Ramping Up Renewables Can’t Provide Enough Heat Energy in Winter

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We usually don’t think about the wonderful service fossil fuels provide in terms of being a store of heat energy for winter, the time when there is a greater need for heat energy. Figure 1 shows dramatically how, in the US, the residential usage of heating fuels spikes during the winter months.

Figure 1. US residential use of energy, based on EIA data. The category “Natural Gas, etc.” includes all fuels bought directly by households and burned. This is primarily natural gas, but also includes small amounts of propane and diesel burned as heating oil. Wood chips or other commercial wood purchased to be burned is also in this category.

Solar energy is most abundantly available in the May-June-July period, making it a poor candidate for fixing the problem of the need for winter heat.

Figure 2. California solar electricity production by month through June 30, 2022, based on EIA data. Amounts are for utility scale and small scale solar combined.

In some ways, the lack of availability of fuels for winter is a canary in the coal mine regarding future energy shortages. People have been concerned about oil shortages, but winter fuel shortages are, in many ways, just as bad. They can result in people “freezing in the dark.”

In this post, I will look at some of the issues involved.

[1] Batteries are suitable for fine-tuning the precise time during a 24-hour period solar electricity is used. They cannot be scaled up to store solar energy from summer to winter.

In today’s world, batteries can be used to delay the use of solar electricity for at most a few hours. In exceptional situations, perhaps the holding period can be increased to a few days.

California is known both for its high level of battery storage and its high level of renewables. These renewables include both solar and wind energy, plus smaller amounts of electricity generated in geothermal plants and electricity generated by burning biomass. The problem encountered is that the electricity generated by solar panels tends to start and end too early in the day, relative to when citizens want to use this electricity. After citizens return home after work, they would like to cook their dinners and use their air conditioning, leading to considerable demand after the sun sets.

Figure 3. Illustration by Inside Climate News showing the combination of resources utilized during July 9, 2022, which was a day of peak electricity consumption. Imports refer to electricity purchased from outside the State of California.

Figure 3 illustrates how batteries in combination with hydroelectric generation (hydro) are used to save electricity generation from early in the day for use in the evening hours. While battery use is suitable for fine tuning exactly when, during a 24-hour period, solar energy will be used, the quantity of batteries cannot be ramped up sufficiently to save electricity from summer to winter. The world would run out of battery-making materials, if nothing else.

[2] Ramping up hydro is not a solution to our problem of inadequate energy for heat in winter.

One problem is that, in long-industrialized economies, hydro capabilities were built out years ago.

Figure 4. Annual hydro generation based on data of BP’s 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.

It is difficult to believe that much more buildout is available in these countries.

Another issue is that hydro tends to be quite variable from year to year, even over an area as large as the United States, as shown in Figure 4 above. When the variability is viewed over a smaller area, the year-to-year variability is even higher, as illustrated in Figure 5 below.

Figure 5. Monthly California hydroelectric generation through June 30, 2022, based on EIA data.

The pattern shown reflects peak generation in the spring, when the ice pack is melting. Low generation generally occurs during the winter, when the ice pack is frozen. Thus, hydro tends not be helpful for raising winter energy supplies. A similar pattern tends to happen in other temperate areas.

A third issue is that variability in hydro supply is already causing problems. Norway has recently reported that it may need to limit hydro exports in coming months because water reservoirs are low. Norway’s exports of electricity are used to help balance Europe’s wind and solar electricity. Thus, this issue may lead to yet another energy problem for Europe.

As another example, China reports a severe power crunch in its Sichuan Province, related to low rainfall and high temperatures. Fossil fuel generation is not available to fill the gap.

[3] Wind energy is not a greatly better than hydro and solar, in terms of variability and poor timing of supply.

For example, Europe experienced a power crunch in the third quarter of 2021 related to weak winds. Europe’s largest wind producers (Britain, Germany and France) produced only 14% of their rated capacity during this period, compared with an average of 20% to 26% in previous years. No one had planned for this kind of three-month shortfall.

In 2021, China experienced dry, windless weather, resulting in both its generation from wind and hydro being low. The country found it needed to use rolling blackouts to deal with the situation. This led to traffic lights failing and many families needing to eat candle-lit dinners.

Even viewed on a nationwide basis, US wind generation varies considerably from month to month.

Figure 6. Total US wind electricity generation through June 20, 2022, based on EIA data.

US total wind electricity generation tends to be highest in April or May. This can cause oversupply issues because hydro generation tends to be high about the same time. The demand for electricity tends to be low because of generally mild weather. The result is that even at today’s renewable levels, a wet, windy spring can lead to a situation in which the combination of hydro and wind electricity supply exceeds total local demand for electricity.

[4] As more wind and solar are added to the grid, the challenges and costs become increasingly great.

There are a huge number of technical problems associated with trying to add a large amount of wind and solar energy to the grid. Some of them are outlined in Figure 7.

Figure 7. Introductory slide from a presentation by power engineers shown in this YouTube Video.

One of the issues is torque distortion, especially related to wind energy.

Figure 8. Slide describing torque distortion issues from the same presentation to power engineers as Figure 7. YouTube Video.

There are also many other issues, including some outlined on this Drax website. Wind and solar provide no “inertia” to the system. This makes me wonder whether the grid could even function without a substantial amount of fossil fuel or nuclear generation providing sufficient inertia.

Furthermore, wind and solar tend to make voltage fluctuate, necessitating systems to absorb and discharge something called “reactive power.”

[5] The word “sustainable” has created unrealistic expectations with respect to intermittent wind and solar electricity.

A person in the wind turbine repair industry once told me, “Wind turbines run on a steady supply of replacement parts.” Individual parts may be made to last 20-years, or even longer, but there are so many parts that some are likely to need replacement long before that time. An article in Windpower Engineering says, “Turbine gearboxes are typically given a design life of 20 years, but few make it past the 10-year mark.”

There is also the problem of wind damage, especially in the case of a severe storm.

Figure 9. Hurricane-damaged solar panels in Puerto Rico. Source.

Furthermore, the operational lives for fossil fuel and nuclear generating plants are typically much longer than those for wind and solar. In the US, some nuclear plants have licenses to operate for 60 years. Efforts are underway to extend some licenses to 80 years.

With the short life spans for wind and solar, constant rebuilding of wind turbines and solar generation is necessary, using fossil fuels. Between the rebuilding issue and the need for fossil fuels to maintain the electric grid, the output of wind turbines and solar panels cannot be expected to last any longer than fossil fuel supply.

[6] Energy modeling has led to unrealistic expectations for wind and solar.

Energy models don’t take into account all of the many adjustments to the transmission system that are needed to support wind and solar, and the resulting added costs. Besides the direct cost of the extra transmission required, there is an ongoing need to inspect parts for signs of wear. Brush around the transmission lines also needs to be cut back. If adequate maintenance is not performed, transmission lines can cause fires. Burying transmission lines is sometimes an option, but doing so is expensive, both in energy use and cost.

Energy models also don’t take into account the way wind turbines and solar panels perform in “real life.” In particular, most researchers miss the point that electricity from solar panels cannot be expected to be very helpful for meeting our need for heat energy in winter. If we want to add more summer air conditioning, solar panels can “sort of” support this effort, especially if batteries are also added to help fine tune when, during the 24-hour day, the solar electricity will be utilized. Unfortunately, we don’t have any realistic way of saving the output of solar panels from summer to winter.

It seems to me that supporting air conditioning is a rather frivolous use for what seems to be a dwindling quantity of available energy supply. In my opinion, our first two priorities should be adequate food supply and preventing freezing in the dark in winter. Solar, especially, does nothing for these issues. Wind can be used to pump water for crops and animals. In fact, an ordinary windmill, built 100 years ago, can also be used to provide this type of service.

Because of the intermittency issue, especially the “summer to winter” intermittency issue, wind and solar are not truly replacements for electricity produced by fossil fuels or nuclear. The problem is that most of the current system needs to remain in place, in addition to the renewable energy system. When researchers make cost comparisons, they should be comparing the cost of the intermittent energy, including necessary batteries and grid enhancements with the cost of the fuel saved by operating these devices.

[7] Competitive pricing plans that enable the growth of wind and solar electricity are part of what is pushing a number of areas in the world toward a “freezing-in-the-dark” problem.

In the early days of electricity production, “utility pricing” was generally used. With this approach, vertical integration of electricity supply was encouraged. A utility would make long term contracts with a number of providers and would set prices for customers based on the expected long-term cost of electricity production and distribution. The utility would make certain that transmission lines were properly repaired and would add new generation as needed.

Energy prices of all kinds spiked in the late 1970s. Not long afterward, in an attempt to prevent high electricity prices from causing inflation, a shift in pricing arrangements started taking place. More competition was encouraged, with the new approach called competitive pricing. Vertically integrated groups were broken up. Wholesale electricity prices started varying by time of day, based on which providers were willing to sell their production at the lowest price, for that particular time period. This approach encouraged providers to neglect maintaining their power lines and stop adding more storage capacity. Any kind of overhead expense was discouraged.

In fact, under this arrangement, wind and solar were also given the privilege of “going first.” If too much energy in total was produced, negative rates could result for other providers. This approach was especially harmful for nuclear energy. Nuclear power plants found that their overall price structure was too low. They sometimes closed because of inadequate profitability. New investments in nuclear energy were discouraged, as was proper maintenance. This effect has been especially noticeable in Europe.

Figure 10. Nuclear, wind and solar electricity generated in Europe, based on data of BP’s 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.

The result is that about a third of the gain from wind and solar energy has been offset by the decline in nuclear electricity generation. Of course, nuclear is another low-carbon form of electricity. It is a great deal more reliable than wind or solar. It can even help prevent freezing in the dark because it is likely to be available in winter, when more electricity for heating is likely to be needed.

Another issue is that competitive pricing discouraged the building of adequate storage facilities for natural gas. Also, it tended to discourage purchasing natural gas under long term contracts. The thinking went, “Rather than building storage, why not wait until the natural gas is needed, and then purchase it at the market rate?”

