As the world enters 2025, the critical issue we are facing is Peak Crude Oil, relative to population. Crude oil has fallen from as much as .46 gallons per person, which was quite common before the pandemic, to close to .42 gallons per person recently (Figure 1).
People have a misimpression regarding how world peak oil can be expected to behave. The world economy has continued to grow, but now it is beginning to move in the direction of contraction due to an inadequate supply of crude oil. In fact, it is not just an inadequate crude oil supply, but also an inadequate supply of coal (per person) and an inadequate supply of uranium.
We know that when a boat changes direction, this causes turbulence in the water. This is similar to the problems we are currently seeing in the world economy. Physics dictates that the economy needs to shrink in size to match its energy resources, but no country wants to be a part of this shrinkage. This indirectly leads to major changes in elected leadership and to increased interest in war-like behavior. Strangely enough, it also seems to lead to higher long-term interest rates, as well.
In this post, I share a few thoughts on what might lie ahead for us in 2025, in the light of the hidden inadequate world energy supply. I am predicting major turbulence, but not that things fall apart completely. Stock markets will tend to do poorly; interest rates will remain high; oil and other energy prices will stay around current levels, or fall.
[1] I expect that the general trend in 2025 will be toward world recession.
With less oil (and coal and uranium) relative to population, the world can be expected to produce fewer goods and services per person. In some sense, people will generally become poorer. For example, fewer people will be able to afford new cars or new homes.
This trend toward lower purchasing-power tends to be concentrated in certain groups such as young people, farmers, and recent immigrants. As a result, older people who are well-off or firmly established may be able to mostly ignore this issue.
While the shift toward a poorer world has partially been hidden, it has been a huge factor in allowing Donald Trump to be voted back into power. Major shifts in leadership are taking place elsewhere, as well, as an increasing share of citizens become unhappy with the current situation.
[2] Many governments will try to hide recessionary tendencies by issuing more debt to stimulate their economies.
In the past, adding debt was found to be effective way of stimulating the world economy because energy supplies supporting the world economy were not seriously constrained. It was possible to add new energy supplies, quite inexpensively. The combination of additional inexpensive energy supplies and additional “demand” (provided by the added debt) allowed the total quantity of goods and services produced to be increased. Once energy supplies started to become seriously constrained (about 2023), this technique started to work far less well. If energy production is constrained, the likely impact of added debt will be added inflation.
The problem is that if added government debt doesn’t really add inexpensive energy, it will instead create more purchasing power relative to the same number, or a smaller number, of finished goods and services available. I believe that in 2025, we are heading into a situation where ramping up governmental debt will mostly lead to inflation in the cost of finished goods and services.
[3] Energy prices are likely to remain too low for fossil fuel and uranium producers to raise investments from their current low levels.
Recession and low prices tend to go together. While there may be occasional spikes in oil and other energy prices, 2025 is likely to bring oil and other energy prices that are, on average, no higher than those of 2024, adjusted for the overall increase in prices due to inflation. With generally low prices, producers will cut back on new investment. This will cause production to fall further.
[4] I expect “gluts” of many energy-related items in 2025.
Gluts are related to recession and low prices for producers. The underlying problem is that a significant share of the population finds that finished goods, made with energy products and investment at current interest rates, are too expensive to buy.
Even farmers are affected by low prices, just as they were back at the time of the Great Depression. We can think of food as an energy product that is eaten by people. Farmers find that their return on farm investment is too low, and that their implied wages are low. Low income for farmers around the world feeds back through the system as low buying power for new farm equipment, and for buying goods and services in general.
In 2025, I expect there will be a glut of crude oil due to a lack of purchasing power of many poor people around the world. My forecast is similar to the forecast of the IEA that predicts an oversupply of oil in 2025. Also, a December 2024 article in mining.com says, “A glut of coal in China is set to push falling prices even lower.”
Even wind turbines and solar panels can reach an oversupply point. According to one article, number of Chine solar panel builders seems to be far too high for world demand, leading to a potential shake out. As the share of wind and solar power added to the electric grid increases, the frequency of low or negative payment for wholesale electric power increases. This makes adding more wind turbines and solar panels problematic, after a certain point. We don’t yet have a cost-effective way of storing intermittent electricity for months on end. This seems to be part of the reason why there recently were no bidders for producing more offshore wind power in Denmark.
[5] I expect long-term interest rates to remain high. This will be a problem for new investments of all kinds and for governmental borrowing.
In Section 2 of this post, I tried to explain that a peak-oil impact is likely to be inflation. This occurs because ramping up debt to try to stimulate the economy no longer works to get additional cheap energy products from the ground. Instead of getting as many finished goods and services as hoped for, the added debt tends to produce inflation instead.
I believe that we are reaching a stage of fossil-fuel depletion where it is becoming increasingly difficult to ramp up production, even with added investment. Because of the added debt added in an attempt to work around depletion, inflation in the price of finished goods and services can be expected. Investors are beginning to see long-term inflation as a likely problem. As a result, they are starting to demand higher long-term interest rates to compensate for the expected decrease in buying power.
Figure 2 shows that US long-term interest rates have varied widely. There was a period of generally dropping long-term interest rates from 1981 to 2020. Starting in late 2020, interest rates began to rise; in 2023 and 2024 they have been in the 4% to 5% range. These relatively high rates are occurring because lenders are demanding higher long-term interest rates in response to higher inflation rates.
Because of inflationary pressures, I expect that long-term interest rates will tend to stay at today’s high level in 2025; they may even rise further. These continued high interest rates will become a problem for many families wanting to purchase a home because US home mortgage rates rise and fall with US 10-year interest rates. Often families are faced with both high home prices and high interest rates. This combination makes mortgage costs a problem for many families.
Governments are also adversely affected. They tend to hold large amounts of debt that they have accumulated over a period or years. Up until 2020, much of this added debt often was at a very low interest rate. As more long-term debt at higher interest rates is added, annual interest rate payments tend to rise rapidly. This can cause a need to raise taxes. Japan, especially, would be affected by higher interest rates because of its high level of government debt, relative to GDP.
Higher interest rates will also raise costs for citizens trying to finance the purchase of homes, and for investors wanting to build wind turbines or solar panels. In fact, investment in any kind of factory, pipelines, or electricity transmission will tend to become more expensive.
In a sense, we seem to be seeing the peak oil problem shifting in a way that affects interest rates and the economy in general. Either higher interest rates or higher oil prices will tend to push the economy toward recession. We tend to look for rising prices to signal an oil supply problem, but perhaps that only works when there is excessive demand. If the problem is really inadequate oil supply, perhaps we should look for higher long-term interest rates, instead.
[6] Industry around the world is likely to be hit especially hard by recessionary tendencies.
Industry requires investment. Higher interest rates make new industrial investment more expensive. Industry is also a heavy user of energy products. Putting these observations together, it shouldn’t come as a surprise if new industrial investment is one of the first places to be cut back because of peak oil supply.
The original 1972 Limits to Growth analysis, in its base model, suggested that resources would start to run short about now. The variables in this model were recently recalibrated in the article, “Recalibration of limits to growth: An update of the World3 model.” Based on the detailed data given in the endnotes to the article, I calculated the expected industrialization per capita shown in Figure 3.
Based on Figure 3, this model shows that industrialization per person reached a peak in 2017. Peak industrialization (total, not per capita) occurred in 2018, which coincides with peak crude oil extraction (not per capita).
The model seems to suggest that after an inflection point in 2023 (that is 2024 and after), industrialization will start to fall more steeply. The model shows a decrease in production per capita of 4.1% in 2024 and of 5.3% in 2025. Such decreases would push the world economy toward recession.
The model suggests that people, on average, are getting poorer in terms of the quantity of goods and services they can afford to buy. New cars, motorcycles, and homes are becoming less affordable. Heavily industrialized countries, such as China, South Korea, and Germany are likely to be especially affected by headwinds to industrialization. I expect that the economic problems in these countries will continue and are likely to worsen in 2025.
[7] The US has tried to isolate itself from this nearly worldwide recession. I expect that during 2025, the US will increasingly slip into recession, as well.
There are several reasons for this belief:
(a) The US is heavily dependent upon imports of raw material. China is restricting exports of critical minerals used by the US. This will make it very difficult or impossible to ramp up high tech industries as planned.
(b) The US is heavily dependent on Russia for supplies of enriched uranium. Any plan for added nuclear electricity needs to consider where the uranium to power these plants will come from. It also needs to consider how this uranium will be enriched to the required concentration of uranium-235.
(c) If the US can ramp up crude oil and natural gas production, this can perhaps counter this trend toward US and world recession. Unfortunately, recent US oil supply has not been ramping up; instead its production has been fairly flat. Natural gas production has actually been lower since February 2024. Plans have been made to rapidly ramp up US liquefied natural gas (LNG) exports, but these plans cannot work if the US natural gas supply is already decreasing.
(d) The US government has had an advantage in borrowing because the US dollar is the world’s reserve currency. As such, the US is, in some sense, the first borrower, pulling the rest of the world along. The US, by making its short term interest rates higher than those of many other countries, was able to largely escape recession 2023 and 2024. Additional investment was attracted to the US by these higher interest rates. But the US cannot follow this strategy indefinitely. For one thing, a high US dollar handicaps exports. For another, interest costs on government debt become burdensome.
(e) Donald Trump has plans to close inefficient parts of government. These changes, if enacted, will reduce “demand” within the economy because workers in these sectors will lose their jobs. Over the longer term, these changes might be beneficial, but over the short term, they are likely to be recessionary.
(f) It is difficult for the US to do much better than the rest of the world. If the rest of the world is in recession, the US will tend to head in that direction, as well.
[8] I expect more conflict in 2025, but today’s wars will not look much like World War I or World War II.
Today, not many countries are able to build huge fleets of fighter airplanes. Even building drones and bombs seems to require supply lines that extend around the world. So, instead, wars are being fought in non-military ways, such as with sanctions and tariffs.
I expect that this trend away from direct military conflict will continue, with more novel approaches such as internet interference and stealth damage to infrastructure taking place instead.
I do not expect that nuclear bombs will be used, even when there is direct conflict between powerful adversaries. For one thing, uranium in these bombs is needed for other purposes. For another, there is too much chance of retaliation.
[9] I expect many types of capital gains will be low in 2025.
The situation we are facing now is the opposite of the drop in long-term interest rates observed between 1981 and 2020, in Figure (2), above. This historical drop in interest rates made it possible for businesses to more easily finance new investments. It also made it possible for individual citizens to be able to afford more homes and cars. It should not be surprising that this period has been a time of rising stock market prices, especially in the United States.
The world’s economic problem is that it no longer has the tailwind of falling long-term interest rates. Instead, rising long-term interest rates are becoming a headwind. Home prices are un-affordably high for most potential buyers at today’s interest rates. A similar problem faces those hoping to purchase agricultural equipment and farmland at today’s high prices and high interest rates.
We should not be surprised if home and farm prices stabilize and begin to fall. Prices of shares of stock are likely to encounter similar headwinds. Prices of derivative investments may perform even worse than the shares themselves.
Recently, a great deal of the strength of the US market has been in a few stocks. Artificial Intelligence (AI) needs to very quickly provide a lot of benefit to the stock market as a whole for this to change. I cannot imagine this happening. With the US slipping toward recession, I expect that the US stock market will at best plateau in 2025.
[10] With less energy available and higher interest rates on government debt, I expect to see more government organizations disbanding.
It takes energy, directly and indirectly, to operate any kind of governmental organization. Eliminating governmental organizations is one way of saving energy. This is what happened when the central government of the Soviet Union collapsed in 1991. I would think that parallel kinds of changes could start happening in the next few years, in many parts of the world.
At some time, perhaps as soon as 2025, the European Union could collapse. If things are going badly for many member countries, they will be less willing to support the European Union with their tax revenues. Other organizations that seem like they could be in peril include NATO and the World Trade Organization.
In some ways, such shrinkage would be in parallel with Trump’s plan for eliminating unnecessary governmental organizations within the United States. All these organizations require energy; cutting their number would go some way toward reducing crude oil and other energy consumption.
[11] It is possible that the world economy will eventually get itself out of its apparent trend toward recession, but I am afraid this will happen long after 2025.
We know that the world economy tends to operate in cycles. We would like to believe that the apparent current down-cycle is just temporary, but we can’t know this for sure. Physics tells us that we need energy supplies of the right kind for any action that contributes to GDP. Running short of energy supplies is therefore a very worrisome condition.
We also know that there are major inefficiencies in current approaches. For example, oil extraction leaves much of the oil resource in place. In theory, AI could greatly improve extraction techniques.
We also know that uranium consumption is terribly inefficient. M. King Hubbert thought that nuclear energy using uranium had amazing potential, but most of this potential remains untapped. Perhaps AI could help in this regard, also. If nothing else, perhaps recycling spent fuel could be made less expensive and problematic.
We can’t know what lies ahead. There may be a “religious” ending to our current predicament that we are discounting that is actually the “right story.” Or there may be a “technofix” solution that allows us to avert collapse or catastrophe. But for now, how the current down-cycle will end remains a major cause for concern.
So what are you going to do ?
https://www.dutchnews.nl/2025/01/volume-of-cheap-stuff-from-china-flooding-nl-is-unsustainable/
I’m going to ride the tiger of BAU for as long as possible.
y tu?
Yes .
oui oui.
Now it is time to have a revisionist history about colonialism.
Was decolonization a bad thing? I say, yes.
It was bad for civilization.
Colonialism means the resources of the colonies are shipped directly to the host country, to better the civilization of the host country better, with not much going to the colonials themselves.
While some people might think the idea repulsive, it did help civilization by concentrating the resources to the center of civilization, while living little to the denizens of the colonies who were, and are, not too likely to contribute too much to civilization’s inexorable progress which seems to be stalling quite hard since too much resources were wasted in the Third World, formerly colonies, so every tribesman in the Kalahari could watch a Premier League game with the latest model of smartphone.
It was wrong for USA to support Sukarno during the so-called Indonesian War of Independent, which Holland was almost winning, Sukarno and the Sultan of Yogyakarta(everyone calls it Jogja), a local ruler ruling the eastern end of Java, about to be pushed into the sea.
Sukarno paid USA back by organizing the Bandung Conference of Third World countries, so he had to be removed later.
Frankly speaking it was wrong for third world rulers to better the lot of their own people since that was detrimental for civilization. The rulers of banana republics, while horrible to their own people, did protect the interests of US corporations which contributed more to the civilization than anything in their own countries could.
The Americans, being so naive, thought the third world rulers in other continents would act like the banana republics, but they often played USSR (and now China) against USA all the time, making both sides waste resources which could be used for better things.
With colonialism continuing, none of these issues would have occurred.
USA meddling with colonialism, with its do-goodism, significantly screwed up the world.
yup
if the usa had caved in 1941—australia would have become a japanese colony, and new zealand after that.
china would have gone down, and the japanese would have reached india by 42/43
essentially food producing slave colonies for the japanese homeland.
would you care to research the japanese ”do gooding” kulm?
brilliant powers of reasoning kulm
UK descending into the abyss..
https://www.thechemicalengineer.com/news/ineos-chairman-says-uk-chemicals-sector-headed-for-extinction-following-grangemouth-plant-closure/
I do wonder how much longer their gov can pretend to be relevant.
Not too long to add UK to the collapsed nations list. It is getting longer….
According to the article,
“Ratcliffe blamed the Scottish plant’s closure on what he called the UK’s “lack of energy strategy” as well as high energy prices. He added that the UK’s emissions trading scheme has effectively served as a tax on UK producers, favouring imported products from countries without such a scheme.”
But with falling oil and gas supplies, the UK’s ability to obtain oil and gas products to use as a based for these chemicals is falling. So, it probably makes sense to do away with this industry.
Unfortunately USA made itself a Siamese twin of UK
So when Uk dies sepsis sets up and USA will die not too long after
totally wrong.
USA + Canada produces 19 mbpd of black goo crude, and UK produces about zero.
UK is barely hanging on as a member of The Core, but its days are numbered.
they will become a country of The Periphery, and when that happens, it frees up energy resources for the remaining members of The Core.
Can we air lift out the remaining whites?
Certainly not. That would be raciss.
They can go to the Isle of Whites.
Tim…groan
The US Trade Deficit with China is Understated by as Much as 30 Percent . $ 100 billion under reported .
https://mishtalk.com/economics/the-us-trade-deficit-with-china-is-understated-by-as-much-as-30-percent/
Mish seems to suggest that China is now hiding exports to the US in various ways, so as to avoid tarrifs. This leads to the impression of an imbalance between what China says it is exporting and what the US says it is importing.
The culling of jobs in Germany continues .
https://www.ft.com/content/55735b1a-4488-40c8-92e5-be6b977e982e
Without an adequate supply of cheap energy, Germany can expect jobs to disappear.
Again, you described our predicament well; costs for energy end products too high, income for energy production too low.
All activities in the band between the two will cease to exist; the bands will join or have joined where possible.
Dennis L.
A new archaeogenetics paper charts the spread of continental ancestry through Britain during the Iron Age. It estimates ~73% Early Bronze Age ancestry in the IA.
