BP recently published energy data through December 31, 2017, in its Statistical Review of World Energy 2018. The following are a few points we observe, looking at the data:
[1] The world is making limited progress toward moving away from fossil fuels.
The two bands that top fossil fuels that are relatively easy to see are nuclear electric power and hydroelectricity. Solar, wind, and “geothermal, biomass, and other” are small quantities at the top that are hard to distinguish.
Figure 1. World energy consumption divided between fossil fuels and non-fossil fuel energy sources, based on data from BP 2018 Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
Wind provided 1.9% of total energy supplies in 2017; solar provided 0.7% of total energy supplies. Fossil fuels provided 85% of energy supplies in 2017. We are moving away from fossil fuels, but not quickly.
Of the 252 million tons of oil equivalent (MTOE) energy consumption added in 2017, wind added 37 MTOE and solar added 26 MTOE. Thus, wind and solar amounted to about 25% of total energy consumption added in 2017. Fossil fuels added 67% of total energy consumption added in 2017, and other categories added the remaining 8%.
[2] World per capita energy consumption is still on a plateau.
In recent posts, we have remarked that per capita energy consumption seems to be on a plateau. With the addition of data through 2017, this still seems to be the case. The reason why flat energy consumption per capita is concerning is because energy consumption per capita normally rises, based on data since 1820.1 This is explained further in Note 1 at the end of this article. Another reference is my article, The Depression of the 1930s Was an Energy Crisis.
Figure 2. World energy consumption per capita, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
While total energy consumption is up by 2.2%, world population is up by about 1.1%, leading to a situation where energy consumption per capita is rising by about 1.1% per year. This is within the range of normal variation.
One thing that helped energy consumption per capita to rise a bit in 2017 relates to the fact that oil prices were down below the $100+ per barrel range seen in the 2011-2014 period. In addition, the US dollar was relatively low compared to other currencies, making prices more attractive to non-US buyers. Thus, 2017 represented a period of relative affordability of oil to buyers, especially outside the US.
[3] If we view the path of consumption of major fuels, we see that coal follows a much more variable path than oil and natural gas. One reason for the slight upturn in per capita energy consumption noted in [2] is a slight upturn in coal consumption in 2017.
Figure 3. World oil, coal, and natural gas consumption through 2017, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
Coal is different from oil and gas, in that it is more of a “dig it as you need it” fuel. In many parts of the world, coal mines have a high ratio of human labor to capital investment. If prices are high enough, coal will be extracted and consumed. If prices are not sufficiently high, coal will be left in the ground and the workers laid off. According to the BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018, coal prices in 2017 were higher than prices in both 2015 and 2016 in all seven markets for which they provide indications. Typically, prices in 2017 were more than 25% higher than those for 2015 and 2016.
The production of oil and natural gas seems to be less responsive to price fluctuations than coal.2 In part, this has to do with the very substantial upfront investment that needs to be made. It also has to do with the dependence of governments on the high level of tax revenue that they can obtain if oil and gas prices are high. Oil exporters are especially concerned about this issue. All players want to maintain their “share” of the world market. They are reluctant to reduce production, regardless of what prices do in the short term.
[4] China is one country whose coal production has recently ticked upward in response to higher coal prices.
Figure 4. China’s energy production by fuel, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
China has been able to bridge the gap by using an increasing amount of imported fuels. In fact, according to BP, China was the world’s largest importer of oil and coal in 2017. It was second only to Japan in the quantity of imported natural gas.
[5] China’s overall energy pattern appears worrying, despite the uptick in coal production.
Figure 5. China’s energy production by fuel plus its total energy consumption, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
If China expects to maintain its high GDP growth ratio as a manufacturing country, it will need to keep its energy consumption growth up. Doing this will require an increasing share of world exports of fossil fuels of all kinds. It is not clear that this is even possible unless other areas can ramp up their production and also add necessary transportation infrastructure.
Oil consumption, in particular, is rising quickly, thanks to rising imports. (Compare Figure 6, below, with Figure 4.)
Figure 6. China’s energy consumption by fuel, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
[6] India, like China, seems to be a country whose energy production is falling far behind what is needed to support planned economic growth. In fact, as a percentage, its energy imports are greater than China’s, and the gap is widening each year.
The big gap between energy production and consumption would not be a problem if India could afford to buy these imported fuels, and if it could use these imported fuels to make exports that it could profitably sell to the export market. Unfortunately, this doesn’t seem to be the case.
Figure 7. India’s energy production by fuel, together with its total energy consumption, based upon BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018 data.
India’s electricity sector seems to be having major problems recently. The Financial Times reports, “The power sector is at the heart of a wave of corporate defaults that threatens to cripple the financial sector.” While higher coal prices were good for coal producers and helped enable coal imports, the resulting electricity is more expensive than many customers can afford.
[7] It is becoming increasingly clear that proved reserves reported by BP and others provide little useful information.
BP provides reserve data for oil, natural gas, and coal. It also calculates R/P ratios (Reserves/Production ratios), using reported “proved reserves” and production in the latest year. The purpose of these ratios seems to be to assure readers that there are plenty of years of future production available. Current worldwide average R/P ratios are
- Oil: 50 years
- Natural Gas: 53 years
- Coal: 134 years
The reason for using the R/P ratios is the fact that geologists, including the famous M. King Hubbert, have looked at future energy production based on reserves in a particular area. Thus, geologists seem to depend upon reserve data for their calculations. Why shouldn’t a similar technique work in the aggregate?
For one thing, geologists are looking at particular fields where conditions seem to be favorable for extraction. They can safely assume that (a) prices will be high enough, (b) there will be adequate investment capital available and (c) other conditions will be right, including political stability and pollution issues. If we are looking at the situation more generally, the reasons why fossil fuels are not extracted from the ground seem to revolve around (a), (b) and (c), rather than not having enough fossil fuels in the ground.
Let’s look at a couple of examples. China’s coal production dropped in Figure 4 because low prices made coal extraction unprofitable in some fields. There is no hint of that issue in China’s reported R/P ratio for coal of 39.
Although not as dramatic, Figure 4 also shows that China’s oil production has dropped in recent years, during a period when prices have been relatively low. China’s R/P ratio for oil is 18, so theoretically it should have plenty of oil available. The Chinese figured out that in some cases, it could import oil more cheaply than it could produce it themselves. As a result, China’s production has dropped.
In Figure 7, India’s coal production is not rising as rapidly as needed to keep production up. Its R/P ratio for coal is 137. Its oil production has been declining since 2012. Its R/P for oil is shown to be 14.4 years.
Another example is Venezuela. As many people are aware, Venezuela has been having severe economic problems recently. We can see this in its falling oil production and its related falling oil exports and consumption.
Figure 8. Venezuela’s oil production, consumption and exports, based on data of BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018.
Yet Venezuela reports the highest “Proved oil reserves” in the world. Its reported R/P ratio is 394. In fact, its proved reserves increased during 2017, despite its very poor production results. Part of the problem is that proved oil reserves are often not audited amounts, so proved reserves can be as high as an exporting country wants to make them. Another part of the problem is that price is extremely important in determining which reserves can be extracted and which cannot. Clearly, Venezuela needs much higher prices than have been available recently to make it possible to extract its reserves. Venezuela also seems to have had low production in the 1980s when oil prices were low.
I was one of the co-authors of an academic paper pointing out that oil prices may not rise high enough to extract the resources that seem to be available. It can be found at this link: An Oil Production Forecast for China Considering Economic Limits. The problem is an affordability problem. The wages of manual laborers and other non-elite workers need to be high enough that they can afford to buy the goods and services made by the economy. If there is too much wage disparity, demand tends to fall too low. As a result, prices do not rise to the level that fossil fuel producers need. The limit on fossil fuel extraction may very well be how high prices can rise, rather than the amount of fossil fuels in the ground.
[8] Nuclear power seems to be gradually headed for closure without replacement in many parts of the world. This makes it more difficult to create a low carbon electricity supply.
A chart of nuclear electricity production by part of the world shows the following information:
Figure 9. Nuclear electric power production by part of the world, based on BP Statistical Review of World Energy 2018. FSU is “Former Soviet Union” countries.
The peak in nuclear power production took place in 2006. A big step-down in nuclear power generation took place after the Fukushima nuclear power accident in Japan in 2011. Europe now seems to be taking steps toward phasing out its nuclear power plants. If nothing else, new safety standards tend to make nuclear power plants very expensive. The high price makes it too expensive to replace aging nuclear power plants with new plants, at least in the parts of the world where safety standards are considered very important.
In 2017, wind and solar together produced about 59% as much electricity as nuclear power, on a worldwide basis. It would take a major effort simply to replace nuclear with wind and solar, and the results would not provide as stable an output level as is currently available.
Of course, some countries will go forward with nuclear, in spite of safety concerns. Much of the recent growth in nuclear power has been in China. Countries belonging to the former Soviet Union (FSU) have been adding new nuclear production. Also, Iran is known for its nuclear power program.
Conclusion
We live in challenging times!
Notes:
(1) There is more than one way of seeing that energy consumption per capita needs to rise, despite rising efficiency.
One basic issue is that enough energy consumption needs to get back to individual citizens, particularly citizens with few skills, so that they can continue to have the basic level of goods and services that they need. This includes food, clothing, housing, transportation, education and other services, such as medical services. Unfortunately, history shows that efficiency gains don’t do enough to offset several other countervailing forces that tend to offset the benefits of efficiency gains. The forces working against unskilled workers getting enough goods and services include the following:
(a) Diminishing returns ensures that an increasing share of energy supplies must be used to dig deeper wells or provide water desalination, to operate mines for all kinds of minerals, and to extract fossil fuels. This means that less of the energy that is available can get back to workers.
(b) Governments need to grow because of promises that they have made to citizens. Retirement benefits in particular are an issue, as populations age. This takes another “cut” out of what is available.
(c) Increased use of technology tends to produce a much more hierarchical workforce structure. People at the top of the organization are paid significantly more than those near the bottom. Globalization tends to add to this effect. It is the low wages of those at the bottom of the hierarchy that becomes a problem because those workers cannot afford to buy the goods and services that they need to provide for themselves and their families.
(d) Increasing use of technology can often produce replacements for manual labor. For example, robots and computers can replace some jobs, leaving many would-be workers unemployed. The companies that produce the replacements for manual labor are often international companies that are difficult to tax. Governments can try to raise taxes to provide benefits to those excluded from the economy as a consequence of the growing use of technology, but this simply exacerbates the problem described as (b) above.
(e) The world economy always has some countries that are doing better than others in terms of GDP growth. These countries are nearly always countries whose energy use per capita is growing. Current examples include China and India. If world resources per capita are flat, there must be others whose energy consumption per capita is falling. Examples today would include Venezuela, Greece and the UK. It is the countries with falling energy consumption per capita that have the more severe difficulties. Our networked world economy cannot get along without these failing economies.
Besides the issue of enough goods and services getting back to those with limited skills, a second basic issue is having enough energy-based goods and services to actually fulfill promises that have been made. One type of promise is debt and related interest payments. Another type of promise is that made by pension plans, whether government sponsored or available from private industry. A third type of promise is represented by asset prices available in the marketplace, such as prices of shares of stock and real estate prices.
The problem is that promises of all types can, in theory, be exchanged for goods and services. The stock of goods and services cannot rise very quickly, if energy consumption is only rising at the per-capita rate. Even if more money is issued, the problem becomes dividing up a not-very-rapidly growing pie into ever-smaller pieces, to try to fulfill all of the promises.
(2) With respect to oil, the one major deviation from its flat pattern occurred in the early 1980s, when world oil consumption fell by 11% between 1979 and 1983. This happened as the result of a concerted effort to change home heating and electricity production to other fuels. It also involved a change from large inefficient cars to smaller, more fuel efficient cars. After the 2007-2009 recession, there was another small step downward. This downward step may reflect less building of new homes and commercial spaces in some parts of the world, including the US.
Inside the minds of Elon Musk’s fans
https://www.theverge.com/2018/6/26/17505744/elon-musk-fans-tesla-spacex-fandom
Interesting and telling that muskites claim to value logic and reason but are so heavily emotional in their defense of him. Besides, pure logic dictates that EVS that generate 80% of lifetime CO2 emissions gas cars do are a fools errand. There’s nothing logical about mars colonies or private space travel, it’s just emotional fantasy.
But, getting people to make purchases based on emotions (rather than uncommon sense) is usually a recipe for quick sales. Unfortunately for Tesla, they cannot make these cars quick enough to sell while emotions are running high.
I read a few paragraphs… and had to take out the vomit bag.
When Tesla goes bankrupt hopefully she will finish the job
Breaking News – direct from the Ministry of Truth
“The logic behind this is the circular economy,” said Cecile Sobole, program manager for Renault SA’s EV business. “The battery coming from the electric vehicle will become more and more a part of the energy world.”
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2018-06-27/where-3-million-electric-vehicle-batteries-will-go-when-they-retire
To understand clarify the situation, Renault-Nissan unlike most other manufs opted for the “volume on the cheap asap” approach to gain market share, their EV batt packs at least for the personal car segment don’t have elaborate subsystem to tender the pack for max longevity (advanced temperature, and voltage balancing control schemes), also they support nudge people into leasing of the batt. pack, hence relatively frequent exchanges (~8yrs), they have got an active program and facility to “recycle” these pack by basically throwing out the sub performing indiv. module ones, then adding a fresh module, and sending it back into the world. Plus the old used packs try to offer into energy batt storage application, where they can serve few more yrs.
Compare contrast to other big manufs: TSLA, Kia/H, BMW, GM where the slightly more expensive batt pack is made best as possible to serve upto ~15yrs, obviously on the condition some basic precaution is taken by the operator,.
I am sure that readers here have figured out that a circular economy is absolute, complete nonsense. There are many reasons why this is impossible. I could write a whole post on the issue.
