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In the US, companies that want to build liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminals need to get advance approval for their plans from the US Department of Energy. There was a recent news item saying, “Biden pauses LNG export approvals under pressure from climate activists.” After looking into the situation, I 100% agree with Biden’s decision. There is no sense in the US adding more approvals for added LNG capacity at this time. This is the case, completely apart from climate considerations.
When looking into the situation, I found that the US already has a huge amount of LNG export capacity approved but not yet under construction. The likely roadblock is the need for debt financing. One obstacle is the need to find investors willing to make very long commitments–as long as 25 years, considering the time to build the LNG plants, plus the time that they are expected to be in operation. Issues that could be expected to get in the way of long-term investment would include:
- Today’s relatively high interest rates.
- Today’s low US natural gas prices (Henry Hub natural gas price is currently $1.64 per million Btus, a near-record low), discouraging investment in natural gas extraction.
- The possibility that US oil and natural gas extraction from shale formations will reach limits within the next 25 years.
- The possibility that overseas buyers will not be able to afford exported LNG at the prices needed to make extraction profitable. For example, a selling price of $25 per million Btus would probably greatly reduce the quantity of LNG that could be sold in the EU.
- The possibility of construction delays caused by broken supply lines.
- The possibility of fires causing significant down-time in operating facilities.
- Even if natural gas is available for export, and even if LNG export facilities are built, there is the possibility that the rest of the system, including specialized LNG transport ships, may not be available in sufficient quantities.
In this post, I will try to give some background on this issue.
[1] Many people seem to believe that the US can easily ramp up natural gas production for export if it chooses to do so.
There seems to be a common belief that the US has an almost unlimited supply of oil. Natural gas is produced together with oil, so a corollary to the high supply of oil is that the US has an almost unlimited supply of natural gas.
At the same time, there are many parts of the world with an inadequate supply of natural gas. Many of these countries are trying to add wind and solar power generation. Natural gas is very helpful for balancing wind and solar because electricity production from natural gas can be ramped up and down very quickly, filling in when intermittent sources of supply are not available.
The European Union (EU) is one area that has very inadequate natural gas supply (Figure 1). The EU is also known for its use of wind and solar power, so it needs natural gas for its balancing ability.
If it is true that the US has a huge supply of US natural gas, all that would seem to be needed to solve the EU’s wind and solar balancing problem is for the US to export natural gas to the EU.
The modern way of exporting natural gas seems to be as LNG, transported by specialized ships at a very low temperature (about – 260°F (-161.5°C)). It appears that all that the US needs to do is to ramp up its natural gas production, and with it, its LNG export infrastructure.
[2] Natural gas prices vary widely around the world. US prices are much lower than elsewhere. These differences would also seem to support building more LNG export facilities.
Figure 2 shows that US natural gas prices are much lower than elsewhere. This has especially been the case since 2008 when the shale boom began, making it look as if the US can easily export natural gas if it likes. Even with the cost of shipping included, it looks as if consumers in the EU and Japan might find US LNG attractive in price.
[3] Natural gas tends to be cheap to extract but getting it to the customer and storing it until the right time of year is an expensive headache.
Natural gas is a fuel that is disproportionately used in winter to heat homes and businesses. This heat can be provided by burning the natural gas directly, or it can be provided by first burning the natural gas to produce electricity, and then using a device, such as a heat pump, to provide heat.
If natural gas can be utilized close to where it is extracted, there tends to be a huge cost advantage over long-distance transport. Clearly, one reason is that utilization near the point of extraction reduces transit costs. Also, empty gas caverns that can be used for storage are often available near the point of extraction. This storage approach is much less expensive than building specialized tanks for storage. These cost advantages are one reason why US natural gas prices shown on Figure 2 are much lower than those in the EU and Japan.
[4] Low natural gas prices in the US are now well “baked into the system.”
With natural gas prices remaining low for around the past 16 years, individuals and businesses have adjusted their consumption patterns based on the assumption that an abundant supply of inexpensive natural gas will be available permanently. US natural gas production has approximately doubled since its low point in 2005, and consumption has almost kept up.
Many changes have taken place since gas prices fell. The US electrical system has significantly reduced its reliance on coal and instead increased its utilization of natural gas. People have built oversized homes based on the assumption that cheap natural gas will be available to heat them. Businesses have built factories in the US under the assumption that electricity costs of the US will continue to be low compared to those in Europe, Japan, and many other parts of the world, indirectly because of the US’s inexpensive supply of natural gas.
These low electricity and natural gas prices give the US a competitive advantage in making goods for export. With the shift away from coal for electricity production, the US can now say that it has reduced the carbon intensity of its electricity. Politicians like the competitive advantage for the US as well as the lower carbon intensity. Few of them would vote to go back to earlier ways, even if it was possible to do so.
[5] Natural gas tends to be utilized close to where it is produced. The early form of natural gas export was by pipeline. In recent years, LNG exports have increased.
Figure 4 shows that, consistently, about 75% of natural gas is used in the region where it is extracted. This happens because natural gas tends to be inexpensive close to the point of extraction. The use of inexpensive resources helps make an economy competitive in the world market, making them attractive for local use.
Pipeline trade tends to be inexpensive if the distance is short. The disadvantage is that pipeline gas tends to be inflexible; prices are often locked in for long periods. Pipelines can be a disadvantage if they pass through another county. The country allowing transit will likely want to make a charge for this service; this can lead to conflict. Pipelines can easily be blown up if countries start fighting with each other.
LNG is the newer approach to exporting natural gas. Its advantage is its flexibility; its disadvantage tends to be its higher cost when the entire cost of the operation is considered. There need to be export facilities where the natural gas is chilled and loaded into specialized tankers. Investors, quite possibly from another country, need to invest in the specialized tankers used to transport the LNG. At the other end, there is the need for regasification plants and for gas pipelines to the facilities where the gas is to be utilized.
Recouping the total cost of the system can be a problem with LNG. If prices are set under long-term contracts pegged to the price of oil, as has been the case between Japan and Russia, advantageous prices for the producers can be obtained. (Note the high prices Japan has been paying in Figure 2.) Of course, with long-term contracts, the flexibility of the system is lost.
In some years, there has been more LNG capacity than required in Europe. Exporters without long-term contracts started selling natural gas at spot prices, depending upon the balance between supply and demand at the time of the sale. (Notice the lower natural gas prices for Europe in Figure 2). It is not clear to me that investors can earn enough on their investments, if they are forced to depend on spot prices, which can easily fall too low if there is excess supply.
On the other hand, if the LNG market gets tight, as it did in 2022, spot prices can jump very high, making it difficult for LNG buyers to find affordable supply.
[6] An analysis by the EIA indicates that the US already has a great deal of LNG export capacity at some stage of development.
The most recent EIA analysis of LNG capacity in the process of being developed is shown at this link.
The above analysis was performed using data as of the end of 2022. It shows that at that time, the amount of liquefaction capacity was
- 37.0 billion cubic feet/day (Bcf/d), considering existing, under-construction and approved liquefaction capacity.
- 18.7 Bcf/d, considering existing and under-construction liquefaction capacity.
More recent information is also available. A release dated January 26, 2024, by the Department of Energy says,
The United States is the global leader in LNG exports with 14 billion cubic feet per day (Bcf/d) in current operating capacity and 48 Bcf/d in total authorizations approved by DOE to date, over three times our current export capacity.
This quote seems to imply that the total authorizations increased from 37.0 Bcf/d to 48 Bcf/d, based on an unpublished, more recent, analysis.
The 14 Bcf/d in current operating capacity is far above recent LNG export amounts. The actual quantity of US LNG produced in 2022 was 10.8 Bcf/d based on the data underlying Figure 5. Based on data through November 2023, I would estimate that amount of LNG produced in 2023 amounted to about 11.7 Bcf/d. These comparisons suggest that the actual amount of LNG produced may lag significantly below the stated export capacity.
If we compare the total exports authorized of 48 Bcf/d to the actual production amount (about 11.7 Bcf/d for 2023), the ratio is over 4, implying a very high amount of authorized additional LNG production capacity.
[7] The EIA model shown in Figure 5 indicates that several conditions need to hold for LNG exports to ramp up substantially.
(a) Figure 5 indicates that for NGL exports to increase significantly, both oil and natural gas prices need to be high. With low oil and low natural gas prices, exports do not increase much at all, regardless of the infrastructure built. (As I noted in the introduction, US natural gas prices are now very low. World oil prices are not very high, either. Thus, the model indicates that not much ramping up in NGL exports should be expected, even if more export capacity is added.)
(b) To enable export of the maximum amount of LNG overseas, “Fast Builds” of the rest of the infrastructure also needs to be high. In other words, there must be rapid growth in the number of LNG transport carriers and in receiving facilities for the exported LNG.
(c) The fact that the gray shaded area (indicating the scenarios the modelers thought likely) does not extend to the Fast Builds scenario means that the modelers consider this scenario unlikely. Even if infrastructure is built on this end, other parts of the system likely won’t be in place.
(d) Hidden in the assumptions is the fact that the citizens at the receiving end of the LNG must be able to afford electricity made with high-priced natural gas and products such as fertilizer, made with high-priced natural gas. If citizens at the receiving end cut way back on their use of natural gas (by not heating their homes as much, or by doing less manufacturing using electricity, or by making less fertilizer with natural gas), export prices are likely to fall.
[8] The reason why oil prices need to be high for high LNG exports is because much of the natural gas extracted is produced at the same time as oil.
If oil prices fall too low, US production of oil from shale is likely to drop (as it did in 2020), and with it the production of natural gas. With low oil prices, US natural gas extraction is also likely to lag. In this scenario, the natural gas necessary to support the hoped-for rise in natural gas exports won’t be available.
With both high oil prices and high US natural gas prices, consumers in the EU and elsewhere will have an especially difficult time affording the high cost of imported natural gas from the US. The problem is that if natural gas costs are already high before all of the cost of processing it to make LNG and shipping it long distance are incorporated, its cost will be doubly high for buyers in the EU (and elsewhere). Furthermore, the budgets of EU consumers will already be stretched by high oil prices, making high-cost LNG even more unaffordable.
[9] People believe that fossil fuels can rise arbitrarily high, but this is not true. Unaffordably high prices are the limiting factor for LNG exports.
Farmers are particularly strongly impacted by high oil and natural gas prices. High oil prices tend to make the cost of the diesel used to run farm equipment very high. High natural gas prices tend to make ammonia fertilizer very expensive. If both oil and natural gas prices are very high, the combination will tend to lead to very high-cost food. Citizens generally get very unhappy about very high-cost food. Farmers tend to protest, as farmers in Europe have done recently, because it becomes impossible for them to pass their high costs on to consumers.
There are clearly many other parts of the economy affected by high oil and natural gas prices. With high natural gas prices, electricity prices tend to be high. Families find their budgets stretched because of the high cost of both home heating and transportation. Food costs are likely to be high also. Economies tend to be pushed into recession by high oil and natural gas prices.
[10] A wise approach would be to go slowly in building LNG export capacity.
If excess LNG export capacity is built, those building the liquefaction plants will find the return on their investment very low.
In a self-organizing system, new technology is usually slowly adopted. Investors see a niche that appears to be profitable and build a little at a time. They wouldn’t try to put a huge amount of LNG export capacity in place without making certain that a little bit works. This same approach is used by manufacturers trying any new technology; they start on a small scale and then gradually scale up the process.
The US has already approved a very substantial amount of future LNG liquefaction capacity. It seems to me that there is a need to pause the acceptance of new applications for a while to see whether the many LNG facilities in the queue can actually be built and can sell the LNG they produce profitably. Perhaps profitable new LNG plants can only be built if firm long-term contracts at quite high prices can be signed.
Going slowly would seem to be an appropriate approach for now.
I think a NWO it’s the only choice we have.
Imagine the way people feel about their own citizens, broadened to being everyone under one tent.
And its basically not possible to solve global eco issues with 200 different countries all wanting the best for themselves.
For context, imagine you could use nearly all the farmland in Iowa to grow bio diesel to be used for global shipping (trucks, ships, planes). And you could grow the corn in some other country in Africa or south/central America. The way things are now, you would be at the mercy of whatever the African/Cen American country wanted to charge you. And it likely wouldn’t make any business sense.
But in a global system you could just tell that country (area) to kick rocks because we need the space because dis is so important to keep world trade moving.
See the point, many more doors could open up if we dissolved the borders. And we could end world war. There wouldn’t be anything to go to war against. There might be small scale like Syria or something.
Just my .02
Humans, like other animals are hard wired to resist outsider intrusion into their territories. Diversity and inclusion are NOT strength and creates a totally unnatural destabilized condition. Only a small amount of genetic leakage from expelled members of a clan or tribe is beneficial to maintain genetic vigor and relief from overpopulation within a tribe beyond its resources to, accommodate. Males of the species usually are tasked with defending the territory against invaders. It is a narrow but critical task. People will say that the male lion, for example, who “doesn’t do anything” and gets to eat first, while the females raise the cubs, do most of the hunting etc . But if the male doesn’t defend a territory then the pride will be taken over and the cubs killed.
Allowing women to \vote, be judges, politicians etc incorporates a liberal bias of giving away that which men give their lives trying to protect.
Our founding fathers must have recognized this self destructive tendency which is why they did not give women the right to vote and required a voter to either pay a poll tax , own property, or have a productive business to be eligible to vote. A pure “democracy” assures its eventual self destruction as the parasites outvote the producers, which is why our founding fathers created a Republic, not a democracy.
It is easy for governments to masquerade initially as a “democracy” and pontificate the need to “protect our democracy” as they do now, but as we have seen, once politicians have commandeered our Republic by allowing an invasion of parasite illegal voters into our country and allowing women to vote (libera), it is game over. By natural law, all tribes are hard wired to protect their borders /sovereignty. “Democracy” has destroyed this instinct.
Democracy is the gateway to eventual totalitarian control, especially as the 2-3% of the sociopaths/psychopaths are present in every population and eventually wind up as corporate CEOs, financiers, and politicians. They are the very people who should NEVER be allowed in positions of control. Being able to pay for the promises politicians make via a fiat fractional reserve money printing system like the FED is what derails a stable Republic.
In a small tribe of 50 to 100 people, everyone knows who these power hungry people are and measures are more successful in controlling them. But with increased centralization and size of populations, these familiarities are lost, and it becomes easier for these 2% to take over via perversion of our Republic through fiat currency and election process.