It identifies further arrival (fleeing Julius Caesar, from Gaul) in the Middle-Late IA channel area but does not chart its later (Roman period) spread.
The continental ancestry from France was complex. Summary graphic: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08409-6/figures/11
The paper argues that matrilocality was common because the men were typically off (or that had recently been the pattern) in external and frontier wars while the women subsistence farmed. Women may/ not have had political power.
Warfare seems to have been a prominent factor in migration and social structure in IA Britain.
“The British Iron Age was debatably a time of high societal violence, indicated by the early proliferation of hillforts, weapons, human remains displaying violence-related injuries and instances of intergroup conflict recorded by Roman writers such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus.”
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-024-08409-6
Continental influx and pervasive matrilocality in Iron Age Britain
…. When we incorporate our data, we find a previously undetectable significant (Welch’s t-test, two-tailed, P = 0.0005) increase in EEF [Early European Farmer (Anatolian)] ancestry between the Early and Late Iron Age (from 39.7% ± 0.2% to 41.8% ± 0.5%), driven by genomes from southern regions along the central and eastern English Channel coast, including those from the Durotrigian territory.
…. Overall, we estimate an average contribution of 73% (estimated by SOURCEFIND; NNLS estimate: 75%) from the British Early Bronze Age (2500 to 1500 cal bc) to the English and Welsh Iron Age population (800 bc to ad 50). Although this value is larger than the estimate of a previous study17, which inferred a 50% long-term replacement rate for the gene pool, it is in agreement with the reported dilution of British- and Irish-specific R1b-L21 haplogroup Y chromosomes by one quarter17.
A sharp dip in Bronze Age continuity is seen along the channel coast (Fig. 3b and Extended Data Fig. 8). This is centred on Hampshire (SOURCEFIND estimate of 60%), a region traditionally associated with Belgic tribes that Caesar mentioned as having migrated from Gaul3. Both Hampshire and the neighbouring Durotrigian zone show independent and significant increases in EEF ancestry between the Early and Late Iron Age (Extended Data Fig. 7). Notably, the Durotrigian territory was home to a major port at Hengistbury Head, one of the focal points of intensifying cross-channel networks as Roman influence spread across Gaul39. With fewer samples for analysis, haplotypic data provide less resolution on fine-grained temporal trends but identify numerous genetic outliers in the Middle to Late Iron Age, all from the channel core region, which are not discernible when EEF ancestry alone is considered (Extended Data Fig. 3; see Supplementary Note 6.3 for further discussion of genetic outliers). These outliers include one of the most elaborate warrior burials known for Iron Age England (North Bersted on the channel coast; around 50 cal bc), which has been proposed, on the basis of isotopic signature and burial rite, to belong to a stream of cross-channel migrants, fuelled by Caesar’s conquest of Gaul40.
…. By contrast, French populations show a diversity of components, mainly from French and German sources, but with large minor components of Czech Iron Age ancestry in the east and Spanish Bronze Age ancestry in the south, highlighting France’s position as a crossroads in the Celtic-speaking world.
…. The peripheral regions—including Scotland, Cornwall, Wales and northern England—show signatures of insularity. The southern channel core is an exception, showing reduced genomic continuity with the British Early Bronze Age, sites with cross-channel IBD affinities, indications of larger population size and individuals with outlying ancestries. In this region, we see a Middle to Late Iron Age spike in EEF ancestry, indicative of substantial cross-channel movements that match textual and archaeological evidence for an intensification of contact and exchange, driven, at least latterly, by Roman expansion into Gaul.
The flow of genes across the channel through the Bronze and Iron Ages provides a wide window for the arrival of Celtic languages. Substantial components of continental ancestry are present in the channel core region by the Middle Bronze Age. However, it is probable that a second surge of EEF ancestry in the Iron Age would have influenced any version of insular Celtic already spoken in the channel region, and we note that the Celtic languages of southern Britain (Brittonic) and Gaul share a number of innovations not seen in more peripheral branches, such as the Goidelic languages of Ireland and Scotland42. Given the strong signatures of Early Bronze Age continuity in most British regions, any language introduction after this period would have probably been driven by a demographic minority, potentially an elite.
…. Both matrilocality and matriliny are predicted by cultural factors that increase female involvement in subsistence labour and decrease paternity certainty28,29,44,45,46. External warfare can encourage both of these through male absence and has long been theorized to induce transitions to matrilocality through various mechanisms45,47,48, a hypothesis recently strengthened through quantitative modelling49. Matrilocality also predicts a history of migration into a new territory, which often is accompanied by frontier warfare4,45. The British Iron Age was debatably a time of high societal violence, indicated by the early proliferation of hillforts, weapons, human remains displaying violence-related injuries and instances of intergroup conflict recorded by Roman writers such as Julius Caesar and Tacitus50,51,52,53. Importantly, although matrilocality does not necessitate female political and social empowerment, it is strongly associated with these4,27,54,55,56 and resonates with Roman descriptions of Celtic women1. Although classical depictions of conquered peoples are often viewed with scepticism, we find here some truths in these writers’ appraisal of Iron Age Britain.
* * *
An example of IA Belgic settlement:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trinovantes
Shortly before Julius Caesar’s invasion of Britain in 55 and 54 BC, the Trinobantes were considered the most powerful tribe in Britain. At this time their capital was probably at Braughing (in modern-day Hertfordshire).
…. The Trinovantes reappeared in history when they participated in Boudica’s revolt against the Roman Empire in 60 AD. Their name was given to one of the civitates of Roman Britain, whose chief town was Caesaromagus (modern Chelmsford, Essex).
The style of their rich burials (see facies of Aylesford) is of continental origin and evidence of their affiliation to the Belgic people.
* * *
This is Caesar in his book Gallic Wars.
https://penelope.uchicago.edu/Thayer/E/Roman/Texts/Caesar/Gallic_War/5A*.html
12 The inland part of Britain is inhabited by tribes declared in their own tradition to be indigenous to the island, the maritime part by tribes that migrated at an earlier time from Belgium to seek booty by invasion. Nearly all of these latter are called after the names of the states from which they sprang when they went to Britain; and after the invasion they abode there and began to till the fields. The population is innumerable; the farm-buildings are found very close together, being very like those of the Gauls; and there is great store of cattle. They use either bronze, or gold coins, or instead of coined money tallies of iron, of a certain standard of weight. In the midland districts of Britain tin is produced, in the maritime iron, but of that there is only a small supply; the bronze they use is imported. There is timber of every kind, as in Gaul, save beech and pine. They account it wrong to eat of hare, fowl, and goose; but these they keep for pastime or pleasure. The climate is more temperate than in Gaul, the cold seasons more moderate.
Divide et impera.
When I was young I was lucky because ancient Latin was mandatory at my school.
As a task, we used to translate the whole ‘De bello gallico’ by Julius Caesar (c must pronounced smooth and ‘ae’ like italian ‘e’)
It was during that period that Julius conied his motto ‘divide et impera’.
Gauls were also present in the north of Italy.
Romans called the region of the current Piemonte and Lombardia ‘Gallia cisalpina’, which place where the Gauls live close the Alps.
Near Milan there is an archeologica Gaul site, almost negleted by the Italian central government which is ‘roman oriented’, it is called Golasecca.
https://celticworld.it/2019/08/08/la-cultura-di-golasecca/
Golasecca was a quite important place because it is located at the end of the Lake Maggiore and from that site all the trade with the Sempione pass (Simplon), passed through that place. Which means the trade with France, Switzerland, Germany.
This is the link to some google maps pictures of the Celtic archeological site of Golasecca.
As one can see, it is badly preserved than other archeological Italian sites like for instance Etruscan or Roman ones.
But it is not only fault of the central government, also of the regional one.
It is a pity.
In my view, it might be also related to the fact that it is hard to accept that there is also a Celtic ancient history in northern Italy.
https://www.google.it/maps/place/Necropoli+del+Monsorino,+21010+Golasecca+VA/@45.7121461,8.6609346,15z/data=!4m9!1m2!2m1!1sgolasecca+sito+archeologico!3m5!1s0x47866503f8c9a86f:0xb477371ffe411052!8m2!3d45.7096212!4d8.6620988!16s%2Fg%2F11gsmjmdkv
(Oil Price)
Europe can say bye, bye to Litium in Ukraine…
I think that every European citizen should think whether perhaps it was better to have an Ukraine Country neutral and outside Nato…
“Russia Takes Control of Ukrainian Lithium Mines.
Russia has captured two of Ukraine’s four lithium deposits, potentially impacting Europe’s access to critical raw materials for green energy.
Lithium is a key component in batteries for electric vehicles and other devices, and Ukraine has significant reserves.
The conflict in Ukraine has disrupted progress toward leveraging Ukraine’s lithium reserves to support Europe’s strategic autonomy in critical minerals.
Russia has captured two of Ukraine’s four lithium deposits since it launched its all-out invasion in 2022, potentially depriving Kyiv of a key economic resource.
On January 11, Russia claimed to have seized control of Shevchenko, a rural settlement in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region. The settlement sits on top of one of Ukraine’s biggest lithium deposits.
Experts say Russia’s seizure of Ukraine’s lithium deposits could impact the rest of Europe and the Continent’s efforts to shift to green energy.
Described as “white gold,” lithium is a critical material for batteries used in devices ranging from smartphones and laptops to electric vehicles.
Ukraine has an estimated 500,000 tons of untapped lithium, one of the largest reserves in Europe, according to geological surveys.
Rod Schoonover, a national security expert and founder of the U.S.-based Ecological Futures Group, said it is unlikely that seizing Ukraine’s lithium deposits was a major war objective for Moscow. Russia itself has significant reserves.
(…)
Lithium is key to Europe’s efforts to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and transition to green energy.”
(…)
https://oilprice.com/Metals/Commodities/Russias-Control-of-Ukrainian-Lithium-Mines-Threatens-Europes-Green-Energy-Shif.html
good excuse for the certain failure of green energy. no one will notcie that green energy is failing also elsewhere including places with plenty lithium.
Yes, it is a good point.
At the moment it is also clear, in my view, that despite what European main stream media are saying, Russia is slowly but surely winning.
It seems also to me that the more Europe waits to stop the war the worse will be for both Ukraine and Europe.
No politician wants to face the blowback for ending the war on unfavorable terms and yet, as time goes on, the situation gets increasingly unfavorable.
They shouldn’t have started the “Russia is evil / war of aggression” narrative in the first place, because they’ve trapped themselves with it.
Yes, it does appear to be a case of caught in a trap of their own making(with some generous help).
It was always going to be a resource, technology and manufacturing battle, coupled with logistic ability. Simple physics determined the outcome before the start and that reality was no more obvious than in Yuzhmash.
“GDP is but one measure of economic mass, and often a misleading one. For instance, except in extreme comparisons between the richest and poorest nations, GDP says little about the economic wellbeing and day-to-day quality of life of a regular person. It says even less about a country’s capacity to make war. Again, what matters in combat is the force that can be brought to bear and at the specific time and place it is needed. A similar logic applies to the production and distribution of armaments. In Western nations, GDP consists largely of things like professional services, real estate, and non-military government spending. In other words, collective GDP cannot be loaded into a howitzer and fired at the enemy”
https://deepdivewithleeslusher.substack.com/p/the-state-of-western-warcraft
Does anyone ever wonder if Russia, being well aware of the limited ability of the west, planned from before the start, a long operation with the goal of not only disarming Ukraine, but lancing the nato boil once and for all?
That is an interesting idea. Get rid of NAtO also.
>> the goal of not only disarming Ukraine, but lancing the nato boil
I suppose it’s possible, but with a population of 140M against USA of 330 or Europe of 700+M, Russia certainly wants to deescalate because the military potential (not the present state) is higher with the West.
I don’t see the military potential being greater in the west in any meaningful metric.
We don’t have the resources, industrial capacity, or even the knowledge and so far our ones and zeros attacks have only boosted the Russian economy. Then you have a lazy, selfish population to somehow scrape off of their obese behinds.
I’m saying that despite all the western propaganda, what if it’s exactly that(the usual pattern is there), and it is in fact Russia who are now dragging everyone along until it fulfills it’s goals(not long into the smo Putin was clear that it would not be a quick war and even mentioned 4-5 years). They may not have wanted things, but once dragged in, why not play and dictate the pace as and when suits. They have the knowledge, capability and resources to play longer than us. Same with the population and their ability to stay the course, no matter the hardship(but again, that’s us not them despite what we’re told and look around, people are bleating all over the west already and it hasn’t gotten serious yet).
Wouldn’t it be more logical to assume that the people that want to deescalate would be those that have little resources, little industry and little knowledge, coupled with the little will of a large, lazy and ever so entitled population.
I really don’t see the relevance of population size to be honest, because if it mattered more than the ability to put the needed firepower in place at the needed time, India and China would rule all. What would all these people do, assuming you could even get them there. Throw cancer burgers at the Russians?
As the article said, you need to have the relevant equipment and trained operators in the right place, at the right time, with the ability to sustain the supplies of war( a gargantuan task, made bigger with every mile).
Anything else, you lose and so far all the west has offered is the battlefield equivalent of solar panels and windmills(guess who we need, even for that meagre offering).
So I’m left with 2 options.
1 as above, Russia has and will continue to dictate the pace.
2 they are all in it together(how 2020).
But at a horrible cost to their men in battle. Demographically Russia has serious issues, this had been known for a long time.
I am not sure they are winning if demographics is included. When the war is over, the land and its riches will remain along with the bodies of many Russians a loss which is very difficult to replace.
Dennis L.
Russians traditionally paid very little attention to the number of losses . Putin is unusual on that accord.
I’m not sure anyone wins in a long protracted war. Especially in this age of finite resources…I think that Putin thought it be a quick win but has had to stay in this war.
We have discussed crypto currencies . This just blew me away .
”Tether has demonstrated that it is not a threat, but rather a crucial partner in reinforcing the U.S. dollar’s continuing dominance for the benefit of both the American public and the global financial system. Further cementing this important role is Tether’s demonstrated willingness to voluntarily work with U.S. and international law enforcement agencies to stop the commission of crimes by known criminals and suspected bad actors.”
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/tether-stablecoin-rescue-us-treasury
and then
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/trump-unveils-official-memecoin-late-friday-12-hours-later-it-16000-30-billion
No currency, including gold, can sustain its value or survive without the support of affordable energy.
at least one other person on the planet has got the message
Carpet baggers and Bitcoin seem very similar! But maybe this can fool the masses for a few more years!
A 2023 report by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS) warns that cryptocurrencies exhibit bubble-like characteristics, with speculative trading accounting for the majority of transactions.
https://www.bis.org/publ/bppdf/bispap138.pdf
no matter
Elon has sold them to the don—one born every minute
or one elected every four years—with a few exceptions
Trump trying to steal Greenland is just a continuation of the Western Allies stealing Iceland from Denmark.
The proper thing was to restore Iceland to Denmark, which was not an enemy combatant, but the Western Allies did not want to pay Denmark back for the bombers they stationed there, so it stole Iceland, with a population less than 400,000, less than a mid size city, and made it a country which cannot grow its own food to save their lives.
Greenland was part of Denmark since around 1000 , the eskimos having come long after. I do not use terms like inuits.
Greenland, if becoming independent, will be a failed state just like Iceland, whose foodstuff mostly came from Copenhagen but it will be changed to some place in USA.
When the ability of USA to interfere with other countries’ affairs disappear, the national borders of many countries will adjust according to the true abilities of the countries, not by some writ from a Washington bureaucrat who never bothered to visit the region.
They told me all was OK .
https://oilprice.com/Energy/Energy-General/US-Refiners-Face-Headwinds-in-2025.html
Margins for producers likely slipping in 2025. Will tend to hold down profits.
Trump is an idiot if he thinks he can put a tariff on CAnadian oil. The u. S refineries rely on it to make diesel. He makes so much Shi$ up you have to ignore it half of the time.
Trump does sound strange on this, I agree.
He might just be ignorant on energy. I know so many people in high places that have no clue!! You don’t move up the ladder talking about collapse 🤨. Look at the people in the FED very scary…oh well. “Welcome to the new boss! Same as the old boss!”
is there any aspect of trump that doesnt sound strange?
Collapse of oil and gas production in Norway . Quark in Spain . Use translator . Hello EU .
https://futurocienciaficcionymatrix.blogspot.com/2025/01/colapso-en-la-produccion-de-petroleo-y.html
According to the article:
There is still a little left in fields we know about, but the situation looks very worrying after about 2030.
European Union is finished. It is now a union of nations without any more cheap energy/mineral resources and without even a market for consumption since the population will not only decrease but will also age very quickly.
This will cause not only the GDP to collapse but obviously the entire system will be affected because it will create a chain reaction on everything: fewer physical workers and the impossibility of replacement since the next generations are fewer in number than the previous ones, less production for companies, less consumption, less GDP, less income for the State, less services for everyone. At this point the State raises taxes even more to try to maintain previous income, this further affects consumption, the GDP collapses even more and so on.
Just take the automotive sector for instance. 2023 sales in EU are around 10.5 millions of vehicle but let me give you an historical view.