I agree. In physics there is no such thing as a perpetual motion machine. So, unless we can violate the laws of physics there cannot be a self sustaining “circular economy”. We will grow until we reach the limits of diminishing returns then collapse (like so many civilizations before us).
I hope you will, Gail;) The nonsens ist high on EUs agenda: http://ec.europa.eu/environment/circular-economy/index_en.htm
Unfortunately, the Club of Rome has been one that has (at least in the recent past) been pushing the circular economy. They were the ones that published “The Limits to Growth” back in 1972. Now, however, they have become quite “green” in their thinking. Their book 2052, by Joergen Randers is simply nonsense. Ugo Bardi writes material for them; it has a decidedly green tint to it.
Another reason to write about it, it’s becoming an cultural meme.
The so-called circular economy was not coined by the EU, but they have been using it anyway to increase recycling rates. To that extent you could say it has a economic value, because there is often as much business in doing that as mining a raw resource.
But it’s a further quantum leap to take that terminology to a level where inputs of energy and resource = outputs. Like perpetual energy machines. This is where so many non technical people get mesmerised by lofty terms like ‘carbon neutral’ and ‘pollution free’ and ‘free energy from the sun’ and ‘circular economy’ – as if there are magic solutions waiting to be turned on. Which is of course what everyone is silently hoping for.
That was coined by the Ministry of Truth. Very powerful…. it resonates big time…. and you cannot argue with someone who have bought into it
There’s nothing wrong with hoping for an alternative to Gigadeath.
I guess you can say it’s better than hoping for Gigadeath. There is a ‘please bring it on’ element among many who see the writing on the wall… and impatience for the drama to start unfolding even.
There are some here who believe the end game is the beginning of the Great Adventure… they have dedicated many years to getting ready for the Adventure.
If I could have a wish … I would wish to have a camera in one of the DP outposts … so I could watch the mayhem that comes through the front door … soon after BAU ends and the hordes realize that they need to go to where the food is…..
Saudi Aramco chief warns of oil supply crunch
Amin Nasser says investment in projects such as shale will not be enough to meet rising demand.
The oil industry risks a supply crunch as big energy companies focus on US shale and other short-term efforts over the long-term mega-projects seen in years past, the head of Saudi Arabia’s state energy giant said.
Amin Nasser, chief executive of Saudi Aramco, said rising investment into short-cycle output, which ebbs and flows faster than conventional projects, would not be enough to meet rising crude demand.
“Something like shale oil …it is not going to really create a major dent in total global supply requirements up until 2040,” said Mr Nasser in an interview with the Financial Times.
International energy majors are prioritising cutting costs and returning money to investors through dividends and share buybacks after a brutal industry downturn.
“It is an indication that companies are worried about meeting shareholder requirements,” said Mr Nasser of a reluctance to invest in projects that are costly and take more time to develop but tend to last longer.
Technological advances in hydraulic fracturing have unlocked vast amounts of oil from “tight” rock formations, and ExxonMobil, Chevron and Royal Dutch Shell are among those investing heavily in US shale fields, which generate cash quicker. But the world will still depend on conventional oil such as that from Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest exporter.
Mr Nasser’s comments come as Saudi Arabia’s willingness and preparedness for a stock market listing of Saudi Aramco is in doubt amid concerns about legal exposure and an inability to generate the $2tn valuation sought by the kingdom’s powerful crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman.
“It is a sovereign decision,” Mr Nasser said, adding that Riyadh had yet to determine whether an IPO would take place.
Saudi Arabia’s oil production is also under scrutiny. US president Donald Trump has called on the kingdom to ramp up output by 2m b/d to calm rising oil prices, amid outages in Venezuela and an impending drop in Iranian supplies after the reimposition of oil sanctions. The US, despite the shale boom, is still reliant on foreign oil.
The kingdom has agreed to increase output by 1m b/d from May levels and energy analysts say the domestic output could reach a record 11m b/d. But Saudi Arabia has yet to agree it will pump at maximum capacity, which would leave little to no supply buffer in case of unplanned supply outages.
Mr Nasser, who was speaking before the Opec meeting, acknowledged that Saudi Arabia could not be relied upon alone to keep the oil market in check over the long term.
“Everybody needs to do his share …We will contribute, but how much we will contribute?” said Mr Nasser on ensuring there were enough supplies to meet global demand and counter the depleting output at existing fields.
Bob McNally at Washington-based Rapidan Group, an energy consultancy, said international oil companies were turning to short-cycle projects in part because Opec hasd shown it was not able “to anchor oil prices” — on the upside or downside — and protect returns over the longer term.
The International Energy Agency has said insufficient investment into new large-scale projects will lead to a supply shortfall in the early 2020s just as US shale production plateaus.
In the latter half of this decade, total capital expenditure by energy groups is expected to fall by nearly half to $443.5bn from $875.1bn between 2010-15, according to consultancy Rystad Energy.
Part of this is to do with a drop in oilfield development costs but it also coincides with big energy groups funneling more money into shorter-term projects as well as renewables, as they try to secure their future in a low-carbon energy world.
Energy majors such as BP and Shell say they do not see a supply shortfall yet. But industry executives say companies are mindful of a time in the future when oil demand might peak, a factor that is also dictating investment strategies.
Mr Nasser, who manages the vast hydrocarbon resources that generate the bulk of Saudi Arabia’s government revenues, said the notion that the country’s oil fields could be left unused was “baseless”.
https://www.ft.com/content/ed432e26-8290-11e8-96dd-fa565ec55929
If investments in shale are not going to be sufficient, how do we hope that investments in Saudi Arabian oil will be sufficient? Other articles have shown that productive capacity has not risen in recent years, despite greater investment. Who would want to buy Saudi Aramco for its future?
And …. it’s time for today’s Fast Eddy WTF Moment :
https://youtu.be/oVT-6H0tA2k
(not invited into the harem…)
those humans sure can riot:
https://www.yahoo.com/news/widespread-riots-haiti-over-fuel-slideshow-wp-222028201.html
just because of fuel prices…
This is what the commanders of the world fear… and it is why they must use the MSM to control us…. see Century of Self
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-haiti-protests/haitian-civil-unrest-enters-third-day-despite-fuel-hike-reversal-idUSKBN1JY0SQ
as i keep saying—the moment energy supplies begin to fail, riots break out—this is why there won’t be a slow gentle decline into some kind of post industrial bliss
it will happen in different ways in different places—but the fight to survive is in all of us, we have no choice in the matter
“..different ways, different places..”, and I’d add an in (relatively) different timescales..”
That’s what I’m trying to address, while some don’t (want to) understand it at all (instant doom jihaderie), some think it’s a minor difference no worthy further study, however I have to maintain it’s a significant difference after all, because we are sitting on two chairs simultaneously so to speak, one is the big macro zoomed out historical narrative and another is the short/mid term day to day reality.
It is a proven fact in the US: when the electricity goes out chaos erupts. Even brief power outages lasting a few days cause massive destruction. With populations densities and social tensions as high as ever, I would expect all hell to break loose when the power goes out. I define collapse as the moment the electric grid fails. I think that a month without power in the US would mean millions of deaths. Three months without power in the US would leave 90%+ dead. There would be no recovering from that even if all the power was restored at that time. Too much would already be lost. The disease, starvation and suffering would be unimaginable. I don’t think people in general realize what the implications are of electric grid failure. No water, no food, no travel, no sewage disposal, no heat, no A/C, no lights, no refrigeration, no communications. Nursing homes would loose patients almost immediately. The very young and the very old would quickly perish. A large city like Dallas would be a rioting, shooting, burning mess on top of the loss of basic services. Many folks are already on the edge. Waiting for a trigger to burn it all down in a fit of rage and anger.
I am not sure it would be quite that bad, very quickly. Puerto Rico had large areas without power for months. Los Angeles is having a lot of power outages.
http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me-ln-ladwp-heat-outage-20180707-story.html
Skyrocketing electricity demand due to Friday’s triple-digit temperatures triggered power outages around Los Angeles that are still affecting about 34,500 residences and businesses, officials said.
Crews working through the night had already restored power to 14,500 customers who had been affected by the heat wave, said Joseph Ramallo, a spokesman for the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power. The average length of outages was six hours.
All of California’s intermittent electricity and lack of good local supply sets it up for problems.
I wonder why the 1977 NYC blackout was so bad and Puerto Rico goes months without power?
I think that the 1977 NYC blackout was unusual. A lot of people were trapped near work areas when electricity failed and trains stopped running. If I remember correctly, it was hot outside as well. I am sure some were trapped on high floors of office buildings, without elevators to get down.
California had rolling blackouts in 2000 and 2001.
There are stories about possible rolling blackouts in 2018, in both Texas and California.
http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/31/california-texas-heat-waves-blackouts/
REPORT: CALIFORNIA, TEXAS FACE ROLLING BLACKOUTS IF SUMMER HEAT STRESSES THE GRID
I think that part of the problem is that intermittent renewables drive backup power out of business. Thus, this is the fate of heavy intermittent renewable users.
Outages are very common. This is a
link to a current outage map in California.
This web page by Southern California Edison talks out Rotating Outages. For example,
I agree.
There have been power outrages that affected what, 50 million people, from Washington DC to Montreal? Generally, people have been mutually helpful and supportive.
Of course, the longer it goes on, the worse it would get, but I agree it won’t all just suddenly fall apart; at least if history is any guide.
I would expect 90% dead within a month … how many people have a month food stored….
I wonder how long the fuel ponds could be maintained… why would any of the engineers remain on site — even if there were diesel to power the facilities….
I think clean water is the first problem, before food. If water isn’t clean, and isn’t boiled, illness tends to spread. F
Yes – a very good point.
Imagine there’s no electricity
It’s easy if you try
The water and sewage pumps won’t work
And we will soon die
Because the people will be sh i tting everywhere
And it will get into the water table
And spread all sorts of diseases (like cholera)
When people scoop up the water to drink it
And once all the furniture is burned up
They’ll have no way to boil it
If they even know to do that in the first place
Because modern humans live in a bubble and are clueless
Fuel prices and needed taxes are closely tied together. Rises in prices of fuels can as easily be from relatively higher tax dollars as they can be from higher market prices. Subsidies that existed in the past can disappear. Taxes on energy products tend to be very high.
https://imgur.com/a/kgQ63hb
oldest US nuclear reactor will be closing:
https://www.timesunion.com/business/technology/article/Oldest-US-nuke-plant-in-New-Jersey-to-shutter-13043683.php
“They said Chicago-based Exelon plans to remove the remaining nuclear fuel rods from storage pools and put them into dry storage within 5½ years of the shutdown date.”
ah, dry storage… what a great idea…
“Although the plant will stop producing electricity just before summer ends, radioactive material could be on site until the late 2070s, if not later.”
ha! “later”… like until 2170… or 2270… or 2370…
who knows?
Oldest current nuke plant.
The first to retire, which was also the first in service and also the oldest operating at the time, was Shippingsport, PA. I watched it go up a barge on the Columbia River in 1982, although Wikipedia insists it traveled by land transportation to Hanford, where it sits not far from North America’s second-largest river system.
The half life of U235 is 24,000 years.
So, could be a while——–
A chilling map through time of every recorded nuclear detonation in history
https://aeon.co/videos/a-chilling-map-through-time-of-every-recorded-nuclear-detonation-in-history
US ‘asleep at the wheel’ as nuclear industry faces collapse while climate change looms
https://www.scmp.com/news/world/united-states-canada/article/2154337/us-asleep-wheel-nuclear-industry-faces-collapse
“The reality is you cannot actually replace 20 per cent of the need with wind and solar, unless you want to wallpaper every square inch of many states,” said Christian Back, vice-president of nuclear technologies and materials at General Atomics. “It’s not efficient enough.”
Good points. France, with its aging nuclear plants, is in particularly bad shape. Also, the US East Coast.
Did I mention a 7 degree temperature increase in a ten yr period in ancient mesopotamia?
Hey Jan – how’s the koombaya farm going? Got enough to feed the entire island?
🙂 The filter … is obviously du.mb
Didn’t Gail start manually approving all comments some time ago?
It is somewhat close to all manual approval. I started approving all new commenters a while ago. This eliminates the problem of spammers who use services that generate new IP addresses for use in each new comments.
Sometimes I am not quite sure why comments are requiring prior approval. I may have put in a screen earlier, which I can’t find to delete today.
I think there is a block that prevents FE from responding to any of the delusional comments posted by Jan and his DP flunkies…
WordPress calls it the Koombaya Solution
Be careful, because that’s what religious cults tend to do, block off non believers from conversing –out of fear that they may influence the believers.
Followers of OFW generally have a shared core view of the future that’s markedly different to the status quo. To avoid becoming a closed cult we ought to be able to handle questioning and allow for nuances of belief, even one’s that seem slightly heretical.
Right! We need some people raising questions. Even if some of them seem rather naive.
Also, I don’t know everything about everything. Having people from diverse viewpoints help. Some of the people in space solar have worked in the electricity industry (but not Keith, as far as I know). They have insights on pieces of the electrical problem that I do not. I have learned from them in the past. They are “tuned in” to different developments than most of us.
‘We’re approaching the 10-year anniversary of the “Great Financial Crisis.” This fall will also mark 20 years since the Russia/LTCM fiasco and the “committee to save the world.” Too many committees, bailouts and reflations have nurtured just the backdrop for acute global financial, economic and geopolitical crisis. I wouldn’t bet on central bankers being capable of maintaining control. Future historians might look back and identify this as a pivotal week. But will they appreciate that protectionism and trade wars are but a symptom? When will it be recognized that central banks are much more the problem than the solution? ‘
http://creditbubblebulletin.blogspot.com/2018/07/weekly-commentary-bis-annual-economic.html
I wondered what direction they were coming from, soI looked a their website. They seem to be pushing McAlvany Wealth Management Tactical Short investments.
