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My view has long been that if the world economy does not have enough energy resources, it will have to contract. The situation is analogous to a baker without enough ingredients to bake the size of cake he wants to make, or a chemist not being able to set up a full-scale model of a reaction. Perhaps, if a plan is made to make a smaller, differently arranged economy, it could still work.
The types of energy with inadequate supplies are both oil (particularly diesel and jet fuel) and coal. Diesel and jet fuel are especially used in long-distance transportation and in food production. Coal is particularly used in industrial activities. Without enough of these fuels, the world economy is forced to make fewer goods and services, and to make them closer to the end user. Somehow the economy needs to change.
My analysis indicates that our expectation of what goes wrong with inadequate energy supplies is wrong. Strangely enough, it is the finances of governments that start to fail, early on. They add too much debt to support investments that do not pay back well. They add too many programs that they cannot be supported for the long term. They become more willing to quarrel with other countries. Of course, no one will tell us what is really happening, partly because politicians themselves don’t understand.
In this post, I will try to explain some of the changes taking place as the economy begins to reorganize and deal with this inadequate energy supply situation.
[1] One energy limit we are hitting is with respect to “middle distillates.” This is the fraction of the oil supply that provides diesel and jet fuel.
Each type of energy supply seems to be most suitable for particular uses. Middle distillates are the ones the economy uses for long distance transport of both humans and goods. Diesel is also heavily used in farming. If the world is short of middle distillates, we will have to figure out a way to make goods in a way that is closer to the end user. We may also need to use less modern farm equipment.
The top line on Figure 1 indicates that the world economy has gradually been learning how to use less total oil supply, relative to population. Before oil prices began to soar in 1973, oil with little refining was burned to produce electricity. This oil use could be eliminated by building nuclear power plants, or by building coal or natural gas electricity generation. Home heating was often accomplished by deliveries of diesel to individual households. Factories sometimes used diesel as fuel for processes done by machines. Many of these tasks could easily be transitioned to electricity.
After the spike in oil prices in oil prices in 1973, manufacturers started making cars smaller and more fuel efficient. In more recent years, young people have begun deferring buying an automobile because their cost is unaffordable. Another factor holding down oil usage is the trend toward working from home. Electric vehicles may also be having an impact.
On Figure 1, data for crude oil (second line) is available through October 2024. This data suggests that crude oil production has been encountering production problems recently. Note the oval labeled “Crude oil problem,” relating to recent production for this second line. The other two lines on Figure 1 are only through 2023.
The problem causing the cutback in oil production (relative to population) is the opposite of what most people have expected: Prices are not high enough for producers to ramp up production. OPEC, and its affiliates, have decided to hold production down because prices are not high enough. The underlying problem is that oil prices are disproportionately affected by what users can afford.
Food prices around the world are critically dependent upon oil prices. The vast majority of buyers of food, worldwide, are poor people. If budgets are stretched, poor people will tend to eat less meat. Producing meat is inefficient; it requires that animals eat a disproportionate number of calories, relative to the food energy they produce. This is especially the case for beef. A trend toward less meat eating, or even eating less beef, will tend to hold down the demand for oil.
Another approach to holding down food costs is to buy less imported food. If consumers choose to eat less high-priced imported food, this will tend to use less oil, especially diesel and jet fuel. Another thing customers can do to hold down food costs is to visit restaurants less. This also tends to reduce oil consumption.
On Figure 1, the third line is the one I am especially concerned about. This is the one that shows middle distillate (diesel and jet fuel) consumption. This is the one that was greatly squeezed down in 2020 by the restrictions related to Covid. Diesel is the fuel of heavy industry (construction and road building), as well as long distance transport and agriculture. Electricity is rarely a good substitute for diesel; it cannot give the bursts of power that diesel provides.
Close examination of the third line on Figure 1 shows that between about 1993 or 1994 and 2007, the consumption of middle distillates was rising relative to world population. This makes sense because international trade being ramped up, starting about this time. There was a dip in this line in 2009 because of the Great Recession, after which middle distillates per capita consumption noticeably leveled off. This flattening could be an early pointer to inadequacy in the middle distillate oil supply.
In 2019, middle distillate consumption per capita first started to stumble, falling 1.4% from its previous level. The restrictions in 2020 brought middle distillate consumption per capita down by 18% from the 2019 level. This was a far greater decrease than for total oil (top line on Figure 1) or crude oil (middle line). By 2023 (the latest point), per capita consumption had only partially recovered; the level was still below the low point in 2009 after the Great Recession.
Middle distillates can be found in almost any kind of oil, but the best supply is in very heavy oil. Examples of providers of such heavy oil are Russia (Urals), Canada (oil sands), and Venezuela (oil sands in Orinoco belt). The price for such heavy oil tends to lag behind the price for lighter crude oil because of the high cost of transporting and processing such oil.
Strangely enough, countries that are not getting enough funds for their exported fossil fuels tend to start wars. My analysis suggests that at the time World War I started, the UK was not getting a high enough price for the coal they were trying to extract. The coal was getting more expensive to extract because of depletion. Germany had a similar problem at the time World War II started. The financial stresses of exporters who feel they are getting an inadequate price for their exported fossil fuels seems to push them toward wars.
We can speculate that the financial pressures of low oil prices have been somewhat behind Russia’s decision to be at war with Ukraine. The recent problems of Venezuela and Canada may also be related to the low prices of the heavy oil they are trying to extract and export.
Extracting a greater quantity of heavy oil would likely require higher prices for food around the world because of the use of diesel in growing and transporting food. Publications showing oil reserves indicate that there is a huge amount of heavy oil in the ground around the world; the problem is that it is impossible to get the price up high enough to extract this oil.
The existence of these heavy oil “reserves” is one of the things that makes many modelers think that our biggest problem in the future might be climate change. The catch is that we need to get the oil out at a price that consumers of food and other goods can afford.
[2] Another energy limit we are hitting is coal.
Coal energy is the foundation of the world’s industry. It is especially used in producing steel and concrete. Coal started the world industrial revolution. The primary advantage it has historically had, is that it has been inexpensive to extract. It is also fairly easy to store and transport. Coal can be utilized without a huge amount of specialized or complex infrastructure.
China produces and consumes more than half of the world’s coal. In recent years, it has been far above other countries in industrialization.
World coal consumption per capita has been falling since about 2011. Arguably, world coal consumption was on a bumpy plateau until 2013, with world coal consumption per capita truly falling only during 2014 and thereafter.
This pattern of coal usage means that world industrialization has been constricted, especially since 2014. In fact, the restriction started as early as 2012. It became impossible for China to build as many new condominium apartment buildings as inexpensively as promised; this eventually led to defaults by builders. World steel output started to become restricted. The model of world economic growth, led by China and other emerging markets, began to disappear.
The problem coal seems to have is the same as the problem diesel has. There is a huge quantity of coal resources available, but the price never seems to rise high enough for long enough for producers to truly ramp up production, especially relative to the ever-growing world population. Coal is especially needed now, with intermittent wind and solar leaving large gaps in electricity generation that need to be filled by burning some fossil fuel. Coal is much easier to ship and store than natural gas. Oil is convenient for electricity balancing, but it tends to be high-priced.
[3] Political leaders created new narratives that hid the problems of inadequate middle-distillate and coal supplies.
The last thing we can expect a politician to tell his constituents is, “We have a shortage problem here. There are more resources available, but they are too expensive to extract and ship to provide affordable food, electricity, and housing.”
Instead, political leaders everywhere created new narratives and started to encourage investments following those new narratives. To encourage investment, they lowered interest rates (Figure 4), made debt very available, and offered subsidies. Governments even added to their own debt to support their would-be solutions to energy problems.
Political leaders developed very believable narratives. These narratives were similar to Aesop’s Fable’s “Sour Grapes” story, claiming that the grapes were really sour, so the wolf didn’t really want the grapes he initially sought.
The popular narrative has been, “We don’t really want coal or heavy types of oil anyhow. They are terribly polluting. Besides, burning fossil fuels will lead to climate change. There are new cleaner forms of energy. We can also stimulate the economy by adding more programs, including more subsidies to help poor people.”
This narrative was supported by politicians in most energy-deficient countries. The increase in debt following this narrative seemed to keep the world economy away from another major recession after 2008. People began to believe that it was debt-based programs, especially those enabled by more US government spending, that pulled the economy forward.
They did not understand adding debt adds more “demand” for goods and services in general, and the energy products needed to make them. However, it doesn’t achieve the desired result if inexpensively available energy resources are not available to meet this demand. Instead, the pull of this demand will partly lead to inflation. This is the issue the economy has been up against.
[4] What could possibly go wrong?
There are a lot of things that have started to go wrong.
(a) US governmental debt is skyrocketing to an unheard-of level. Relative to GDP, the US Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects that US debt will soon be higher than it was at the time of World War II.