Below I reported the annual sales:
2005 17,893,955
2006 18,671,556
2007 19,606,588
2008 18,809,599
2009 16,603,761
2010 16,491,863
2011 17,160,600
2012 16,182,359
2013 15,932,852
2014 16,147,935
2015 16,404,963
2016 17,285,919
2017 17,969,531
2018 17,908,336
2019 17,944,404
2020 13,884,237
2021 13,736,595
2022 12,370,231
So if we compare 2023 sales to the 2007 peak of 19.6 million vehicles, we are almost at minus 50%.
I repeat: minus fifty percent!
A real collapse!
No, collapse isn’t something that will come in the distant future, it’s already here! We are in the midst of a collapse!
Even compared to other years, we are now around a reduction of around 40%.
2024 sales are also on the same level, 10.6 millions. A spectacular increase of 0,8% compared to 2023, now we are talking,g right?
The blanket is now too short. And this is now valid for nearly all European countries.
Too many people consuming and spending past wealth, and too few producing food and real industrial wealth, too many taxes and withholdings to maintain the tens of millions of people who do not work, study (things now useless and obsolete) or are retired.
And there are no solutions, because in the future there will be fewer and fewer people pulling the wagon, and for each one who throws in the towel the load on those left to pull increases.
Sounds bad, huh? Of course, but I didn’t decide that. They are physical and biological laws but which then have repercussions on economic ones.
In short, in 5 to 10 years the “Business as Usual” party will end permanently in Europe, the next 30 will be a social delirium, and perhaps a new equilibrium will be reached around 2070-2080 with a society very different from the current one for those that will have “survived” the socio-financial-energetic cataclysm of the imminent future.
i wrote about just that in 2018—was obvious then
https://medium.com/future-vision/the-european-union-was-a-construct-of-infinite-prosperity-7a401c225171
And yet the majority of the population remains convinced that “someone” will do something, will fix things, someone in some top secret laboratory will somehow create the energy utopia.
I look forward to the excuses the politicians will use and the choises that they will have to make when the economic and lifestyle reality becomes obvious to the general pubblic.
Decades of turbo-capitalism have poisoned the minds of millions of people even convincing them that it is morally right to consume and even get into debt, since people are now no longer “people” but “consumers”. After all, television has ordered them to live like this and for a period of time these consumers could even live peacefully, conforming, living serenely aiming for a house, a secure job, the car loan , the last-minute vacations, living without too many worries with their slice of cheap love and glory guaranteed (almost) for everyone.
I’m afraid that those times are now coming to a close, forever…
basically
you can’t vote prosperity into office
but there are billions of people who believe that you can
(or at least, borrow Keiths calculator)
I am afraid you are right. People have a strong “normalcy” bias. They can’t imagine things being any way other than the way they have been in the past.
absolutely right
but of course there is no way of ”imaginining” something like that.
it isnt possible to conjure up an image of something we have had no experience of.
you can only call up images from the past.—and even then, form personal experiences.
You are right. People don’t realize the extent of the collapse that is already taking place.
i said a long time ago—mid 2020s for collapse
and right on cue, a criminal lunatic becomes POTUS. (because people believe you can vote for prosperity).
while he is not personally responsible for collapse, he’s certainly a moving force for it.
I don’t know if Trump will unleash chaos, I think that the internal apparatuses of the United States can keep him at bay very effectively, after all we have already had 4 years of Trump’s government.
Trump is just a politician who knows how to read the thoughts of the average American very well, the one who lives with a rifle on his ankle in the American Heartland. And what do these people want? They want the old America back, powerful and boastful.
One thing that should make us think is how Trump, both in 2016 and in 2024, used the slogan: “Make America Great Again”. This is essentially an implicit admission that America was not, in 2016, and is still not as great as it once was.
The point is that things are still quite bleak and there is still no one who has the courage to admit that things are not really good, but above all that they will get even worse!
As you have already repeated several times, the United States history is a history of expansion, all empires tend to expand as much as possible. And here we are, starting to hearing things about annexing Canada and Greenland. Both nations are rich with resources, Greenland in minerals ones, Canada with the biggest accumulation of unconventional oil in the world barely developed!
And the European nations can do little about it if the Empire decides to do so.
We in Europe are still convinced that it is the economy that governs the world, especially after thirty years of mercantilist policies led by Germany.
And yet a little historical vision would be enough. The Dutch founded New Amsterdam by buying the island of Manhattan from the natives for a crust of bread and settled there happily for almost a century trading otter furs and other goods considered luxury goods in Europe with the natives. They traded, they got rich, they brought the money back home. But for three centuries in New York they have spoken English. Because the English cared little about trading, they had a different vision. The economy is just an instrument of power for an empire, it is not the ultimate goal.
The same thing happened to the newborn America. In 1805, the newborn United States, sent an american expeditionary force escorted by two frigates of the newborn US Navy with the Marine Corps on board, in the Mediterranean and occupied the city of Tripoli. The reason was to ensure that the commercial ships of the newborn United States would avoid being attacked by the Barbary pirates who infested the Mediterranean who usually departed from the ports of North Africa such as Tripoli, Tunis or Algiers. The message was received loud and clear and the United States could enter the Mediterranean with their ships without fear of pirates. And in fact this mission of the Navy is still in the motto of the Marines today!
Meanwhile, the ships of the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies, or the Kingdom of Sardinia, or France or Spain, continued to be attacked. It was 1805. A nation that had been born just twenty years before. This is called the will to power. This is called hegemonic planning. This is called the ability to not let anyone walk all over you. A nation with five million inhabitants when France and Italy had around twenty.
We in Europe are not even able to imagine now what they imagined in the 18th century.
The future it no longer exists for us Europeans. Of the Europe that we know and have known, in 30/50 years nothing will remain, but the US Empire will go on, at least in foreseeable near future.
i agree the US empire might go on—-but might not
all empires expand by the energy availble in theit teritory, or by looting it from elsewhere. Thats what happened to the UK—we had onr stroke of luck—at Trafalgar—by that battle English became the dominant world language of trade and exchange.
in the 18thc the world was there for the taking, with less than 1bn dirt poor people.
Napoleon had to sell Louisiana to support his failing empire, and we took Canada and Austrlia—a massive chunk of the known world.
in 1885 Afica was divided up by political decision in Europe, by europeans
i make these points because by some, empire expansion is still seen in the same light—ie, it can be re-done in the same way.
but we live in different times.
America is now full, there are no more empty lands—-hmm Greenland???—thats empty. and potentially full of resource-loot.
So the dimwit POTUS (voted there by 75m other dimwits of the same calibre) thinks “expansion”—MAGA—and relevant BS…egged on by Musk who wants to become the first $trillionaire (yes i mean it)—convinced that the world is now his personal ATM machine.—that colonising Mars will increase his wealth still further–and the don goes along with it….(thinking Empire—MAGA!!!! over and over)
Neither of them know how wealth is actually created in its fundamental sense
Yes Gian, EU is finished, but it will stilo create other disasters in the meantime for some years unfortunately, because, as we have learned, every government is only able to double down on bad strategies, instead of stopping bad decisions for its citizens.
For energy there are at least potential fixes. But demographic ageing is a more intractible problem. Short of growing babies in bottles, it is hard to to see what can be done. Immigration is a problem, not a solution. It amounts to giving our ethnic homelands away. For whatever reason, white westerners stopped having kids.
Westerners stopped having kids because both parent have to work to support a family. Child care costs tend to take the salary of one of the partners. The cost of child care increases with the number of kids.
Yes, I fully agree Gail.
I would say that, additionally, the most recent western culture (last 30/40 years) has pushed some trends and consequences that have created additional problems:
1) young people pushed to go on studying for long time, but then people enter the working society late, and then create families late, and then give birth to children late.
2) women are pushed to enjoy life, consume and not take any time to ‘sacrife’ some time to give birth to children and take care of them closely, at least in the first period of their lives.
3) men are pushed to avoid responsibility and seriousness and also morality to be a responsible father.
Also them are pushed to enjoy life, consume and go on having fun, without responsibility.
4) diminishing margins in the economic environment of the last 30/40 years have created the conditions in which daughters/sons of families if they try to create their own families, they experiment poorer conditions than their familiy of origin, so they are discouraged to abandon their family of origin. They create families late or don’t create at all families in the ‘classical’ way and they just create couples without children.
5) LGBQT+ pushed to the extreme is just a recent problem, but it surely goes on top.
I think the above are all consequences of the extreme capitalism, globalism, consumerism, which take the form of a sort of snake that eats it own tail, because it is too much greedy.
P.s. I don’t make any judgment of LGBQT+, everyone can chose one’s own sexual preference, but it is without doubts that those recent changes, from statistical point of view, if in great numbers, create meaningful consequences in the society.
Some news from Namibia offshore fields.
https://geoexpro.com/the-writing-was-on-the-wall/
January 9, 2025
Yesterday, Reuters broke the news that Shell has written off a $400 million exploration investment over “an oil discovery” in PEL39 in Namibia’s deep-water area. Even though a field name was not mentioned, it likely relates to the Graff discovery.
Is it a surprise this has happened? No. The writing was on the wall for a while, as Wael Sawan already hinted at subsurface challenges.
Ultimately, it is the geology that determines whether or not a discovery can be economically developed, and it is the geology that has proven to be too complicated to make it happen in the end. At least, for now.
There are two major aspects to the subsurface challenges that the Namibian deep-water discoveries are facing. The first is the presence of chlorite, which can be detrimental in terms of clogging up the pore space and therefore reducing the permeability of the reservoir.
Then there is the gas. As some people have said, the oil in some of the Namibian discoveries is close to bubble point, which means that the gas will come out of solution straight away once production starts and the pressure in the reservoir starts to drop. Dealing with this right from the start is a big difference from a situation where gas becomes an issue later down the line. For instance, in Guyana, oil could be produced first before a gas solution was required and that is now being worked on. The same holds for Baleine in Côte d’Ivoire, where the GOR is supposedly low, enabling the operator to first focus on oil production. This may be one of the reasons, in addition to the chlorite problem, that has thus far prevented companies from giving the go-ahead because the engineering solution is more costly, especially given that this is deep water.
It is these technical details that stop production. The oil may be there, but it is too expensive to extract, given current economics.
China is no longer helping hold up world oil demand growth (and prices). Economy likely not doing terribly well, either.
https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/Chinas-Refining-Output-Dips-for-First-Time-in-Over-Two-Decades.html
BP is starting with 88,000 employees, plus an unknown number of contractors. The 4700 jobs is 5% of employees, so not a huge share. But it still indicated that BP is not looking to expand its operations.
Norwegian oil and gas production is about to collapse. The UK ‘plan’ was to heavily rely on Norwegian energy exports to keep the lights on. UK energy production is already in collapse. The best fields are heavily depleted around here.
UK already has the highest energy costs of everyone and it is already in an energy, budget and cost of living crisis. This does not look good. UK should have got tight with Russia but instead it just made a 100 year security agreement with Ukraine.
Good luck with that ‘strategy’. UK governments have not got a clue what they are doing and the whole place is coming down at this rate. Russia is a massive exporter of gas and oil so UK sides with Ukraine just as UK energy supplies collapse. Smart.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dusk-norway-dawn-russia-looming-120000196.html
‘Dusk for Norway is dawn for Russia’: The looming gas crisis facing the West
For decades, Norway has been Britain’s leading source of imported energy.
However, that relationship may be set to come under strain after the Scandinavian nation warned that its vast oil and gas fields are in decline.
The threat of dwindling production would herald a potential energy crisis for the UK, which last year relied on Norway for half its gas and a quarter of its oil.
Worse still, a drop in Norwegian output would strengthen Russia’s grip on the global gas market, posing a geopolitical nightmare for governments across Europe.
According to a new report from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD), the country’s oil and gas supplies peaked last year and are expected to dwindle from now on.
Its findings revealed Norway produced about 230m standard cubic metres of oil and gas in 2024, although that could fall to as low as 110m cubic metres by 2035.
Experts claim extra investment could help slow the decline, although there is no escaping from the fact that Norway’s best oil and gas fields are becoming increasingly depleted.
“We expect overall production to decline in the later 2020s,” the report from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate said.
“In order to slow this decline, exploration will need to take place close to infrastructure and in more frontier areas, in addition to making more investments in fields, discoveries and infrastructure.
“Failure to invest will lead to rapid dismantling of petroleum activities.”
While an obvious concern for Norwegian households, the latest warning from the NOD will also send a chill through Ed Miliband’s Energy Department.
Last year, Norway became Britain’s primary source of gas after supplying 29bn cubic metres, whereas the UK’s North Sea output shrank to 26bn cubic metres.
Over the next decade, UK production is expected to decline by a further 70pc, meaning reliance on costly imported gas will increase in the coming years.
Norway has long been expected to be the primary source of that gas.
However, the UK and the rest of Europe now face the prospect of being forced into the arms of countries like Russia if Norway starts to turn off the taps.
“Dusk for Norway is dawn for Russia,” says Andreas Schroeder, head of energy analytics at the Independent Commodity Intelligence Service (ICIS).
“Russia is unlikely to dominate Europe again as in the past when it had nearly 40pc market share.
“But the call to open the pipes and gates for cheap Russian gas will get louder over time as gas prices increase with dwindling Norwegian output.
“It creates a case for more cooperation with Russia and will encourage Russia-friendly politicians in countries like Slovakia and Hungary.” ….
Swedish Gas
I explained below that the country of Norway was created because the people at London could not tolerate a dynasty founded by a Napoleonic marshal, Bernadotte, competing against British fishing interest in the North Sea. As a compensation Sweden was allowed to sit out both world wars.
It is time for artificial countries like Norway to die an unmourned death.
The chart goes to 2050. If correct, it will be a long slow grind down. Realistically, the support system for drilling would collapse before that endpoint.
Meaning we will have steps on the way down. I agree. different steps of different sizes, similar to the collapse of the Soviet Union.
And in different places. Countries that are somewhat autarkic and have resources will do better for a while.
We live in a strange world. UK leaders won’t dare to say how bad the situation looks for the UK. Instead, they will talk about how terrible climate change is as a problem, and how wonderful it is that the UK people are voluntarily leaving oil and gas.
fossil fuel decline makes it clear that humankind faces hunger and cold.
we will somersualt through any hoop to avoid that.
for some it will come sooner, for some later, and for many it has already arrived.
but no one is exempt, all will eventually burn through their remaining fuel supplies, while remaining in denial of the truth and praying to their god of choice.
me???—i’m glad to be 90 and soon out of it, i’ve had a wonderful time all things considered—perfect health and no serious calamities—but the thought of my g/grandkids and what they will face terrifies me.
The scene from Do ctor Zhivavgo where Yuri is caught with ripped off wood from a building to heat the apartment by his commissary brother was chilling. Looking ahead son for that now see loads of wooden pallets and cardboard being discarded. What a waste
“terrifies me.”
Same here, but I have a very different view of what the future may look like.
The world around us will change more in the next 5-10 years than in the last 100. We are on the cusp of the singularity, and one of the elements of it, AI, is improving on a time scale of months. A solution for energy will come from engineers. It is astonishing how much more an engineer can accomplish with an AI assistant even today.
Does such a future need us? I don’t know.
keith
out of interest—i paste ”singularlity below:
/////The technological singularity—or simply the singularity[1]—is a hypothetical future point in time at which technological growth becomes uncontrollable and irreversible, resulting in unforeseeable consequences for human civilization///
no growth can occur without energy input—-universal law there Keith—not even your trusty calculator can circumvent that one, though there can be no doubt that the above statement was the result of somebodys obsession with numbers.
humankind is ruuning out of fungible energy.
what ”singularlity” actually describes—-i can do better—what it means is that you go round in ever decreasing circles until you disappear up your own fundamental orifice.
as to AI—my offer still stands:
Put a one ounce weight on a flat surface, and use AI —of itself and by itself with no other outside interference—-, and make that weight move one inch.
do that Keith, and I will pay your freezer bill for the next 500 years.
we got to ”now” by converting one energy form into another basically by mechanised levers.
without mechanised levers, our means of existence reverts back to levers powered by human or animal muscle power.
AI will have no place in font of a farmcart, only horses.
i can only suggest you upgrade your calculator to one with a ‘hypothesis’ key—it will put in a logic factor.
“no growth can occur without energy input”
Right now AIs are taking huge amount of energy, data centers are soaking up so much that nuclear reactors are being brought back on line and coal plants are being retained.
But the Chinese, out of necessity, have reduced the energy cost by a factor of 200. Considering a human brain runs on 20 Watts, there is a lot of room for improvement.
Between AI assisted engineering and the falling energy consumption of AI, there will be a crossover where AI assisted energy engineering projects will make more energy than the AIs use. The synfuel from intermittent solar and trash/coal/biomass is an early example.
“humankind is ruining out of fungible energy.”
Covering about 1% of cropland with solar will provide more than the current consumption consumption of energy from other sources. The problem as Gale points out is the intermittent storage problem. Making syngas with intermittent energy solves that problem. (You store the gas in old coal mines or oil fields.)
“Put a one ounce weight on a flat surface”
Sounds like a chess piece on a board. In the virtual world where we spend an increasing amount of time, AIs move chess pieces or place stones in GO with no problem. AIs that play games to human level or above are 30 years in the past now.