As long as two countries/populations are stable and have adequate resources for near self sufficiency, trade can be looked upon as the icing on the cake for the existence of two sovereign countries. But once a country sees that it can easily control/colonize another country or one country becomes desperately short of certain items , then “free trade” no longer exists and use of force upsets the equilibrium, as we have seen with oil especially.
But the only good thing that can come out of the energy squeeze is that countries ;like the US will find it increasingly difficult and costly to project power very far beyond their borders. China or Russia could never manage a ground invasion against the US anymore than the US could wage a ground offensive against them. Sure, they’ll lob missiles and airstrikes but a boots on the ground massive invasion/ground war on the scale of the Ukraine conflict ain’t gonna happen.
If what you are saying is true, the Indians would have slaughtered all the settlers in the new world and pioneers who moved west. Yes, I agree, people/animals tend to fear the “unknown”. With more education I think this could be minimized.
They did try. If they had not been devastated by European diseases they might have managed that trick. The Comanche in late history gave it their all and if not for industrial production of the Walker colt revolver and the development of the Texas rangers maybe thy would still hold a big swath of short grass prairie and bison herds today.
It’s because the indians were divided into tribes and weren’t united. Which ironically points back to my original argument.
A world without borders is a high-energy use world, because trade would likely be at even a greater average distance than it is now. That would be one of several deal killers.
Of course it’s not slowing down!
NONPROFIT GROUP SURPASSES MAJOR MILESTONE AFTER CLEANING OVER 15 MILLION POUNDS OF TRASH FROM THE OCEAN — AND IT’S SHOWING NO SIGNS OF SLOWING DOWN
“Our plan is to work with partners to recycle the plastic and transform it into durable plastic products.” By Jeremiah BudinFebruary 14, 2024
Ocean Cleanup is an organization that was founded in 2013 in the Netherlands, and now it consists of 120 engineers, researchers, scientists, computational modelers, and others, working together to get plastic out of our oceans. It has been focusing its efforts on the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, an enormous collection of marine debris in the North Pacific.
…Our plan is to work with partners to recycle the plastic and transform it into durable plastic products,” The Ocean Cleanup’s FAQ page reads, and that is echoed in the 2024 objectives posted to Instagram. “By recycling the collected ocean plastic into useful products that are made with certified plastic from the Great Pacific Garbage Patch, we aim to make the cleanup operational costs, to a large extent, financially self-sustainable.”
This has to be a JOKE…it can’t be real…must be a plant by the Plastic Industry to appear something is being done …120 highly educated can’t be that Stoopid, can they Fast Eddie?
Lying scammers. The vast majority of plastics cannot be recycled.
Thermoplastics might be usable in some way. Thermosetting ones are useless.
Some newer ‘plastics’ were designed to be ‘biodegradeable’. Products in which they are inadvertently used are likely to decay prematurely.
What if we used most of the farmland in the USA for growing fuel? Bio fuels and such.
I’m aware that currently it’s needed for food, but if we didn’t need to feed as many people in the not-too-distant future.. I’m assuming that would free up a bunch of farmland for other purposes. And it would be “renewable” as well.
Doesn’t work for numerous reasons. One of them being that without fertiliser we won’t be growing any crops at all.
With,
You got it.
Dennis L.
just to point out the obvious
if we could use more farmland, because ”we didnt have so many people”
then we woildnt need to grow biofuel to drive machines, because the people wouldnt be there in the first place, wanting to use them to ”do stuff”.
welcome to the middle ages (global pop under 1 billion–no powered machines)
I agree…….hay production for the entire heartland of North America.
Vehicles are 4 legged of course…..and you can eat them if they break down
That was easy…..what’s the next issue?
The reason we will have fewer people is because the yield per acre will go down so much. We will need all of the land for the smaller number of people. The biofuel will still compete with humans for food.
In the late Roman empire farmers reported that they barely got one seed back for every seed they planted. It will be the same for us and farmland will just be abandoned.
My sons and I are counting on this……..
“Graham Atkinson was a pharmacist and senior manager in the UK NHS for over 30 years working in local, regional and national roles. In 2020 and 2021 he had the confidence to challenge the mainstream narrative with the facts and blow large holes in the corporate virus and vaccine narratives.
The obvious truth was that the vast majority of patients were being disadvantaged and many harmed and killed in the mindless pursuit of “zero Covid”.What Graham witnessed pushed him to the point where he was no longer willing to participate. He had tried his best to change the system from the inside and deliver TRUE health.
However, Graham realised that the only way to help patients and communities was to walk away from the NHS to build a Naturally Better model of healthcare that will make the existing system redundant.”?
https://docmalik.com/131-the-red-pill-pharmacist/
New Gym memberships @ Planet Fitness down -75%
Gyms getting hit with an alarming lack of traffic nationwide in key January month
https://nypost.com/2024/02/12/business/gyms-hit-with-alarming-lack-of-traffic-in-key-january-month/
Getting fatter and stooopider by the year
Passenger dies mid-flight after liters of ‘blood erupts from his mouth and nose’
https://nypost.com/2024/02/09/news/passenger-dies-mid-flight-after-blood-erupts-from-his-mouth-and-nose/
That’s sad. What does it have to do with energy?
Peak demand.
Which is racing peak supply. And I think demand has pulled ahead. Which means we should be okay – assuming the center can hold.
Bollocks. It’s just yet another OMG someone died post.
To be expected when one injects Juice of Rat
I’ll definitely let you know of my death from the rat juice when it happens, Fast Eddie, been on the edge of my seat for years now, along with many others at work…
I know…2.0 will be released soon to kill us all off very soon….🙄
Sounds like an alcoholic with cirrhosis and bleeding esophageal varices.
Nasty. Thank goodness I quit the booze.
I don’t care anymore, so no reason to liquor up…
I like the finer things in life now and have been adopted by seven, yes 7 felines and they are very needy and demanding
I don’t care anymore, so no reason to liquor up…
I switched to cocaine following Fast Eddy’s advice.
Lack of free time and lack of extra money will both cut back on gym membership, I expect.
The big difference between the USA and Europe is the source of the immigrant. While the USA sources it’s immigrants from the South of America, which is culturally based on the Bible (old testament = population explosion based, new testament = population implosion based), Europe has to face the immigrants with the Koran (population explosion based) background. The Asian religions based on the false belief that the humans are a part of the nature are the reason why Japan or China have problems with replacing their population with immigrants.
This lack of immigrant workforce in China or Japan is best reflected in the lack of the construction workers, which created a lot of empty buildings. South Korea that embraced Christianity, is better at supporting its workforce needs using immigrants: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Immigration_to_South_Korea.
MG, heard a massive wave of Chinese now are crossing over the Mexican border to the USA
Why are Chinese migrants fastest-growing group at southern border?
24K Chinese migrant encounters reported at the southern border in FY 2023
Some migrants say they are escaping Chinese Communist government
DOJ: More than 50% of Chinese migrants granted asylum in 2023
Some migrants told NewsNation reporters they were escaping the Chinese Communist government and planned to seek asylum in the United States.
Zhang Kiayu, a Chinese migrant who made the journey to the U.S. in the spring of 2023, said he left China because of the strict COVID-19 policies. Kiayu said he was “yearning for American freedom.”
Kiayu said his journey began in Ecuador, where many migrants from China fly to because there is no visa requirement. Migrants then travel north to the U.S.-Mexico border.
This month, sources in Mexico told NewsNation that some migrants are flying into Tijuana Airport before being guided by smugglers to breach the border. Border officials say some Chinese migrants are reportedly willing to pay cartels up to $35,000 for smuggling services.
I think it’s a sign of how bad the situations are from wherever they are coming from,” Lin said.
BORDER REPORT 2024 Nexstar Media Inc.
Basically, the immigrants must accept the population implosion mentality in order to be fully integrated into the Christianity based societies.
probably because of forced vaccinations china were worse than the nazis
The Asian religions based on the false belief that the humans are a part of the nature
Humans are a part of nature.
But not in the cold areas. E.g. in Africa, where they can live naked.
That’s a point but we are not the only animals that augment themselves with stuff from the environment. Hermit crabs for example.
Good idea…give the new arrivals a portable tent to shelter them as a start up home and a jug of water with a box of Wheaties,…
They will be on their way to success in no time.
Well, sort of descended from that.
Paternal grandfather killed on railroad, my father convinced an incredible woman to marry him, they lived in a tent, no home, working for US Coast and Geodetic Survery, WWII came along, more tents as well as time in/on some sunny Pacific Islands, then home to what was left of the family home(former whore house) and on with life.
Dennis L.
DL, your childhood home was a former wh/re house?
Exactly, biology, always biology and humans are to date the best of biology.
Dennis L.
nope
microbes are the best of biology
they would get on very well without us
without them, we would all be dead in a week
which would you call the dominant species—us or them?
But humans are a special part of nature. Their ability to cook food has given them an advantage over other animals. (They don’t need so much chewing and digesting apparatus, so their brains can grow bigger.) With this advantage, human population pretty much always tends to outgrow its resource base, in a process sometimes referred to as overshoot and collapse.
The big leaps that nature takes cannot be explained by evolution. There seems to be some intervention from outside.
https://youtu.be/rXexaVsvhCM
I might have missed a valid point—tell me if i have.
but
there are, and never appear to have been, no great leaps in nature. (show me where/what they are?)
The key lies in reproduction—if i could travel back 100 generations, i could still reproduce via copulation with a female of the time.
but if i could go back 5000 generations, i could not.
Why not?
because there have been infinitesemal changes in biological structure over that time—we would be 2 distinct species.
There was no precise point at which the change took place. No ”leap”.
the same applies to all higher animal/biological species—cows–elephants–mice–anything.
insects seem to have changed very little over millions of years.
no big leaps, just minute changes—the above can be independently traced through the paleantological record. Not just my opinion.
we outgrew our resource base through fire–and then tools.
And that’s it.
Listen to the video.
It talks about “suddenly” birds of many kinds appearing. It points out how intricately individual cells are put together. The high level of complexity would virtually impossible to achieve, just by chance alone.
Yes, there is evolution, but there is something else that seems to allow big jumps at a time.
I have also talked about the book Rare Earth: Why complex life is uncommon in the universe by Peter Ward and Donald Brownlee. Getting to where we are by chance alone and random mutations, doesn’t seem to work.
Is there any evidence of those “suddenly” episodes? Evolution and deep time can explain all life. It’s the “deep time” that humans just can’t seem to grasp.
I think it is deep time that is difficult to grasp. These random mutations filtered by natural selection are often misconstrued as just chance but chance has very little to do with it. Tiny changes which benefit the organism can be propagated to its offspring. It’s the accumulation of these changes over millions or tens of millions of years that leads to what we think of as new species, though they can happen more quickly. Argument from incredulity is never a good one. Evolution can explain all life but it is difficult to grasp.
We can model how randomness works. It doesn’t explain “enough,” is the problem.
It’s not just randomness. There is natural selection as a filter of random changes in the genome. What doesn’t it explain?
Growing complexity isn’t explained by natural selection. Things that require intelligent design.
The movie includes speakers who talk about the amazing complexity of a human cell. Coming up with whole new systems doesn’t sound like natural selection–it sounds like intelligent design.
In any case a big sostitution of people.
US will be another Country in the future.
Europe almost already process completed.
Is the USA able to absorb all the costly energy? I do not think so.
We got plenty of room, let them ALL in…freedom..
Sarcasm…
There is no housing or homeless crisis here in the USA..greatest, richest, most powerful nation on the Planet…God bless America!
Plenty of job opportunities…just hang out in front of a Home Depot for some work …
It may well be biology at work. Nick Lane posits evolution is death of the less fit. Walking to the US makes one fit, surviving the journey through Mexico would be an adventure.
They seem to be heading toward cities, if they organize they will have power, those who only see oppression may experience biology first hand.
Please recall, the Pilgrims and their Bibles were not a positive for the indigenous people. The latter are mostly gone, biology, always biology; the universe loves biology.
Dennis L.
Yes, 20 years from now the political leaders of the US cities will be the grand kids of the new settlers. If the cities have not been nuked.
The average cost of full car insurance went up 26% in 2024 — here are the states with the biggest increase
In some states, full coverage premiums went up more than 40%.
Ana Staples
Where did full coverage insurance costs increase the most?
Bankrate shared with CNBC Select that the following states have seen the largest change in full coverage auto insurance premiums since 2023:
Missouri: $858 ($1,943 to $2,801) – 44.16%
New Jersey: $801 ($1,754 to $2,555) – 45.69%
Rhode Island: $797 ($1,886 to $2,683) – 42.29%
Colorado: $781 ($2,121 to $2,902) – 36.83%
Nevada: $771 ($2,779 to $3,549) – 27.73%
The same goes for Hime owners insurance…tic tok…
This is pretty disturbing. Part of it relates to the lack of driving during 2020 and 2021, holding rates down. I wonder if there were actual rate decreases in these states.
Once driving started, the was the problem of broken supply lines making spare parts hard to find. Rental cars were needed to cover the time period until cars could be repaired. The liability portion may have risen too, as vehicle prices (new and used) rose. The addition of cameras near the edges of cars made the cars much more easily damageable, too.
Have I posted the article yet on how an income of $100,000 is needed nowadays to afford car ownership now in the United States to be in the ratio of recommended limited?
Owning A New Car Becoming A Fantasy For Millions Of Americans Making Under $100K
The pandemic price bump means that 60% of American households and 82% of individuals can’t really afford the average new vehicle
https://www.carscoops.com/2024/01/affordability-concerns-push-dream-of-car-ownership-further-out-of-reach-for-americans/
According to an earlier study by Market Watch, Americans need a combined household income of at least $100,000 to afford the average new car if they adhere to common budgeting guidelines and practices. While there’s no perfect formula, a common school of thought among financial experts is that you should spend no more than 10%-15% of your monthly take-home pay on car-related expenses, which includes everything from payments to insurance and maintenance.
Based on this criterion, 60 percent of households and 82 percent of individuals in the U.S. are currently unable to afford a new car. One contributing factor to this affordability challenge is the preference of Americans for pricier crossovers, pickups, and SUVs.
When this SHTF look out..this may be it..the BIG ONE..
As Fred Srandford would say
Attention Fast Eddie..
Odie’ lunar mission takes off, aiming for historic US moon landing
By Jackie Wattles, CNN
The Odysseus lunar lander, nicknamed “Odie” or IM-1, has embarked on a historic journey to the lunar surface — aiming to make the first touchdown of a US-made spacecraft on the moon in five decades.
The launch follows closely on the heels of a separate US lunar landing mission that failed in January. NASA has ramped up the development of robotic spacecraft via private partners to evaluate the lunar environment and identify key resources — such as the presence of water — before it attempts to return astronauts to the moon later this decade.