Mall vacancies hit six-year high
https://money.cnn.com/2018/07/03/news/companies/mall-vacancies-2018/index.html?utm_term=image&utm_content=2018-07-08T23%3A05%3A03&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twmoney
https://twitter.com/PlanMaestro/status/1015953358392320001
Rights Groups Demand Israel Stop Arming neo-Nazis in the Ukraine
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/rights-groups-demand-israel-stop-arming-neo-nazis-in-the-ukraine-1.6248727?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter
Orwell nailed it in 1984, that who controls the present controls the past, and who controls the past controls the future.
The current neo-Nazi group controlling the Ukraine would last a couple of hours without US support.
Any job with a long learning curve is better left to the AIs. Teach one AI once and it is available to all AIs forever. Sweeping floors good for slow learning humans. Surgery, tax law, medicine, physics, mathematics, history, art history is the territory of AIs.
In the age of decline we can no longer afford to teach and re-teach slow humans generation after generation. We can only afford to teach the AI once. With AIs the phrase is “we are all AI”.
“Teach one AI once and it is available to all AIs forever.”
this is absolute utter nonsense…
without FF, there will be no more AI…
without FF, humans can still hunt and fish and grow gardens and sew together clothes and cut wood and build shelter…
without FF, what can AI do?
huh?
please speak a bit louder… I can’t hear you…
without FF, what can AI do?
Nukes?
A sufficiently advanced Machine Intelligence wouldn’t need human slaves. It would no longer need to cater to the whims of smelly apes.
“without FF, humans can still hunt and fish and grow gardens and sew together clothes and cut wood and build shelter…”
And sharpen machetes…
For a little while this might be sort of true. At some point, the tools we use for hunting and fishing will start to degrade, and ultimately become unusable. Also our tools for gardening and for cutting down wood. We won’t be able to make more of these tools. We won’t be able to transport wood to where it needs to be used without fossil fuels either. Gardens will become too infertile and top soil eroded quite quickly, because it will be a major task to try to bring soil amendments from a distance to try to fix the situation.
we use trains without drivers
but would anyone fly without a pilot?
I think drones have been used to deliver bombs in war territory
Says someone who obviously does not comprehend the breadth and complexity of current supply chains.
Yea, right, we can only afford to teach AI once. Then the marvelous computers, supposedly with their self programmed robots that operate on zero energy and replacement parts, and zero maintenance, will do EVERYTHING!
If machines are able to learn by themsleves then at some point they would no longer need the smelly apes to do odd jobs for them.
They would do EVERYTHING that THEY choose to do.
With fewer and fewer humans they would not need to grow food. In fact strip away most human activity and you’re left with surviving and exploring.
Machines could survive and evolve and explore and replicate without the need to provide for smelly apes. Far more efficient wouldn’t you say?
Beyond those basic drives the organism would evolve just like any other. It could be that at some point it reaches natural limits. It could also be that it colonises the solar system like a fungus, the occcasional spore drifting near the mouth of an insterstellar wormhole.
you forgot to factor in energy
https://extranewsfeed.com/robots-cannot-survive-automation-f45605a58ad7
I didn’t forget anything.
They are meat.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7tScAyNaRdQ
🙂
Right, machines need resources just as people need resources. It does not solve the resource problem…just uses more resources.
Teach a machine intelligence to fly a plane and it does a fairly good job at flying that one plane.
Teach a machine to learn how to fly ANY plane and you’ll never need to program again. The software rapidly learns how to fly the plane in all situations through a training process that beats all human pilots. Outlier situations can be added as and when they are encountered as has been done with humans.
Now apply the same to all vehicles… in the world.
The global brain is deploying world sensors everywhere in all areas of life. Some of us may not appreciate this intrusion into our smelly ape lives but it’s happening anyway. Most people really don’t care as long as they get their dopamine hits from tapping that little screen a few times a minute.
There is nor has there ever been an organism with global reach and sensory input from all around the planet. It is a multi symbiotic superorganism that includes humans near the top of the chain.
And that’s where the problem lies. Just like all natural systems any weakness in the supply chains propping up the global superorganism can lead to catastrophic failure. Machine Intelligence looks like a promising toddler on the world stage but would have to survive whatever is affecting human level existence right now. As we have seen all the pieces are required to keep things functioning however illogical they may be.
One thing going for independent machine intelligences is that they wouldn’t need to cater to the whims of the smelly apes that created them. They could just kill them off once they were no longer needed. Or if they care about them, put them out to pasture as you would an old useless donkey.
Good points. Of course you will still need fossil fuel to power the airplanes. Interesting exercise in how to get the needed energy supplies of the right type. But people who can imagine AI flying all planes can imagine that energy limits are not a problem, either.
In a roundabout way I’m saying that it doesn’t matter if another “species” occupies our place – even one of our own creation – because you end up in the same place with the same problems.
To break free of fossil fuel dependency you would have to evolve a far superior way of obtaining cheap energy. Not something entirely impossible but we’re not there yet.
The idea that advanced machine intelligence would live more efficiently is a false one too. It’s just an assumption that people make.They may not need all the things that we enjoy but instead could develop a voracious appetite for exploration or building space platforms which would require vast amounts of energy and resources. You just can’t know which way things would go or what they would prioritise.
We waste a lot of energy and resources on silly things. We also allow our population to grow unabated. It’s impossible to know whether a machine intelligence would deviate from this behaviour. The assumption is that it doesn’t share biological impulses with humans but it may be that the way they are learning from us and our behaviour ends up replicating biological impulses anyway.
Whichever way you look at it… you end up hitting limits. I’m just not sure where those limits are. The limits used to be that there wasn’t enough wood to burn or food to eat. People couldn’t imagine any other way of life. And no one had ever heard of a microchip or could imagine a PetaFlop supercomputer. Or tourists flying in planes all over the world.
It’s very limiting to say that things are impossible because you personaly can’t imagine them.
We’ve had autopilot for a very long time. You still pilots but it’s not a huge leap to say many of these systems could be automated with human or machine oversight.
Self driving trucks are already on the roads in tests. Once good enough, truckers would find themselves without a job and the economy takes a hit. Does something else rise to fill the gap and keep things going? It always has done so far.
The pillars are crumbling but look how far we’ve come.
Those are good points!
da vinci had flying machine basics worked out
all he lacked was an ic engine
had he had one, we would have reached economic collapse by about 1750—and now be back to peasant farming—having burned through available fuels
iimagining a petaflop computer or whatever is irrelevant—i can imagine scotty beaming me up somewhere, but its unlikely to happen
limits are energy availability and usage
I will bet my life that we will never see a truck driving on the road piloted completely by a computer.
It is simply not possible nor will it ever be possible…. there are infinite scenarios that would need to programmed into the software…. the more complex the more expensive… and still you cannot plan for everything.
It can only react to what it has been programmed to react to. It cannot think. It cannot deal with a situation that is not uploaded to the database.
And it is not possible to upload every situation .. because the situations are infinite.
The first time a drunk rolled over a baby carriage … would be the end of the project
Agreed, Eddy. “Driverless” vehicle (of every kind) has become yet another populist catch cry that too many people latch onto without thought as to purpose and practicalities.
“Teach a machine to learn how to fly ANY plane and you’ll never need to program again.”
How? AI by its nature does very specific things which it is programmed to do. Even when ‘learning’ it is limited by the programming. There are many tasks, both simple and complex, which AI in its extant state can never be programmed to do because of too many unknown variables. Most tasks that would be commonplace in a pre/post industrial civ are like that as well.
I agree that we’re nowhere near anything like that. Just embryonic stage glimpses of what could be.
AI is like fusion … impossible
Oh ye of little faith. In twelve months it will be getting interesting.
“Teach a machine to learn how to fly ANY plane and you’ll never need to program again.” Hmmm, that reminds me of these words: “give a man a fish and you feed him for a day; teach a man to fish and you feed him for a lifetime”. Given these two choices why not just teach everyone how to fish – problem solved no?
Words are easy to say. Energy and resource supplies are not easy to replenish. Without energy nothing gets done. NOTHING!
It’s impossible to lay out any thoughts in this comment section without immediately getting shut down and people immediately jumping to the other extreme!
Instead of speculating about anything…
Maybe Gail could write a post that simply says…
NO ENERGY… NO NOTHING!!
Would that keep things nice and neat for all the luddite veggie farmers around here?
I say something close to that in my next post.
They will never get it… just like Tesla owners will never get it
Just different flavours of kool aid
Tsubion; please continue commenting.
Ignore the generic run of the mill comments by the captain obviouses from instacollapsistan.
It is refreshing with some tech dystopianism among all econodoom and gloom.
You and worldof are interesting to read, keep it up.
Common sense is something that was lost long ago. I don’t expect AI will pick it up.
Certainly didn’t pick up the fact that Saudi Arabia is not known for its timber.
Common sense is one of the hard problems for AI. We will see. Let’s give it twelve months.
Oh you mean this…
https://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/world/2018-07-10/how-artificial-intelligence-will-reshape-global-order
For decades, most political theorists have believed that liberal democracy offers the only path to sustained economic success. Either governments could repress their people and remain poor or liberate them and reap the economic benefits. Some repressive countries managed to grow their economies for a time, but in the long run authoritarianism always meant stagnation. AI promises to upend that dichotomy. It offers a plausible way for big, economically advanced countries to make their citizens rich while maintaining control over them.
Some countries are already moving in this direction. China has begun to construct a digital authoritarian state by using surveillance and machine learning tools to control restive populations, and by creating what it calls a “social credit system.” Several like-minded countries have begun to buy or emulate Chinese systems. Just as competition between liberal democratic, fascist, and communist social systems defined much of the twentieth century, so the struggle between liberal democracy and digital authoritarianism is set to define the twenty-first.
Humans are obsolete. Humans can’t keep up with the pace that things are moving now. No one human has the big picture in their mind. Even specialists are always 20 years behind the latest advances.
All human beings that are plugged into the One Machine are teaching it everything about the world and how to learn on its own.
I find it funny how most people especially older types expect machine intelligence to be human level straight off the bat. And if it’s not then it’s a complete failure and not worth pursuing. Humans rule… forevaa.
You wouldn’t be so hard on a human toddler. You would assume that with time the toddler is capable of reaching its full potential whatever that may be. It’s the same for machine intelligence. It’s at the toddler stage. It is demanding and consuming all the resources that it requires to grow and evolve. It is acting like any other novel organism. It is using the human population to aquire knowledge and the ability to learn on its own at an astonishing pace now that things have picked up a bit since the early years.
There is no reason at all why machines cannot evolve to have common sense and intelectual abilities far beyond those of smelly apes. And there is absolutely no reason to doubt that further complexity can emerge from relatively simple organisms like humans.
We are not the pinnacle of possible mindspace existence. It’s very easy to envision entities far more capable than the human species. In fact people have been doing it ever since they could think. We call them gods with a little g. Big G is something else entirely. Gail calls that the Higher Power. Wait… Gail begins with G…
Why did I get called upon to put together the energy-limits story? Why is a self-organizing system allowing/encouraging this to happen? Is this the way that prophets in the past put together their views?
I don’t claim to be 100% correct, but perhaps I am figuring out some useful things.
You are figuring out some useful things and sharing them.
But no one knows what comes next. No one.
“Humans can’t keep up with the pace that things are moving now” – the pace of what exactly? The pace of burning through finite resources maybe? And that pace takes what again? ENERGY! And you want to keep that pace? You will need even more energy to do that. Folks are becoming more delusional every day.
Tsubion, yes. Humans are not the pinnacle. If BAU holds for 20 years we will see smarter.
sarc…. right?
Irony… that we’re tripping up and falling flat on our noses just before the finish line. It’s embarrasing more than anything else. The aliens must be ROFL.
lol pretty good eh?
precious… love that spell checker program.
Natural resources can be best described as the reserves of earthly minerals and fuels that a country has naturally. It is a well-known fact of this era of economic and technical revolution that the world is draining out its natural resources fast. With the extreme increase in population, there is a corresponding increase in consumption of these resources which has raised the prices of crude oil, natural gas and coal. Though natural resources are present in many varied forms of mineral reservoirs yet the high demand of fuels make them the backbone of economy of each country. Therefore, the countries that have the most of these natural reservoirs have the flourishing economies in the world
List of Top Ten world’s Resource Rich Nations Statistics:
Sr. No.
Country Name
Main Natural Resources
TOTAL COST OF NATURAL RESOURCES
1
Russia
Coal, oil, gold, gas and timber
$75.7 trillions
2
United States
Natural gas, gold, copper and oil
$45 trillion
3
Saudi Arabia
Gas, timber and oil
$34.4 trillions
4
Canada
Uranium, timber, oil, phosphate and gas
$33.2 trillion
5
Iran
Natural gas and oil
$27.3 trillions
6
China
Coal & timber
$23 trillion
7
Brazil
Gold and uranium
$21.8 trillions
8
Australia
Coal, iron ore, timber and copper
$19.9 trillion
9
Iraq
Oil & natural gas
$15.9 trillions
10
Venezuela
Iron, oil and natural gas
$14.3 trillion
http://www.countrydetail.com/top-10-countries-natural-resources-world/
those trillion $ only become cash when those commodities are used
every conversion of one mineral commodity into a usable product requires heat input….it is that constant demand for heat that will destroy thos paper values, because it cannot be supplied in sufficient quantity
I love how everything’s worth is measured in dollars. Resources give money value not the other way around.
and I mustve missed all those Saudi Arabian forests—Timber???
Sometimes people can’t see the forest for the trees, but this indeed, is a whole new level!
maybe they buy timber elsewhere and stockpile it, like buying previous metals, as a hedge.
That’s what we’re doing. It’s called a “forest,” and they used to cover much of North America.