Notice that the latest surge in US government debt started in 2008, when the Federal Reserve decided to bail out the economy with ultra-low interest rates (Figure 4). A second surge took place in 2020, when the US government began more give-away programs to support the economy as Covid restrictions took place. The CBO forecasts that this surge in debt will continue in the future.
(b) Interest on US government debt has become a huge burden. We seem to need to increase government debt, simply to pay the ever-higher interest payments. This is part of what is driving the increased debt projected in the 2025 to 2035 period.
Figure 6 shows a breakdown of actual Fiscal Year 2024 US Federal Government spending by major categories.
Note that US government spending on interest payments ($881 billion) is now larger than defense payments ($855 billion). Part of the problem is that the ultra-low interest rates of the 2008 to 2022 period have turned out to be unsustainable. (See Figure 4.) As older debt at lower interest rates is gradually replaced by more recent debt at higher rates, it seems likely that these interest payments will continue to grow in the future.
(c) Continued deficit spending appears likely to be needed in the future.
The CBO estimates in Figure 5 seem likely to be optimistic. In January 2025, the CBO expected that inflation would immediately decrease to 2% and stay at that level. The CBO also expects the primary deficit to fall.
(d) The shortfall in tax dollars cannot easily be fixed.
Today, tax dollars mostly come from American taxpayers, either as income taxes or as payroll taxes.
A person can deduce that to stop adding to the deficit, additional taxes of at least 5% or 6% of GDP (which is equivalent to 12% to 14% of wages) would be needed. Doubling payroll taxes might provide enough, but that cannot happen.
Corporate income taxes collected in recent years have been very low. US companies are either not very profitable, or they are using international tax laws to provide low tax payments.
(e) The incredibly low interest rates have encouraged all kinds of investment in projects that may make people happy, but that do not actually result in more goods and services, or more taxable income.
Figure 8 shows that US corporate income taxes have been falling over time. The reason is not entirely clear, but it may be that companies set their sights lower when the return that is required to pay back debt with interest is low. All the subsidies for wind, solar, electric vehicles, and semiconductor chips have focused the interest of businesses on devices that may or may not be generating a huge amount of taxable income in the future.
I have written articles and given talks such as, Green Energy Must Generate Adequate Taxable Income to Be Sustainable. Green energy can look like it would work if a person uses a model with an interest rate near zero, and policies that give renewable electricity artificially high prices when it is available. The problem is that, one way or another, the system as a whole still needs to generate adequate taxable income to keep the government operating.
Of course, many of the investments with the additional debt have been in non-energy projects. There have been do-good projects around the world. Young people have been encouraged to go to college using debt repayable to the government. Government funding has supported healthcare and pensions for the elderly. But do these many programs truly lead to higher tax dollars to support the US government? If the economy truly were very rich (lots of inexpensive surplus energy), it could afford all these programs. Unfortunately, it is becoming clear that the US has more programs than it can afford.
(f) The ultra-low interest rates have encouraged asset price bubbles and wealth disparities.
With ultra-low interest rates and readily available debt, property prices tend to rise. Investors decide to buy homes and “flip” them. Or they buy them, and plan to rent them out, hopefully making money on price appreciation.
Stock market prices are also buoyed by the readily available debt and low interest rate. The US S&P 500 stock market has provided an annualized return of 10.7% per year since 2008, while International Markets (as measured by the MSCI EAFE index) have shown a 3.3% annual return for the same period, according to Morningstar. The huge increase in US government debt no doubt contributed to the favorable S&P 500 return during this period.
Wealth disparities tend to rise in an ultra-low interest period because the rich disproportionately tend to be asset owners. They are the ones who use “leverage” to get even more wealth from rising asset prices.
(g) Tensions have risen around the world, both between countries and among individual citizens.
The underlying problem is that the system as a whole is under great strain. Some parts of the system must get “shorted” if there is not enough coal and certain types of oil to go around. Politicians sense that China and the US cannot both succeed at industrialization. There is too little coal, for one thing. China is struggling; quite often it seems to be trying to try to “dump” goods on the world market using subsidized prices. This makes it even more difficult for the US to compete.
Individual US citizens are often unhappy. With the bubble in home prices and today’s interest rates, citizens who are not now homeowners feel like they are locked out of home ownership. Inflation in the cost of rent, automobiles, and insurance has become a huge problem. People who work at unskilled hourly jobs find that their standard of living is often not much (or any) higher than people who choose to live on government benefits rather than work. Fairly radical leaders are voted into power.
[5] The major underlying problem is that it really takes a growing supply of low-priced energy products to propel the economy forward.
When plenty of cheap-to-extract oil and coal are available, growing government debt can help to encourage their development by adding to “demand” and raising the prices consumers can afford to pay. High prices of oil and coal become less of a problem for consumers.
But when energy supply of the required types is constrained, the additional buying power made available by added debt tends to lead to inflation rather than more finished goods and services. This inflationary tendency is the problem the US has been contending with recently.
Strangely enough, I think that growing inexpensive coal supply supported the world economy, as oil prices rose to a peak in 2011. As China industrialized its economy using coal, its demand for oil rose higher. The higher world demand coming from this industrialization helped to raise oil prices. But as coal supply (relative to world population) began to fall, oil prices also began to fall. By 2014, the decline in industrial production caused by the lower coal supply (Figure 3) likely contributed to the fall in oil prices shown on Figure 9.
It is the fact that oil prices have not been able to rise higher and higher, even with added government debt, which is inhibiting oil production. World coal production is inhibited by a similar difficulty.
[6] The world economy seems to be headed for a major reorganization.
The world economy seems to be headed in the direction that many, many economies have encountered in the past: Collapse. Collapse seems to take place over a period of years. The existing economy is likely to lose complexity over time. For example, with inadequate middle distillates, long-distance shipping and travel will need to be scaled way back. Trading patterns will need to change.
Governments are among the most vulnerable parts of economies because they operate on available energy surpluses. The collapse of the Central Government of the Soviet Union took place in 1991, leaving in place more local governments. Something like this could happen again, elsewhere.
I expect that complex energy products will gradually fail. Gathering biomass to burn is, in some sense, the least complex form of supplemental energy. Oil and coal, at least historically, have not been too far behind, in terms of low complexity. Other forms of today’s human-produced energy supply, including electricity transmitted over transmission lines, are more complex. I would not be surprised if the more complex forms of energy start to fail, at least in some parts of the world, fairly soon.
Donald Trump and the Department of Government Efficiency seem to be part of the (unfortunately) necessary downshift in the size of the economy. As awful as may be, something of this sort seems to be necessary, if the US government (and governments elsewhere) have greatly overpromised on what goods and services they can provide in the future.
The self-organizing economy seems to make changes on its own based on resource availability and other factors. The situation is very similar to the evolution of plants and animals and the survival of the best adapted. I believe that there is a God behind whatever changes take place, but I know that many others will disagree with me. In any event, these changes cannot take place simply because of the ideas of a particular leader, or group of leaders. There is a physics problem underlying the changes we are experiencing.
There is a great deal more that can be written on this subject, but I will leave these thoughts for another post.
Nafeez M Ahmed is claiming shale has peaked or will peak soon. Long read by Dr Ahmed but he always backs his s** up with solid references. He’s a data nerd like Gail.
Drill Baby Drill, Imperial Trump and the Collapse of American Energy Dominance
https://ageoftransformation.org/drill-baby-drill-imperial-trump-and-the-collapse-of-american-energy-dominance/
I will be flying to Boston today, returning Saturday. I will be visiting my daughter and family. My ability to comment may be somewhat interrupted. It may take longer than usual to get comments approved. I will try, however.
I had a chance to read the article on the plane.
Nafeez Ahmed makes good points about the oil and gas from Shale now being at the edge of dropping. Their growth is way down, if nothing else. And Trump’s actions can’t fix this.
I don’t see that EROI theory adds much to this. Substitution doesn’t work well. The system becomes unstable on the way down. The financial connections seem to be lost.
Dimitry Orlov had characterized DJT as US Gorbachev and said Ukraine will be his Vietnam . Seems so .
”It appears to have been made for no better reason than scoring much-needed political points for Trump, who now wallows in a post-euphoric doldrums phase of his floundering second term, when virtually every one of his campaign promises has faltered or flopped. No Epstein, JFK, or 9/11 lists, no Mexican wall, no Fort Knox audit or UFO disclosure, no mass deportations, with ICE raids rumored to have halted, no promised US troop withdrawals from Syria, Europe, or elsewhere. Every other boastful attempt to capture Greenland, Canada, Panama, and everything in between has likewise fallen flat on its face, with countries no longer fearing nor taking the US seriously.
Desperate for a razzle-dazzle to slap points on the scoreboard, Trump’s team tipped this rushed ‘ceasefire’ deal for being just the trick. Except, it’s about the most nonsensically absurd ceasefire attempt imaginable, a veritable charade by another name.”
https://simplicius76.substack.com/p/us-and-ukraine-hatch-ceasefire-travesty?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=1351274&post_id=158860751&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
You can’t deport “essential workers” no matter who they are. For the same reason you can’t remove the tires on your car.