Odie lifted off atop a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket at 1:05 a.m. ET Thursday from NASA’s Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
See, Dennis L is 100 percent on the mark…
It seems to take a very long time to go back to where we claim to have been previously.
This will also be fake … like the indian and japanese one… notice how they are unable to put a man back on the moon.
F.E . believes that Laser reflectors magically appeared on the moon!
Time, date and mission number!
Otherwise B/S!
Hunter-gatherers were violently wiped off the map by farmers, DNA reveals
Contrary to what has long been believed, there was no peaceful transition of power from hunter-gather societies to farming communities in Europe, with new advanced DNA analysis revealing that the newcomers slaughtered the existing population, completely wiping them out within a few generations.
Researchers from Sweden’s Lund University analyzed skeletons and teeth found in what is now Denmark, and found that 5,900 years ago, the region underwent a swift and total population change. Prior to this, Danish Mesolithic people of the Maglemose, Kongemose and Ertebølle cultures – genetically related to other Western European hunter-gatherers – were prominent inhabitants. But when Neolithic farmers arrived, an abrupt shift can be seen in DNA records, with next to no genetic contribution from the local hunter-gatherers.
Tracing the DNA timeline, the researchers could see that the hunter-gatherers had been swiftly wiped out by the late Stone Age, in what they suspect was a very bloody and very thorough takeover.
Ahh, Fast Eddie Farmers rule…
In point of fact it should be noted that the Indo European battle axe cultures came in as a second wave smashing the mesolithic farmers into bloody goo. These invading populations were derived from steppe herding nomadic cultures like the Yamnaya. These “kurgan” cultures were 40:1 male to female ratioed (war bands) and were riding horses in the greatest single diaspora ever witnessed on earth. They removed the farming genetics almost entirely in a single wave of violence and pillage that only took a few generations to complete.
Farmers never rule anything……not ever. They may as well be gophers.
Their only purpose is to provide daughters for the Great Raping.
Wait in the back of the line….you can watch until then
Mike,
Caught Nick Lane this AM as I awoke, Lex Fridman. Nick has written some interesting books, he is a biochemist, London, etc.
Predator Prey was mentioned, is very much a part of biology, mentioned women chose the mate, peacock sort of thing, etc.
We are biology, often times that is denied with cynicism, our job is to find a way to live with what we are. Crazy social ideas will come and go, biology is relatively long scaled compared to one human life span.
The universe loves biology, perhaps this is the only way it can be which is what drives humanists nutz. Some things just are whether we like it or not.
Dennis L.
U.S. House Passes Reversal Of Biden’s LNG Export Ban
https://www.reuters.com/world/us/us-house-vote-bill-reverse-bidens-lng-pause-2024-02-15/
US House passes bill to reverse Biden’s LNG pause
WASHINGTON, Feb 15 (Reuters) – A bill to strip the power of President Joe Biden’s administration to freeze approvals of liquefied natural gas exports passed in the Republican-controlled U.S. House of Representatives on Thursday, but faces an uphill battle in the Senate.
The House approved the bill sponsored by Representative August Pfluger of gas-producing Texas 224-200 on a mostly party-line vote.
The legislation needs to be passed in the Democratic-controlled Senate and signed by Biden to become law, both of which are unlikely.
I hadn’t expected this topic to be so much in the news.
political shenanigans most obviously i feel biden is taking orders from elsewhwere to try to have higher prices to enable the success of lpg they probably need 100 dollar oil price for oil shale to be profitable if this doesnt work its game over for everything this tallies up nicely with oil running out in 2025 and marion king hubberts prediction that two trillion barrels max allowing a ten percent correction on overestimation. at one stage was worried that he was off by off by 15 percent but that was on total american oil produced. If Hubbert was correct for 15% overestimation but for total world oil production it would add up to 1.7 trillion produced for the final world total of easy oil or proven oil which back of the envelope calculations is this year or next year.
You are prescient, have been for some time.
Dennis L.
Obviously it does not matter one way or another. It’s like with roads. Smart countries will not invest in new roads, since they will not be used anyways. Because of coal and natural gas, development of some new trains might just be possible.
If new trains are added, they should be as non-complex as possible, so that if a part breaks, it can easily be fixed with local materials. Simple bench seats and doors that can be easily opened and closed by pushing on them, for example.
thanks for the clarification it wont get through and thanks for the current article
Regarding Mountain Pass Mine and what it produces. Again, my Copilot, the captain i this case only sits back and watches the scenery.
“The Mountain Pass mine in California, United States, is known for its production of rare-earth elements. The metals that can be extracted from it include1:
Cerium
Lanthanum
Neodymium
Europium
The mine is focused on producing high-purity Neodymium-Praseodymium oxide, a key ingredient in the high strength permanent magnets which are vital for many modern electronics2. Additionally, the mine is being developed to increase its annual production of rare earth oxide equivalent (REO)3.
Please note that the status of the mine and its production capabilities can change, and it’s best to refer to recent news articles or official reports for the most current information123.”
The only two I am familiar with are Lanthanum and Neodymium. So, have Copilot do some work:
“Cerium, a rare-earth metal, has a variety of uses in different industries12345:
Metallurgy: Cerium is used as a stabilizer in alloys and in welding electrodes. It’s also used in nonferrous alloys, most commonly to improve high-temperature oxidation resistance of superalloys1. It’s used in aluminium and iron alloys, and in stainless steel as a precipitation hardening agent4.
Glass Industry: Cerium is used in glass as a polishing agent, decolorizer, and to render glass opaque to near-ultraviolet radiation3.
Catalysts: Cerium oxide is part of the catalyst of catalytic converters used to clean up exhaust vehicles. It also catalyzes the reduction of nitrogen oxides (NOx) to nitrogen gas4.
Electronics: Cerium is present in many household equipment including energy saver bulbs, colored television, fluorescent lamps and glasses5.
Please note that the specific uses of cerium can vary based on its form and the specific requirements of the application12345”
Hmm, forgot its use in welding rods.
So Withnail, what rare earth were you concerned about? Perhaps Copilot can be of some assistance.
I use a lot of welding rods…..that matters……
Laughing quietly Cro, stick it to ’em.
Dennis L.
“The Mountain Pass mine in California, United States, is known for its production of rare-earth elements. The metals that can be extracted from it include1:
Cerium
Lanthanum
Neodymium
Europium
The mine produced very little neodymium nor will it ever (neodymium is industrially important). The US is unable to produce any of the most important rare earth which is dysprosium.
As I said, the mine essentially produced europium for old CRT colour TV’s.
Who owns MP Materials Chinese?
As of December 2021, JHL Capital Group, QVT Financial, and CEO James Litinsky were the company’s three largest shareholders, and about 7.7% of the company was owned by Shenghe Resources, a Chinese company. Apart from institutions, other investors own 18%.
🤣🤣
Your Copilot is faster than mine on that one.
Dennis L.
I don’t need a Copilot . I know where the bodies are buried .
laughing quietly.
Dennis L.
My Copilot, doing all the work as usual.
“Dysprosium is a chemical element with the symbol Dy and atomic number 6612. It is a rare-earth element in the lanthanide series1. Here are some key properties and uses of Dysprosium:
Appearance: Dysprosium is silvery white in its pure form13.
Stability: It is quite stable in air, remaining shiny at room temperature3.
Melting Point: It has a very high melting temperature of 1,407°C2.
Uses: Dysprosium has a high thermal neutron absorption cross-section, meaning that it is very good at absorbing neutrons. Because of this, it is used to make the control rods that are put into nuclear reactors to absorb excess neutrons and stop fission reactions from getting out of control4. It also has applications in data storage devices, such as compact discs4.
Please note that Dysprosium is never found in nature as a free element, like other lanthanides, it is found in various minerals1.”
And
“Dysprosium is indeed mined at Mountain Pass, California1. The Mountain Pass mine is the only large-scale rare-earth element mine in the Western Hemisphere1. It resumed operations in 2012 after years of dormancy and today supplies around 15 percent of the world’s production of rare earths2.
While the concentrations of Dysprosium and other rare earth elements in Mountain Pass ore are low, MP Materials, the company that owns the Mountain Pass mine, expects to produce enough of them to cover the needs of its Texas magnetics factory1. This mine plays a significant role in the global supply chain of rare earth elements, which are essential for various technologies, from consumer electronics to military applications12.”
More on MP Materials:
https://mpmaterials.com/articles/mp-materials-begins-construction-on-texas-rare-earth-magnetics-factory-to-restore-full-us-supply-chain/
“MP Materials has begun construction on a rare earth metal, alloy, and magnet manufacturing facility in Fort Worth, Texas1. This facility is a significant part of a $700 million investment the company is making to restore the full U.S. rare earth magnetics supply chain1.
The facility will create approximately 150 skilled jobs and approximately 1,300 indirect jobs1. It will source materials from Mountain Pass, California, and produce magnets powering approximately 500,000 EV motors per year, with potential to scale1.
In addition, MP Materials and General Motors have announced a definitive supply agreement commencing in late 2023 to produce rare earth alloy and magnets for GM’s EV programs1. The Fort Worth facility will have the capacity to produce approximately 1,000 tonnes of neodymium-iron-boron (NdFeB) magnets per year1. These magnets are critical inputs to robots, wind turbines, drones, defense systems, and many other high-growth technologies1.”
Nothing like a good CoPilot sitting right seat. This took maybe five minutes of research.
Dennis L.
:
Always curious who owns this stuff, they are cutting edge.
https://www.wallstreetzen.com/stocks/us/nyse/mp/ownership
James H. Litinsky is the founder of JHL Capital, probably just a coincidence he is CEO of MP Materials.
Leverage, always leverage and growth, always need growth. Some will grow, some will attrite, sort of predator pray, biology, Nick Lane.
I used a bridge metaphor a few posts back. The bridge is rickety, it is unsafe, the gorge is deep, throw in some rushing water, it is not a pleasant trip. 20% will cross and go forward 80% will hesitate, the bridge in the meantime falls into the gorge and the 80% literally go backwards. The time arrow goes forward, always forward.
Dennis L.
Dennis , I am ready to bet 100 to 1 that the GM and MP deal will never see the light of day ( physical profitable production ) . EV was another one of those scams just like renewables . Already winding down just like wind and solar . Tesla is the last man standing . Watch out below
ravi,
I don’t know, batteries don’t seem to be a good solution, my bet is H. What Tesla did is allow incredible manufacturing techniques with Al extrusions, AI(machine learning), and perhaps integration of computers into the human brain. If H works, simple to change power sources, SpaceX can mine the Pt in space with robots, Optimus.
Again copilot:
https://www.bbc.com/news/technology-63100636
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/technology/elon-musk-says-to-expect-roughly-1-billion-humanoid-robots-in-2040s/ar-BB1h2sRa
That’s a lot of robots, basically ribosomes, ribosomes make ribosomes as well as other proteins.
No matter what, the future will be a challenge, but we will make it. I give a bridge metaphor, don’t like heights myself, sometimes one puts a clothes pin on the nose and puts one foot in front of the other.
Dennnis L.
“Dysprosium is indeed mined at Mountain Pass, California1. The Mountain Pass mine is the only large-scale rare-earth element mine in the Western Hemisphere1. It resumed operations in 2012 after years of dormancy and today supplies around 15 percent of the world’s production of rare earths2.
This is absolute nonsense. The US does not produce dysprosium.
the elders have a plan i have connected the dots its quite simple all the proven reserves oil is nearly gone the rest does not exist so shale gas will have to do until more solar and wind can be constructed for all eight billion of us and rising we shall survive this but in a much reduced BAU lite world perhaps soylent green is where we are heading for our food supply it does make sense .
Is there no punctuation in this WEF future?
the American congress has overturned bidens plans so shale gas is expanding hopefully you can understand this
Adonis , the old shale gas basins like Marcellus etc have maxxed out > the shale gas from the Permian will not come to the market . Already explained in my post . Grab the popcorn .
It may be a plus, perhaps spaceship earth is close to the tipping point climate wise.
Humans are inventive, we are going forward, move metal processing to space, all exogenous heat to space, give our spaceship earth a break.
Dennis L.
EIA has data posted of “World Production — Crude oil including lease condensate (Mb/d)”, of 81.856 for last October – this is up from their figure of 80.639, for last August, which was their lowest since February 2023 (82.539), which was their highest since April, 2020 (82.593) – their figure for “world peak oil” is 84.580 in November, 2018.
The increase for September-October coincides with a spike in world oil prices in last late September. http://oil-price.net/
EIA revises these world oil-production figures for years after they post them; but, they usually don’t change much, relative to each other.
If crude-oil prices aren’t high enough to cover the cost-plus-profit of extracting crude oil & getting it to buyers, isn’t oil-production apt to stagnate/decline, as depletion increases the costs for the oil suppliers? Will refiners pay more for oil than they hope to profitably recover from the products they make from it?
If last February was post-covid peak oil, what lies ahead? https://davecoop.net/seneca
https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production?pd=5&p=0000000000000000000000000000000000vg&u=0&f=M&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=94694400000&e=1693526400000
Sorry — it needs a new URL for each month — https://www.eia.gov/international/data/world/petroleum-and-other-liquids/monthly-petroleum-and-other-liquids-production?pd=5&p=0000000000000000000000000000000000vg&u=0&f=M&v=mapbubble&a=-&i=none&vo=value&&t=C&g=00000000000000000000000000000000000000000000000001&l=249-ruvvvvvfvtvnvv1vrvvvvfvvvvvvfvvvou20evvvvvvvvvvnvvvs0008&s=94694400000&e=1696118400000
I think that what the EIA wants people to look at is the total liquids numbers, listed first. These were up to 102,432,000 in Oct. 2023, compared to 101,563,000 in November, 2019. So no peak oil on that basis.
If we look at crude and condensate, however, the comparison is much worse. The amount is 81,856,000 in October 2023, compared to 83,404,000 in November 2019.
so down 1,550,000 in about 4 years.
about 2% down = 0.5% per year.
that is amazing fantastic glorious wonderful news.
the bAU party in The Core continues.
“If crude-oil prices aren’t high enough to cover the cost-plus-profit of extracting crude oil & getting it to buyers, isn’t oil-production apt to stagnate/decline, as depletion increases the costs for the oil suppliers?”
yes, the stagnation is here, and even a slight decline.
“Will refiners pay more for oil than they hope to profitably recover from the products they make from it?”
refining could become government subsidized, and this will become clearer in the 2030s.
“If last February was post-covid peak oil, what lies ahead?”
bAU lies ahead, beautiful bAU.
probably for a decade or two in The Core, based on the slooooooow decline in world oil production.
