,300 used fuel rod assemblies packed tightly together need to be removed from a building that is vulnerable to collapse, should another large earthquake hit the area. http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/14/us-japan-fukushima-insight-idUSBRE97D00M20130814
The problem is if the spent fuel gets too close, they will produce a fission reaction and explode with a force much larger than any fission bomb given the total amount of fuel on the site. All the fuel in all the reactors and all the storage pools at this site (1760 tons of Uranium per slide #4) would be consumed in such a mega-explosion. In comparison, Fat Man and Little Boy weapons dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki contained less than a hundred pounds each of fissile material – See more at: http://www.dcbureau.org/20110314781/natural-resources-news-service/fission-criticality-in-cooling-ponds-threaten-explosion-at-fukushima.html
Once the fuel is uncovered, it could become hot enough to cause the metal cladding encasing the uranium fuel to rupture and catch fire, which in turn could further heat up the fuel until it suffers damage. Such an event could release large amounts of radioactive substances, such as cesium-137, into the environment. This would start in more recently discharged spent fuel, which is hotter than fuel that has been in the pool for a longer time. A typical spent fuel pool in the United States holds several hundred tons of fuel, so if a fire were to propagate from the hotter to the colder fuel a radioactive release could be very large.
http://www.ucsusa.org/nuclear_power/making-nuclear-power-safer/handling-nuclear-waste/safer-storage-of-spent-fuel.html#.VUp3n5Om2J8
According to Dr. Kevin Crowley of the Nuclear and Radiation Studies Board, “successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. If an attack leads to a propagating zirconium cladding fire, it could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material.”[12] The Nuclear Regulatory Commission after the September 11, 2001 attacks required American nuclear plants “to protect with high assurance” against specific threats involving certain numbers and capabilities of assailants. Plants were also required to “enhance the number of security officers” and to improve “access controls to the facilities”.
The committee judges that successful terrorist attacks on spent fuel pools, though difficult, are possible. If an attack leads to a propagating zirconium cladding fire, it could result in the release of large amounts of radioactive material. The committee concluded that attacks by knowledgeable terrorists with access to appropriate technical means are possible. The committee identified several terrorist attack scenarios that it believed could partially or completely drain a spent fuel pool and lead to zirconium cladding fires. Details are provided in the committee’s classified report. I cannot discuss the details here.
http://www.cfr.org/weapons-of-mass-destruction/nuclear-spent-fuel-pools-secure/p8967
If any of the spent fuel rods in the pools do indeed catch fire, nuclear experts say, the high heat would loft the radiation in clouds that would spread the radioactivity.
“It’s worse than a meltdown,” said David A. Lochbaum, a nuclear engineer at the Union of Concerned Scientists who worked as an instructor on the kinds of General Electric reactors used in Japan. “The reactor is inside thick walls, and the spent fuel of Reactors 1 and 3 is out in the open.”
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/03/16/world/asia/16fuel.html
If you don’t cool the spent fuel, the temperature will rise and there may be a swift chain reaction that leads to spontaneous combustion–an explosion and fire of the spent fuel assemblies. Such a scenario would emit radioactive particles into the atmosphere.
Pick your poison. Fresh fuel is hotter and more radioactive, but is only one fuel assembly. A pool of spent fuel will have dozens of assemblies. One report from Sankei News said that there are over 700 fuel assemblies stored in one pool at Fukushima. If they all caught fire, radioactive particles—including those lasting for as long as a decade—would be released into the air and eventually contaminate the land or, worse, be inhaled by people. “To me, the spent fuel is scarier. All those spent fuel assemblies are still extremely radioactive,” Dalnoki-Veress says.
It has been known for more than two decades that, in case of a loss of water in the pool, convective air cooling would be relatively ineffective in such a “dense-packed” pool. Spent fuel recently discharged from a reactor could heat up relatively rapidly to temperatures at which the zircaloy fuel cladding could catch fire and the fuel’s volatile fission product, including 30-year half-life Cs, would be released. The fire could well spread to older spent fuel. The long-term land-contamination consequences of such an event could be significantly worse than those from Chernobyl.
http://science.time.com/2011/03/15/a-new-threat-in-japan-radioactive-spent-fuel/
Today there are 103 active nuclear power reactors in the U.S. They generate 2,000 metric tons of spent nuclear waste per year and to date have accumulated 71,862 tons of spent fuel, according to industry data.[vi] Of that total, 54,696 tons are stored in cooling pools and only 17,166 tons in the relatively safer dry cask storage. http://www.psr.org/environment-and-health/environmental-health-policy-institute/responses/the-growing-problem-of-spent-nuclear-fuel.html
Spent fuel fire on U.S. soil could dwarf impact of Fukushima
http://www.sciencemag.org/news/2016/05/spent-fuel-fire-us-soil-could-dwarf-impact-fukushima
A fire from spent fuel stored at a U.S. nuclear power plant could have catastrophic consequences, according to new simulations of such an event.
A major fire “could dwarf the horrific consequences of the Fukushima accident,” says Edwin Lyman, a physicist at the Union of Concerned Scientists, a nonprofit in Washington, D.C. “We’re talking about trillion-dollar consequences,” says Frank von Hippel, a nuclear security expert at Princeton University, who teamed with Princeton’s Michael Schoeppner on the modeling exercise.
….the national academies’s report warns that spent fuel accumulating at U.S. nuclear plants is also vulnerable. After fuel is removed from a reactor core, the radioactive fission products continue to decay, generating heat. All nuclear power plants store the fuel onsite at the bottom of deep pools for at least 4 years while it slowly cools. To keep it safe, the academies report recommends that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) and nuclear plant operators beef up systems for monitoring the pools and topping up water levels in case a facility is damaged. The panel also says plants should be ready to tighten security after a disaster.
At most U.S. nuclear plants, spent fuel is densely packed in pools, heightening the fire risk. NRC has estimated that a major fire at the spent fuel pool at the Peach Bottom nuclear power plant in Pennsylvania would displace an estimated 3.46 million people from 31,000 square kilometers of contaminated land, an area larger than New Jersey. But Von Hippel and Schoeppner think that NRC has grossly underestimated the scale and societal costs of such a fire.