Good point!
we may be missing the long term point in all these firings.
Trump et al are obsessed with ‘workers power’
so let’s take a leap into the future they want.
Musk is in the process of gaining access to as much personal information on people as he possibly can.
‘Workers power’ exists only insofar as they have wages—ie the means by which they and their families stay fed and housed.
Nobody sees physical wages in pay packets any more—money just ‘appears’ by bank transfer—and is paid out in the same way at stores for essential goods and services…..pity—but that’s the way things are going. Less and less physical money is changing hands now.
wage flow (to thousands or even millions) can now be terminated from a computer keyboard.
There are now large scale firings, in situations where Musk can just terminate wages irrespective of protests and court orders etc. Trump is at the start of the dictaors playbook—and just ignoring court orders.
How long before he starts to arrest lawyers who cross him? (dont think i’m joking folks)
the means to live just ceases. People begin to starve.
that brings rule by fear—the fear of real and immediate destitution. Or worse.
And THAT takes us back to medieval times (and later) when you could be thrown out onto the street at the landlord’s/bosses whim.
you see why Bezos is sucking up to Trump?—If his warehouse workers have no rights whatsoever, he has, in effect, an obedient workforce of slaves who will work under fear for subsistence wages.
you dont need whips and overseers—just say the wrong thing and you’re out. Your wages fail to arrive in your bank account.
Your name will be blacklisted almost everywhere immediately–so you stay ‘out’.
I think the figure is that half of all Americans have less than a month’s salary as an a cushion.
This is the future of absolute control.
Scary or what?
The way you tell it, Norman, it seems a shame the Americans didn’t vote for Kamala Harris. She had an excellent record of putting innocent people in jail and laughing about it. But as president I am sure she would have done a find job, perhaps even better than Joe Biden managed.
https://calmatters.org/politics/elections/2024/08/kamala-harris-prosecutor-california-san-francisco/
As usual, you are late to the party and
hypocritical.
Where were you when various right-wing pundits were getting de-platformed over the last eight years online? Where were you when Canada’s government froze the financial assets of people who started a protest over the lockdowns?
Norman was in the peanut gallery, clapping and cheering at each new deplatforming, bank account seizure, criminal charge, fine, and jailing—weren’t you, Norman?
Because it isn’t fascism when “we” do it.
Thinking of Norman, and of Joe Biden, one is immediately reminded of Oscar Benavides, the President of Peru between 1933 and 1939 (and the kind of guy who would certainly have made whatever trains Peru had run on time), who said:
“For my friends, anything; for my enemies, the law.”
Oscar was a dashing figure, as this photo shows; dashing here, dashing there…..
https://www.maciverinstitute.com/assets/components/phpthumbof/cache/oscar-benavides.75ab03e258874c641151f3e189003d87.webP
you lost me the link between the two
that somehow i am responsible for the perceived ills of your world
weird
Dmitry is not very accurate in his predictions. But I will say that, like Gorbachev (ne’ Orbach) his stature seems to diminish perceptibly every day.
Actually, just saw this video talk of his ob YouTube
Seems to be what is happening
Dmitry Orlov, engineer and author, warns that the US’s reliance on diminishing fuel supplies might be sending it down the same path the Soviet Union took before it collapsed.
In this fifth video in the series “Peak Oil and a Changing Climate” from The Nation and On The Earth Productions, Orlov, who was an eyewitness to the collapse of the Soviet Union, asserts that run-away debt and national bankruptcy will lead the US to its demise, just as it did for Moscow. As oil becomes more expensive and scarcer, the US will no longer be able to finance its importation and the economy will hit a wall, he says.
“Sixty percent of all of our transportation fuels are imported—a lot of that is on credit. A large chunk of the trade deficit is actually in transportation fuels. When those stop arriving because of our inability to borrow more money, then the economy is at a standstill,” he says.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zrz5ucQACo8&t=42s&pp=ygUMZG1pdHJ5IG9ybG92
I typed ambiguously. His stature is Trump’s stature. Dmitry did well about 20 years ago but did not put energy front and center as Gail has been doing for very long. It was more standard collapse description. also, he repeatedly predicted the Ukraine war was going to be over in weeks.
Yes, 👍 t is hard to make predictions, especially about the future..
Yogi Bear and BooBoo
listening to this old talk seems very likely outcome …history repeats itself more in rhymes.
We all know the debt will never be paid back..and when the transport fuel goes so does the social structure, ect
The economy is an illusion.
As are the theories about progressivism and education being the basis for America’s prosperity.
America as we know it will disappear when it can no longer use force to obtain resources like every other empire. The British Empire disappeared when they no longer had the biggest and baddest military.
\
Dmitry makes good points.
Presumably Putin will refuse any ceasefire after he was already fooled so many times.
Presumably the military is preparing to move against him if his resolve to finish the war looks in doubt.
I see Rogozhin warming up along the sidelines, just in case.
drb ,
Vlad the great
Xi the magnificent
vs
ROW .
1 Lion = 100 sheep .
👍
well, he has been fooled already too many times. He is just a polite guest at Spravka meetings now. But he can beat around the bushes too for a while. two can play this game.
drb ,
”well, he has been fooled already too many times. ”
My view . He was giving the West rope to hang itself . He was buying for time . He made it clear at the Munich Conference in 2007 and drew the ” red lines ” . It was here that the neocon John McCain and Albright mocked him . He was aware of the coming conflict with the West just as China has been for years . To prepare — you must be aware . The West suffered from a disease it is called — hubris .
Hubris and “not enough to go around” don’t get along well. Something has to break.
Beware the ides of March! (That’s March 15, by the way.)
BREAKING VIDEO: Europe on a brink of chaos!
In 5 days major protests in Bucharest, Budapest & Belgrade.
EU & NATO fueling the unrest in Hungary and Romania while people in Belgrade demand justice from pro EU government.
The Ides of March hold a dark warning. Pray for peace!
https://x.com/MarioBojic/status/1899209251655958653
Geography is destiny. The austro hungarian empire is trying to re-form as a confederation of states looking east. usual suspects do the usual things.
I worry about the huge amount more LNG promised to the world market. Natural gas production hasn’t been zooming up;
https://www.eia.gov/petroleum/production/#ng-tab
Wolf Richter with Wolfstreet:
Price of Natural Gas Futures Up 140% Year-over-Year: One More Reason for Inflation to Not Back off Easily
Civil War for the UK?
It’s coming some time……… maybe.
Enoch was right……… wing!
On today’s #NCFWhittle, we are joined by Prof. David Betz, Professor of War in the Department of War Studies at King’s College London where he heads the MA War Studies programme. He is also a Senior Fellow of the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Prof. Betz’s most recent book, The Guarded Age: Fortification in the 21st Century, is published by Polity.
(42 mins.)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eOR8NhL09JQ
@incurableromantic4006 comments:
“Just 5 years ago I would have thought this was far-fetched – now I struggle to think of one single reason why this country would not breakdown in civil conflict.”
Norman, I sincerely hope that Britain’s future Mohammedan overlords will let you keep your pension.
It is time for the no longer great Britain to suffer the fates it imposed to the continental nations for the last 5 centuries and made the English speaking troglodytes in USA to rule the world for the sole reason that they spoke English (albeit the kind of English spoken by the lowest class during the Elizabethan times).
But it’s happening again kulm. Think about events since 2014 and tell me that the timing of brexit was just coincidental.
Brexit was fatally undermined bu Gina Miller. Who had 0% white blood. All the Btitish ‘national heroes’ who did mot hesistate from killing Europeans were not brave enough to put a bullet to her head.
It wasn’t undermined at all. Miller affected nothing of import to those that organised the whole show(no high court judge would ever rule against them). Ask yourself why a nonbinding referendum, called by a man who claimed to want to be in the EU, was so diligently enforced, by the self claimed EU lover, when there was a smaller than 2% difference in the vote. It was decided long before the vote, because of a larger picture that the public were not privvy to, but should be obvious to people here.
Remember that if the msm are going on about anything 24/7 it’s just a distraction to stop people looking behind the scenery and to seed their thinking for the path they are about to be taken down, as we are witnessing yet again with Trump’s bluster and then whilst everyone is gossiping about what he said, they go and do the opposite
https://substack.com/@lauraruggeri/note/c-99588170?utm_source=notes-share-action&r=7c6fx
Supplies back on for Ukraine I hear, which would put that bit of oval office theatre where it belongs.
It’s all a show kulm, that our lifelong indoctrination obscures from view exceedingly well.
“Our society resembles the ultimate machine which I once saw in a New York toy shop. It was a metal casket which, when you touched a switch, snapped open to reveal a mechanical hand. Chromed fingers reached out for the lid, pulled it down, and locked it from the inside. It was a box; you expected to be able to take something out of it; yet all it contained was a mechanism for closing the cover.”
Ivan Illich
He all worried about some guy bulldozing things on the other side of the world.