While it may be true that more capacity may not make economic sense , I would prefer that the free market make the choice to scale back and not the central planners.
I think that what is happening is that the central planners have finally woken up to what the market is telling them. The market has been telling them that there is no interest in actually funding the proposed LNG facilities. The government can have an enormous supposed queue of projects waiting, but virtually none of them can get funding. Adding more the ideas to the queue doesn’t get any more funding.
Book I read in the sixties,
From CoPilot:
“The Report from Iron Mountain” is a book published in 1967 during the Johnson Administration by Dial Press1. The book presents itself as the report of a government panel, the Special Study Group, composed of fifteen men whose identities were to remain secret1. It was not intended to be made public1.
The report concludes that war, or a credible substitute for war, is necessary if governments are to maintain power1. It sparked immediate debate among journalists and scholars with its disturbingly convincing claim: a condition of “permanent peace” at the end of the Cold War would threaten the nation’s economic and social stability2.
The book was a New York Times bestseller and has been translated into fifteen languages1. Controversy still swirls over whether the book was a satiric hoax about think-tank logic and writing style or the product of a secret government panel1. The document is a favorite among conspiracy theorists, who reject the statement made in 1972 by satirist Leonard Lewin that the book was a spoof and that he was its author1.
Despite being identified as an antimilitarist hoax by Leonard Lewin, who conceived and launched the book with a consortium of peace movement intellectuals, the book took on a life of its own2. Long out of print, the Report suddenly reappeared in “bootleg” editions more than twenty years after the original publication2. In a manner never foreseen by the book’s creators, it was now being read as a “bible” by the militias of the radical right2.
The book was first published in 1967 by Dial Press and went out of print in 19801. In response to the bootleg editions, Simon & Schuster brought out a new hardcover edition in 1996 under their Free Press imprint, authorized by Lewin, with a new introduction by Navasky and afterword by Lewin both insisting the book was fictional and satire1. A new paperback edition was published in 20081
It is now on Amazon, last I looked it was not. Strange.
What I recall was the necessity of war to keep the economy running, i.e. GDP – the throughput and war is nothing more than throughput.
Trump started no wars and is vilified by the powers that be.
Viet Nam war made no sense at all, tore apart the campuses, Madison lost part of physics building to a bomb in a van, grad. student perished. My housefellow years.
Dennis L.
“Taken together, these four volumes constitute an extraordinary commentary on a basic weakness in the Soviet system.
The Soviets are heavily dependent on Western technology and innovation not only in their civilian industries, but also in their military programs.
An inevitable conclusion from the evidence in this book is that we have totally ignored a policy that would enable us to neutralize Soviet global ambitions while simultaneously reducing the defense budget and the tax load on American citizens.”
“ His book tells at least part of the story of the Soviet Union’s reliance on Western technology, including the infamous Kama River truck plant, which was built by the Pullman-Swindell company of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, a subsidiary of M. W. Kellogg Co. Prof. Pipes remarks that the bulk of the Soviet merchant marine, the largest in the world, was built in foreign shipyards. He even tells the story (related in greater detail in this book) of the Bryant Chucking Grinder Company of Springfield, Vermont, which sold the Soviet Union the ball-bearing machines that alone made possible the targeting mechanism of Soviet MIRV’ed ballistic missiles. “ ?
http://www.crowhealingnetwork.net/pdf/Antony%20Sutton%20-%20The%20Best%20Enemy%20Money%20Can%20Buy.pdf
The reason to attend good universities
https://greyenlightenment.com/2024/02/06/college-as-a-path-of-least-resistance-why-degrees-continues-to-thrive/
Tl, dr, a degree from an elite university opens door for ’email jobs’, where all you have to do is answer some emails and take the rest of the day off
Not to advance civilization, not to better humanity, but to get a fancy job where you get paid a high salary for doing nothing, is the reason to attend an elite univ.
Elite universities are like status symbol. A degree from an elite institution shows one’s class, whether the person is part of society or not.
The article says:
Except the system doesn’t really work that way. A lot of people end up flunking out, or dropping out for financial reasons. Even those who get jobs may not get jobs that pay well. It is frustrating.
What happens with more debt available is that the universities get more and more bloated. They add big football stadiums, fancy dining halls, and residence facilities with a bathroom for each bedroom. They start requiring faculty to write academic papers, even in areas where there is no real benefit for these papers. the cost per student rises rapidly in this bloated system. The cost of universities needs to get a lot lower, to make sense.
My mate who visited last week was telling me he was offered an unsecured loan for USD350k at 1% interest. He took it and bought crypto.
This smells of desperation on the part of the machine …
See the 2018 book ‘Bullshit Jobs’ by David Graeber. Over about 30 years, government meddling changed UK universities from relatively autonomous centres of learning to part of the corporate state (the UK abolished academic tenure in 1988, so too much ‘free speech’ could get an academic sacked).
He also found that US private universities experienced more of a rise in ‘bullshit jobs’ than public universities.
Without this added bullshit, most people would be working a ten-hour week.
I am a fan of Graeber .
Ain’t that the truth, and only the truth.
Well it is a bit late to get real now.
Russia currently has 2.2 million military personnel, including 1.32 million troops and that figure is rising all the time. https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-putin-army-expansion-a2bf0b035aabab20c8b120a1c86c9e38
And they are still playing down Russia’s materiel situation that has massively improved in recent years.
So what now?
‘USA, you put us up to this, and now Russia might come for us in payback, you owe it to us to protect us, you are committed, it is morality and you have no choice….’
What if Trump says, ‘No’?
Perhaps Europe should have taken some responsibility for itself and thought things through before it got itself into this situation.
‘That is another fine mess that you have got me into.’ (Laurel and Hardy)
Everyone apart from the NATO propaganda machine could see how UKR would end and that bodes very ill for the future of Europe as a serious geopolitical player.
But there is nothing like reality to wake people up.
> ‘Russia More Powerful’: NATO Nation Praises Putin’s Army; Alarms About Big Attack If…
Lithuania is the NATO country that thinks Russia’s army is strong.
Who is best it is difficult to say, but in any case, my impression is that Nato soldiers have a very low motivation, because they know well they fight and will fight actually for no reason than put hands on Russia
While Russian soldiers know that they fight for avoiding to be conquered.
The Canadian Prepper blasts the trump argument
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ylYvYt81p4s
tl, dr, all the countries now fearing Russia, like Poland and the Baltics, have paid their share well. Countries like France or Spain , which are not directly threatened by Russia , could be ignored for now. So Trump won’t say no to Poland and Baltics even with that logic
a mighty fine Russian army it is indeed.
Economic Singularity Occurring
https://greyenlightenment.com/2024/02/07/the-investment-case-for-leveraged-tech-this-decades-bitcoin/
All the money is now in the tech companies, which are now bloating.
I don’t agree with all of whatever he has to say, since he only knows two things, tech stocks and bay area real estate, but it is true that if we pop this tech bubble the world will end and Fast Eddy’s face eating monsters will rule the world.
Oh no, I just finished a 2.5 years dedollarization project, and now I have only pocket money there. Go Apple.
I think you need to look at the growth rates of the underlying companies.
Dennis L.
A proper P/E ratio would look at earnings across all companies divided by market cap across all companies. They don’t do that. I forget whether they set an arbitrary and modestly high positive value for P/E if the earnings are negative, or whether they just omit those entries (different indexes do it differently but all pull similar shenanigans), but there’s some nonsense in the calculation. The writer doesn’t seem to know this.
P/E and other things don’t matter. It is like the sea level is rising and all the animals are running to the highest peak.
Debt, debt and more debt. And higher and higher P/E ratios for stocks. It is hard to see that it can continue to work, but the alternative doesn’t work either.
ROF… ROF ROF ROF….
Shocking Data: England Has Suffered ONE MILLION Covid Vaccine Deaths in Just Two Years
Alarming new official data from the UK government shows that England has suffered a staggering one million deaths from Covid mRNA vaccines in just two years.
https://lionessofjudah.substack.com/p/shocking-data-england-has-suffered
Was speaking to my brother and wife yesterday – they are trapped in TruDUNCE land … they were brightening my day with tales of the many people they know and hear about who have CANCER hahahahaha…. endless… I asked them if any of them are making the Rat Juice connection — nope. hahahahaha
Great – take more Rat Juice you dummmb f789s hahahahaha…
Life is good (cept if you have CANCER)
One million! That’s nothing. Stalin killed 60M.
Its just getting started.
What is even more disconcerting (at least for those who have the eyes to see) is that this was not just an immune system destroying bio weapon, but in fact was a machination to split the human species into two forms. The proven fact of viable DNA within covid vaccines being incorporated into recipient human genomes should be enough to give even the most skeptical analyst reason to pause.
The vaccinated are no longer “human” in the strictest use of the term.
Let that sink in a bit…….they are marked in the most intimate way possible…….
YES! This is biblical in a bad way.
Well, that’s an improvement them if I’m no longer human, considering what we have done to the Earth and it’s life supporting systems per Fast Eddie.
As far as the DNA, genomes, ect are concerned, matters not …I intentionally did not reproduce because of the above..it’s the end of the line for ALL of us..why is hard to digest that …of all places here at OFW?
I will admit that the graphs do look strange. Is the data really correct, for example? Does the system really know the vaccination status of people who die?
Price of being stupid.
Dennis L. says:
February 3, 2024 at 1:06 pm
MG
If the old are thrown on the scrap heap, the young will see what happens to people who work hard for the good of the group. Extremes are problematic.
Kulm the Status Quo answers
The old thrown on the scrap heap is part of nature. It was how it worked throughout history. Only the ones at the top escaped this fate.
Ernest Thompson Seton wrote a bunch of stories about animals. All of the animals in his stories, except one or two, met very tragic ends. Someone asked why he can’t write stories which ends happily for the critters. He said it is nature. Not surprisingly his stories were thrown into the memory hole, only retaining some life in Asia because postwar conditions in Japan and Korea were like the animallike existence Seton described.
Few older people were really useful for the group anyways. There might be one in twenty, like Gail, but for one like her there would be at least 19 who just took the space. The younger people would rather see them go.
True assuming we were not sentient. It takes twenty years for a person to grow into adulthood, maturing of brain and all. During that time both parents and grandparents are helpful and needed. My paternal grandfather was killed on the railroad in his mid thirties, my grandmother lived with us, she gave my parents time off.
We are not a pack of animals, we are a group. When I look at successful farming operations on You Tube, they are family affairs, generally > 100 years since inception. Members of the family are part of their community and the old help you as they can and provide knowledge and hopefully some wisdom.
It is always 80/20. Choose your parents wisely.
Dennis L.
More like 99/01. And there are things called abortion and infanticide. Choosing parents wisely don’t always work
We are not a pack of animals, we are a group.
We are animals, primates to be precise.
“There seems to be a common belief that the US has an almost unlimited supply of oil.” This is a common irrational belief that the American Right holds. It is very similar to the belief that “Green Energy” will save us held by the American Left.
Agreed! Another irrational belief is that prices can rise arbitrarily high.
Clearing the muddy waters .
https://geoenergymath.com/
Wrong link . Will fix it . Ignore .
Let us see .
https://peakoilbarrel.com/october-world-oil-production-continues-to-rebound/#comment-770305
Very well explained .
https://peakoilbarrel.com/october-world-oil-production-continues-to-rebound/#comment-770312
Amazing that something so important to survival gets such limited attention! So few people study it except maybe the wealthy hence “the plan” to limit the herd
Sam,
In my late years what I see is the wealthy choose their mates very wisely. Rich men choose talented and beautiful women, I mean those who are not playboys. For entertainment they rent, not own; a nice boat is very helpful for this activity, or a private jet if you will.
We humans are biology and biology rules.
Dennis L.
If cnnbbc tell the MOREONS that there is a lot of oil remaining… the MOREONS will believe it.
Just like they believed Safe and Effective for a substance that as far as they were aware — was developed and tested in less than a year … funny thing is now that we are getting the long term safety results — and millions are dying … they still believe it’s safe and effective
hahahahahahahaahaha… keith paid the price
My Copilot again:
“The belief about the U.S. having an almost unlimited supply of oil is not universally held by all on the political right in the U.S. It’s important to note that views can vary widely within any political group. However, it is true that some politicians and commentators on the right have emphasized the U.S.’s substantial oil production capabilities12….”
What if burning it all destroys the planet? Nearest replacement is maybe 5 or so light years away, what if someone already lives there and 8 B people are not welcome? Bummer.
I am not a climate alarmist, but I don’t think we can burn it all and as it is uncertain, it is not a good risk.
Coincidence: a fellow named Musk immigrates to the US, gets some venture capital from Paypal startup, starts an auto company with advanced AI and now Optimus robots with thumbs(think they might work in space?) Then this fellow starts building rockets, rockets that now launch the majority of space missions and has them land on their butt. Next Starship which lands by hanging from some “wings” on the side gripped by the cradle on a huge structure.
Is this coincidence? He was not trained as a rocket scientist, read a book one weekend and next thing, “Here, hold my beer.”
We don’t need to bake earth, space is cold, dump the heat in space, dump the trash in Jupiter, get the exogenous energy in space from solar arrays.
Perhaps the fabric of the universe is telling us the fossil age is done, but look out the window, the fabric has tons and tons of unused planetary material floating around, grab a piece, make something. The fabric has shown us ribosomes which make ribosomes from self assembling proteins. Rinse and repeat.
AI is going light speed, they have thought of something. We are going to be fine without oil.
Gail has referenced a video regarding origin of life. It goes in jumps, it does not evolve, it jumps. If you watch it, a comment is made about a blind watchmaker. Tinkering with a mechanism which is working generally makes a mess, try programming if you like.
Something has made this project, I think that something is telling us to move on. It will be bumpy but so is jumping off a cliff. Have often said I am an anti lemming lemming. When the crowd is running forward, and everyone knows there is a cliff but reassure themselves there is not cliff I go right or left, it can’t be any worse.
Dennis L.
There is no right or left. There is only the cliff.
That is true. Economic systems (capitalism, socialism, communism) and political systems (monarchy, autocracy, representative democracy) are different ideas of how to organize governments and economies. There can be no government or economy without sufficient surpluses of energy. It is something that all mainstream political and economic thinkers are largely blind too, except for Gail and a few others.
This is simply another of a long list of failures within the simulacrum…..
