The reasons why the Green New Deal won’t really work are fairly subtle. A person really has to look into the details to see what goes wrong. In this post, I try to explain at least a few of the issues involved.
[1] None of the new renewables can easily be relied upon to produce enough energy in winter.
The world’s energy needs vary, depending on location. In locations near the poles, there will be a significant need for light and heat during the winter months. Energy needs will be relatively more equal throughout the year near the equator.
Solar energy is particularly a problem in winter. In northern latitudes, if utilities want to use solar energy to provide electricity in winter, they will likely need to build several times the amount of solar generation capacity required for summer to have enough electricity available for winter.
Figure 1. US daily average solar production, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Hydroelectric tends to be a spring-dominated resource. Its quantity tends to vary significantly from year to year, making it difficult to count on.
Figure 2. US daily average hydroelectric production, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Another issue with hydroelectric is the fact that most suitable locations have already been developed. Even if additional hydroelectric might help with winter energy needs, adding more hydroelectric is often not an option.
Wind energy (Figure 3) comes closest to being suitable for matching the winter consumption needs of the economy. In at least some parts of the world, wind energy seems to continue at a reasonable level during winter.
Figure 3. US daily average wind production, based on data of the US Energy Information Administration.
Unfortunately, wind tends to be quite variable from year to year and month to month. This makes it difficult to rely on without considerable overbuilding.
Wind energy is also very dependent upon the continuation of our current economy. With many moving parts, wind turbines need frequent replacement of parts. These parts need to be precisely correct, with virtually no tolerance for change. Sometimes, helicopters are needed to install the new parts. Because of the need for continued high-technology maintenance services, wind energy cannot be expected to continue to operate for very long unless the world economy, with all of its globalization, can continue pretty much as today.
[2] Depending upon burned biomass in winter is an option, but we already know that this path is likely to lead to massive deforestation.
Historically, people burned wood and other biomass to provide heat and light in winter. If biomass is burned for heat and light, it is an easy step to using charcoal for smelting metals for goods such as nails and shovels. But with today’s population of 7.7 billion people, the huge demand for biomass would quickly deforest the whole world. There is already a problem with growing deforestation, especially in tropical areas.
It is my understanding that the Green New Deal is focusing primarily on wind, hydroelectric, and solar rather than biomass, because of these issues.
[3] Battery backup for renewables is very expensive. Because of their high cost, batteries tend to be used only for very short time periods. At a 3-day storage level, batteries do nothing to smooth out season-to-season and year-to-year variation.
The cost of batteries is not simply their purchase price. There seem to be several related costs associated with the use of batteries:
- The initial cost of the batteries
- The cost of replacements, because batteries are typically not very long-lived compared to, say, solar panels
- The cost of recycling the battery components rather than simply leaving the batteries to pollute the nearby surroundings
- The loss of electric charge that occurs as the battery sits idle for a period of time and the loss related to electricity storage and retrieval
We can get some idea of the cost of batteries from an analysis by Roger Andrews of a Tesla/Solar City system installed on the island of Ta’u. The island is in American Samoa, near the equator. This island received a grant that was used to add solar panels, plus 3-day battery backup, to provide electricity for the tiny island. Any outages longer than the battery capacity would continue to be handled by a diesel generator. The goal was to reduce the quantity of diesel used, not to eliminate its use completely.
Based on Andrews’ analysis, adding a 3-day battery backup more than doubled the cost of the PV-alone system. (It added 1.6 times as much as the cost of the installed PV.) The catch, as I pointed out above, is that the cost doesn’t stop with purchasing the initial batteries. At least one set of replacement batteries is likely to be needed during the lifetime of the system. And there are other costs that are more subtle and difficult to evaluate.
Furthermore, this analysis was for a solar system. There seems to be more variation over longer periods for wind. It is not clear that the relative amount of batteries would be enough for 3-day backup of a wind system, or for a combination of wind, hydroelectric and solar. The long-term cost of a solar panel plus battery system might easily come to four times the cost of a wind or solar system alone.
There is also the issue of necessary overbuilding to make the system work. On Ta’u, near the equator, with diesel power backup, the system is set up in such a way that 40% of the solar generation is in excess of the island’s day-to-day electricity consumption. This constitutes another cost of the system, over and above the cost of the 3-day battery backup.
If we also eliminate the diesel backup, then we start adding more costs because the level of overbuilding would need to be even higher. And, if we were to create a similar system in a location with substantial seasonal temperature variation, even more overbuilding would be required if enough capacity is to be made available to provide sufficient generation in winter.
[4] Even in sunny, warm California, it appears that substantial excess capacity needs to be added to avoid the problem of inadequate generation during the winter months, if the electrical system used is based on wind, hydroelectric, solar, and a 3-day backup battery.
Suppose that we want to replace California’s electricity consumption (excluding other energy, including oil products) with a new system using wind, hydro, solar, and 3-day battery backup. Current California renewable generation, compared to current consumption, is as shown on Figure 4, based on EIA data.
Figure 4. California total electricity consumption compared to the sum of California solar, wind, and hydroelectric production, on a monthly average basis. Data used from the US Energy Information Administration through June 30, 2019.
California’s electricity consumption peaks about August, presumably due to all of its air conditioning usage (Figure 5). This is two months after the June peak in the output of solar panels. Also, electricity usage doesn’t drop back nearly as much during winter as solar production does. (Compare Figures 1 and 5.)
Figure 5. California electricity consumption by month, based on US Energy Information Administration data.
We note from Figure 4 that California hydroelectric production is extremely variable. It appears that hydroelectric generation can vary by a factor of five comparing high years to low years. California hydroelectric generation uses all available rivers, so any new energy generation will need to come from wind and solar.
Even with 3-day backup batteries, we need the system to reliably produce enough electricity that it can meet the average electricity generation needs of each separate month. I did a rough estimate of how much wind and solar the system would need to add to bring total generation sufficiently high so as to prevent electricity problems during the winter. In making the analysis, I assumed that the proportion of added wind and solar would be similar to their relative proportions on June 30, 2019.
My analysis suggests that to reliably bridge the gap between production and consumption (see Figure 4), approximately six times as much wind and solar would need to be added (making 7 = 6 +1 times as much generation in total), as was in place on June 30 , 2019. With this arrangement, there would be a huge amount of wind and solar whose production would need to be curtailed during the summer months.
Figure 6. Estimated share of wind and solar production that would need to be curtailed, to provide adequate winter generation. The assumption is made that hydroelectric generation would not be curtailed.
Figure 6 shows the proportion of wind and solar output that would be in excess of the system’s expected consumption. Note that in winter, this drops to close to zero.
[5] None of the researchers studying the usefulness of wind and solar have understood the need for overbuilding, or alternatively, paying backup electricity providers adequately for their services. Instead, they have assumed that the only costs involved relate to the devices themselves, plus the inverters. This approach makes wind and intermittent solar appear far more helpful than they really are.
Wind and solar have been operating in almost a fantasy world. They have been given the subsidy of “going first.” If we change to a renewables-only system, this subsidy of going first disappears. Instead, the system needs to be hugely overbuilt to provide the 24/7/365 generation that backup electricity providers have made possible with either no compensation at all, or with far too little compensation. (This lack of adequate compensation for backup providers is causing problems for the current system, but it is beyond the scope of this article to discuss them here.)
Analysts have not understood that there are substantial costs that are not being reimbursed today, which allow wind and solar to have the subsidy of going first. For example, if natural gas is to be used as backup during winter, there will still need to be underground storage allowing natural gas to be stored for use in winter. There will also need to be pipelines that are not used much of the year. Workers will need to be paid year around if they are to continue to specialize in natural gas work. Annual costs of the natural gas system will not be greatly reduced simply because wind, hydro, and water can replace natural gas usage most months of the year.
Analysts of many types have issued reports indicating that wind and solar have “positive net energy” or other favorable characteristics. These favorable analyses would disappear if either (a) the necessary overbuilding of the system or (b) the real cost of backup services were properly recognized. This problem pervades studies of many types, including Levelized Cost of Energy studies, Energy Returned on Energy Invested studies, and Life Cycle Analyses.
This strange but necessary overbuilding situation also has implications for how much homeowners should be paid for their rooftop solar electricity. Once it is clear that only a small fraction of the electricity provided by the solar panels will actually be used (because it comes in the summer, and the system has been overbuilt in order to produce enough generation in winter), then payments to homeowners for electricity generated by rooftop systems will need to decrease dramatically.
A question arises regarding what to do with all of the electricity production that is in excess of the needs of customers. Many people would suggest using this excess electricity to make liquid fuels. The catch with this approach is that the liquid fuel needs to be very inexpensive to be affordable by consumers. We cannot expect consumers to be able to afford higher prices than they are currently paying for fossil fuel products. Also, the new liquid fuels ideally should power current devices. If consumers need to purchase new devices in order to utilize the new fuels, this further reduces the affordability of a planned changeover to a new fuel.
Alternatively, owners of solar panels might be encouraged to use the summer overproduction themselves. They might set the temperatures of their air conditioners to a lower setting or heat a swimming pool. It is unlikely that the excess could be profitably sold to nearby utilities because they are likely encounter the same problem in summer, if they are using a similar generation mix.
[6] As appealing as an all-electric economy would seem to be, the transition to such an economy can be expected to take 150 years, based on the speed of the transition since 1985.
Clearly, the economy uses a lot of energy products that are not electricity. We are familiar with oil products burned in many vehicles, for example. Oil is also used in many ways that do not require burning (for example, lubricating oils and asphalt). Natural gas and propane are used to heat homes and cook food, among other uses. Coal is sometimes burned in making pig iron and cement in China.
Figure 7. Electricity as a share of total energy use for selected areas, based on BP’s 2019 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Electricity’s share of total energy consumption has gradually been rising (Figure 7).* We can make a rough estimate of how quickly the changeover has been taking place since 1985. For the world as a whole, electricity consumption amounted to 43.4% of energy consumption in 2018, rising from 31.2% in 1985. On average, the increase has been 0.37%, over the 33-year period shown. If we assume this same linear growth pattern holds going forward, it will take 153 years (until 2171) until the world economy can operate using only electricity. This is not a quick change!
[7] While moving away from fossil fuels sounds appealing, pretty much everything in today’s economy is made and transported to its final destination using fossil fuels. If a misstep takes place and leaves the world with too little total energy consumption, the world could be left without an operating financial system and with way too little food.
Over 80% of today’s energy consumption is from fossil fuels. In fact, the other types of energy shown on Figure 8 would not be possible without the use of fossil fuels.
Figure 8. World Energy Consumption by Fuel, based on data of 2019 BP Statistical Review of World Energy.
With over 80% of energy consumption coming from fossil fuels, pretty much everything we have in our economy today is available thanks to fossil fuels. We wouldn’t have today’s homes, schools or grocery stores without fossil fuels. Even solar panels, wind turbines, batteries, and modern hydroelectric dams would not be possible without fossil fuels. In fact, for the foreseeable future, we cannot make any of these devices with electricity alone.
In Figure 8, the little notch in world energy consumption corresponds to the Great Recession of 2008-2009. The connection between low energy consumption and poor economic outcomes goes back to many earlier periods. Energy consumption growth was unusually low about the time of the Great Depression of the 1930s and about the time of the US Civil War. The vulnerability of the financial system and the possibility of major wars are two reasons why a person should be concerned about the possibility of an energy changeover that doesn’t provide the economic system with adequate energy to operate. The laws of physics require energy dissipation for essentially every activity that is part of GDP. Without adequate energy, an economy tends to collapse. Economists are generally not aware of this important point.
Agriculture is dependent upon fossil fuels, particularly oil. Petrochemicals are used directly to make herbicides, pesticides, medications for animals and nitrogen fertilizer. Huge quantities of energy are necessary to make metals of all kinds, such as the steel in agricultural equipment and in irrigation pumps. Refrigerated vehicles transport produce to market, using mostly oil-based fuel. If the transition does not go as favorably as hoped, food supplies could prove to be hopelessly inadequate.
[8] The scale of the transition to hydroelectric, wind, and solar would be unimaginably large.
Today, wind, hydroelectric, and solar amount to about 10% of world energy production. Hydroelectric amounts to about 7% of energy consumption, wind about 2%, and solar about 1%. This can be seen on Figure 8 above. A different way of seeing this same relationship is shown in Figure 9, below.
Figure 9. World hydroelectric, wind and solar production as share of world energy supply, based on BP’s 2019 Statistical Review of World Energy.
Figure 9 shows that hydroelectric power is pretty well maxed out, as a percentage of energy supply. This is especially the case in advanced economies. This means that any increases that are made in the future will likely have to come from wind and solar. If hydroelectric, wind and solar are together to produce 100% of the world’s energy supply, then wind and solar, which today comprise 3% of today’s energy supply, will need to ramp up to 93% of energy supply. This amounts to a 30-fold increase in wind and solar between 2018 and 2030, based on one version of the Green New Deal’s planned timing. We would need to be building wind and solar absolutely everywhere, very quickly, to accomplish this.
[9] Moving to electric vehicles (EVs) for private passenger autos is not likely to be as helpful as many people hope.
One issue is that it is possible to mandate the use of EVs, but if the automobiles cost more than citizens can afford, many citizens will simply stop buying cars at all. At least part of the worldwide reduction in automobile sales seems to be related to changes in rules that are intended to reduce auto emissions. The slowdown in auto sales is part of what is pushing the world into recession.
Another issue is that private passenger autos represent a smaller share of oil consumption than many people would expect. BP data indicate that 26% of worldwide oil consumption is gasoline. Gasoline powers the vast majority of the world’s private passenger automobiles today. While an oil savings of 26% would be good, there would still be a very long way to go.
One study of EV sales in Norway suggests that, with large subsidies, these cars are disproportionately sold to high-income families as a second vehicle. The new second vehicles are often used for commuting to work, when prior to the EV ownership, the owner had been taking public transportation. When this pattern is followed, the savings in oil use from the adoption of EVs becomes very small because building and transporting EVs also requires oil use.
Figure 10. Source: Holtsmark and Skonhoft The Norwegian support and subsidy policy of electric cars. Should it be adopted by other countries?
If one of the goals of the Green New Deal is to level out differences between the rich and the poor, mandating EVs would seem to be a step in the wrong direction. It would make more sense to mandate walking or the use of pedal bicycles, rather than EVs.
[10] Wind, solar, and hydroelectric have pollution problems themselves.
With respect to solar panels, a major concern is that if the panels are broken (for example, by a storm or near the end of their lives), water alone can leach toxic substances into the water supply. Another issue is that recycling needs to be subsidized, to be economic. The price of solar panels needs to be surcharged at the front end, if adequate funds are to be collected to cover recycling costs. This is not being done in the US.
Wind turbines are better in terms of not being made of toxic substances, but they disturb bird, bat, and marine life in their vicinity. Humans also complain about their vibrations, if the devices are close to homes. The fiberglass blades of wind turbines are not recyclable, and many of them are too big to fit into standard crushing machines. They need to be chopped into pieces, in order to fit into landfills.
Adding huge amounts of 3-day battery backup for wind turbines and solar panels will create a new set of recycling issues. The extent of the recycling issues will depend on the battery materials used.
Of course, if we try to ramp up wind and solar by a huge factor, pollution problems will rise accordingly. The chance that raw materials will prove to be scarce will increase as well.
There will also be an increasing problem with finding suitable sites to install all of the devices and batteries. There are limits on how densely wind turbines can be spaced before the output of one wind turbine interferes with the output of other nearby turbines. This problem is not too different from the problem of declining per-well oil production caused by too closely spaced shale wells.
Afterword
I could explain further, but that would make this post too long. For example, using an overbuilt renewables system, there is not enough net energy to provide the high salaries almost everyone would like to see.
Also, the new renewable energy systems are likely to be more local than many have hoped. For example, I think it is highly unlikely that the people of North Africa would allow contractors to build a solar system in North Africa for the benefit of Europeans.
Note
*There are two different ways of comparing electricity’s value to that of total energy. Figure 7 uses the more generous approach. In it, the value of electricity is based on the amount of fossil fuels that would need to be burned to produce the electricity amounts shown. In the case of electricity types that do not involve the burning of fossil fuels, these amounts are estimated amounts. The less generous approach compares the heat value of the electricity produced to the total heat value of primary energy sources. Using the less generous approach, electricity corresponds to only about 20% of primary energy supply. The transition to an all-electric economy would be much farther away using the heat value approach.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZPYuGYLesx0
Distilled 3rd/4th turning under 10min..
Yep. Being disorderly doesn’t help.
I’m completely for being “green” when and where possible, mainly through a decrease in frivolous consumption. Of course I’m aware that frivolous consumption is responsible for jobs, leisure, etc.. It plays a role in our civilization. Like many of you I spend way too much time reading the tea leaves. I’m sure there are better uses of my time but we are witnessing something spectacular.
Harry does a much better job than all of us keeping us supplied with ample doom news, which there is plenty. The convergence of energy scarcity (EROEI) and economic growth (debt) stalling on a rock with 8 billion people on it armed with nuclear / chemical / biological weapons with degraded broken ecosystems makes for poor survival odds. So, knowing there isn’t much to be done I suggest people go Fast Eddy and enjoy the ride while the getting is good.
US Producer Prices Unexpectedly Plunge In September – Biggest Drop Since 2015
https://www.zerohedge.com/economics/us-producer-prices-unexpectedly-plunge-september-biggest-drop-2015
“Close To A Standstill”: IMF Warns Global Growth Will Be Cut To Lowest Since Lehman
https://www.zerohedge.com/health/close-standstill-imf-warns-global-growth-will-be-cut-lowest-lehman
Thank you for the kind vote of confidence, Dan.
There is a WSJ article today about Tesla’s battery problems in its shared ownership gigafactories.
Tesla Needs Its Battery Maker. A Culture Clash Threatens Their Relationship.