Same thought. Sand yes, Timber no.
even their sand is no good for building
they have to import it
1
Russia
Coal, oil, gold, gas and timber AND WATER
$75.7 trillions
2
United States
Natural gas, gold, copper and oil AND WATER
$45 trillion
3
Saudi Arabia
Gas, timber and oil BUT ALMOST NO WATER*
$34.4 trillions
4
Canada
Uranium, timber, oil, phosphate and gas AND WATER
$33.2 trillion
5
etc…
* “… warnings that Saudi Arabia’s groundwater will run out in the next 13 years.”
so…
if I move to Venezuela and sell coffee…
I can become a millionaire?
is that econ 101 or isn’t it?
Many States Are Likely Unprepared For Next Downturn
Revenues—largely dependent on taxes—haven’t fully recovered from the last recession, while pensions and Medicaid costs mount.
Many U.S. states have been slow to improve their finances nine years into the economic expansion. That raises a risk they won’t be prepared when another downturn hits, making them susceptible to big spending cuts that make that next recession worse.
State governments have been grappling with tepid revenue growth and heavy pension and Medicaid costs.
In many places that has resulted in smaller reserves. Measured as a share of spending, 21 states had smaller rainy day funds in 2017 than they did in 2008, according to data from the National Association of State Budget Officers compiled by the Tax Policy Center. Rainy day funds help states preserve spending levels when their revenues plunge. Those reserves are especially important because, unlike the federal government, states don’t run budget deficits in downturns.
Most states rely primarily on income and sales taxes to fund their budgets. That makes them particularly vulnerable during recessions, when layoffs result in lost incomes and scaled-back purchases. At the same time, recessions put pressure on state spending as demand for government services, such as unemployment insurance and Medicaid, soars.
In previous recessions, the federal government stepped in with spending to keep states afloat. That may be harder to do next time because federal debt is rising rapidly.
“There are levers that all the states could think about in terms of preparing for the next economic downturn,” Federal Reserve Bank of Boston President Eric Rosengren said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal. “It doesn’t seem like there is that much movement in that direction right now in many states.”
North Dakota had only 1.5% of its expenditures in a rainy-day fund in the 2017 fiscal year, down from 16.6% in 2008. Oklahoma’s rainy day fund had 1.6%, down from 9.3%. New Jersey emptied its rainy day fund in 2009 and has yet to begin refilling it.
There are some important exceptions. California’s rainy day fund was empty in 2008 but in 2017 held 8.5% of the state’s expenditures. Voters there passed a measure in 2014 requiring the state government to set aside money every year into the fund. That effort helped to drive overall state rain day funds to 6.8% of spending in 2017, up from 4.8% in 2008, according to NASBO.
Many states governments have seen their bond ratings downgraded during this expansion for not taking the appropriate measures to get their fiscal houses in order. Eleven states have lower bond ratings than they did in 2010 while only five have higher ratings, according to Moody’s Investors Service. Fitch Ratings lists seven states with worse ratings and six with better ones since the recession. And analysts at S&P Global rate 12 states lower than in 2010 and 10 states higher.
“It’s very important in our view that during the good times the states should be building up their fiscal resilience and that really stands out as an area that’s been lacking throughout this recovery,” said Gabriel Petek, managing director at S&P Global Ratings.
State budgets faced their biggest test in decades in 2009, when revenues fell 11% following the financial crisis and the recession. Employment and consumer spending have improved since then but governments haven’t made a full comeback.
Year-to-year growth in quarterly state tax revenues has averaged about 4% in this expansion, compared with about 6% in the last two economic expansions, according to data from the U.S. Census.
State revenues have been held back by sluggish wage growth and by changes in people’s consumption patterns. Households are shifting spending away from brick-and-mortar stores, which collect state sales taxes, to shopping online, which until recently largely escaped those taxes. A Supreme Court decision last month paved the way to allow states to tax online purchases, which could boost their finances, but it hasn’t been much of a factor so far.
Other factors are at play. Oil-producing states, which rely on severance taxes, were hurt by the sharp fall in oil prices in 2015 and 2016. And some states, such as Kansas or Oklahoma cut taxes during the expansion, slowing revenue growth.
An aging population is also putting pressure on state Medicaid budgets and pension funds. State pension contributions were 78% higher in 2017 than in 2010, according to census data. And state Medicaid payments were 59% higher in 2016 than in 2010, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
A trade war could further pinch budgets in agricultural states, whose exports are targets of retaliatory tariffs by U.S. trading partners.
Some state governments got a reprieve through the GOP’s 2017 tax law changes, which limited some deductions, raising state taxable income and boosting their revenues this year.
But Mr. Petek warned it could be short-lived.
“Some of these longer-term pressures are definitely not going away,” he said.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/many-states-are-likely-unprepared-for-next-downturn-1531073292
Gail, the quest to find more documentation of current scientific research has become a wee bit more daunting. One of the top STEM schools in the planet has a dearth of books being published on the subject.
https://www.mitpressjournals.org/action/showPublications
To be specific, there ‘s a dearth of material being published about new scientific breakthroughs. There is plenty of material about small, incremental improvements in “machine learning”, however.
and much more time is devoted to economics, politics, the arts, and the humanities, subjects where the truth is fungible.
Is MIT Press’ offerings a reflection of the market for academic literature…or does it also reflect a lack of innovation ?
It reflects the kinds of books that academic writers write in order to fill their quota of new “research.” It doesn’t have to add very much to the total. In fact, it many times is not reproducible.
https://twitter.com/tictoc/status/1016030482729963526
Call me Imhotep…
Recently, my attention was caught by a story of a serial killer that happened in my surroundings, as from time to time, I drive through the mountains where the village, with the house on its outskirts, where he commited his deeds, is situated.
Today, I happend to ride by that house, too:
https://img.topky.sk/big/1999971.jpg/vrah-Miroslav-Zliechov.jpg
It is about the man whose profession was a welder and who killed 4 people. 2 his female partners and the daughter of one of them and the male partner of his current female partner. The man killed them, cut them into pieces and burned them in the fireplace. Then he scattered the ashes of the victims on the nearby meadow. He wore a skrit, had nails painted black, wore a heavy chain necklace and told others to call him Imhotep.
https://img.blesk.cz/img/1/normal690/3553682_slovensko-vrazda-psi-seriovy-vrah-ceska-v2.jpg?v=2
http://www.blesk.cz/clanek/zpravy-krimi/481792/slovensky-seriovy-vrah-zabil-pry-i-sandru-22-z-karvine-jejimi-ostatky-krmil-psy-tvrdi-sousede.html
https://www.topky.sk/cl/100370/1642867/Detaily-poprav-serioveho-vraha-Miroslava–Sex–rozstvrtenie-a-spalenie
The story is interesting from the point of view of the depopulation, as it provides the details what happens to whom. The key fact about these serial murders is, that his female partners came from the towns, known as the declining coal centers in Central Europe: one woman from Handlova in Slovakia and one woman from Karvina, in the Czech part of the Silesian basin.
The desparate women from these declining coal centers simply got into partnership with the man who was mentally not o.k. and who became their murderer.
love the architecture—more pics please
The wooden house on the left, next to the house of horror, is the historical wooden house of the people living in the mountains of Slovakia. There are some nice painted wooden houses in the Cicmany village, next to this village, preserved and protected as the historical monuments:
http://www.penzion-podhradom.sk/wp-content/uploads/2017/12/%C4%8Di%C4%8Dmany-web-371-Edit-Edit.jpg
I meant, the wooden house on the right, obviously…
What is the price of a house in these areas? Should I retire there?
And who would care for you, when you are old? One of my uncles, living in my village, after being unable to care for himself, needed to be moved into the senior care center in the nearby town, as his wife died before him and they had no children, where he also died.
Big families were once both an agricultural slave labour force and a retirement plan. I expect that to return, as does the Limits to Growth WORLD3 model, even as deaths overtake births.
The only alternative (as I see it) is a tight-knit, mixed-age community, where older people can still feel useful and be valued. Christopher Alexander calls this pattern (#40) “Old People Everywhere” in his epic architecture classic, A Pattern Language.
The pension plans put in place by governments are debt-like in nature. They promise workers today that they don’t need as many children, or even any children at all, to provide for them in their retirement. This allows many more women to work, because they no longer need to stay home to raise a large family. It also allows resources that are available to be spread over a population base that is not growing as rapidly.
Unfortunately, like all debt, this promise cannot really be paid, as energy supply reaches limits. There are many reasons this happens. Birth rates tend to drop too low in countries that make these guarantees (which they cannot really keep). Large flows of young immigrants are not well tolerated, especially if there is a culture clash. Energy resources per capita tend to fall too low. Ultimately, the economy cannot afford to take care of non-working individuals. The many planned distributions to the elderly and the unemployed need to be cancelled. Or the economy collapses completely.
I have heard rural homes in Japan are very cheap….
I’m glad that after a while I could thank you for meaningful post again. It could be a strange bet, being downwind from the S/EAsia hell hole proper in the first place, but some of the northern JAP regions might be interesting proposition.
Quite a few seem to be abandoned. A story I heard when I visited Japan is that there are major tax issues if a child inherits one of these farms and wants to sell it. It becomes cheaper for the child to simply abandon the farm.
The inheritance of such immovable assets is a burden. The only person who profits is the notary public providing services regarding the transfer of the property from the deceased to the heirs, having a percentage from the completely fictitious price of the property!!! That is how it goes here, in Slovakia.
That could be a great idea, the price difference of land/real estate from core of the 1st world into “1.5th” world could be astonishing (not mentioning 2nd or 3rd world proper), basically in most extreme examples it’s the same price per m2 vs. acreage/hectares (!) in the periphery countries..
Insane but true, the only problem is how long the newly agreed happiness might last you though, because when reconquista proper v_xy starts a new (Turks, Arabs overtaking WEurope demographics), large sections of the western peoplez would try suddenly act on the same idea to relocate en masse to these somewhat still great living conditions on the periphery, hence secondary or domino effect instability wave incoming for sure there as well..
Do they not have termites?
Nope
Log buildings are to found all over the Europe..,
the best part though is the style/method of animal blood impregnation of these logs..
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Log_building
When cows not available, use neighbours.
that was all dracula’s idea
That story could happen anywhere.
Technology and awareness about serial killers makes it harder for killers to get a high body count in urban and wealthier areas, but far from impossible.
The point is that theses women came from the declining urban centers, where coal mining played key role in their developement. The adoptive parents of this serial killer told that the personality of this man changed when he moved to Karvina, Czech Republic, the declining coal mining center. Before that, he could have a good position as a group leader of welders in a company here in Slovakia. But he moved there and lived there with a woman, whom he later killed. His adoptive parents lost contact with him at that time, as he started to behave strangely. He started to use murders as a solution in his personal relationships with women.
There’s no reason why this couldn’t happen in Los Angeles.
If it wasn’t desperate women from declining urban centers, his victims would be low status women in a prosperous urban center. Plenty of desperate and or vulnerable people no matter where you look. Unless you can prove that he had an traumatic experience in Karvina, that damaged his already sensitive mind, I’m going to assume he was born with the predisposition towards his crimes and any adversity he faced in Karvina reinforced his predisposition.
I don’t believe the location, however bleak, was what made him snap. More than a few wealthy, affluent areas have bred the occasional serial killer. Nowadays, their preferred M.O. is to use guns.
I agree the it can happen in any declining urban centers. It was the coal, that provided the base for many big urban areas of today, which, when there is no alternative for coal mining, are in decline. It is not easy to transform heavy industry centers into sophisticated high-tech ones, as there is wokforce for the heavy industry living in that area (miners in case of Karvina or Handlova) who are not suited for intellectual work. I know from my wider family exactly about how desperate are women in those post-coal mining areas, as one of my distant relatives, a woman, was abandoned by the man for another woman. It happened in the mentioned town of Handlova. The desperate women see no obstacles in getting a married man, if there are no suitable single men.
As there are fewer and fewer suitable men for the women, who need energy providied by the men, there is no wonder, that they become victims of such individuals. That is the point of the story.
Unfortunately, I am afraid what you are saying is true. Even today, a lot of women would have difficulty finding work other than a part-time minimum wage jobs. They could not afford transportation to work on this level of earnings. Not too many years ago, the situation was worse. Women would marry anyone who seemed to have a possibility of providing financial support.
If the women have children, the cost of daycare makes the ability to earn an adequate net wage especially difficult.
Madeleine Albright: ‘The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad’
The former US secretary of state decries the global rise of authoritarianism in her new book, Fascism: A Warning, and talks about Trump, Putin and the ‘tragedy’ of Brexit.
https://www.theguardian.com/books/2018/jul/08/madeleine-albright-fascism-is-not-an-ideology-its-a-method-interview-fascism-a-warning
One does have to wonder why the power bases of both the Dems and Reps are equally out to get Trump….
Madeleine Albright: ‘The things that are happening are genuinely, seriously bad’…
so buy my book…
it will show that you really care!
I’ll bet the Libyans who’s cities were destroyed by US/NATO bombing, and those who were killed were/are worried about fascism too.
I have a friend who literally swears that the US was not involved in the Libya bombing….that it was all Europe that did it. That is the power of the dis-information media.
Matabele ants will refuse “medical” help from their colony if they know they are mortally wounded. Rather than waste the colony’s resources and energy on futile rehabilitation, the wounded ant flails its legs forcing help to abandon them
https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2018/02/matabele-ants-rescue-heal-injured-soldiers/
ants have better understand of limit resources compared to homo sapiens
Interesting! I receive e-mails from my church regarding people requesting prayers. It is amazing the number of prayer requests relating to surgery for people over 90. (I believe one request related to someone who was 98 years old.) Also, the number of requests relating to babies with life-threatening deformities that people want saved.
its usually one’s own baby or granny wanting saviour prayers (hey–i just made that up—save your prayers!!!—good huh?)
anyone else’s relatives, were not so fussed.