Prof. David Betz makes a pretty good case that what we are headed for is that both the UK and the US are headed for civil war. Urban/rural will be a major split. When there are not enough goods and services to go around, I am afraid that is the way things could go.
the USA is a fully armed society—with easy access to multiple weapons
the UK isnt.
comparing the two in ‘civil war ‘ terms is absolute nonsense.
the only firearm permitted here is a shotgun, and even then, your home and storage of it is inspected by the police every 5 years, and your licence for it has to be renewed every 5 years.
all are registered with the police.
even carrying a lock bladed knife here is a criminal offence
yes, there are illegal weapons in circulation, obviously, but even the possession of one might get you 5 years jail.
The IRA’s catches of weapons were never legal, as I remember. And neither were their bombs.
In Uganda, people managed to carry out a large-scale genocide using machetes, the tropical world’s equivalent of a hatchet or a butchers knife.
And if you’d listened to the video, you would have heard Prof. Betz speculating that in a UK Civil War, A “rural” faction could quite easily disrupt the electricity, gas, and water supplies to London, turning it into a reasonable facsimile of Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.
He says that Islamist recent immigrant factions have already radicalized and organized up to stage 2 in his 4-stage civil conflict process, by setting up “no go” areas and insisting on their own laws for their own communities, while indigenous factions are still only at stage 1. They are not even radicalized enough to be assassinating and executing “traitors”, let alone reenacting scenes from Braveheart, Cromwell, Khartoum, or Zulu.
Here’s Khartoum. Not even Charlton Heston was able to stop that lot. Perhaps if they’d hired an English actor to play Gordon?
The Duran interprets Germany’s actions as following in England’s footsteps. https://youtu.be/86QBX8pjQlM?si=9dYVs0yleVLuRNZB
De-industrialize implies financialize: make debt to paper over pointless work.
They are identifying the lack of a functioning Nord Stream as the Germans making, to them, the perplexing decision to financialize instead of stand up for themselves. They also bemoan the weird decision for the Chancellor-in-waiting asking the sitting Parliament to pass legislation.
Taking all that in stride, the Duran continues interpreting events that the EU cannot issue debt. (Another video?) And that the attempt to hot-swap the trustee of Ukraine from Washington to Brussels, means defense spending can translate into pan-EU financialization. Whether EU nations can start churning out war material anytime soon is irrelevant.
Gail’s narrative is being echoed by those not discussing depletion at all. What bemuses me is that Europe is experiencing continent-wide energy rationing and that fact is obscured by discussion of cause. Is it price? Is it incompetence? Is it environmental policy? Is it population control? Is it availability/supply/reserves? Onlookers can spoil the crime scene.
It all makes me wonder if the Ukraine War is the conscious roll of the dice concerning energy. If the West wins, it despoils Russia and Europe may benefit from exogenous Joules like it has for centuries. If the West loses, Europe’s access to exogenous Joules is over permanently. The Europeans are being compelled to celebrate the Emperor’s New Investment.
Regarding the last paragraph, it certainly looks now like the West will lose, but I suppose that Europe can use that excuse to print more debt.
The Emperor’s New Investment is too much like the Emperor’s New Clothes!
Yes. In the West everything now is about collateral. Germany is sort of raising the white flag, and so collateral will be its aqueducts, railways, freeways, ports, like in Italy a couple of decades back. This will, of course, accelerate economic decline. Maybe south eastern europe can escape that fate.
I can tell you that industrial business in Italy is going very bad.
Almost all big groups (except arms) are scoring -30 or -40% in comparison to previous months, concerning the first two months of the year.
Things have started going very bad clearly before Trump’s arrival.
This new plan of 800 billion of Euro of debt for defense is an attemp to cover some trash, but I don’t know how European Countries will hide their collapse in the next months.
They have lost the war against Russia and they are even not making any peace with Russia, differently from what US will probably do.
For those interested in geopolitics:
https://kdwalmsley.substack.com/p/ukraine-has-broken-the-eu-now-theyre
>> Ukraine has broken the EU. Now they’re out of weapons, they cannot make more, and the US is leaving
So Kevin Walmsley is writing instead of speaking, now. And he isn’t “Inside China.” The West no longer obtain the antimony it needs to make weapons. Ukraine has been making quite a substantial share of its bullets itself, but they don’t work well. They are of low quality, and soldiers don’t like using them. They frequently blow up too close to where they are shot from.
Religion is a technology for population control. That is how the Catholic priests ruled Slovakia between the WWI and during the WWII, which led to the elimination of the “Jewish element” during the WWII.
https://youtu.be/TcNuHGWik_Y?si=MIxoJT37zrAWmaOA
https://youtu.be/ht3XO3jCD14?si=R1A5maIEq3WIlVcR
Now we can call it the clash between the Old Testament that represents the population growth and the New Testament that represents the population implosion.
Today we have a similar clash between the old testament islam and evangelicals and the new testament and atheist environmental self-control.
No, religion is a way of binding people together. It gives some order to the in-group. It tells how to treat others in the in-group. For example, the prohibition against killing in the Ten Commandments seems to be a prohibition against killing other members of your own group.
There frequently are times without enough resources (including food) relative to population. The period between World War I and World War II was one of those periods. The Jews were frequently the rich people. Just as people today think that taxing the rich would get rid of our not-enough-to-go-around problem, killing off Jews and taking their riches seemed to be a way to get more riches per capita. If there is not enough food per capita, killing off women and children could make perfectly good sense–not be prohibited on religious grounds. There are Old Testament stories about killing everyone in an enemy group, including animals, women and children. If the problem is overpopulation relative to resources, that would make perfect sense.
Clearly, religions have different views on numbers of children to have. These vary with the likelihood of the child living to maturity. If many children die before maturity, women will be expected to have several children. Religions tend to pass down “best practices,” as they are currently perceived.
You can bind people together only if there are resources. If there is a lack of the resources, the human society atomizes.
The people stop to go to church because they simply do not have money, the means to get there, time to spend there.
Religion reguires a certain amount of the resources, otherwise the starvation and epidemics begin.
The Old Testament story of Job is the clear example of this: there is no one who cares about you, because others do not have resources, too.
The move to atheism today is a clear example of anti-community feelings. You percieve the community as a threat, as those who consume your resources. Those who want from you more and more. Who pursue their goals of propagation, but do not mind the poor, the environment, because they do not have extra resources for them.
There is a clear example of the internal hate towards the progeny, when the rooms with soundproof glazing divide the parents with the babies from the crowd that are present in some Catholic churches.
https://www.biblegateway.com/passage/?search=Luke%2012%3A49-56&version=NLT
“Jesus Causes Division
49 “I have come to set the world on fire, and I wish it were already burning! 50 I have a terrible baptism of suffering ahead of me, and I am under a heavy burden until it is accomplished. 51 Do you think I have come to bring peace to the earth? No, I have come to divide people against each other! 52 From now on families will be split apart, three in favor of me, and two against—or two in favor and three against.
53
‘Father will be divided against son
and son against father;
mother against daughter
and daughter against mother;
and mother-in-law against daughter-in-law
and daughter-in-law against mother-in-law.’[a]”
54 Then Jesus turned to the crowd and said, “When you see clouds beginning to form in the west, you say, ‘Here comes a shower.’ And you are right. 55 When the south wind blows, you say, ‘Today will be a scorcher.’ And it is. 56 You fools! You know how to interpret the weather signs of the earth and sky, but you don’t know how to interpret the present times.”
Religions can bind people together. But they need a minimum amount of resources for their existence, too.
But are they a technology for population control? Yes, because they consider personal sacrifice and suffering, loneliness in survival as a part of the faith. They accept the atomization, not just a community. Some of them more, some of the less.
That is why buddhism is often considered rather a philosophy than a religion, because it lacks this community feature.
Definitely, this tendency towards atomization in the presence of lacking resources. makes religion and individualist matter.
The population control of the religion is about redirecting the resources towards the poor rather than towards propagation. The fear of the sexuality of the puritanism was also about this fear of losing control over propagation. Or the inclination towards the hermit spirituality instead of the parish community.
You have the tendency towards abandoning some collective rites like the confession or the communion. But there are people who go to church because there they can hear the words that require austerity from all.
The Jesus quote is spot on to your point.
However to my eyes, the passage has a theme, which I cannot figure out whether what Jesus’ is up to satisfies your point. Or even if Gail’s point is shaded. I dunno. I’ll take a stroll through the chapter. I think it is an interesting draw.
I quote verse 21 “Yes, a person is a fool to store up earthly wealth but not have a rich relationship with God.” (And it is in proper context). And I could point out the Lord’s Prayer and so Jesus is self-consistent about daily sustenance.
Atheism is also a way to assert a socially constructed moral code based on consistently rejected things. Jesus predicts this turn of affairs in verse 9 & 10.
Or in verse 14 “Friend, who made me a judge over you to decide such things as that?”
And again in verse 14, “Life is not measured by how much you own.”