Five years after committing to invest billions of dollars in a shared battery factory in the Nevada desert, Panasonic has a strained relationship with the electric-car pioneer. The Gigafactory was supposed to boost profits, cement Panasonic’s future in automotive electronics and give Tesla easy access to the most important—and expensive—component of its vehicles.
. . .
Mr. Musk has pushed Panasonic to cut what it charges for the battery cells as Tesla builds another costly factory in China. Panasonic Chief Executive Kazuhiro Tsuga has resisted the pricing requests, and says he is hesitant to go into China with Tesla. Production has fallen behind schedule, and the race to catch up has thrown the Panasonic battery unit deeper into the red.
At this year’s annual meeting in June, shareholders criticized Panasonic for getting in over its head. Hurt by the Tesla problems, Panasonic has seen its stock fall nearly 50% since the start of last year.
. . .
“Elon makes these repeated price-cut requests, and one time I told him we would consider a complete withdrawal of my people and facilities from the Gigafactory in response,” Mr. Tsuga said in his September comments to reporters. “That’s how a negotiation with Tesla goes.”
I try to look at the stories and see if they match and they don’t. For example I am reading that fracking is failing and a lot of companies are pulling back investment…but if you look at employment for that region in the Permian Basin …unemployment is very low housing cost are going up etc…if they can’t make money with low oil prices then how is everything still going strong in that region? Companies have the same information that we do…If they saw that they were losing money they would be cutting back already..Maybe the breakeven numbers for oil are wrong and they can make money at $50 a barrel.
I think that employment is pretty much the last thing that turns down. Companies run into funding problems first, then they cut back so employment drops.
“In her inaugural speech, the new International Monetary Fund Managing Director Kristalina Georgieva warns over a “synchronized slowdown” in global growth.
“Fund expects slower growth in nearly 90% of world in 2019… A major downturn could put $19 trillion in corporate debt at risk of default – 40% of the total in 8 major economies.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.fxstreet.com/amp/news/imfs-georgieva-fund-expects-slower-growth-in-nearly-90-of-world-in-2019-201910081407
Cheery message!
I’ve been trying to tear myself away from the headlines this week but I couldn’t resist such a doom-laden prognosis from the new head of the IMF herself, lol.
I frequent the “Good News Network” for an occasional break. Found this:
Amazon has just placed an order for 100,000 electric delivery vans—a purchase that is now going down in history as the largest for electric vehicles in the world.
The first of the vans are set to hit the roads in 2021 with 10,000 new EVs purchased from Rivian, Tesla’s sustainable automotive rival. The full fleet is expected to hit public roads before 2030.
For perspective, WIRED says that FedEx uses 85,000 motorized vehicles while UPS uses 123,000 cars, vans, tractors, and motorcycles for their global deliveries—only 10,000 of which are reportedly “alternative fuel and advanced technology.”
The $440 million investment is expected to save 4 million metric tons of carbon per year by 2030.
https://www.goodnewsnetwork.org/largest-purchase-of-evs-as-amazon-orders-100000-electric-delivery-vans/
https://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=youtube+kindergarten+cop+party+pooper&view=detail&mid=6A6E85A567F50FEB55F66A6E85A567F50FEB55F6&FORM=VIRE
http://gravatar.com/gailtheactuary
The real party pooper
10 years to satisfy the order?
That should be well into battery replacement time. Or maybe vehicle replacement time.
Maybe the numbers are being presented in a sort of feel good smokescreen way?
We will see how this works out in practice.
Give yourself a well-earned break, Sir Harry, and drink up the local brew, dance a reel by the sea with the rest of clan McGibbs, with Puppy McGibbs gamboling at your heels.
And a bit late in the day, 2019 is nearly over and any intelligent observer saw this coming a year or two ago. In fact, since things started to turn down in late 2014 – the signs were clearly there then.
But that’s the game the lady is in, public pronouncements that look wise, after the event.
Does she fear for her salary, perks and pension? I suspect not, as they can squeeze us like lemons to get their cut as thing go down.
The US tax cuts played a role in all of this, too. They mostly took place in 2018. They propped up how the US appeared, relative to other countries. Now the benefits are pretty much in the rear view mirror.
If there is $19 trillion in corporate debt at risk, a person wonders how much governmental debt is at risk. Also, how much debt of individual citizens. And how many promises by governments, such as Social Security and Medicare, that are not considered debt, but act a whole lot like debt.
Gail, I think history provides the answer. The intrinsic value of government debt is zero, because the debt will never be repaid. It will be rolled over for as long as possible, and then repudiated.
The exchange value of government debt is whatever you can get the greater fool next door to pay for it. This can sometimes be useful, if you sell debt in a more stable currency and buy instead a recently devalued currency, but that takes knowledge and careful timing.
I was a victim of government promises, in the form of the UK “graduated retirement scheme”. Between 1961 and 1975, higher earners paid extra into a separate pension account. When the scheme was scrapped in 1975 your accrued pension was frozen, in money terms! So by the time you retired it was near enough worthless.
That’s why I like my wood shed: money earned translated directly, by me, in to seasoning firewood, which I can use at what rate suits me and as I judge fit. How Victorian of me!
The value of an ash log in maintaining my health and happiness will be the same in 5, 10, 15 years as it is today.
Beats any annuity (though these have, apparently, always been paid) or retractable government ‘promise’.
unless somebody else steals your tree
You should find (on internet) and read Alpha Strategy by Pugsley if you havent already.
I thought burning wood was a fairly certain way to head for a so called “early death”?
If course it is entirely possible to see that as a favourable outcome in certain scenarios and when compared to other possible outcomes related to the passing of years.
I hadn’t heard about the UK graduated income retirement scheme before. It is somewhat parallel to all of the pension plans that were put into place in a similar timeframe in the United States, but these were private, rather than government entities. These were often “defined benefit” programs that planned to give some percentage of ending wages. The obligations on these weren’t frozen, and these have become a problem. Actuaries greatly overestimated future earnings and share growth. They did not separate inflation from non-inflationary factors, either. The models were terribly optimistic, in retrospect.
US companies in those days had many incentives to make wild promises. First, it was a cheap way to pacify the unions: promise jam tomorrow so you don’t have to pay for jam today. Secondly, there was an immediate incentive to be over optimistic, because the more future growth you assume, the less you have to pay into the fund now. Until it all came unstuck, at which point the government bailouts started. The “Railroad Retirement System” was one of the first, back in 1983.
Government schemes have become even more pernicious, because they are almost all linked to inflation, which means they retain their purchasing power, That works in an expanding economy, but in a contracting economy its main effect is to transfer wealth from workers to non workers, so making the contraction worse. US Social Security is well into this death spiral; Medicare is in even worse shape.
She seems like the kind of person that ends up heading an organization when insiders see disasters ahead. A goat. The IMF have helped keep the charade alive. They have done nothing that would help us deal with the reality of our predicament.
Ecuador fuel price protests https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2019/10/clashes-erupt-ecuador-protests-fuel-price-hike-191008073141134.html
Sign of too low prices for oil exporters!
The fresh bread every morning in Slovakia is endangered: falling profits force the bakeries to dismiss workforce, as the cost of inputs rise
https://index.sme.sk/c/22230558/cerstvy-chlieb-kazde-rano-je-v-ohrozeni-pekari-uz-nevladzu.html?ref=trz
Jeff Snider writes very well. He is knowledgeable and you can check out his articles regularly at https://www.alhambrapartners.com/commentaryanalysis/
He has charts and evidence and not just heresay.
This one below talks about EU has no idea who to do next but the same thing again and again.
https://www.alhambrapartners.com/2019/10/07/the-consequences-of-transitory/
I like Snider’s many charts, but I feel a little frustrated that he doesn’t dig deeper. For example, what all went wrong beginning in January 2018? He remarks that Germany’s economy started to head down then. China’s economy seems to have begun heading down at the same time. We know that China cut back severely on recycling as of January 1, 2018. US quantitative tightening began October 2017 and got up to full speed in 2018. I think there were other things going on as well, such as emissions rule changes in Europe and China, which adversely affected car sales.
Snider writes very often (about three times a week), so he can’t delve very deeply.
Perhaps the nice charts are his contribution. In a self-organizing system, others can take them and put together other pieces to tell a broader story of what is really happening.
I haven’t read many of Snider’s posts. And I am not terribly familiar with German statistics, so his many charts add a new dimension.
One could argue the Chinese recycling ban was not solely about economic downturn..
They are evidently on many fronts moving up to more environmental friendly tech and higher value chain. Recently we discussed the western desert “clean coal” and HSR, but there are also other sector where it materializes in steps, as long as the money spigots continues to work..
I think the Chinese recycling ban was one of the causes of the economic downturn. This meant that containers that previously could be shipped to the US with goods, and then back with recycling, thanks to small subsidies by do-good organizations, now had to be shipped back empty. This indirectly made shipping of other goods more expensive. Either that, or shippers would become less profitable.
Also, there was the loss of most of an industry of jobs in China. This would tend to reduce world demand for fossil fuels.
Other countries have followed suit, adding to this impact.
Jess Snider is excellent but he is not an “energy guy”. I read his posts because he offers a very different perspective on what is happening on the other side of the “human civilization” coin – the financial world. It is not easy to understand how the repo’s implication would impact the world. I have to read many sources and his is one that is easy to understand and it will complement what I know.
It does seem to me that humans have made a very huge and extremely complicated mess in the financial world with band aids over band aids over band aids of solutions. It looks like it is at a breaking point now. Many things that are not suppose to happen are happening at an alarming frequency and they might be out of control. One of the things put forward (nobody knows if it is true because it is too complicated) is that US is issuing a lot of debts (way too much now) and there is just not enough cash around to buy them up. These things don’t happen last time.
Will the trade deal, impeachment, Brexit or anything that is unknown (or known) that will derail the entire financial world (since it is just so complex that many experts don’t even know what is going on)?
As Tainter indicated: civilizations are partly defeated by their own accumulated ‘solutions’ – we do seem to be the lucky ones who are living in the Era of Consequences, on every front…..
Thats interesting with Garrett, assume something ridiculuos like -5% real global gdp and still energy demand rises quite quickly.
How long before bankers and politicians all over the world hanging from lampposts if gpd-5% year after year?
CO2 emission price went up from 8 EUR per tonne, to 25 EUR. Also Germany adds 300MW of photovoltaics per month, which lowers efficiency of burning fossil fuels.
On the New EV v.s. Existing ICE car debate. My take: It is extremely difficult to compete (on cost) with equipment that has already depreciated to some extent. Teslas are a good example: Initial depreciation for the first several years could be $10,000 per year. On top of that there is usually higher fees on newer cars.
Compare that to the cost of keeping my old 740 running? Last year I “invested” in a head rebuild and a new head gasket. Could do the work myself so just $500, but even handing this to a mechanic for $2500 is cheaper than running a Tesla year one. I think it’s entirely possible that I can get another 200,000 miles out of the car.
Another thought: Batteries of all kinds are a headache. The less you drive your ICE car, in most cases, the longer it will last. But batteries wear all the time, whether used or not, and they also self discharge at a certain rate. Leave your EV for a few weeks, and it’s not going to have the same travel distance left in it, whereas with a gas/diesel engine, 99.5% of the fuel is still there.
I think therefore it’s unlikely that in a recession, when many are tightening the budgets, that we can expect a significant uptick in EV sales. I think there would have to be something done at a legal level to get them off the road, and I can think of one country where that will be difficult: USA.
I believe it takes oil and natural gas to mine coal and maintain nuclear and even hydroelectric power sources. we often focus here on EVs as “coal cars” (makes a nice simple joke) but the truth is they are very dependent upon all fossil fuels to make and maintain, including their batteries, as Gail points out. a James Howard Kunstler solution is to abandon most private transport and become more reliant upon public transport, like trains and subways, similar to the present day denizens of major metropolitan cities. the Los Angeles metro area is slowly heading this way, with trains and subways appearing along the freeway routes. perhaps the present suburbs will convert or revert into “truck farms”, feeding the expanded cities until the human population shrinks a bit, heading to a lot as supplies dwindle.
EVs are great for taxis and other very high milage vehicles that don’t dive very far from a central hub.
For retirees and others who drive quite little, they don’t make sense.
It depends on the “tax domicile” as well, fuel is very cheap in the US.. (yes this is a bit negated by very thirsty gargantuan car fleet and distances). In other countries you have to choose between expensive gasoline/diesel, cheaper LPG/natgas (few places), expensive brand new EV, cheaper DIY EVs, public transport (+ e/bike), .. etc..
EVs are only relatively cheap to run (in many cases) because they are not subject to the same taxation for fuels and road use as more traditional methods of movement.
Once the tax attracting options have been intentionally excluded from the market at some scale (10% or more?) the opportunities to over-tax ICE in order to be able to under-tax electric (in terms of infrastructure spend as a most obvious example of typical tax dollar use, local and national) will become less supportable. The need for road maintenance, to take one example, would not be reduced by default. Indeed with heavier vehicles (due to the batteries) maintenance requirements might well increase on a like for like basis.
Some see the solution as a combination of reducing usage to minimise wear and tear and increasing taxes on ‘travel’ for which one popular concept is a road use tax levy.
In theory in a fully electronic 5G comms world the whereabouts of everyone is known at all times and can be pinpointed accurately and directly related to a “mode of transport”. Thus one simply has an automated personal billing account that takes a payment for any movement you make with no (or very minimal) need for action in most situations.
The elimination of personally allocated (i.e. “owned”) transport in favour of autonomous EV Pod rental would greatly simplify the taxation opportunity as well as the technical challenges for the entire concept of “Autonomous” “driving”.
That in turn could allow for greatly enhanced pod based “public transport” alternatives – travel option that provide mass transit like facilities but personalised to take users directly (or at least more directly) from one end of the journey to the other.
A selling point for such a concept might be required for the masses to accept such intrusion into their personal movements. Personal safety might be one pitch. “Knowing where you are all the time means we can keep you safer and ultimately eliminate crime ….”
National security might be another justification. Tracking people 24/7 could become relatively simple. Sensors to detect what they are carrying (having already tracked what has been delivered to them) should allow some elimination of some types of “terrorist” activity.
Would a small payment per mile be too much to ask for such a personal security service?
No? Sign here (not that you would need to sign in a fully chipped interconnected world …)
As there are fewer and fewer vehicles on the roads, the cost of road upkeep will become an increasingly large share of total cost, because freezing and thawing never stop. Neither do major storms and earthquakes, which can also damage highways. Also, collecting the cost from taxpayers in total will become less of an option, because financially they would be less able to afford the cost of another tax. So the higher cost will need to be collected from the vehicles on the road.
The roads are never mentioned by Greta or others! There is simply no renewable story there. Maybe wood roads?
How about slaves making cobblestone roads?
Once people recognise the need to return to animal power, paved roads, especially cobblestones, would not be good for the animal’s hooves.
Extinction Rebellion people seem to be happy to travel long distances by fossil power in order to attempt to persuade others about the benefits of reverting almost completely and almost instantly to a world using the ways of the past.
So why to big business leader seem to be so reticent about making any public statements about such things?
Do they spot some opportunities?
Autonomous vehicles on roads built for them without other vehicles, bikes, pedestrians would be quite simple.
But we have the roads we have with the vehicle fleet we have and pedestrians needing to cross the roads.
True.
But it could be done and would probably be easier to justify in terms of cost (both fiscal and environmental) to force that through for large parts of the transport system (depending on which country and whether we are talking urban or non-urban areas).
Let’s face it – we are told this is a Climate Emergency so if the masses can be persuaded of that it should be easy enough to push through the least worst ‘solutions’.
Yellow wests scared the shit out of macron over a slight tax hike. What do you think will happen when their almost new cars become illegal.
While scaling up autonomous, how should folks get around?
Since it probably is needed to rebuild new cities to isolate people from traffic and simplify for the vehicles, it would be better rebuilding cities with no/less need for transport.
Demolishing and rebuilding cities (but why consider only cities?) would ba a good idea and probably cheaper than trying to “upgrade” old buildings to “passiv haus” standards. However still much more costly that re-regulating transport which, typically, has quite a short asset replacement period. Probably about 10 year from build to scrap on average in many countries (for various reasons). Manufacturers seem, recently, to have been accelerating the potential for early obsolescence and would be delighted with ever shorter live spans if allowed the excuse of (improving the technology (especially the attractive concept of ‘safety’) or the alleged opportunity of “saving the planet”.
A Ford executive recently suggested that utility based ‘for hire or rental’ electric fleets might be efficiently managed with such high utilisation that the pods would be worn out and in need of replacement every 4 years.
That may sound dreadful BUT, if done well, might be the most efficient and energy use effective way of running future transportation. Far more achievable, I would suggest, than rebuilding entire cities.
Back a while ago major cities had food resourced relatively nearby. Farms for example, And especially fresh met sources that could be easily delivered to local markets. Pig farms, for example, require relatively little land and persisted in what are not suburbs of larger cities until about a century ago in some places.
Modify the supply economy – especially the food supply economy – overnight to satisfy the apparent demands of Extinction Rebellion and others – could be beyind just challenging taken as a stand alone project.
In combination with with totally replacing building stock, transportation and food supply lines while moving to a more agrarian society (what a waste of money all of those degree and college courses will prove to be …) in order to survive may just be slightly beyond the fiscal capability of any societal change that might be possible in the next decade or two. Or the next 5 years if ER are listened to.
Then there are the flood defences we will need soon as global sea levels rise.
And the question about what to do about personal security to prevent others invading, by one means or another, and taking advantage of the works carried out.
Still, where there is a will to change it’s almost certain that something WILL change. Just not so easy to control what DOES change.