Thanks FE 😉
That should keep you busy for the next couple of days!!!
It took quite a lot of time to find all that — the assumption is that BAU is infinite — so you cannot just type into a search ‘what happens if the power goes off permanently’
That is ‘impossible’ so that is not studied…
The first article I found on this was the Harvard one… which addressed a terrorist attack on a pond….
One other crucial point is that fuel is stored in DENSE PACK formations — therefore the only way to cool it is with years of computer controlled water circulation…. I assume they were dense packed to save money… however perhaps that is the only feasible way to store the spent fuel… I could not find out why all ponds use dense pack storage….
https://www.globalresearch.ca/articlePictures/fukushima_radiation_nuclear_fallout_map.jpg
https://www.amfir.com/AmFirstInst/NonToolbarTopics/Black_Ops/Japan_Quake-Nuclear_Catastrophe_2011/Radiation_Forecasts/2011/10-02_10-08/Art/2011-10-08_Radioactive_Seawater_Impact_Map_Update.jpg
Keep in mind a reactor was involved in Fukushima… NOT the spent fuel ponds….
1 spent fuel pond contains huge amounts of fuel….
There are 4000 ponds around the world…
Join http://www.janetyellenfanclub.com
Thanks again, I will compile it to blast many o’ logical fallacy 🙂
And dam it…you got me with that link lol
The same assumption operates in the case of the pumping stations which keep the prime agricultural land of Eastern England dry (30% of cereal production in UK, I believe, and valued at around £10,000 per acre) – no provision for any but the most brief interruption in energy supplies.
Well done, Gail. I will be posting a link to this article on my own website.
“The Interim Economic Outlook renews calls on policymakers to enact a rebalancing from monetary to fiscal and structural support for growth and wages. It calls for better use of tax and spending policies to achieve more inclusive growth and says increased structural reform efforts will be needed across all countries to boost productivity, wages and skills.”
Structural reform efforts! The magical word. The words of magicians.
http://www.oecd.org/newsroom/oecd-sees-synchronised-momentum-for-global-economy-but-urges-further-policy-action-to-ensure-sustainable-and-inclusive-medium-term-growth.htm
It is a good thing that energy is not viewed to play a part in this. Then the magicians would see that they have no real power.
I aggree. Energy plays no part in the models they see the world through. By the way, also Karl Marx took the abundance of coal in the first stages of industialization for granted. And the social engeenering disciples of Keynes celebrated the achievement of high grow rates after the 2WW without realizing the obvious: the input of cheap fossil fuels until the 70s.
Hewlett Packard Enterprise Is Said to Plan About 5,000 Job Cuts -Bloomberg
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-21/hewlett-packard-enterprise-is-said-to-plan-about-5-000-job-cuts
Not so good!
https://imgur.com/a/zYm1u
Hurricane Maria Leaves Puerto Rico Facing 4-6 Months Without Power -NBC NEWS
https://www.nbcnews.com/news/weather/hurricane-maria-leaves-puerto-rico-facing-months-without-power-n803326
Holy shit! Climate chaos!
I am sorry. This is not Climate Chaos. Any island in the Caribbean needs to expect Category 3 and Category 4 hurricanes (Maria was Category 4) on a fairly regular basis.
The electric grid of any country is probably its infrastructure that is most vulnerable to weather related problems. As we approach energy limits, we can expect that trying to keep all of this electric infrastructure fixed will be more and more impossible.
I know people would like to think that electricity can last forever. This is an example of why it cannot.
To a significant extent, we added electricity after the use of oil for powering vehicles. We need to expect that, much of the time, electricity will disappear first.
There has never been two category four storms hit the US in the same year in our entire weather history. Now another hits PR and totally destroys it.
Puerto Rico is not the US.
https://imgur.com/a/ac3x4
https://i.redd.it/l9cn6ztihbkz.png
160+years can still mean nothing if you look at it as disturbance and rest in the natural cycles.
But I do agree that “whatever the reason”, it’s getting rougher.
Look up the AMO – Atlantic Multidecadal Oscillation (formerly Atlantic Multidecadal Signal). It’s exactly what you’re looking at.
Have you made it yourself? Please write the scientific source.
Puertorico is part of USA, although not a state.
Puerto Rico is a territory of the US. The US does not have a responsibility to “bail it out,” as evidenced by its recent bankruptcy. When hurricane statistics are collected regarding how many hurricanes of a given type hit the United States, the data would not include hurricanes hitting Puerto Rico. Those are expected to be more common.
And our weather history is how long? 100 years? That is nothing. Gail is right, we are constantly fighting nature with the electric grid. What folks are missing is the state of Puerto Rico before these hurricanes was not normal. It has been built up over the last 80 years with unsustainable infrastructure. What is happening now is nature is taking over and returning Puerto Rico to its natural state.
The people are poor. The country was bankrupt before the hurricane hit. The US did not bail it out. I doubt the US will bail out Puerto Rico out from the damage now.
Instead, because Puerto Rico is a US territory, the citizens are allowed to migrate to the US, without restriction (as I understand it). I expect we will see a lot of Puerto Ricans moving to the US.
The population of Puerto Rico is 3.4 million. That compares to Mexico with a population of 127.5 million; Cuba with a population of 11.5 million and Haiti with a population of 10.9 million. The US could probably assimilate quite a large share of Puerto Rico’s population without the problems associated with handling a bigger country’s population.
What’s a couple of gumballs? Always liked this
Apparently the Northerners did not want to accommodate the Catholic pop of Northern Mexico back in 1849, and allowed Mexico to keep a quite large territory in their NW. The Northerners used ‘slavery’ as an excuse.
To add to the problem, Puerto Rito’s electric utility company declared bankruptcy before the hurricane. And, the government of Puert Rico recently declared bankruptcy. All in all, it appears to be an island on the verge of failed status. It cannot continue to exist without US support. This hurricane damage is probably the last straw.
Electricity came to this village in 1939 (great timing!).