Unfortunately, producing natural gas requires long-term investments. Companies producing natural gas operate wells that produce approximately equal amounts year-round. The same pattern of high winter-consumption of natural gas tends to occur almost simultaneously in many Northern Hemisphere areas with cold winters. If the system is going to work, customers need to be purchasing natural gas, year-round, and stowing it away for winter.

Natural gas production has been falling in Europe, as has coal production (not shown), necessitating more imports of replacement fuel, often natural gas.

Figure 11. Natural gas production in Europe, based on data of BP’s 2022 Statistical Review of World Energy.

With competitive rating and LNG ships seeming to sell natural gas on an “as needed” basis, there has been a tendency in Europe to overlook the need for long term contracts and additional storage to go with rising natural gas imports. Now, Europe is starting to discover the folly of this approach. Solar is close to worthless for providing electricity in winter; wind cannot be relied upon. It doesn’t ramp up nearly quickly enough, in any reasonable timeframe. The danger is that countries will risk having their citizens freeze in the dark because of inadequate natural gas import availability.

[8] The world is a very long way from producing enough wind and solar to solve its energy problems, especially its need for heat in winter.

The energy supply that the world uses includes much more than electricity. It contains oil and fuels burned directly, such as natural gas. The percentage share of this total energy supply that wind and solar output provides depends on how it is counted. The International Energy Agency treats wind and solar as if they only replace fuel, rather than replacing dispatchable electricity.

Figure 12 Wind and solar generation for a category called “Wind, Solar, etc.” by the IEA. Amounts are for 2020 for Germany, the UK, Australia, Norway, the United States, and Japan. For other groups shown in this chart, the amounts are calculated using 2019 data.

On this basis, the share of total energy provided by the Wind and Solar category is very low, only 2.2% for the world as a whole. Germany comes out highest of the groups analyzed, but even it is replacing only 6.0% of its total energy consumed. It is difficult to imagine how the land and water around Germany could tolerate wind turbines and solar panels being ramped up sufficiently to cover such a shortfall. Other parts of the world are even farther from replacing current energy supplies with wind and solar.

Clearly, we cannot expect wind and solar to ever be ramped up to meet our energy needs, even in combination with hydro.

About Gail Tverberg

My name is Gail Tverberg. I am an actuary interested in finite world issues - oil depletion, natural gas depletion, water shortages, and climate change. Oil limits look very different from what most expect, with high prices leading to recession, and low prices leading to financial problems for oil producers and for oil exporting countries. We are really dealing with a physics problem that affects many parts of the economy at once, including wages and the financial system. I try to look at the overall problem.
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3,845 Responses to Ramping Up Renewables Can’t Provide Enough Heat Energy in Winter

  1. Michael Le Merchant says:

    A new, highly transmissible Covid variant is now tearing through “multiple countries” – and it has scientists on high alert.

    A new Covid variant is ripping through “multiple countries”, with experts fearing it could be even more transmissible than the BA. 5 Omicron strain.

    Named BF. 7 – short for BA. 5.2.1.7 – the new variant is spreading faster than most other variants of interest that scientists are currently tracking in the US.

    While it accounted for 1.7 per cent of sequenced infections in America last week, it now represents 25 per cent of cases in Belgium, while Denmark, Germany and France have each recorded 10 per cent of the world’s identified cases, Fortune reports.

    Dr Stuart Ray, vice chair of medicine for data integrity and analytics at Johns Hopkins’ Department of Medicine, told the publication the US Centres of Disease Control (CDC) recently named it as a separate strain after cases hit one per cent, with that figure expected to grow.
    https://www.news.com.au/world/scientists-on-alert-as-new-covid-strain-tears-through-multiple-countries/news-story/d7975efbc4350976900a6ea0c834d9be

  2. The WSJ has an opinion article by its staff writers that points out issues about yesterday’s Tesla battery fire that I hadn’t heard earlier.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/californias-tesla-battery-fire-monterey-green-energy-fossil-fuels-11663796046

    California’s Tesla Battery Fire
    A reminder that solar and wind power aren’t cost or risk free.

    As if California doesn’t have enough wildfire hazards, its drive to banish fossil fuels from the electric grid is creating another. On Tuesday a Tesla battery at a utility storage site in Monterey County caught fire, triggering the shutdown of the state’s scenic coastal highway and shelter-in-place warnings for local residents.

    California utilities have been installing large-scale batteries to back up renewables and provide power when the sun goes down. But now we’re learning that batteries have their own reliability problems. It’s not clear how utility PG&E’s enormous 182.5 megawatt Tesla battery caught fire Tuesday, but the site had to be disconnected from the grid.

    The article goes on to talk about the many other overheating incidents and fires that have been caused by the big batteries. It says, “A fire last July at a Tesla battery storage site in Australia required three days and a hazmat firefighting team to put out.”

    The article then says:

    Australians were lucky that the fire didn’t occur during their summer when it might have been even harder to control. Californians can likewise be grateful that Tuesday’s battery fire didn’t occur during the state’s heat wave two weeks ago when the state power supply was tight. PG&E filed for bankruptcy in 2019 amid tens of billions of dollars in liabilities for wildfires linked to its equipment, and now it has a new risk to worry about.

    The larger point is that there is no free lunch in producing energy.

    • Withnail says:

      These large Tesla battery installations must have millions of individual battery cells. It only takes one bad cell to start a fire. What are the odds of one in a million being bad? Seemingly too high.

      That indicates to me that this sort of storage is actually not fit for purpose and no more of it should be built.

  3. Daddio7 says:

    Be prepared next time, get a front and rear dashcam.

  4. Agamemnon says:

    This site is gung-ho alternatives:
    https://reneweconomy.com.au/consumers-reap-rewards-of-100-pct-renewables-as-wind-and-solar-farms-hand-back-windfall-profits/

    Other articles:
    -Wind and solar records tumble again, as coal and fossil fuels hit another low
    -There’s a huge surge in solar production under way – and Australia could show the world how to use it

    True, I’d rather have intermittent electricity than none but austr is a special case with low population, lotsa sun/wind, backup coal .
    Maybe when it’s time for solar replacement the inflationary cost will cause them to use more coal.

    • I wonder if these “return of profit” arrangements will bankrupt the wind and solar providers. Or if the system will fail for some other reason, such as the transmission lines cannot really handle this mixture of generation. Something will clearly go wrong. The “return of profit” isn’t really a return of profit, properly calculated, which is the problem.

  5. CTG says:

    For the old timers at OFW, electricity is the key to everything that is modern. We collapse if we don’t have it. No discussion.

    If there is no electricity

    1. Can natural gas distribution work? What powers the control, computers, systems, pneumatic/hydraulic valves?

    2. Can oil refinery work? See item 1

    3. Hydroelectric? They can generate a large amount of electricity but without the 240/120V, what powers the hydraulic valves or gates? (a team of horses or the guy pressing a button?), the computers, the lights?

    4. Banks, ATMs, retail, hospital, trains, petrol stations, etc

    5. Nuclear power plans (read up on Fukushima).

    6. Telecommunications

    So, no electricity, nothing much to say…

    • Herbie Ficklestein. says:

      I don’t know…Gail wrote there is much more to it than electricity.
      One thing we can run it on with electricity. There are many hidden critical components to our system that require it to function.
      Jay Hanson brought it down further…ENERGY…energy is required to create ELECTRICITY…and electricity is only useful if it actually does something.
      If the supply chain no longer functions the items that electricity is used for will no longer be available.
      So, interconnectedness of our network is very fragile indeed.
      Perhaps we shall witness this very soon….how exciting!

      A: I realized at some early point but remember this is all stuff Id learned in the last ten years I realized that the only thing you really needed to keep things going is energy. Because if you have enough energy, you can make food, you can make oil, you can make everything else. You can desalinate sea-water, grow plants hydroponically, filter your air, and so on. Energy is the root of everything. Thats our Achilles Heel. I saw that early on, I dont remember when, whether it was some Ecological Economics book I was reading or something else. But it was clear to me that everything else came from energy. If you dont have energy you dont have anything.

      Jay Hanson

      https://wsarch.ucr.edu/wsnmail/2003/msg01008.html

      Actually, a classic interview of broad depth…well worth reading

    • MM says:

      The digital prison will not work without electricity.
      Drones and dog robots as well as rocket launcher bearing small armored vehicles for suburban surveillance and to take out terrorists mainly are powered with batteries.
      The banking system aka the fake money prison is based on electricity.
      The whole business world is based on electrical information systems to negotiate information before things will be moved with fossil fuels. The telegraph is an electrical system as well as the radio, radar and satellites.

      Everything can break but electricity is the very last thing that will go.
      I recon there could be a staged blackout but not a real blackout.
      In Germany they call it “regional shutdown” or even “regional switching off”. Very similar to lock down.
      It will be a very thin rope to walk so that the people will not completely lose faith in electricity. A chance for us ? I doubt it. Atoms can not move societies.
      That means, whatever “surprise” you think there is, you can make a safe bet that it will only be for a very brief period and the system will come back up again. Meaning a global coordinated agreement on peace, money and electricity guarantees – and some other legal changes.

  6. Tim Groves says:

    Mirror, since you love to hear Scottish folk singing, this one is especially for you.

  7. Student says:

    (La Verità)

    “EU changes its mind about coal and fertilizers from Russia.
    It will be possible to sell and trasport them, but only to third parties.
    Therefore to circumvent the ban will be a child’s play.”

    https://www.laverita.info/dietrofront-sulle-sanzioni-al-coke-lue-si-rimangia-lo-stop-alla-russia-2658319059.html

    Some official details:
    https://www.westpandi.com/publications/notice-to-members/2022-2023/no-8-2022-2023-eu-clarifies-sanctions-on-russian-c/

  8. Agamemnon says:

    Photos , proof? LoL.Logic out the window .
    Show up like this.
    https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-11235121/Canadian-high-school-says-ILLEGAL-criticize-trans-teacher-huge-prosthetic-breasts.html
    “It’s trans town , Jake , forget it”

  9. Fast Eddy says:

    Sept 24 – Simpson’s says Collapse Arrives

    https://youtu.be/U9W_JQXuN08

  10. Fast Eddy says:

    Canada Govt DELETES Thousands Of Reported Adverse Events Of Special Interest Pertaining To Hearts, CNS & Autoimmune Disorders https://timtruth.substack.com/p/canada-govt-deletes-thousands-of

  11. I AM THE MOB says:

    China will handle the population problem. And they’ll do it their way.