You are absolutely correct about the high taxes on fossil fuel transport (especially here in UK) as compared with tax breaks for EVs. As soon as the percentage of EV cars rises a way will be found to tax them at the same rate as FF transport – mileage charges? And it will get much more expensive to run an EV car. Also juggling with taxes on personal transport to reduce distances covered and minimise wear and tear is pretty irrelevant as 90%+ of highway wear and tear is due to trucks. Cars do little more than ‘polish’ the road surface over time. Trucks do the deep and expensive damage. And currently in UK, at least, it seems that moving more and more ‘stuff’ around Europe – by more and more trucks – appears to be the basis of our economy.
We also seem to be a long way from making the many heavy long-distance trucks electric. It is not too hard to make some local delivery vehicles electric, especially if they are high milage and lightly taxed. Changing to electric can look like a cost savings, at least until the true cost of road upkeep, with fewer private passenger autos to pay part of the bill, is added back into the bill.
So finance, GE makes gas turbines among other things. Less debt, less growth, less growth, less need for energy products which leads to less income to service debt and pensions. Does not sound like a virtuous cycle to me.
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/ge-freezes-pension-benefits-20000-employees-lower-debt-burden
Only one word for this, bummer.
Dennis L.
I know that the many coal company bankruptcies in the past few years have led to cutbacks in pension benefits and current wages for coal miners. This is a problem, too.
China has probably had the biggest cutbacks relating to unprofitable coal mines. I don’t know what the impact would have on wages. I presume that Chinese workers do not have pension plans, as such.
“For a stark assessment of global recession risks, look beyond the world’s top currencies to the pronounced declines for their lesswell-traded peers.
“The Australian and New Zealand dollars, which trade as proxies for Asian growth because of their commodity exports, are bumping along at some of the weakest levels since the aftermath of the financial crisis.
“The tumble for Norway’s krone and Sweden’s krona takes them to lows dating back further still, almost to the start of the millennium.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/m.economictimes.com/markets/forex/currencies-paint-a-bleak-picture-for-global-growth/amp_articleshow/71473779.cms
“The world’s biggest government-debt markets are sending a clear signal that global economic growth is stalling and inflation expectations are fading fast…
“ECB governing council member Ignazio Visco said on Thursday the central bank can’t risk losing control of inflation expectations, adding the more serious risk is “deflation in a situation of high public debts.”
https://www.hellenicshippingnews.com/tumbling-bond-yields-signal-further-trouble-for-the-world-economy/
“If negative rates cause the next crisis by distorting capital allocation and encouraging unmanageable levels of debt, central bankers will discover that the real danger is to them personally. The whole idea that they are politically independent good guys will come tumbling down.”
https://moneyweek.com/516133/the-dangers-of-negative-interest-rates/
Spot on Ignacio: but what are you going to do about it? What can you do? This is going to be fascinating to watch unfold – if only WE weren’t part of the experiment……
Apparently it is not just Ignacio, bless him, who is alarmed. This statement has been signed by very august ex-central bankers, including former members of the ECB executive board:
“…the longer the ECB stays its extremely accommodative path, the more the negative effects prevail. Interest rates have lost their steering function and financial stability risks have increased.
“The longer the ultra-low or negative interest rate policy and liquidity flooding of markets continue, the greater the potential for a setback. Should a major crisis strike, it will be of very different dimensions than those we have seen before.
“Like other central banks the ECB is threatened with the end of its control over the creation of money. These developments imply a high risk for central bank independence – de jure or de facto.”
https://m.faz.net/aktuell/wirtschaft/issing-schlesinger-et-al-das-memorandum-zur-ezb-politik-im-original-16416950.html?fbclid=IwAR0_ndljnVO9HiYE6SigoJuxy33OK9baOpo4W-gueneTGKJZsrXwy3v2MVc
Meanwhile, “Interest rates will stay lower for longer and force institutions like the Reserve Bank of Australia into more “unconventional” policy to boost economies, a special global report into the response of central banks to the global financial crisis has found.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.smh.com.au/politics/federal/get-ready-for-low-rates-for-long-time-says-world-s-central-bankers-20191007-p52y9b.html
And investors, such as pension funds, will need to look harder and harder to find some investments with a reasonably high return.
Christine Lagarde isn’t an economist. She is someone who gets people to compromise and work together well. I wonder how much she can do for the current situation.
Probably about as well as she managed with Argentina?
The ECB job has that whiff of “The job no one really wanted” about it.
Or, as a prospective client in Florida once told me after we had failed to obtain some business to provide some software that would completely transform his employer’s business in a positive way … “A good one not to get …”
It looks to my inexpert eye that Draghi has used up all the “Get out of Jail free” cards and a few fakes besides. Madame L’Orange will need some very special talents to make anything of the ECB job.
On the convoy to the Hague of Dutch famers who are tired of being blamed for climate change, this man has an excellent sense of humor.
https://assets.rebelmouse.io/eyJhbGciOiJIUzI1NiIsInR5cCI6IkpXVCJ9.eyJpbWFnZSI6Imh0dHBzOi8vYXNzZXRzLnJibC5tcy8yMTE2OTQ0Ni85ODB4LmpwZyIsImV4cGlyZXNfYXQiOjE1NzAxNjc2NzB9.16mO0Uek2wJ7aVDt1O2NS4XNPkdc6Jp4HA3ciKmHi6s/img.jpg
The road blockade of Vegans didn’t last long, one assumes?
But lets be real, especially the first one big Fendt tractor causes massive soil compaction, and there are even way bigger models out there, uh..
Not so. Note the width of the tyres.
The pressure by contact area is, apparently, quite low compared to older tractors.
Using tracks offers even lower numbers.
However if one was to try to provide a day’s worth of usable power using batteries alone … the additional weight would certainly be problematic in most, maybe all, scenarios.
Not necessarily, because in -no dig – agriculture you need only a small toyish tractor of upto ~30kW regular work.. And the big tractor could be hired for the specific extra hard duty task once, twice per year only (or not at all in mature stage).
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nWrwSK7zfqM
If you go to 3:11 on that video it will list the amounts the FED plan to inject into markets to increase liquidity.
Ok, I’ll provide the information from the video for easy reading.
10/8 at least 45 billion
10/10 ” ” 45 b
10/11 45b
10/15 35b
10/17 35b
10/22 35b
10/24 35b
10/29 35b
Wow, I just watched something truly astonishing. Where will one find in any Western Hemisphere a love for a politician like this. A politician without any fear of anyone in his own country? Excited for his own people’s happiness? I can’t begin to imagine a Washington politician seeing this video and then going out to his own car with the thought of driving throw the streets waving with excitement for his own country and people?
I got to say I do not understand this? This is truly a first for me. Truly a first!!!!
https://youtu.be/aJURNC0e6Ek
Reply
yes, the USA-led UN coalition really fucked Kadafi and Libya. they lost a lot of wealth to the west, per this video, in particular to the Rothschild banking empire. the Russians effectively blocked a similar operation on Assad and Syria.
“My loving people.
We have been persuaded by some that are careful of our safety, to take heed how we commit our selves to armed multitudes, for fear of treachery; but I assure you I do not desire to live to distrust my faithful and loving people. Let tyrants fear. I have always so behaved myself that, under God, I have placed my chiefest strength and safeguard in the loyal hearts and good-will of my subjects; and therefore I am come amongst you, as you see, at this time, not for my recreation and disport, but being resolved, in the midst and heat of the battle, to live and die amongst you all; to lay down for my God, and for my kingdom, and my people, my honour and my blood, even in the dust.”
The address to her subjects at Tilbury, after the sailing of the Spanish Armada, by Queen Elizabeth I. And her successor, our present Queen, is driven around her capital city in an open carriage. What western President dare do the same?
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Potential destruction of supply chains
As the disproportion increases between affordability of energy products and required sales prices to cover all costs of production, conversion, and distribution of those it seems plausible that companies involved in this chain of production and distribution will try to cut expenses wherever possible. Sooner or later this can lead to reduced maintenance of affected industrial plants, reduced and less qualified or motivated staff.
I suspect that this in turn can cause an increased number of incidents at such industrial installations.
Sorry for this kind of spam and its condensed format. Here’s an (incomplete) list of fires/explosions at chemical plants (they are using also fossil fuel as resources), refineries during last 12 months.
04 Oct 2019 (Fire, USA: fire at a chemical plant in Cobb County, Georgia …) 2019-09-26 (Fire, France: large fire … at a company that makes specialty chemicals – …) 2019-09-20 (Fire, India: major fire at the naphtha cracker unit of the Haldia Petrochemicals in West Bengal …) 2019-09-19 (Explosion, Turkey: blast caused by fire at a chemical factory in Istanbul sent a metal tank flying into the air …) 17 Sep 2019 (Fire, Mexico: fire at Antonio Dovali Jaime refinery in Selina Cruz, Mexico …) 2019-09-17 (Explosion, Italy: A blast hit an oil refinery in northern Italy … belonging to Eni … in a part of a gasification plant …) 2019-08-31 (Explosion, India: 12 people killed and 58 injured following explosions at a chemical factory in western India …) 2019-08-01 (Explosion, USA: explosion and fire at an Exxon Mobil oil refinery in Texas …) 2019-06-26 (Fire, Spain: A giant cloud of smoke over the town of San Roque near Gibraltar … following a fire at a chemical factory …) 2019-06-21 (Explosion, USA: fireball lit up the sky in South Philadelphia … an explosion at a local gas refinery …) 2019-06-04 (Explosion, USA: 4 people injured when an explosion ignited a fire at an oil and chemical storage terminal in Carson …) 2019-04-25 (Explosion, China: An explosion and fire at a chemical plant in northern China … 4 people dead 35 with injuries …) 2019-04-07 (Explosion, Taiwan: explosion at chemical plant … in Yunlin county … shook houses 5 km away …) 2019-04-03 (Explosion, USA: 1 person killed and 2 injured … in an explosion at the KMCO chemical plant in Crosby, Texas …) 2019-03-21 (Explosion, China: 6 people dead and 30 injured after massive explosion at chemical plant … pesticide factory …) 2019-03-16 (Fire, USA: fire at the Phillips 66 refinery in Carson) 14 Mar 2019 (Explosion, Venezuela: Multiple explosions … oil refinery near San Diego de Cabrutica in Anzoategui …) 2019-03-06 (Explosion, USA: reports of two explosions at the Holly Frontier refinery in El Dorado …) 2019-02-11 (Explosion, USA: explosion at the Phillips 66 Wood River Refinery …) 2019-02-04 (Fire, USA: fire at the Delaware City Refinery …) 2019-01-12 (Explosion, Yemen: port city of Aden … fire at an oil refinery … sparked by an explosion …) 2019-01-09 (Explosion, USA: explosion at chemical and ammunition plant in Oxford …) 2018-12-19 (Explosion, Brazil: explosion of a tanker truck at Manguinhos refinery near Rio de Janeiro …) 2018-11-28 (Explosion, China: explosion near a large chemical plant in northern China …
killed at least 22 …) 2018-10-31 (Explosion, USA – North-America: 3 men … admitted to a hospital with burns … following explosion due to equipment failure at the Delaware City Refinery …) 2018-10-10 (Explosion, Bosnia and Herzegovina: explosion hit the Brod oil refinery in northern Bosnia …) 2018-10-08 (Explosion, Canada: Irving Oil … massive oil refinery explosion …) 2018-10-05 (Explosion, Belgium: province of Limburg (Belgium) … explosion at chemical plant …)
I don’t know how many such incidents happened in previous years — so maybe that’s just the usual number.
If not — and numbers are increasing?
Is it a “hidden hand” at play trying to reduce supply/demand, or owners of companies creatively reducing overcapacity and trying to get some losses covered from insurances, or even some form of hidden warfare between big industry nations or a mix of all those?
I think with high likelihood a simple explanation is: Without sufficient surplus energy it is getting harder and harder to just maintain our current infrastructure.
Article about
The ravaged country, once Latin America’s richest, is a riot of structures: parking garages used as shelter, colonial edifices, half-built socialist public works, improvised hillside slum complexes, malls without customers. But hundreds of notable buildings have been abandoned or wrecked. The capital city of Caracas is home to most of this heritage, especially Art Deco, Bauhaus and Brutalist constructions that made it a center of modern architecture in the region, along with Mexico City, Brasilia and Rio de Janeiro.
“Modern architecture in Caracas is remarkable. It’s a major feature of this city,” said Hannia Gomez, an architect and head of the Venezuelan branch of Docomomo, an international nonprofit dedicated to conserving modern buildings. “But much of this heritage is badly deteriorated
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2019-09-27/venezuela-is-collapsing-so-is-its-architectural-heritage
……
After Chavez’s death in 2013, the economy started crumbling as a result of declining oil prices and years of mismanagement and corruption. Starvation, hyperinflation and crime had pushed 4.3 million outside the country by August. Caracas is full of empty properties.
“Society is so absorbed by problems that nobody pays attention to preservation,” said Neva, adding that it’s a mistake to consider heritage less important than food and medicine. “Devastated societies can overcome dark periods, thanks to the awareness of their heritage’s value. Heritage is the moral reserve that allows the resumption of development.
I am not sure I can post links with my iPad, but the WSJ has one article about protests in Iraq. The people had expected improvements in the economy with the growing sale of oil. They are blaming mismanagement etc. for the lack of return. I would blame low oil prices for most of the problem. Tax revenue can’t be very high without high oil prices.
A second story relates to China pulling out of a deal to develop Iran’s natural gas resources. I am certain that the reason is that the selling price is too low for the gas, worldwide. The article mentions other reasons including China not buying as much oil from Iran because of sanctions, so there is less income to barter with. China’s need for both oil and gas is down.
“The capital city of Caracas is home to most of this heritage, especially Art Deco, Bauhaus and Brutalist constructions that made it a center of modern architecture in the region,”
Let it rot, and good riddance. Modern architecture is ugly, inhumane, and designed for awards rather than people. I have watched it destroy cities that were once a joy to live in and walk around.
https://www.google.com/imgres?imgurl=https%3A%2F%2Fartklan.com%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2016%2F12%2FLASALLE-College-of-the-Arts-singapore.png&imgrefurl=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.artklan.com%2Fwant-become-international-artist-start-education-best-fine-art-schools-singapore%2F&docid=-1MQPi3sh0BAwM&tbnid=uOm0F9IrixxUyM%3A&vet=10ahUKEwjP7vrBoYjlAhWUbsAKHQDrAJgQMwhtKBIwEg..i&w=1192&h=640&bih=790&biw=953&q=singapore%20school%20of%20the%20arts&ved=0ahUKEwjP7vrBoYjlAhWUbsAKHQDrAJgQMwhtKBIwEg&iact=mrc&uact=8
Observe, please, one of the ugliest buildings in Singapore, the College of the Arts. What you cannot see, but I discovered, is that it has no facilities whatsoever for mobility impaired people.
Having studied in an award-winning Modernist library of the 1960’s when a history student, I can only concur……
I much preferred our 1830’s set of rooms, even though the showers, etc, were several minutes walk away across a freezing court (all up-graded now for conference delegates).
I expect you are right. I understand that fixes are not made to electric transmission systems until some part actually fails, because of a need for low costs, without costs being covered by the utility pricing system. We now have many parts of the grid operating with very old transformers and other parts. Many systems were installed in the 1950s and 1960s.
Gas pipelines and oil pipelines are similar. We now hear about spectacular failures of gas pipelines. There are also some oil spills related to cracked pipelines.
There is a grading system for infrastructure. A lot of it gets a D rating.
Thanks for the article which I think summarizes very good several issues with GND (and similar initiatives like “Energiewende” in Europe/Germany).
Knowing from own experience that in times of scarcity (which I think our path leads to) it’s a challenge to just maintain existing infrastructure I wonder how its possible to maintain all additional infrastructure that would be required by GND for a significant time period.
I think the predicament should be clear: there is no transition that would allow us to power our current level of IC for much longer.
Putting other considerations to one side for a minute, let’s consider how much space would need to be devoted to “renewable” energy sources in order for the UK to meet its current target of “zero emissions by 2050.
https://youtu.be/viJ-Y4X-5zQ
Constable to the rescue!
https://search.aol.com/aol/image;_ylt=Awr9DsgXuppdRCYAVCxpCWVH;_ylu=X3oDMTByZDNzZTI1BGNvbG8DZ3ExBHBvcwMyBHZ0aWQDBHNlYwNzYw–?q=constable+landscapes&v_t=webmail-hawaii1-basicaol
GM workers strike on fears of being replaced by robots as EV’s contain fewer parts and are easier to assemble.
“Electric cars have far fewer parts, which means far fewer people are needed to put them together. When one analyst took apart a Chevrolet Bolt and Volkswagen Golf, he found that the Golf had 125 more moving parts than its electric counterpart. What’s more, the electric vehicles’ parts are often easier to put in place using automated machines. The UAW’s own estimates that the move to electrification may cost 35,000 members to lose their jobs may not be the most scientific study ever done, but it’s also probably not far off.”
https://www.marketwatch.com/amp/story/guid/3870F370-E6CB-11E9-83E6-1366F1C3851C
Yep, the government corporate drone is going the way of the dodo.
https://miro.medium.com/max/2560/1*DUUjxfoXYPwMUMmMwLUDAA.jpeg
Same as far as cashiers at the checkout line in Supermarkets and now at retailers like Home Depot! BTW, these are the vast majority of employment for the average citizen.
Not everyone has the ability to get a higher education and compete for the few posts they employ in their field.
Notice now even at McDonald’s there is a self service Kiosk to place your order.
The fewer the bodies, the less cost there is on the bottom line.
BTW, as a Union worker myself and under contract negotiations, the biggest issues are Health Care and Contracting out work. Back with Harry Truman as President, he had a full plate with the Korean War and all and he decided to let the Labor Unions negotiate for Health Care. Turns out it wasn’t the best way.
In my immediate area, I have never seen anyone use the kiosk at McD’s. I tried several times and couldn’t figure it out so I just went to the cashier and placed my order.
See folks trying to use it and get frustrated because seems they STILL need to go to the cashier! Anyway, this is version 101….imagine next upgrade will be improved.