‘hypothesis’ key
Everything is hypothetical until it is done. Nobody is making syngas from carbon, steam and intermittent electrical power. Can’t say it will be done, but it looks like it would solve a number of problems. Hard to say if it can be done before technology changes make it obsolete.
No Keith
moving a one ounce weight as i challenged is not a chessgame—-and we are not thinking in a virtual world.—or i’m not.
using vast amounts of energy to power a virtual world is burning power in pursuit of wish science—that if we go on consuming energy—somehow a physical entity will emanate from our actions. a net gain.
AI will help us to design better levers—it will not move the levers…..ever.
though moving a chesspiece would work equally well—–just do it!!
if it cant be done, the ultimate AI world falls apart
(Bloomberg)
“Trump Team Readies Oil Sanctions Plan for Russia Deal, Iran Squeeze.”
In the article it is said that Trump’s Team is preparing sanctions, besides Russia, also for Iran, China and Venezuela.
https://gcaptain.com/trump-team-readies-oil-sanctions-plan-for-russia-deal-iran-squeeze/
If you sanction everyone else, you’re just sanctioning yourself.
I am afraid you are correct.
(Reuters)
“Putin and Iran’s president deepen defence ties with 20-year pact.
MOSCOW, Jan 17 (Reuters) – Russian President Vladimir Putin and his Iranian counterpart Masoud Pezeshkian deepened military ties between their countries on Friday by signing a 20-year strategic partnership that is likely to worry the West.
Under the agreement, Russia and Iran will boost cooperation in a range of areas including their security services, military drills, warship port visits and joint officer training.
Neither will allow their territory to be used for any action that threatens the other and will provide no help to an aggressor attacking either nation, according to the text, which also said they would work together to counter military threats.”
In the article it is said that the two Countries will deepen also trade ties with payments with their relative currencies.
https://www.reuters.com/world/iranian-president-arrives-moscow-treaty-signing-with-putin-tass-says-2025-01-17/
“In the article it is said that the two Countries will deepen also trade ties with payments with their relative currencies”.
Somewhat behind the times, those journalists. They’ve been deepening trade in multiple sectors for quite some time and likewise with the payments.
“The Kremlin announced on Thursday that over 96% of trade transactions between Russia and Iran are now conducted in their respective national currencies, showcasing a significant shift away from reliance on the US dollar”.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/russia-iran-trade-surpasses–4bln-with-96–in-national-curre
Wow!
SITREP 1/17/25: Russia-Iran’s Landmark Agreement Imitated in Starmer’s Last Minute Kiev Stunt
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/sitrep-11725-russia-irans-landmark?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=154929754&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
This is precisely why I am currently in Iran. Came to see what could be imported here, and there are opportunities, but there are possibly more opportunities for export. Russia may be cheap but Iran is much cheaper. Electricity costs are below 0.01$/kwh, 4 times less than in Russia. I was invited at the home of a professor in Isfahan yesterday and their kitchen appliances looked much better than western ones. all made here, as are all cars (he did have a Nissan Sonata but also an iranian motorbike for everyday commutes). Also liked his dacha very much, with 30+ fruit trees, many grapes and a pool. and he is not a high level guy at the university. The son is a programmer in a bank (he owns two apartments at 32), the daughter a firefighter.
one of the things we wanted to talk about is making a small chain of artisanal ice cream in Tehran. They are already doing artisanal ice cream as good as the best italian, with their own machines costing 3k$ (we were planning to make them in Russia for 5k. Price of a carpigiani machine in Italy, 50k). There are of course other, much better opportunities.
random notes: amazing cuisine, very civilized people. at night everyone is out and about. say what you want about Europe, they are still a relatively young civilization (as are the Russians. the americans can be somewhat troglodytes). as an Etruscan, i prefer to deal with the iranians. everyone is fretting about an economic decline though, but we will see if what they signed yesterday in Moscow will change things.
China is not a young civilization but they can use serious help with night life.
Interesting! Most Iranians I have run into call themselves, “Persians.” The culture has done well through the ages.
Some interesting stuff, thanks. Nice to read that they still hold dear a social society, rather than being filled with fear and herded Infront of a screen, for the sole purpose of reinforcing that fear.
Id agree on looking into what Iran offers and making some acquaintances, if for no more than being known to them, as you and they will both see gaps and so opportunities.
I’ve been impressed reading the rise of trade and exports over the last couple of years from Iran. From raw materials, processed and finished goods to agricultural(175% rise in bell peppers to Russia alone and a great Saffron harvest).
I believe Khamenei is far more aware of and willing to go with changing trends and circumstances than given credit and as Bhadrakumar says, chose Pezeshkian for that reason.
https://www.indianpunchline.com/trump-bends-the-arc-of-history-in-west-asia-part-i/
Only potential fly in the ointment is how far Trump will go for his financial masters.
BP to cut 4700 jobs plus also contractors .
https://x.com/JavierBlas/status/1879844191355969784
BP is definitely not growing any more.
Maybe this fire is put out quickly, but maybe not:
https://www.zerohedge.com/commodities/disaster-fire-erupts-california-battery-storage-plant
“This Is A Disaster”: Fire Erupts At California Battery Storage Plant
Anyone down wind of this fire will most likely have serious health issues in the future. Lithium fires are unbelievably dangerous. Absolutely no testing was done on lithium battery fires in electric cars or in stations by the oversight committees until now.
So again, there has been complete failure in that governance across all countries. Something I am keeping an eye on is, what would happen on a ferry if an electric car catches fire on a deck with other electric cars. It is common to have a deck with 1/4 electric cars in the Seattle and Vancouver areas. When it eventually happens, there is an excellent chance the ferry will sink. Anyone not immediately evacuated from the ferry will most likely breath the air from the fires, and have a very short and miserable life.
The StacheD channel on Youtube covers testing just now being performed.
An AI summary of health effects provided this:
Lithium-ion battery fires can release toxic gases that can cause serious health issues, including lung damage, heart problems, and neurological disorders.
Respiratory issues
Inhaling toxic gases
Inhaling gases from a lithium-ion battery fire can cause long-term respiratory problems, such as asthma or chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD).
Pulmonary edema
Inhaling lithium salt electrolyte from a lithium-ion battery fire can cause fluid to build up in the lungs, which can lead to pulmonary edema and lung collapse.
Oxygen deprivation
Inhaling carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide from a lithium-ion battery fire can lead to oxygen deprivation, which can cause fatigue, confusion, and increased heart rate.
Systemic effects
Hydrogen fluoride
Exposure to hydrogen fluoride can cause systemic poisoning, which can affect multiple organs.
Low calcium and magnesium levels
Inhaling gases from a lithium-ion battery fire can cause low levels of calcium and magnesium in the blood.
High potassium levels
Inhaling gases from a lithium-ion battery fire can cause high levels of potassium in the blood.
Neurological effects
Exposure to cobalt and lithium: Exposure to cobalt and lithium can have neurotoxic effects, which can lead to neurological disorders.
Other effects Skin burns, Muscle control and coordination issues, Headaches, and Cognitive function issues.
These chemicals don’t just clear once a lithium fire is out. Once they are on a firefighter’s turnout gear, it is not possible to clean it. It needs to be disposed of with great caution. I suspect this is still not understood by most volunteer firefighters.
Car fires should be allowed to burn, and everyone stay back at least a kilometer until its out.
Lithium fire suppression systems exist. But like everything, they are expensive and require training and upkeep. Still, a ferry is a trap during an event like this. One of several concepts I would love to help deploy.
Breathing smoke of any kind is not good for you, but lithium is taken by millions of people. I think your sources are exaggerating the dangers.
On the other hand, Moss Landing.
a psychoactive dose is 1/2 gram.
Good point, nobody is going to breath half a gram.
You hadn’t heard of it before, so therefor it can’t be true right? Allow me to provide just a little elucidation.
Fire fighters often have shortened lives for their service. The realization is that fumes from fires are carriers of many damaging chemicals that are particularly toxic. PVC or polyvinyl chloride, has recently been determined to be far more dangerous than had been presumed.
In particular for lithium fires … (Search in Brave for: Australian firefighters lithium fire disabled)
Two firefighters in Victoria (Australia) were permanently disabled as a result of cobalt poisoning after attending an electric vehicle (EV) fire. Lithium-ion battery fires release toxic gases such as carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen fluoride, and cobalt, which can be absorbed through the skin and are particularly dangerous for firefighters. These toxins can cause poisoning and other health issues, leading to long-term disabilities.
This is the reference case which rolled through fire halls. Someone didnt do their job, and now we are stuck with a toxic mess.
My Peugeot distributor surrendered his license to Stellantis . Reason — he cannot dig a pond big enough to drag a burning EV to put down a fire . The fire department said they cannot handle lithium fires and the insurance company said ” sorry ” . He is now selling used ICE vehicles . Insane .
“Fire fighters often have shortened lives for their service. ”
Firefighting is a dangerous job but the danger falls between Farmers and Power linemen.
8. Farmers
9. Firefighting supervisors
10. Power linemen
Another website from PBS mentioned that being a firefighter knocks (on average) ten years off their lives. Breathing smoke is not good for you. Consider those who smoke.
“PVC or polyvinyl chloride, has recently been determined to be far more dangerous than had been presumed. ”
I have known vapors from it as bad for you for at least 40 years. A friend of mine got poisoned from welding up PVC tanks.
” cobalt poisoning”
https://medlineplus.gov/ency/article/002495.htm
On the other hand, are you concerned about climate change? In any case, going into the smoke from an EV fire without an air pack is not a good idea.
“carbon monoxide, hydrogen cyanide, hydrogen fluoride, and cobalt, ”
The first two are normal for fires, unless they get enough to kill, people recover. I was not aware of florine compounds being used an EV batteries. Got a pointer? Re cobalt, I wonder how the miners cope with it.
“Someone didnt do their job, ”
Can you be more specific?
The likelihood of declining supply of oil and gas from Norway should be a worry for the people of Europe. It should be an even worse worry compared to the decline in the likelihood of US oil and natural gas supply, which may be a bit farther off and perhaps not as fast.
It is hard for people to believe that what we have my be going away soon.
Yes, I have read that article. It represents a big change and it has been published by ‘The Telegraph’, not by a conspiracy gazette of a tiny town…
Joe Tex – You Better Believe It Baby
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=MXfAhpCBj2o&pp=ygUbeW91IGJldHRlciBiZWxpZXZlIGl0IGZ1bm55
Too much of anything ain’t good for nobody
You better believe it baby
Too much of anything ain’t good for nobody
You better believe it baby
Maybe we are getting too much…???
That also helps to understand why UK has always been the most warmongering European Country in relation to the war in Ukraine.
They don’t want to change the ‘Empire’ mentality and so they want to fight to try to mantain their power.
Starmer has just signed a 100 years (!) Pact with Ukraine…
UK desperately wants to put its hands on Russia resources.
Why do you say that what we have may be a bit farther off and not as fast? What are you basing this on?
The latest oil discoveries from 2018 on the Norvegian Shelf.
Discoveries are usually reported in million standard cubic meters of oil in the norvegian reports.
1 m3 is 6.29 barrels.
So:
2018: about 20Sm3 i.e. 126 million barrels
2019: about 60Sm3 i.e. 380 million barrels
2020: about 50Sm3 i.e. 315 million barrels
2021: about 55Sm3 i.e. 350 million barrels
2022: about 20Sm3 i.e. 126 million barrels
2023: about 20Sm3 i.e. 126 million barrels
However, Norway produces about 1.7-1.8 million barrels per day, or 600/650 million barrels per year.
Reserve to production replacement rate basically non-existent.
The last noteworthy field in Norway is Johan Castberg. Discovered in 2011/2012 it is actually the sum of 3 different small fields that will be developed via an FPSO in the distant Barents Sea.
It has been over 10 years since Johan Castberg (about 500/600 mln barrels of reserves) was discovered, just as it has been over 10 years since the last elephant of 3 billion barrels i.e. Johan Sverdrup (discovered in 2011).
After more than a decade of exploration and drilling in the North Sea, Norwegian Sea and Barents Sea, no significant “stand-alone” field has been discovered that has been approved for development.
All the small discoveries of the past years have been developed by connecting them to existing field infrastructure. They are basically small fields a little further away from the major ones developed in the 60s and 70s in the North Sea and Norwegian Sea.
We are scraping the bottom of the barrel…
Good point about not finding nearly as much as pumping out.
From Zerohedge: No “Across-The-Board Tariffs” And A Weak Dollar: What Trump’s Treasury Secretary Really Wants
Some surprising observations in Bessent’s last letter to investors: “Tariffs are inflationary and would strengthen the dollar — hardly a good starting point for a US industrial renaissance… A weak dollar and plentiful, cheap energy could power a boom.”
Incoming Treasury Secretary thinks that there is plentiful, cheap energy to be had? Of is this just want he is saying to his gullible “investors”. Plentiful, cheap energy would be great, he should go find us some some (on this planet)…
After reading Orlov’s latest musings, i have to wonder what the f Woody Wilson, who did not visit Europe until 1919, was thinking when he decided to award the “Heartland” (roughly the land Germany acquired from Russia in the Brest Litovsk treaty,although Orlov thinks all of them are Russian) back to USSR and the brain dead countries of Poland, Estonia, Lithuania, Latvia, Czechoslovakia, etc?
I already answered erhard in a previous page that the country of Czechoslovakia, which did not really accomplish anything other than inventing the word robot (Milan Kundera refused to write in Czech, only in French), was worth being allowed independence when the payoff was losing the Heartland defined by Halford MacKinder.
Aftrer 1991 the Heartland became divided into a bunch of weaker countries, again, with USA bailing out everyone. Now USA cannot bail them out anymore, and a rump Ukraine, shorn of most of the territories worth defending, will follow with the Russian bear, no longer Europeans (Putin & Co announced several times that Russia is now an Asian country) pokes into the European continent again.
Henry Ford said History is Bunk. How did he end up? Handled by his bodyguard, then kicked out from his company by his grandson.
The ignorance of Americans on history, philosophy, etc has led to a zombified leadership handled by neocons, descended from recent immigrants who do not give a crap about the general Americans.
Just curious… why does the Czech and Slovakia area receive so much of your ire? Why not Croatia or Finland?
Because the stealing of Bohemia from the Austrian Empire proved to be decisive for the end of Austria as a civilization.
Woody Wilson did not visit Europe until 1919 an did not know jack shit about how Austria held the Hordes at bay for years.
Croatia and Finland are secondary.
The new countries after 1918 were dead-on-arrival and became pushovers. If Woody Wilson honored the Brest Litovsk treaty and acknowledged the German mandate in the Heartland the world would not be in this dire strait now.
Was the independence of Czechoslovakia worth costing the Heartland for the West? Given the entire lack of Czechia and Slovakia, whose combined contribution to human civilization consists of one single word, “robot” which could be changed by automata, about how they affected the world now, no.
I have been educated. This is getting too far down to continue the thread… but, I will read a bit about the Austrian empire
The Klum version of History..located in the Fiction section of literary spin…it’s comforting to be on the “right” side…
Not fiction. It us called the truth not comfortable for the elites in London.
Some people think USA was great for advancing civilization.
For some people, USA provided an opportunity, mostly for first generation immigrants.
However, where would their descendants go? They become attorneys, politicians, physicians, property developers, etc, professions which are not exactly advancing civilization.
The so called melting pot ideology is horrible. It melts great talents into mediocriticities.
CA abandons clean-air rules on diesel trucks
Avatar photo by Lynn La January 15, 2025
https://calmatters.org/newsletter/california-abandons-diesel-trucks-rules/
As CalMatters’ Alejandro Lazo explains, in 2023 the California Air Resources Board voted to ban the sale of new diesel big rigs by 2036 and require large fleets to convert all their trucks to zero-emission models by 2042. About 1.8 million trucks operate in the state.
To enforce the ban, California needs a waiver from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. (In December, for example, the Biden administration approved California’s mandate to phase out new gas-powered cars.) But on Tuesday the board withdrew its requests for approving emission standards for diesel trucks in anticipation that the Trump administration will likely reject them.
Liane Randolph, board chairperson, in a statement: “The withdrawal is an important step given the uncertainty presented by the incoming administration that previously attacked California’s programs to protect public health and the climate and has said will continue to oppose those programs.”
In my view, the way things are headed it probably doesn’t make much of a difference
The standards sound basically impossible. Withdrawing them sounds like a step in the right direction, whether or not the Trump administration would reject them.
Perhaps diesel can be refined with the same recipe as “soylent green”….that should kick the can down a few more years….
I remember a book with a chapter on a digester to produce methane too….hmmm…lots of ideas floating around back in the 1980s, not much in the way of actual penetration
I remember a proposal that the airlines should offer free liposuction at the gate and render the fat into jet fuel. 🙂
“doesn’t make much of a difference”
I agree, though probably for different reasons.
Let me guess, we’ll have that cubic mile of Pt by then and all will be well…my calculator shows me so…right?
Mike
Keiths been looking everywhere for that calculator
Hey, Norm…visited the Honest Sorcerer latest and look who wrote a comment…
Fast Eddy
5d
The reason they believe the nonsense… is the same reason they believe the Covid Death Shots are Safe and Effective.