Then 40 years later it was connected to the gas pipes, and everyone has now got used to central house heating: ‘Turn it up! I’m cold!’ (When your wife says that, do it,, or face divorce!)
In the history of civilisation, of human settlements, this is all a (brief!) novelty and an anomaly…….
yup
i call the supernova of humanity—a total burn of all the fuel we have
Correct, that’s the bottom line.
For example, I personally or semi-personally through relatives witnessed the very diverse life conditions of several past (many) decades, perhaps even in some sense and aspects going to pre WWI-II realities.
How do I relate and explain the sense and meaning of it all to these zombified Faceazbooks of today, lolz? Some very very tiny minority might get it, internalize it eventually (mostly by individual hands on action), but for most I am afraid that’s hopeless. Again we are back to larger cycles of lost knowledge, 4th turnings and beyond etc.
I was talking to someone whose brother-in-law is a dairy farmer in Northern Ireland. All the cows are entirely housed indoors, birth to abbatoir, computer-monitored, etc.
They have been bred to be unfit for the climate where they live, unlike the old tough Northern European breeds.
‘ What happens to them if the power goes off? I asked, without pushing it too far.
He just didn’t see my point, only being able to imagine a temporary glitch.
All that livestock would clearly be deadstock, very rapidly.
We are making our domesticated animals as useless as a an urban Miillenial in uni-sex clothes, glued to a screen.
When the power goes off, all the dairy cows are dead….everywhere.
I live on land that I bought off a sheep and dairy farmer here on Islay. He still owns much of the adjoining land so I have been able to see for myself just how high-maintenance and IC-dependent these creatures are. He was up just the other day rounding up the cows for their copper, cobalt and selenium injections, as their diets are deficient in these elements. I’m afraid these creatures would not survive long into any fast-collapse scenario. Oh, well – at least we have the deer.
The electricity grid is maintained solely by engineers driving big oil-powered cross-country vehicles – to state the obvious!
Those vehicles are simply packed with stuff made with fossil fuels, and originating from factories all over the world.
Of course this type of event should be expected….if you are an island in the Caribbean.
It’s just whacky weather, actually.
https://cdn1.ijr.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/09/deadliest.jpg
Permian could top out in 2021 unless tech overcomes geology, Wood Mac says
http://www.mrt.com/business/energy/article/Permian-could-top-out-in-2021-unless-tech-12214742.php
NOT ALLOWED!
It Gets Ugly in Catalonia
The middle ground they and hundreds of thousands of others once occupied was obliterated yesterday when a judge in Barcelona ordered Spain’s militarized police force, the Civil Guard, to round up over a dozen Catalan officials in dawn raids. Many of them now face crushing daily fines of up to €12,000.
The Civil Guard also staged raids on key administrative buildings in Barcelona. The sight of balaclava-clad officers of the Civil Guard, one of the most potent symbols of the not-yet forgotten Franco dictatorship, crossing the threshold of the seats of Catalonia’s (very limited) power and arresting local officials, was too much for the local population to bear.
The confiscation of ballots and other vital voting paraphernalia and the detention of key members of the referendum’s organizing committee, together with today’s decision by the Spanish Finance Ministry to completely block the regional government’s accounts — a move that would not be possible without full cooperation of both Spanish and Catalan banks — could be a major setback for Catalonia’s dreams of independence.
https://wolfstreet.com/2017/09/21/catalonia-independence-repression-by-spain/
I would expect that the government will use the most brutal measures to stop this .. including shooting protesters dead…
BAU does not like this sort of thing… it’s bad for business…. as usual.
I don’t understand why all these countries want to go it alone and separate from their neighbors? I understand why they are frustrated but I don’t see how their solutions for it will do any good?
Despair meet nationalism. But then: Hope springs eternal in the human breast. And “Why should I be a minority in your country when you could be a minority in mine?”
In Spain it is because the national idea has never really taken root,and regional identity is much important.
Also, the central government in Madrid is very arrogant and clumsy, often deliberately so.
Fanatical nationalists tell people that if independence is achieved, magically there will be more money and jobs, all problems solved – these people, of course, do not understand economics/resources, etc, one bit.
Some nationalists want to establish radical Left states, not just gain independence. This was the aim of the Basque ETA group for instance,and the reason they kidnapped and murdered businessmen and engineers.
“It is better to boss in Bosnia than to serve in Serbia.”
— Radovan Karadžić
Just a storm in a coffee cup. Most Catalans are against independence.
Oil Traders Empty Key Crude Storage Hub
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-09-20/oil-traders-empty-key-crude-storage-hub-as-global-demand-booms
Goodbye Glut!!!
US crude oil in storage is down somewhat.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRSTUS1&f=W
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=MCRSTUS1&f=M
The Monthly data (shown second) tends to be more accurate.
Retail Apocalypse: 20 big retailers closing stores in 2017
http://www.foxbusiness.com/features/2017/09/19/retail-apocalypse-20-big-retailers-closing-stores-in-2017.html
Mathematics predicts a sixth mass extinction – MIT
http://news.mit.edu/2017/mathematics-predicts-sixth-mass-extinction-0920#.WcPctZlzzPE.facebook
“By 2100, oceans may hold enough carbon to launch mass extermination of species in future millennia.”
this is based on a continued burning of the current level of fossil fuels all the way to the year 2100.
and we know that ain’t gonna happen!
besides, all of us surely will be dead by 2100.
cheers!
I will sleep well tonight… in spite of this report
Please suh…. my we have More Ghost Towns …
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-21/metals-massacre-iron-ore-enters-bear-market-copper-collapses-1-month-lows
http://www.zerohedge.com/sites/default/files/images/user3303/imageroot/2017/09/10/20170914_copper1_0.jpg
There are more slum dwellers waiting for free apartments….
Thanks, this could be it, the timing-sequencing prediction meaning at least “triangle of doom” ver2.0 (reply of 2014-15) or worse, the real crash combining more cycles..
At some point…. the commodities deflationary death spiral becomes unstoppable…
Nothing can grow forever….