Target, Publix now have self service check out…soon we probably won’t need to do anything but sales will be in the cloud
“Anyway, this is version 101….imagine next upgrade will be improved.”
Another quote (by me) from my days in the IT industry: “The biggest improvement in any software product is between the version you have now and the version they promise next.”
IT doesn’t get better, because IT people prefer writing code to fixing code. So it just gets more complicated, harder to use, and with an ever longer minefield between your needs and their satisfaction.
A few years ago, my (then) local food store went self service. Six stations, hardly ever used, and only one or two human cashiers, usually with long queues. The cashiers that had been present were still present, helping the odd baffled customer navigate the truly terrible IT system.
And the killer? The system would not accept cash, only plastic. But many older people, and me, pay only with cash; it is much, much simpler to keep track of ones expenditure that way. And many younger people had store loyalty cards, which the IT system also would not accept. So much for “smart city” Singapore!
It was bad enough when I stooped so low as to go to a McDonalds, but when I saw the Kiosks, I turned around and looked for a Subway, but discovered that had been closed down. So I said screw it. I’m 40 lbs overweight and the fasting will do me some good. Haven’t been to a McDonald’s in a year.
Kiosks all tested positive for fecal matter.
The only problem is that people won’t really buy these electric vehicles. Given a choice between an electric vehicle and nothing, people will keep old ICEs indefinitely.
Oh, don’t you worry, nobody believed cars and trains would replace horses.
https://static.seekingalpha.com/uploads/2017/8/5/37628986-15019383433604047_origin.jpg
The transition will happen no matter what. If people can’t afford one, well, too bad – for them.
If people can’t afford one, we will build robots that can!
20M by 2025, roughly half EV. Will take forever reaching a fleet of 1B.
I don’t have a hard time imagining 100% EV, only that we all Will have one.
Used Leaf around here is about $7K with 20-30K miles. Not sure if MN has a higher registration fee for electric vehicles. Use it in the city, rent for a vacation(who takes those now?), rent a truck when needed. Cheaper vehicles insure for less, registration is less and if one is careful use much less fuel.
We have far more stuff than we need and even someone on welfare makes more than most of the world, what they seem to lack is a sense of responsibility at least for the men, men thrive on responsibility.
Around here there seem to be tons of union trade jobs, they are advertised on bill boards along the highway.
Dennis L.
Not sure about that, Gail.
It would be relatively easy to force ICE vehicles off the roads by taxation, hiked insurance, scarcity of parts (already a problem in some cases), lack of quality service providers and, ultimately, lack of fuel starting with lack of fuel at affordable prices.
The manufacturers would, initially, go with that. It’s a bandwagon they have been promoting for over a decade (though they would deny it.)
You might ask how they would see themselves surviving and developing in the future in such severe situations.
I would suggest they don’t. The current batch of corporate executives in large organisations all seem to be short termists and tempted by the needs of lining deep pockets as quickly as possible – presumably because they think that a million or a billion dollars “in the hand” is going to be worth more than any share options and bonuses in the medium term.
Plus it’s easier to farm government money than it is to create, develop and exploit markets oneself in order to make profits from the fickle fashionista buyers.
The traditional manufacturers are struggling and the new wave manufactures are not making profits. Doing so may not have been a real part of their business plan.
The fully autonomous transport model does not work unless it is greatly simplified.
100% autonomous only – to simplify away from systems complexity
100% trackable and billable by unit of usage (whatever that might be – probably a taxi like time and distance combination). For “security” and fiscal control.
Unified technology – to simplify and make possible at economies of scale. Manufacturers will mostly end up being just that – businesses that produce a common product for a fully controlled market. They have been pushed in that direction for several decades already so are well used to the concept.
No one will want to “own” anything in that sort of environment. Already in Europe people they are becoming used to renting their lives in the same way that the USA has done for many years.
Products, no matter how complex and expensive they might be to manufacture and buy in order to add a claimed modicum of energy efficiency, will last far less time than should be expected given the energy and materials inputs.
When things do head that way in earnest may be hard to perceive an upside to the policy.
Regarding the future of a carbon neutral economy… From DeSmog……
“Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti recently announced the city is scrapping plans for a multi-billion-dollar update to three natural gas power plants, instead choosing to invest in renewable energy and storage.
“This is the beginning of the end of natural gas in Los Angeles,” said Mayor Garcetti. “The climate crisis demands that we move more quickly to end dependence on fossil fuel, and that’s what today is all about.”
Last year America’s carbon emissions rose over 3 percent, despite coal plants closing and being replaced in part by natural gas, the much-touted “bridge fuel” and “cleaner” fossil fuel alternative.
As a new series from the sustainability think tank the Sightline Institute points out, the idea of natural gas as a bridge fuel is “alarmingly deceptive.”
But signs are emerging that, despite oil and gas industry efforts to shirk blame for the climate crisis and promote gas as part of a “lower-carbon fuel mix,” the illusion of natural gas as a bridge fuel is starting to crumble.
Market Forces
While Mayor Garcetti may be right in predicting the downward slide of natural gas for power generation, climate concerns won’t drive that change — just simple economics.
It wasn’t long ago that President Obama — who was accused of starting “the war on coal” because of air quality regulations — was touting the benefits of “clean coal.” But automation in the coal mining industry and competition with cheaper renewables and natural gas began taking a toll on coal.
The struggling coal industry thought things were looking up when Donald Trump was elected, with his promise to bring back coal.
But he has failed.
Most recently, President Trump tweeted that the Tennessee Valley Authority (TVA) should vote to keep two old coal power plants open.
Coal is an important part of our electricity generation mix and @TVAnews should give serious consideration to all factors before voting to close viable power plants, like Paradise #3 in Kentucky!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) February 11, 2019
Nevertheless, the TVA voted to close those coal plants and said it expected the move would save a billion dollars in future costs. Burning coal for electricity is increasingly incompatible with profits.
Gary Jones, the economic development director for the Kentucky county where one of the closing coal plants is located, acknowledged this economic reality in his comments to The Wall Street Journal, saying: “We definitely don’t blame him [Trump] for this. It’s the market.”
Exactly. Coal can’t compete with the historically low and unsustainable price of natural gas in the U.S. when it comes to power generation. And it can’t compete with renewables either.
In July 2016 I wrote the following about a presentation on coal at the annual Energy Information Administration conference:
“The presentation on India ended with the following conclusion: Cheap coal remains critical to Indian economic growth.”
India was all-in on coal for the next few decades, and yet in the two and half years since I wrote that, renewables have been hurting India’s coal industry. Why?
Just like in Tennessee and Kentucky, it’s the market. But it isn’t natural gas taking down coal in India, it’s wind and solar, according to a recent Reuters column by Clyde Russell:
“… the main reason coal may battle to fuel India’s future energy needs is that it’s simply becoming too expensive relative to renewable energy alternatives such as wind and solar.”
A coal power plant in Datteln, Germany. Credit: Cropped from image by Arnold Paul, CC BY-SA 2.5
A similar situation is unfolding in Germany, which aims to close all its coal plants in the next 20 years. The natural gas industry initially saw this as an opportunity to slide in and replace coal, but the lower cost of renewable energy may lead Germany to skip the “bridge” offered by natural gas and move straight to renewables, which already provide over 40 percent of the nation’s power.
According to Bloomberg, a large German energy company’s study predicts natural gas use in Germany (and other European countries) will likely decline. Why?
“… the cost of solar and battery systems will fall far enough that renewables may become the most cost-effective way to generate new flows of electricity.”
Compare that to 2014, when industry giants were trash-talking the future of renewables in Europe. At an energy industry conference, Paolo Scaroni, the CEO of oil and gas company Eni, said that Europe is realizing that renewables are “more a problem than a solution,” and Siemens CEO Joe Kaeser said, “Using solar panels in Germany is like growing pineapples in Alaska.”
Now renewables are the solution. And that certainly poses a problem for the fossil fuel industry.
Coal is dead. Soon enough, natural gas will also be dead. The economics alone will drive the world to wind & solar.
An appropriate recognition of the social cost of CO2 & methane will greatly accelerate this transition. https://t.co/lZUF8iXhmr
— Robert Howarth (@howarth_cornell) February 20, 2019
Building new natural gas infrastructure looks like a bad investment right now to cities like LA when renewables are already competitive. Natural gas seems poised to join coal as another fuel that just couldn’t compete with renewables.
Here are more reasons why that’s the case.
Natural Gas Prices Headed Up, Renewables Down
A Nordex wind turbine parts manufacturing facility in Jonesboro, Arkansas. Credit: Department of Energy, public domain
The price of renewable energy and storage is trending downward while the already super-low price of natural gas — especially in the U.S. — has nowhere to go but up.
While India and Germany already are finding renewables cheaper than fossil fuels for power generation with today’s technology, further advances in research and development as well as manufacturing will continue making renewables even more competitive.
MIT professor and former CIA director John Deutch recently presented a study entitled, “Demonstrating Near Carbon Free Electricity Generation from Renewables and Storage,” at a Stanford University energy seminar, in which he said:
“You are going to find yourselves very shortly in a situation where you have storage alternatives that, when matched with existing solar and wind generating systems, will be able to meet load extremely effectively.”
Meeting power demand effectively and as the lowest-cost producer — using fuel sources (wind and sun) that are free.
According to Greentech Media, energy industry analysts at Wood Mackenzie say the combination of renewables with battery systems can currently replace approximately two-thirds of U.S. natural gas turbines — right now. Estimates predict the cost of storage alone could drop 80 percent by 2040.
Who wants to own a gas power plant in 2040 knowing that?
Meanwhile, the cost of producing power with natural gas is dependent on the cost of the fuel.
Right now, gas companies are losing money — and have been for some time — at the current price of natural gas in America. As DeSmog has detailed, the fracking industry, which is responsible for most U.S. natural gas production, has been on a decade-long, money-losing streak.
The industry has proven unable to turn a profit at current natural gas prices. So, unless Wall Street wants to lose billions more subsidizing the natural gas industry, prices will have to go up at some point. And when natural gas prices go up, residential electricity rates go up.
Additionally, if all of the planned infrastructure gets built to export U.S. natural gas in liquid form (known as liquefied natural gas, or LNG), prices for natural gas are very likely to rise. This is the industry’s survival plan for the future. However, the higher prices natural gas producers need possibly will kill off one of the industry’s main markets.
☀️ Solar is beginning to outshine other forms of energy in Alberta. Three new #solar farms—which will provide the provincial government with 55% of its electricity needs—were contracted at a lower cost than natural gas. #abpoli https://t.co/NhwN4z9S6H pic.twitter.com/egTS6qPq6W
— Clean Energy Canada (@cleanenergycan) February 19, 2019
Tom DiCapua, managing director of wholesale energy services at Con Edison Energy, recently summed up the situation to Reuters: “As LNG exports increase, so will future gas prices.”
When it comes to the long-term economics of power generation, it isn’t a fair fight. There is no clear way natural gas can compete with renewables on an economic basis in the coming decades. Which is why the oil and gas industry works so hard to convince people gas is clean and cheap.
It knows it can’t win a fair fight.
Structural Financial Issues With Natural Gas Industry
In a July 2017 Forbes column, energy industry expert Art Berman laid out the details of the structural problems in the finances of natural gas production. Since then, things have only gotten worse as huge volumes of gas are pumped simultaneously out of Permian oil wells in Texas and New Mexico.
However, even before the huge ramp-up in the Permian, Berman made the case that the natural gas industry was producing record amounts of gas at prices in which companies could not make money. How could they do that?
Wall Street’s coffers.
As Berman explained, “Credit markets have been willing to support unprofitable shale gas drilling since the 2008 Financial Collapse.”
Of course, now credit markets are not as willing to loan money to shale companies to produce gas at a loss. Berman estimated that natural gas producers needed prices of $4 per million Btu of gas to break even. Prices are below $4, and the average price has been below that for years.
Not looking good for natural gas.
If You Can’t Beat Them, Join Them
In 2017, workers clean Heliostats at the Ivanpah Solar Project, a concentrated solar energy project. Credit: Dennis Shroeder, National Renewable Energy Lab, CC BY-NC-ND 2.0
Similar to the fossil fuel industry, electric utilities also have fought renewable energy options. In 2016, utilities in Florida spent almost $30 million to limit residents’ ability to install rooftop solar — perceived as a direct threat to the utilities.
Much like coal’s prospects in India, a couple of years has made a huge difference, however. In February, the Christian Science Monitor reported that utilities in Florida have begun embracing utility-owned solar farms. And while utilities have still been fighting residential rooftop solar, it’s started making gains in Florida anyway — despite regulatory restrictions.
“The utilities are putting out solar like you wouldn’t believe,” said James Fenton, director of the University of Central Florida’s Florida Solar Energy Center.
The utilities didn’t suddenly decide the climate was more important than profits. They just see a better path to profits with solar, as long as they can be in control of it, at least.
“It is simply undeniable now that this is often the lowest cost source of generation,” Ethan Zindler, the head of U.S. research at Bloomberg New Energy Finance, told the Monitor. “So you can pat yourself on the back for doing something environmentally conscious, but at the same time, you’re also actually doing something to procure power at the lowest cost for your customers.”
Arizona Public Service (APS) is the largest investor-owned utility in the state, and it spent big money to help defeat a 2018 ballot initiative that would have required Arizona get 50 percent of its electricity from renewables by 2030.
However, because APS is “investor-owned,” the utility is now investing in solar and claims that solar plus batteries are an even cheaper option than natural gas power plants for peak power. The need for so-called gas “peaker plants” that can quickly ramp up electricity in times of peak demand is one of the energy industry’s favorite arguments against renewables and for natural gas.
But because investors want to make money, APS is moving forward with solar and batteries.
“This is a head-to-head [economic] comparison where we’re trying to select the best resources to meet our customers’ needs,” Brad Albert, vice president of resource management for APS, told Greentech Media.
In that head-to-head comparison, natural gas lost.
Historic shift: @APSfyi making big investment in batteries to capture surplus solar energy, which it says is now the most cost effective way to meet energy demand in the Southwest. https://t.co/qHv4H2dUbt
— Ryan Randazzo (@utilityreporter) February 21, 2019
As usual with the oil and gas industry, it’s best to watch what it does, not what it says.
The Permian Basin is the heart of the shale oil fracking boom in the U.S. and is producing so much natural gas along with the oil that the price of natural gas there actually went negative in 2018.
It takes a lot of electricity to power the fracking boom. And the Permian needs more. But is the industry taking advantage of all that cheap natural gas to produce that power?
Nope. Plans for new electricity generation in the heart of the Permian oil and gas region include a solar farm and the world’s largest battery.
Renewables have become the low-cost source for new power generation much faster than most anticipated, which is great news for the climate.
Natural gas, with its potent globe-warming effect, is a climate-killer. And a money loser.
If the lobbyists don’t win and the free market is allowed to work for power generation, natural gas — like coal — looks less and less like a “bridge fuel” and more like a fuel of the past.”
The shift to renewables has begun….. with storage……
Don’t think so….
Musk built a virtual 100 Mwe power plant in Victoria, Australia using….. BATTERIES !!
AND….
It’s making $$$$$ !!!!
INDY
Our fundamental problem is that all energy types are becoming unaffordable. Renewables only appear better, because of all the subsidies that they receive. Solar in Alberta is a joke. How do you heat and light your home in winter with solar in Alberta? Backup power needs to be paid year around, or Alberta has a real problem in winter.
“Our fundamental problem is that all energy types are becoming unaffordable.”
That’s the Peak Oil part everyone keeps missing.
Yes but Musk’s battery in Australia could only power New York City for 3 minutes at average demand. When someone builds a battery that can power the entire US East Coast for 3 days, then I’ll take notice. Until then, battery storage is not a viable option, way too expensive. So the only way to SIGNIFICANTLY reduce man made CO2 is nuclear. Otherwise the best we can do is a 25% reduction in man made CO2 and that is not going to do the job. You might as well try and stop a volcano from erupting, you’re not going to stop that either. Besides, there is no agreement as to how much man made CO2 is affecting global climate, only that it is one factor in the recent warming of the earth. How much of a factor is not agreed upon at all.
Lewis, the only way to significantly reduce man made CO2 is to reduce the number of people. Drastically. Which will happen.
hi, George…
wow, man, that is such a huge pile of RHETORIC!
I suppose rhetoric must be your thing…
peace, dude…
George you are using up my time scrolling down to relevant comments.
Though I had enough time to refill my drink while I pressed the down key.
cheers
“It would be relatively easy to force ICE vehicles off the roads by taxation, hiked insurance, scarcity of parts (already a problem in some cases), lack of quality service providers and, ultimately, lack of fuel starting with lack of fuel at affordable prices.”
That only works if wages keep rising and people have the money to afford electric vehicles. It appears both rising wages and expandable cash are in short supply these days. That’s what will hurt EV’s in the long run especially having the expense of replacing all the batteries.
If you can simplify the system (and the vehicles) you can (potentially) control costs in ways the current “traditional” manufacturers will rarely be interested to consider.
The level of complexity (and therefore cost) in the transportation system could be dramatically reduced by simplifying requirements and maximizing utility.
A Ford exec touched on this recently when he suggested that future personal transport vehicles would be designed more for the needs of a 24/7 “taxi” based system where the vehicles clocked up such huge distances that it would make economic sense to replace rather than maintain after about 4 years of service.
One of the economic problems of personal “ownership” (given financing preferences in recent times one might discuss the meaning of “ownership” and whether it really exists these days) is that the asset rarely gets close to its proposed cost benefit roi based on economic use and utility.
Attempts to marginally reduce “carbon” output from transport by introducing ever more stringent regulations add to costs but deliver little else in real terms yet demand a manufacturing complexity that is likely to greatly reduce the ability to use it for its full design life. In a resource constrained future, if that is what we are heading for, it would make no sense whatsoever.
The future of city traffic is surely cheap and cheerful electric pods rented by the hour. (Or part hour.)