They believe whatever cnnbbc tells them to believe
Seems our good old FE still at it…no surprise
hope eddy didn’t go all fours fives and sixes on him
There are different ways to take human life and kill it. Leaving people in extreme poverty is, in a sense, equivalent to taking their lives. For instance, over the past year, global poverty has surged rapidly. According to 2023 data, “8.5% of the global population—almost 700 million people—live on less than $2.15 per day”, categorized as extreme poverty.
The impact of poverty on human life is devastating. For example, in the United States alone, poverty was associated with “183,000 deaths in 2019” among individuals aged 15 and older—an average of over 500 deaths every day. Alarmingly, poverty ranks as the “fourth leading cause of death in the United States”, following heart disease, cancer, and smoking.
This stark reality highlights that poverty is not just an economic issue but a profound moral and humanitarian crisis, claiming countless lives silently every day.
https://news.ucr.edu/articles/2023/04/17/poverty-4th-greatest-cause-us-deaths?utm_source=chatgpt.com
https://apnews.com/article/global-poverty-conflict-children-africa-asia-un-6368254d305025d69925a86b75aeb6f6
“Poverty silently killed 10 times as many people as all the homicides in 2019,” says the lead author of a new analysis.
https://truthout.org/articles/poverty-is-the-4th-leading-cause-of-death-in-the-us-research-shows/
Guess how many people insisted that the world was not overpopulated? Still to this day looks as if nothing has changed at all…lots of couples with many drug rats crawling about….why bother even thinking about it…
I reflect on this because I believe it holds the key to humanity’s destiny. Our current civilization has built an illusion of progress and stability, but I fear it won’t endure much longer. Poverty—perhaps even a profound, all-encompassing poverty—is not just a distant threat; it looms dangerously close, with the potential to engulf all of humanity
” fear it won’t endure much longer. ”
I agree, the technological singularity seems to be not much more than single digit years in the future.
“Poverty”
IF the singularity happens, the more likely outcome will be an insane increase in per capita wealth. This may be worse than poverty from some viewpoints.
Jan 17, 2022
For 99% of the global population, incomes have fallen and over 160 million more people have been forced into poverty.
https://www.weforum.org/stories/2022/01/inequality-in-2022-oxfam-report/
That is from January 2022, the WEF referencing the effects of the measures implemented allegedly because of a pandemic.
So, we destroyed the village in order to save it?
That is called Natural Selection
There is an amazing difference in life expectancy between college grads and non-college grads in the US. This is a link to an article from 2021, with charts. https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2021/03/17/educated-americans-live-longer-as-others-die-younger
The more recent situation is even worse.
https://www.axios.com/2023/10/16/life-expectancy-educated-adults-mortality-rate
For some reason, I’ve been inclined to think lately that universities and similar institutions don’t teach as much as they claim to. Instead, they often seem to fill people’s minds with unnecessary nonsense. However, I find it quite fascinating to see data suggesting that individuals who attend university tend to live longer and enjoy other such benefits. It’s an intriguing contrast that challenges my skepticism and makes me reconsider the broader impact of higher education.
“broader impact ”
Education is partly a proxy for intelligence. Smart people (on average) make better decisions about life choices that affect health.
No mystery.
Yes, I partly agree with the statement that education can be a proxy for intelligence. However, the key question is: what kind of education? Are we talking about traditional schooling, university education, or lifelong learning?
In fact, at a certain point, I believe this relationship might even reverse. Consider the case of highly educated professionals like doctors. Recent studies reveal that only about 15% of their decisions are evidence-based (Pfeffer & Sutton, 2006). Instead, many rely on outdated knowledge from school, unproven traditions, personal patterns from experience, or commercial influences.
So, while education may initially reflect intelligence and lead to better life decisions, its broader impact depends on how critically and dynamically the knowledge is updated and applied in real-world contexts.
“what kind of education? ”
To a first approximation it does not matter. You need 120 IQ or better to get into college.
I’m not entirely convinced by this claim. While it’s true that a certain level of IQ, such as 120 or above, may be necessary to access college education, IQ alone is not sufficient for making consistently good decisions. Decision-making is influenced by a range of factors, including emotional intelligence, critical thinking, adaptability, and even the quality of information one is exposed to.
Moreover, the assumption that college inherently leads to better decision-making oversimplifies the issue. The type of education, its relevance, and how well individuals apply what they’ve learned to real-life challenges are just as important—if not more so—than raw cognitive ability.
By the way, I’m also not entirely sure how accurate it is to measure intelligence solely through IQ.
Perhaps the real issue here is the reliance on averages to draw conclusions. The reasons why individuals with less education may struggle to make good decisions are likely far more complex and multifaceted. Beyond education itself, factors such as poor-quality education, economic challenges, and political circumstances can all play a significant role. For this reason, I believe it’s not very meaningful to answer such questions solely by looking at averages, as they can obscure the nuances and individual differences that truly matter.
“The reasons why individuals with less education may struggle to make good decisions are likely far more complex and multifaceted.”
Perhaps. Gregory Clark makes the points that numeracy, literacy, and the trait of putting off rewards were selected as elements that contributed to becoming wealthy. I might add a few other traits, impulsive people don’t get wealthy, and being gullible or excessively religious does not help either.
Relying on averages to draw conclusions is like judging a river’s safety based on its average depth. Suppose a river’s average depth is 3 feet—it might sound safe to cross. But this average doesn’t reveal that some parts of the river are just a few inches deep, while others drop suddenly to 20 feet. If someone tries to cross without knowing these variations, the ‘average’ depth becomes useless. What really matters is the depth at the specific point where we plan to cross.
That’s an interesting perspective, and Gregory Clark’s points about traits like numeracy, literacy, and delayed gratification being linked to wealth are certainly worth considering. However, I think it’s important to approach this with caution. While these traits may correlate with wealth, the causation is more complex. Structural factors like access to quality education, systemic inequality, and even geographical or cultural circumstances play significant roles in shaping these traits and their outcomes.
Natural selection does not always lead to progress and advancement; it can also result in decline and regression. The same can be said for wealth—it doesn’t guarantee perpetual prosperity. Over time, it can lay the groundwork for comprehensive collapse, serving as the very foundation of its own undoing. The fall of the Roman Empire is a striking example: its immense wealth and power eventually fostered inequality, corruption, and instability, leading to its downfall. Similarly, in evolution, species that once thrived can regress and vanish. For instance, around 2.4 billion years ago, cyanobacteria dominated the Earth, producing oxygen during the Great Oxidation Event. While they transformed the planet, creating an oxygen-rich atmosphere, this very success led to a mass extinction of anaerobic organisms and a collapse of ecosystems dependent on low oxygen levels. The challenges faced by the West and other wealthy nations are deeply intertwined with this reality. Natural selection continues, and it will persist, but in a fundamentally different way.
We are dealing with “Survival of the best adapted,” at a given time. As conditions change, which outcomes are optimal can be expected to change. Over time, nearly all species disappear.
“Indeed, the principle of ‘survival of the best adapted’ underscores the dynamic nature of evolution. Adaptation is not a static achievement but a continuous process, shaped by the shifting tapestry of environmental conditions. What is optimal today may become obsolete tomorrow as variables change, forcing life to evolve or fade away.
I’m not a historian, so I may make mistakes—please bear with me. In my view, the Ottoman Empire’s state influence was far more centralized than in England, with the sultan and his administration exerting significant control over religion, education, and the economy. Unlike England, which developed decentralized institutions like Parliament, the Ottoman system prioritized state authority and stability, often at the expense of free thought.
While the empire experienced periods of intellectual growth, respect for free thought was not institutionalized to the same extent as in post-Enlightenment England. This centralization and focus on authority align with some traditions of earlier Eastern governance, though the term “Eastern Despotism” oversimplifies its complexities.
Natural selection mechanisms existed in the Ottoman Empire but operated differently through systems like the devshirme, succession struggles, and merit-based appointments. While perhaps less influential than in England, inheritance laws like primogeniture primarily affected the aristocracy, shaping their dynamics but having little impact on the broader population, whose survival depended on labor and local opportunities rather than inherited wealth. Moreover, England likely provided a much more conducive environment for the development of free enterprise and capitalism compared to the Ottoman Empire.
But this may not always be the case, as we might be entering a period where there is less demand for educated individuals.
Unlike United Kingdom, Turkey did not go thru a process of natural selection, especially among the ruling echelon who could always find other peoples to exploit from.
I don’t know how the inheritance laws worked during the Osmanli Devleti, but in UK it was winner take all. The first son got everything and everyone else was on his mercy, so the younger sons (and sometimes daughters) had to find a way to earn a living to be able to find a mate, or died unmarried and out of gene pool.
That led to a huge natural selection pressure which is not easy to understand by people not from an island country, which only ended in 1914 when all the younger sons of the gentry got killed at Somme and Flanders (although the ones sent to Cannakale were from Australia and NZ) , and people from lower pedigree began to mate with women from a higher class, as documented by DH Lawrence’s Lady Chatterley, written on the ‘suggestion’ of Aldous Huxley.
It’s an interesting perspective, but I think it oversimplifies both historical and genetic processes. While natural selection pressures in the UK may have been influenced by inheritance laws and class structure, this doesn’t mean Turkey—or the Ottoman Empire—was exempt from natural selection.
For example, Ottoman society had its own unique dynamics. The ruling elite, such as the sultans, practiced a system where heirs were not determined by primogeniture but rather through competition, often brutal, among sons. This created a different but intense form of selection pressure. Additionally, the practice of devshirme, bringing individuals from diverse ethnic backgrounds into the ruling class, introduced genetic and cultural diversity that could be seen as another form of adaptation.
Moreover, attributing genetic shifts to events like World War I and the mixing of social classes, as in “Lady Chatterley’s Lover,” is an intriguing cultural lens but doesn’t fully capture the broader socio-political and economic shifts that were driving societal change during that era. Natural selection, while a factor, is only one piece of the puzzle in understanding how societies and their elites evolve over time.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SfsVuZ-k1M
It seems this is less about natural selection and more about artificial selection imposed by humans, which doesn’t always lead to positive outcomes. For example, breeding cows to produce more milk is often hailed as a success, but from a broader perspective, it has been disastrous in many ways. These animals often suffer from health issues, reduced genetic diversity, and environmental impacts due to the unsustainable nature of intensive dairy farming.
Similarly, natural selection itself can produce outcomes that may seem irrational or even harmful in certain contexts. Traits that are advantageous in one environment can become maladaptive if conditions change. This ties into what some refer to as the **“naturalistic fallacy”**—the mistaken belief that everything produced by nature is inherently good or optimal.
In reality, both natural and artificial selection can lead to “successes” that are deeply flawed when examined from an ethical, ecological, or long-term perspective. Just because a process is “natural” or “designed” doesn’t mean it is without significant consequences.
@Levent
In the succession of Fadishas it was often dysgenic, as the slavic Roxelana putting her idiot son Selim the Sot to the throne, beginning the decline of the Osmanli.
One Fadisha even thought that the dynasty had to end so at his deathbed he had ordered his brother, the only remaining heir, to be killed. Fortunately or unfortunately the eunuch ordered to do so failed to do that.
The court was indeed a competition of various tribes from various origins, being a free for all which brew more intrigues.
However the Empire did not face existential threats until the 19th century, which led to the advances of more capable people , but it was too late to save the Empire.
Each culture takes the problem of overshoot differently, but true selection seems to come when there ar existential threats, and island countries like Britain and Japan, having limited resources, seem to have taken it to a more extreme level.
Half the jobs are bull shit jobs .
https://economictimes.indiatimes.com/nri/study/harvard-mbas-the-best-of-the-best-are-struggling-to-find-jobs/articleshow/117296800.cms?from=mdr
https://www.amazon.com/Bullshit-Jobs-Theory-David-Graeber/dp/150114331X
Thank you very much. Excellent point: The struggles of Harvard MBA graduates to find meaningful employment vividly illustrate David Graeber’s critique of *bullshit jobs* and Ivan Illich’s argument in *Deschooling Society* that institutions often hinder the very purposes they were created to serve. Illich argued that institutionalized education frequently prioritizes its own preservation over fostering genuine learning, perpetuating a cycle where the system’s structure becomes more important than its foundational goals. Similarly, Graeber’s concept of ‘managerial feudalism’ highlights how roles and credentials like the MBA are maintained not because they fulfill real-world needs, but because they sustain symbolic hierarchies and illusions of value. Together, these perspectives reveal how the MBA has shifted from being a tool of practical empowerment to a self-referential ritual, akin to Illich’s critique of the institutional Church, promising economic salvation while failing to adapt to the evolving demands of the modern job market. Both frameworks expose a systemic inertia that prioritizes the survival of outdated structures over meaningful outcomes.
with the exception of the producers of primary energy forms—surplus food–oil and so on
all jobs are BS jobs
Because they all depend on the surpluses of the primary energy producers to exist
The struggles of Harvard MBA graduates to find meaningful work reflect a broader issue of institutional inertia and bureaucratic overgrowth, where systems expand not to address real needs but to sustain their own existence and prestige. This aligns with Parkinson’s Law, which observes that work expands to fill the time available, and David Graeber’s critique of bullshit jobs, where roles are created to preserve hierarchies rather than deliver value. Similarly, Ivan Illich critiques institutions like the Church for ritualizing their processes, creating dependence rather than empowerment.
ROFL .
https://ifunny.co/picture/brendan-fraser-crane-bf-crane-if-you-can-t-picture-C6gC1os0C
“called Natural Selection”
If you wonder why different races have different characteristics, look no further. Gregory Clark and his students looked into the probate records in the UK and found that the psychological characteristics for wealth were selected. The children of the wealthy survived about twice as well as the children of the poor.
whats the big deal about that keith?
wealthy people can provide their kids with more of everything—-no research needed
“no research needed”
For you perhaps, I need the research.
Incidentally, the selection quit around 1800 when better economics and long distance shipping of food largely eliminated the famines that were indirectly killing the children of the poor. But by that time, the genes of the rich had permeated the whole population.
On what research or evidence do you base the claim that ‘the genes of the rich had permeated the whole population’?
“permeated the whole population’?”
Gregory Clark’s work. Look through his paper I have cited here a number of times for “downward social mobility.”
Page 34 of https://faculty.econ.ucdavis.edu/faculty/gclark/papers/Capitalism%20Genes.pdf
Testators with less than
£10 in assets and those who left no will were 65 percent of the
first generation. But their sons constituted only 53 percent of the
next generation. Testators with more than £500 in assets were 7.9
percent of the initial generation. Their sons were 13.1 percent of
the next generation. Given that assets per person in the popula-
tion probably stayed constant over this interval, there thus must
have been considerable net downward mobility in the population.
Nearly half of the sons of higher class testators would end up in a
lower asset class at death. Indeed net mobility would be down-
ward for testators in all the groups with £25 or more in assets.
Zvi Razi’s evidence from the court rolls of Halesowen 1270-
1430 is consistent with the suggestion of the Inquisitiones Post-
Mortem that the rich were much more successful in reproducing
themselves in medieval England.
steam powered and refrigerated shipping was the key to better food distribution—broadly mid 1800s
in 1914, recruitment in uk found a height discrepancy of 6” average between the upper and lower classes—entirely due to nutrition, and by association wealth
The study may hold validity in the limited context of medieval England. However, accepting a statement such as “the genes of the rich permeated the whole population” as a global genetic truth would be a significant generalization.
There may be a correlation between wealthy individuals having more children and the continuation of economic success. However, this does not necessarily imply a causal relationship. Economic success is influenced by a multitude of factors, including access to resources, education, and social networks, which may not directly relate to genetic inheritance.
Additionally, in the present day, population trends in developed countries paint a very different picture. Many wealthy nations are experiencing population decline, and without immigration, their populations would collapse entirely. Countries like South Korea are already facing a demographic crisis. Meanwhile, many poorer nations continue to see rapid population growth, and this trend has been ongoing for a long time.
I will provide a response after thoroughly reading the entire document.
” would be a significant generalization.”
It was specific to the UK population between 1260 and 1800.
“having more children ”
That was not addressed. What the study found was that they had more *surviving* children.
“which may not directly relate to genetic inheritance.”
Abstract from a later Clark paper
Economics, Sociology, and Anthropology are dominated by the belief that social outcomes depend mainly on parental investment and community socialization. Using a lineage of 402,000 English people 1750-2020 we test whether such mechanisms better predict outcomes than a simple additive genetics model. The genetics model predicts better in all cases except for the transmission of wealth. The high persistence of status over multiple generations, however, would require in a genetic mechanism strong genetic assortative in mating. This has been until recently believed impossible. There is however, also strong evidence consistent with just such sorting, all the way from 1837 to 2020. Thus the outcomes here are actually the product of an interesting genetics-culture combination.
“are experiencing population decline, ”
Not related exactly.
Upon this I have been disagreeing with Keith for quite a while. The Natural Selection continued until 1914, since poorer males could rarely find mates and perished.
After 1914, thanks a few morons whom a Mr. Cassidy here calls “National Heroes”, the war was prolonged by 4 years and peoples who normally did not get to mate began to find mates from people of a higher pedigree.
That is when natural selection ended and the West began to fall into a cesspool from which it won’t be that easy to get out from.