China is the driver… they need to come up with endless encores…. considering the epic nature of what they have done over the past decade…. you gotta wonder if they have any hits left in them….
Elon will fix it!
The Chinese could build vast ‘Mars Simulation Bases’ to acclimatise humans en masse to the future which awaits them, Maybe roof-in all the ghost cities?
The could build a great wall to keep out the Mongols! Oh, hold on a minute…
Thanks–Good article. We need to be keeping an eye on commodity prices, as the credit impulse, with a 12-month lead, wears off.
https://imgur.com/a/xuQaA
The best joke is on him, afterall, since his offspring are evidently not the brightest bulbs in the mad house. And at his prime he was not such a big player anyway, although he formulated some part of that wining strategy for a moment. The most damage to Soviets was done by another crew in mid/late 1980s, when they successfully intervened into the ongoing deep state turmoil of their own, hence the rotten fruit of Gorbi-Yeltsin period of total failure on steroids..
Check this out:
The cities of San Francisco and Oakland have filed lawsuits against Chevron, Exxon, ConocoPhillips, BP, and Shell for the effect of their activities on the weather and oceans. The cities seek billions in damages to counteract the effects. Gee, I would think stopping the burning of fossil fuels would stop the effects. Where is my billions of payment for my solution?
From:http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-21/bay-area-sues-big-oil-billions
The abovementioned oil companies should immediately request the courts to prohibit using fossil fuels by those cities, in order to save them from self-harm…
Someone needs to post the contact details of Congress reps so that everyone can email them and insist that all of California IMMEDIATELY stop burning fossil fuels….
We can do it! We can do it!
Koombaya… my lord… Koombaya….
http://i0.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/223/018/0c4.jpg
Like my old Latin teacher: ‘If you feel thick here, just wait until you get into the real world and you find that everyone’s as thick as two short planks’.
Kurt Cobb: Peak oil production has been hidden by the EIA by including condensate and other non-transportation fuels
http://energyskeptic.com/2017/kurt-cobb-the-great-condensate-con/
Thanks for reminder. Haven’t been on that site for ages..
Good info in the biofuel article posted recently, they mentioned late 19th century style family in northern climate needs 5-10ha sized forest for ~sustainable wood heating purposes, yep that’s more or less realistically correct, perhaps a bit less with some low tech eff. tricks, insulation both for bldg as well as people etc. How many families today have at their disposal such property though, lolz, few single digit %of the entire pop? Similarly, where are the extra plots to feed animals ~170d/y during non growing cold season, apart from the necessary warm season pastures..
The crash is inevitable, eventually, we are only separated from it by multitude of can kicking tricks of unknown duration..
In old north-west Europe a farming household could consist of 15-20 persons: family, servants, labourers. Often 3 or 4 to a bed -helps to keep warm!
Hence the very big farmhouses, also used to house stock, stores and carts, etc.
Rural labourers in England got their fuel from heating from the hedge-rows, the fallen timber in woods, and from cutting furze on wastelands and heaths. So the ‘wasteland’ ‘was not at all wasted in fact….
Furze is actually one of the best fuels for baking bread, better than most woods. .
there used to be a vast heathland area adjacent to London, good source for all you suggest
it’s now called Heathrow
Look like climate science have trouble finding the right numbers.
“A new paper suggests a rather significant upward revision of the carbon budget for 1.5°C. This is a potential game changer, but it is too early to reformulate mitigation plans.” http://www.cicero.uio.no/no/posts/nyheter/commentary-did-15c-suddenly-get-easier
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/09/20/world/europe/germany-election-inequality.html
She’s a politician.
Three of the people in that photo aren’t Germans.
That’s racist, perhaps up to 5people out of six on the photo might not be exactly “bioGermans” – so what, that will be luckily solved through next generations, at least we can try hard, lets hope..
/sarc off
Siemens Flow Instruments are closing their factory in Demark because of “a collapse in the oil and gas market”
http://www.jv.dk/soenderborg/Siemens-lukker-i-Soenderborg-110-arbejdspladser-forsvinder/artikel/2541615
Also Siemens Wind has -20% orders for 2018. Expect lay-offs!
Thanks. But one needs sort of bird’s view on the industry to make valid conclusions. For example, that facility in Denmark, it’s their only such factory globally, or is that move connected with reshuffling of capacity to another continent etc?
There are various scenarios-theories and predictions about the sequencing of events, for example, perhaps these most notable, usually presented:
– oil is range bound ~$45-75, first depletion kicks in, panicky upshot to $80-120, followed yet again by affordability trap aka overall economic slump/crash
– oil is range bound ~$45-75, first economic downturn/monetary and or debt crisis kicks in, panicky downshot to ~$30, followed by depletion upshot upto ~$100, next bound into affordability trap again aka overall economic slump
..
.
Does somebody pay you by the word?
Prices are collapsing for all types of fuels and devices. This includes natural gas and wind. In fact, adding subsidized intermittent renewables to the grid pushes prices downward. Wind is just as affected. It cannot exist on the low prices now being paid for it. It is not working to solve our problems!
I think it would be helpful to mention separate trends as I tried above..
In the mid-long run, when discussing biz cycles, especially in the end the world/RoW doesn’t care that much if EU/DE-ReichIV is destroying the pricing mechanism momentarily due to over extension in wind-renewables..
At some point the reality returns and it’s back to basics: oil, natgas, coal, uranium, ..
In final analysis, someone will be proven as the more accurate predictor, be it you Gail, Art B., Dr, Tim, Kunstler, FE, … , me , or anybody else ..
Puerto Rico’s 3.4 million citizens take the Fast Eddy challenge:
“Puerto Rico: ‘100% without power’
“Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rosselló said Maria is the “most devastating storm to hit the island this century, if not in modern history.”
“The island’s energy grid took such a severe blow from Maria that restoring power to everyone may take months, he told CNN.”
http://edition.cnn.com/2017/09/21/americas/hurricane-maria-dominican-republic-puerto-rico/index.html
Easy, UN/ and other INT bodies purposefully send almost no humanitarian aid to Syria, since the outcome looks not what it was hoped for, regime change at the minimum, if not complete borders reshape for Gulfies natgas pipeline bound to EU/Turkey..