We refuse to learn
This world was not made for us
Yes , I keep on shouting ” look for the nett surplus energy ” . We have now only enough to maintain an orderly decline . This will not happen . The TPTB will waste it all on stupid ideas — renewables , AI , methane hydrate harvesting etc . BAU tonight as David calls it .🤣
Yes. Every available measure has to be taken
Yes, the number of humans needs to be decreased by a factor of 50.
I do not wish to be part of that project; I suspect it destroys the person who commits such an act.
Dennis L.
Mother Nature will do the dirty work. Oil gone, fertilizer gone, food far less, humans far less.
Dennis , you don’t have a choice . Keep to space mining and stuff . The planet earth is different , here ” the survival of the fittest ” prevails .
I wonder if when the West finally admits that they caused the war in Eastern Europe, and have lost, and that it was responsible for blowing up Nordstream, Germany in particular will go back to using the cheaper Russian natural gas as a way to try to restore its failing economy. Thus these expensive US facilities will become a liability
I doubt it. Our governments are controlled by the US. The US seems to want us to deindustrialise so they will follow those orders no matter what.
What if climate change is real? Russia has a lot of stuff to burn, perhaps not the best.
Dennis L.
It doesn’t matter if climate change is real or not. The alternative is certain death.
what does this comment even mean?
Only what it says, perhaps off topic somewhat. I am becoming sort of a concerned citizen regarding climate change.
Perhaps I was thinking of With’s comment regarding deindustrialization.
I am not passionate about climate change, but if it can be deflected/avoided that would seem like a good idea. Once the planet is toast everything else is meaningless.
If climate change is real, the universe having gone through all the effort and time for biology will think of something. Think of the dinosaurs; perhaps they became boring to whatever, a relatively small asteroid and the game gets changed.
Aside, nonsense, think about 700m years ago earth was a ball of snow, a bit of warming would have been welcome perhaps.
Dennis L.
Only what it says, perhaps off topic somewhat. I am becoming sort of a concerned citizen regarding climate change.
Such citizens should show their sincerity by ceasing to eat food, wear clothes, live in houses, drive cars or use electricity.
I’m not sure the Germany could buy Russian natural gas now, if they wanted to. I expect that the fields closest to Europe are depleting, making longer pipelines necessary. If the supplies are from farther east, then it makes as much or more sense to pipe the natural gas to China as to Europe.
Or Russia could send the natural gas to China as LNG, under a long-term contract. This becomes more feasible with global warming. Quite a bit of Russia’s natural gas seems to be in the far north.
Yes, we have the “stuff,” but at what price?
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/markets/billions-of-rare-and-valuable-materials-discovered-in-wisconsin-could-make-u-s-the-leading-producer-of-rare-earth-materials/ss-BB1ikBmA?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=22962ab8951b428ba7fc617d9eeffd55&ei=11#image=7
Headline appears incorrect, it is in Wyoming not Wisconsin.
My Copilot as always, “So, while rare earth minerals are crucial for many modern technologies, their extraction and processing have significant environmental impacts. It’s a complex issue that requires careful consideration and sustainable solutions.”
The US has had this “stuff” for a long time, we moved production to China, good choice for us, bad choice for our Spaceship earth.
This stuff has to be in space, part of my suggestion is mass manufacturing or drones, exploring asteroids and process this stuff off earth.
Musk has part of the solution for man in space, Optimus, a robot with opposing thumbs. So Starship to carry whatever into space, Optimus to assemble drones to explore space, development of Optimus at Tesla to assemble cars. Seems like a plan.
Again, my Copilot: “Yes, the Optimus robot developed by Tesla does have opposable thumbs1234. This feature allows it to perform tasks and potentially operate certain types of machinery3. Elon Musk has shown a prototype of the robot picking up boxes and moving through a rendered office building1. However, please note that the robot is still in the development stage.”
Like him or hate him, he knows how to leverage technology. Now, how will materials from space be taxed? These are not trivial problems.
Dennis L.
The US has had this “stuff” for a long time, we moved production to China, good choice for us, bad choice for our Spaceship earth.
That is not true, the US lacks the most industrially important and valuable rare earth metals. The devil is in the details but if you don’t know that, your fake AI won’t be able to tell you because you don’t know what to ask.
Per Copilot, the CA part is consistent with what I have earlier posted here some time ago.
“Rare earth mining has not completely stopped. In the United States, the Mountain Pass mine in California, which was once the world’s top source for rare earth elements, had ceased operations in 2002 due to a combination of environmental concerns and competition from China12. However, it later reopened and remains the only U.S. mine for rare earths1.
In China, local and federal officials have shut down illegal and small-scale rare earth mining operations3. Additionally, China announced export restrictions in 2023 on certain rare earth elements4, which led to other nations seeking alternative sources4.”
It is not the mining, it is the processing which is a mess. Solution: collect it in space, dump pollution in Jupiter the solar garbage heap.
Copilot gives references if you with to check.
With, thanks for the comment, I do attempt to be very careful with what I post. Copilot is good, but it somewhat out of date, I expect that is secondary to its being “free.”
Dennis L.
“Rare earth mining has not completely stopped. In the United States, the Mountain Pass mine in California, which was once the world’s top source for rare earth elements, had ceased operations in 2002 due to a combination of environmental concerns and competition from China12. However, it later reopened and remains the only U.S. mine for rare earths1.
I know all that. you don’t seem able to understand that there are numerous rare earth metals and the US does not have the ones that really matter.
Which one please?
Dennis L.
Why don’t you do some research and tell me what rare earth metal the Mountain Pass mine produced.
I did a google and found nothing. But generally the entire block in the mendeleev table is represented in these ores, if in varying percentages.
I did a google and found nothing.
It was mostly europium which was used in colour TV’s.
I expect that the cost of extraction depends mostly on how important polluting the environment is to those doing the extraction. We cannot compete with China on this factor.
We also would depend on imported industrial equipment from China to do this extraction. We probably could get the diesel needed from oil we import from Canada and refine. But we are still lacking in steel products needed, for example.
Guys , it is not the mining but the processing of the minerals . Ore is dust if you can’t convert it into an element on the periodic table . This is where China scores . 95% of the world’s rare earth processing capacity is in China . You can mine in USA , Canada , Australia or anywhere , ultimately it has to be sent to China for processing . Just like crude oil — it has to be refined to be of use to mankind .
. You can mine in USA , Canada , Australia or anywhere
China does the processing indeed, but I repeat, the US does not have the most valuable and industrially important rare earth metals. They can mine all they want, they aren’t there to mine.
Agree with you .
I am not seeing that. Here are the costs for the four so noted, please mention others you think are significant.
“Here are the approximate costs per kilogram for the refined rare earth metals you asked about:
Cerium: The price of Cerium is approximately $5.4 – $5.5 per kilogram1.
Lanthanum: The price of Lanthanum is approximately $5.30 – $5.40 per kilogram1.
Neodymium: The price of Neodymium is approximately $103.40 per kilogram2.
Europium: The price of Europium is forecasted to decrease to $28 per kilogram by 2030 from the 2020 price of $30 per kilogram3.
For comparison:
The cost of refined copper per kilogram is approximately $8.091.
Interesting, Cu is more expensive than two of the rare earth metals.
Own sufficient Neodyminium to make a couple of fair sized DYI wind turbines, time, always time which grows short for an old man.
Dennis L.
My credits to my Copilot, fast worker at a good price.
Good point!
Entropy rules . Mr. B– The Honest Sorcerer .
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/the-arrow-of-time-bfe2d3fa8f16
When you think about it, the ‘circular economy’ is the same as expecting farmland to remain fertile forever just using manure or whatever produced on the farm.
The energy taken out of the soil gets used up powering the bodies of the animals and humans eating the crops. You’re never going to be able to replace all of it so the fertility slowly degrades. Farming basically doesn’t work.
I agree with you. It seems that civilizations are depleting their land in a few centuries. But can one do millennia instead? It is my opinion that it can be done. Basically because nutrient loss is exponential if starting from surface. I already posted about it. But it takes abandoning most shallow root crops (a majority) in favor of deep rooted crops.
I wonder if the Irish famine was really just about the potato blight as we are taught or was the problem also or mostly about degraded land.
It surely isn’t possible to grow the same amount of potatoes every year from the same plot without a lot of fertiliser such as manure which the poor did not have.
and that is because potatoes have the shallowest of roots. Anything that falls below the max. depth is lost forever. But you could grow rye or sorghum, whose roots go down 2.5X.
Haven’t people here read ‘Farmers of 40 Centuries’? If not, ‘normal people’ won’t have a clue that this continuity is possible.
Haven’t people here read ‘Farmers of 40 Centuries’? If not, ‘normal people’ won’t have a clue that this continuity is possible.
It isn’t possible. You can’t beat entropy.
What it takes, is killing every single damn farmer in existence enslaving their daughters, then wiping out the cities (and all that inhabit them) that feed off what the dirt grubbers produce.
Once that holy work is complete and you are down to a few tens of millions of warrior herders, hunter gatherers and handline fisherfolk….then you can look around and realize that this is all an illusion designed to teach souls that they cannot escape the simulacrum by desecration of the design.
What it takes, is killing every single damn farmer in existence enslaving their daughters, then wiping out the cities (and all that inhabit them) that feed off what the dirt grubbers produce.
The cities will wipe themselves out. Barbarian horsemen can take care of the dirt grubbers. The grass will grow lush and green among the skulls.
Genghis shall ride again!!!
Before you kill the daughters… I highly recommend a bit of the ol ‘in and out’… the roast them over a fire… succulent!
https://prod-images.tcm.com/Master-Profile-Images/aclockworkorange1971.71092.jpg
Whenever I mention in Real Life to a MOREON that humans are the stooopidest beasts every to walk the plane (referencing spraying poison on food so other ‘stupid’ organisms won’t eat it – then we eat it resulting our population bursting beyond 8B) …
it’s always the high IQ high achievers that demonstrate the most scornful looks…
How DARE Fast Eddy attack their super powers hahahahahaha…
Another reason I will enjoy watching them squirm when The Pathogen hits.
One of his points is that recycling isn’t necessarily good. It certainly increases entropy.
It would be better to have simple, easily-repairable products than ones made from recycled materials.
The plastics industry has worked for decades to convince people and policymakers that recycling would keep waste out of landfills and the environment. Consumers sort their trash so plastic packaging can be repurposed, and local governments use taxpayer money to gather and process the material. Yet from the early days of recycling, plastic makers, including oil and gas companies, knew that it wasn’t a viable solution to deal with increasing amounts of waste, according to documents uncovered by the Center for Climate Integrity.
Around the time the plastics industry launched its recycling campaign, the head of a trade group called the Vinyl Institute acknowledged at a 1989 conference that “recycling cannot go on indefinitely, and does not solve the solid waste problem.”
From NPR
Recycling is largely a waste..
That’s why I generally either toss plastic in the landfill bin so that I don’t have to waste my time carting multiple bins to the street to be picked up … or burning it in a metal barrel
UK has officially fallen into recession today. That will likely be bad for the Tories in a General Election year.
“That’s the worst performance since 2009 when the economy was still reeling from the global financial crisis”
Labour was already projected the day before for a landslide victory and the Tories for their worst result in history.
“The Conservatives face an electoral wipeout that would see them lose more than three-quarters of their seats, according to a mega-poll”
The Tories never recovered in the polls from ‘Party Gate’ (Tory parties at No. 10 during lockdown) and the loss of Boris as PM.
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/britain-falls-recession-075747092.html
The United Kingdom has slipped into recession just months ahead of a general election, official figures showed Thursday, derailing Prime Minister Rishi Sunak’s pledge to generate economic growth.
Gross domestic product fell 0.3% in the final three months of 2023, following a 0.1% contraction in the July-to-September period, the Office for National Statistics said. A recession is commonly defined as two consecutive quarters of contraction.
The ONS estimates that UK GDP increased by a meagre 0.1% in 2023. That’s the worst performance since 2009 when the economy was still reeling from the global financial crisis, if 2020, which was affected by the pandemic, is excluded. Last year’s weak rise in output follows growth of 4.3% in 2022.
“Across 2023 as a whole the economy has been broadly flat,” McKeown said.
The news will come as a disappointment to Sunak, whose ruling Conservative Party is contesting two local elections in England on Thursday. It could also widen the already commanding lead the opposition Labour Party enjoys in opinion polls ahead of the national election expected this year.
*
This was the day before:
https://www.mirror.co.uk/news/politics/bombshell-mega-poll-predicts-tories-32121361
Bombshell mega-poll predicts Tories will lose three-quarters of seats – full results and map
The MRP poll that surveyed 18,000 people projects Rishi Sunak will be left with just 80 MPs, which would be the party’s worst result in history and see 18 Cabinet ministers ousted
The Conservatives face an electoral wipeout that would see them lose more than three-quarters of their seats, according to a mega-poll.
The bombshell survey of 18,000 people forecasts that Rishi Sunak will be left with just 80 MPs, which would be the party’s worst result in history. Seventeen Cabinet ministers would be ousted with casualties including Jeremy Hunt, Grant Shapps, Penny Mordaunt, Gillian Keegan and Mel Stride.
The poll by Find Out Now and Electoral Calculus predicts that Keir Stamer is heading for a Labour landslide with an unprecedented majority of 254 seats. This would be an even bigger victory than Tony Blair’s historic win in 1997. According to the poll, Labour has 42% support giving it a 20 point lead over the Conservatives on 22%.
As long as labour can prevent their candidates from slagging Israel.
The demise of the increasingly ridiculous SNP is great for labour.
The Labour resurgence is catastrophic for the Tories but it could have been worse for SNP.
Labour is projected to take 8 seats from SNP leaving SNP with 40, Labour 13 and Tories with 0 in Scotland.
‘No’ retains only a slender lead (4%) over support for Scottish independence on the average of recent polls.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Opinion_polling_on_Scottish_independence#Graphical_summary
So, SNP seems to have lost the prospect of any ‘leverage’ from a hung parliament to force a fresh independence referendum in return for their support of a Labour government.
That leaves a referendum at the ‘grace’ of Westminster and likely some years hence.
But the Labour resurgence could have been worse for SNP. And it does not seem to have affected the levels of support for Scottish independence one way or the other.
Only time will tell what happens in the electoral cycles that lie ahead.
The north of Scotland could be useful to England as a ‘back door’ guard into the Atlantic but the state has not bothered to develop in that way with naval and air bases so it makes no obvious difference to us as things stand. NI/ Ireland could be used in the same way.
It would be interesting to hear what genuine strategic value is placed on the retention of Scotland. We certainly would not want any other power establishing itself there but that has never really happened anyway. Even the Vikings showed basically zero interest in Scotland. Obviously we would not allow any power there anytime soon.