“The Natural Selection continued until 1914,”
There is always natural selection going on but the selection mechanism, famine killing the children of the poor, more or less came to an end (according to Clark) about 1800.
Clark wrote a book about it, A Farewell to Alms
Another factor is that the wealthy restricted the number of children they have in modern times.
I don’t doubt that the huge number of people who died in WW I affected the average genetics of the UK population. How much would take considerable analysis.
Looking into the genetic background of the richest dozen would also be informative.
“which it won’t be that easy to get out from.”
If humans stay human and don’t do something that causes them to go biologically extinct, designer genetics for babies will become common. It is already starting. Not certain that a world with a million people with the drive of Musk is a good idea, but whatever parents want, they can probably get.
Some of you may have heard the Latin phrase, post hoc, ergo propter hoc. It doesn’t exactly roll off the native English speakers tongue, that one. It translates to “after this, therefore because of this.”
Post hoc, ergo propter hoc is a phrase used to describe a logical fallacy, one of the most common in use.
Find something that has happened, then identify something that happened before, then assume the earlier thing caused the later thing, no proof of causation required.
Here are a few mundane examples:
Rooster Crowing: “The rooster crows every morning before the sun rises, so the rooster’s crowing must cause the sun to rise.”
Football Superstitions: “My team won the game after I wore my lucky socks. Therefore, wearing those socks caused the team to win.”
Vaccination and Illness: “After getting vaccinated, I got sick. The vaccine must have made me sick.”
New Product Launch: “Sales increased after we launched the new product. The new product must be the reason for the increase in sales.”
Plant Growth: “I watered my plants every Thursday, and they grew taller. Therefore, watering them on Thursday is what made them grow.”
Fauci worked hard to contain covid
therefore Fauci was responsible for the spread of covid
too right Tim
I’m going to leave Fauci out of this one, if you don’t mind, Norman. 🙂
However, I would note that JFK Jnr. wrote a book about what he believes to be Fauci’s criminality that would net Fauci millions of dollars in compensation if Fauci’s lawyers could prove in a court of law that JFK had libeled him. And Mel Gibson has also recently said that he doesn’t know why Fauci is not in jail. Although, in Fauci’s defense, Barbara Streisand seems to think he’s the Messiah.
But my point, in a nutshell, not beating about the bush, and to cut a long story short, is that ascribing genetic causes to things that have happened to different groups of people over several centuries or millennia without proof is an example of using the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.
For instance, the Yanomami tribe in the Amazon have a long history (or perhaps I should say pre-history) of raiding neighboring tribes, killing the men, abducting the women, and scaring the chickens. Why do they do this? Keith would probably say—if pressed very hard and unable to avoid answering—that they had “genes for war” or perhaps “warrior genes”, and that these genes predisposed them to go raiding.
Whereas the Bushmen of the Kalahari have a long history of living peacefully and not raiding neighboring tribes, so Keith would probably state that they don’t have “genes for war”. Lack of these genes is what makes them so non-violent and laid back.
This hypothesis, that our genes are in charge and play a deciding role in determining our behavior is—besides being raciss!—and simplistic to the point of being cartoon-like—a prime example of the post hoc, ergo propter hoc fallacy.
In order to be open to accepting its validity, one first has to totally ignore the immense roles that cultural and environmental factors play in all aspects of human behavior.
“Yanomami tribe ”
You don’t need to press. I read Yanomamö: The Fierce People by Napoleon Chagnon when it came out.
It has also been controversial for its depiction of Yanomamö society as particularly violent, and Chagnon’s interpretation that this characteristic is a result of biological differences acquired through natural selection.[3]
See note 7 in https://citizendium.org/wiki/Capture-bonding
“Keith would probably state that they don’t have “genes for war”. Lack of these genes is what makes them so non-violent and laid back.”
I think this is a fair statement, but it is not the interesting part, which is why? The answer (historically) is that the population was static, the women had the lowest fertility rate of any group in the world. They lived in camps 15 miles apart and did not press the resources to the point it was worth fighting over.
This regresses the question one step why low fertility? I can’t answer that.
“This hypothesis, that our genes are in charge and play a deciding role in determining our behavior is—besides being raciss!”
That is why Clark’s talk at Glasgow was canceled. He is right, though it will not matter when we edit genes for babies.
seems the don has launched his own bitcoin
https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vmym2jvy9o
now i wonder where he got that idea from?—seems his swindling the American people has already started—and hes not even potus yet
Of course, there will be fewer goods and services in the future, regardless of how much currency of what type is available.
but the maganuts dont believe that Gail
the don told them otherwise—so he got their votes
Tim
have you taken the trouble to read up on Gibson’s ranting—let alone that of RFK?
i wont even bother to respond to anything where those two nutters are mentioned or involved (apart from this)
“moving a one ounce weight as i challenged is not a chessgame”
Agree. it is new physics and no more likely to be possible than telekinesis. Talk about silly.
silly—agreed
but you insist on discussing AI as if it is a physical entity, capable of independent thought and action.
Anything capable in that respect can move stuff at will.—without human intervention.
hence my offer to pay your freezers bills Keith
AI can function only if we human beings supply the necessary energy to do it—my offer stands if you can show me otherwise.
if we do not provide the necessary energy input—AI cannot exist.
like my friends’ automower——it knows where it is—and what to do, but mowing lawns is all it knows.—without electricty—it knows—nothing.
“but you insist on discussing AI as if it is a physical entity, capable of independent thought and action.”
i don’t know where you got that, though I expect it will eventually in direct control of a lot of stuff starting with pipelines. Right now it is an incredibly useful tool, like having an assistant that knows or can find just about anything. I know you don’t use one of them, so I don’t expect you to understand how useful it is
“hence my offer to pay your freezers bills Keith”
Can’t be done. Alcor does not work that way.
“AI can function only if we human beings supply the necessary energy”
There is plenty of energy, even from such wimpy sources as ground solar. Put in a couple of GW of solar energy collectors and the price gets down to 1.35 cents per kWh. The problem which has been Gail’s main concern, is storing it, and with an AI’s helper I think there is a method for making storeable gas and diesel fuel that will also make a fortune and solve other problems, like the need for landfills and persistent pollutants.
Keith, thanks for your well-considered responses.
Regarding that Amazonian tribe that has a reputation for being warlike, one thing said about them is that they kidnap other people’s womenfolk and force them into the tribe, after which they contribute to the tribe’s gene pool.
This would mean that whatever “genes for war” the tribe possessed would be continually diluted by the “genes for being crap at war” that were continually coming in.
I think this is a potential Achilles heel for your (or Gregory Clark’s) hypothesis.
In the case of the African Bushmen who live peacefully in the Kalahari, I would content that living in the Kalahari and moving around on foot is what makes them peaceful, rather than any genetic predisposition to being peaceful. There are simply not enough resources there within walking distance to bother raiding for.
It is possible to breed behavioral characteristics into and out of people and other animals. I don’t deny that nature and human breeders do this all the time. But when nature does it, it can take a long long long long time. And in the case of humans, a lot of our behavior is determined by cultural factors. We don’t have to wait until all the right genes are in place in order to change our behavior. We can change people’s behavior radically through training, education, indoctrination, peer pressure, coercion, and appeals to various emotions.
I wonder about these genuinely hostile folks who live in the Andaman Islands and kill anyone who approaches within bow & arrow distance. Similarly, I have an adopted cat who lives in my office and scratches anyone who comes to near apart from me. I doubt if there is any peculiar genetic component at work in either case because, obviously, such behavior can be learned or taught.
“kidnap other people’s womenfolk”
Most of the kidnapping was within the group/culture. they rarely captured women from outside. So the genes for whatever would not be much diluted.
“it can take a long long long long time.”
It depends on the intensity of the selection. Consider the tame foxes.
“a lot of our behavior is determined by cultural factors. ”
True, but not all. Genes clearly are behind alcohol use/abuse. Clark list a number of things such as impulsive behavior that are not much affected by culture. Willingness to wait for a reward might be one of them
Devil’s advocate questions, Norman: How do you know Gibson was ranting? How do you know that Gibson and RFK Jnr. are nutters?
Where is the proof of that? Or are you just ad homming again in order to avoid dealing with inconvenient information about Fauci—a man who you, like Barbara Streisand, obviously admire.
Is it the poisoning of people found to be HIV positive by using AZT (as recommended by Fauci) that you admire?
Or the poisoning of people judged to be suffering from COVID-19 by using Remdesivir (another Fauci wonder drug)?
Or perhaps it was those Beagle torturing experiments he authorized and funded and denied and attempted to cover up.
Perhaps you admire the aplomb with which Fauci evades admitting the truth and avoiding reality? Perhaps because you share this facility and you admire him because he’s even more like you than you are?
https://nypost.com/2024/06/20/us-news/fauci-says-backlash-over-painful-beagle-experiments-he-signed-off-on-were-lies-lunacy-in-new-book/
“HIV positive by using AZT”
It was the best we had at the time. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zidovudine
“Remdesivir ”
Was approved by a long list of countries. Again, at the time it was the best we had.
Having enough background to understand what was going on, Fauci (in my opinion) did the best he could with a new disease.
Tim
Keith has answered your comments to me about Fauci on my behalf—your obsession about him being a closet cereal killer is just too ridiculous—i dismissed it in a comment a week or two ago.
RFK keeps spouting off about stuff he knows nothing about, for one reason—he’s pressing the hysteria button with his eye on the main chance for 2028—i would have thought that much was glaringly obvious.
like you—vaxxing is an easy push. Cant be bothered to check—but i’d guess he’s onto some others of your favourites too.
“Most of the kidnapping was within the group/culture. they rarely captured women from outside. So the genes for whatever would not be much diluted.”
Keith, it seems to me that you are trying to have it both ways there.
Genes for War—Good God, ya’ll—what are they good for if not for stealing from neighboring groups.
But now you are saying that the Yanomami rarely did this so their genes for war would not be much diluted. However, if they rarely did this, then their genes for war would be of very little use to them and would no be being selected for.
You don’t seem to be very impressed with the idea of cultural evolution as controller or director of human behavior. I’ve mentioned this several times but you haven’t commented on it.
Education and training can turn militarists into pacifists or pagans into Christians or savages into civilized gentlefolk or peasants into technicians or masculine men into effeminate transexuals and feminine women into asexual screaming harpies in one or generations at the most. Most people, it seems, are like putty in the social engineers’ hands. Same genes, different memes.
As for Fauci, with all due respect, you are totally ignorant about what he’s been up to and happy to remain so. I won’t flood the thread with further information on that but rest assured there are reams of it available online.
One of the things that depresses me no end is that so many otherwise educated people (including you and Norman) are so closed-minded about so much. The mass of people—the proles, the superficial, the uneducated—I can give them a blanket pardon for their ignorance. But the intellectuals, such as you and Norman, you have no excuse for not knowing this sort of stuff.
But sure, I understand, when you take off your blinkers and take a good look at the world, the rich pageant of crudity, cruelty and corruption can be just too much to take in. So, willful ignorance helps keep one sane.
“genes for war would be of very little use to them ”
Hardly, they killed each other with abandon. If you think about it, for a constant culture the population can’t rise because it runs into the availability of food. So any reproduction in excess of replacement has to die one way or another. I think the Yanamano killed about 40% of the adults in wars and raids, but they are not the record holders, there is a group well south of them where 60% of the adults died that way.
“very impressed with the idea of cultural evolution ”
Look it up, go to works on the Wikipedia page about me. I wrote some of the earliest papers on memes, my wife coined the term memetics, Dawkins has commented on my work in the Second Edition of “The Selfish Gene.” Memes are elements of culture, they certainly evolve to be better at infecting humans and humans have evolved to resist (to some extent) the ones that kill them.
“no excuse for not knowing this sort of stuff. ”
I dismiss an awful lot of stuff as being moon landing type nonsense. So why do people believe in such? I think it is because selection for war has left us sensitive to nonsense beliefs which are useful to genes because war is useful to genes. But I don’t expect you to buy into this view of evolved psychological traits. People seem to reject the ides that they have *any* psychological drives.
Still, if you want a copy of the paper where I go through the math behind selection for war, ask for a copy. My email is hkeithhenson@gmail.com
Now Fauci’s been given a preemptive pardon.
When people say, “I beg your pardon,” in the UK, some bright spark often chirps in with “Why, what have you done?”
And this is logical. Historically, a pardon could only be issued by a sovereign for a known transgression.
“The issuance of these pardons should not be mistaken as an acknowledgment that any individual engaged in any wrongdoing, nor should acceptance be misconstrued as an admission of guilt for any offense,” Biden said in a statement. “Our nation owes these public servants a debt of gratitude for their tireless commitment to our country.”
In the past, US presidents have occasionally issued broad pardons. For example, Gerald Ford granted a blanket pardon to Richard Nixon for any crimes he may have committed (and probably did commit) while in office, which was widely controversial.
Likewise Some presidents have implemented amnesty programs for specific groups. For instance, President Jimmy Carter granted amnesty to Vietnam War draft evaders in 1977, effectively pardoning individuals without detailing specific actions.
But giving blanket pardons to individuals in the manner of Get Out of Going to Court Free cards—in order to protect them from potential “malicious prosecution”—that is jaw-dropping.
And of course, if it stands, it sets a new precedent that Trump can build on to make all his cronies and flunkies punishment-proof. From now on, investigation, indictment, and incarceration will be only for little people. And I shall enjoy thoroughly reading Norman’s lamentations when Trump makes liberal use of them.
tim
see previous comment about preatorian guards
PFAS: Destruction of agricultural land by sludge from water treatment used as fertilizer
https://youtu.be/IQnzhaDdec0?si=H3xrnTVmMJzsN1kj
https://www.pressherald.com/2025/01/15/pfas-contamination-found-on-more-than-100-maine-farms/
Our Current Understanding of the Human Health and Environmental Risks of PFAS | US EPA https://search.app/UZNfBbH5MGUu438d9
This last article says:
Current peer-reviewed scientific studies have shown that exposure to certain levels of PFAS may lead to:
–Reproductive effects such as decreased fertility or increased high blood pressure in pregnant women.
–Developmental effects or delays in children, including low birth weight, accelerated puberty, bone variations, or behavioral changes.
–Increased risk of some cancers, including prostate, kidney, and testicular cancers.
–Reduced ability of the body’s immune system to fight infections, including reduced vaccine response.
–Interference with the body’s natural hormones.
Increased cholesterol levels and/or risk of obesity.
PFAs are a real problem in the water, and I eat fresh water fish rarely. But in fields? fungi will soon destroy them. they eat all manners of hydrocarbons. I think PFAs from plastic packaging (PP) are a worse threat to human health. Raise your hand if you can live without PP.
“But in fields? fungi will soon destroy ”
They are per-and polyfluoroalkyl, not hydrocarbons. And they break down very slowly. It is not clear how much or if they cause harm to people or other elements of the environment, but they don’t seem like a good idea.
There was a recent Science article speculating about lead contamination contributing to the fall of the Roman empire so watching what we dump into the environment is a good idea.
Turning trash into syngas might destroy them. No sure, need to research it.
We seem to miss follow on problems. If a particular problem we are looking for with a new compound doesn’t appear, we assume that all is good. The whole system is complex, however. Long-term and interaction effects also appear.
After such contamination, the agricultural land is suitable only for industrial crops, it seems. Like biogas crops etc.
You are assuming they are harmful. They don’t get metabolized because enzymes don’t react to most Florine chemicals. If they are harmful, it will be because they jam up some signal pathway.
I am not sure plants would absorb these chemicals.
‘Dusk for Norway is dawn for Russia’: The looming gas crisis facing the West
For decades, Norway has been Britain’s leading source of imported energy.
However, that relationship may be set to come under strain after the Scandinavian nation warned that its vast oil and gas fields are in decline.
The threat of dwindling production would herald a potential energy crisis for the UK, which last year relied on Norway for half its gas and a quarter of its oil.
According to a new report from the Norwegian Offshore Directorate (NOD), the country’s oil and gas supplies peaked last year and are expected to dwindle from now on.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/dusk-norway-dawn-russia-looming-120000196.html
Norway. Another bastard child of the British Crown.
UK was fighting against Sweden, ruled by a French dynasty, for fishing rights in the North Sea. So it created the artificial country of Norway, so Sweden would not be able to access the North sea.
It will be reincorporated into either Denmark or Sweden in a few decades, since it should not have existed to begin with.
In a few decades Norway will be a Muslin caliphate.
the land of the midnight sun will make Ramadan a bit awkward
I always wondered why so few Muslims lived around the north pole – and Antarctica.
Evolution works in mysterious ways.
brrrr.
A glass half full:
Booster was caught, Starship needs more work. Earth’s population needs peace, H is not ideal, but currently it is better than nothing and perhaps a good time to sell the idea as many are concerned about climate change, especially in LA.
I know nothing about climate change, but a third generation farmer who works my land says the climate has changed for growing crops. That is as much as I know, not smart enough to have an opinion.
So, booster caught, new Starship design not quite ready for prime time. We need a cubic mile of Pt.
Dennis L.
Musk is more interested in temporal power than spaceships. He knows his venture won’t succeed but it doesn’t matter since gullible people will continue to throw money into his basket.