I could suggest more details but I doubt they would really matter to this part of the discussion.
It is the infrastructure that the pods or whatever runs on that is generally the deal killer. Roads and bridges are very expensive. Substituting a different system, such as a track system, is very expensive. People tend to forget the cost of the built infrastructure and its need for maintenance. If it freezes and thaws, there will soon be potholes. If heavy trucks run over it, it will soon be degraded. Removing a few cars will not reduce maintenance proportionately.
You are saying something I would agree with–these new high priced automobiles are not really sustainable. People will not buy them; they will only want to rent them, for as little time as possible. But the automobiles will not last long enough to really be worthwhile.
It would seem that some people with Teslas (having been around a while with “free fuel” to entice high mileage users) would disagree with that.
Likewise very high mileage ICE vehicles, if correctly designed to start with and maintained well, can achieve very cost effective high mileage usage. However that would hardly be in the interests of the vehicle manufacturers under current ownership regimes.
Meanwhile the buyers accept enormous instant capital losses and high per mile running costs on vehicles that sit idle most of the time.
Given a cheap on-demand pay as you go transport system that picks you up where you are and takes you to where you wish to go combined with what has become the horror of travelling in many countries, I suspect that a mist of today’s younger citizens and perhaps all of those who are or will soon be Older citizens would be delighted to offload the burden of vehicle ownership if an appropriate mode for both travel and the economics of travel appears in the near future.
Grant, a great plan. I would make only one change to your autonomous transport model: make it free. And then design it so that the cost of running it is less than than cost of collecting fares.
Currently, there is a huge shortage on batteries, not enough production capacity for the would be ordered vehicles, waiting lists etc..
I have had that impression as well, but I haven’t seen articles specifically saying that. Do you have links?
Chris Martenson has run the numbers and says the same thing including not enough rare Earth materials for the build out.
“not enough rare Earth materials for the build out.”
This problem affects one of the power satellite designs. The designer wants to use 40% efficient concentrated PV. The problem is that we need around 3000 of them and the indium production would let us build about one per year.
For example google LG Chem(Korea) or Pansonic(Japan) and problem with EV battery suppliers etc. Musk and VW, .. talk about it all the time as well..
Besides, there seem to be two mega trends ongoing:
– largest car manufs finally investing into the build up of the industry, but that will materialize for mass consumer with a delay say ~2023 onwards
– the batt tech itself is going through rapid evolution cycles, e.g. Muskians will have new shorter batt assembly plant soonish, but also the development of batt chemistry and mass production know how continues
So, lot of people are still waiting it out as by early 2020s the price might get a bit lower, or more specifically lower segment EVs will appear as well, and the batteries will have longer cycle life almost without noticeable aging degradation etc..
But the bottom line remains, it’s good enough today – if you don’t have to fast charge regularly and don’t park it all the time in hot/freezing climate, it’s good for ~20yrs.. already.
@worldofhanumanotg
Seems odd you are so steadfast in your EV beliefs after reading articles from Gail.
Gail provides facts, and those facts don’t mesh with your words.
No one will get 20yrs from a Tesla or any EV. Not one sold in the past and not one sold in the future. There are 3 reasons based on physics alone, and a few others based on people ignoring all externalized costs.
We have no recycling process or capacity for batteries of any type, and that toxic mess alone negates much of the benefits of EV cars.
You may be surprised to find out that in the last 10 years there are groups of people that will no longer buy a new car due to the excessive price, numerous unwanted nanny features, and subsystems which can only be serviced by a dealer.
There are millions of such people.
These people will not buy an ICE car because of its cost and complexity, and so they will never buy an EV.
what about an electric bicycle? The range is pretty far and most driving is within 25 miles…Rad sells one for 1400 that is a cargo bike….only the strongest survive..
Electric bicycles are sort of like electric scooters. They conflict with other traffic. It is hard to keep electric bicycles from bumping into pedal bicycles, if they are sharing the same lanes. Electric scooters mow down pedestrians if they are on the sidewalk. On the road, they get in the way of cars. We need vehicles of a very similar type, moving together. If we don’t have this, we get a lot of accidents.
There are bike lanes on our (embattled) scenic highway. One supporter for cyclist feels that their presence will slow down car traffic. I don’t quite buy that, although I get the point. The problem is that the DOT has historically done nothing but widen and straighten the road, thinking of it more as an efficient freeway than a scenic road. So you get more cars going faster. That leads to more danger for cyclists. That leads to wider bike leans… It’s nuts.
Yes, bicycles remain the most efficient mode of personal tech transport humans ever developed, and it could be integrated with HSR or regional train or subway or even trolley/trams with added robotized hop on/off bicycle storing extra wagon..
The energy savings are staggering. I wrote about it numerous time already.
For example regional EMU train with average occupancy draws ~7kW per passenger,
HSR slightly more with the advantage in speed/distance. Properly designed E-bike (not hub) for the last mile stage needs ~.4kW.. and you can pack lot of groceries etc..
Compare contrast with single or low occupancy cars, that’s like 300-500% + more..
(at the point of final motive work)
The great thing about the New Green Deal is that we will no longer need to travel by car or plane because gravy-powered green trains will take us everywhere we need to go in comfort and style.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EFiTL_mVUAAmNGj.jpg
her clothing manufactured by capitalists using Fossil Fuels…
the manufactured metal bottles = FF…
shipping those (tropical) bananas to her location = FF…
the plastic container = FF…
I’m sure others see more…
and to think that she can’t figure out that her childhood was stolen from her by her parents…
the cognitive dissonance of realizing that would be crushing…
The fossil fuels that go into everything in the is scene (not excluding G…!!!!!! If we looking at it closely, this is a phenomenally damning picture! Forget the starving babies “outside.” The frikin horror!!!!!
nothing in the picture says they are starving. some of them just look angry.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vU9DL1yU1UA
There’s the stillness of death on a deathly unliving sea,
and the motor car magical world long since ceased to be,
when the Eve-bitten apple returned to destroy the tree.
Incestuous ancestry’s charabanc ride,
spawning new millions throws the world on its side.
Supporting their far-flung illusion, the national curse,
and those with no sandwiches please get off the bus.
The excrement bubbles,
the century’s slime decays
and the brainwashing government lackeys
would have us say
it’s under control and we’ll soon be on our way
to a grand year for babies and quiz panel games
of the hot hungry millions you’ll be sure to remain.
The natural resources are dwindling and no one grows old,
and those with no homes to go to, please dig yourself holes.
We wandered through quiet lands, felt the first breath of snow.
Searched for the last pigeon, slate grey I’ve been told.
Stumbled on a daffodil which she crushed in the rush, heard it sigh,
and left it to die.
At once felt remorse and were touched by the loss of our own,
held its poor broken head in her hands,
dropped soft tears in the snow,
and it’s only the taking that makes you what you are.
Wond’ring aloud will a son one day be born
to share in our infancy
in the child’s path we’ve worn.
In the aging seclusion of this earth that our birth did surprise
we’ll open his eyes.
https://youtu.be/HDYK5SBnVaQ
Iron-clad feather-feet pounding the dust
An October’s day towards evening
Sweat embossed veins standing proud to teh plough
Salt on a deep chest seasoning
Bring me a wheel of oaken wood
A rein of polished leather
A heavy horse and a tumbling sky
Brewing heavy weather
Indeed, the shallowness of this orchestrated “protest” of what enables G and the rest of the mostly clueless inhabitants in IC is disgusting.
Fsck GND and all of its enablers and perpetrators in the government industrial complex. Yes, it is time for them to be set free with some minimal UBI so that they can return to their roots much closer to nature and with that follows a much lesser footprint. They are the true corrosion and underminers of what nature stipulates, keepers and maintainers of the status quo, eagerly trying to dominate the capitalist genes with their horrific genetic expression of collectivism and dominance hierarchy. The choice for them is simple, either do it voluntarily with less pain or prepare for the worst when Gaia and her systems of mutual interdependence and competitive collaborative process brings out the thumb screws either through attacks on sensitive infrastructure or by the incalculable suffering of resource depletion. The message is simple: Either do what inevitably must happen or do the inevitable in tears. The choice is yours.
A first step among western nations is to enforce regional and country wide direct democracy with a conscripted government, law, policing and military. The collectivist, careerist and dominator genes must and will be relegated to the dust bins of history if we are to prevail to the end of this century.
“A first step among western nations is to enforce regional and country wide direct democracy …”
Stop right there. Who is the “enforcer”, and how is that compatible with direct democracy, or indeed any other kind of democracy? Are you seriously proposing that men should be forced to become free? By whom? Another “fearful simplifier”? and if so at the cost of how many million dead?
Indeed, that came off as totalitarian. I apologize for my lack of proper command of the English language.
Yes, you are right, taking part in organized society should be voluntary. There should be a way for the individual to take no part in a society without repercussions. At any time a person should be able to step away from the dominance of the many and simply walk away alone into the sunset.
Thank you, Kowalainen. I accept your clarification, and agree wholeheartedly with your revised proposal.
Need an enforcer?
If it’s all the same to you I’ll drive that tanker.
https://youtu.be/W3CUQvUvqac
I can’t see true UBI being politically (in a democracy) possible.
What should politicians do if they can no longer steal money from their non-voters and give to their voters?
And even though you’re already today guaranteed a minimum allowance the cattle consider pensions, sick benefits, unemployment benefits and other directed handouts as deserved, while UBI would be free money to non-deserving persons.
So what is the alternative? Fake employment? More jobs programs? More government as resource depletion continues? Negative productivity? Then there is the inevitable irrelevance of the worker drone due to automation and AI that has been ongoing since the advent of IC. What exactly would that entail if people with desirable skills move to countries with more liberties and opportunities? Trust me, the productive people of, for example, Sweden will simply dump their bank owned mostly worthless Potemkin facades they call home if shit hits the fan properly. Prepare for “Utvandrarna 2.0”.
The UBI is a replacement for all the government drone gate keepers for accessing and redistributing the stolen money and to give the mostly useless eaters a means to survive since they lack any sought for competence whatsoever. They are simply not able to survive if they are booted off the BAU train without mercy.
Either it will be done, or it will be done in tears. Your choice.
The alternative is continuing like it is. It is not my choice.
Have you seen any major parties working for UBI? No, only crazy people on the internet.
I admit schools somewhat prepare for the future by educating virtuous citizens, not productive workers. But it is a long way to go to admitting many/most kids will never have a job because they are to stupid.
Really, education is not matched to what would be workers need.
DJ, the US almost implemented UBI in the 70’s
https://www.investopedia.com/news/history-of-universal-basic-income/
Regarding education, IQ and employment. You should educate yourself. The always entertaining and knowledgeable Jordan B Peterson gives a short introduction here:
https://youtu.be/fjs2gPa5sD0
The Red Wheelbarrow by William Carlos Williams – 1883-1963
so much depends
upon
a red wheel
barrow
glazed with rain
water
beside the white
chickens
…
perhaps there was a time when that was true…
will that be true in the future?
You need wheels for your wagon.
http://www.tedcloak.com/uploads/4/5/3/7/45374411/the_wheel.pdf
I hope people appreciate that I invented the wheel…
Great article
Thanks!
Neither the Green New Deal nor the other the other climate mitigation schemes (and even less our current do-nothing program) will work in a financial system that assumes we can have infinite growth on a non-growing planet. Before we try to suss out how financials for different renewables will behave we need to shift to a steady state economy, as outlined 40 years ago by Herman Daly. If renewables have to generate ever increasing amounts of energy and provide the global kleptocracy with ever-increasing financial rents, of course they will fail. Just like our present economic system is failing.
I think Herman Daly was wrong 40 years ago. The economy has only two modes: (a) Growth and (b) Collapse.
Steady State makes no sense. We have several basic problems:
1. Population which is constantly growing.
2. Diminishing returns with respect to resources of all kinds.
3. A need for entrepreneurs to make a profit, in order for investment to be worthwhile.
All three of these work in the direction of never-ending growth, at least until collapse sets in.
If you have a perfectly flat economy (goods and services produced each year remains the same), this implies each member of the growing population (on average) will get less and less.
At the same time, the investment needed to get finite resources out will keep rising each year, in order to offset diminishing returns. The growing investment will also tend to lead to less for each citizen, because a larger and larger share of resources are going to production which is in fact, becoming more and more inadequate for growing population. In not very long, the whole system collapses.
The concepts we can safely ditch, for industrial civilization, are:
1. Steady State
2. BAU (for more than a decade or two)
3. J M Greer’s ‘stair-step collapse over 2-300 years.
4. GND
5. Any Utopia based on the development of a wiser, kinder and more noble, self-denying form of Hom. Sap.
6. The Transition (which of course overlaps, but is not identical with, GND -depends on one’s politics).
I suggest this leaves us with salvation (or consumption) by Aliens…….
Good list, but you left out the Rapture and the Second Coming.
The Second Coming
—W.B. Yeats
Turning and turning in the widening gyre
The falcon cannot hear the falconer;
Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;
Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,
The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere
The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.
Surely some revelation is at hand;
Surely the Second Coming is at hand.
The Second Coming! Hardly are those words out
When a vast image out of Spiritus Mundi
Troubles my sight: somewhere in sands of the desert
A shape with lion body and the head of a man,
A gaze blank and pitiless as the sun,
Is moving its slow thighs, while all about it
Reel shadows of the indignant desert birds.
The darkness drops again; but now I know
That twenty centuries of stony sleep
Were vexed to nightmare by a rocking cradle,
And what rough beast, its hour come round at last,
Slouches towards Bethlehem to be born?
“The ceremony of innocence is drowned;
The best lack all conviction, while the worst
Are full of passionate intensity.”
YOU HAVE STOLEN MY CHILDHOOD!
https://media0.giphy.com/media/U1aN4HTfJ2SmgB2BBK/200.gif
Dear Gail, after much thought, I respectfully disagree. To take your issues in turn:
1. The solution to a growing population is not to grow it. Many societies in the past did this, simply to avoid overgrazing, famine, and so on, For those that did not, there were Four Horsemen ready to take up the slack, and eventually the more intelligent polities learned to take care of the problem themselves.
2. Diminishing returns. Yes, a perennial problem, but nevertheless one that some societies seem to have greatly mitigated, if not solved. Edo Japan is one such. Population control, reafforestation, systematic recycling of manure (and nightsoil), strict controls on fishing quotas, … We still know how to do that; we simply just don’t do it.
3. Profit. Profit used to be measured in terms of value traded for value delivered; there wan no physical “profit”; the trade happened because to each party the marginal value received was greater than the marginal value surrendered. “I prefer your cloth to my watermelon; you prefer my watermelon to your cloth: we have a deal” So I have an incentive to produce more watermelons; but in the broader economy there is no increase or decrease of objective value, and hence no “profit”.
Finally, we all know how to build a civilisation that does not consume scarce resources; it is one lesson history screams at us from every documented collapse. But we are not listening.
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http://oil-price.net/ has, once again, gone to finishing the week down in all four of their time-period measures — some of the oil suppliers won’t be making the costs of getting it to market, as the debt bomb implodes.
Is it time to double down on the gamble for the “triangle of doom” ever lower trend in oil prices.. ? As discussed recently sudden drop to ~$30 level is quite possible.
a sudden drop is improbable…
but WTI in 6 months has gone from mid 60s to mid 50s…
which proves nothing about the future price…
but into the 30s by late 2020?
sure, why not?
I was hinting at the “triangle of doom” mega trend graph/theory of lower lows of oil.
It has been working so far for decades.. it will be proven incorrect by not able to cross $30 level down in say next 5-10yrs max.. Wait and see..
What about nuclear? The Chinese have been working on some secret projects; it’s high possible to build new plants that are safe that produce less spent fuel rods and use more nuclear waste
I understand what you were saying about finance. But during World War I they said the war would only last one month because it could not be finance it lasted much longer in our lifetime if you’re waiting for collapse and maybe wasting your time. It will happen But we will be dead and in the ground
WW1 had a huge supply of coal and oil still not fully tapped. People have to stop comparing whats coming up to a crisis from the near past. Its like comparing a severe illness that one acquires at the age of 20 vs the same illness at the age of 85. Big difference in recovery ability.
A common cold at 20; but a super bug at 85……..
maybe they had large reserves but the efficiency of getting it out was not the same either so maybe they cancel each other out. Also maybe supplies are just around the corner, the Arctic has a lot of coal, oil and gas and it is melting very fast…nuclear powered ice breakers etc…..We could be on the cusp of a new nuclear breakthrough ….one just does not know. You have to look at the past to predict the future especially when you are talking about humans….there were massive debt loads created in the past…
I am not trying to add hopium to the current situation I am just suggesting to temper the belief that crash is just around the corner…..I have been closely watching this unfold since 2001 and it was always around the corner….It could easily be 20 years away or tomorrow…in 20 years I will be 68 and a lot of people on here will be dead….careful you might just miss out….
“I am not trying to add hopium to the current situation I am just suggesting to temper the belief that crash is just around the corner…..”
yes, the crash may be delayed by the duct tape holding the system together… which I think is the BAU actions of the majority of people in the world…
almost everyone who has a job will be back at it Monday morning…
95+ % of people with debt will be making their October/November payments…
the CBs will create digital money on their computers and transfer it to any major bank that is failing (hidden to us as always)…
this could go on for quite some time…
I look at a year as being a very short collection of days…
365 days doesn’t seem like much time for IC to change much at all…
the 2019 changes we’re seeing… deteriorating economic conditions even in countries in The Core… have been mounting for a few years at least…
2019 looks good to me for now… about 87 days to go…
but tipping points are real…
the economy is wobbling more now in 2019 than it has in many many years…
in 2020, it could tip over in a resounding crash…
fun times!