Or in verse 1, “Beware the [under-thinking] of [your moral leaders]”
Moral choices have consequences regardless of the jockeying and signaling in the community. Having a spiritual guru facilitate binding [under-thinkers], atheist, greed-for-me, fairness-for-me, blasphemer is going to suck unless there is a purpose beyond “Diversity is our strength”. Given we are quoting Jesus, he had a such a purpose.
Cursorily, I can see that in this chapter Jesus is very much against arbitrating over socially-constructed realities which he would rather see torched. And he excoriates “leavening”, so he textually is against arbitrary “binders”.
It comes as no surprise that Jesus is not into community binding like the Pharisees who encourage hypo-crises of faith in others.
Yes, Gail I agree.
I would add that Jews in Germany were sometimes rich, but in the similar way like also other people of other origin were rich.
The point is (in my view) that they themselves demarcated and viewed themselves like a distinct group from the rest of the society and, as a consequence, they were demarcated and viewed like a distinct group by the rest of the society.
Therefore they were stigmatized in a different way from other rich people who didn’t demarcated themselves differently.
Looking at the facts like an alien from outside, the point in this issue is that, one person could never become of this group (Jews) simply changing one’s religion (like it may happen with Christianism or Islam or Buddism), but one needed to be born in this group.
In other words this group was not permeable to change of renewal.
For this reason also nowvthey see themselves differently and the rest of the society sees them differently.
Unfortunately, having recently a own nation, they are showing themselves to be extremely ostracists towards other groups and they don’t act in the way like they want others to act when themselves are in the nations belonging to what they define ‘others’.
So it seems a situation created by the way this group is formed, which is unfortunately so far without a solution.
An alien would say that they should probably change something in they way they see themselves and communicate this change also outside.
To conclude on this point, I have developed the impression that it was probably for this reason that a reformist Rabbi like Jesus wanted to change this group from inside, making it permeable to other people.
In my view Jesus didn’t have in mind to create a specific new Religion, (like Christianism is considered now), but he probably simply had in mind to reform Judaism from inside.
Things went a little bit differently due to what happened later.
Blame it to Luz Bathoru who permanently made the Slovak protestants into pariahs
Interesting, religion and beliefs have come to a site so heavily developed to analyze shortages of a vital resource.
I am always the optimist, and also a realist. The future, the present will be/is bumpy. Starship has some problems, they seem to be the transition from space/vacuum flight to atmospheric flight and vice versa.
We are surrounded by riches, we are in a gravity well, we need some stuff which will not ruin our spaceship earth. It is out there, we have the engineering to find it, AI may well give us the ability to find/use and move the appropriate materials to our spaceship and do so in time.
Meanwhile, the US seems to be going broke and when that happens where do all the exporters export?
Hmm, film at eleven.
Dennis L.
Coming oil and gas related problems in Syria?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/syria-signs-deal-merge-kurdish-led-sdf-state-institutions
Syria Signs Deal To Merge Kurdish-led SDF Into State Institutions,
Israel thinks that by eliminating the Palestinians from Gaza and overthrowing Assad from Syria that they will have peace and tranquility.
Many of the Middle East geopolitical experts disagree and view Israel more vulnerable than ever before because now that area has been more unstable and Israel must use more resources to defend itself from the Arab backlash it has created at the hands of Nutten-yahoo who drives America’s foreign policy.
We have another situation of too many people relative to resources. One of the resources is farmland. Another is water for the farmland. Fossil fuels are also in short supply. Both those in Gaza and Israel have high birth rates, aggravating the problem.
Farmland, maybe.
Approximately 47% of corn is used for ethanol production. I am not current, but at one point that was a net energy loser.
The US does not have a calorie problem, but the food is not fit for human consumption.
My guess is farm equipment is going smaller secondary to AI. If that happens then the need for huge swaths of land for grain production goes down. Assuming this thesis is correct, JD stock may have some rough spots.
Dennis L.
Nothing beats good ‘ol cheap gasoline or petrol. Insert alternatives fuels or energy sources and expect trouble. Europe knows that, especially Germany. Their economy is in free fall and part of that is Europe’s desire to abolish fossil fuels. Germany is de-industrializing as they move away from fossil fuels and now could be looking at either a major recession or possibly a depression as well as other parts of Europe.
Here’s another example why Hopium gets a good dose of reality. The World Rally Championship sanctioned by the FIA has switched the motorsport series to sustainable fuels. Now the company that supplies the series has gone into administration, oops. This stuff seems to affect alternative energy suppliers a lot because it requires a lot more investment and lower return on that investment. Well at least British Petroleum got a much needed wake up call.
https://www.autosport.com/wrc/news/fia-steps-in-after-wrc-fuel-supplier-goes-into-administration-/10701820/
The problem is that you cannot run an economy on energy supplies that require a lot more investment and provide a lower return on that investment. It is not only the owners who fail. It is governments, which provide funding for this stuff, and depend on taxes from it, that fail.
Stock exchanges went down yesterday and Italian (globalist) mainstream media immediately blamed Trump.
But my impression is that the main reason of this is because financial markets may have realized that ‘operation Ukraine’ went wrong and all the debts and possible new debts for the so called reconstruction and exploitation of Ukraine (expecially by EU + UK) will never happen.
There may be a little part due to Trump’s strategy, but if US people (and also people of other Countries linked to US) could test both following options, I think that they would chose this current Trump’s strategy than a possible US default (or an iper inflation for the consequence of too much money created from nothing).
UK + EU on the contrary are on holding themselves to new debts again.
‘Next generation EU’, born with the excuse of Covid, burst, debt for vaccine burst, now they are trying debt to create weapons against an imaginary enemy, but probably markets are not buying it….
The Stock Exchange is something very different. There is no economy and no production of goods and services. There are only fantasies in which people from one hour to the next decide that this or that company is worth so many billions, more or less. It doesn’t have a thing to do with the Swedish economy.”
― Stieg Larsson, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo
There is considerable truth to this.
“When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the workings of a casino, the job is likely to be ill done.”
— John Maynard Keynes
We are there.
And in relation to the collapse of EU + UK plans on Ukraine, I found this interesting article (google translator needed) about the new strategy to try to create new debts, by EU + UK.
I’m glad to see that US has called itself out of this mess.
https://comedonchisciotte.org/la-guerra-su-vasta-scala-non-ci-sara-blocca-gli-affari-delle-dinastie-venali-angloamericane/
We are in a period where the US has three alternatives:
1. Cut back spending, and ultimately debt, to something more manageable.
2. Continue raising debt by large amounts, as in the past, leading to even more inflation, and not much increase in goods and services. More and more unhappiness. Higher interest rates.
3. Give up. Transfer programs to the states. Or shut down completely, leaving the states on their own to provide programs for citizens. Or get overthrown.
Stagflation it is! Though, Martin Armstrong suggests that American companies could have US backed stock issued in exchange for the debt. If anyone doesnt like it, well tough.
None of this is real in terms of being physical, and this problem used to be handled by the occasional debt Jubilee. This was before the times of corporations of course, but isn’t everything ultimately just a number on a ledger somewhere?
I figure David Webb’s “The Great Taking” will be outcome instead; “Okay, ‘we’ take everything… and then ‘we’ will call it even.”
Perhaps an alternative:
Cut overhead, administrative overhead, cut useless wars and thus cut useless manufacturing of stuff which has a life span of the time from firing to detonation.
That is an easy first trillion.
Dennis L.
“Day by day. What were your symptoms? What were your symptoms? What were your symptoms?”
Here’s an intelligent discussion about COVID-19 and how to treat it between three intelligent medics who have treated it with success.
This interview is a critical discussion between Dr. Shankara Chetty and Dr. Vijay, moderated by myself, about the scientific discoveries, treatment protocols, and legal challenges faced during the COVID-19 pandemic. The conversation focuses on early treatment strategies, the controversies surrounding the pandemic response, and the larger implications of vaccine mandates and bioweapons research.
Dr. Chetty describes his breakthrough in COVID-19 treatment, identifying spike protein as the primary pathogen and implementing antihistamines, steroids, and early intervention protocols to drastically reduce mortality. His work was widely suppressed despite proven success, and he now faces legal prosecution for challenging the mainstream narrative.
Dr. Vijay discusses how Dr. Chetty’s insights saved lives worldwide, including in Malaysia and India, where doctors adopted his protocols, leading to significant reductions in hospitalizations and deaths.
The interview concludes with a discussion on bioweapons, the global agenda, and the role of medical professionals in resisting coercion and standing for medical ethics.
Everyone can learn something from this……
….. apart from Norman……
who already knows everything! 🙂
https://philipmcmillan.substack.com/p/dr-chetty-battles-against-censorship
Warning: It’s 2 hours long.
Canada just slapped 25% increase on my electric bill because of Trump “so called” tariffs. The reason is “Fentanyl coming over the border.
WOW!
It’s almost like a carbon tax.
My electric bill is 30 bucks a month so it wont affect me but still. This obviously climate change related.
If we tax others, we should expect others to tax us back. Of course, if we want to cut back international trade, and use only things made very close by, than reciprocal taxes are precisely the way to go.