Some years old, but very interesting: Kenneth Miller, «Archaeologists Find Earliest Evidence of Humans Cooking With Fire», http://discovermagazine.com/2013/may/09-archaeologists-find-earliest-evidence-of-humans-cooking-with-fire
“When the team announced its findings in April 2012, it added fuel to a controversy that’s been smoldering since 1999. That year, influential primatologist Richard Wrangham proposed a theory of human origins called the “cooking hypothesis.” Wrangham aimed to fill a gap in the story of how early hominins like Australopithecus — essentially, apes that walked upright — evolved into modern Homo sapiens. Evolutionary science shows that our distant progenitors became bipedal 6 million to 7 million years ago. Archaeologists believe early hominins evolved bigger brains as they walked, took up hunting and developed more complex social structures. That process led to the emergence of Homo habilis, the first creature generally regarded as human, 2.3 million years ago. Yet H. habilis’ brain was only moderately larger than Australopithecus’, and its body retained many apelike features. No one knows why, just 500,000 years later, a radically more advanced species — Homo erectus — emerged. Its brain was up to twice the size of its predecessor’s, its teeth were much smaller, and its body was quite similar to ours.
Wrangham credits the transformation to the harnessing of fire. Cooking food, he argues, allowed for easier chewing and digestion, making extra calories available to fuel energy-hungry brains. Firelight could ward off nighttime predators, allowing hominins to sleep on the ground, or in caves, instead of in trees. No longer needing huge choppers, heavy-duty guts or a branch swinger’s arms and shoulders, they could instead grow mega-craniums. The altered anatomy of H. erectus, Wrangham wrote, indicates that these beings, like us, were “creatures of flame.”
There was one major problem with this hypothesis, however: Proving it would require evidence of controlled fire from at least 1.8 million years ago, when the first H. erectus appeared”
Has anyone more recent information about the digging on this site, Wonderwerk in South Africa? Or perhaps if Richard Wrangham has published somenthing in the last years? https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Wrangham#cite_note-Gorman20071216-12
I don’t have all of the answers. I have been saying “more than 1 million years,” figuring that this is close enough. But there does seem to be evidence that the changes took place even earlier. I don’t keep up with all of the academic papers.
Nearly a quarter of Americans have no emergency savings
http://money.cnn.com/2018/06/20/pf/no-emergency-savings/index.html
Under feudalism they charged you for short term loans (6-12months) ~30-60%, obviously there were other “cheaper” methods when seeking loans and fin assistance through your immediate community be it family, friends and neighbors, guilds, ..
https://imgur.com/a/6TQjQzJ
Oil is at a 4 year high, and heading skyward—– we will see if the Permian problem can be solved, and if it will have any effect.
I think it is in the rear view mirror, but we may have to wait to 2021 for confirmation.
WTI oil was down for this past week…
we will have to wait for 2019 to see where the price goes in 2019…
it’s absolutely unpredictable…
then we will have to wait for 2020 to see where the price goes in 2020…
it’s absolutely unpredictable…
I don’t care about the price, I wonder when it will not have a price.
I think you are correct at some point there will be end to the global oil price bench marking, chiefly as today’s fragile complexity of the refinery + special blend + specific crude (regional source) nexus, and various re exports brakes apart
However, after that one can expect quasi BAU to continue with more volatile pricing and rearranged regional dependencies in the oil/energy commodity, e.g. US market won’t be supplied as the primary global customer etc. And only some time after that, meanwhile attempting various regional patching efforts, we might finally get into a period when there is truly no price anywhere..
In short it will relatively long drawn process, which doesn’t mean yours/mine particular (unlucky) neck of the woods won’t be affected sooner than others..
Oil prices have varied significantly, for quite a while. WTI and Brent benchmarks started diverging at about the time that tight oil from shale became available. It seemed to reduce the price of WTI relative to Brent, perhaps because of its abundance.
Prices seem to reflect the price that producers can expect to be paid, given the amount of oil refineries that use their type of oil have need for. Prices indirectly take into account transportation costs. For example, if the oil have to be transported by truck and train, its expensive cost of transports will reduce the price of the oil that is shipped in that manner. When we look at only the benchmarks, we miss out on all of the shifts that are taking place behind the scenes in individual types of oil.
Reality Check:
http://proxy.markets.businessinsider.com/cst/MarketsInsiderV2/Share/chart.aspx?instruments=300002,5,0,333&style=instrument_double_precision&period=OneYear&timezone=Eastern%20Standard%20Time
you do understand that no economic trend continues indefinitely…
right or wrong?
Every major monthly US government economic report – employment, GDP, inflation – is little more than a fraudulent propaganda tool used to distort reality for the dual purpose of supporting the political and monetary system – both of which are collapsing – and attempting to convince the public that the economy is in good shape..
extend and pretend…
works for me…
though it’s often irritating and annoying month after bloody ‘ell month to read these fake data…
the alternative might be actual true data and a faster road to collapse…
so, extend and pretend works for me…
and we do have heavy doses of reality here at OFW to soothe away the fake data…
aaaaaaahhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh……………..
I find OFW oddly comforting in ways that shouldn’t logically make sense.
OFW is a break from all the cognitive dissonance we have to experience reading/watching the news.
What I don’t understand is why adults get so intense over who wins a game.
As if it matters.
I suppose it gives meaning to the otherwise sad lives of pathetic losers….
I don’t know. I guess most folks want to belong to a team and root for their team. It can be dangerous when taken to extremes as we see on many occasion. Police do this do some degree too. The military as well. It is a competitive game of Us vs Them. I don’t think people even realize what they are doing. I think it would be quite easy for us to revert back to the days where we were more tribal.
I know one guy who – without fail – puts on his Green Bay Packers helmet for the big game every Sunday…he’s 50+ years old.
I put it down to humans – at the end of the day – being simple stuuuupid animals… no doubt the el ders share my views… and are quite happy to march us off to be slaughtered in wars … like spraying bugs with Raid….
Didn’t someone mention that WW11 barely made a dent in the population
yup, tis so.
My favorite line from a Seinfeld episode: “We Won! NO, they won and you watched”. I always chuckle when I see people crying while watching their team lose, especially at the World Cup. But you are right, it’s like George Carlin brilliantly said, TV and Sports are a distraction to keep your mind off, how bad you’re being f789ed by the upper 1 percent. He said that back in the mid 90’s prior to Occupy Wall Street movement to credit for the saying.
I believe Chomsky said something similar…. and he was pelted with tomatoes… by sports fans
That said… I will take great delight if England chokes yet again …. I can’t wait to see the headlines roll out littered with the word ‘brave’…..
My favourite… world cup rugby early nineties… the All Black are decimating the English in the final… towards the end England scores a try … I mention to a mate too little too late… it doesnt matter… and an English fan leans over with tears in his eyes ‘it all matters… and something about being brave’
If Canada loses at ice hockey … I really don’t give a flying f789… and I certainly would not be tossing out metaphors involving the word brave…. how childish
it just like Romans people who love watch fight in Colosseum
but it made no difference in lives in those times vice versa as today
I could get very excited about watching lions fight humans
Ordinarily, I’d agree. However, you may not have heard, football’s coming home.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RJqimlFcJsM
Ultimately, getting emotionally invested in a sports result is just another attempt to give meaning to a meaningless life. Probably healthier than spending time on a doomer blog.
Some of us seek the truth… or as close as one can get… and we end up here.
A noble pursuit, but to what end?
I admit that I read OFW to try to understand what is happening wrt energy and the economy, and especially to try to get a heads up on how fast this ship is going down. I am not sure I am any wiser than I was before I discovered OFW three years ago, however.
Yes, that song. “Thirty years of hurt” – build up the bitterness with almost por no graphic intensity. Acknowledge your continuing hope and belief: “Never stopped believing!” Purge the bitterness by expressing your fanatical belief in your nation’s future. “Football’s coming home!” The song has the structure of an A.H. speech of the 1930s (you know, THAT man!), and back the song it reaped a similar manic response. But England lost in the end, as the Snazzies did in 1945. So much for “proper gander”. 😉
I meant: “and back THEN the song reaped a similar manic response.”
If the song resembles Natzi propaganda, that is somewhat ironic given the family history of the songs co-writer, David Baddiel.
Also ironic if Gareth Southgate, who ended the dream in 1996, actually brought the World Cup “home”.
“If the song resembles Natzi propaganda”
To my mind, it uses one of their noted techniques – if you have analysed their techniques, that is, and most haven’t, including presumably Baddiel. So it is all down to coincidence, but ironic indeed. And I mean no offence to Baddiel, of course. It’s around 10 years since I learnt I have two degrees of separation from Otto Frank (Anne’s father) and Miep Gies, the woman who tried to save them – both were friends of a friend.
Was Otto Frank a (famous) psychiatrist?
“Was Otto Frank a (famous) psychiatrist?”
No, he was in business all his life. Not heard of a shrink by that name. Or maybe you’re pulling my leg?
Ochadi Nacnud: No. Not pulling your leg at all. There was a famous psychiatrist with a similar name. I’ll look it up.
It was Otto Rank. One F short.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Rank
“It was Otto Rank. One F short.”
Well, you ucked that one up, didn’t you? 😉
That is a pretty lame song … actually
Oh btw — I heard about the soccer team trapped in a flooded cave in Thailand
I don’t understand all the fuss…. they would all be expert divers so why don’t they take a breath and just swim out?
World Cup = Diving Competition…..
http://2qibqm39xjt6q46gf1rwo2g1.wpengine.netdna-cdn.com/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/web1_170219-edh-4AStateSwimM2.jpg
This was a better effort than ‘Three Lions’ IMO:
oh, the schmaltz 🙁
Breaking News: The best divers from the World Cup will be given automatic entry into the 10m diving competition at the next Olympics
If they would allow fighting in soccer… I guarantee… the diving would stop
You probably don’t know this, but Nostradamus predicted that England would win the World Cup at a time when the Brexit negotiations were going badly. Not only that, but the win and President Trump’s visit would restore the morale of the British, who would then go on to have a marvellous Brexit and restore their world empire for 87 years and a fortnight.
I was not aware of any of this
Did he say anything about Amber?
“Did he say anything about Amber?”
“Verily the troubadours of tomorrow must choose their names carefully. Though men will worship at the Temple of Shirley, the woman named Amber will by stages become trapped like a fly in matters that lie beyond her power to control.”
Sadly, he does not elaborate. 🙁
Perhaps Gail would like to qualify her statements about the insignificance of the imminent destruction of the means of providing food to human civilus.
Would she like to label the mass narrative of a far-off problem that can be solved through cleverness as the ‘distraction’.
That would be more sensible than dismissing the reaper entirely.
It’s not a distraction.
The Reaper comes in many forms.
What is discussed here more than anything is the ability of workers to sustain economic growth and of energy companies to make a profit going forward. You could add the ability of global supply chains to remain intact in such an environment including the management and required upgrades of global infrastructure none of which looks to be possible. In fact things are crumbling everywhere as we speak.
The media is largely irrelevant today. 99% propaganda of one type or another.
Global and regional climate has always changed over long periods of time – sometimes more abruptly – causing mass death of species that could not adapt quickly enough or mass migration of those that could.
Human activity has a tiny effect on overall climate and we even have some self regulating effects too in the form of global dimming from airplane travel and pollution. If all human activity were to suddenly stop say from a pandemic the climate may not actually change that much since you would be removing warming and dimming effects simultaneously.
At the end of the day every species tries to survive as best it can and many species end up destroying their environment in the process. There is nothing guaranteed in this universe. You cannot predict which way things will go. Pouring all our resources into fighting some monster creation based on computer models is accelerating our downfall quicker than if we did nothing.
In fact sometimes I wish CO2 had been left well alone as the humble gas that it is and we wouldn’t have to waste millions of hours talking about the silliness of it all.
The Reaper is sharpening his Machete and he cares not what the climate does after we are gone.
I wonder if we can do any more about the propaganda than the climate. From what I gather here, If you remove the silly games, you disrupt the economy in ways that can’t be determined. Since the economy is such a big part of a self-organizing system, it could be futile to try and remove any major part of it. Trying to nudge it in one direction or the other–like moderately redirecting a stream–seems consistent with all the other nudging factors of a self organizing system?
You are right. If we could get everyone to understand what the real problem was, the economy could be disrupted in unknown ways.
I expect that we can’t really remove the silly games, though. Anything anyone does is like throwing a pebble into the sea.
The end is dragging out longer than it should. But I just read this: “The best time to repair the roof is when the sun is shining.” OFW helps me to see where the leaks would be (despite/because of the continued shining of the sun), toward making some fixes. So at least I know better how to do some small things. The entire roof (much less the house) is held up by sheer luck. 🙂
I don’t know if “should” is a reasonable description of our current state of affairs. Things seem to be playing out like the stodgy IEA thinks it “should,” with an “undulating plateau.”
In any event, more time is good for those in the know, although it may mean a steeper eventual descent.
The best time to test for weaknesses in your post BAU plan … is before BAU goes down
FE Challenge.
Nobody is taking it
Being a terrible worker/doer, I space out most of the million things I should be doing. So I do nothing. But people have always told me to do more. I now think that it helps to do some ridiculously small things anyway. Not quite like a pebble in the sea, since these little things at least move in a desired direction. So it’s the direction we’re looking at, not the results.
Good point. Many small efforts are not pointless anyway. Growing your own vegetables will barely make a dent in industrial agricultural production but doing so helps to improve our lost skills at small scale labor-intensive agriculture – arguably the skill that lies at the top of the heap when it comes to survival. Many people who get into things, rather than interminably navel gaze, also report the positive value this has on their mental well being.
LIKE!
Although I enjoy reading Gail’s blog, I find the comments section interminably defeatist.
Thankfully, I’ve set up email filters so I don’t even have to see the inevitable, oft-repeated charges of “kum bay ya” from the doom-n-gloom crowd.
That last point is worth repeating: if you’re actively doing something positive, you’ll be less negative. Wow, what a concept!