In the meantime, ‘plebeian’ attachments to the status quo are what they are and they are not really given much priority as an end in themselves.
I suppose that with recession, it is helpful to have a government that promise to help citizens–likely using more debt. Labour likely promises more than Conservatives.
Not allow any power there? So an independent Scotland will not allow a foreign power – oh, who knows – maybe Russia – to invade? . All right. Good to know.
Vikings had little interest in Scotland? Orkney and Shetland aren’t really Scottish.
So did Japan go in recession …. technically at least
“Looking instead at GDP per capita – which is what matters most for household incomes – the Foundation notes that it has fallen by 0.7 per cent across 2023, and hasn’t grown since Q1 2022, the longest runs of falls or stagnation since 1955.
GDP per capita was 4.2 per cent off its pre-cost-of-living-crisis path by the end of 2023, a loss equivalent to nearly £1,500 per person in annual GDP terms.”?
https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/press-releases/uk-falls-into-recession-and-a-far-deeper-living-standards-downturn/
The US exports circa 4.5-5mbpd of shale oil . Why does it not replenish its SPR ? Finally I got the answer from Stephen Bowers at ” the oily stuff ” . Long but worth it .
stephen.bowers
6d
Anne/ Mike,
I know exactly why they do not want to put LTO into the SPR. Crude is categorized in two main ways.
The PONA is used for the whole crude and primary products (naphtha, jet, diesel)
Paraffins (sometimes divided into normal and iso paraffins)
Olefines
Napthenes
Aromatics
The residue and especially the vacuum residue is categorized in terms of SARA
Saturates
Aromatics
Resins
Asphaltenes
The main refineries in the US are concentrated in the south and a are heavily into lower API crudes, which have a lot of atmospheric residue, that contains a large amount of vacuum gas oil (VGO) which feeds the hydrocracker and FCC units. The gasoline fraction from the FCC makes up the main component in the gasoline pool ( RON Octane approx 91-93) that means it does not need much octane booster. The second largest component is reformate produced on a reformer using heavy naphtha (you may see this listed as N&A naphtha on pricing reports).Reformate has a high RON octane between 94-100 depending on the severity of operation. Generally speaking the olefines and aromatics have high RON, naphthenes middle and paraffins low. There is one exception with paraffins ( and a few more) which is iso-octane (2,2,4 trimethylpentane) which has an octane of 100 and is the reference fuel used to assess octane numbers. Phew.
Since the US has a very high gasoline/ crude ratio about 0.45, then certain crude types are preferred, in fact are required to meet the demand of the varous fuel types. LTO would not produce the required gasoline output with the current refinery configurations, and it would severely reduce crude throughputs if run as is. Some can be blended into the crude charge but would have to be balanced with even heavier crude, and this is where the fun starts.
LTO is generally regarded as a paraffinic crude. A lot of heavy crudes have high resins and asphaltene content. Asphaltenes are soluble in aromatic solvents but insoluble in in paraffinnic solvents. Indeed vacuum residue is often processed in an SDA (solvent de-asphalter) to remove the asphaltenes, which contain heavy metals. The solvent can be propane, butane, pentane and up to heptane.
Many years ago I was working in a big refinery owned by the company with a double cross in its name. At that time they were processing a range of ME and North Sea crudes. They bought in a ship (shit) load of Souedie from Syria and mixed an asphaltenic crude with a paraffinnic crude( Forties). Fatal. The asphaltenes precipitated in the feed tank, it became a solvent desaphalter, and the asphaltenes dropped out in the crude pre heat chain ( heat exchangers) and desalter. A total disaster and there was about two weeks of running this shit which fouled everything in the crude unit and beyond. The desalter washed out huge amounts of sludge which then overloaded the waste water plant.
Another example is the recent change to ship bunker oils. The low sulphur bunker oil introduced another instability. Blending heavy residues with heavy low sulphur gas oils also caused issues. I digress
Were the SPR to be filled with LTO it would become the world’s biggest SDA. The LTO would precipitate a huge amount of asphaltenes which would drop out eventually and settle into the bottom of the SPR as a thick sludge pool.
I hope that this helps explain the situation because in the oil business, there is not black and white, just shades of grey.
I have attached a copy of Basrah( Iraqi) Heavy crude assay which is a 24 API heavy asphaltenic crude. This crude will be on the limits of stability. Look closely at the residue and the RON of the naphtha cuts. This shit is very similar to the Saudi crude. Just do not mix it.
Guess what you will not get this from the numerous internet experts who have never touched a drop of crude in their miserable lives, because you have to have skin in the game to work this out. Seeing is believing and nothing beats having your ass on the line.
My addition : Thinking that 10 API ( Tar oil) + 48 API ( shale oil) =29 API at the refinery gate is ludicrous .
Could you point us to the original article?
Here drb , go thru the comments section .
https://www.oilystuff.com/forumstuff/forum-stuff/exporting-ourselves-to-death
Thanks for the information. It explains what goes wrong, chemically, when you mix the oils of different types.
My guess is that the oil that was removed from the SPR was oil that was needed recently to balance the production that is going on today. These kinds of oil are likely in short supply. It will be difficult to refill the SPR for this reason.
Gail , release from SPR was a political decision and not a technical one . It was to keep oil prices low for the Biden administration and influence the CPI . All other inputs to CPI calculation were rising . It was an act to offset this and get a lower CPI figure .
No sarcasm, could you do an executive summary for that?
Dennis L.
Let me try to explain what I think I understand. Oil is always a mixture of hydrocarbons. These hydrocarbons come in different forms:
The paraffins are characterized by tight bonds. They are un-reactive in nature. These would have a lot of double bonds.
Asphaltenic crude, on the other hand, has a lot of chains with only single bonds. They also have aromatic hydrocarbons, arranged in a ring. Both the strings and rings are quite reactive.
Refinery workers want the heavy elements in the asphalt type crude to precipitate out when the crude is heated, rather than in the “feed tank” used before it is moved to the crude oil distillation unit to be heated. The SPR is like a big feed tank.
What tends to happen if the two kinds of crude are mixed is that the asphalt portions tend to precipitate out far too soon, because “Asphaltenes are soluble in aromatic solvents.” This produces a big mess.
AI and science
Recently researchers at Dana-Farber Cancer Center have been questioned about duplicate images. Supposedly some of these were discovered with image processing programs. One of the mentioned has a Nobel Prize, bummer for that committee.
We can look forward to some interesting questions form AI. Going back through past publications and finding contradictions or outright fabrications will change science.
Alzheimer research comes to mind: Schrag published images were manipulated and a drug costing millions was perhaps worthless, bummer. (This was found with Copilot, never fly solo, always a backup.)
With AI, cheating, lying will perhaps become much harder. Imagine a politician being fact checked in real time has he/she speaks with subtitles under the speech. Nightmare of nightmares, an AI fact checking other AI’s, the ultimate “My dad can beat up your dad.”
Dealing with reality vs the narrative is already a challenge.
My thesis is the universe is not omnipotent, it is only correct 20% of the time, what doesn’t work is discarded, or repurposed. E.g. a supernova of a star not up to specs., make some metals and send them out into the nearby galaxy. Waste not, want not.
Dennis L.
“
The exception seems to be the slanted news we hear. The fact checking is to the narrative that TPTB wants to be heard. Thus, we have a world where views that are true, are singled out as disinformation, when they only differ from the preferred narrative.
Infinite growth on a finite planet OR How we are mathematically f*cked .
https://indi.ca/how-mathematically-were-fucked/
including the current production levels of natural gas, so we could see what % of US production goes into LNG would be a useful reference point.
It is hard to squeeze everything in.
There is a detail about “net or gross” too.
I said that US LNG production for 2023 was about 11.7 Bcf/d. This seems to be on a gross basis–not the amount that the consumers would actually get on the other end of the pipeline. Natural gas is used in the process.
US dry natural gas production for 2023, based on data through November, was about 103.7 Bcf/d. Thus, the share of US natural gas going to LNG was about 11%. The US also exports natural gas to Mexico by pipeline, so the LNG amounts are not total US natural gas exports.
The amount that arrives at the consumer is a somewhat less. My impression is that the Statistical Review gives natural gas that actually gets to the consumer, while EIA gives amounts sent for liquefaction. These two are not the same. I know that there is about a 14% haircut at the beginning, in the liquefaction processes. There is more loss on shipping.
I probably should have pointed out in my post that the amount of export capacity already approved (48 Bcf/d) represents about 46% of US dry natural gas production in 2023. There would need to be a huge increase in US dry natural production for this to make sense.
It looks like 2023 natural gas production will be about 4% higher than 2022 production. Even now, with shale wells becoming more gassy, production is not growing very rapidly.
Don’t expect any increase to gas supply from the Permian . We must understand the difference between wet gas and dry gas . Permian gas is wet gas . It must pass thru a separator before it can be transported or stored to prevent explosion . This is additional cost . The average price of dry gas at Waha Hub is $ 1.89 MMBtu . To meet this price the Permian producer must sell his gas at $ 0.38 cents . No logic . All Permian gas will be flared . The question is how tight will the administration tighten the screws on flaring . If it screws too tight then oil production will fall . Between a rock and a hard place .
rav,
All this ignores climate, we have one spaceship, it works very well. I believe in the fabric of the universe, we will have alternatives and ideas which damage earth will fail for one reason or another. Smugness on either side of the question will not be helpful.
Good points. Natural gas is very much like a waste product. If the price is high enough, it can be refined and piped elsewhere. If it is not, its value is negative. It simply gets flared.
Very thorough analysis Gail. Many thanks!
I don’t agree though that interest rates are relatively high currently. Even the official inflation rate in the US is currently a touch over 3%, meaning that the current 10 year rate of about 4.2% translates to a real rate of 1.1%. Given the dynamics of debt and inflation, interest rates have large upside potential, and very little downside potential.
I agree that interest rates are not very high, compared to any reasonable standard. The issue is that businesses have been used to a situation where the risk-free interest rates is practically zero. Most of the LNG facilities in the pipeline have been funded during such a time. Such low interest rates dramatically reduce costs on a long-term project.
New facilities added to the queue will need to compete with facilities whose interest cost is locked in at a much lower interest rate. Thus, their cost basis will be a lot higher. Other LNG facilities around the world will find the same situation. It will be hard to compete, coming in at a much higher cost basis.
Yes, absolutely.
I think also the US fracking industry was an artefact of the very low rate regime following 2008. That’s not a controversial thing at all.
The other side of that debt coin is that the bonholders/creditors of the loans taken out during the low rate period, will be – already are – looking at steep losses in the value of the debt they hold.
It will be interesting if the existing energy companies are forced to refinance at ever higher rates – or else cease business.
Yet another issue we don’t think about!
click,
It depends on whether or not the losses are realized; if not then it is only a loss of income which could have been better had duration been calculated better.
For reference only:
Macaulay Duration:
Macaulay duration is the weighted average time before a bond holder receives the bond’s cash flows1. It is calculated using the following formula2:
MacD=(m∗PV)(1+YTM/m)m∗t1+…+(m∗PV)(1+YTM/m)m∗tn+(PV)(1+YTM/m)m∗tn(t1∗FV∗C)+(tn∗FV∗C)+(tn∗FV)
Where:
m = Number of payments per period
YTM = Yield to Maturity
PV = Bond price
FV = Bond face value
C = Coupon rate
t_i = Time in years associated with each coupon payment
If you are really a fanatic do the Modified Duration which will basically give the change in bond price/1% change in interes rates. Suspect this comes into play with derivatives – problem in matching maturities.
Not an expert, but seems like it is still a guess. Had to do this >40 years ago, seemed like waving of hands then too. Basically as long as you don’t need the money and have to sell before the bond’s maturity date and the assets purchased with the bonds match it is a wash.
Munger was very good at this game.
Dennis L.
Guess:
There are very few places to put invested capital, first in to a project which works for a while gets return of capital and a return of capital, the rest support the effort.
None of this stuff works, it is all a bridge; a shaky bridge which scares the heck out of those using it is better than no bridge at all. Keeping with my leitmotif, 20% get to the other side and go forward, 80% tremble in fear and become mere atoms in the universe, not organized molecules fabricated by ribosomes.
The universe likes biology and as of yet, we really don’t have any “theories” of biology. Darwin is so yesterday.
Dennis L.
The universe does not like biology, it likes entropy.
The universe may well adore life (plasma based “life”), biology I suspect, is part of a rather small “stage play” off in a small corner of multi dimensional reality.
Biology is a temporary chemical phenomenon. It helps increase entropy.
Okay, to each his own.
I posit the universe exists to create and support biology; we are the apex of known biology and are supposed to be here. But, no one said it wouldn’t be a bit messy.
Dennis L.
The universe moves in big jumps. Darwin only explains a bit of the problem.
Europe will be deindustrialized at the instigation of the oligarchs with the help of a geriatric puppet president (Biden or Trump) in the USA.
Not a good future sales market for LNG gas.
Our fellow commenter Daveinamillion… – correctly – makes a distinction between Core and Periphery.
Europe is the most expensive part of the world to produce manufactured goods. As energy grows scarcer it makes sense for the global Superorganism to let go of Europe first in the economic sense, so that fossil fuels can be allocated to those areas that make the best use of them.
We are used to thinking of Europe and North America as the Core, and to thinking of everywhere else as the Periphery. That is no longer true. Surely, the global economic Core now consists of a Triangle with the Gulf (cheap oil) and Russia (resources generally) now supplying East Asia (Workshop of the World).
Everywhere else is Periphery, with vast debt allowing most people in some parts of the Periphery (North America, Western Europe) to maintain the illusion of being in the Core – until now.
Good points!
I agree. We keep being told that Europe and the UK are wealthy. Turn off the energy flow and we’ll find out how wealthy we really are. It won’t be pleasant.
That’s for damn sure!
If only Pooty would reduce the energy flow to the EU they’d stop… you know what
chickid:
Spaceship earth needs a break, perhaps Europe will not be as polluted as the rest of the world. What Europe lacks is Starship and indigenous people, indigenous women have decided to go career, immigrants have not forgotten self replication. The universe seems to favor self replication.
Dad’s metaphorically guard their daughters with shotguns, dad’s perhaps serve a purpose. I don’t think policy which is not congruent with the universe will change the universe. Bummer.
Dennis L.
Europe has mostly used up its fossil fuel supplies. This is a big problem.
We have lived in a time of relative abundance of fossil fuels. Importers could buy fossil fuels cheaply. These times are going away. I don’t know the details of the pipeline natural gas imports of Europe from Russia. My guess is that they were locked in at a rate that no longer works for Russia, if natural gas needs to be piped from a longer distance. Russia could get more adequate prices by shipping its natural gas to China, by pipeline.