Nothing to do with climate change, ontario’s extremely combative PM Doug Ford is out to fight tRump in a death match by slapping a 25% tax on electricity going out of his province. Did you know that as a retaliation measure, tRump jacked up tariffs on canadian aluminum and steel from 25 to 50% to prove he would win the war? According to his niece Mary, tRump has deep mental problems. You can catch her on her YT channel.
“It’s not those who write the laws that have the greatest impact on society. It’s those who write the songs.”
— Blaise Pascal
The Rolling Stone Interview: John Lennon
Rolling Stone. ..What do you think the effect was of the Beatles on the history of Britain?
John Lennon
I don’t know about the “history”; the people who are in control and in power, and the class system and the whole bullshit bourgeoisie is exactly the same, except there is a lot of fag middle class kids with long, long hair walking around London in trendy clothes, and Kenneth Tynan is making a fortune out of the word “fuck.” Apart from that, nothing happened. We all dressed up, the same bastards are in control, the same people are runnin’ everything. It is exactly the same.
https://www.imaginepeace.com/archives/4385
21 Jan & 4 Feb, 1971)
John Lennon: The Rolling Stone Interview
by founding editor Jann S. Wenner
Part One: The Working Class Hero
I saw a meme once that compared Beatles Lennon to Lennon of soviet union. Said V lennon legalized homosexuality and beat the bougie.
Beatles Lennon was homophobe who beat his wife.
EU commission will not allow democratic election in Romania. Is it time for the US and Russia and China to begin bombardment of Brussels?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XfJXrHBYa-M
This is a video by Alex Christoforou of Duran. He is talking about the fact that in Romania, Presidential Candidate Georgescu is being denied the a chance to win the presidency in Romania, by the EU, which does not consider him to be a chance to win. He won an election, but this was canceled. He now is appealing, and Alex denies that this will be denied as well. Some people believe Romania is now a dictatorship.
Economist Martin Armstrong has said Romania is already seeing civil unrest and depending on how things play out it could lead to a revolution. The world is a mess, Europe is especially.
https://www.armstrongeconomics.com/international-news/romania/romania-preparing-for-revolution/
It does sound worrying. According to Martin Armstrong:
Note that this is a revolution against the EU. It’s about time, I say. Lira, pipelines towards Russia, national interest, much reduced immigration, and some Brussels residents hanging upside down from gas stations. Creation of a euro block looking east and being the natural terminal for the silk road.
Interesting!
Figure 3 shows a massive coal growth in china for the past 25 years. Before it happened analysts might have said we can’t add a continuous 5 gigajoules .
But was it worth it? It raised the living standards of Chinese and produced plastic junk and solar stuff.
Just like the massive oil output from the 70s crisis to now. And then the impossible fracking comes out of no where. It doesn’t seem to make sense to squander all these resources so we can get our 711 slurpees and cigs in the suv.
Especially if it’s going kaput!
Unless tptb know more (just like Chaney laughed and shrugged off debt – fig 4)
It does seem it’s going to be bleak in 25 years but will there be another energy graph at that time saying no? Will the energy industry pull another rabbit out of the finite hat?
https://energiesmedia.com/eagle-ford-shale-output-hits-record-high-in-south-texas/
This article (written in January 2025) is about Eagle Forde production in 2023. This is a link i posted earlier showing that Texas oil production is down in 2024, however.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gk53JixXoAEDKYL?format=jpg&name=medium
this just in from a mate of mine he reckons just recently a friend of his went to order a large safe for his business only to be told 2 to 3 year wait for parts to be available reason he was given safes are being bought like hotcakes by big supermarkets so they can hoard cash they have been advised by tptb that blackouts are coming very soon and all digital money will be history so to buy food only physical cash will be accepted, i think we are very close to the end unless the elders can run things with renewable energy sources for the foreseeable future. This is happening in south australia so if you want to stock up on some dark chocolate or cigarettes before it all begins do not hesitate.
Interesting since the conspiracy is to implement dig $ (see Martin Armstrong). (supported by trumps crypto initiative) I could see a forced conversion followed by blackouts.
BWI just had a power outage and a bud said due to closing coal plants in MD. So it’s self inflicted .
AU is tiny and could have solar,coal and syn fuel at an inconveniently high cost.
Maybe we will have a two tier society with enough power for the “haves” (who are planning power plants for ramping up AI)
In any case it’s going to be unpredictable .
Hard to use digital currency with blackouts.
Would be nice to have all green electricity generation connected by a continental supra-conductor grid but things seem to be going in the opposite direction with stretching delays for transformer production
https://www.woodmac.com/news/opinion/4-years-into-a-difficult-transformers-market-in-the-us-is-there-a-potential-end-in-sight/
Alice Friedemann quotes an IEEE article explaining why it is not possible to have only electric cars. One of the problems is the need for too many new transformers.
https://energyskeptic.com/2024/why-towns-have-such-a-hard-time-expanding-the-grid-for-ev/
https://spectrum.ieee.org/the-ev-transition-explained-2658463709
Come, sir, have a bit of faith.
Surely Elon will save us?
This is a crisis I knew had to come.
Destroying the balance I’d kept.
Doubting, unsettling, and turning around.
Wondering what will come next
Is this the role that you wanted to live?
I was foolish to ask for so much
Without the protection and infancy’s guard
It all falls apart at first touch….
great music. two of my favourite records
Real cash only–interesting.
Hopium meets Reality: “BP Boss Defends Fossil Fuel U-Turn”
https://www.zerohedge.com/energy/bp-boss-defends-fossil-fuel-u-turn
BP boss Murray Auchincloss has defended the company’s move to increase fossil fuel production and ditch its renewable energy commitments. Auchincloss is under mounting pressure from BP investors, who are frustrated at the oil major’s underperforming share price. The executive unveiled plans for a “fundamental reset” two weeks ago, which included ditching a series of green energy targets set out five years ago.
Could it be, that subventions for alternative energy have been cut?
I am afraid so.
Hello Ms Tverberg,
I enjoy reading your posts so much that i’ll gladly overlook the little quirk of having an imaginary friend. Personally i have come to learn the universe starts with everything nowhere, ends with nothing everywhere and has a lot of virtual vanity in between.
More to the point of recent events, the US version of Germany’s enabling act of 1933 is pretty close at hand now, the main difference being the large number of available nuclear weapons of mass destruction . With all the sabotage of departments by musk and tRump putting primarily tRump-loyal firehoses of BS as heads of Treasury, FBI, DoJ, DoD, State, Commerce, Interior, Energy, HHS, OMB, EPA etc. plus the republican trifecta of congress, senate and scotus, what could go wrong and how soon ? Since tRump officially switched sides to go with putin, and his invasive behavior without concern for the Budapest memorandum, people especially in Canada, may regret the young man from last summer was such a poor shot and that all the armed forces who swore to protect the constitution didn’t take care of tRump. Anyone who still believes in free will is headed for a disappointment ! If I had to pick 4 horsemen of the apocalypse, one would be riding shirtless, another one would carry a chainsaw and a ketamine satchel, next would be Xi and last would wear an orange evil clown mask. We do not seem to be much better at regulating our growth than malthusian microbial colonies. Wonder what species will run the show after the end of the sixth major life extinction that we are bringing upon us much faster than the previous ones went…
In any case our main worry probably will not be coal and oil prices for very long.
Let us hope that the downfall doesn’t come quite as quickly as you expect.
I agree that things are changing quickly.
There are still resources to extract. Maybe things can hold together a bit longer.
I remember finding you based on your 8 Predictions for the next year posted back in ~2007. You pretty much nailed it with maybe one or two that didnt pan out. But the rest were in the bullseye zone.
It was an interesting year. Are you finding that things are sufficiently more complex than they were back then, and therefore more challenging to estimate their outcomes for?
It is indeed a more complex situation. It is not a problem of too high oil prices and too many subprime housing loans pushing the economy into recession, and the Federal Reserve’s timing being off on fixing the situation with interest rate changes. Eventually, it showered the economy with more debt, which is laying the ground for today’s problems.
Today, we have what looks like the beginning of a debt implosion, and shrinking economies everywhere. Long distance international trade clearly needs to shrink. How fast does it go down? Will the result be inflation, or will governments try to shower a huge amount of debt to bail out failing economies? I don’t know. The real value of future goods and services is clearly down, no matter how it is valued (gold, today’s currency, new currency).
I hope so too, would you make a bet on who gets invaded first between Canada and Taiwan?
🤔
Kind Regards,
Paul
I’m afraid Taiwan gets invaded first. But Trump may annex part of Canada.
more likely i think—that parts of the usa will choose to become part of canada
Is that the part that is now worse than Gilead?
that part is too far south of the 49th
Stick to your day job, Norman. This is impossible. It’s not a matter of taste but of strength. Anyway, only BC and Alberta are in the crosshairs. The rest will be left alone.