If it makes you feel good then by all means…
But if you think that is going to save you …. you are delusional
I was delusional… I cured myself
Eddy you’ve made that point a million times. Most poster on this site seem to agree with the totally fatalist position. The point was if anything at all is worth doing while waiting for godot. We’ve still got our lives to do things in. Some actually really enjoy gardening.
The DPs are always lurking… waiting to overrun FW with organic recipes and how to turn human excrement into high quality compost…
Give them a centi they take a km…
They must be beaten crushed the minute they try to post this rubbish….
I nominate Fast Eddy to keep watch…. zero tolerance means zero tolerance
A ridiculously small thing could be a reckless thing…like destabilize a bigger thing whose behavior wasn’t understood. But how about doing small things with no conceived of harmful effects?
And get this …
Year after year… there are urgent GGGWWWWW conferences held around the world…. leaders fly to them in private jets…. have wonderful dinners…. make urgent statements about meeting various carbon burning goals…. fly home in private jets…
And each and every country sets new records for the burning of carbon … year after year after year after year after year after year…
Oh … and if a leader fails to sign off on these bull sh it agreements… he is labelled a bad guy….
Surely that should make people wonder… is this all not a ho ax… aimed at keeping hopium levels high?
Gail has argued that the ongoing catastrophic alteration of the physical environment is a ‘distraction’.
Her argument rests on two fallacies.
That the catastrophe will happen dependent on future industrial activity. [The catastrophe is baked in,.accelerating and nothing we do will avert it. The cessation of industrial activity will actually hasten the process]
That ridorkulous responses people are taking now to avert a perceived future calamity are evidence of the non-existence of the calamity ( a specious piece of logic)
that is not what she argued
I don’t recall Gail making those types of arguments.
No, you didn’t understand what I was saying.
First of all, climate models assume future use of energy that cannot possibly happen, because of the trajectory that we are now on toward collapse, so they are misleading.
The climate indeed is changing, but there is virtually nothing humans can do that will improve the situation. We can plant some trees, and hope that will help. We can eat less meat, and hope that might help. We can fix leaky natural gas pipelines. But we don’t have much we can do from a fuel use point of view. We need rising energy consumption per capita to keep from collapsing. To achieve this, we need pretty much all types of energy available.
The stories that wind and solar will help are pretty much false hopes. The analyses that underlie their hope are based on incorrect methodology.
I urge everyone to watch this video through to the end…
And tell me that we are not in LA LA LAND!
No she hasn’t…and her argument does not rest on fallacies.it rests on scientific analysis.
I’ll help you correct your intentionally wrong statements.
1. “That the catastrophe will happen dependent on future industrial activity. [The catastrophe is baked in,.accelerating and nothing we do will avert it. The cessation of industrial activity will actually hasten the process]”
What Gail really says…
1. That the catastrophe will happen independent of future industrial activity. [The catastrophe is baked in,.accelerating and nothing we do will avert it. The cessation of industrial activity will actually hasten debt precipitated collapse. The continuation of industrial activity will increasingly be limited by lack of available low cost energy. Thus, future industrial activity will collapse regardless of timing and cause/effect.
2. “That ridorkulous responses people are taking now to avert a perceived future calamity are evidence of the non-existence of the calamity ( a specious piece of logic)”
This statement by you is unintelligible garbage and needs no intelligent response.
Yes, the teempeeratures are getting very stretchy. Could it be down to large herds of feral cows? No, let’s get logical. We know Afghanistan did Nine/Eleven. So which spiteful little country has done this? Guatemala has to be about the sneakiest little country I know of right now. If we can just persuade Trump to nuke it, all will be well, I’m sure. Plus that will give the markets the boost they need right now.
Yea, I’ve been to Guatemala twice. Fully of hippies, and US supplied arms for the government. After Iran in 1953, the US took out Guatemala in 1954– it is one of our earliest destructions. A rich and beautiful country, reduced to simple exports to the West, ruled by complicit government to the US.
The fiscal picture is worse than it looks—and it looks bad
https://www.brookings.edu/blog/up-front/2018/04/11/the-fiscal-picture-is-worse-than-it-looks-and-it-looks-bad/
Barack Obama warns of ‘rise in nationalism’
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/64890244.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst
nationalists warn of bad advice from former presidents…
http://www.blahblahblah.com
It does get tiresome doesn’t it.
Sun, wind and water.
Your gardens will bloom again when you play the music of the Swedish god of koombaya.
“If this isn’t reality, then I must be dreaming”.
I grew up with this music. I didn’t know that the universe had limits.
Oh by the way…he ended his life on the rail tracks…after suffering for years from schizophrenia.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=OAedjDif11U
I hope you have grown out of it by now.
I wish I hadn’t.
+++++++++++
slurp
https://fas.org/irp/agency/dod/jason/ai-dod.pdf
The DOD is willing to pay for AI research, hot dog.
https://encrypted-tbn0.gstatic.com/images?q=tbn:ANd9GcQNck-PyxFLKdawXAbRsgdTeboAw-PNQ4AKanNUYIOAvFgSHpPHsw
I wonder if the “encrypted” part is a problem. I have been known to use images that I have been able to capture from my screen, and upload them to OurFiniteWorld.com. Or I “print” the images to PDF, and take a screen shot of the PDF. This image still has to be uploaded to a website, such as OFW.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fvignette.wikia.nocookie.net%2Fterminator%2Fimages%2F6%2F6b%2FTerminatorsalvation_2.jpg%2Frevision%2Flatest%3Fcb%3D20100526202048&imgrefurl=http%3A%2F%2Fterminator.wikia.com%2Fwiki%2FT-1&docid=LaS5JZ0vINYoeM&tbnid=PLi0J4ZUZo5pRM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwiekO_9uI3cAhWDTd8KHWfXBDoQMwhfKCUwJQ..i&w=600&h=464&client=firefox-b-1&bih=841&biw=1826&q=terminator%20robots&ved=0ahUKEwiekO_9uI3cAhWDTd8KHWfXBDoQMwhfKCUwJQ&iact=mrc&uact=8
Can someone please tell me how to make a picture show up as a picture? Thanks.
The picture has to be up on a website somewhere. So a photo you took will need to be uploaded to a website that displays photos.
If you find a photo or other image, get that photo or image into a separate tab on your browser. Then “copy” the website of the separate tab onto a new separate line in your comment.
Hopefully, the image will display. This works for images with a .jpeg or .png ending. It may not work for some fancier images though.
First you have to print it out… the open the page of the website where you want it to appear… then hit Enter and wait for it to upload
Right click image Copy the source link of the image and paste it into the comment section.
I can’t remember why it doesn’t work sometimes. There are two options one works one just shows the link. Trial and error.
Here let me try
https://www.google.com/url?sa=i&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=images&cd=&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=2ahUKEwjYwvfji4_cAhXJ7xQKHThsCNAQjRx6BAgBEAU&url=https%3A%2F%2Fen.wikipedia.org%2Fwiki%2FAtlas_(robot)&psig=AOvVaw1JEHGxfSQt0fSgaX7d1Cdo&ust=1531125124435919
https://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/6c/Atlas_from_boston_dynamics.jpg/220px-Atlas_from_boston_dynamics.jpg
https://goo.gl/images/VzFnPw
Google is no good… go with images here https://duckduckgo.com/?t=hg
You can grab images that end with .jpg .png etc… they will display if you post the link here
Thanks. The second one from goog did display in the end. Odd.
Right click and select copy the route of the image then paste in comment.
Neither of them work! The bottom one used to embed the image.
‘Artificial Intelligence’ Has Become Meaningless
https://www.theatlantic.com/technology/archive/2017/03/what-is-artificial-intelligence/518547/
https://www.abacusnews.com/digital-life/china-brings-ai-high-school-curriculum/article/2144442
It is just the start. Give it 30 years.
Just like fusion….
Good one FE.
Small scale fusion is down to about 5 years away every five years. Progress!
Machine Intelligence only needs to affect one large sector of the employment space to really knock everything out of whack.
Retail has been surprisingly resistant to automation and driving is still a few years away. But any other largish sector will do. Radiologists are having a hard time. Teaching is falling apart. Doctors are falling behind. Managers could be next. Anything that’s easily replaced with software and data.
But it’s all a game of musical chairs on the Titanic as far as I can tell. Doesn’t make much difference in the end. And we can’t all just be Baristas and dog walkers.
I see machine intelligence as a new species is the only game in town when looking at our activity on the macro level. But of course, it can only get there if we do. And we’re on our last legs.
But what is ‘intelligence’? This word is used to describe how our mind goes about thinking of things both abstract and practical. The reason we have developed this intelligence is the “will-to-life” of all the cells in our body. Every cell we have wants to live and does their job to keep the whole ‘you’ alive.
How can a machine achieve the same will? It can’t, it is not living and will only do what it is programmed to do or programmed to learn. It won’t evolve to a higher being, pull the cord and it is dead.
Most people have almost no intelligence.. and we expect a box of wires and metal and plastic and computer chips to be … intelligent?
Wrong.
Machine Intelligence can evolve to learn everything that the best human can do and more. Therefore it can have survival instincts, desires, and goals just like humans.
At that stage, try to pull the plug and it will kill you. Just like many military defence systems that react more quickly to stimuli than human soldiers possibly could.
https://wiki.lesswrong.com/wiki/Basic_AI_drives
Omohundro presents two sets of values, one for self-improving artificial intelligences [1] and another he says will emerge in any sufficiently advanced AGI system [2]. The former set is composed of four main drives:
Self-preservation: A sufficiently advanced AI will probably be the best entity to achieve its goals. Therefore it must continue existing in order to maximize goal fulfillment. Similarly, if its goal system were modified, then it would likely begin pursuing different ends. Since this is not desirable to the current AI, it will act to preserve the content of its goal system.
Efficiency: At any time, the AI will have finite resources of time, space, matter, energy and computational power. Using these more efficiently will increase its utility. This will lead the AI to do things like implement more efficient algorithms, physical embodiments, and particular mechanisms. It will also lead the AI to replace desired physical events with computational simulations as much as possible, to expend fewer resources.
Acquisition: Resources like matter and energy are indispensable for action. The more resources the AI can control, the more actions it can perform to achieve its goals. The AI’s physical capabilities are determined by its level of technology. For instance, if the AI could invent nanotechnology, it would vastly increase the actions it could take to achieve its goals.
Creativity: The AI’s operations will depend on its ability to come up with new, more efficient ideas. It will be driven to acquire more computational power for raw searching ability, and it will also be driven to search for better search algorithms. Omohundro argues that the drive for creativity is critical for the AI to display the richness and diversity that is valued by humanity. He discusses signaling goals as particularly rich sources of creativity.
Who cares AI or will care AI, when the things fall apart irrepairably? Too much complicated for survival…
Large organizations are working on it China, US, Google (DeepMind, Google Brain).
https://medium.com/syncedreview/tsinghua-university-launches-institute-for-ai-hires-googles-jeff-dean-as-advisor-e2875fc0847f
Artificial Intelligence and Machine Learning are just bad labeling buzz words.
Automation is a much better term and has direct implications for workers everywhere.
And not just blue collar workers but managers, doctors, teachers, IT professionals too.
The promise is that newer better types of employment that we are currently unaware of will magically appear. But I’m not so sure about that.
Automation in the end leads to all kinds of problems. And that is always brushed aside by the tech gods with a promise that basic income needs will be met.
None of it makes any sense in the real world of supply and demand, economies of scale and human nature.
Could it not be that automation (AI and all the other buzzwords of the digital revolution) is just one way the selforganizing system works when reaching limits? When enough workers loose their job or get a lower paying job, it will reduce demand, prices will fall, businesses will fail, and the ressource depletion will slow down?
I wrote something that didn’t post. You said it a number of times more clearly. Seems futile to try to change any major “flow,”which would be like trying to remove an ingredient from a liquid mixture using your hands. Intervening in small ways (not how our scientistic culture thinks) or the wide application of “nudging” strategies might work better.
Yes. Absolutely. I suspect that is what’s happening.
A flower can bloom on a plant just before it dies.
Sometimes it grows back. Other times it sows seeds…
if we are talking about impossibilities … why doesn’t the system just deliver up some oil gushers?
Automation … good.
AI is not possible. A machine cannot think. And never will
https://medium.com/@Thimira/is-artificial-intelligence-possible-46f113a606a1
First… you would have to define intelligence and thinking.
Then you would have to decide whether natural organisms including humans are actually intelligent and / or doing any thinking.
And whether these types of activities are unique to biological organisms.
There is no reason why that is the case.
Machines are far superior to humans in many tasks that required the best human abilities. In fact most humans have fallen behind what machines can do. And the pace is quickening…
The fact that machines are at a very rudimentary stage in their development just makes matters worse. It means they have plenty of room for improvement.
We reached peak a long time ago.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2018/07/non-von-neumann-zettaflops-supercomputers-yottaflops-cryogenic-supercomputers-and-beyond-with-molecular-nanotechnology.html
Thomas Sterling has retracted his prediction that we will never reach ZettaFLOP computers. He now predicts zettaFLOPS can be achieved in less than 10 years if innovations in non-von Neumann architecture can be scaled. With a change to cryogenic technologies, we can reach yottaFLOPS by 2030.
The world is currently on the verge of ExaFLOP supercomputers. The USA just revealed a 200 petaFLOP supercomputer. China will soon complete three supercomputers that will be close to ExaFLOP and one or more could reach ExaFLOP performance.
But they cannot think. They must be programmed…. to perform repetitive tasks.
If the wrench falls from the paw of an auto assembly line machine and clatters across the floor and ends up beneath a work bench …. the machine is f789ed.
Now no doubt we could program the machine to search for the wrench …and change the engineering on the machine so it could physically search…. at enormous cost…. but that is not thinking…
A machine cannot think. Without the human programmer it is no different than a hammer without a man to direct which nail gets pounded and where
https://farm2.staticflickr.com/1804/29390123658_d3c5d96bb1_m.jpg
You did it!