So, the money and resource can go to San Juan instead..
I suggest we try the wind and solar challenge as well (sarcasm intended)–let’s just use wind and solar resources to fix the outages, and start over with simply wind and solar generation. See how this really works (except I think we already know)!
My wife’s family is from PR and we’re still waiting to hear from them. I think I’ve mentioned before that a large part of thier electricity comes from oil, which is hugely inefficient and expensive even with low oil prices. The monthly cost for electricity to provide light, run appliances, and very scant use of AC (wall units at night) is hundreds of dollars- several multiples of my bill in a mainland state.
They also don’t pay federal income taxes in PR, so there are no individual tax credits for solar.
So for years PR has been my test case to see if solar really is now economically feasible in the absence of government subsidies. If there was anywhere in the world where it might make sense, its in a place like PR with lots of sunshine and ridiculous oil-based electricity costs.
You don’t see solar anywhere there. Not at all. Not on the middle class homes, not in the barrios, not on the elite’s multi million dollar homes.
PR is proof that all the talk about solar being cheaper than coal is hooey. It’s not even cheaper than just burning oil, or it’d be all over the island already.
Just as well Puerto Rico didn’t invest heavily in solar photovoltaic as many of those panels would have been blown half way to Cuba by the big storm. Anything that can strip a roof from a house is going to lift and carry off panels as if they were Frisbees.
Nelson NZ is a good test case – it is the sunniest place in the country.
The NZ govt does not offer subsidies for solar.
Next to nobody uses solar to generate power.
The monthly carrying costs on a loan to finance a system + maintenance and replacement of batteries and invertors…. would be many times the cost of grid power.
Solar would not exist if it were not for subsidies.
“I suggest we try the wind and solar challenge” – I agree Gail! Solar PV and wind could easily get Puerto Rico back online. But, this could also be a golden opportunity for rolling out a new smart grid as well as EV’s. I can see Puerto Rico going from energy poor to energy rich very quickly. With the electric grid in shambles there is no excuse for going any other way but high tech, sustainable, green and renewable solar PV and wind power. To infinity and beyond. All hail mighty Elon.
Elon will fix it!
There’s Less To Tesla’s Big Australian Battery Deal Than Meets The Eye
On Twitter, Musk had made an attractive, but guardedly qualified price estimate of $250/kw-hr for installations larger than 100 MWhr. He quickly admitted that price does not include shipping, installation, taxes or tariffs. He failed to state that the price likely does not include site specific engineering, site appropriate cooling systems or site specific grid connection infrastructure.
Adequate cooling systems are important for high power, energy-dense battery installations. High discharge rates generate enough heat to damage the battery and its supporting electronics. Fires and explosions are more frequent occurrences than desired and are a high risk for improperly cooled or controlled systems.
With those additional installation investments, an estimate of $500-$600 per kilowatt-hour of storage is probably closer to reality. An installed 100 MW/300 MWhr lithium-ion power station would cost somewhere between $150 million -$180 million (200 million Australian dollars to A$240 million)
As Gizmodo has reported, the system that Tesla will be installing will provide 129 MW-hr of energy storage capacity, less than half of what Rive originally hinted could be delivered. At a discharge rate of 100 MW, the battery will be totally depleted in less than 80 minutes. As all cell phone, tablet or laptop computer owners should know, it isn’t advisable to fully discharge a Li-ion battery. It can dramatically reduce battery lifetime.
https://www.forbes.com/sites/rodadams/2017/07/07/megahype-over-tesla-battery-capable-of-providing-nameplate-power-for-less-than-80-minutes/#1e5b01ee4919
No mention of any of this here https://www.theguardian.com/australia-news/2017/jul/07/tesla-to-build-worlds-biggest-lithium-ion-battery-in-south-australia
They do however want me to make a donation … in support of their incredible journalism!!!
Since you’re here …
… we have a small favour to ask. More people are reading the Guardian than ever but advertising revenues across the media are falling fast. And unlike many news organisations, we haven’t put up a paywall – we want to keep our journalism as open as we can. So you can see why we need to ask for your help. The Guardian’s independent, investigative journalism takes a lot of time, money and hard work to produce. But we do it because we believe our perspective matters – because it might well be your perspective, too.
That’s very good information to know!
I have also been told that the announcements about low-cost contracts for wind and solar also are likely less than meets the eye. It is not as easy to discern why, however. The contracts are 100s of pages long.
The Guardian doesn’t need to put up a paywall. Its smug, simplistic, sanctimonious sermonizing and its dedication to Newspeak, progressive causes, social engineering work synergistically to create a Pavlovian response in the reader that inhibits normal, ordinary decent people from clicking on any URL that includes “theguardian.com/”.
The Guardian should be paying people to read the propaganda-laced sh it it publishes.
Dominica destroyed
http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/09/21/puerto-rico-hurricane-maria-drive-sje-lon-orig.cnn/video/playlists/hurricane-maria/
Oops, try
http://www.cnn.com/videos/world/2017/09/21/hurrricane-maria-dominica-fly-over-holmes-pkg.cnn
“Two of the key indicators of confidence, the demand for credit and a rise in hiring levels, have not grown. In fact, the pace of both is worrisome enough to suggest another U.S. economic recession is approaching.”
https://www.lombardiletter.com/weakest-payroll-growth-rate-economy-recession/17636/
The number of people with jobs is terribly important. Even if more people are, for example, retired, this does not help the situation. We need actual workers.
Karl Malantes — one thing I learned from war … we are not the top species on the planet because we are nice…. people say the military turns men into killers — I would argue that its just finishing school
http://www.pbs.org/kenburns/the-vietnam-war/watch/episode-1/
It’s more complex than that.
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-civilization-a-thin-veneer-over-barbarianism-john-m-shanahan-292904.jpg
It is rather simple.. actually …. fossil fuels have kept the excesses at bay …. because fossil fuels have generally provided ‘more’…
Place 5 very hungry alpha dogs into a pen …. then throw in a pound of beef….