    *If we were having a global celebration, we would do it the western way.

    See where I’m going?

  12. CTG says:

    Guys…. those who lived in cold places…. I have not been to cold countries since Dec 2019.. The coldest I experience was when I open the freezer.

    Do you need heating at 8°C ? or you need to wait until it is -1°C then you turn on the heater?

    /sarc question

    • ssincoski says:

      When I got up this morning it was 9C outside but 17C in the house. Heat is still off. I did make a small fire 2 days ago (it got up to 20C in main room) because it was a bit damp and chilly. Fortunately, the gas company topped up my tank this summer. So as long as electricity stays on, I can use central heat in the house. If not, I have a 2-year supply of wood on-hand.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        And you think nobody will target you… you know — crazed hungry folks with no wood and food? What do you do about that?

        What about relatives who show up with kids begging to be taken in?

        What about spent fuel ponds?

    • drb753 says:

      Same as ssincoski. I have a masonry heater, and I make a small fire (maybe 5kg of wood) in the morning while I am in the field. It stays warm all day.

    • Fast Eddy says:

      It gets uncomfortable even with a sweater on if it drops below 17 ish…

      At 8 you’d need to sleep in full winter gear if no heat source

    • banned says:

      I find even 17 hard to tolerate. A solution that still takes energy only less is that space gets smaller. One room gets heated everyone lives there in that space. This has to be where the water source enters the building. If water is distributed outside of that room it must be winterized. This it is best if kitchen and bath share a wall. If the kitchen becomes the heated winter space for living and sleeping bathing occurs dashing into the bathroom. It takes a lot of energy to heat water. Bath water can be used twice. In and out to save heat for your partner.

      I have advocated for decades all building should occur with a great room all water in that inner envelope. High levels of insulation there. Everyone rolled their eyes.

      The earth ship “survival pod”. A smaller autonomously insulated space although they didn’t take the concept far enough insisting thats where water was distributed and high insulation values. One of the disadvantages of thermal mass buildings is you have committed to the thermal mass you create. Often a smaller room autonomously insulated is very useful inside a thermal mass building. As the thermal mass loses heat moving into January itss still much better than outside but not really livable unless your passive solar is well designed. The passive solar keeps up with vertical glass until febuary. Now the losses -particularly if there is no perimeter insulation -stack with the lessening of passive through the vertical glass make it uncomfortable. To heat up that massive thermal mass takes massive energy much much more than non thermal mass. A small insulated room inside of the thermal mass envelope with air in between the insulation and thermal mass is very efficient as the temperature delta is and losses are halved compared to the outside. . I prefer the term great room to survival pod. It reflects the century old reality that in the winter energy is precious and you move to smaller spaces. Once again our building practices have not reflected reality.

      Retrofitting is usually limited because of water distribution. In very cold climates keeping temps where water is distributed above zero requires significant energy input. That doesn’t mean going to the great room concept doesn’t save considerable energy. Usually there is only one wood stove. Growing up in the 60s and 70s every family I knew went to the great room concept in winter without planning or thinking. The wood stove was in the kitchen. Family life moved to the kitchen. The rest of the house was cold and you bundled up and slept cold. In the morning you ran to the kitchen. The bathroom got heated with a space heater in the evening and everyone bathed while it was warm then. You had to keep the whole house above freezing. Not everyone did and it was a disaster.

      Things were tight in the seventies. Then the government started printing money. People associated this standard of living with justice and fairness from a perspective that did not match the physical world. There were not a lot of social emergency support systems in place in the seventies. Owning a car was not a given. Credit expansion meant that everyone has a car. My family often didnt have a car when old clunker we bought died. Now people take for granted a lifestyle that uses a lot of energy and equivocated it with justice. If you communicate this you encounter hostility from all political spectrum’s because all political spectrum at their base are a consumption justification. I find this very disturbing. We can not change the amount of energy available for us to consume. War and printing money only put us on path to conflict. These models of conflict where we consume others geographical resources have but one ending where we conflict determines resource consumption at home. WE all live on one planet. We all have limited energy available to us. Instead of working together for fair distribution and conservation we use conflict and manipulation to enable consumption justification. Most everyone has signed on to consumption justification in the flavor that best fits their social and economic class. I dont see that changing.

      Try telling a trucker that diesel is finite. You get a boot upside your head

      Try telling a low income individual not everyone can have a car. You get a boot upside your head.

      Our energy consumption is deeply intertwined with ideas of fairness and justice but these ideas are artificial with no relationship to the reality of the physical world we live in. The consequences are not hard to predict.

  13. Fast Eddy says:

    Asia to Roll Out First Inhaled & Nasal-Spray Covid Vaccines as regulators in China & India are first to give the green light; we know infection starts & spreads in nasal-oral mucosae FIRST; too late??

    https://palexander.substack.com/p/asia-to-roll-out-first-inhaled-and

    They are doing whatever it takes to get the Devil Mutation to arrive

  14. Fast Eddy says:

    Very STEEP job losses coming, “Fed Chairman Jerome Powell warns it will be ‘very challenging’ to tame inflation without steep job losses across the US economy after hiking interest rates to 3.25%”

    https://palexander.substack.com/p/very-steep-job-losses-coming-fed

    hark… is that a crack I hear?

    https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/w_1456,c_limit,f_webp,q_auto:good,fl_progressive:steep/https%3A%2F%2Fbucketeer-e05bbc84-baa3-437e-9518-adb32be77984.s3.amazonaws.com%2Fpublic%2Fimages%2F7640f4bf-3fdf-40ad-a510-6853e305549e_962x860.jpeg

    • CTG says:

      FE, I would like to issue you a stern warning and reprimand you. If EU goes down, only EU goes down, the rest are all still fine. Don’t spread misinformation. If Japan goes down, we just say “Sorry Tim” and life goes on with the rest of the world.

      Stop this misinformation

  15. Tim Groves says:

    Stephanie Brail writes:

    International comedian and mega-star Raju Srivastava has died at 58. This is big news in India. It’s like when John Belushi died of a drug overdose at 33 or Robin Williams killed himself at 63 after his diagnosis with Lewy body dementia.

    I had been following this case since he first fell in the beginning of August (I actually debated covering it here, but he’s pretty unknown to Western audiences).

    I had sworn I had seen a tweet where he had proudly shown off his newly vaccinated arm….yep…took some searching but found it:

    And in the above video, he is apparently promoting the covid vaccine, apparently singing about it.

    Here is more information on Srivastava’s death from India TV, though they haven’t mentioned his covid vaccination, of course:

    “The entire nation is mourning the sudden demise of celebrated comedian-actor Raju Srivastava, who left for a heavenly abode after struggling for more than 50 days on a ventilator. Srivastava passed away at the age of 58 at the All India Institute of Medical Sciences (AIIMS), New Delhi, where he was admitted on August 10 after suffering a major heart stroke. According to the family members, the veteran comedian was hospitalised over complaints of chest pain while running on a treadmill at the gym.

    “He also underwent an angioplasty, a procedure used to widen blocked or narrowed coronary arteries. The actor gained consciousness after 15 days on ventilator support but was later put on life support after suffering from a high fever. “I got a call in the morning saying he is no more. It is really unfortunate news. He had been waging a struggle for life in hospital for over 40 days,” his younger brother Dipoo Srivastava told PTI from Mumbai.”

    https://wholistic.substack.com/p/comedian-raju-srivastava-dies-after?utm_source=post-email-title&isFreemail=true&utm_medium=email

  16. Harry says:

    By the way: German PPI Index: + 42,5 % compared to August 2021

    …getting funny here 😉

  17. Fast Eddy says:

    Oh Wow https://t.me/childcovidvaccineinjuriesuk/2221

    The Smoking Gun; 84% Excess Deaths in Millennials In The Fall

    Excessive Death Rose To A New High

    Edward Dowd: CEO, Scott Davidson, let the cat out of the bag; saying they’re seeing a 40% rise in all cause mortality especially among the young

    The smoking gun was when we saw in the fall of 2021 a millennial excessive death that rose to a new high

    In a 3 month time frame, it went from a 40-50% excess mortality to 84% excess mortality into the fall for the millennial age group;

    61,000 DEATHS
    61,000 excessive deaths in that age group represents a Vietnam war.

    Into 2022 we saw continued excess mortality. Funeral home companies thought they would be returning to trend line but they’re still getting year over year growth. This is verses 2021, so they shouldn’t be growing, it should be collapsing 20-30%

  18. Fast Eddy says:

    “In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way.” – Franklin D. Roosevelt

  19. Rodster says:

    You could turn that into a movie! “Fast Eddy’s Day Off”.

  20. CTG says:

    To paraphrase what Hillary Clinton said many years ago :

    “At this point of time, what difference does it make?”

    1. No energy in Europe (UK has no gas storage by the way)

    2. No time for any alternatives. It is 8°C (5am) in Berlin now.

    3. Putin is mobilizing and perhaps threatened (NATZO may have gone crazy)

    4. Fed is hell bent on rising rates and causing severe disruption in the financial world (think all the derivatives)

    5. Financial system is cracking at every single location (ZH reported no one bought Japanese government bonds over the last 2 days). China seems to be in lots of financial trouble as well.

    6. My friends told me local businesses in my country, over the last few weeks have serious drop in business. I think this is global.

    7. Winter is coming and it will kill a lot of immuno compromised people.

    What else did I miss ?

    • davidinamonthorayearoradecade says:

      yes, in the next year there will be more misery and illness, and less eating and heating, more poverty and less jobs.

      excess deaths will increase slightly, as they have in 2021/2022.

      more elderly will die, average lifespan will shrink slightly.

      actually, misery might increase greatly, but misery usually doesn’t kill anyone.

      you missed 8. bAU tonight, baby. onward to the 2030s. que sera sera.