Extracting resources is one thing, getting rid of the waste produced by extraction is another. I was born in Rouyn-Noranda, a mining town founded in 1926. Within 50 years the cheaply exploitable ore was depleted. During those extractive years, the Horne’s towering chimneys were farting 20 tons of mercury plus millions of tons of H2S a year in the environment, The beautiful lake Osisko between Rouyn and Noranda got so poisoned by the tailings that no fish survived and it was even dangerous to take a swim. Now, the foundry processes 600,000 tons a year of various electronic circuits and contaminated waste. Of course the governement is trying to get Glencore to lower arsenic emissions under the present 30 ng/m3 to the provincial norm of 3 ng/m3. Arsenic is only one of the ~ 15 major contaminants emitted. Biologists doing research in the surroundings even find Thallium in plants and animals. A major gold nugget (2 to 4g/ton) was found under nearby Malartic 20 years ago. Have a look at what it looks like on google map now. Each ton or ore is ground to dust as fine as flour and mixed with cyanide to get the gold, leaving a ton of poisoned mud.
https://www.agnicoeagle.com/English/the-eagle-blog/blog-news-details/2025/East-Gouldie-Discovery-Earns-Prestigious-PDAC-Award/default.aspx
Last year they found another nugget containing 5 million ounces (~142 million grams) at about 4g/ton, so about 35 million tons of poisoned mud at the other end of the pipe. 75 % of the gold ends up in jewelry for Indian weddings. 5-10% goes for industrial uses. Please forgive me for not being very optimistic on humankind’s chances of surviving the 6th major extinction. Especially considering that Elon Musk is too dumb to figure how to make a liveable backup of earth but is planning to burn enough methane to get the CO2 levels past 500 ppm with a thousand Starships for his mars “colony” . I figured the recipes for that backup after seing a meteor fall 30 km for my home one night of october 1993. Just ask if you want to know about it.
This does sound worrying. A whole lot of pollution from a new gold mine. You evidently are from Quebec, Canada, where the town of Rouyn-Noranda is located.
I am not sure about Elan Musk’s plans. He has his work cut out from him now with all of the DOGE efforts.
it is the underground extraction that is new, the surface scraping is close to ending after 20 years.
https://www.google.com/maps/@48.1218091,-78.1063563,3740m/data=!3m1!1e3?authuser=0&entry=ttu&g_ep=EgoyMDI1MDMwNC4wIKXMDSoASAFQAw%3D%3D
musk is living proof that people who think they can multitask are actually doing subpar work. if he is free to go ahead, he will consume in methane the equivalent of a quarter of the world’s oil production
https://www.energy-cg.com/NorthAmericanNatGasSupplyDemandFund/NaturalGasDemand_MethaneFuelMuskStarship.html
Yes, mineral extraction is so yesterday. Super booster seems to work, Starship has problems.
We mine the solar system, shoot the waste into Jupiter where no matter what it is who cares?
Sounds crazy, you are living around crazy; that can make one crazy.
My guess remains we make it and things will get better not worse. It will be bumpy.
Hope the pollution does not hurt your health.
Dennis L.
thanks Dennis, sorry if i sound like debbie downer, but this civilization is beyond hope. make sure you wear an n95 mask when you go in traffic; be they gas or electric, car have brakes
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2025/02/250214123739.htm
and tires
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0048969724052070
we are all so contaminated that half the population is getting cancers among other environmentally caused diseases but we are too hooked on our toys to quit using them
https://www.plasticsoupfoundation.org/en/news/our-health-is-seriously-damaged-by-plastic-and-the-chemicals-in-it
anyway, i digress, Gail’s blog is about running on empty and i found out about her from harveymead.org a valiant environmentalist for over 40 years, who passed from cancer a short while back even with the 20 microbiome books i sent him. now it’s my wife who’s got at most 2 years left with immunotherapy for her liver cancer and she doesn’t even drink. guess it will be my turn soon.
In the mean time i’ll hang around.
Regards
make sure you wear an n95 mask when you go in traffic
No, I won’t be doing that. You do what you like though.
Dennis L. Is a perennial optimist who resorts to imaginary technologies to ‘solve’ today’s issues.
humankind’s chances of surviving the 6th major extinction
Humankind will survive, that’s not an issue. Industrial civilisation will not survive.
TDS much?
Krainer writes about the behind the scenes machinations… reads like a grisham novel
https://alexkrainer.substack.com/p/ukraine-rare-earths-deal-the-empires?utm_campaign=posts-open-in-app&triedRedirect=true
Ukraine “rare earths” deal: the empire’s fatal mistake
Rare earths deal is a very British hustle, a cheap rerun of Winston Churchill’s playbook to ensnare the US in World War 2. Now Starmer’s doing it for WW3.
Except it is all a scheme to get the US involved, on the side of the UK against Russia. Read the whole post.
///////Rare earths deal is a very British hustle, a cheap rerun of Winston Churchill’s playbook to ensnare the US in World War 2. Now Starmer’s doing it for WW3.////
er……
correct me if i’m wrong here—but conventional history has it that japan was using american oil and steel to invade northern china. (check Nanking 1937)
roosevelt gave japan an ultimatum to stop and withdraw, or he would cut off their supplies.
This would have meant Japan losing face…..so they attacked the USA, British and Dutch simultaneously, Dec 1941.
I have no doubt that this idiocy saved Britain from defeat.
But ”ensnaring” the USA into war is a bit far fetched…. especially as Hitler declared war on the USA shortly after—more ‘dictator-daftness’ that lost them the war.
Bear in mind also, that if America hadnt come into the war in 1941, german factories would have remained almost untouched….. so by about 1945/6 they would have had the A bomb, and the means to deliver it across the Atlantic
game over for the USA then
But ”ensnaring” the USA into war is a bit far fetched….
er……
correct me if i’m wrong here—
Wouldn’t dream of it.
Do you remember All Our Yesterdays, narrated by Brian Inglis et. al, 25 years to the week after the events leading up to and of the war?. I grew up on that, having missed out on the fun of actually experiencing the reportage of WW2 first-hand.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/All_Our_Yesterdays_(TV_series)
“Except it is all a scheme to get the US involved, on the side of the UK against Russia.”
Is it though? What it seems to be is a carefully crafted bit of theatre.
Are we to believe that the self proclaimed most powerful nation on earth, a nation that throws untold billions at data gathering(including gchg, the largest data gathering centre in the very country supposedly stabbing them in the back), didn’t get so much as a whiff of the deal that was reported in the MSM and are now very angry that the whole world witnessed their ineptitude, as they clearly had the wool pulled over their eyes?
I’m not buying it. After all, they only had to look on gov.uk
I’m assuming that they still haven’t, or they might have read point 3 of article 12 and sighed a big sigh of relief.
“This Agreement may be terminated by either Party by sending a written notice to the other Party. The Agreement shall be terminated six months from the date of receipt of such notice”
https://www.gov.uk/government/news/one-hundred-year-partnership-agreement-between-the-united-kingdom-of-great-britain-and-northern-ireland-and-ukraine
Krainer’s article appears to be somewhat misleading. He mentions the British press’s reaction, but not a peep about European reactions, which was at least equally hysterical(more so really, with calls to ratchet up defence spending to 25% from some quarters). There’s also this
“Yes, the British Empire is still a thing. It’s an undead empire of money, bankers and money laundering; it’s an empire of secret intelligence networks and covert diplomacy; of illicit influence, bribery and corruption; it’s an empire of false narratives and co-opted governments of degenerates, morons and incompetent bureaucrats”
Nothing wrong with that, except that it’s also every western establishment of any influence(we just don’t have real stuff to trade) and it’s not an empire, or indeed a country, it’s a corporation(as is the US & the EU). Everyone is going to play pass the parcel of blame, so each has an excuse as to why it was all someone else’s fault, but still march us all ever onwards to the familiar beating drum of war.
The timeline of the last decade or so, looks very much like the early years of the last century and Europe is again being put on point to take the first major white hit.
We are being slowly conditioned for the end of easy
https://youtu.be/pASFfIUA57Q?feature=shared
The corporation has to eat and if it can’t eat out, it will eat at home.
Good point! But all these scenarios are depending on oil supply. Because all staging of the revelation would be nothing against hunger and chaos as a consequence of supply chrunches.
If we assume Trump was an honest broker of peace and indeed retracted to a neutral position towards Russia (even if he just wants to have his hands free for Iran/China), he wouldnt be able to deliver weapons to Europe that are meant to be used against Russia. He wouldnt even be able to deliver oil and LPG. He would have to shut down starlink.
How could Europe, especially Germany, replace the missing support? As it seems oil and gas replacements are not available on the “free markets”. And if not, could it limit war?
the main difference being the large number of available nuclear weapons of mass destruction
It’s unlikely many of those are available any more or function as intended due to being recycled into power station fuel, shortages of tritium and missile launch failures.
Gail , re Honest Sorcerer post , you missed the timeline . A comment in his blog . Richard Wolffe thinks the same . End of March . Run for the hills or dig a hole .