And, although I know it won’t convince you, we have just seen at least $100 billion, probably much more, turning into smoke in the richest area of Los Angeles. All these money thrown into there turning into smoke.
Huge hedge funds throwing artificially created money into hare brained schemes do not make such schemes work. All they care is they get some return from their money before they sell it out to a greater fool. They do not care a bit if the project succeeds. I think you confuse the hedge fund managers with Fernando and Isabel. They had stakes in Iberia. Today’s hedge fund managers do NOT have a stake in anywhere and will move their money in a nanosecond if they see the project not turning a profit, something you will refuse to acknowledge.
I alsways liked Pete Townshend whether with the Who or solo.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6eDhK7ZN9FY
Starts at @ 26.50, but the punch line is @27:57.
For Pete Townshend revolution wasn’t the solution. In his biograpghy he explained that it was a “doom cycle” and that “ultimately revolution changes nothing. In the long run, people are going to get hurt. It was a sobering message wrapped up in an electrifying rock (song.)”
Those who take control become no different than their predecessor, hence the line “Welcome to the new boss, same as the old boss.”
Meanwhile, it appears billionaires’ row is getting longer for Trump’s inauguration and maybe his cabinet. Musk, Bezos, Zucker, etc
Typical for a Brit, who hate any changes or revolutions.
However the days of Britain is numbered.
A century later, when the leading language of what used to be Great Britain would be Urdu, the history of Great Britain will be remembered as the history of a people who liked to see other Europeans to kill each other for the benefits of the Crown, which will also look quite brownish by then.
Israel kicks off the cease fire with heavy bombardment of Gaze. Trump, Musk, Gibson?
Xi, Putin ? Von Der Leyen, Macron? McGregor, Ritter?
In my view, Israel will just stop killing 50-100 Palestinians a day, to come back to kill 5-10 Palestinians a day, like it has happened intermittently from 1948.
Chews love stats.
Hitters Nannies did too…
A free post from Dimitry Orlov that I can share . North American empire redux .
https://boosty.to/cluborlov/posts/44508869-8223-4a8e-b0b5-231cfb3930fc?from=email_new_post
Dmitry Orlov observes a reason why Donald Trump wants to grab Canada, Greenland, parts of Mexico, and also have control in other parts of the world:
I will have to admit that staving off financial collapse for four more years would be a good enough reason. Covid-19 helped for a few years. This is the new approach to justify more borrowing.
Isn’t continual borrowing-to-pay-interest, & a lot on top of that, an unsolvable situation?
Maybe, toward something analogous to addiction-induced liver failure?
Maybe so. Stop the current Ponzi economy.
“Stop the current”
Nobody has a clue as to what else to do.
Incidentally, my scheme to make diesel from trash and intermittent electricity has gained favorable attention.
You can’t make diesel out of undifferentiated trash from landfills.
“You can’t make”
Why not? Trash is 40% carbon, heated in steam it will make syngas. What is left makes slag that you drain out of the gasifier. If you have an objection based on chemistry, please state it.
I’m currently developing a new high-octane fuel purely from pious hopes, commonly-expressed cliches and cool-sounding marketing terms.
I’m going to give it a catchy name sounding like its got something to do with AI and crypto – and IPO it asap.
“a catchy name”
If you are trying to get a marketing job with this venture, just say so.
you need diesel to make trash in the first place.
sorry to have to point that out
“need diesel”
And to haul the trash to the landfill. But this project makes far more diesel than the trucks use to haul 9000 tons per day.
keith
sometimes you display a dazzling awareness of a subject
other times you seem to be on the opposite end of the swing.
”trash”—is the end product of a line of production/sales processes, almost all of which consume diesel fuel—only the final one is conveyance to landfill.
Yes but is there really enough resources in these areas to develop? And how long would it take? Trump really only has two years to turn things around. The amurican people are dumb but not that dumb…
The aqueous homogenous reactor was one of the first nuclear reactor concepts to be developed.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aqueous_homogeneous_reactor
This type of reactor is easy to build. It is essentially a stainless steel tank containing water with dissolved uranium sulphate or nitrate salts. The water functions as moderator, coolant and solute for the fuel salts. This type of reactor has the best neutron economy of all thermal reactor concepts. There are no internal structural components to absorb neutrons. Fission products can be removed from the fuel solution continuously during operation. This removes neutronic poisons, keeping their concentrations low. Continuous removal of fission products is only possible in reactors with liquid fuels.
The exceptional neutron economy and ease of construction of AHRs, make them a good contender for the thorium based fuel cycle. One of the problems with using thorium as a fuel are that conversion of 232Th into 233U is needed. Fission of 233U releases too few neutrons to allow high conversion ratios. Most thorium based reactor concepts struggle to achieve more than a unity breeding ratio. So a neutron efficient reactor like the AHR is exactly what is needed for an expanding nuclear programme using thorium.
One thing I like about this reactor concept is that it can be built with very limited resources. The reactor itself would be a stainless steel clad pre-stressed concrete pressure vessel. Heat exchangers are needed to raise steam. These can be housed within the PCRV, as they will need to be shielded. If heavy water is used as fuel solute, then this reactor can be started using natural uranium nitrate salts. A blanket of thorium nitrate solution would surround the core, absorbing leakage neutrons and breeding 233U. As more 233U is bred, it would be blended into the fuel salt mixture. As 233U releases more neutrons than 235U under thermal fission, the natural U can be gradually blended out of the fuel solute. Eventually, the reactor would be running entirely on 233U/232Th nitrate salts.
The main downside of this reactor type is low operating temperature. Maximum operating temperature is something like 250°C, raising steam at 200°C. This limits the efficiency of electricity generation to about 30%. Still, the simplicity of this reactor, its ease of construction and the fact that it can operate as a thermal breeder started using natural uranium, make it attractive in a world where nuclear capacity needs to increase rapidly on a dwindling uranium resource base.
” Maximum operating temperature is something like 250°C, raising steam at 200°C”
I could not figure out what limits the temperature. But in any case, this looks like it would do fine providing district heating in northern regions.
Reactor pressure vessels are not easy to build. Only very few firms worldwide can produce them.
PWR pressure vessels are expensive to produce because they operate at 20MPa. This leads to thick steel vessels that are difficult to weld. AHRs typically operate at lower pressures. And PCRVs avoid the need for steel vessels altogether.
Bankruptcies of the companies in the US reached 14-year high
Bankroty spoločností v USA dosiahli 14-ročné maximum | TREND https://www.trend.sk/biznis/kokteil-namiesany-troch-prisad-mnohe-podniky-museli-vypit-dna?itm_brand=trend&itm_template=hp&itm_modul=article_hp_list&itm_position=6
I vote to extend and pretend…not liking the other options
Mike , that is what we have been doing from a very long time . QE , currency swaps , derivatives etc but I support you —not liking the other option .😢
The double click on the computer mouse is my favorite method..
I agree Mike, and besides access to unlimited supplies of cheap energy is a human right, and should be enshrined in the constitutions of all countries.
Anyone who disagrees is a human ingenuity denier. I can’t wait to see these people’s faces when AI and Elon Musk save us.
We need Trump to issue an Executive Order first thing on Monday afternoon not just rendering the so called ‘Laws’ of Thermodynamics null and void, but also prohibiting any discussion of them in the publlic space.
Has anyone noticed that these ‘Laws’ were developed solely by old white guys. They are just social constructions.
Very good observation, clickkid, your aka serves you well. Yes, old white morally corrupt men…what other nation had them, I wonder?
I prefer the term social promises instead, for the obvious reason they will be broken…like the promissory federal reserve notes by the backing of you know who…the Matrix is very powerful indeed
They are just social constructions.”
Right. 🙂
the simplest explanation is that Biden is a dictator and wants to depopulate.
the biden wanting to depopulate thing is just tiresome hysteria
wait till youve had a years worth of trump
Norman, I was angling for another fish. Was it not clear?
nope—always difficult online
Humans are disoriented apes that came to cold areas and started to think that these areas are their home.
https://youtu.be/gQ3_gZ3ZS_4?si=KaO5di94SZMU2B9a
With enough fossil fuels, cold areas make pretty good homes. Without fossil fuels, the warm, fairly wet parts of the world have a huge advantage. Southeast Asia has a huge advantage in terms of wages because it doesn’t need very sturdy homes. They don’t need to be heated and cooled. Wages can be lower than, say, Northern China, Europe or the US.
civilisations grew in the tropical zones
there is a good reason for that
Discoveries and technology seemed to require Winters in the North.
Yes , necessity is the mother of invention .
of course they did
burning fossil fuels makes living easy
I agree. We just aren’t supposed to be in a lot of the places we currently live.
That depends….Jordon Peterson gave a talk regarding the very topic and the key factor is population density and lifestyle.
He pointed out that in the Artic, primitive native people pretty much live on caribou, the Sami, or the Eskimo or Intuit on the other wildlife just fine. We modern folks went a step beyond the primitive, or prime (first) approach to lifestyle and propelled us into overgrowth or overshoot as we care to name it.
Now nature is in the mode of culling back the underbrush ..
Nothing personal, just nature’s way of doing it’s “business”.
the inuit adapted to live within their immeiadate environment
they did not take ”excess”–by building cities or invading south
hence their living was stable.
it was we who made the mistake of using our surpluses to rape the world to grab more of everything
Norman is correct; somewhere along the way, people made a “wrong” turn or less than optimal choice, among others too many to
mention in this comment.
Not sure about “surplus”, one species surplus is another’s necessity, such as habitat.
Even our depleted oil wells and mines are a poisoned legacy to the testament of the path we took. Never mind the landfills, track housing and highways, too many to list.
the prime ”surplus” has been fossil fuel
everything followed on from that—because it gave us cheap iron and cheap food
It enabled us to exploit the fertility of the soil by industrial agriculture, clear cutting of the “ancient” forests and replacing them with “tree plantations” and strip mining large areas of land in contemporary tar sands mining to scrap the last bits of remaining goo left to burn…just so we can ride a few more years along the interstate or fly in our metal tubes to vacation retreats.
You are correct Norm; we expect it to last forever in the advancement of so called “progress”, but it won’t…
because it gave us cheap iron and cheap food
Not to mention cheap bricks and cheap cement for construction
And cheap glass for windows and gin bottles and cheap pottery for all the new homes
all the above are derivatives of cheap iron
which in turn is a derivative of cheap heat.
Its called farming.
The Inuit are not really thriving now, at least as far as I can see.
I was told by a tour guide in Norway that the Black Death Plague hit Norway so hard that it needed to import merchants and other workers from Germany.
I am not sure how long-lasting the cultures of the Inuit really is. Maybe, if the Earth’s climate stays relatively stable for a while, and there is not too much competition from elsewhere, the Inuit can flourish without overgrowing local resources.
But climate hasn’t been stable for very long. Even in the last 12,000 years, it hasn’t been very stable. The Garden of Eden story is set in the area of Iraq (Tigris and Euphrates RiverS). It clearly was a very lush, wet area that would grow all kinds of food items. It is certainly not that way today.
Yes, the Intuit are not really “thriving”,
With the end of the fur trade and the depletion of important ocean resources such as whales, many Inuit communities were left without the means to thrive. By the 1940s, the government began to settle the Inuit in permanent communities, and the pressure to adapt to Western ways increased
As a matter of fact, a friend of mine was a Librarian at Boston College and hosted a young high school age Inuit girl for a school year.
From what I could tell it did not go well with her and largely kept to herself but did complete the school year.
I only met her a few times, but they were pressured to give up their way of life…
i’m pretty sure the inuit were part of the influx of peoples from asia 14k years ago—they stayed while others of the tribe drifted south,
they must have had a sustainable lifestyle over those 000s of years, otherwise they would have died out.
it is the influence of other people and climate change that may decimate them in this time.
the norwegians in your context were europeans, and so had contact with the plague-spread from the south, while the inuit of the north did not
“pretty sure the inuit”
You could look it up.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Inuit#Pre-contact_history
Inuit are the descendants of what anthropologists call the Thule people,[27] who emerged from the Bering Strait and western Alaska around 1000 CE. They had split from the related Aleut group about 4000 years ago and from northeastern Siberian migrants. They spread eastward across the Arctic.[28] They displaced the related Dorset culture, called the Tuniit in Inuktitut, which was the last major Paleo-Eskimo culture.[29]
Inuit legends speak of the Tuniit as “giants”, people who were taller and stronger than Inuit.[30] Less frequently, the legends refer to the Dorset as “dwarfs”.[31] Researchers believe that Inuit society had advantages by having adapted to using dogs as transport animals, and developing larger weapons and other technologies superior to those of the Dorset culture.[32] By 1100 CE, Inuit migrants had reached west Greenland, where they settled.[15] During the 12th century, they also settled in East Greenland.[33][34]
Faced with population pressures from the Thule and other surrounding groups, such as the Algonquian and Siouan-speaking peoples to the south, the Tuniit gradually receded.[35] The Tuniit were thought to have become completely extinct as a people by about 1400 or 1500. But, in the mid-1950s, researcher Henry B. Collins determined that based on the ruins found at Native Point, on Southampton Island, the Sadlermiut were likely the last remnants of the Dorset culture, or Tuniit.[36] The Sadlermiut population survived up until winter 1902–1903 when exposure to new infectious diseases brought by contact with Europeans led to their extinction as a people.[37]
thanks Keith
i think that was pretty much as I’d said—they were doing OK until we showed up and introduced them to modernity
“For most of human history, about 300,000 years, we lived as hunter gatherers in sustainable, egalitarian communities of a few dozen people. Human life on Earth, and our place within the planet’s biophysical systems, changed dramatically with the Holocene, a geological epoch that began about 12,000 years ago. An unprecedented combination of climate stability and warm temperatures made possible a greater dependence on wild grains in several parts of the world. Over the next several thousand years, this dependence led to agriculture and large-scale state societies.
These societies show a common pattern of expansion and collapse. Industrial civilization began a few hundred years ago when fossil fuel propelled the human economy to a new level of size and complexity. This change brought many benefits, but it also gave us the existential crisis of global climate change. Climate models indicate that the Earth could warm by 3°C-4 °C by the year 2100 and eventually by as much as 8 °C or more. This would return the planet to the unstable climate conditions of the Pleistocene when agriculture was impossible.
Policies could be enacted to make the transition away from industrial civilization less devastating and improve the prospects of our hunter-gatherer descendants. These include aggressive policies to reduce the long-run extremes of climate change, aggressive population reduction policies, rewilding, and protecting the world’s remaining indigenous cultures. “?
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0016328719303507
College professors can come up with any number of theories which are totally impractical, in practice.
“One thing which has become more and more clear as time has moved forward is that the messaging on climate change is bipolar (contradictory; incongruent; hypocritical) in its assessment. More and more articles talk about how we need this and how we need that in order to “fight” climate change DESPITE the facts that climate change is caused by ecological overshoot and building more products (especially building materials) only increases ecological overshoot. Some articles discuss ideas which have already been proven by science to be impossible. Of course, people who deny reality will utilize optimism bias to attempt said impossible anyway. . . .
So, why is it that there remains this huge disconnect with society? Much of it has to do with people’s ignorance over what ecological overshoot is and their obsession with climate change and/or the “fight” to reduce it. The focus on emissions has led to many ideas such as direct air capture (DAC) and carbon capture and sequestration (CCS) which utilize technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) but require loads of energy to be able to accomplish this task. Because it is using technology, it is unsustainable. These devices, like most all technological devices, cannot survive without the fossil fuel platform because the fossil fuel platform supports all the other infrastructural platforms (under the banner of industrial civilization) required for these devices to be built and maintained (see my post on infrastructure here). But because these devices require so much energy, it was discovered that industrial carbon capture actually produces more emissions than it captures. OOPS.
It is this system of reductionist thinking (focusing on climate change instead of ecological overshoot, ”?
https://problemspredicamentsandtechnology.blogspot.com/2021/11/why-war-on-climate-change-is-bipolar.html
“utilize technology to capture carbon dioxide (CO2) but require loads of energy to be able to accomplish this task.”
The energy needed to pull CO2 out of the atmosphere is relatively modest. The big problem is moving cubic km of air though the capture equipment and storing the captured CO2. The energy could come from renewable sources, but that means the plants would run ~1/3 of the time. You could get 3x the performance by building power satellites which give 24 hour power. That may be less expensive.
Pfizer CEO is skin and bones.
I read that Pfizer has been working on drugs for the obese. Perhaps he has been testing them. Or not feeling well himself.
Guilt?
Turbo cancer.
Like a Hitchcock movie. But its real.
It’s the free market , stupid . 😒
https://www.zerohedge.com/political/supply-and-demand-la-landlords-hike-rent-much-124-fires-force-thousands-flee
The cars become unaffordable
https://youtu.be/nUB2H7NyJqI?si=gfQEPyugrneneA2t
I am stopping to use my car. Here in Slovakia, they are adding more trains for public transport. The buses are subsidized by the regional self-governments.
Right now it’s pretty much unaffordable for myself here in South Florida..
I own an older model Nissan and lucky enough to be able to do maintenance and some repairs myself. Car insurance rates and accident Lawyers are the driving factors, along with high tech add-ons to the sticker price.