    • Adonis says:

      First Europe in 2022 and I wonder which countries will be next I will make an educated guess Japan and the US the elders are coming for these countries next.

      • Tim Groves says:

        Could you please tell the Elders to leave Japan out of it?
        Just pretend we’re not here.

      • CTG says:

        Let me guess… Europe burning and people dead… while other countries like Japan, USA or even my country will all be good and dandy. e.g. People just don’t visit Europe and see the smoking ruins from their own shores. Don’t buy anything European because they are not on market anymore. However, all our lives will still be ok and we will be using money (except Euro) and drinking Starbucks. Maybe we need to use Toyota instead of Mercedes as there will be no spares from Mercedes.

        Oh also don’t use European banks because they may be dead.

        • CTG says:

          haha.. one good comment in ZH on the article related to “no trade” on Japanese Government Bonds…

          I’ve been telling you for years. One Sunday night, the world will figure out the Yen is worthless and there will be nothing the BOJ can do. The Tokyo market will crash and close. The Arabs will panic sell everything just as Europe opens and crashes. Of course Wall Street will open, trade for 100 milleseconds, crash, and close.

          After 1 week, we will all be sipping Starbucks in Singapore, Australia or Thailand… since it does not impact them

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Hilda … will you put the heat on … it’s rather chilly in the shitter this morning…

      But Adolph … the electricity is too expensive…

      That’ ok I’ll get dinner out of the dumpster

      https://www.accuweather.com/en/de/berlin/10178/weather-forecast/178087

    • Your list is a good summary of our problems. By the way, I ran across a WSJ editorial today:
      https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-west-mimics-mao-takes-a-green-leap-forward-clean-energy-china-communism-farming-industrialization-quota-11663767101

      The West Mimics Mao, Takes a Green Leap Forward
      The green scramble to transform energy is reminiscent of China’s forced industrialization.

      The green movement’s rush to transform the energy economy while ignoring the laws of nature and economics calls to mind China’s ruinous Great Leap Forward. By 1957, Mao Zedong had grown impatient with his country’s slow industrial development relative to the West. He sought to transform China quickly from an agricultural society to an industrial powerhouse through forced industrialization and agricultural collectivization.

      (Brief description of how everyone from children to the elderly was put to work on the quest to make steel, using primitive technology.)

      The steel campaign diverted manpower from farming, even as the government ordered farmers to meet unrealistic quotas. Local party officials initially compelled farmers to experiment with ineffective and sometimes harmful techniques, such as deep plowing and sowing seeds much closer than usual. When these radical methods failed to increase yield and depleted the soil, local leaders had no choice but to lie to their political superiors about how much had been produced (a practice referred to as “launching a Sputnik”). Based on these false production figures, the state demanded villages sell more grain than they could spare. In a vicious circle, the more the local officials lied about their output, the higher the central government set the quotas. Farmers were forced to hand over every bit of grain they had, including the following year’s seeds, to meet the quotas. Resistance was violently suppressed.

      Somehow, this sounds a whole lot like the response we are hearing to today’s problems.

    • JesseJames says:

      And they call this Aussie a genius? Here is a standing ovation for his stupid idea.

    • I am afraid we don’t have the materials to replace all of these things. Also, fossil fuels needed for the transformation.

      Then there is the question of where all of the electricity and wires to connect everything up with will come from. Also, all of the transformers and other equipment. We are already having problems with supply lines. Maybe something obvious will go wrong.

    • Fast Eddy says:

      More Matrix building … obviously this is impossible – but so what … all that matters is MOREONS trust the MSM so it must be true

  21. Herbie Ficklestein. says:

    Lession for all …..It’s not about how long one is breathing that matters, but if you experienced living that really counts…

    David suffered his first seizure in August 2016 while skating with friends at a park in Oceanside, California. Then 18 years old, he later reported on Instagram that he “fell on my face and woke up in an ambulance.” The episode briefly stopped his heart and triggered three more seizures in the hospital. “So grateful to be alive!” David wrote.
    Months later—just before Christmas—David had another seizure in Oahu, Hawaii. The episode came on in the middle of the night, and he later posted to Instagram that he was “lucky to even be alive” after seizing for roughly six hours before friends found him. He spent two days in a medically-induced coma, and had surgery performed weeks later to get an extra muscle on his heart removed, or “burned,” as he put it.
    For David, giving up either of his two loves was never an option. “If it was life or death, and I had to choose skating or surfing,” he told Stab magazine in 2016, “I’d choose death.”
    In mourning David’s death, Freesurf magazine called him “indeed a child prodigy” with “literally hundreds if not thousands of trophies.” The outlet noted in a Facebook post that it had been “following his career for at least 15 years. Maybe since kindergarten?”
    “Kalani was one of the most talented ever surfer/skaters on earth,” surfing legend Kelly Slater wrote on his Instagram story, “constantly pushing the limits every time he was on his feet.”
    The 24-year-old also had Wolff-Parkinson-White Syndrome, a congenital heart condition where an extra electrical pathway can cause an abnormally—sometimes dangerously—rapid heartbeat. In some patients, it causes seizure which, while not always fatal, often involve a loss of consciousness, something particularly dangerous in the ocean.

    Maybe lucky to have gone off the deep end and miss the craziness coming soon

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Hahaha .. extra muscle on his heart burned off…

      Well NO. That is what they do when you have serious myocarditis… they have to remove the dead part of your heart because that causes the messed up heart beat and eventually die if you don’t remove it

      How do I know this – cuz me mate has Pfizer heart — they initially wanted to cut a hunk of his heart off — but decided there wasn’t enough damage to warrant that

      • Herbie Ficklestein. says:

        Calm down Brother, This had nothing to do the the Jab..
        Actually, the reporter wrote it incorrectly…it was really related to extra nerves to his heart …move on will ya?

  22. Karey says:

    Cheapest source of energy is efficiency. Domestic consumption can be reduced by up to 90% by passive house design. Retrofitting existing housing stock should be a priority.
    https://www.eclipsepassivehouse.com.au/

    • Just don’t use any materials that might break, such as glass. If glass in your passive house breaks, and none is available to fix it, you will need to find some cast off material to fix it with. It seems like the house will go downhill rapidly, if the world is truly short of fossil fuels. A leak in the roof may continue to leak, unless you can figure out a way to fix it.

      I hope that the house does not depend on 24/7/365 electricity. We can’t count on that any more. A house that is too tight is a problem, if it requires electricity to function, and that electricity is not available.

    • Tim Groves says:

      Ever since I was a teenager, I have heard about the of calls and initiatives and commitments to insulate Britain’s housing stock. And yet, here we are, half a century layer, with millions of poorly insulated homes in the UK. Even the Queen’s pile in Scotland, Balmoral Castle, is so cold and drafty that they had to have a wood fire going for HM when she met the new PM earlier this month.

      You wouldn’t catch the Swiss or the Scandinavians skimping on the insulation. On the whole, the British are incredibly complacent and impractical about how they go about keeping themselves warm in winter.

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Waste of resources.. we will all be dead soon

    • All is Dust says:

      It is these one shot comments that make a mockery of the problem. I am all for passiv haus, and have even looked into building my own. But the materials need to be extracted, fabricated, shipped, assembled and maintained. Certificates need to be signed, which means institutions need to be set up, staffed and travel to site to sign-off the testing and commissioning documents. People need to be trained to do this. And how much energy is consumed by heating homes in relation to the wider economy?

      Is the minimisation of the issue a coping mechanism?

      • Karey says:

        I’m not suggesting it is simple. But even when you take those things into account efficiency and smaller are more efficient, as has been known since 1970s. Housing construction lobby and energy producers and distributors have powerful and effective lobbies that have been working against action for 50 years.

  23. Fast Eddy says:

    Asked about a woman who died instantly after her “vaccination” in that very drug store, pharmacist replies, “We’re not commenting on that”

    Pharmacists all over the “democracies” today are like the lower SS men at Auschwitz, with “safe and effective” serving the same purpose as “Arbeit macht frei” (“Work will make you free”)

    https://markcrispinmiller.substack.com/p/asked-about-a-woman-who-died-instantly

    he blew his opportunity to parrot – ‘but the vaccines are saving more than they kill!’

  24. Kenny Starfighter says:

    It is not the producers of wind turbines that makes wind uneconomical. Offshore Wind giant Siemens Gamesa reports losses of 343 mio. Euro for Q3

    https://www.offshorewind.biz/2022/08/02/siemens-gamesa-sinks-further-into-red-takes-action-to-stabilize-business/

  25. Fast Eddy says:

    Oops.. forgot this:

    Importing ra.pists! https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/39481

    Covid is Done in Uganda – minimal vaccinations … norm? https://rumble.com/v1k2jiv-uganda-medical-officer-says-covid-is-essentially-over-w-very-low-levels-of-.html

  26. Fast Eddy says:

    Random curates:

    Oh come now … this is all orchestrated stuff… Desantis is playing the good guy https://rumble.com/v1k4gin-desantis-sends-plane-full-of-migrants-to-obama-oprah-and-company-in-marthas.html

    Claiming Long Covid hahaha — The doctor said: “Let’s face it, it’s human nature not to work if you don’t have to and there are a lot of people now, including many of my patients, who don’t see why they should work if they don’t have to. https://uncut.substack.com/p/benefits-office-advice-get-gps-to

    Lie after lie after lie https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/election-fraud-in-america-the-evidence

  27. Fast Eddy says:

    Standalone post:

    “They are noticing that they have an increasing number of patients who are having a hard time recovering from infections. Many of these are vaccinated people. This particular surgeon mentions that it starts to appear to him that these patients look as if there were immunocompromised.” Clip: https://rumble.com/v1jytxv–dr.-mikolaj-raszek-reviews-literature-from-japan-showing-evidence-of-vaids.html

    norm?

    I see NZ has 7x more people reporting off sick for work vs BC. Now what could be causing that… I wonder if injecting Dog Shit multiple times causes this VAIDS thing?