I guess you are right….the reason I compare ww1 is that we have similar things going on ….yes history is not repeating but it is rhyming. Also note I am talking ww1 and not ww2….people had no idea what was coming..one day they are looking for a hat to match their outfit and the next their house is destroyed and country taking over by another country…it was chaotic times and that is where we are heading…when the tipping point comes. I remember when the older men on the oil drum used to comment how that they were going to enjoy watching the show….little did they know it would be like watching the beginning of the civil war when they thought it was just going to be a skirmish; instead it was a blood bath….there is little way to get out of this storm…
Once resource depletion sets in deep enough it will be followed by wars…no one wants to wait for a slow death….it is just so hard to tell when it is coming…in 2008 I thought it would happen any day…and of course it did not. My gut tells me it is a ways off; my brain says it is less than 6 months away….
Tim Garrett seems to have similar ideas to Gail’s.
“The model I’ve introduced is based on the very simple premise that accumulated economic production of everything in civilization must be sustained by a proportionate amount of global primary energy consumption. Turn off all the power and civilization is worth nothing; and the more we accumulate the more power is required for sustenance.”
http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2019/09/why-use-physics-to-describe-economics.html#comment-form
If we are peaking with shale oil and other energy sources many assets will become sunk costs. The trick seems to be selling those assets that will become worthless before it is generally recognized. Are we perhaps obfuscating what is happening in the real world with a game of musical chairs called fictionalization?
Dennis L.
What is really interesting is that energy flow is proportional to ACCUMULATED gdp, not to current gdp.
yes…
that is his “very simple premise”, that as infrastructure has grown, more energy is needed to sustain it… power it… repair it… maintain it…
that is right on target…
and if the energy supply decreases, or even just stops growing as may be the (unmeasurable) case today, then it’s not just the real (physical) layer of the economy that will begin to falter…
as is being seen now in the world, the first thing to falter seems to be the artificial layer that humans have built upon the real layer… the artificial layer of finance and economics…
so the systems of debt and derivatives and interest rates all start to fracture because the real layer of the economy is not growing in energy…
we live in interesting times…
The artificial layer is really a layer of promises of goods and services, which can only really be provided if the energy is available. These promises have grown faster than real services. The promises have to be proved false.
good point…
so besides faltering systems of debt and derivatives and interest rates, there is the retirement system of pensions and social security etc…
and I suppose even the systems of stocks and bonds and money…
I agree that they have to be proved false…
who knows when…
Absolutely correct, DJ. The ongoing maintenance cost of infrastructure is proportional to its size. But it is also (inversely) proportional to its durability. Which is why the Romans required military structures to have at least a 200 year useful life with only routine maintenance (cleaning, repairing minor problems, removing dead rats, …), and civilian structures 100 years.
But today the incentive is to build as shoddily as possible: high priced “mansions” that are falling apart after ten years, bridges that are left to rot until they collapse, like the Ponte Morandi in Genoa, opened in 1967, collapsed in 2018 after no maintenance since 1979, and blocks of flats that simply come apart, such as Ronan Point, which lasted just two months.
Civilisations that care about the future tend to have a fairly long run; others, well, we are presently finding out.
I find it fascinating that according to Garrett Relation we can’t really shed infrastructure.
Even if we don’t grow GDP we have to grow energy.
Curious to see if it holds or if he just have data mined 50 very special years.
DJ, the Roman Empire found a way to shed almost all its infrastructure. I believe it was called the Dark Ages. Read Gibbon, not Garrett.
Thanks, Garrett explicitly states we still pay for maintaining “roman wealth”. Like the alphabet.
By “shed” I meant not only letting it naturally decay more like “we can’t afford maintain/using almost new infrastructure X, lets call it sunk cost and torget it”
“The trick seems to be selling those assets that will become worthless before it is generally recognized.”
Civilisation can’t sell any assets.
Great post and the link as well, thanks.
Pls don’t tell me about assets becoming sunk cost on their own volition – against human desire and concepts – as the autumn approached with wind storms, rain not followed by sun, eventually turning lot of “infrastructure” into attention seekers for repairs etc.. how do I know.. Nature is playing her mind games, as previous year was mild weather this period, now catching us off guard.
Mother Nature is showing us that she doesn’t care a bit what happens to us: just as she can sweep those hard-working men installing the Scottish wind-turbines at sea off their ships and cranes in a moment with a modest gust of wind…….
‘Earth Mother, who makes all things to grow, and all things to die and rot…’ as our Saxon ancestors prayed.
For you, Xabier, the original:
26. Γῆς, θυμίαμα, πᾶν σπέρμα, πλὴν κυάμων καὶ ἀρωμάτων.
Γαῖα θεά, μῆτερ μακάρων, θνητῶν τ’ ἀνθρώπων,
πάντροφε, πανδώτειρα, τελεσφόρε, παντολέτειρα,
αὐξιθαλής, φερέκαρπε, καλαῖς ὥρῃσι βρύουσα·
ἕδρανον ἀθανάτου κόσμου, πολυποίκιλε κούρη,
ἣ λοχίαις ὠδῖσι κύεις καρπὸν πολυειδῆ·
ἀϊδίη, πολύσεπτε, βαθύστερν’, ὀλβιόμοιρε,
ἡδυπνόοις χαίρουσα χλόαις, πολυάνθεμε δαῖμον·
ὀμβροχαρής, περὶ τὴν κόσμος πολυδαίδαλος ἄστρων
εἱλεῖται φύσει ἀενάῳ καὶ ῥεύμασι δεινοῖς.
ἀλλά, μάκαιρα θεὰ, καρποὺς αὔξοις πολυγηθεῖς,
εὐμενὲς ἦτορ ἔχουσα, σὺν ὀλβίοισιν ἐν ὥραις.
The Orphic hymn to Gaia. You can find it here:
https://drive.google.com/file/d/0B5oS3sKmDYfwcUdIbGVxdElXSWM/view
Thanks for the link!
“Soon to enter its fourth week, the GM strike is rippling across the economy, from parts suppliers in Michigan and Canada to bars, restaurants and other businesses that serve employees who now find themselves tight on cash.
“The layoffs have added to fears that a weakened manufacturing sector could tip the economy into recession — potentially playing a role in next year’s election especially in a swing state like Michigan.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.bloomberg.com/amp/news/articles/2019-10-04/gm-strike-ripples-across-economy-raising-fresh-recession-fears
Good. Ever since the days of Henry Ford, the US auto industry has been a reliable source of well paid jobs, often for people with almost zero skills. And for years now, the auto unions have sought to kill the goose that laid those golden eggs. Perhaps they have finally succeeded; if so, they may now learn that what goes around comes around.
Of course, Bloomberg is alarmed. But will they do the right thing; namely, tell the strikers to suck it up and shove it? No of course not; they want GM to be cannibalised to support the army of suppliers that now have nowhere to go. Capitalism devouring its own, exactly as Ayn Rand said it would.
Hmmm, real story Robert
Since the introduction of “Fordism” in the early 1910s, which emphasized technological improvements and maximizing productive efficiency, US autoworkers have struggled with repetitive, exhausting, often dangerous jobs. Yet beginning with Ford’s Five Dollar Day, introduced in 1914, auto jobs have also provided higher pay than most other wage work, attracting hundreds of thousands of people, especially to Detroit, Michigan, through the 1920s, and again from World War II until the mid-1950s. Successful unionization campaigns by the United Auto Workers (UAW) in the 1930s and early 1940s resulted in contracts that guaranteed particular wage increases, reduced the power of foremen, and created a process for resolving workplace conflicts. In the late 1940s and early 1950s UAW president Walter Reuther negotiated generous medical benefits and pensions for autoworkers. The volatility of the auto industry, however, often brought layoffs that undermined economic security. By the 1950s overproduction and automation contributed heavily to instability for autoworkers. The UAW officially supported racial and gender equality, but realities in auto plants and the makeup of union leadership often belied those principles. Beginning in the 1970s US autoworkers faced disruptions caused by high oil prices, foreign competition, and outsourcing to Mexico. Contract concessions at unionized plants began in the late 1970s and continued into the 2000s. By the end of the 20th century, many American autoworkers did not belong to the UAW because they were employed by foreign automakers, who built factories in the United States and successfully opposed unionization. For good reason, autoworkers who survived the industry’s turbulence and were able to retire with guaranteed pensions and medical care look back fondly on all that they gained from working in the industry under UAW contracts. Countless others left auto work permanently and often reluctantly in periodic massive layoffs and the continuous loss of jobs from automation
https://oxfordre.com/americanhistory/view/10.1093/acrefore/9780199329175.001.0001/acrefore-9780199329175-e-546
In 2013 there were 14.5 million members in the U.S., compared with 17.7 million in 1983. In 2013, the percentage of workers belonging to a union was 11.3%, compared to 20.1% in 1983. The rate for the private sector was 6.4%, and for the public sector 35.3%.
What does Ayn Rand write about this?…
Wealth concentration returning to ‘levels last seen during the Roaring Twenties,’ according to new research
(Christopher Ingraham/The Washington Post)
The 400 richest Americans — the top 0.00025 percent of the population — have tripled their share of the nation’s wealth since the early 1980s, according to a new working paper on wealth inequality by University of California at Berkeley economist Gabriel Zucman.
Those 400 Americans own more of the country’s riches than the 150 million adults in the bottom 60 percent of the wealth distribution, who saw their share of the nation’s wealth fall from 5.7 percent in 1987 to 2.1 percent in 2014, according to the World Inequality Database maintained by Zucman and others.
Overall, Zucman finds that “U.S. wealth concentration seems to have returned to levels last seen during the Roaring Twenties.” That shift is eroding security from families in the lower and middle classes, who rely on their small stores of wealth to finance their retirement and to smooth over economic shocks like the loss of a job. And it’s consolidating power in the hands of the nation’s billionaires, who are increasingly using their riches to purchase political influence.
“I know they are legendarily the four most expensive words on Wall Street, but this time *is* different.
“The yield on the 5-year U.S treasury is 1.34% now, for goodness’s sake. It can’t get much lower, and thus the stimulative effect from lower rates is not possible this time. Helicopter Ben thinks the Fed could just flip on the spigot of QE again and jump start the system by pouring trillions of dollars into it. I think he’s wrong.
“I think the global economy is heading for a pronounced slowdown, and the massive leverage in certain corners of the globe (China, not the U.S.) is going to lead to another credit crunch.”
https://realmoney.thestreet.com/investing/the-global-economy-is-heading-for-a-pronounced-slowdown-15115298
This is the whole net energy problem. The investments we can make today don’t provide enough net energy. The investments in so called renewables are adding negative net energy, if properly evaluated.
Our self organizing economy tends to get rid of systems that are not yielding an adequate return. Just as the Soviet Union’s central government collapsed, and governments from countries such as Bulgaria needed to be adjusted to move from a very socialistic system, we seem to be headed for a situation where heavily subsidized systems again fail. Renewable subsidies will go down, not up. Governments using the will be at a disadvantage.
Insightful and personally useful as it implies we as individuals need to rid ourselves of stuff that does not make a net return before it goes to salvage value. Scrap iron is at that point now, what one is paid for the dumpster is less than what is paid for the metal. It is consistent with what happens in large cities when buildings and plants are abandoned.
We as individuals need to watch our personal capital/labor ratio carefully so the capital we have does not become a negative in our lives. Simple example is housing with associated maintenance, taxes, utilities, etc. I have a flip phone, simple, compact, relatively in expensive and use a map(low capital, low maintenance) when traveling to unfamiliar locations. Doing this in our personal lives helps us reorganize in a positive manner as things change.
This site is very concerned with the macro which is interesting intellectually, what you teach and inform for personal living is most useful and also helps psychologically when living as sort of an outlier to current lifestyles in our society. Living in two worlds, enjoying BAU while accepting and preparing for change is a challenge.
Thanks Gail,
Dennis L.
Correction, the dumpster costs more than the money paid for the scrap metal, personal experience.
Dennis L.
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love the article and the discussion! yes, I think we can do something: get into a save area (defense and war will change without fossils), get a garden, some livestock, learn how to cook and sew and knit and work with woods (without powertools), play guitar, walk in the wild, look for water and vote parties than bury our radioactive waste before we loose the technology to do so. yes, we could prepare more: look for substitute of antibiotics, for simple ways to produce semiconductos, resilient digital nets (like email protocol), build machines, cars and bikes that last 100 years easily (like the singer sewing machine or some machines for woodwork – we can drive them with simple water wheels or by hand). but our societys dont want that. a friend told me some month ago, she is waiting for her daughter (who is 12) to find a way out. dont bother for them. be happy and do what needs to be done. there is not one solution only. look for the opportunities in your area, maybe a dacha with friends, maybe grannys old little cabin, maybe a good sleeping bag. prepare for the kids, let them love the forest, a simple meal, songs by the fire and a story before sleep. love will make us survive hard times, dont forget. dont get overworked, get mentally and physically strong. the preppers say: you only have to live longer than the others. and if peakoil never comes, you had a good life close to nature. 🙂
“the preppers say: you only have to live longer than the others.”
wow, brilliant!
outlive the others, and then later die and join them in the nothingness of eternal death…
wow!
prepper brilliance!
could you take your cynicism down 9 notches, maybe?
I mean, do whatever, dudes…
if it’s prepping, then go for it…
do whatever until it’s over…
blame Reality and don’t shooot the messenger… 😉
long live Preppers! (ooh, is that irony?)
and obviously…
BAU tonight, baby!
“The preppers say: you only have to live longer than the others.”
Ah yes: whoever dies with the most ammo and the most tins of baked beans wins.
John Keats was just 26 when he died, but he left something far, far more valuable than anything the preppers have collected. He left this, his last sonnet:
Bright star, would I were stedfast as thou art—
Not in lone splendour hung aloft the night
And watching, with eternal lids apart,
Like nature’s patient, sleepless Eremite,
The moving waters at their priestlike task
Of pure ablution round earth’s human shores,
Or gazing on the new soft-fallen mask
Of snow upon the mountains and the moors—
No—yet still stedfast, still unchangeable,
Pillow’d upon my fair love’s ripening breast,
To feel for ever its soft fall and swell,
Awake for ever in a sweet unrest,
Still, still to hear her tender-taken breath,
And so live ever—or else swoon to death.
If I have left anything one-half so valuable after my sojourn on this terrene world, I shall stand proud before the Immortal Gods.
Ars longa, vita brevis.
I am afraid it is collapse, not peak oil. It seems to have already come to some people. The question is when it gets to the rest of us.
Paved roads, electrical transmission networks and pipelines should be high up on you list of things we need to keep or find substitutes for. Without them them, the cars and semi conductors don’t have much to use. Computers need international trade. That requires a working international financial system. Lots of things need saving.
You are correct, but the system somewhat forked already, so for example computer chips could be (actually are today) produced in number of countries, it is usually meant as DoD/state security thing. The architecture is very biased for this goal only (jets/missiles/banking security) so this specialized and low volume production likely can’t replace the other more common type of ordinary PC chips found in industrial application (without gigantic re-coding work). Nevertheless what I have in mind by all that is we could be into period of setting attempted global block structure with restricted trade across these antagonistic IC hubs. Perhaps it will buy (us) extra decade or two before further collapse stage.
+++++++++
A maintenance and preservationist economy.
The financial system has no need for running on centralized systems. It can easily be reworked into a distributed model with end to end transaction signing and verification on far lesser capable hardware.
The same can be said for most data centers and computational facilities around the world. What is more sensitive, however is the devices which enables internet such as various specialized networking gear.
“The scale of environmental impacts associated with the
manufacture of microchips is characterized through analysis
of material and energy inputs into processes in the
production chain. The total weight of secondary fossil
fuel and chemical inputs to produce and use a single 2-gram
32MB DRAM chip are estimated at 1600 g and 72 g,
respectively. Use of water and elemental gases (mainly
N ) in the fabrication stage are 32 000 and 700 g per chip, respectively. The production chain yielding silicon
wafers from quartz uses 160 times the energy required
for typical silicon, indicating that purification to semiconductor
grade materials is energy intensive. Due to its extremely low-
entropy, organized structure, the materials intensity of
a microchip is orders of magnitude higher than that of
“traditional” goods. Future analysis of semiconductor and
other low entropy high-tech goods needs to include the
use of secondary materials, especially for purification”
https://www.ece.jhu.edu/~andreou/495/Bibliography/Processing/EnergyCosts/EnergyAndMaterialsUseInMicrochips_EST.pdf
The financial system needs growth, however, and this is what is disappearing. Prices of energy products need to remain high enough that they can be produced profitability. There needs to be enough net energy that producers of energy products can pay quite high taxes. The system is now reaching the point where it no longer works.
Fake Growth can be simulated with an ever increasing amount of debt which will never be repaid. With negative interest rates, that debt does not even have to be serviced at all, as long as it does not end up in the hands of frivolous consumerists creating inflation due to resource constraints.
The finance system is the ultimate expression of smoke and mirrors together with the central banks. Today it is mostly used to shift old money into the hands of new.
It took me a long time to absorb Gail’s point that fake growth can’t cut it forever.
An ever increasing amount of debt which will never be repaid puts the entire world on the road to Zimbabwe. Although as we descend into the next Dark Age, a few bastions of relative fiscal responsibility may hold out as feudal or mercantile paradises surrounded by high walls or in hard-to-reach locations.
We already know for a fact that most debt will never be repaid. Does that change anything? Of course not, that is not the intent of debt anymore. It is no longer even supposed to be paid back, for the average joe, however, it has to be serviced with interest. Not for the big institutions though. If all the debt would be poured into the tangibles economy, hyperinflation would ensue.
Issuing and owning debt is simply a manifestation of economic capability and as a secondary effect assist in circulating the growing amount of goods and services – at least for a little while longer.
Everyone wants more money and stuff, even though it fails to provide prosperity and by all means is mostly a worthless process of symbolism. But as a game of owning the most valuable intangibles it’s quite fun I presume. We all gotta do something I suppose.
http://i.imgur.com/xRYqNAD.jpg
That’s a very good short summary, thanks.
Even now I find myself often relapsing to prior peak oil -ish analysis, however Surplus and OFW always cure it.