Try the same experiment — except throw in a tonne of beef….
The outcome will be profoundly different
Reading it right now—–
Highly recommended.
I shut it down after 5 minutes…
Because it is not relevant.
Everything changes when BAU goes down and starvation threatens… all this lovely analysis goes out the window….
Starving desperate people will like down and die — but many will turn violent … they will kill to get food … they will hunt down children and eat them…
We will behave no differently that the starving dogs put into a cage …. let’s go with a mix of hungry dogs:
10 of these
http://bothisbetter.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/04/Scary-Vicious-Dog-Breeds-e1461657121261.jpg
And 10 of these:
https://topdogtips.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/09/Good-House-Dogs-19.jpg
Then toss in 2kg of raw meat.
Who thinks the house dogs get any of the meat?
Who thinks house dogs are not attacked and eaten by the vicious dogs?
Relevance?
It wasn’t always this way. We never used to get a giant, speculative bubble every 7–8 years. We really didn’t.
In 2000, we had the dot-com bubble.
In 2007, we had the housing bubble.
In 2017, we have the everything bubble.
I did not coin the term “the everything bubble.” I do not know who did. Apologies (and much respect) to the person I stole it from.
Why do we call it the everything bubble? Well, there is a bubble in a bunch of asset classes simultaneously.
And the infographic below that my colleagues at Mauldin Economics created paints the picture best.
I don’t usually predict downturns, but this time I bet my reputation that a downturn is coming. And soon.
http://www.mauldineconomics.com/editorial/infographic-the-everything-bubble-is-ready-to-pop/zhb#
http://ggc-mauldin-images.s3.amazonaws.com/uploads/editorial/170919_Bubble_infographic_newfinal600.png
Thanks! Those are really good!
You have to ask WHY did perform in such fashion?
If you look deep enough you will discover lot of up/down ETFs 2x/3x, were usually established just months prior major market crash or lift-athlon. That’s impossible to be just coincidence, while we know these are more or less just retail instrument, not the major venue for the big cats arena, I’d offer the following explanation, it was likely a sideplay as the plans and timing from the top layer reached some lower, yet still rich enough group to engage in such “gambling”, or rather assured profits..
The nature of performance of these ETFs is something like a mirror or smoke effect, that is visible to us mere mortals, as these overall gigantic bubbles were very tightly organized both in their inflation as well as deflation phase.
You forgot the bubble of congressional stupidity.
One more recession is all it’s going to take for everything to grind to a halt. Almost happened last time around…
A downturn will occur if debt accumulation stops. Debt accumulation will happen when investors realize that companies like Telsa and Amazon are never going to turn a profit. There needs to be something that shakes confidence in the system and I don’t know where that’s going to come from.
Correction: *Debt accumulation will stop when investors realize that companies involved in the Everything Bubble like Telsa and Amazon are never going to turn a profit
I used to think that… but now I am not so sure … the CBs will do whatever it takes … however absurd…
I suspect physical limits on resources – particularly oil — will be the trigger
The Wiener … so going to sing sing 🙂
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-09-20/prosecutors-seeking-2-year-prison-sentence-anthony-weiner
Now he is one serious MORE on.
Politics has reached peak lows (Weiner, Abideen, Clinton, Pelosi, Graham et al). 90+% of congress is no better equipped mentally than a bunch of homeless bums. Seriously, if you rounded up 535 bums off the streets in D.C. you would have a more qualified group of congressman. More would get done, better policies would be passed, bad policies would be abolished and many unnecessary government agencies would be closed. I am being serious.
+++++++++
Stuuuupidity + Venality = A losing formula
In the eighties I was working in Osaka for a company that won a contract to house and operate the local Australian Tourist Office. The Aussies didn’t have enough budget to do it all by themselves at the time. One day, the tourism commissioner from Oz came along to give us a prep talk. One of his sentences about filling up planes with tourists has stuck with me all these years.
“The most important thing,” he declared, “is to get the bums on the seats.”
That phrase sounds very similar to one uttered by a former employee of a for-profit school.
“Brozek described how she easily climbed the corporate ladder at ITT Tech, eventually becoming promoted to director of recruitment in her region. She and her colleagues who met their goals — measured primarily on the number of students enrolled or
“asses in classes”
https://www.republicreport.org/2012/for-profit-college-recruiter-harkin-report/
I suspect that this mentality doesn’t just apply to for-profit organizations but many non-profit organizations.
All organizations seem to be competing for resources and power, in that order, imo.
There can also be goals on what percentage of students graduate. It is pretty easy to “fix” that part of the equation.
The Low Oil Price Guts Another OPEC Oil Exporter
The low oil price is negatively impacting another OPEC oil exporter as it continues to liquidate its foreign exchange reserves. Algeria, like Saudi Arabia, has seen its international reserves plummet by more than 40% as the oil price fell in half since 2014.
Algeria joined OPEC back in 1969 and is currently producing 1.1 million barrels of oil per day (mbd). While Algeria is not one of the larger OPEC members, it still exports roughly 670,000 barrels of oil per day. At $50 a barrel, the country receives $33.5 million a day in oil revenues. However, Algeria’s oil revenues have taken a nose-dive as the oil price declined from over $100 in 2014 to below $50 currently:
https://srsroccoreport.com/the-low-oil-price-guts-another-opec-oil-exporter/
http://peakoilbarrel.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/08/Algeria-8-768×446.jpg
Solution: print money to monetize debt. AKA perpetual economic motion machine.
Working for Japan … so far….
Algeria is very important for Spain and, to some extent, France, as a supplier..
Will this produce internal disruption, an Algerian ‘Spring’?
One shudders thinking of the awful, savage, civil war they went through not so long ago.
Great movie
Interestingly, the recent low prices seem to have at least temporarily helped supply. While the amount extract was falling for both oil and natural gas, once prices dropped, production started to again increase a bit. Oil exports are holding up, and natural gas exports have increased a bit. If dollars per unit of exports are down, I guess the approach, at least temporarily, is to try to make it up on volume.
Algeria lives on predominantly on natgas export budget (~20% of WEU imports), not oil budget.. Their oil has been written off as the major cash cow for decades already.