Also, the old pipeline (Nord Stream 1) needed to be replaced with a less leaky, more highly pressurized new one (Nord Stream 2).
Europe has huge imported fossil fuel problems. Europe is being forced to deindustrialize. It can’t afford to pay a high price for natural gas, I agree.
Copilot is having some issues with Nortstream 2. I don’t know, but some say it is still intact.
From Copilot: “You’re correct. If the Nord Stream 2 pipeline was never operational, then it should not have contained any natural gas. The reports of gas leaks following the explosions could be due to a misunderstanding or miscommunication in the news reports. It’s also possible that there was some residual or test gas in the pipeline. However, without more specific information, it’s difficult to say for certain. Please refer to the most reliable and recent sources for the most accurate information. Thank you for pointing out this discrepancy.”
FWIW, I am the “you” mentioned above.
Dennis L.
Copilot is having some issues with Nortstream 2. I don’t know, but some say it is still intact.
There are 2 Nordstream 1 pipelines and 2 Nordstream 2 pipelines. 1 of the Nordstream 2 pipelines remains intact.
The story I remember was that only one of the two Nord Stream 2 pipelines was blown up.
The pipelines needed to stay pressurized, even if they were not delivering natural gas. Otherwise, the water pressure would have collapsed the pipelines.
Even if one of the two Nord Stream 2 pipelines was blown up, it could be repaired by now, if Russia/Germany chose to do that.
I can only imagine that European leaders are taking orders directly from America against the interests of their people.
Otherwise it seems insane to allow one’s country’s industries to be destroyed.
No need to fix what’s not broken
Let’s ask Chat GBT what it thinks. Ask it why it can’t solve Captcha … I am keen on knowing
Hell, I can not solve Captcha.
From Warwickshire, UK ……
Thanks for the article – a good summary
Reading an Art Berman recent post around the same issues – he raises concerns about the decline(often rapid) of shale field production – in essence that there may well not be the gas in 10-15 years time. I didn’t see this key issue referenced in your own post. Thoughts?
Cheers Jonathan
In some sense, I felt that the decline in shale field production was an obvious issue to the majority of the likely readers of my post. At the same time, I figured that I would have quite a few readers from the “They are always crying wolf,” category. Trying to convince the readers from the crying wolf group would be a hard sell.
Also, while natural gas production recently has been tied to oil from shale formations, it is not entirely obvious that other sources of natural gas could not be tapped. China is increasingly getting natural gas from coal bed methane, I understand. There seems to be a lot of “stranded” natural gas, situated in natural gas only wells, for example in Alaska. The cost of shipping this natural gas, even by pipeline, gets to be overwhelming. If natural gas prices could permanently rise (a big if), this type of natural gas could be used. A small amount of this natural gas has been shipped as LNG to Japan since 1973.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/ng/hist/ngm_epg0_eve_nus-nja_mmcfa.htm
There was a recent news item saying, “Biden pauses LNG export approvals under pressure from climate activists.”
Ring Ding Ring Ding… I smell fake news…. cuz no f789ing way in hell would the Elder’s minions pause exports for this reason … they’d tell the activists to lick a dog’s ar.se.
What is happening is there is no pause — cuz if they paused Europe would implode…
If there is a reduction that’s cuz there ain’t enough to go around.
Can anyone prove that the Nordstream pipe was blowed up to pieces? I can’t… unless I go there and dive down to see… but I ain’t gonna do that.
I think that the US blew up the pipeline with Norway’s assistance. The US wants higher US natural gas prices. It needed to get rid of competition from Russia.
Yes … but can anyone prove it?
I think keith is dead… or at least severely vax injured… but …
Biden sides with American nationalist!
Meanwhile in the Good News department
Beneath the Skin of CPI Inflation, January: Powell’s Gonna Have a Cow when he Sees the Spike in “Core Services” Inflation
But that’s how inflation is, once out of the bottle: It serves up nasty surprises.
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/02/13/beneath-the-skin-of-cpi-inflation-january-powells-gonna-have-a-cow-when-he-sees-the-spike-in-core-services-inflation/
https://wolfstreet.com/wp-content/uploads/2024/02/US-CPI-2024-02-13-core-services-mom_.png
Who would have thought that increasing interest rates would not control inflation driven by severe depletion of affordable energy.
I don’t know if it’s more disturbing that he’s lying about raising interest rates to combat inflation or that he’s stupid enough to think it will work.
It never works but the fiction must be maintained that the economy is about money and banks and therefore controllable by the state.
You could teach one 40 minute class in school that would explain how things really work, but such a class is not taught in any country as far as I know.
Extend and pretend in perpetuity . Fiction must be maintained .
https://wolfstreet.com/2024/02/12/cre-loans-maturing-in-2024-balloon-by-41-to-929-billion-after-loans-that-matured-in-2023-werent-paid-off-but-extended/
Another indication that they can and will do whatever it takes to buy time for The Pathogen to arrive.
I’d like to see them in a position where they were forced – in a desperate attempt to fend off life-sapping inflation — because that would signal Pushing on String.
Services, like providing apartments for rent, seem to have a big interest component, since funds are borrowed to build the apartments. Raising interest rates permanently raises costs.
Low paid workers need to have their wages raised to cover housing and other costs. This badly affects the cost of services, also.
The view seems to be that Europe will be sweet for LNG once more USA export comes on line in coming years.
Europe seems to be more worried now that Trump will dump NATO, cut Europe off from USA military support and leave them quaking in their boots about what Russia is liable to do after they used UKR and sanctions to attack Russia and to try to collapse the Russian economy and state.
It would be so funny if Trump did that. Of course Europe wants a largely free ride off USA and talks as if USA has ‘no choice’ but to support Europe. Their greatest fear is that talking sh/t will not get them everything that they want.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/europes-energy-crisis-still-isnt-011240571.html
Looking beyond this year, Goldman forecasts new LNG export projects could come online in 2025, which would lead to increases in global LNG supply and begin tilting markets into oversupply.
“With significantly more LNG available, Europe will no longer have to crowd out price-sensitive buyers in the rest of the world to guarantee sufficient imports, and will be able to accommodate incremental domestic demand, leading to sustainably lower LNG and European gas prices,” Goldman strategists said.
Should this play out accordingly, 2025-2026 winter should see a “comfortable supply backdrop.”
Europe seems to be more worried now that Trump will dump NATO, cut Europe off from USA military support
The US occupies Europe and blew up its gas pipelines. I wouldn’t call that military support exactly. More like terrorism.
One of the most stable European nations seems to be Switzerland. Its defence policy is ‘armed neutrality’, i.e. for self-defence only. Defence spending: 0.8% of GDP.
Ireland’s defence policy seems to be to pay a few soldiers and rely on historical luck, i.e. it’s an island. Defence spending: 0.2% of GDP.
Austria’s been neutral under international law since 1955. It spends 0.8%, same as Switzerland.
Trump moaned about some NATO states not spending ‘enough’. Looking at what the neutral countries spend, maybe NATO spends too much.
The only reason why you would want to invade another country today is “resources “ Europe has very little left in natural resources. Why would you want to invade Ireland or any other European country for that matter
The British presence in Ireland tends to wax and wane through the centuries. It expands, shrinks and expands again. We tend to think that we now live in some historical location beyond the wider historical trends and that they will not reassert themselves at some point.
The British used Ireland principally for its agricultural land to feed Britain and to free up some British workers for other stuff like expanding the Empire. Also the ports were useful and Belfast eventually became an industrial center.
So I do not foresee Britain expanding its presence in Ireland in anything like the present economic and geopolitical conditions but it is probably only a matter of time before the world simplifies and Britain returns more to what ‘worked’ for it in the past.
Europe is just a rival geopolitocal bloc that USA has managed to subjugate. At the end of the day USA will do what suits USA. All the stuff about ‘liberal democracies united’ and ‘historical ties’ is just spin for the ‘plebs’ but the European states seem to take it seriously.
The world is a changable place and USA is liable to review its policies regardless of the ‘plebean’ spin. Trump is liable to conclude that USA is wasting its time and resources in Europe when it would be better focused on China and the Pacific.
China is a ‘threat’ as an emergent peer competitor while Europe and Russia are last century’s interest. Biden has already blundered by pushing Russia and China together and the only real ‘positive’ is that USA has somewhat cut Europe off from the rest of Eurasia.
If European states think that USA has some ‘commitment’ to Europe beyond the interests of the USA then they have not understood the world and how it works. It is really pathetic how they now use ‘plebean’ rhetoric to try to control USA to get what they want.
That is how ‘plebs’ act not states and they are demeening themselves but what choice do they really have? Either USA finds its interests in Europe or it does not. If it does not then ‘plebean’ moralistic chit chat about ‘you owe us’, ‘you have no choice’ is all that they have left.
Beggars cannot be choosers about how they approach the world and Europe has been subjugated to USA since WWII so it was probably only a matter of time before it came to this. Of course European states conveyed the chit chat to the ‘plebs’ to ‘orientate’ them but now they try to rely on it to control USA.
As a European it is a massively embarrassing situation but subjugation is never a noble situation and we have fooled ourselves about our station for 70 years. At some point that status was always liable to come into clear view for exactly what it is and what it implies.
Europeans actually ‘believe’ all the moralistic rubbish about ‘international law, responsibilities, commitments’ and they have completely lost sight of how the world really works. That stuff was useful as spin for a time in a world that is fundamentally based on interests and power relations and nothing else.
They will ‘understand’ Trump through a prism of ‘moral failings’ but what other prism do they have left? Likewise, all the stuff about the ‘Western world’ was just chit chat for the ‘plebs’ to orientate them to subjugation to USA. They have fundamentally misunderstood the situation if they imagine that they can now control USA.
“demeening themselves”
* lol subverted by a non-functional speel chek and just as I was in my flow
I think you have forgotten that without the US’ military presence in Europe, Russian tanks would have rolled into Western Europe in 1956, beyond Budapest and Hungary. Now Trump wants the Russians to attack countries which spend 1.8% instead of 2% of GDP on defense. He and all those supporting him would get a big surprise what will happen to US power if that were to eventuate
USA did see USSR as a peer competitor for global power in the 1950s but that is not the case with Russia now.
History has moved on through the unipolar moment of unrivalled USA hegemony and China is the emergent peer competitor on the global stage now not Russia.
Biden massively blundered by pushing Russia into the arms of China and now we will have to wait to see what Trump decides to do.
He may decide that Europe presents no sizable strategic value for USA and try to patch things up a bit with Russia.
We have to take seriously Trump’s threat to tell Russia to ‘do whatever the hell you like with them’.
USA has no motive to prevent Russia if Russia is no real threat to USA anyway and Russia would be the more stragetic ally for USA with a view to China. What has Europe really got to offer USA?
History has moved on and Europe may have to get real about that at some point rather than pretending that they are still in the 1950s and relying on USA to protect them regardless of their own geopolitical nous or value.
If Europe chose to go along with Biden’s nonsense in Europe then that is their own look out. More fool them.
USA has to look to its own interests and to the value that other states have for USA and there is every sign that Trump will put ‘America first!’ and do his own thing with that.
A unified Europe is good. The west Europe can peacefully join BRICS.
I think you have forgotten that without the US’ military presence in Europe, Russian tanks would have rolled into Western Europe in 1956, beyond Budapest and Hungary.
Drivel. The Soviets had already occupied Austria but left voluntarily. As I said, the US occupies Europe. It is not here for the benefit of Europeans.
Europe “lucked out” with two very warm winters, back to back. Goldman forecasts that enough LNG will be online in 2025 to make up for Europe’s deficit, leaving one more winter to go through.
It seems to me that NATO cannot continue. For one thing, the US doesn’t really have the military strength to back it up. Somehow, it will have to fall apart.
I don’t know what will happen with the US election. A lot could happen between now and November. With two elderly candidates, one could drop out. Or we could enter into another financial crisis.
Why were both big parties not able to come up with younger candidates?
Strange world. We will see what happens come November. Nikki Haley is a younger candidate who claims to be Republican but follows whatever the powers that be want. She might be a younger option for our now “uni-party.”
Nikki Haily ,young and crazy . Lethal combination .
Today, the Biden-Harris Administration is announcing a temporary pause on pending decisions on exports of Liquefied Natural Gas (LNG) to non-FTA countries until the Department of Energy can update the underlying analyses for authorizations. The current economic and environmental analyses DOE uses to underpin its LNG export authorizations are roughly five years old and no longer adequately account for considerations like potential energy cost increases for American consumers and manufacturers beyond current authorizations or the latest assessment of the impact of greenhouse gas emissions. Today, we have an evolving understanding of the market need for LNG, the long-term supply of LNG, and the perilous impacts of methane on our planet. We also must adequately guard against risks to the health of our communities, especially frontline communities in the United States who disproportionately shoulder the burden of pollution from new export facilities. The pause, which is subject to exception for unanticipated and immediate national security emergencies, will provide the time to integrate these critical considerations.
Perhaps they should have looked at these things earlier.
When I looked at the detail LNG data, it looked to me as if a big group of US LNG export capacity came online in 2019, with more in 2020. There is a long lag between the time LNG capacity is started, and when it comes online. I would expect that the high prices of the 2011 to 2013 period gave rise to this much delayed pipeline capacity. Smaller amounts came online, both in the 2016 to 2018 period, and in the 2021 to 2014 period.
Even when the 2022 chart was put together, natural gas prices were much higher. Without high natural gas prices, it is hard to make a case for exports.
Art Berman has some similar views: https://www.artberman.com/blog/the-lng-export-pause-is-irrelevant/
I’m glad we both came to the same conclusion. Art has some different charts than I do. It is good for different people to look at the same subject, from different perspectives.
Art Berman’s graph on where the US gas comes from:
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GF3d1NgWsAA7V75?format=png&name=small
Other gas-related graphs from Art
Gas imports
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GF2foftWYAA16zB?format=png&name=small
LNG supply vs demand scenarios
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GFzdXRIXwAAiHqj?format=jpg&name=small
“The U.S. natural gas industry has a limited future so it’s fighting for the right to export itself to death”
Draining America First—The Beginning of the End for Shale Gas
January 23, 2024
https://www.artberman.com/blog/draining-america-first-the-beginning-of-the-end-for-shale-gas/
Yes, the chart to look scary. Natural gas from shale accounts for 82% of US’s dry gas, today, according to a chart in the last link. Wow! I didn’t have the percentage.
Gail,
Thank you for your time and effort, thank you for a place to explore ideas.