Remember ack in the day the Volkswagen Beetle could be bought new for short money and lasted basically forever in the 1960s. My Ford Falcon 1964
6 cylinder automatic C4 transmission was the same….
Those days are long gone..no matter what energy fuel drives it.
essentially, we’ve lulled ourselves to some kind of normality by which we can go anywhere on a whim with minimal effort.
in earth-time that isnt possible, unfortunately we think in human-time…..which is a mistake.
only in the last 50/100 years have we been able to do that—trains cars planes etc.
it has been a very short lived anomaly, even though we are promised it will be forever—-it wont.
no critter moves beyond its home territory—we have been the short lived exception by having powered wheels…..but we are still critters, nonetheless…… we have a tendency to forget that.
when we no longer have powered wheels our distance-movement will cease.
bezos and musk et al will not be exempted, they will not fly above us while we grovel in medieval mire—their movement is entirely dependent on our movement
The top 100 million will travel globally.
Yeah and let me guess you have a garden and will be self sufficient too😂. The rich are just like the preppers that have a garden and stock piles of stuff and don’t realize that they are going to lose everything when the starving hordes come through. Sorry Ed and Klum this ain’t Hollywood. The U.S might be the last country to crash but it might also happen a month after all the other countries crash
The deep underground bases will be unaffected.
“deep underground”
Is not very compatible with gardens.
The USA collapsed on August 15, 1971, with the end of the gold standard. Given the country’s dependence on fossil fuels, there’s a good chance it won’t be the last to collapse. The state which, in my opinion, will be the last to collapse will be Russia. She has all the means to survive the rest of the world.
no they won’t
as ive tried, time and again to point out. (waste of time, but never mind)
Bezos’s wealth depends on the rest of us playing ”pass the parcel”
same applies to all wealthy individuals.
Gates became a billionaire because we peasants bought his computer system.
the ayrabs own oilfields—-unless people take away the oil and burn it for them, it’s just so much black goo sitting under their desert sands, with no value or use whatsoever.
it’s just the way things are i’m afraid.
You’re a mean old critter, Norman. But fortunately your bark is worse than your bite.
There must be some way for the party to go on for some of us human critters. Some of us are too clever by half. Others too stupid to fart and chew gum at the same time. But those of us who are just smart enough will work out brilliant ways of surviving, enduring, exploring strange new worlds, seeking out new life and new civilizations, and going where no man has gone before.
”there must be some way”
so what exactly tim?
ive been told i’m too clever by half too—but you can’t progress without energy surpluses—that would appear to be a fundamental law of natural existence.
i also have done incredibly stupid things, as we all do i guess.
the dinosuars were around for 150m years—far longer than us humans, but they didnt ”progress” except in physical size.
their reality was, that they had no access to energy ”surpluses” on an exclusive basis—that applies to all critters except us.
with us—that situation has been very temporary.—just 316 years and 6 days (so far) to be exact.—though we will rumble on for a little longer—never fear.
my point being—that it is just an eyeblink of history (or maybe eyeroll).
we had that access to excess—and promptly burned through it. taking us into situation of delusional excesses.—so a few of us are now multi billionaires, an inevitable result of uncontrolled use of surplus energy.
I am as clueless as you as to the way it will be done, but I have faith that some of us will survive, endure, etc.
Remember, the less of us there are, the more resources per capita will be available. If the human population drops below about 50 million worldwide, they can all live like our hunter-gatherer ancestors did way way way back.
My decedents will not be among the survivors, because I don’t have any. I’m the last of the line, so to speak.
well—as i have 17 living descendants, and another one due next month, i can only express my thanks to you for not taking up the space they will need.
as to hunter gathering, they will have very little to hunt and gather i fear, coupled with which they will have the knowledge of how to survive in modern society, but not the society of the stone age.
and i dont bite anyone—unless they ask (nicely)
The idea of making synthetic fuel from trash, biomass and little coal using a lot if intermittent energy is starting to catch on.
LA would need perhaps as much at 30 GW to make all its trash into diesel, jet fuel, and gasoline.
Norm , you are correct . I recall during Covid one of the multi billionaires ( I think it was Peter Theil but I could be wrong ) wanted to fly from USA to his survivor hideout in New Zealand . Guess what ? His pilot refused to fly and stay in New Zealand for a protracted period and there were no refueling facilities ( multiple required for a small jet ) to complete the flight . We are bozos on the same bus .
thanks for pointing that out Ravi—i want to scream at the delusionists who remain convinced that some kind of ”elite” will take over the world
they wont
When logistics fails also fossiles can’t be transported.
As much as I understand, the idea is to build spots of business a usual and let the periphery sink into medieval times. I don’t know if this is possible. I think, there are laws of scale that must be met to enable the technology we are used to.
To provide cheap tech to the masses yes economy of scale is needed. To serve the 100 million owners a $50,000 smart phone is OK.
France and nuclear . Use translator .
http://lachute.over-blog.com/2025/01/penurie-d-uranium-confirmation.html
https://elucid.media/analyse-graphique/debat-nucleaire-angle-mort-crise-uranium
“Forget thorium” is not an option. We already know conventional plants would consume all reserves in just a few years if they were the sole energy for all civilization. It’s either thorium or deepwater drilling or something else new or else regression/collapse. Might as well give it our best shot, in any case.
The end of chemical manufacturing in UK .
https://www.ineos.com/news/ineos-group/chemicals-coming-to-an-end-in-the-uk/
It Has Begun!
The West Has “Taken Down” the Russian Internet!
https://rumble.com/v69kdhg-the-west-has-taken-down-the-russian-internetmassive-missile-strike-military.html?e9s=src_v1_ucp
This doesn’t sound good at all.
Unfortunately, my internet connection is not good enough to open videos right now. With some luck, it may be better when our boat pulls out of port, but that is not until tomorrow afternoon. There are some frustrations when traveling.
I have been traveling all day and tethered off my phone for several hours. no blackout.
Nails it.
Appears in Zero Hedge https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/war-behind-war-what-world-war-iii-really-being-fought-over
https://leohohmann.substack.com/p/the-war-behind-the-war-what-world
The author says,
Uh duh…. Tell us something we didn’t already know…..
Very obvious to the readers on here
Maybe this quote indicates that someone else is catching on, as well.
i recall a certain ofw’er, on here, telling everyone that the war in ukraine was staged by crisis actors
Imagine the amount of MacDonalds tomato ketchup they would have to get through to fake all that blood. It would certainly put the Trump assassination attempt into perspective. He would have only needed to tear open one little packet.
Pan-European atmospheric lead pollution, enhanced blood lead levels, and cognitive decline from Roman-era mining and smelting
https://www.pnas.org/doi/abs/10.1073/pnas.2419630121
Few people realize how limits to growth change religions. Before, Catholicism was like other Christian religions: limit, eliminate yourself (Jesus Christ) vs. limit, eliminate others (Barabas). The big change came, when the Catholicism, in line with the Club of Rome, incorporated environmental limits into its teachings. Unlike many protestant churches that stick to the Bible.
However, this acceptance meant that the Catholicism admitted that the environment rules over the humans. That solving the scarcity by a miracle is at least questionable.
We could say that today the religious rites are just a background of the social and environmental activism.
Otherwise, the religion is just a folklore, traditional feasts etc. That can be easily eliminated/replaced.
Have you ever been there perchance?
“Religion is Poison”
–Mao
I am afraid I don’t agree. Religions keep groups together. They help provide order in a way that is not resource intensive. They help prevent overcrowding on earth by fighting against each other. They help provide structure to people’s lives. They provide “best practices” for a particular area, at a particular time.
Correct , and also ” Religion is the opium for the people .” –Marx or Lenin .
That all wars are resource wars is true for the period after the first industrial civilization . More humans have died in religious wars than in any other . Go back in history from the Crusades to the current situation in the Middle East .
Today the dictators would call it “misinformation and conspiracytheories”
Religions for sure are what people make out of it! It is more the spirit amoung them than dogmas and rules. Scarcity has always been a challenge and I don’t see, how the Bible promises a life without scarcity and work. I don’t see scarcity as proof for any demiurge or diminishing of God’s power. We have been given talents and we should administrate them well.
BP warns of fourth-quarter profit hit, postpones capital markets day
By Arunima Kumar and Ron Bousso
Capital markets day postponed due to CEO medical procedure
Weaker production, refining margins and trading to hit profit
Shares down nearly 3% after underperforming peers in past year
Jan 14 (Reuters) – BP (BP.L), opens new tab warned on Tuesday that its fourth-quarter results will be hit by weaker oil and gas production, refining margins and trading, while also delaying a highly-anticipated investor day due to a medical procedure undergone by CEO Murray Auchincloss.
The British company said Auchincloss will be back in the office in February after undergoing a planned medical procedure from which he is recovering well. The planned Feb. 11 capital markets day in New York will now be held on Feb. 26 in London.
Ah, that’s too bad for BP investors. Just watch the movie ” Deep Water Horizon”, with Kurt Russell and John Makovich, haste makes waste..
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=Z0k9N9SY-gc&pp=ygUgam9obiBtYWxrb3ZpY2ggZGVlcHdhdGVyIGhvcml6b24%3D
Brian Wang has produced this article on the Copenhagen Atomics molten salt reactor project.
https://www.nextbigfuture.com/2025/01/copenhagen-atomics-progressing-to-mass-production-of-molten-salt-nuclear-reactors.html
Back in the 1950s, it was possible to develop new nuclear technologies relatively quickly and at a reasonable cost. As time has moved forward, regulatory ratcheting has sent costs and development timescales to the moon. Nuclear projects are so wound up with red tape, that nothing of substance ever gets done. Without some very patient billionare investors or generous government support, companies like CA are likely to die a quiet death.
The underlying problems that new nuclear development faces are (1) People are frightened of it; (2) Utopian green idealists are opposed to it, because it threatens their worldview. For these reasons, regulations have tended to become more and more burdensome over time. As costs have risen and new orders have declined, scale economies for new nuclear development have been eliminated, which pushes up costs even more. The high costs of new nuclear powerplants shown in LCOE studies largely reflect the cost of first of kind plants. These require entire new industries, with workforces trained especially. Couple that with regulatory impacts that stretch build times into decades and it is no wonder that new nuclear projects cost tens of billions.
Flower power leftwing idiots living in the 60s could afford to be blase about where their energy came from. But we have run out of time for that kind of detached idealism. Fossil fuel reserves are now heavily depleted. Wind power and solar are peripheral energy sources that lack the power density to do the heavy lifting for industrial society. We need nuclear power to start working for us right now. That means dumping a lot of the institutional BS that was designed to hold it back. No future nuclear accident will be as damaging to mankind as the effects of inadequate energy supply. Collectively, we need to get our heads out of the clouds and start building nukes in a big way.
I have learned new vocabulary, that I wanna share with the non-natives of you:
path dependent feedback loops
That’s why failing civilisations can’t go back! I wonder if there is such a thing as: path dependent self-organised systems?
Once life evolves, it tends to cover its tracks.”
– James Watson
Jan , you mean something like virginity . 😂
Perhaps we are looking at it “wrong” when a civilization “collapses”.
Perhaps, as like a metrologist once pointed out in an aftermath of a hurricane or so called wildlife event, it is a clearing out or culling of the excess growth to allow a rejuvenation of the landscape, so to speak.
No doubt, the human hoard is in “excess growth”, or as we named it “overshoot” to the detrirmint of the balance.
So, we can explain and analyze till blue in the face about it all, but it don’t really matter…..it will run it’s course. As Gail wisely advised, best to enjoy it, if we are fortunate enough, with our BAU lives.
It’s just a “comfort” to doing the “splaining to do”, among these pages, since we can “afford” it.
This turn of words does not console me. Most of my relatives are excess growth.
Spot on, trouble is we get too personal in our thinking and it clouds our judgement. It’s not personal, just nature’s way of doing “business”
mine arent—to them i’m the excess growth
Iran’s energy crisis
https://youtu.be/0qMDM4Y4Hwo?si=WNY41u1hLpYA5Uwq
Love this channel. Three years ago it published video after video of the imminent Russia economic collapse. Perhaps this is where you learned that dictators depopulate, as opposed to repopulate at record clips sometimes? You should not trust everything you read on the internet.
Yes, a lot of the stuff on the internet is now created by AI according to the wishes not reality. but Iran is a good example how energy limits change the population.
Have you ever been there perchance?
No, but I Iike to watch various channels about travelling around the world.
Can’t wait for an “energy crisis” to revisit the “United States” again.
Lived through the first and it was a real wake up call for us all to change our ways. Maybe this time around we’ll get the message….sarcasm
There is contradictory evidence that the world has a glut of hydrocarbon energy but that government policy, not industrial and financial wherewithal, is limiting its extraction. So it’s a self-imposed shortage. The trend toward deindustrialization using so called renewable energy is intentional not economic. The stated goal is depopulation.
The real situation is that we are already experiencing inadequate energy per capita. Getting rid of population would be a way of working around the problem.
Politicians cannot mention the problem of running out of fossil fuels. Instead, it is much more palatable
for people to hear that we are voluntarily leaving these fuels, because of climate change problems. The “solution” (if there is one) is the same either way. We need to find substitutes (and reduce population).
People expect fossil fuel shortages to be indicated by high prices. Instead, they are indicated by a lack of jobs that pay well. This is especially a problem for young people. Fossil fuel supply drops because of low affordability. Fossil fuel extraction businesses close up because of low prices. Financial systems collapse because they are built like Ponzi systems that depend on growth.
I thought controlled depopulation was really not an adequate solution as it would still lead to total collapse and complete chaos.
it would
but that reality won’t stop the deliberate depopulation nonsense
Yeah I don’t see how the current economic system can go in reverse?!? Swim or die
thats the other reality
our current ”economic system” cannot reverse itself
it’s called the wile e coyote way of doing things
never fails
Whether controlled or uncontrolled, a significant reduction in population may be inevitable
“inadequate energy per capita. ”
That’s an engineering problem. Adequate also depends on efficient technology.
“Getting rid of population would be”
If this happened, there would be no point to anything, no human point anyway.
Get tapping on that calculator, Keith, numbers don’t lie..
Really…But Norm will point out how they can mislead
As Jiddu Krishnamurti once remarked the work or symbol is not the actual….
I utterly miss whatever point you are trying to make. Could you try again?
Norm is better at splaning …
It’s complicatef
Good point! Depopulation may have been going on for some time already, fertility rates have been falling since years. We still don’t know, what the longtime effects of the jabs will be. 90% of the adults got a shot at least once. If side effects would develop at a larger scale, I wonder how to keep up business as usual?
However the narrative is, they shifted from using energy to create goods and services to using energy to create energy. If we are reducing population gently, that should work for some years, maintaining the same level of wealth like before, even when fossiles diminish. This is not sustainable but it might keep up business as usual for some more years, if the reduction is slow enough.
To develop new methods or rediscover old technology surplus is needed, it is an investment. We are better equipped to do it now than after distuptions. After the end of business as usual a lot of rules won’t apply anymore. We cannot develop systems outside of the capitalist logic being inside this logic. That is not unsolvable but there seems no larger interest in it.
Gail, I hope you starting to recover from the 12 hour jet lag. The is it day or night, is it breakfast or dinner, where the heck am I and what is going on.
My jetlag problems nearly disappeared when I started fasting during the entire trip. The last time I went from the USA to Japan, I had to take a nap in the afternoon the first day, but the second day was full work, no jet lag.
I am on the ship now.
The time change has not been as bad a problem as seasickness. The water was very choppy as we left Singapore and traveled overnight, plus the next day to dock near Ko Samui (an island where tourism is the primary industry). Lots of other people seemed to have the same problem with sea sickness. Once the water was less choppy, I was fine.
Tomorrow, we will be in Bangkok. I discovered that Bangkok is a 2.5 hour bus ride away from the coast. This will make for a long sightseeing day.
Wonderful! Enjoy!
It would be good for Elon to read “On Plymouth Plantation”. In it Bradford explains they needed to get of the Netherlands because the capitalists so over worked them that they were dying young. A thirty year old looked like a sixty year old. Some things never change.
Grzegorz Braun to run for president of Poland. He says Europe should not be ruled by the U.S and Israel.
https://x.com/BRICSinfo/status/1878834841866899730
He says he a three point platform
1) no to communism
2) no to euro-communism
3) no to judeo-communism
That should make him very popular with a decent amount of the population. I doubt the EU/Tusk would allow it though.
I’m sure the commies are really scared of the “walking cane” population of dumb pollocks.
At least get your epithets right: Polack.
In Germany there are currently ideas, the USA are no friends but try to destroy a competitor. The so called ultra-right movements follow the “we for us” catchword. Discussions are that the US-led EU wants to neglect democratic votes like in Romania or military plans to throw nuclear weapons on Germany to stop the invasion of the Russian army. The largest German party, the oppositional conservatives, has demanded to attack nuclear power state Russia with conventional rockets, as peace is on the “peace court”, how the graveyard is called in German. Whatever could be the strategy behind such a risk? Make people wake up? While the risks of the mRNA platform has been trickled into the mainstream, authorities, courts and parliaments are not willing to change their approach – quite not understandable as vaccination rates are on a very low level and people seem to have lost all trust. All this is considered the result of the influence of US globalists.