  28. Fast Eddy says:

    GVB is a bit peeved…

    So, with natural immunity you’d like to take us back to the pre-vaccine era when 2.5 million children died annually?

    https://voiceforscienceandsolidarity.substack.com/p/q-and-a-23-so-with-natural-immunity

    See The Silent Killers https://drkevinstillwagon.substack.com/

    See https://stevekirsch.substack.com/p/turtles-all-the-way-down-vaccine

    https://www.amazon.com/Turtles-All-Way-Down-Vaccine/dp/9655981045/ref=cm_cr_arp_d_pdt_img_top?ie=UTF8

    Anyone want to read this for us (no Audible and I forget how to read it’s been so long)… norm? Your chance… please summarize for OFW

    Notice the author is not named…

  29. JesseJames says:

    This discussion of German gas storage reserves has gotten me interested. Here are some data and calculations I have made.

    Annual German gas consumption 100 Mtoe (tons of oil energy equivalent)
    100 Mtoe=100Mtoe* 2000 pounds/ton of oil energy equivalent=200000 M pounds of oil energy equivalent
    200000 Mpounds/300 pounds/barrel =666M barrels of oil equivalent energy
    666M barrels of oil *6000 cubic feet of gas/barrel=4T cubic feet of gas=113,267,386,368 cubic meters of gas annually used by Germany
    This number correlates well to total EU annual gas use of 205 billion cubic meters, of which German use is about half.
    Germain winter gas usage is half of the total at 56.6 B cubic meters
    Assume average energy content of natural gas is 11.25 kWhr/cubic meter
    Then Germany uses 637.1 T Whrs of natural gas energy in winter.
    Uniper has 80TWhrs of gas storage capacity (not sure if this includes the one UK reservoir)
    Assume it is on average 90% full right now (September) 80TWhrs*0.83=72 TWhrs in storage
    There is always a buffer ( what Uniper calls “cushion” gas) as not all the gas can be extracted. Uniper does not give this percentage but it depends on the type of storage. In a depleted formation such as sandstone, it “might” be as high as 50%. Also, the gas embedded in the sandstone after initial recovery is unrecoverable.
    Therefore in conclusion, we can see that gas storage is not anywhere near what Germany needs in winter. Without Russian and other pipeline sources, and not counting LNG, they are about 550 TWhrs short.

    Looks like Germany has a serious problem. Are my numbers close to correct?

    I’m sure you-all can help check, adjust these numbers. Are there other storages in Germany other than Uniper?

    • Fast Eddy says:

      I hereby proclaim … Germany is F789ed.

      However it is Oktoberfest… the bier is cold (not like that British slop)… the frawlines are lifting their skirts offering a peak… the band goes oompapa oompapa… and the ambulances go Eee Awww Eeee Awww delivering their payloads of vax damaged MOREONS to krankenhaus

      Achtung Baby — Crack Boom is imminent.

      Hard to see this getting to 2030

    • These numbers sound about like the ones I have heard for storage. Basically, nowhere near enough.

      • Jane says:

        If anyone is interested in a detailed analysis of Gazprom’s business and EU energy politics, I recommend the following—if you can get it (maybe in some university libraries):
        https://www.amazon.com/Gazprom-Energy-Giant-Challenges-Europe/dp/1137461098

        it’s all there. Because I had read this book I already understood the folly of the EU’s introduction of “competitive pricing” for Russian gas. And a whole lot else as well.
        Such as the political gas games and musical pipelines and storage Ukraine played for years.
        (The Bidens do not show up among the other oligarchs discussed here.)

        • Jane says:

          PS. The storage system, its centrality to the operation of the whole system, and other technical issues are also very clearly explained, with diagrams.

          A continent-wide gas production and distribution system is, obviously, an extremely complex network. I would venture to say, at leaset as complex as an electricty grid, perhaps more so. The idea of reducing this finely tuned engineering miracle to the whims of spot market “players” is absurd.

          Comparable perhaps to subjecting a functioning electricity grid to the whims of the winds and waves and clouds.

        • I haven’t read the book, but the story generally reminds me of the Enron fiasco in the United States.

          It was in the early 1980’s, under the leadership of Ronald Reagan in the US and Margaret Thatcher in the UK, that the historical conservative approach to finance was stopped. Instead of carefully caring for infrastructure, the new approach encourage cost cutting and looking far and wide for bargains in “spare” electricity. It also included adding a lot of “leverage.” Something was certain to go badly wrong, sometime.

  30. Herbie Ficklestein says:

    We constantly read of vaxidents…We have a winner here folks!

    100-Year-Old Runner Holds 4 World Records — and He’s Still Lacing Up: ‘I’m Having the Best Time of My Life’
    Mike Fremont started running more than six decades ago after the death of his first wife, and it quickly became a vital part of his life
    By Julie Mazziotta Published on September 15, 2022 12:23 PM

    Mike Fremont steadily jogs along his favorite routes near his home in Cincinnati, Ohio, he “salutes” nearly everyone he passes. They know him well, because at age 100, Fremont has been running these same paths for decades

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    100-Year-Old Runner Holds 4 World Records — and He’s Still Lacing Up: ‘I’m Having the Best Time of My Life’
    Mike Fremont started running more than six decades ago after the death of his first wife, and it quickly became a vital part of his life
    By Julie Mazziotta Published on September 15, 2022 12:23 PM
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    100 YEAR OLD RUNNER: MIKE FREMONT
    Mike Fremont. PHOTO: MATTHEW ALLEN/MATTHEWALLENPHOTO
    As Mike Fremont steadily jogs along his favorite routes near his home in Cincinnati, Ohio, he “salutes” nearly everyone he passes. They know him well, because at age 100, Fremont has been running these same paths for decades.

    “They’re all accustomed to me,” he tells PEOPLE. “They say, ‘I’ve seen you here for 40 years!’ ”

    Fremont is something of a running celebrity, even outside of Cincinnati — he holds multiple single-age world running records in everything from the mile to the marathon — but he came to the sport later in his long life. Fremont only started running in his late 30s, after the sudden death of his first wife from a brain hemorrhage left him widowed with three kids, including a 2-week-old.
    “I was very stressed when my wife left me, and I needed to do something every day to take the stress off. So usually I’d take one of my little kids, and she would hold my little finger and we’d run,” he says. “I enjoyed it and I thought it was good for me. It was much better than the two martinis I used to have.”
    Inspired by being given a new lease on life, Fremont started signing up for races, anything from 10Ks to marathons. “I found that I wasn’t too bad at running. I didn’t weigh too much, and I was small. It helped,” says Fremont, who says he benefitted from a macrobiotic, vegan diet. “Then I began to win some races, and the pressure was on.”
    His wife of 29 years, Marilyn Wall, 69, proudly says “that’s when he started to make records for his age.”
    These days, Fremont says he has no plans to take down other world records. “I think I’m sensible enough not to try to run marathons at 100,” he says, before adding with a smile: “Why should I have anything to prove?”
    Instead, Fremont is simply enjoying his days with Wall and his family, including five grandchildren and four great-grandchildren. On his 100th birthday, on Feb. 23, they celebrated with a vegan cake and a run along the ocean in Vero Beach, Florida
    People Magazine

    How nice…see there is still.Happy News out there today! Enjoy the Day Today

    • Fred says:

      But is he up-to-date with his boosters?

      • Herbie Ficklestein. says:

        Not sure …tried to find out…but I did leave this part of his story out and the guy is a fighter..

        Fremont, who was diagnosed with colorectal cancer at the age of 69, and reportedly given three months to live, turned to a plant-based diet in an attempt to help shrink the cancer. According to Runner’s World, Fremont reckons he shrunk the tumour with his new diet, before having surgery in 1994 to remove what was left of it.

        “The tumor shrank over the next two years and finally I killed it by diet alone,” Fremont said, according to Runner’s World.

  31. Oddys says:

    Hi and thanks for another interesting post.

    Just some brief comments:

    Wind turbines for electricity can make some sense as complement for companies running hydroelectric or gas turbines. As long as the wind is blowing it can save some water or gas for later use, but still keep the grid stable with quick regulation when the wind stops blowing.

    If the “alternatives” had been so viable they would not need any subsidies. They would just take off. Like the steam engines for ships and railroads took off by themselves. Or like Col Drakes Rock Oil took off when the whale oil petered out.

    • I agree with you. Anything that is financially viable won’t need subsidies. In fact, if it is really a good idea, it will indirectly add so much profit that the company can pay considerably more taxes.

      • Jane says:

        Surely governments have provided infrastructure that many industries needed to thrive. I believe the nation or public purse maintains all of the coastal navigation aids that shippers need. And govts have also destroyed infrastructure in order to play god with the economy (e.g. destroying municipal transportation systems to favor the automobile). There woujld be no national trucking industry without the Interstate highway grid. Etc.

        I think it is reasonable to subsidize something worthwhile, for a while—prime the pump. But not something that will never pay its way, and will continue to require constant subsidies just to stay afloat. Meanwhile “subsidies qua ‘profits’ ” are channeled offshore.

  32. Mirror on the wall says:

    RE: Russia partial mobilisation

    We should not get hysterical or panic over this. WWIII is not about to start.

    Russia has done what it inevitably would at this point of the conflict, and it was obviously long planned and indeed expected. Up until now Russia has provided artillery, air, logistical &c. support to the Donbass militias, much as the West used Kurds in Iraq, rather than employing its own ground troops. Russia is now preparing to go beyond that stage of the conflict, which is largely over.

    The intention is clearly, and as they have stated, to reinforce the security of the four regions that are about to hold referenda on incorporation into Russia: the Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson regions, basically the south and east of UKR that Russia already occupies most of, and which will present a new 1000 km border for Russia to protect.

    So the conflict is moving on. Russia is doing a partial mobilisation of its military personnel, about 1.2% of its army or 300,000 out of 25 million trained soldiers. That should be kept in perspective, it is a relatively small mobilisation to shore up the new regions of Russia. Lugansk, Donetsk, Zaporozhie and Kherson will all need to be administered and protected.