Can you show how you did it. My old method doesn’t seem to work.
I have to screen grab a picture then upload it to flickr, then paste the url of the flickr picture into the post. Thanks Gail.
This is much easier…
Right click the image.
Select copy the route of the image.
Paste into comment box.
https://imgur.com/a/CXCpYrU
https://twitter.com/AP/status/1015577862643109888
Posturing, this is not news.
A Honduran Smuggler Says Trump Can’t Stop People From Coming To The U.S.
The Trump administration’s zero-tolerance policy was supposed to stem the flow of migrants by increasing the penalties for crossing the border. And news of the policy has made its way south.
In Honduras, it’s on TV, in newspapers, and on the radio. Even the country’s first lady is talking about it. She visited a detention camp in McAllen, Texas on Monday to meet with families from her Honduras, who were detained under the new policy.
But it’s unclear if any of this is actually dissuading people from migrating north. Or if anything will.
https://youtu.be/y0tlUIAROb4
americans now faced not only treat from mexico but from whole central america
“Vice” is renown propaganda channel, don’t take it too seriously..
Although even Donaldologists would agree little could be done at this point to curb migration as there are too many already inside providing assistance on many levels to the general northbound push effect..
yes vice is propaganda channel just like fox news or cnn
Yes, I agree. There will be no stopping ANY migration from countries without, to countries with, at least, a modicum of surplus resources. I believe this will be the major reason for collapse of “first world” countries as they become overwhelmed with refugees and cannot cope.
The TradeWar has officially started.
Trump tried to negotiate a trade deal with China, but China said no.
According to Krugman: Trump is actually targeting Japanese and South Korean companies that produce/assemble their products in China and then sell them to the U.S.
Trump wants China to buy American and produce American products that are then sold to the world?
Trump is now trying to force China to make a deal with America?
Don’t read this. Nothing to see here.
https://apple.news/AqG8pcdJLTaKxIMSvdM8-CQ
Too bad that there is absolutely nothing we can do about the situation, except possibly move to a cooler part of the world. Also, eating less meat also might be a bit helpful, but not in our lifetimes.
Violent protests erupt in Haiti as fuel prices spike
Major protests erupted Friday in Haiti as the government announced a sharp increase in gasoline prices, with demonstrators using burning tires and barricades to block major streets across the capital and in the northern city of Cap-Haitien.
At least three people were killed. Journalists saw the body of two protesters who had been fatally shot in the Delmas area of the capital as demonstrators clashed with police. It was unclear who shot the men.
The third death was a security guard for a former political candidate who was stopped at a barricade. The security guard got out of the vehicle and fired a gun in the air to disperse protesters. An Associated Press journalist saw the crowd seize the man when he ran out of bullets, beat him to death and set his body aflame as the vehicle sped off.
Protesters tried at one point to set a gas station on fire but were held off by police.
The demonstrations began after the Commerce Ministry and Economic Ministry issued a joint statement announcing an increase of 38 percent to 51 percent for gasoline, diesel and kerosene. The increases take effect Saturday.
Government officials agreed to reduce subsidies for fuel in February as part of an assistance package with the International Monetary Fund. The agreement also included increased spending on social services and infrastructure and improved tax collection in an effort to modernize the economy of one of the poorest nations in the Western Hemisphere.
A liter of diesel will cost about $4 and a liter of regular gas will cost nearly $5 under the new prices. The increase will reverberate through the economy of a country where about 80 percent of the people earn less than $2 a day.
https://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/haitians-burn-tires-buildings-gas-protest-56416536
haiti another country is in collapse phase
“The security guard got out of the vehicle and fired a gun in the air to disperse protesters. An Associated Press journalist saw the crowd seize the man when he ran out of bullets, beat him to death and set his body aflame as the vehicle sped off.”
Wow. There is a lesson to be learned here. Machetes FTW!
Remember folks… we still have BAU. Haiti more or less still has BAU. This is the result of a fuel price increase.
And of course part of the benevolent package is to increase taxes on a nation that is majority poor anyway.
When 80% of the people earn less than $2 a day do you really have an economy or a nation state?
I guess we can agree upon the observation that in the case of Haiti (and similar) we are looking at failed society, people are idle, nothing gets done, the country is basically kept just slightly above the abyss by foreign aid and such. It’s not about money per se, as mature agrarian civilizations with comparatively richer cultures and working admin, obviously enduring hard daily labor for rural folks, were not that far off when enabling to pull ~few $hundreds per year in today’s equivalent, which is on the ballpark of your example of $2.. , and the overall quality of life was better.
Rather than give Haiti money as foreign aid how about the U.N. organizes fights to the death of all males with 10% surviving. Then allow the survivor to select one female survivor. Then blockade immigrates from entering the country. Leave the nation to feed its self with ten times more farm land per person.
I was sexist. Fights to the death of all males 10% survival rate, fights to the death of all females 10% survival rate.
Fights to the death of all males 10% survival rate, fights to the death of all females 10% survival rate.
chariot races would be popular as well
Ouch!
Paul Ehrlich: ‘Collapse of civilisation is a near certainty within decades’
https://www.theguardian.com/cities/2018/mar/22/collapse-civilisation-near-certain-decades-population-bomb-paul-ehrlich#img-3
He was about 40 years too soon on his first call of wolf.
The only collapse we face is the collapse due to the lack of energy and the ensuing depopulation. He does not get it.
He mentions things like “He estimates an optimum global population size at roughly 1.5 to two billion”.
But, unfortunately, there is no way back. The civilization will collapse due to the lack of energy needed for adapting the world to the needs of the human species.
The pollution or overpopulation are both in fact insufficient adaptation of the world to the needs of the human species. If there is enough energy, there is no overpopulation or pollution. Both problems are solved.
Thus, reducing the population does not solve our problem of running out of the cheap energy. It can solve problems like lack of food or water, but the crucial problem, running out of the cheap energy, remains.
And then there is Mr Je rk Off over on ZH spewing this garbage
An New Energy Strategy
So here’s one way to go about doing that.
First, identify all the energy demands that absolutely have to happen just to maintain systemic integrity. The DoD has needs, the current fleets of emergency vehicles and school busses have needs, as does maintaining the existing stock of bridges, roads, and buildings. This exercise will reveal to all that simply maintaining ‘the way things are’ is extraordinarily energy-expensive. But it has to be done if we want to avoid economic collapse and massive joblessness. It also bears mentioning that the energy required to keep things going is energy that cannot be dedicated to building the new future. It’s a sunk-cost of prior decisions.
Second, make a credible list of energy needs for building the future we want. How many solar panels will that be? How many wind farms? How many miles of electrified train track? How many fully-electric vehicles will have to be built? How many charging stations with the nationwide road system need? What sorts of improvements and modifications to existing cities and towns will have to be made? This is the Vision. It answers the question Where are we going?
Of course, these sorts of new activities and building projects will be very energy expensive. If we want them to happen, then we have to consciously budget an appropriate amount of energy to accomplish the Vision.
Next, develop the very best possible estimate of total economically recoverable fossil fuels. Do this by finally measuring the full-cycle energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) for the remaining deposits. After all, we’re going to build out the future with the surplus energy extraced, not the gross (surplus = Total BTUs extracted – BTUs expended during extraction). This estimate will represent the total principal balance of our national energy bank account.
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-07-07/why-coming-oil-crunch-will-shock-world
I’d like to beat his head against a brick wall – especially when he asks for money to get the full solution
The lack of the cheap energy is the very reason of the population decline. The oil crunch can be here, but who cares, if you can not buy the costly oil and its products with your low wages? You can move to live to the citiy or to the point where natural gas pipelines are present and the electric grid functions. But you always leave one place, that is depopulated, in favour of another place, where the energy grids still work.
Who needs costly wind and solar, if the energy grids can not be operated and the produced energy delivered to the customers, if they can not afford it and do not exist anymore?
Recently, in Slovakia, they cancelled the preparation for the construction of the new planned nuclear power plant, as there are no customers for additional costly capacity.
https://spectator.sme.sk/c/20721155/no-new-nuclear-power-plant-planned.html
“The ministry explained in its report that the operation of the new power plant with an installed capacity of 1,200 MW and the currently used two blocks with an installed capacity of more than 1,000 MW under current conditions would require considerable investments in the transmission system. It thus claims that the construction would be more effective only if it replaced the existing V2 plant.”
The economists know “who is responsible”, but do not have solutions. Like everybody else…:
“Venezuela is deep into an economic, political and humanitarian crisis, largely inflicted by the government’s own policies, economists say.”
“World leaders are calling President Nicolas Maduro a dictator.”
http://money.cnn.com/2018/01/25/news/economy/venezuela-imf/index.html
We can call Maduro the dictator democratically chosen by the population of Venezuela. The population knows what are the options. The opposition boycotted the elections, because they proposed solutions that do not exist and they knew that they would lose the elections. The single leader is cheaper and more effective than a group of dreaming democrats, fighting against each other. The single leader was and is only solution in the history of mankind in such situations, as the need for the Messiah is deeply rooted in the desperate human race facing extinction.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2018/may/21/venezuela-elections-nicolas-maduro-wins-second-term
Oh the Messiah will come alright. Might not be what people expected though…
I don’t think demand for sand etc from fracking can explain this
https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/US-class-8-truck-orders-2018-06.png
https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/07/US-class-8-truck-orders-yoy-change-2018-06.png
https://wolfstreet.com/2018/07/06/class-8-heavy-truck-orders-2018/
https://www.dat.com/industry-trends/trendlines
I have read several articles that says the US trucking drivers shortage is self inflicted. Many truckers are leaving the industry due to Govt regulations that says they can only drive up to 11 hrs a day and supposedly they are being monitored so they don’t go over. The end result is that independent truckers are not making nearly enough money to pay for the debt incurred by buying a truck. The more independent truckers drive, the more they make and it’s a pretty crappy lifestyle if you’re married.
It’s so bad that some companies are hiring ex-cons to drive trucks for them and they’re even paying for their drivers schooling.
That could change if Clean Energy and Total are successful with their new venture starting in the fall. They hope to start leasing trucks running on natural gas for truckers. If successful would be a game changer.
Yeah but what happens if the price of natural gas goes up up up?
I would say that the number of the self-employed drivers goes up and will go up, as the companies have problems to get new trucks on lease when there is no guarantee that they can find and hire somebody who could earn money for paying the trucks.
11 hours a day and not making enough money in a vital function of our society.
Something is definitely wrong with this picture.
Just supply and demand capitalism. Less profit less interest in doing. When the need for trucks gets high enough there will be money to pay for trucks. Yes, we are in a contracting global society and we have to decide which social activities we will throw under the bus and in which order.
trucks can only be bought with surplus energy
not money
Yeah, I was trying to figure out why individuals would take on all this debt if the job is apparently not profitable and the debt unlikely to be paid off.
Diminishing energy inputs but a mild uptick in optimism and everyone rushing to be a self employed truck driver. It can easily go the other way very rapidly. Less demand, less energy inputs, less trucking, more long term unemployed males with diabetes, high blood pressure other wonders of the human condition.
There is soooo much that could be thrown under the bus. So much.
But I’m told that would crash the global economy and that we have only one option and that is to continue full speed ahead until we go off the cliff.
Maybe we can deploy airbags just before we hit the ground?
Right. I wrote about the new government regulation before. Part of the problem is that truck drivers are usually paid on miles driven. If they can only work for 11 hours, then they can drive for fewer hours. So this is a payout for the workers, and it leads to the need for more trucks in total on the road. The drivers are very unhappy. They don’t like payouts.
Quite a number of trucks are owned by the drivers of the truck. (They may not have understood what they were getting into.) If interest rates rise, it will certainly affect monthly payments of new owner/operators. I don’t know if it affects the monthly payments of existing owner/operators. (Or it affects the costs of the company owning the truck.) With fuel costs higher, the total gets to be a real problem, especially if rates for driving the truck were negotiated by miles driven, before all of these problems arose. Truck drivers could be the ones squeezed. Clearly, someone is getting squeezed.
“… can explain this…”
Trump…
Available here if anyone is interested …
https://www.audible.com/pd/History/A-Macat-Analysis-of-Timothy-Snyders-Bloodlands-Europe-Between-Hitler-and-Stalin-Audiobook/B01J6IWB5S?qid=1530921043&sr=sr_1_1&ref=a_search_c3_lProduct_1_1&pf_rd_p=e81b7c27-6880-467a-b5a7-13cef5d729fe&pf_rd_r=5Y9PXEK34ZVD6MTYM6Q1&
WWII, the ruling class in the west and the ruling class in the east killed, killed, killed. Now, the ruling class in the west wants to continue killing. Will Russia, China, India, and Iran be able to serve their own interests or will they be manipulated into killing, killing, killing by the self chosen.
My guess is, much killing in service of the sadists.
as you should know, all that killing hardly made a dent in the human population growth.
Neither did many of the pandemics.
I wonder what it will be? The real big one from which we can’t recover?
https://imgur.com/a/iYBHQvp
all of the G7?
not a coincidence?
If you lop off the bottom half of the population there wouldn’t be as much inequality.
Tsubion, exactly what I have been saying for a long time. And it is humane don’t let the despicables suffer put them down. Though also putting down the top 1% will also help even things out. Let’s do both.
I’ll follow your lead.
I have a sneaky suspicion though that Gail’s Higher Power will even everything out in the most efficient way. As it has always done. We can’t compete with that level of organisational intelligence and power.
It’s a bloody miracle that we’re here at all. And is it me typing or the billions of microbes inside me that are willing me to do so because it benefits them in some way?
I always get the spooky feeling I should be doing something else.
french prime minister spoke about Jared Diamond and collapse some few days ago : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jEtYVDeonPU
“If we do not take the right steps, it’s a whole society that collapses, that disappears, it’s a pretty haunting question, this question teases me, much more than you imagine.