Dennis L.
Here’s a good one .. Fast and his mate Dive with the Sharks… last week… mate has heart damage from the vax… no interest in taking more Death Shots…
Sends clip of the shark just outside the cage to a family member who responds with – you are not afraid of the sharks but you fear the vaccine.
I said – tell them you’d rather swim outside the cage with the shark than take another shot of Juice of Rat
FE, don’t take much of what you say seriously, but the odds are probably better with the sharks.
Dennis L.
That’s ok Dennis – I generally mass delete all your nonsensical comments… so there is that
I’m on the website … no way to mass-delete … what sort of interface does your troll-farm provide?
Gail states: recent news item saying, “Biden pauses LNG export approvals under pressure from climate activists.” After looking into the situation, I 100% agree with Biden’s decision. There is no sense in the US adding more approvals for added LNG capacity at this time. “. Yes. Australia experts a lot. If too much presumably prices will fall.
According to the Energy Institute, in 2022, the top LNG exporting country was Qatar (114.1 Bcm). Second was Australia (112.3), and third was the US (104.3). They were fairly tightly grouped.
We will see what happens. My impression is that Australia needs the LNG itself. It has a lot of renewables to balance. Also, its LNG is very expensive to produce, making it hard to make a profit.
25/7/2018
Australia is exporting itself gas poor, plans LNG import terminals
http://crudeoilpeak.info/australia-is-exporting-itself-gas-poor-plans-lng-import-terminals
But no one is listening. Everyone is dreaming of an energy superpower. Same with planned hydrogen exports
Climate change was again raising its ugly head by bringing down the Victorian power supply system. It also seems that transmission towers were not designed for the new type of storms with extreme convective downdraft winds
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-14/victoria-melbourne-power-outage-storms-how-did-it-happen/103464714
Your impression is correct.
Australian LNG comes from 2 different sources: on the west coast, it is offshore gas. On the east coast it’s onshore coal seam gas (terminal in Gladstone) with no liquids and therefore less profitable.
Art’s “Drain America first” campaign is similar to what I wrote:
25/7/2018
Australia is exporting itself gas poor, plans LNG import terminals
http://crudeoilpeak.info/australia-is-exporting-itself-gas-poor-plans-lng-import-terminals
Climate change raised again its ugly head by bringing down Victoria’s power supply:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2024-02-14/victoria-melbourne-power-outage-storms-how-did-it-happen/103464714
There is also the problem that transmission towers were not designed for a new type of storm with extremely strong convective downdrafts
Victoria power outage: Hundreds of Victorian transmission towers are rusty and at risk of damage
All failed structures were built to historical design standards with inadequate strength to withstand convective downdraft winds occurring during extreme storm events.
But the loss of the towers has highlighted the looming challenge of upgrading Victoria’s existing transmission network – in addition to the multibillion-dollar cost of adding hundreds of kilometres of new high voltage transmission lines desperately needed to connect future renewable energy projects dotted across the state
https://www.theage.com.au/politics/victoria/hundreds-of-victorian-transmission-towers-are-rusty-and-at-risk-of-damage-20240215-p5f58w.html
“The Delusions Of Davos And Dubai, Part Two: Can Wind & Solar Energy Expand 50-100x?”
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/delusions-davos-and-dubai-part-two-can-wind-solar-energy-expand-50-100x
I agree that this is a good article. The author explains that the method the US and the Energy Institute use for counting renewables greatly overstates their value. He calculates how much wind and solar it would take to replace today’s energy. It would take a ramp up of 50 to 100 times the current level.
The population ageing and decline means that we face machine and human repair and maintenance problems. We do not need more media celebrities, sportsmen and cryptocurrency gamblers. We need healthcare and technical staff.
https://youtu.be/rFXZ21UE_8Q?si=i2-wPuPRDiVAKe1T
https://www.uschamber.com/workforce/understanding-americas-labor-shortage
We don’t need them either. Rather than waste resources repairing the old, we must enact Logan’s run as originally intended: send everyone on their merry way when they reach the ripe old age of 21.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logan%27s_Run_(film)
Don’t recall Logan’s Run, but we are biology, we are 80/20 and avoiding that is probably cost prohibitive.
Dennis L.
You must watch Logan’s Run (1976). Make sure you watch the complete version with Farrah Fawcett. Many references are made to this film.
Farrah Fawcett was instrumental in my conversion to atheism…
I prayed many nights when I was 14 for a hook up with her… never happened… lost my faith … forever
Who needs Farrah Fawcett when you have Jenny Agutter?
Too old now… she Fails https://www.yours.co.uk/leisure/celebrity-tv/jenny-agutter/
wherever eddy comments—please dont use the words girl and gutter in the same thread.
The population ageing and decline means that we face machine and human repair and maintenance problems.
The infrastructure we have built is too big and expensive to maintain with a shrinking economy and the inability to produce critical materials like electrical steel. It will fall apart just like the Roman cities fell apart.
I am afraid you are right.
What happens, to all those LNG terminals if there is a breakout of peace in Europe and most of Europe wakes up and decides to buy cheap Russian gas again with pipelines quickly repaired?? Will the US keep blowing them up anyway as TPTB decide to drain gas from the US first??
Realistically there are 2 options, all out war in Europe where everyone gets bombed back to the stone age, so no imports of LNG are needed, or there is a breakout of common sense with peace and imports of cheap Russian piped gas recommence, meaning no expensive LNG needed.
What building LNG facilities does, is produce GDP growth right now as the facilities are built, making the politicians in charge now look good because of the activity. Maybe Biden doesn’t want further investment as that wont get built until the next politicians watch.
We have the stupidity of humans on display here, building more of anything now means GDP now, which shows up in official numbers in a few months time. All while using up the last of the easily obtained resources in a mad rush to be the first to collapse when most metals become unobtainium when oil extraction declines with a vengeance..
I think that the situation here is that most of these approved LNG export facilities are nowhere near started. They can’t get funding. If there were a whole lot of government funds going in their direction, maybe there would be.
These aren’t Green Energy projects, with a lot of money being thrown at them. They need to go out and get funding. This is their problem. If they would actually get built, there would be GDP recorded, I agree.
If peace would break out, I am not sure it would help Europe’s problems. The gas is now being sold to China, instead, I am afraid.
The farmers’ protests across Europe have disparate causes. Lots of things going wrong right now and impacting one another. I expect national economic protectionism to be on the rise in the near term.
=====================================
Farmers’ protests have erupted across Europe. Here’s why
https://edition.cnn.com/2024/02/03/europe/europe-farmers-protests-explainer-intl
The untold factor is the shortage of diesel.
Even in India there is a protest of farmers in these days.
Mainstream media tries to describe those protests in various ways (high taxation, protection of price, fertilizers regulations and so on), but there is a big elephant in the room of which no one in mainstream media want or is able to understand.
We have a big issue of shortage, not with oil tout-court, but specifically with diesel, over the world.
As by now in this blog we know, not every kind of oil can be easily refined in diesel and the kind of suitable oil for diesel is the same to produce jet-fuel…
That’s why farmers and airplane travels are in trouble, these two things are and will be ‘painted’ as ‘problems to solve’ in the most various ways in order not to talk of diesel…
https://english.alarabiya.net/News/world/2024/02/14/Protesting-Indian-farmers-try-to-reach-New-Delhi-clash-with-security-forces
Yes, diesel is a big problem. And it is very close to jet fuel in composition. People have a hard time realizing it is the fuel that is the underlying problem.
Jensen Huang suggests each sovereign nation needs to build its own AGI that reflects its culture and values. I hope it will go one step further an AGI for Lutherans, for Catholics, for Quakers, for Tucker Carlson country club types, …..
Lotta nonsense being spouted here. “We used to recommend teaching kids computer science, but now everyone can be a technologist.”
He is saying in other words that every nation needs to set its AGI in order to work like an automatic censorship.
Otherwise things that cannot be said in US will be otherwise said to the public and the same things could happen (for other arguments) in Iran or Russia.
People need to still be kept under manipulation or distortion of reality, otherwise nations will lose their power.
It is very clear.
I’m reading this very long book by the late Nigel Kerner right now:
Grey Aliens and Artificial Intelligence: The Battle between Natural and Synthetic Beings for the Human Soul
Very weird! Kerner says the Greys are artificially created biological beings with AI.
Elsewhere, Derrel Sims, an American, tells us he was formerly with the NSA. It’s an offshoot of the CIA, and it investigates UFOs, because they are an intelligence problem and not a military one. He agrees that the Greys are “roboids” (as Kerner calls them – artificially created biological beings, and therefore without a soul, according to Kerner).
Sims reckons that, now that we humans have AI and nanotechnology, we are only 15 to 50 years behind the Greys in terms of technological advancement. But is all this true? I’m sending Norman into space to investigate. 😉
Automatic censorship doesn’t sound good!
Jensen Huang suggests each sovereign nation needs to build its own AGI that reflects its culture and values.
Artificial intelligence does not exist and never will exist.
It exists in the minds… of the mentally ill re – tards
The kind of people who post their ‘conversations’ with Chat GPT online. It almost makes you wish for the collapse to happen and for the killing to begin.
Use Copilot daily, works well for programming. Used it to do analysis of how much Musk makes in dollars with solar and his internet satellites, about $1B/annum at very a very conservative $.10/Kwh.
Have no wish for collapse nor any desire for killing to begin.
Dennis L.
I’m not saying it doesn’t work after a fashion. It can spew out words or code stolen from wikipedia or github or wherever. I’m saying it is not artificial intelligence which does not exist and never will.
I did not suggest that you wanted collapse or killing to begin.
Collapse and killing are thrilling. I can hardly wait!
Is that a haiku?
Collapse and killing are thrilling. I can hardly wait!
Is that a haiku?
No. A haiku must make reference to the season of the year.
Collapse and killing are thrilling. I can hardly wait! (for winter)
Collapse and killing are thrilling. I can hardly wait! (for winter)
Nope. The reference must be to the current season not the future or past.
I know a few people who ask Chat whatever for advice on various issues… I just shake my head when they tell me the response (hint – it’s like when you read an article written using Chat… or trying to have a conversation about Rat Juice with norm … vapid)
It seems to me that the top end of town have surplus funds that they are prepared to throw at anything, multiple LNG export terminals for example that may or may not be fully utilised over the longer term with the resulting misallocation of resources and environmental degradation that would accompany such folly, it also fascinates me how we have governments intervening in these situations, aren’t free markets, the hidden hand of the market and corporate management all suppose to allocate resources magically and efficiently, unfortunately that is myth, so we have governments increasingly making decisions about what is and isn’t needed, that has always been the case here in Australia and resources are allocated well mostly. A mixed economy with some degree of central planning will be the model that gets us through the coming energy transition/decent efficiently if at all, the energy systems that are running the most reliably and cheaply here are state owned and the other states that have privatised everything are now talking about bringing energy/power systems back into government hands because it’s all just getting too chaotic, time will tell and it’s very interesting to watch it all play out. One question Gail, how much gas does the US have for the future, I thought reserves were just about maxed out and heading for decline ?
I think that gas is one thing that depends a lot on price. If the price of gas could be high, and the price of oil could be high, there could be much more natural gas than otherwise. Quite a bit of natural gas is stranded up near the arctic. With a little global warming, so it can be accessed better, we might have a reasonable supply.
Also, at least some natural gas is being made all the time. We talk about reducing methane from cows and from trash heaps. This is pretty much the same natural gas as we are burning, it is just hard to efficiently capture.
Sam Altman wants seven trillion dollars to build out his AI empire.
https://www.inc.com/ben-sherry/nvidia-founder-jensen-huang-dismisses-7-trillion-ai-investment-figure-floated-by-openais-sam-altman.html
Then, there is the need for the electricity to keep the whole thing going, I would expect.
Altman explicitly states that part of the seven trillion is for energy generation that will be needed.
At least he is thinking about the issue.
Musk has done it, build it in space, no real estate costs, no real estate taxes, infinite energy. Move information back to earth, back to Maxwell’s Demon.
Dennis L.
Nuclear to operate the AI to crack Fusion?
There is no cracking fusion. Those protons repel each other with great force and do not get close enough to fuse. AI can pontificate until it is blue in the face.
Nuclear to operate the AI to crack Fusion?
AI does not exist. Fusion power stations are not possible.
Correct.
When AI can get around a Captcha… wake me up
AI is a concept
it is not a physical entity
If I have a ”thought” that such an idea is daft. that thought is abstract—it is not a physical reality
Gail,
That has been demonstrated, build it in space, cooling is trivial, energy has already proven by Musk to be doable.
Don’t know where this is going, but Musk is committing to building a huge factory in Texas for Starship, the money is coming from somewhere.
Dennis L.
Sam Altman wants seven trillion dollars to build out his AI empire
The economy cannot provide 7 trillion additional dollars without destroying itself with money printing.
no matter what is built
building anything requires energy
spending $1 requires energy support behind it
spending 7trn is pure fantasy
I am afraid that you are correct: “spending 7trn is pure fantasy”
Mine Psyche, Copilot now says it is worth $10,000 quadrillion, more than enough for a few trillion. NASA has a probe which will reach the asteroid in 2026
Energy in space is being used to make money, Musk and his internet system. Move high value manufacturing to space, free energy.
Do NASA one better, do a ribosome, manufacture probes in space to make probes, send millions of them to explore the solar system, catalogue the asteroids, mine the best, ignore the rest. This is a long term project as has been humanity, timescale in hundreds of years. Bring back necessary metals one asteroid at a time.
The universe has shown us another window, some are going through it. Does anyone think Musk spending hundreds of billions for a new factory doesn’t see this?
Where does the money come from? Who are the partners who own Space X? Deep pockets are obvious.
Dennis L.
Energy in space is being used to make money, Musk and his internet system.
Musk’s internet system loses a fortune and will never be profitable.
Hi Gail, so happy for a new entry! Hope you & Hubby had a good Valentine’s Day. Going for a cup of hot chocolate & to read the new entry. Thanks bunches!
There is so much happening. Where to start?
That is a quandary. My guess, try and figure out the fabric of the universe, 20% of the time one gets the result which gives 80% of the results.
Even the universe can’t do better.
Dennis L.
That is a quandary. My guess, try and figure out the fabric of the universe
We already did that. It turns out there are lots of mysterious particles and things like dark matter, none of which are the slightest practical help to us.
Yet.
Dennis L.
There’s no more time. Collapse is coming.
When? When?
When? When?
2030?
2025??
https://thehonestsorcerer.medium.com/2025-a-civilizational-tipping-point-da84d11a0e35
2070s for sure.