    Most of the mobilised personnel will never see UKR forces even in binoculars. They will be drivers, suppliers, engineers and administrators of the new regions. They will be employed to administrate and to protect the new borders. That is exactly what everyone expected Russia to do at this point of the conflict as it incorporates the regions into itself.

    So, we should not panic about WWIII is about to happen or even that there is about to be a massive escalation in UKR. Russia’s objectives remain as they were at the outset, to take control of the Russian speaking areas in the east and south of UKR. The mobilisation will take months to prepare and to execute, so this is about Russia’s long-standing strategy in those regions, and the conflict moving on to the next stage, its not about a major escalation.

    Don’t panic!

    • banned says:

      Its not panic to look at reality. The time for panic is long over for most readers of this blog.

      No one can say nuclear war will happen. No one can say nuclear war will not happen. An incredible amount of resources have been expended making nuclear war possible.

      Putin has never made a speech like this. Look at his body language. The man is scared. It was a speech of a outlaw with no way back. The unforgiven.

      Now throw the worlds economic conditions and resource depletion in the mix. The events of the virus and injections. Tell me the possibility of world war 3 is non existent with truth in your heart. You cant. Shit is getting real. If you cant hear that in Putins speech than you dont want to.

      • Tim Groves says:

        If Putin is scared—and I can’t tell as I don’t understand Russian language or Russian body language very well—I would rate that as a positive element. We are living in scary times, and the fact that none of the Western “leaders” looks remotely scared or has an iota of leadership ability should scare us all the more. Putin has gravitas and is a bit of a cold fish and a good poker player. The world is relying on him to play the role of principal responsible adult in the room because there is nobody in office the West remotely capable of carrying off that role.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        Or he’s just playing his role…

        How has russia not completely destroyed ukraine by now? Oh right — that’s not part of the script…

        The war must go on .. or there is no excuse for raging inflation … and winter is coming.

    • gpdawson2016 says:

      It’s never a good idea to panic but WWIII is upon us. It has crept up so slowly we hardly noticed. Shoigu has said ‘Russia is at war with the collective West’…. that’d be WWIII.

      Besides, this is OFW … this is the place where we come to discuss Finite World Matters and war has everything to do with that. As far as NATO is concerned the ransacking of Russia will give it the resources it badly needs. And, if you’re like my friend who never ‘got’ the Energy Cliff(we’ve all got the same friend) you’ll cry out at this point “why can’t they just purchase these resources?!”… the answer is: they can do so only while they have trust. NATO must now steal what they once could simply buy.

      • Fred says:

        NATO is incapable of doing anything useful vs Russia, as they’ve handily demilitarised themselves by giving a large chunk of their weapons inventories to Ukraine, where the Russians promptly blow them up.

        They don’t have the industrial base or energy supplies needed to build enough new weapons in the timeframe needed. Neither does the US really.

        US weapons are designed to enrich the MIC and politicians, not be effective on the battlefield. Read about the F35.

    • MM says:

      I do not panic.
      It took the USA 45 years of cold war and another 40 years to finally get Russia to mobilize it’s military. Just about time my US weaklings.

  33. Pingback: Wind, solar will not provide enough energy in winter | Dagny's Desk

  34. Herbie Ficklestein. says:

    Another winner of the Fast Eddie Challenge

    Faustino Barrientos has lived alone in the wilderness for over 40 years. He’s now in his 80’s and still lives off his land without any help. He has very few modern amenities and lives 25 miles away from the nearest small town. The thought of living in total isolation is scary to many of us, but Barrientos wants to live like this for the rest of his life. This 4 part documentary was incredible and humbling to watch.
    From YouTube:
    “Since 1965, Faustino Barrientos has lived alone on the shores lake O’Higgins’ in a house built from the remains of a shipwrecked fishing vessel. He’s a pastoralist, living mostly off the land and his livestock, with few modern amenities. His nearest neighbors are in Villa O’Higgins, a small community of several hundred people, 25 miles away, accessible only by a two-day horseback ride through rugged mountain animal paths. Every few years, Faustino makes this ride to sell his cattle in town.
    Currently 81 years old, Faustino is reaching the end of his life, and his self-imposed isolation is being encroached upon by the forces of government, economy, and tourism. In December 2011, VICE went to document his lifestyle and speak with him about the changing face of Patagonia and the gaucho lifestyle.

  35. Herbie Ficklestein. says:

    The Hermit of Treig Ken Smith finds sustenance in nature

    For almost 40 years Ken Smith has shunned conventional life and lived without electricity or running water in a hand-made log cabin on the banks of a remote loch in the Scottish Highlands.

    “It’s a nice life,” says Ken. “Everybody wishes they could do it but nobody ever does.”

    Not everyone would agree that Ken’s isolated, reclusive lifestyle of foraging and fishing as well as collecting firewood and washing his clothes in an old bath outdoors is the ideal. And even less so at the age of 74.

    His log cabin is a two-hour walk from the nearest road on the edge of Rannoch Moor, by Loch Treig.

    “It’s known as the lonely loch,” he says. “There’s no road here but they used to live here before they built the dam.”

    Looking down on the loch from hillside, he says: “All their ruins are down there. The score now is one and that’s me.”

    Filmmaker Lizzie McKenzie first made contact with Ken nine years ago and over the past two years she has filmed him for the BBC Scotland documentary The Hermit of Treig.

    Fast Eddie Challenge

    • Fast Eddy says:

      You wanna bet he buys stuff ‘in town’

      There’s a guy in Fiordland — far more remote than this … he’s always ‘gone to town’ to buy stuff… he sells artwork so has more cash — he uses that to have a chopper bring in the stuff every few months.

      But nice effort — FE Lite… how far is the nearest pond? Ouch!

      https://www.cyberphysics.co.uk/graphics/diagrams/energy/nuclearMap.png

      • Herbie Ficklestein. says:

        Maybe so, but maybe not…either case these are real hard core survivors…
        Suppose having matches and tea makes them living in BAU…sarcasm

        • Fast Eddy says:

          it does . actually.

          No matches no fire.

          Lots of spend fuel ponds … thousands of them … let’s make believe they don’t exist shall we…

          For me that was the deal breaker… I researched the living daylights out of that … and was left with an unescapable conclusion — nobody survives… so f789 prepping… and I was having my doubts before I became aware of the SFPs.

          I don’t do pointless drudgery. It ain’t Little House on the Prairie

  36. Michael Le Merchant says:
    • German DAX is its blue chip stock index, which is down recently.

      Business confidence is way down in Germany, similar to the 2018 level. That is probably a better indicator.

  37. Michael Le Merchant says:

    Twitter thread with Video clips:

    CEO Larry Fink, Unilever CEO Alan Jope and one of the UN’s ESG Czars Damilola Ogunbiyi just spoke on an ESG panel, led by Bill Clinton, at the Clinton Global Initiative’s September meeting.
    https://twitter.com/WillHild/status/1572298056720080896

    • Some of the captions:

      Bill Clinton praises @BlackRock CEO Larry Fink for being one of the main drivers of the ESG agenda.

      Former President Bill Clinton and @BlackRock CEO Larry Fink label anyone that opposes ESG as “climate change deniers.”

      Clinton: “Talk to audience about equitable access to clean energy…”

      UN ESG Czar: “When we think about a just and equitable energy transition, we can’t think of one half of the world and leave out the developing countries…”

      • Artleads says:

        Aren’t developing countries mostly in the equatorial zone? And don’t they do pretty well at improvising? Also we should be cautioned by the havoc the latest hurricane caused to Puerto Rico’s solar roofs.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        Men involved in building the Matrix… they all know that renewable energy is bullshit…

        They know Germany has completely failed.

        They know there are nowhere near enough resources to make any of this happen

  38. Sam says:

    What will happen to natural gas prices? My energy provider said only a small increase in price $15 for the average customer. If the US is sending its natural gas to Europe I don’t see how that is possible. Does anybody else have any Intel on this?

    • I can think of several ways that a low estimate can be provided:

      (1) Figure out the annualized increase in costs, and divide it by 12. Nearly all natural gas is purchased in the winter months, so the increase in costs will be a lot higher in the winter months.

      (2) Low ball the natural gas price increase. Or figure that the country will go into recession, so it can’t possibly increase very much. Or figure that the rising exports really can’t go through.

      (3) A large portion of natural gas costs are fixed costs, related to delivery and billing. Thus, there may be a large percentage increase, but only on perhaps half of your annual bill.

      (4) Who is the “average customer”? Do they have a very small house or apartment that they are heating?

      • I should add that the EIA is producing low estimates of future prices. Also, these low prices were even lower in previous months. This no doubt influences the $15 per month estimate of the increase in the average price.

  39. banned says:

    Thank you for the new article Gail. There are ways to heat with solar in the winter using soil as thermal mass. Thermal mass can be regarded as a battery of sorts. It stores heat. Soil is a poor insulator but holds a lot of thermal energy. They do not provide the comfort of conventional construction and combustion to provide climate control. Soil doesnt place itself it takes energy also. The problematic time for a thermal mass building can be Febuary and march. Losses of summer heat from the insulated thermal mass and now the structure is not comfortable. If combustion is utilized to heat the thermal mass now works against comfort sucking up the heat of the combustion. Wood heat with its massive BTU dump works well with thermal mass evening out the dump of heat. There is only one reason to place thermal mass in a building, to utilize the enormous power of the sun. Thermal mass must be topped off constantly refilled eithor with passive or energy transfer , usually a collector hot water arraignment. Too much thermal mass relative to the solar inputs works against modern comfort standards but its better than outside. Without decent insulation levels thermal mass is not beneficial in cold climates. In warm climates very livable buildings can be created out of soil alone.

    In my youth I fought wildfires. I remember mopping up, extinguishing the last ignition sources of fire, and seeing earth still steaming months after the fire.

    Soil doesnt move itself.

    In many cases a very small structure with high levels of insulation is more practical than elaborate and heavy structures trying to store summer heat.

    If we had built with a eye to the energy future we would be it a better situation. Instead we built to the world of infinite energy a world that has no limits a world that is a delusion. Our building practices focused on cost and our desires. Is it too late? I dont know but I think yes.