I kind of agree with this comment from Surplus Energy Economics (not the energy is a side issue part, but the PC that permeates and corrupts discussion – don’t scare the horses anyone);
‘It’s no coincidence that it was around the turn of the millennium that political correctness really took hold…and the debt and wreckage of incompetence have been busily piling up since. New Labour was the first British government that put PC at the core of what it stood for.
I admire Dr Morgan’s work greatly but I have a suspicion that energy is just a side issue. Political correctness (cultural Marxism) is the real issue here that is driving us over a cliff. The debt explosion is more of a consequence of the universal application of the PC philosophy of ‘all must have prizes’ than the trend cost of energy.
We as a people have turned our backs on reason and replaced it with a phoney ‘feel good’ PC version of reality. Our leaders are blindsided to problems as they now outsource their thinking to whatever idea is acceptable to the gods of diversity, tolerance and fairness…
PC – it’s brilliance is that it has convinced us to destroy our own institutions and country from within . Truly we are a ‘nation building up it’s own funeral pyre’.
https://surplusenergyeconomics.wordpress.com/2017/09/18/106-crisis-a-forum/#comments
I agree with your assessment of Political Correctness.
Tim Morgan has some good insights, but are not all of them.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fed/fed-keeps-u-s-rates-steady-to-start-portfolio-drawdown-in-october-idUSKCN1BV0GJ
WASHINGTON (Reuters) – “The U.S. Federal Reserve left interest rates unchanged on Wednesday but signaled it still expects one more increase by the end of the year despite a recent bout of low inflation.”
Do you see what the Fed did? They suggested a rate hike, but when it actually came time to do that they put it off until October. This is a game of delay they are quite adept at. There’s also a hint there that low inflation could possibly delay a rate hike beyond October.
There is thus some sign of good sense.
Mario Kart Switch: Walmart Edition!
https://imgur.com/a/4mRHF
american tanks in Normandy 1944 (colorized)
“U.S. Military tanks getting ready to fight the German army (colorized)”
Sporting goods isle … hmmm…sudoku a sport?
Very likely these folks are in wheel chairs because of their own laziness. And why in the hell would you need a cooler if your that over-weight? You are a walking energy storage device. No need to store food in a cooler.
Apparently the meat is more tender if the animal does not exert itself…. and tastier if riddled with fat….
Hu.man veal/wagyu….
You are looking at some very valuable animals in that photo….
These are going to be meat animals when BAU ends.
This will give the term ‘fat farm’ new meaning!
http://www.kima.net/albums/cc_artcards/Fat_Farm.sized.jpg
A rapper’s new video shows a white child being ‘lynched.’
http://www.miamiherald.com/news/nation-world/national/article173357101.html
One could imagine there will be some payback for slavery….
Once the oil runs out they are going to have to open up all the prisons and jails eventually. And then things will get ugly…And there are good reasons why those right wingers had their nazi march in crackerjack Virginia. And not in Downtown Detroit or Chicago.
Oil doesn’t “run out” except in the minds of peak oilers. What happens is wages of common workers fall too low, and government cannot collect enough taxes. Networked systems don’t work the way peak oilers imagine.
“They are going to have to open up all the prisons and jails eventually.” – Why? What if the guards and cooks just never show up for work? What is the incentive to open the jails?
I would imagine they would just leave the animals in the cages when BAU ends….
The problem is…. there are plenty of animals among us …. who are kept in check by the threat of incarceration….
When the police and courts and jails are no more… when civilization collapses ….. we will be on display in all our glory….
http://izquotes.com/quotes-pictures/quote-civilization-a-thin-veneer-over-barbarianism-john-m-shanahan-292904.jpg
Yes I’ve been thinking that for years. Prisons are expensive, incarceration is expensive. Then again, so is education, health care, law enforcement, the military, border protection, highway maintenance, EPA, and government itself. I wonder in what order the various departments will be abandoned or will each be slowly strangled.
Not good!
North Korea’s foreign minister calls Trump’s U.N. address ‘sound of dog barking’
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-minister/north-koreas-foreign-minister-calls-trumps-u-n-address-sound-of-dog-barking-idUSKCN1BW08B?feedType=RSS&feedName=topNews&utm_source=twitter&utm_medium=Social
Tobacco companies are required to have visible warnings on product packaging that the surgeon general has determined that tobacco use can cause cancer, right? Where is the warning on the fossil fuels that it can cause sea levels to rise, among other things?
Where is the warning that without fossil fuels, we might all be dead? We can’t really win. We need fossil fuels so that we can cook our food and stay warm. We really have too many people now to get along with any type of alternatives.
Somehow I think that “we might all be dead” is overstating the case. In any event, we have done our little turn on the stage as a species. Could have been a lot better. Maybe time to let another actor on the stage?
I also think that “we might be all dead” is overstating the case. “There’s a 90% chance that 90% of us would be dead within 90 days of us all giving up fossil fuels” is a more realistic scenario. Burning FFs is going to be a tough habit to break, although nature (in the form of physical limits) will eventually force our hand even if political, economic and financial considerations don’t do so first.
If there were not 4000+ spent fuel ponds ready to boil… I still think the 90% estimate would be low…
I reckon the only people who would live would be those that are completely unplugged from BAU already …. those in very remote locations who are on subsistence level living…
For those in BAU areas — starvation will get everyone — no fossil fuels no food — and wherever there are pockets of organically grown food — the hordes will arrive — like flies to shit.
I wouldn’t bet against your scenario, even re. the spent fuel ponds. From what info I’ve managed to dig up about them they are a bigger threat to the biosphere than the nuclear reactors, are and in the event of a sudden collapse it would be overoptimistic to expect that they would continue to be properly maintained or their contents safely stored out of harm’s way.
But if we forget about them for a minute, we can imagine some people surviving collapse by virtue of them having the right genetic stuff. Traits that make someone a criminal psychopath in civilized life may turn out to be ideal for seeing the species through bottlenecks. Tough times are what generates the most natural selection, which in turn drives evolution. There will be a lot of random chance events determining who will live and who will die, but on balance the survivors of collapse will be those who are best fit the ecosystem in which they find themselves. Anyone who is unwilling to broaden their diet or to pray on other members of the same species will reduce their chances of surviving considerably.