Gail, the Knights Templar had a working international financial system over 800 years ago. They opened their London bank (the first London bank!) in 1185.
The system was built on two things: trust, and sound money. A system impossible to rebuild, because today we have neither.
Chris Martenson’s latest article: “Getting Real About Green Energy”
“I’m often asked where I stand on wind, solar and other alternative energy sources. My answer is: I love them. But they’re incapable of enabling our society to smoothly slip over to powering itself by other means. They’re not going to “save us”.
https://www.peakprosperity.com/getting-real-about-green-energy/
Thanks for the link. We need a lot of people, saying the same thing, in different ways. Perhaps it will get the idea across. I didn’t think nuclear reactors were on the list of preferred solutions, so I stayed away from them.
Chris writes in a little simpler way. It would a huge job, even if you assume nuclear could substitute for what we have now, without problems.
Like Professor McPherson take on nuclear….some solution ….sarcasm
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=qRyQfgtmvUw&t=11s
Nice writeup and too bad there is no solution….except to enjoy the magic moments of BAU while they last….
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=wQ3GxsTaGE0
That guy with the full face respirator has the right idea. Those other masks have gaps along the edges, and air just like electricity follows the path of least resistance, so most the air breathed bypasses the filter.
yes nuclear could substitute just a matter of having panicky people out of the way. The tech is there unfortunately we will have some failures in other fields but it will keep BAU going a lot longer than people on here will live. I sometimes feel that people here are so convinced that collapse is just around the corner; when it does not happen they are disappointed which leads to a bias. They said that WW1 would only last a month because countries would go bankrupt…….so we just don’t know….it could be just around the corner or it could not….so my advice is to get out and live a little and don’t waste so much time on your computer….
The beneficiaries of BAU eagerly anticipating the collapse, isn’t that ironic.
The consensus here is that we are actually in the middle of a Collapse, it’s a long process.
Could succeed!!!??? Why bother posting…..OY!?
Yes, we are in the collapse…where are YOU in line ???
People are eagerly anticipating the collapse, and cheering it on.
The dominoes are falling!
Anyone with reasonably good eyes and ears can see and hear the cascade.
https://youtu.be/DQQN_79QrDY
go Collapse go!
Tim, can it be true?
all of my hopes and dreams have been wrapped up in the sublime narrative that The Collapse would come… only to be denied my heart’s greatest desire for year after year after year…
will it be in 2020?
or (shudder) even this year?
Tim, tell me, for I cannot rest easy…
I want to fly as free as a bird into the economic sunset of a spectacular tsunami of global collapse…
and to ride the wave of doom to the end of the world of industrial civilization…
when oh when will I be free?
Meanwhile up in Canada we are in the middle of an election campaign which mercifully, only lasts 5 weeks. For the most part all the prime minister hopefuls appear to be reasonably sane but our prime minister likes to dress up in black face ( what the hell he was a drama teacher) and the main contender turns out to be an American with sisters all card carrying Republicans but then nobody’s perfect. What really sets me off is they all spout the lie that we are going to be fossil fuel free by 2050 or 2030 depending on whether Greta is in town or not. They all conveniently ignore some basic information like: in my province of BC we generate 64 million tons of CO2 for our 4.9 million in population but our forest fires plus and our dying forests generate 237 million tons of CO2 so clearly the tipping point has been past and no matter what we do CO2 levels will continue to rise.
Good news – BC generates 93% of it’s electrical power from renewable hydro but how are the 6,000 employees going to keep that grid going with no fossil fuels?
If anybody has Greta’s email can you please pass it on as that sour face of hers is ruining all the things I enjoy!
Thanks for the info. Lots of amazing stories out there. No one knows that there is a difference between fiction and non-fiction. It is nice to make pleasant models of the future and talk about them as if they were possible.
“as if they were possible.”
From physics, many things are possible. It’s unclear how things will go. This may interest.
https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/world/north-america/australia-leans-into-space-race-for-solar-power-with-china-20190920-p52ta4.html
Here is where I gave up:
” …and, being parked in geo-synchronous orbit (GEO) 35,800 km above Australia, the power would be limitless and unwavering.”
If somebody thinks they can park a geosynchronous satellite above Australia, they need to learn some basic high school physics. And there follows this gem:
“What’s more, there are a fixed number of slots available in GEO, making the desire to get the platform there an urgent one, …”
Translation: give us the money yesterday!
Exciting.
What would the capacity be? About same as 6 km diameter solar on earth?
Why fixed (implying limited) spots?
I suppose they don’t intend to launch a 6km disc. How will this be assembled, maintained? ISS seems like a minor operation in comparison.
I complained in a previous post that beaming microwaves to Earth from space might fry things. I was firmly told it would not, because the beams would be turned down to about 25% of normal insolation. If that is the case, why not just use sunlight, at 100% insolation? Or, allowing for night, 50% insolation, still twice as good as microwaves.
And, of course, the low energy flux density this implies makes the whole project almost useless.
The whole argument revolves around getting rid of the intermittency problem, and thus the need for huge battery backup. Also, pollution is less of an issue, because whatever remains of solar panels that eventually get back to earth will be widely distributed. There has also been some hope that thinner film and other resources in building the solar panels can be used, stretching the supply available.
Of course, these arguments only hold if the system can be put up high enough, in GEO. If the system is in a lower level, many of the earth-based problems remain. Collision with space junk becomes a big issue as well, if the panels are close to earth.
And how quickly can this be built out?
Say this delivers on time in 8 years. When could GND rate of deployment start?
Using renewable rockets saves cost but then you limit deployment rate because you can’t deploy faster than full use of rockets expected lifetime.
This is something I wrote after about 40 postings on the a-rocket list. I think it answers most of your questions.
To put numbers on Henry Spencer’s excellent explanation, the cost of
unsubsidized ground solar without storage does not look like it will
get down below 3 cents a kWh. With some storage, around 5 cents.
With seasonal storage, power cost goes through the roof. The only
system that avoids clouds that I know of is StratoSolar, which floats
above the clouds.
If you target 3 cents per kWh from power satellites, LCOE tells you
that the installed cost including the billion-dollar rectenna can’t
exceed $2400/kW. Rough numbers, $200/kW for the rectenna, $900 for
parts and labor, and $1300 for the lift cost to GEO. For an estimated
mass of 6.5 kg/kW, the lift cost can’t exceed $200/kg to GEO.
If you construct the power satellites at 2000 km (required to get
above the junk) and use self-powered arcjet propulsion, it looks like
$100/kg to LEO will get them to GEO under the required cost. The cost
of chemical propulsion from 300 km LEO to 2000 km adds an affordable
20% to the parts (and reaction mass) cost. This method around the
space junk problem was solved last spring based on a posting in PSE by
Roger Arnold.
In spite of the low intensity, power satellite rectennas occupy a much
smaller area for the same power than PV farms. They convert around
85% of incoming microwaves to electric power and do so 24/7.
The physics of microwave optics makes the minimum scale much larger
than the requirements for remote bases. Lasers scale down to this
requirement but are blocked by clouds.
Power satellites are limited by power to the transmitter and microwave
optics. They are not much use as weapons, though at about 1/4 the
intensity of sunlight they would increase heatstroke on a hot day.
The counter would be an aluminum foil hat or umbrella.
Purpose-built weapons or propulsion lasers are another story. I once
calculated that a well-focused 4 GW laser beam would burn a squad of
troopers down to the belt buckle in a second.
The counter would be an aluminum foil hat or umbrella.
You don’t say!
And of course, if this headgear was covered in solar cells, you could power your mobile phone with it.
https://www.npr.org/2019/10/04/767164081/ecuador-in-state-of-emergency-end-of-fuel-subsidies-sparks-mass-protest
“Large protests have triggered a state of emergency in Ecuador, after President Lenín Moreno moved ahead with his plan to end fuel subsidies. Moreno says he’s ending the “perverse” gasoline subsidy after 40 years because it was distorting Ecuador’s economy.
“I want to manifest that the measures we take together are completely firm,” Moreno said on Thursday, declaring a “state of exception” — essentially, a state of emergency — after intense protests flared up. Moreno added that there is no chance to change policies now, “especially those related to a perverse subsidy that was causing harm to the country.”
The fuel plan, part of broader economic reforms, triggered anger and mass protests, with demonstrators facing off with police wearing riot gear in Quito and other cities. The intense protests and street clashes resulted in 275 people being arrested and 28 police officers injured, according to Reuters, which cites the government’s figures.”
Meanwhile here in CA I just went past two fuel stations and both have a price of $4.25 a gallon for their cheapest unleaded (87 octane). I guess we’re paying extra right now for the winter formula. Good Gawd ya all! But no protests yet.
Ecuador at one point was trying to emulate Venezuela. Ecuador was the one trying to shake down Chevron for a huge amount. Its leaders had similar socialistic ideas that they thought would work. They may very well face the same fate as Venezuela.
Oil constitutes around 42% of Ecuador’s GDP, so this post-2014 era of lower prices must have been causing them pain. Looks like they’re badly in hock to China, too:
“Moreno and his government are straining under a huge budget deficit caused partly by obligations to the Chinese, whose loans financed roads, dams, schools and office buildings during Correa’s time in office from 2007 to 2017.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.latimes.com/world/la-fg-ecuador-loans-china-20181210-story.html%3f_amp=true
I visited Ecuador several years ago. I wrote a post that was incredibly unpopular on The Oil Drum, explaining what was happening there.
Hi Gail.
I think this could be of interest to look into, as he is actually recommending overbuilding and curtailment.
Perez, M et al: Overbuilding & curtailment: The cost-effective enablers of firm PV generation, Solar Energy. https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0038092X18312714?via%3Dihub
Perez, M: A radical idea to get a high-renewable electric grid: Build way more solar and wind than needed, The Conversation. https://theconversation.com/a-radical-idea-to-get-a-high-renewable-electric-grid-build-way-more-solar-and-wind-than-needed-113635
Thanks for the link. I didn’t realize that others were thinking the same way I am.
Except they think it’s a good idea. So I can only get 30% out of my factory I’m struggling to cover my fixed costs. My investors are breathing down my neck they want a return on their money. So what do I do? Put on a second shift or build another factory? Can anyone do the math? This is a closed system assets always balance with liabilities. However if we add imaginary numbers everything works. If we ignore the cost all things are possible. Isn’t that what we’ve already done? The environmental cost of fossil fuel and nuclear use has been ignored. How did that work out? Doing the same thing with wind and solar will have the same result. Or do we believe that doing the same thing will have a different result?
Maybe instead of running the Native Americans off their land we should have adopted their lifestyles. The tab is due can the world print their way out? Only if you believe in imaginary numbers. 🤔
if the square root of negative one = i
then i believe in imaginary numbers… 😉
Rossneft will no longer accept US Dollars as payment for Russian oil exports.
https://www.rt.com/business/470192-russia-dumps-dollar-oil/
Interesting—
When/(if?) they eventually get on board Iran and China that will be interesting.
They have also supposedly SWIFT alternative ready to launch.
Not sure about timing and overall success probability..
But some of the “old-money” on the continent are showing signs of early panic where to align next, so it’s perhaps serious this time around as opposite just mere verbal announcements decade ago. The old legacy system might fracture..
Nevertheless at the minimum it seems the time is ripe for some IC hubs pecking order realignment in not so distant future, so many options. For example, everybody ganging up against Germany (and her colonies) or against France (faction) only etc.
Next stop: triage also for the formerly affluent countries.
SWIFT is a current key (I used to use it regularly).
It will be interesting to see what happens.
Again…..
Where are the numbers???
Lots of generalities….
Pursuing the efficiency gorgon…..
There is nothing wrong with “overbuilding”……
Battery costs are greatly over rated….
In our analysis of a carbon neutral US economy… we found the US could reduce energy consumption from 90 Quads/ yr to 22 Quads/yr, while maintaining it’s industries…
We included calculations of the cost and quantity of battery backup required…
Our analysis included production of 3MMbbl / distillate / day from renewable powered windfuels plants. It is available from us at no charge of Academia.
In short, Gail’s analysis is short on numbers and long on rhetoric.
INDY
Give us some links. Why did the economy do so poorly in 2008-2009? How do you plan to keep debt from defaulting as you cut back? How do you combat today’s low energy prices? Don’t you think that there might not be something you left out from your a analysis?
I did follow the link. This person works for a non profit organisation that claims to have secured “access to financing sources” based on its work in Namibia, St Helena, and the Virgin Islands, places that cannot even afford their own food.
And if you believe that, can I interest you in a bridge across the East River?
“3MMbbl / distillate / day ”
That’s a hundred to one scaleup of the 34,000 bbl per day Sasol plant in Qatar. That plant runs on natural gas for the syngas. I figured the capital cost at around $10/bbl.
It takes about 2 MWh to make the hydrogen in a bbl of synthetic fuel or one MW continuous would make the hydrogen for 12 bbs of fuel per day. Three million bbl/day would require around 300 MW unless I made a math error. Which is possible, this number seems low.
And you seem to be “LONG” on BS and short on solutions. Are you by chance Greta Thunberg’s, dad?
hi, George…
nice Institute you have there…
since you’re all about numbers, how about this:
zero…
the number of projects your Institute would be working on, without the worldwide system of fossil fuels…
and…
going from 90 to 22 Quads would send most workers to unemployment and send most of the population into dire poverty, but, I know, that’s just rhetoric about economics, which you’re abbsurdd analysis surely omits…
In our analysis of a carbon neutral economy.
Detailed in any of our many white papers regarding the matter, we converted 95t% of all ton-miles to electrified, double tracked rail. We converted all housing to PassivHaus standard, and all commercial buildings to efficiencies at least half as efficient as the Bullit Building in Seattle.
We electrified all industrial processes to the maximum extent possible, including conversion of steelmaking, cement making, lumber and forest products, chemicals, and fertilizers.
We converted all agricultural engines to Elsbett diesel technology, running them on SVO pressed on farm from an average 10 ac of oilseeds / farm.
As for gail’s lament on concrete roads, where we just spent the weekend, they use gravel ones quite handily, and I imagine we will too.
Given a density of one RR station every 10 miles east of the Mississippi River and < 30 miles west of that line, freight and people should move quite well on electric vehicles, charged at night on surplus renewable wind power, or during the day on surplus PV generated power.
I reiterate, this forum would be better off killing the lament, and getting on with the political task of energizing US leadership into investing in infrastructure to carry the nation forward.
When the going gets tough, the tough get going!
To go where others have gone…….
To see what none have seen………..
INDY
Electrical systems and homes fitted out like the PassivHaus are incredibly difficult to sustain. One issue is that the systems are only available in a high tech overall economy. Such an economy requires international trade, lots of big companies, lots of high tech trained workers, and even more workers that get low wages or no wages at all.
It is the growing wage and wealth disparity of those that are left out of the system that tends to bring it down. All of these left out individuals can not afford rides on high tech trains. They cannot afford PassivHauses. There is no way the tax system can collect enough taxes on the system to even out differences. Those who are left out increasingly want to break the windows of those who have PassivHauses. They want to burn the electric vehicles of the rich. The model looks good on paper, but it absolutely does not work in practice.
Gail, a Passivhaus costs 20% to 25% more to build, and that cost is largely because of the extra energy consumption its construction requires. Almost all fossil fuel energy. The house also uses mechanical ventilation, which as I discovered growing up in Africa is a recipe for mould, adventitious insects, respiratory disease, and sick children. That is one reason I never (never!) used air conditioning, even in Singapore 1.5 degrees North. Open the windows and turn on a floor fan.
As for the railways: rubbish. A railway is desperately inefficient with stations at 10 mile intervals, because it cannot use dynamic (“regenerative”) braking; there is no battery in existence that could cope with the amperage. That is why we had streetcars, which would slow down from 15 mph rather than 150. Maybe flywheel technology would solve this problem, but now we are in the realm of Hopium.
And gravel roads? Somebody is joking. They require far more maintenance than concrete roads, because gravel tends to be flung away by vehicles and washed away by rain. Their life cycle cost is therefore insupportable
What makes you think locos can’t send back electricity into the grid as they decelerate?
This is already supported by modern railroads. As one train decelerates, the next one accelerates. It all averages out in a large scale railroad deployment. Electricity is only needed for the losses in the system.
The sand to build the concrete is now in sharp decline. A dirt road is renewable in terms of physics. Sand is not.
As far as I know, it is the specialized sand used for fracking for which supply is a problem. I am not aware of a problem with sands for concrete.
https://www1.basf.com/magazine/issue-8/article.sand-in-short-supply.en.html
“When it comes to concrete production, roughly 3 metric tons of sand are needed per metric ton of cement,” explains Stephan. In 2014, the UNEP estimated that between 26 and 30 billion metric tons of sand are poured into cement mixers every year worldwide”
So concrete needs specialized sand, and this, too, is in short supply.
For keeping dirt roads (not gravel!) in repair we have the old European solution of sending very poor people -on minimum maintenance – out all summer to repair them by hand: preferably, they will then die on the job and not become a burden in their last years. An elegant, low-tech, solution to several problems at once.
One supposes the Chinese and Japanese once did something similar to maintain their roads?
Next up: the obvious sense of allowing Millennials to eat Boomers and occupy their houses: Social Justice, de-population and nutrition in one!
(Acknowledgements to Jonathan Swift.)
I understand that the Chinese narrowed the width of the roads they would maintain, to keep down costs. Wheelbarrows could be used on these narrow roads to transport goods. Low Tech magazine had an article about this a while ago.
Xabier, yes, dirt roads would be different from gravel, although there seem to be more varieties of non-paved roads than are easy to asses. In my youth, women would sit in groups by the roadside breaking rocks into smaller stones. (They went on to live acceptably long lives.) There was so little traffic in my area that I believe grass grew in the middle of the road. And to Gail’s earlier point, one vehicle might have to veer off to the shoulder to let another go by. Life was much slower then. And I like Gail’s observation about narrowing roads. Never heard of that, but it sounds good. If you widen roads you get more cars on them, and a whole spectrum of complexity therefrom..