    I dont see how anyone builds now that cheap materials from China, have evaporated as a function of energy depletion. There is no scrounging. there are no materials being liquidated cheap in yard sales. IMO its over. From a conventional building perspective some materials have tripled and interest rates have risen both working together to deny the ability to buy homes. Even prior to the current environment builder struggled. How can you bid when you dont know the availability and cost of materials. New houses are sitting vacant. They are a bargain by the function of the value of the materials in them but if people cant get hold of the money to buy and are uncertain about the future they dont buy. Who would commit to being sure they will have income for thirty years in one geographical location in these times? Single family starts plummet. Multi family units skyrocketing as those with equity try to tap income.

    On a different note Putins address to Russia today reflected that we are headed down a path of nuclear annihilation. He abandoned all of his characteristic statesmanship. He accused the west of terrorism. He mobilized the military. He directly referenced nuclear weapon use as a possibility. “I am not bluffing”. World war and soon.

    Once the referendums are held in the Donbass assuming the vote goes to join Russia, Russia regards any attack on the Donbass as a attack on Russian territory. Any country that participates in a attack on the Russian territory is considered a terrorist state by Russia. The referendums end any proxy status in the Ukraine conflict in Russias eyes.

    Putin mentioned the wests satellites. All of the weapons guidance and intel is possible because of them. My guess is thats where it starts. The referendums are in the next couple of days. At the end of the week we are in a new situation one that is far far far more dangerous than before. My guess is the satellites get destroyed soon. Russia developed the S500 and S550 with satellite kills as one of its primary functions.

    Thats war folks.
    We are truly a stupid species.

    https://www.bitchute.com/video/EAHebKz6HX1j/

    • I am sure that heating with thermal mass works better in some places than others. I know that around here, bedrock is very close to the surface. It is hard to find a place to dig to put in a pant of any kind. People who want swimming pools need to blast or use above-ground pools. I doubt it would be a good choice here.

      I know that there are substantial upfront costs in putting in the pipelines. I would suppose that central water supply is necessary to use in the pipes doing the heat transfer. I don’t know what the electricity requirements are, or how a person adjusts the system for more or less heat at different times of day or year. If these systems were inexpensive and flexible, I imagine that they would have been used years ago.

      Something that has some similarities is cogeneration. It has historically been used in China, Sweden and a few other places. In China, this involves placing the coal-fired power plant in the middle of the city (where it is convenient for workers) and running pipes carrying excess heat to homes and businesses. The heat that is delivered is constant heat, whether needed or not, for a set period, such as October 15 to March 15. If heat is needed before or after that date, a person simply needs to dress warmly. If too much heat is provided, windows can be opened. A major disadvantage is the pollution caused by the electricity plants in the middle of the city. Of course, this heat is incredibly inexpensive. Electricity from an air-source heat pump costs a whole lot more.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        I am looking out my window at an empty paddock that is about one acre in size… we don’t graze animals on it.. it’s pretty much useless..

        What if.. what if… I was to pour thousands of tonnes of concrete say half a metre deep covering the entire paddock… paint it black .. and create the mother of all heat sinks… then run a thermal convection pipe using water … to our house… hook that up to the radiators… and turn off the Rayburn. No more coal.

        Thoughts?

        • nikoB says:

          A sheep will keep you warmer.

          When i asked the NZ farmer if was going to be shearing his sheep he said “no way, I ain’t sh(e)aring that sheep with nobody.” (said in NZ accent). 😉

      • Fred says:

        Some eco homes have a large concrete interior wall that catches the sun in winter and releases the captured heat.

        Some of my neighbours have newer homes with thermal glass and you really notice the difference.

        You can’t beat a good woodburner though when you’ve got a gazillion trees close by.

    • Sorry. I didn’t read your comment very well before I responded before. You do make quite a few good points.

      Using thermal mass for heating is fairly different from using a ground source heat pump, which is what I was originally confused about. Thermal mass is a low tech approach that reasonably works, especially if a person isn’t too fussy about the heat level, and the climate isn’t too cold.

      The situation with Russia gets increasingly worrisome. You do not want to “injure” a country that is in as bad shape as Russia, but which has nuclear weapons. Russia desperately needs long-term quite high natural gas prices to get its supposed reserves out. Russia’s oil reserves are likely close to exhausted. They need high prices to keep production from dropping too precipitously. Russia may also need technical help. Russia doesn’t have much to lose, using nuclear weapons. It seems to be close to in a suicide situation.

      • Fred says:

        In the long term we’re all dead, but I wager Russia will last a fair bit longer than the West.

        Societally they’re in much better shape and have a cultural and moral coherence that the West has lost.

        • Fast Eddy says:

          I dunno about that .. Russia has lots and lots of spent fuel ponds… I reckon southern hemi people will last the longest… it will take awhile for the toxins to waft down this way…

          Of course let’s not forget Mareks killed all the chickens within a week…

          I doubt there will be anyone left alive once the Bossche Mutation hits… no one to worry about the ponds

          Isn’t it obvious what they are trying to do? They are summonsing the Devil himself

      • MM says:

        Do not forget the arctic as a topic.
        Unfortunately the fossil fuel estimates in the arctic are not much different from an unicorn but even the smell of huge profits can move mountains.

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Of course any species that uses finite resources to prevent die-back… resulting in 8B .. is beyond stooopid…

      On a different note Putins address to Russia today reflected that we are headed down a path of nuclear annihilation. He abandoned all of his characteristic statesmanship. He accused the west of terrorism. He mobilized the military. He directly referenced nuclear weapon use as a possibility. “I am not bluffing”. World war and soon.

      I hope this is real… I never experienced an all out nuclear war… I bet it would be incredibly exciting!

      I have not written this into UEP yet… it could be called The Coup de Grace.

      Kinda like Mike Tyson beating Pee Wee Herman to a pulp … then smashing his head in with a 100kg boulder hahahahahahahahaahhaaha

    • MM says:

      Guys, you need to come to grips with the fact that fossil fuel depletion is a global problem not a US or Russia problem.
      Of course it looks like there is a war going on. It also seems like people are dying.
      But people dying has never ever been a problem for business!
      Digging holes makes you rich, isn’t it?

      The show we are in is global. It is designed to herd you into the barn for slaughter. It does not consider any laws or nations.

      The epoch of facts is over.
      We are in the epoch of behavioral science. We move hearts!

      The Internet finally made it all possible, hm Fast?

  40. Tim says:

    Gail, you may want to review your solar/battery analysis. Tony Seba has an interesting solution based on massive deployment of solar and batteries. I have installed solar w battery several years ago, powers the house and an EV. So far, so good.
    https://tonyseba.com/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/RethinkingEnergy2020-2030-LRR.pdf

    • I notice that this was written in October 2020. This was when fuel prices were very low. It was before costs of many things, like solar panels, had started to shoot up. The materials don’t seem to be available for doing the may things that the author of the article suggests.

      Also, at a minimum, the world economy would need to be working together well, keeping international trade going.

    • JesseJames says:

      Tim, I am sure you are still on the grid. Please document your solar capacity, production, and battery capacity.

    • nikoB says:

      I am sure Tim that in your calculations you are putting aside all that spare energy the cover the energy costs of maintenance, full replacement of the system and its disposal so that no FF will be used to keep your system going and replaced eventually.

    • Fred says:

      I’ve got solar and batteries too, but I have no illusions about it being a societal/grid level solution to keep our current lifestyle going. Just doesn’t scale and it needs a FF based economy to support it.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        I’ve got coal… Although I did mix in a lot of gum wood this winter so my coal use went down hugely …

        I feel a bit despondent about my failure to put more filthy black smoke into the air

  41. CTG says:

    Germany To Nationalize Struggling Uniper In Deepening Energy Crisis

    https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/germany-nationalize-struggling-uniper-deepening-energy-crisis

    The comments section is ok. Interesting comments like nationalising means it has collapsed…

    • “Uniper is Germany’s largest importer of Russian NatGas.” This is why it is running into problems. No wonder it needs a bailout.

      I recently heard that Luxembourg is both an importer and exporter of natural gas. It also imports and exports other fossil fuels. I understand it makes its money by charging lower tax rates than other countries, so it can change somewhat lower prices than other importers. It still seems to me that it could be running into somewhat the same problems as Uniper.

      Maybe a reader knows more about the situation than I do. With countries trying to cap prices to customers, the situation for Luxembourg will suddenly be very different.

      • Fred says:

        The way the EU is committing energetic/economic suicide is incredible to watch and I don’t think has any historical parallel. A real get out the popcorn moment.

        Having cut off their gas supplies from Russia, it looks like they’re going to cut off their oil supply next. The Germans have just nationalised the Schwedt refinery that runs off Russian Urals oil delivered via pipeline. Schwedt is absolutely key to fuel supplies for Germany and northern Europe. ‘Nationalised’ means that they’ve stolen the ~30% stake that Rosneft had in it.

        The whole refinery is built to use Urals oil, so even if Germany can find different oil somewhere else, the refinery is going to need significant mods to use it. Plus there’s a ton of of transport issues with getting that oil to Schwedt vs the pipeline.

        Good article here: https://thesaker.is/natos-green-masochistic-euthanasia/

        Even JMG is coming around to suggesting the downturn/collapse will be faster and harder than he predicted based on the suicidal policies in play.

  42. JesseJames says:

    I would think a good, green, left-wing government would simply dismantle the archaic refineries. After all they are part of the evil polluting FF industry. Perhaps this is their plan. First demonstrate that it is so costly to modify and operate them on different and less constant oil blends, then have justification to tear them down.
    Perhaps they could make a nice park there.

    • Perhaps someone would figure out that their vehicle really needs oil and stop the plan. Don’t share your idea too widely; some crazy green government will come up with the idea.

  43. the blame-e says:

    “It seems to me that supporting air conditioning is a rather frivolous use for what seems to be a dwindling quantity of available energy supply.”

    That is easy for a woman to say. The “fairer sex” handles the heat much better than the cold.