Most definitely….
In fact … one might argue that even now…. power goes to those who are absolute psychopaths…
Those who have no problem with gassing women and children in Syria in order to blame a leader that they want taken down….
Those would shoot down an airliner and blame it on others….
Those who would invent WMD then use the lie to destroy a country killing and maiming hundreds of thousands of innocent people….
Wait wait… what about those who would organize two large buildings filled with innocent people to be demolished…. burning people alive … and feeling nothing as they watch terrified people jump from windows to their deaths….
End of the day…. psychopaths end up kings of the hill… now …. and post BAU….
“Is overstating the case” says Grayfox while he eats his dinner, generated by FF, turns on his water faucet, thanks to FF, powers his stove, thanks to FF, goes to work, using transportation powered by FF. Yea, it is definitely overstating it all right.
100 years from now…
we MIGHT all be dead!
grayfox, am I overstating the case?
I do tend to do that, especially about the future.
but tonight:
IC!
BAU!
Population density is too high to allow a transition away from an external fuel source. We also have populations in places where there should be deserts or tundra. We have also been weakened by the “wheelchairs” and “crutches” we have used all of our lives. We have also lost much of the knowledge of how to preserve food, make medicine and know what native vegetation is edible. We are so far removed from the natural world that there is simply no way we can revert back to subsistence living.
And anyone with those skill and knowledge…. will be overwhelmed by the hordes…. or just the neighbours who insist on being fed….
Australia has some great places where you can easily isolate yourself from people. in NSW, over 90% of the people live within 50kms of the coast. A little bit of forward thinking can easily put you in front of the crowd, when the end comes.
Remember, you don’t have to outrun the bear, just the others doing the same.
You cannot outrun radiation….
Spoil sport.
https://images-na.ssl-images-amazon.com/images/I/41v47-4IiEL._SX342_QL70_.jpg
Food, glorious food. How could we ever do without it?
please, sir, may I have some more?
Greedy!
who said “greed is good”?
Greed is what keeps BAU alive….
http://www.barbershopwindow.com/media/catalog/product/cache/1/image/600×600/9df78eab33525d08d6e5fb8d27136e95/g/r/greed_is_good_1.png
Before you get too hot and bothered about that comment…. would you be willing to take a 30% cut in your lifestyle… and donate that cash to some poor bastard in a Calcutta slum?
Of course you would not….
If you were approached by a head hunter with an offer at a salary double what you make… would you consider it? Of course you would….
We are all very greedy little bastards…. we all want MORE….
That’s what makes the world go round….
without fossil fuels, would we (at least me in the northeast USA) have any…
peanut butter (the real kind: roasted peanuts and salt)
dark chocolate (almost anything from 50 to 70 percent cocoa)
[but not those two together]
prime rib (with all the fat, please)
lots of available food tonight!
BAU!
We need fossil fuels and the fertilizers derived from them; we need ever more debt enabling the masses to buy goods and services; we even need – God help us! – Saudi Arabia and the shale crooks.
And central bankers, to co-ordinate globally and somehow keep the whole crazy show on the road, clearly doomed as it is……..
“we might all be dead”……
Without fossil fuels 75% would never have been born and/or those that were born, never would have achieved child bearing age. So yeah might all be dead, is very similar to never being born.
Fox News publishes Christian Numerology Doomsday prophecy under it’s “Science” section. There is also a reference to pyramids and a special appearance by Planet X, which apparently the numerologist “theorizes”.
http://www.foxnews.com/science/2017/09/15/biblical-prophecy-claims-world-will-end-on-sept-23-christian-numerologists-claim.html
Yes it’s awful how far the dumbing down has got. It really is worse than we thought.
This Christian Numerology Doomsday rubbish is right out there with Astrology, Velikovsky and Clim-ate Catastrophism.
no no no no no…
the 23rd is 9-23-2017.
9 + 23 + 2017 = 2049
2000 is 10x10x10 doubled
49 is 7×7
the price of oil is $50.41
5041 minus 2049 = 2992
2992 is a palindrome!
eureka!
the world will END on 9-23-2017!!!!!!!!!!!!
it’s obvious!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Your logic is irrefutable!
San Francisco and Oakland Sue Fossil Fuel Companies over Rising Sea Levels
https://robertscribbler.com/2017/09/20/san-francisco-and-oakland-sue-fossil-fuel-companies-over-rising-sea-levels/
Real culprit is the Netherlands, building polders to push its sea onto other countries, causing a cumulative effect over the centuries. Maybe Trump should nuke those selfish Dutchies.
those two cities and their citizens use massive amounts of fossil fuels to enable their Silicon Valley lifestyles. They are fossil fuel USERS!
in fact, the entire Silicon Valley high tech industry was created by the power provided by fossil fuels.
so…
if sea levels are rising, those two cities are guilty. Hypocrites!
and IRONY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Well duh Captain obvious
it’s not obvious to these two cities!
these two cities should be suing themselves.
if the judge has any ability at all to connect the dots, he or she will dismiss this case ASAP.
I think, that is the last days of empire, that justice is forgotten.
it would be a deep injustice if those cities prevail in their suit.
it would be sweet justice if the presiding judge told those hypocritical cities to go frack themselves.
Oceans are not rising…
But even if they were — and this was caused by fossil fuels….
They would need to sue themselves… they would not understand that though
The oceans are either rising or falling. Nothing is sustainable, not even ocean levels.
A Politician and a Geologist walk into a bar. The bartender says “we don’t have any beer because we ran out of cheap oil and the economy collapsed”.
The Politician says ‘Nobody saw this coming”
That seems to be the way it goes.
The Geologist says, “I’ll take mine on the rocks.”
Boom! Boom!
I bet all this war mongering and scaremongering about NK. Is just to get American’s in the mood for war. Then Trump will pivot back to middle east against Iran to go after their oil reserves…