For Kowalainen. Yes, Japan’s Shinkansen uses regenerative braking, precisely because the schedules are timed to match acceleration with deceleration. Get that wrong, and there is no buffer to smooth out peaks and troughs. That is why the only other feasible rail network, France’s TGV, may, just possibly, cut over to this system in 2023. For iron age relics like the US railways, forget it.
As another random thoughts: how might we preserve “just in time” supply chains with trains that stop every ten miles? Obviously, we don’t: for non perishables we keep inventory; for perishables we relocalise, and then who needs the trains anyway?
«There is no way the tax system can collect enough taxes on the system»
Thomas Piketty thinks it is possible.
https://www.google.no/amp/s/www.latimes.com/business/story/2019-09-12/thomas-piketty-wealth-tax-billionaires-inequality%3f_amp=true
https://www.google.no/amp/s/amp.theguardian.com/business/2019/sep/09/thomas-pikettys-new-magnum-opus-published-on-thursday
“There will always be socialism as long as there is something to steal”
So we rob billionaires of their wealth. Then why should anyone seek to become a billionaire? So society is deprived not only of their wealth, but of the value they created in exchange for that wealth.
We knew better five hundred years ago, when “invidia” was one of the seven deadly sins. And so of course was “avaritia”, which is why so many of those “billionaires” funded lasting pillars of civilisation. Including William of Waynflete, who founded the College I was most privileged to attend.
The billionaires will just move their wealth somewhere else.
The “wealth” of the rich is largely made up of digits, which, in a negative-interest-rate regime, are going to money heaven. Other aspects of “wealth” ownership will become increasingly onerous: to what degree does it make sense to upgrade a property, or maintain a factory, given the increasing economic headwinds? The entire point of capitalism is deploying capital to where it can “make” money. In a de-growth scenario, the premises for capitalism are—for the most part—broken.
Indeed, we are shifting from a tangibles based economy to an intangibles. The kids of today does not care about physical manifestations of wealth, well, apart from the necessary items which enables this communication and interaction. Impressing other people with tangible stuff is for the older generation, drones in the government corporate complex. It is effin’ boring and they know it, feel it and resent it.
What they really want is to interact and play with their friends and acquaintances online. Now that I think about it, that sort of reminds me about…
Us!
😉
If all that was needed was more printing of money, governments could indeed give every young person a large monetary grant. When it is really resources that are needed, and these are in less and less plentiful supply, this is not possible.
I always feel that Piketty, having discovered a fashionable line of thought, and one that gets him media time, works out what end he wants to achieve and reasons so as to arrive at the desired conclusion.
His basic line is no more than ‘We still have great and sufficient wealth to keep the mid-20th century social system – the ‘Welfare State’ in European terms, and all the hard infrastructure – in place, the only problem is gross mal-distribution’.
He is, quite simply wrong in his premise: his focus is far too narrow, as with many economists and political theorists. Just a 200 yr-old old theory, dressed up in new clothes. It had some validity of course, as an effective solution to social tensions in 1900, when the world was still resource-rich, but not in the era of energy crisis and resource exhaustion.
However, in the crisis to come, we will certainly see the Politics of Redistribution become a hot topic, and probably rather violent,as everyone looks to get or keep their slice of a shrinking pie and parties need to buy the support of sectors of society
No doubt there will also be a lot of ‘private enterprise’ redistribution, in the form of house raids and crime in general.
Best to pray not to live to be weak and vulnerable in such times……
gravel roads + traffic = windshield replacements.
Gravel roads are for rural communities that have sparse traffic. Gravel roads make for water percolation into the ground. Paved roads require storm drain management that deprive the local aquifer and cost money to install and repair. Gravel roads look better too, for all anyone cares..
Good point.
It is really hard to have lane markings on a gravel road. Gravel roads are generally barely wide enough for two cars to pass each other. It is impossible to have roads with several lanes each direction.
Gravel roads are often muddy roads as well.
There are lots of construction vehicles on mainroads that leak gravel on the roads. In my experience, it’s the paved roads (and the speed they require) that cause windscreen breaks from such leaked gravel. Gravel roads are for rural places with spars traffic and low speeds. I’m sure they engender windscreen breaks sometimes, but I’ve never seen any. I come from a rural part of a Third World country where in childhood most roads I traveled were gravel roads, and I simply have never seen a windscreen crack there. As to mud, given what we’ll have to deal with as things get harder, that’s a very negligible concern. People in New Mexico often look on muddy vehicles as a mark of ruggedness. Some like these even feature in ads for four wheel vehicles that “take you anywhere.”.
i stand by my statement because i know it’s true from experience. if speed is kept down, there are few incidents of windshield cracks. passing and speed on gravel roads (over the posted limit) make for windshield cracks. that’s why asphalt is so popular.
the biggest offenders are passing semi trucks, even with gravel guards (flaps) on their rear wheels.
Windshields?
Bicycles and electric motos need no windshield. We are not talking about interstate highway networks made from gravel. The trucking will be replaced with mostly automated rail. One step back, two steps forward. High tech vehicles and infrastructure powered by the original tour de force behind IC, yes baby, let’s:
BURN MORE COAL!
http://ushsr.com/images/810_Full_Transport_System_2810.gif
The HSR service in Japan is sublime. Let’s copy that sh1t to the west and let the existing tracks carry the commercial cargo.
https://youtu.be/SK66FB-gr8A
hi, George…
thanks for playing…
there’s no economic way to detour massive amounts of FF away from everyday needs and towards your infrastructure buildup…
“I reiterate, this forum would be better off killing the lament, and getting on with the political task of energizing US leadership into investing in infrastructure to carry the nation forward.”
I actually quite enjoy the lament of doomers here…
and you must have a poor understanding of human nature if you think this political task has any chance better than a proverbial snowball in the mythical place of Hell…
“When the going gets tough, the tough get going!”
then I suppose you will be going… I hope you’ll stay, but I will guess your Institute takes up most of your time as you convert some of the remaining FF into subsidized “renewables” (which we all know don’t last too long before needing to be replaced… wink wink)…
again, thanks for playing…
If you don’t like my views.
Take me off your distribution list!
Otherwise deal with the following…..
I am the son of a carpenter, who together with his RN wife made < $5,000 / yr when I was at university.
There were 7 of us… Grand ma, 4 kids, 2 parents.
We were latch key kids. Both parents had to work.
I earned 100% of the $$$ needed to pay tuition, books, room and board for my 4 years at Purdue.
I pumped gas, swept floors, turned bars on a merchant mill, rolled steel, fixed gauges in a steel mill, worked construction, made ductwork, and drove truck.
Upon graduation, I received orders and was on active duty in the Navy during the height of the war.
I returned from the war to do my graduate work on the GI bill and teach in the public schools.
The recession of 75 came with payless paydays for Indiana teachers, so I went to work for SOHIO as a chemist. There my facilities with computers were noticed and I was put on my first industrial automation project.
I went on to a notable career as a consulting systems engineer.
So, my background is in science and engineering. I'm used to creating the future, fixing the broken present.
I funded and conducted a 28 year world wide oceanographic expedition, documenting the state of coral reefs before they were destroyed by global warming and human predation.
Our analysis, includes the materials required for the transition, and the $$ required for it.
It will cost less than the pending war with China/Russia.
In summary, if you don't like my views…. take me off your list.
INDY
Dear Dr Oprisko,
No, I do not like your views. Nevertheless, please allow me to offer you my sincere admiration for your willingness to pay your own way in this world, to do with competence and pride whatever task your hand found for you, and, above all, for putting your life on the line in defence of your country and your fellow men.
Please remain a contributor to this group, and if my replies to your posts have offended you, allow me to apologise and henceforth keep silent.
Robert Firth
“If you don’t like my views. Take me off your distribution list!”
Sorry, I don’t think WordPress will allow that. However, if you want off the list, down at the bottom of every email is the word “unsubscribe.” Click there if you want to get off the list. I sort of hope you don’t since your views are even more optimistic than mine.
You see, Robert. You project the way you think onto the common man who implicitly prefer wars than change in their ways and god given right to consume as if there is no tomorrow. Well, they are certainly right about that last part.
Good luck with that hopium of yours. Alan Watts so eloquently summarized the tragedy of the competent engineer:
https://i.pinimg.com/originals/93/a0/89/93a08996a46dc51f80c69d8e961da8d1.jpg
I meant George, not Robert.
hi, George…
that’s impressive…
much more than I have done with my life…
I can sum it up quite easily…
fossil fuels have been very good to you…
I like George’s views very much! I don’t necessarily agree with what he says but I am prepared to defend to the point of being slapped in the face with a wet fish his right to say it!
If it hadn’t been for all that pumping gas as a teenager, George might have had to drop out of college and missed out on the opportunity to become Dr. George and embark on his notable career that has allowed him to avoid having to pump gas for the rest of his days. So that’s something else to thank fossil fuels for.
Now, after he has climbed the ladder, he wants to kick it away from the younger generation, who will be forced to plug in EVs while telling their owners to have a nice day, and all for the sake of pursing the Holy Grail of Sustainability with a side order of Social Justice, which is about as obtainable as that pot of gold at the end of the rainbow.
https://www.northwestern.edu/sustainability/images/news/2018/sustainable-development.png
Kowalainen, I’l like to add one of my favorite quotations by Kurt Vonnegut to the excellent one by Alan Watts that you posted, as I think they are like two horses from the same stable.
https://www.azquotes.com/picture-quotes/quote-we-are-what-we-pretend-to-be-so-we-must-be-careful-what-we-pretend-to-be-kurt-vonnegut-30-39-09.jpg
Tim; we are indeed masters of deluding ourself, because there has, absolutely has, to be hope for a better tomorrow. Well.
THERE ISN’T!
IT’S ALL GONE!
PUMPED, DIGGED AND WROUGHT OUT OF THE GEOUND!
Only now is and the predicament we have created for ourselves by playing the game of BAU.
These hopium providers should learn to live in the now and enjoy it as long as the delight of more, for more, lasts. Because soon, there will only be more – for fewer.
Snails are easier targets, and far more satisfying when you squash them. I suspect some gods have a taste for that……
Instead of pumping the C02 from NetPower’s Allam process under ground, in a compressed state,
it could become the energy storage ( ‘3 day backup battery’.)
E.g.:
https://www.forbes.com/sites/jeffmcmahon/2017/03/26/how-captured-co2-could-provide-the-energy-storage-solution-everyone-is-looking-for/#10984242ddef
Few who chirp for ‘green’ energy don’t even know the term ‘baseline load’. I see these odious wind turbines from my parent’s home in southern Texas. They don’t even start rotating until late in the morning while it can already be approaching 90F along the 90% humidity. I’ve driven by over the months as they are constructed. Plenty of fossil fuels required to dig the holes for the foundation, tons of concrete, and cranes and such to position everything in place. What a joke!
In addition, they not only get subsidies but they also ask the local taxing authority for a tax break.
Also, when the turbines finally get to rotating, their blades decimate the local birds, bats and insects, whose demise is then conveniently blamed on Big Oil, Monsanto and the NRA, and they change the downwind weather, which is put down to globbly wobbly.
Someone, ever since I did the math, I’ve been convinced that these wind turbines over their whole life cycle are an energy sink, not an energy source. They are also a money sing; even when built with slave labour in China they need large and ongoing subsidies.
But as TIm Groves says, at least your car will no longer be hit by bird droppings. If you can ignore the bird choppings. And those windmills are on migratory bird paths, which is a true crime against Nature.
Environmentally cautious folks are very fond of the mantra, “there’s no such thing as clean coal.”. Please take a moment to ponder how much steel will be required to manufacture all of the new “green” homes, office buildings, manufacturing plants, high speed railways and public transportation vehicles, and calculate how much coal we will be required to mine, transport, process, and ultimately coke in order to manufacture the requisite steel. Will we be required to destroy the environment in order to save it?
Think how much concrete is needed as well. A big thing building a lot of these new renewable devices does is ramp up the demand for the use of fossil fuels.
Strangely enough, there can sort of be a favorable impact of adding all of these new devices, if the added debt they require helps raise the price of commodities including fossil fuels and adds more jobs, even if these jobs are not really very productive. In some ways adding renewables can temporarily be helpful. This seems to be what the Green New Deal would like to exploit.
“Fears over the health of the global economy deepened on Thursday with the publication of a raft of dismal data, pouring fuel on the government bond rally and spurring traders to ratchet up bets on further interest rate cuts by the US Federal Reserve…
“Purchasing managers’ indices for the service industries in the US, UK and Germany underperformed economists’ estimates, with the latter two falling into contraction territory.
“David Rosenberg, chief economist at Gluskin Sheff, called this “the great spillover”.
““Anyone who thought you could have a recession in the goods and manufacturing sector wouldn’t morph into the services sector was dreaming in technicolour,” he said.”
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.ft.com/content/fe8cf938-e5f3-11e9-9743-db5a370481bc
“Dreaming in technicolor!” I don’t remember hearing this one before. It is a good description.
it’s more like 1980s joke thing, before the onslaught of VHS/DVD/Netflixes..
The state passenger transport operator in Slovakia cancels connecting trains due to the lack of the engine drivers. It misses almost 100 of them:
https://index.sme.sk/c/22226990/vlaky-nemal-kto-riadit-zssk-ich-nevypravila-expert-vini-manazment.html?ref=trz
Well, that way the green new deals may fail simply due to the lack of workforce…
Too sad, beautiful occupation, but people are mostly scared of the legal liabilities..
Any accident is usually pinned onto the engine crew NOT the operator’s (corp.) lack of infrastructure maintenance, managerial fin embezzlement, subcontractor warfare etc.
That’s why it is more reliable only in “antsy” societies of the East / Asia.
Being as this is Japan, our local railway line is still running despite losing a steady dribble of money. It is a public-private partnership in which the public (local and regional government and national tourist agency) pays subsidies in the interest of keeping the countryside looking viable. The public paid for two luxuriously nice new trains a couple of years ago and they even employ two cute young ladies on each train to serve coffee and snacks to the passengers.
A couple of years before that, the public paid for a special rail system at my local station to convey physically handicapped people down a flight of stairs, around a corner, and up another flight between the ticket office and the platform. I hear that cost the equivalent of about US$300,000 to install and it it has only been used half a dozen times in the past four years. But Japan is an Alice in Wonderland economy.
https://trains.willer.co.jp/img/kv01.png
Thanks to debt and more debt. Now the consumption tax is going from 8% to 10%, as of October 1, on a lot of goods in Japan. This would seem likely to have a destabilizing effect. It will be interesting to see how the economy holds up in October.
Kuromatsu (黒松) “black pine” (Pinus thunbergii), named in honour of Carl Peter Thunberg (1743 to 1828). And if you are thinking what I suspect, you are right.
How interesting, Robert! I have no idea if Greta and the great Carl Peter are related, although it is widely said that she’s related to Svante August Arrhenius, who is best known these days for his hypothesis that burning fossil fuels would make the world a warmer and more pleasant place. Svante the chemist was born on February 19, 1859, the son of Svante Gustaf Arrhenius and Carolina Christina Thunberg. Greta’s dad was named Svante in honor of the chemist.
The problem is that the tax revenue cannot support high enough wages for the workers.
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What about harnessing plants to sequester the CO2 in the soil?
https://www.salk.edu/scientist/joanne-chory/
https://www.ted.com/talks/joanne_chory_how_supercharged_plants_could_slow_climate_change
Welcome aboard, Gail. Ted Trainer, Pedro Prieto and I have been saying this for years. Nobody seems to understand the argument, or wants to. Because the overall consequence is that Industrial Civilisation will grind to halt for lack energy soon. The energy required to complete the transition to green energy sources is too high.
So the level of civilisation is going fall (or collapse!) to that of third world countries, where the solution isn’t even public transport, but no transport at all. First world people don’t want that, but they are going to get it. What politician can win by offering the voters a “powering down” solution, where we grow our own food instead of watching TV and driving our cars to the fast food shops? I don’t like the idea either.
Plan B seems to be to deny the problem exists, which will lead to no preparation and a sudden collapse into starvation and chaos.
I noticed that on Facebook, Pedro Prieto had a favorable comment on this article. Charlie Hall also had a favorable comment in a personal email.
There are a lot of people who are getting the idea, but it takes time.
No, they won’t like it at all.
I’ve observed that the wealthy working class here -builders, electricians, plumbers, that sort of well-paid job – when they buy these late-1940’s houses with very big gardens, designed to feed families, generally park their SUV’s on the front garden near the door, trashing it, and cut down every living thing in the back.
No walking/cycling and kitchen gardens for them!
But they’ll be, I am quite sure, the first to come knocking for ‘food for the kids’ if things go wrong…..
I wonder whether it is actually worth trying to save people from the consequences of their actions and laziness. Their grandparents would have worked a very long day, and tended the kitchen garden at night. The women are just white fat slugs……
Some might detect a note of cynicism and exasperation in these comments. 🙂
Hint:
There are 7.7 billion people in a collapsing ecosystem.
This is a predicament, not a problem.
A predicament and a problem are synonymous, as are a pickle, a muddle, a quandary, a plight, a hole, a jam, a crisis, and a sticky wicket, old boy. Or even a mess.
In one of his more awkward, less attractive lyrics, George Harrison in 1971 summed up the catastrophic human suffering in East Bengal, which was fighting to liberate itself from being East Pakistan to becoming “Free Bengal” or Bangladesh, as “a mess”:
Bangla Desh, Bangla Desh
Where so many people are dying fast.
And it sure looks like a mess.
I’ve never seen such distress
But what I think you’re hinting at is that the problem of 7.7 people in a collapsing ecosystem may not have an adequate solution. Fortunately, I’ve dug up a clever quote that deals with just this point.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/CtcCW0dVMAEupCC.jpg