    • I will admit that I am usually a person who needs to wear a sweater or jacket in office buildings and restaurants. Meeting rooms at conferences tend to be way too cold. When men set the air conditioning temperatures, they tend to set the temperature way too low for me. High humidity, even at low temperatures, seems to bother men more than they do me.

    • Daddio7 says:

      Obviously your wife is not overweight and going through menopause. I had to get my wife a refrigerated bed chiller so she could sleep without bursting into flames.

    • Fast Eddy says:

      I reckon they need to ban:

      roller coasters
      ski lifts
      ice rinks
      flying except for essential trips
      driving except for essential trips
      restaurants
      bingo halls
      disco music

      The list is endless… in fact maybe we should turn this around the other way and try to work out what should be allowed…

  44. neil says:

    I think an interesting story to tell is that humanity appears to be taking technological leaps backwards as far as energy is concerned. If you consider splitting the atom in the 1940’s as the technological peak, we have now taken two giant steps backwards, from nuclear, back to fossil fuels, back to firewood. Many European countries are encouraging foraging for firewood. We are in 2022 and but appear to be reverting back to 1722…

    • Nice article. Following the link through, I get to this link:
      https://www.naturalgasintel.com/eia-raises-2023-henry-hub-natural-gas-price-forecast-after-august-gains/

      It says:

      “Natural gas spot prices at Henry Hub will average roughly $9/MMBtu during the fourth quarter before retreating to around $6 on average in 2023 amid rising domestic production, according to the latest projections from the Energy Information Administration (EIA).”

      It also says:

      “In last month’s STEO, EIA modeled Henry Hub averages of $7.54 for the back half of 2022 and $5.10 for 2023.”

      Another thing it says is

      ” EIA expects U.S. dry gas production to average 99.0 Bcf/d in the fourth quarter, up from 94.6 Bcf/d in 1Q2022. Output will then climb to 100.4 Bcf/d in 2023, the latest STEO data show.”

      Wow!

      This recent “Today in Energy” shows some charts.
      https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=53859

      I think that the forecast growth in natural gas production is optimistic. Drilling rising considerably since 2020, but production has increased far less. Recently, drilling rigs have leveled off.

  45. hillcountry says:

    Nice article Gail.

    Here’s an angle not getting much play.

    Large electric transformers are inconvenient machines. They are large and heavy, which means they usually need to be delivered by sea freight, not air freight, which would be faster. They must be designed by specially trained engineers and assembled by experienced technicians. They require expensive and often rare materials, like copper, specifically milled steel, high-cellulose paper and other hard to come by components. They have extremely exacting technical specifications, which limits production and keeps new producers out of the market. They must be built to exacting standards for safety and reliability, which requires extensive testing and often customized manufacture.

    As inconvenient as large transformers are, the power grid as we know it could not function without them, or even without enough of them. According to the Energy Department’s Office of Electricity, over 90 percent of the electricity consumed in the U.S. passes through a large power transformer.

    Before a pandemic sent shudders through global supply chains, the U.S. was 82% reliant upon imports to meet its need for large transformers, according to a 2020 study by the Commerce Department. The U.S. power grid’s increasingly talked-about issue with aging equipment also extends to transformers. The average age of installed large transformers in the U.S. is about 40 years, which is at the end of their expected operational life. Older transformers are more likely to fail and need replacement, but a look at these statistics is enough to show that the U.S. was already sitting in a risky spot before supply chains became a common topic in the mainstream.

    Today, people in the industry are reporting longer lead times to get needed equipment, including transformers. Jim Templeton, a third-party consultant to POWER Engineers with 40-plus years in the industry and his own consulting firm, JB Templeton Consulting LLC, said an aging power grid and ongoing supply chain issues are mixing in disruptive ways.

    “I deal with a number of different clients on the utility side and about a year ago we started to see lead times from transformer manufacturers creep up. Before the pandemic, you could get a large transformer ordered in less than a year. Today that is rare. A relatively large manufacturer in the US was at about 38 months. That used to be 38 weeks if you were to compare,” Templeton said.

    https://www.tdworld.com/utility-business/article/21243198/transformative-times-update-on-the-us-transformer-supply-chain

    • Thanks for reporting on this. I was somewhat aware of the issue, but it was one of many topics that I could not discuss in this post. Back in the day of utility pricing, people would be thinking about replacing these huge transformers on a regular basis. Once funding was scarce, the popular view became, “Let’s wait to fix them until they wear out.” Of course, many of them were installed about the same time, when resources of all kinds (copper, oil, etc.) required less fossil fuel to extract. No one thought about the problem of not having enough factories, worldwide, to provide a huge number of new transformers, close to simultaneously. Of course, the transformers use some of the same materials we need for a whole lot of other things. Also, supply lines need to be working, worldwide. Lack of large transformers is another thing that could go wrong.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        As young teens me and me mates using to go to this depot for a mining site and … snatch their copper cable… drag it into the bush … burn off the rubber (at night to hide the black smoke) then rip off the aluminum covering … then selling the wire … it was a nice little business we had going there… never got caught – not even once.

        Anyhow one time they had parked these big transformers at the depot .. we went in there with wrenches like thieving cock roaches… and stripped off the brass fittings… then all this stuff started to leak out … OMG what have we done… then we read the sticker ‘Warning Toxic – PCB’

        I always thought I might get some kinda cancer from that … but nope … nuthin.

        Probably just a fake sticker to stop cockroaches from stealing the fittings

        With hind sight… we could have made a LOT more $$$$ if we had found a dodgy electrician to buy the intact cable… live and learn…

    • Agamemnon says:

      It seems a cme coronal mass ejection is more likely when the magnetosphere is weak. I keep reading that electromagnetic pulse could wreak havoc on the grid. If this is true then CEP, peak oil, climate cooling won’t matter one bit.
      Replacing these transformers will be near impossible.

      https://www.livescience.com/46694-magnetic-field-weakens.html

    • Fred says:

      I’ve read that there are less than 5 v.large transformers that are critical to the US grid. Take those out and the grid collapses.

      I wonder if any US adversaries are aware of that?

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Ya well Russia don’t need none of these – they got plenty of fossil fuels already

  46. Fast Eddy says:

    Good Iran watchin.. kill the pig smash his face do him in … cop beaten

    Doomies – this is what happens (worse) when the mob demands food and you say sorry not enough

    https://t.me/TommyRobinsonNews/39787

  47. Dave says:

    Summary here of Simon Michaux’s work (Finnish Geological Survey) on resource limitations:
    https://mcusercontent.com/72459de8ffe7657f347608c49/files/be87ecb0-46b0-9c31-886a-6202ba5a9b63/Assessment_to_phase_out_fossil_fuels_Summary.pdf

    Awareness of it is spreading extremely slowly.

    Here in the UK, the policy of near-total electrification seems to have been proposed around 2008 by Prof. David MacKay and was enthusiastically taken on board by the then Energy Minister Ed Miliband, a politician but I think a relatively honourable one. Presumably once spread around Whitehall, it became embedded in the establishment.

    Slightly different talk here by Yanis Varoufakis, who shows that European electricity consumers are being robbed to line the pockets of the oligarchs. Seems to be ‘the scam of the century’ but very well-disguised by the EU Commission which seems to be clearly in the hands of the crooks:

    https://youtu.be/NicE0-N9ux0

    It’s as if the EU has in 30 years reached the state of degeneracy and corruption which took the USA 200-250 years. Sadly, the EU Commission seems like the Executive Branch without much of a Congress or Senate to veto it and hold it in check. I used to support the EU but I now think the UK is better off out.

    • Thanks for commenting. Yes, Simon Michaux does good work.

      The EU has known for a long time about the problem of not enough energy. The “Club of Rome,” which funded the 1972 analysis “The Limits to Growth” by Donella Meadows et al., was a European group of individuals. In recent years, however, they have been pushing wind and solar.

      • MG says:

        Karel Hirman, an energy analyst and the actual minister of economy of Slovakia said that thanks to the green energy this summer was not do bad in Europe with droughts that negatively affected the electricity production from hydro and nuclear:

        https://ne-np.facebook.com/hoaxPZ/photos/a.317666309061243/1276318093196055/?type=3

        Based on this, we can say that adding the renewables like wind and solar has some positive effects in increasing resilience when the traditional energy sources fail. The costs are high, but when nuclear or natural gas become intermittent, their intermittency can be reduced by intermittent wind and solar.

        Combining intermittent energy sources can provide some reliability in energy supply. Of course, only to some extent.

        • MG says:

          It was this breach of diversification, which brought the current problems of the EU: several states accepted natural gas supplies from Russia as their primary and even only source because of the low price.

          But this low priced natural gas stopped to be reliable, as Russia wants more benefits in exchange for it, like accepting its aggression towards neighbours.

          The intermittency must be combined with the diversification, as there is no one sole reliable energy source anymore.

          • Fred says:

            “accepting its aggression towards neighbours” ??

            After the West-sponsored coup in Ukraine in 2014, the installed puppet Government started killing it’s own citizens for the crime of having a Russian ethnic background. The Donbass populace said no thanks and effectively seceded.

            The Ukrainians favourite tactic was to shell schools, hospitals and public gatherings. The body count was over 14,000 civilians pre-SMO.

            Russia launched the SMO after Ukraine had amassed an army of ~150,000 in the Donbass and increased its shelling by >10x in the immediate lead up.

            The Russians rushed through the recognition of DPR and LPR and started the SMO because the Ukrainians were about to invade.

        • Perhaps, if the grid will even operate this way.

      • Fred says:

        Anyone with a basic comprehension of physics can see wind and solar can’t replace FF.

        The killer question is whether the whole green energy thing is a knowing scam whilst they work out how to depopulate?

        You watch EU leaders, zombie Joe etc to their deluded moron thang and wonder are they really that stupid, or are they great actors?

        • Fast Eddy says:

          Anyone with a basic comprehension of physics can see depopulation would result in the collapse of civilization and lead to the extinction of humans.

      • Fast Eddy says:

        You’d have to be Mentally Ill to believe solar and wind will replace fossil fuels …

    • Fast Eddy says:

      Are you suggesting that the PTB should have accelerated the transition to ‘renewable energy’?

Comments are closed.