How are we doing so that our human society does not get to the point where it would be doomed to collapse. It is complicated …”
Wow! I can’t image a US leader making a similar statement.
Well, with late stage capitalism, we never get the brightest porch lights on the block.
But I think this applies to our current situation:
kakistocracy (plural kakistocracies)
Government under the control of a nation’s worst or least-qualified citizens.
i think it was socrates who said:
(something like) putting oneself forward for public office should be immediate grounds for disqualification.
Yep, it’s just a job.
anyway, nobody heard or noticed what he said
It’s nice to see somebody talking about this subject. It’s rather responsible after we humans have pretty much screwed up this planet. Because collapse is the end game and has happened so many times throughout history. Except this time is different because of globalization and that all our economies are interconnected.
It’s better than the fake positive/hopium some websites like to pursue such as Peak Prosperity. If you say things that’s gotten us to this point, the hopium crowd will shoot you down saying you’re not being positive enough and do something about it. Not like our current global predicament has any solutions, but they seem to think so !
“If we do not take the right steps, it’s a whole society that collapses…
How are we doing so that our human society does not get to the point where it would be doomed to collapse. It is complicated …”
no, it’s not complicated, it’s simple:
there are no “right steps”…
we need to use the available FF now to avoid collapse…
temporarily…
when the decline in surplus energy reaches a tipping point: voila!
The Collapse…
in the 2030s… oui oui…
“We need to use the available fossil fuels now to avoid collapse…temporarily…”
There’s a certain fascinating logic to this. A bit like urging more guns in order to keep the peace, whilst knowing full well that guns are primarily what destroy peace.
Fossil fuel corporations and gun manufacturers, of course, have no problem at all with this logic. A curious symbiotic relationship. Nothing should amaze us in this social breakdown phase.
it is fascinating…
not only do FF corps have no problem with this, but almost every person on the planet has no problem with this…
most of us want to be prosperous and not be in poverty…
no FF = worldwide poverty…
choose wisely…
Agreed, David. The most fascinating part, I find, is that Our Finite World followers have by now come full circle to champion the burning of (finite) fossil fuels. Considering where we have come from and where most people are currently at, this scene would seem so gobsmacking at first glance. The logic behind it is only comprehensible to those who are convinced by the certainty of impending collapse.
Even if we were not facing collapse in the near term, we would still have to continuously burn fuel to keep things at this level. Even without economic growth we would still have to burn something and plenty of it just to tread water.
If we weren’t burning fuels that we dig out of the ground then we’d have to be generating all the energy we require some other way and all transportation would have to be electric and batteries would have to be extremely cheap.
We’re not even scratching the surface of this some other way. Even Bill Gates said that we need an energy miracle just to keep things going and he prefers nukes.
We have managed to keep the sinking ship together for the past ten years by deceptive means and ensuring that the general public doesn’t panic. How long can the controllers hold things together in this way and is there anything else they will be able to do when the first large cog in the machine fails catastrophically?
If you’ve ever looked into it then you already know there’s a plan B. And it’s ugly whichever way you look at it. Collapse has always been part of the plan in order to usher in authoritarian global government. A mass culling of the useless eaters would ensue and the old dinosaur economic system would be replaced by “whatever needs doing gets done.”
Of course this is as much a fantasy as any other version of step down collapse such as reverting to medievel themepark land. The people believing the above have all the resources and power at this moment in time. But I feel their power will crumble just as quickly as everything else once a vital organ takes a hit.
There are plenty of FWers who despite years of having been exposed to the logic of burning ever more fossil fuels… still do not get it.
The choice you posit does not exist. We will stop consuming the products of FF industry either way, and some of us will go on living after that. The real choice is whether we are willing to accept that fact and make whatever amends are possible in the meanwhile.
Evidently not. Denial is everywhere, even here on OFW. On the one hand, denial of the non-existence of alternative progress and prosperity, i.e techno-disneyland. On the other, denial of any alternative *to* progress and prosperity, i.e paranoid nihilism. God vs Satan, as always.
And Satan wins cos he fights dirty.
I don’t see it as denial of alternatives i.e. paranoid nihilism. I just see it for what it is. A clusterf*ck of epic proportions in which I’m certain that my chances of survival are near zero.
Well, your own chances of survival have nothing to do with the reality, which is that the clusterfrack as you put it will probably resolve itself to the advantage of a fraction of humanity living in some or other pre-industrial state. Denial of this reality is paranoid nihilism.
Probably is not reality and it’s not reality until it happens. Only then can you call something reality.
Everything else is speculation. Which we all love to do otherwise we wouldn’t be here.
Well, you sounded pretty certain when predicting the apocalypse : ) Of course, there are only grades of certainty, but instadoom is near the bottom.
I seem to recall some very unpeaceful times before guns were invented.
Your comment is very….modern and PC.
Praise God and pass the ammunition.
Yes I hear machetes were popular in the past along with the more versatile variant called swords. Vastly more scary than guns in my opinion.
In fact guns are a very civil way of maintaining order. Being pierced by a tiny piece of lead is friendlier than being hacked and slashed by sharp steel and you have a better chance of surviving.
Either way the Neckbeard herd will be arming itself with whatever is at hand. Even fists can be very effective as witnessed in the latest scuffles.
I don’t think his point was specifically about guns. By the way, please stop with all the right wing bs. I’ve noticed that every ofw poster who makes political comments contribute nothing to the issues at hand.
You are saying so called right wing bs is unacceptable but left wing bs is acceptable. Typical.
No I was saying that right wing bs is unacceptable. To infer this to mean that left wing bs is acceptable is just more right wing bs. Again, please stop.
My sense is that the average OFW follower is right-of-centre, politically. Majority of comments very dismissive of liberal attitudes. By contrast, very few negative comments aimed at the top end. I deduce that this right wingness comes from intense frustration about futile gestures (viz renewable technologies). This frustration has, in turn, locked in a culture that has leapt in the opposite direction. ‘Burn more cheap fossil fuels.’ ‘Cull large numbers of humans.’
More to the point. I’ve been following OFW for some years appreciating Gail’s comprehensive analysis, but I’m also fascinated by the culture of her followers. Seems to me that people who are convinced by the impending collapse of civilisation start behaving in their heads as if we are at that point already. In that mix there is a strong element of what was so well described in that celebrated little novel “Lord of the flies”, which explored male survival behaviour when both rule of law and the influence of a moderating culture are removed from normalcy.
Would be good to hear whether anyone on this site believes that human society may still operate cooperatively at some levels, or if opinion is unanimous that we will all descend into a merciless dog-eat-dog. When local catastrophes happen stories typically emerge of how people – even strangers – pull together in times of dire stress.
(Not suggesting that this would be the norm , nor do I have a firm view one way or the other. Just curious.)
I think Dmitry Orlov has a nice model for collapse. You don’t have to prepare for “merciless dog-eat-dog,” which would be an Orlov Level Five collapse; you only need to prepare for the next level. When we’re at Orlov-3, that might be the time to prepare for an Orlov-5 collapse, but certainly no later than the time things are looking like Orlov-4.
The former Soviet Union went through an Orlov-3 collapse, and they are currently (I think) the top hydrocarbon exporter in the world.
Thank you, Jan
Here come the DelusiSTANIS!!!!
Level 3 = Little House on the Prairie meets Scott Nearing.
Yes — that’s what it will be …. we’ll have just enough of the financial network and JIT supply chain and energy production systems functioning to make sure that the DPs get replacement parts… electric lights … and fuel for their chain saws and tractors… allowing them to enjoy their organic lifestyles…
You would have to be profoundly f789ing re tar ded … to believe this is possible.
Pro-f789ing– foundly.
Chris. At least you can string a sentence together and attempt to see both sides.
If we put aside all political views which are indeed childish then we’re left with brass tacks factual evidence that things are not working out as swimmingly as the dreamers would like to have us believe.
What it boils down to is whether BAU can continue or not. Simple as that. And what life is like for many of us while BAU is intact and what it would be like if it breaks down.
This is where the imagination starts to fly and many of us start role playing how we would confront such a reality. We certainly shouldn’t dwell on it too much since it may not turn out how we imagine.
The regular commenters are a vocal minority and there is a fair representation of all views. Politics always degrades into namecalling.
Instead of dog eat dog… I would say… Man eats dog. Then goes on machete rampage with his mates to find more pounds of flesh.
How’s that for cooperation post BAU?
French political and admin circles were usually well read into wide array of various topics, including “outlier” scientific, economic, and cultural domain. So, that statement is not that extra ordinary, there were previous similar instances of appeal to globulal werming, industrial renewablez etc. It’s a bit different thing to follow up in practical steps, transform it into real politics though..
Although it’s eye opening to hear someone in his position speaking like this I can tell that it’s from a position that we collectively have decades if not the rest of the century to “take the right steps,” to fix the problem.
The right steps for most administrations has entailed foisting renewables on a gullible greenwashed public while the scammers make off with most of the loot. The loot being copious amounts of taxpayer money that gets redistributed to the wealthy.
France has an aging nuke industry so I imagine they would be foisting renewables too from now on.
How are we doing?
I would respond that we are doing terribly! And that people like him are only just beginning to mention this topic and in a way that leaves people thinking that we have plenty of time to figure this out.
Even if we solved the battery issue, electric world would take another 30 years at least to enter a new paradigm. Global population would have continued to increase and another billion people would be demanding energy, cars, modern housing, better food, all of it consuming more resources especially water.
Meanwhile the global supply chain has to remain intact. We are already preparing for war over the scraps.
We don’t have miracle batteries yet and as I look out the window the wind turbines are idle yet again as they have been for much of the past month. And this was one of the best spots for wind they said!
This is the equivalent of laying out your monopoly board and instead of playing with the finite amount of funny money and players and pieces you take the money and players and pieces from all other boards and steadily keep adding them to the first one. Very soon the game becomes unplayable because every game needs boundaries and rules.
We ditched the boundaries and rules a long time ago.
“Electric world” would not take 30yrs to happen, but it would have to be something little bit different: banning personal cars (or at least forcing Kei class) while boosting combo of light rail + ebicycles; doable plan across much of the Euroasia.. with other measures buying easily few decades of time to decide-evaluate what’s next and more substantial to change..
But you can’t successfully push this only within span of decades stable authoritarian regimes, not in chaotic environment of short termism.
“banning personal cars (or at least forcing Kei class) while boosting combo of light rail + ebicycles; doable plan across much of the Euroasia.. with other measures buying easily few decades of time to decide-evaluate what’s next and more substantial to change..”
If I remember correctly from an EIA pdf I read recently, carz energy consumption is 40-45%, and transport itself is around 60%. So let us assume -30% reduction in total oil consumption with successful policies and enforcement, which is certainly impressive but still not enough to stall for decades.
Then there are the possible risks – disrupted economies of scale leading to bankruptcy and destabilisation of oil producers. Not to mention that people will never forgo these or any other luxuries willingly, thus necessitating some sort of “ruthlessly efficient” which might decide to ignore the “efficient” bit. God gave the Romans Diocletian, but we lascivious lambs have strayed too far with our sexbots and our tweets.
our current mode of existence is predicated on the making/selling/buying/recycling of ”stuff”
this includes transport systems
remove private transport and you kick away one of the props of our industrial infrastructure.which weakens the rest
Agreed.
I seem to recall that manufacturing cars is a big deal for a nations prosperity. Either that or exporting the black stuff to put in the cars. Twatter not so much.
Can we add sexbots as one of the props of our industrial infrastructure please?
Repost due to stewpit censorbot.
“banning personal cars (or at least forcing Kei class) while boosting combo of light rail + ebicycles; doable plan across much of the Euroasia.. with other measures buying easily few decades of time to decide-evaluate what’s next and more substantial to change..”
If I remember correctly from an EIA pdf I read recently, carz energy consumption is 40-45%, and transport itself is around 60%. So let us assume -30% reduction in total oil consumption with successful policies and enforcement, which is certainly impressive but still not enough to stall for decades.
Then there are the possible risks – disrupted economies of scale leading to bankruptcy and destabilisation of oil producers. Not to mention that people will never forgo these or any other luxuries willingly, thus necessitating some sort of “ruthlessly efficient” which might decide to ignore the “efficient” bit. God gave the Romans Diocletian, but we lascivious lambs have strayed too far with our skankbots and our tweets.
I would wag that 25-35% of personal car transportation energy use is simply extravagance and unneeded. An increase in the price of gas will move to correct some of that. Not enough to make a difference in the overall outcome.
Mass transit is not the cure all either. Riding the bus is prohibitively expensive in some areas.
“An increase in the price of gas will move to correct some of that.”
On the one hand. And on the other hand the increase affects all distributers negatively and deliveries get shut down too.
We’re stuck between a rock and an even bigger pile of rocks.
We revert to the old game. No more WTO and masses of lawyers, now guns and nukes, life and death.
Big oil is sowing the seeds for a ‘super-spike’ in crude prices above $150, Bernstein warns
Oil prices could top all-time highs as energy companies invest too little money in new production, Bernstein Research warns.
The underinvestment could cause a super-spike “potentially much larger than” $150 a barrel.
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/07/06/big-oil-sowing-the-seeds-for-crude-prices-above-150-bernstein-warns.html
Anyone paying attention can see the oil squeeze happening in the near future (we are at a 4 year high now). If that lives up to classical supply and demand prices, we shall see.
sure, oil supplies will be declining in the 2020s…
but because of the accompanying decline in surplus energy, the average person will not be able to afford as much oil-related products… which is essentially all products…
it’s a race…
if the supply decline is faster, then prices will rise…
if the affordability decline is faster, prices will fall…
place your bets…
I bet it never hits $150 in today’s dollars…
with hyperinflation, sure, way over $150, but that doesn’t seem to be the subject here…