”Joe Clarkson, comment on the Honest Sorcerer, 3-9-25
“The depletion of rich mineral and fossil fuel deposits, and their eventual replacement with ever harder-, costlier- and energy-intensive-to-get resources, has put an end to this massive historical anomaly called growth. And in a no-growth era debt, combined with ever higher interest rates (ostensibly to “fight” inflation (3)) and the rise of a tech-oligarchy is not only a recipe for the further immiseration of the masses, but will inevitably lead to social and economic upheaval. The fact that we are on the cusp of a massive global economic decline should now have become more than obvious. Tariffs and other trade barriers can and thus will only usher in this decline sooner and make it much worse than it otherwise needed to be (4). Presuming the latest GDP estimate of the Atlanta FED proves to be correct, the US economy is about to fall off the cliff by the end of this month already. If that’s true, the ride downhill will become much wilder than anyone could’ve imagined previously.”
Some people think that this end of March date from GDP Now estimates is based on a high estimate of buying for the quarter ended December 31, 2025, followed by a more normal estimate of spending in the quarter ended March 31, 2025. They expect spending to bounce back up the next quarter.
I don’t know what is true. I tend not to place too much credibility in any one estimate of when things are falling apart. We are already headed downhill. Perhaps the next step will be a bit bigger.
mid 2020s
ive said it on ofw time and again over the last few years
and i take no pleasure in repeating it.
it may not be precisely 2025—but we can be sure of looking back to now, certain that Jan 20 2025 was the day the usa voted itself into oblivion .
Oblivion is another word for:
ignorance
forgetfulness
nirvana
blindness
innocence
obliviousness
unconsciousness
amnesia
unawareness
unfamiliarity
insensibility
abstraction
nescience
absorption
preoccupation
inattention
incognizance
absentmindedness
inattentiveness
Yonks ago, Gore Vidal renamed the place The United States of Amnesia. And the validity of that name has long has been obvious to some of us.
Another use of oblivion is in the legal sense, where it means amnesty or pardon. Your man Joe Biden—the demented “Big Guy” you never once criticized or accused of acting as a dictator— was a master of that stratagem.
For those who are interested, here are some examples of the use of oblivion in a legal context:
The court granted the defendant a state of oblivion, allowing them to move forward without the burden of their past convictions.
In a historic decision, the legislature voted to provide oblivion to those who had committed non-violent offenses, effectively erasing their criminal records.
As part of the settlement, the accused received oblivion for their actions, ensuring that they would not face further legal repercussions.
The policy aimed at providing oblivion for certain offenses was designed to promote rehabilitation and reintegration into society.
After reviewing the case, the governor decided to issue a decree of oblivion, giving the individual a fresh start free from the stigma of previous charges.
but we can be sure of looking back to now, certain that Jan 20 2025 was the day the usa voted itself into oblivion .
If voting mattered it would be illegal. – Mark Twain.
Some red states are hellbent on making sure it is illegal for a lot of people.
who is letting these ideologically driven individuals in a physics based blog? anyway, worry not. the moment the UK becomes too much of a nuisance the institutions carefully developed by Obama and Biden will take care of you. They are still there. Wales, Scotland and Ireland need their independence. They might even elect England to be the new Israel, once they get kicked out of Palestine.
This site thought 2016 was the end of the world. Did I miss something?
Dennis L.
you missed it dennis
it happened in a different timezone while you were asleep one night.
we thought that would upset you if we mentioned it
I do not recall seeing that
Coal supplies and usage are being politically manipulated. The USA has vast amounts of easily accessed low cost high quality coal. Our political leaders illegalized coal powerplants and destroyed the coal mining industry. All in a vane attempt to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. This is a hopeless task unless every nation on Earth does the same. In China, undurdened by environmental guilt, a new (filthy) coal powerplant is built every week. So all we have done is closed very clean burning US coal powerplants and replaced them with coal powerplants somewhere else that have no emissions controls. Also note, in World War 2, Germany was able to convert coal into diesel and aircraft fuel. We have a lot of energy available, we choose not to use it.
I don’t know. The addition of all kinds of emissions requirements to coal plants has made the cost of using coal a lot higher than it was previously. If changes were made–these emissions requirements rolled back, and pollution requirements in general were lessened, it is possible that more would be available. This would negatively affect air (and perhaps water) quality. It might hurt human health.
I know that there is a lot of coal in Alaska that is too remotely located to be economic. With enough climate change, it could be useful.
To make fuel from coal, you need anthracite, which has become rare, and the Germans managed to make 10 million tonnes maximum in 1944. This, within the framework of a war economy, with, however, some other Romanian oil resources. Compared to today’s economy, 10 mt is ridiculous, which is why the German army in 1944 was completely demodernized.
You are right to point to political manipulation. There are copper mines in the Alps that had to be shot down as the USA wanted to sell their own products after WW2. They are flooded today.
There is still a lot of hard coal available in the German Ruhrgebiet but it is undeniably located very deep down and it is hard to estimate, if it could be produced with acceptable costs.
Germany is said to have easy to produce lignite for another 100 years of electricity production – which is a fraction of the complete energy demand.
But aside from political manipulation it seems we have entered Degrowth and Depopulation. Both leads to stress for the financial markets. The Modern Monetarian Theory (MMT) might allow the central banks to bail-out banks and neutralize the deficits without inflation. But we should ask ourselves, if a contraction has any influence on the question, if energy is considered “cheap” or keeps up its productivity. There is also the point of effects of scale.
If we return to building washing machines and sewing machines that last 200 years, which would be easily possible, and increase homesteadings and self-sufficiency, which would both save energy, the industry would contract and bring troubles to the financial markets and to oil production. But the industry contracts already with Degrowth nd Depopulation. There seems no way out either way!
To me it seems as if political manipulation is just meant to cover natural decline.
it is hard to estimate, if it could be produced with acceptable costs.
The fact that it isn’t being produced tells you it can’t be.
The USA has vast amounts of easily accessed low cost high quality coal.
Completely untrue, the USA hit peak anthracite coal production in 1919.
Hello Ms. Tverberg,
I very much enjoy your blog. I am having trouble understanding how President Trump’s policy of “drill baby drill” will help oil and gas drillers and service companies moving forward. As you know, historically a high level of oil and gas drilling (a “boom”), eventually leads to a massive drawback of drilling (a “bust”). That is one problem I see with this proposal.
However, the issue that really puzzles me is the claim by President Trump that we will increase drilling to bring down oil and gas prices. As you touch on in your blog, oil and gas producers are currently not able to increase supply because the price of oil and gas will not support it. Therefore, I do not understand how drilling more and lowering the price will lead to more drilling in the long run (and maybe even the short run). I do not understand how you even begin this process, because as soon as you start drilling more, the price of oil and gas may go down, causing drilling to stop. A failure to launch could be in the cards.
Can you please shed some light on how this scenario might work for both the consumer and the oil and gas companies, i.e. how do lower oil and gas prices lead to more drilling, keeping consumers happy and oil and gas companies healthy? I have asked this question to many people and no one seems to have an answer. Mr. Trump has not elaborated on how this would work. I look forward to your response. Thank you in advance.
Sorry. I am mystified, myself. All I can see is that the economy is headed into recession, and this, by itself, will lower fossil fuel prices. It will also lower production and consumption.
No politician can run on higher fossil fuel prices, so he seems to have picked the standard way citizens and politicians think.
I very much enjoy your blog. I am having trouble understanding how President Trump’s policy of “drill baby drill” will help oil and gas drillers and service companies moving forward
The policy is just meaningless buzz words. Absolutely nothing is stopping any company from drilling in the places where there actually is oil to be extracted.
The current economics of drilling seems to be stopping them now.
Right. And lower oil prices will push them to stop even sooner.
It would certainly seem so.
If the US had abundant conventional oil, it is unlikely that companies would have invested so much resource in tight oil (shale) development. The very existance of shale oil technology is a testament to oil depletion.
shale oil was known about in the 1950s—back then it wasn’t worth extracting
now it is despereatly needed
so you are quite correct
of course, one need only look at the USA’s conventional vs shale+off-shore production numbers to confirm this
If the price can be brought down secondary to increased access, that will allow other industries to do better or survive. Oil pipe may blip up, but in creased energy should reduce variable costs of said pipe, etc. Where we are today is not an environment in which to gouge, humanity will not look kindly on that behavior.
In my thesis, it will allow continued space exploration by robots, mining in space, manufacturing in space and seriously, a cubic mile of Pt which will allow a H economy on spaceship earth powered by solar energy with no net heat increase to earth.
In the short time left, all energy projects need to be net energy positive.
There may well be other solutions not envisioned, AI could uncover them, but everything takes engineering, and we need to use off the shelf engineering to make the future possible.
This site has convinced me that without appropriate action, humanity faces existential issues. God has a great deal of work into earth and humanity and will not look kindly on those preventing our survival. Or, it is self organizing if you like.
Dennis L.
You said god cuts losses and you also say god won’t tolerate those who threaten human survival. One of these is false
Mr McKnight , Trump & Company can shout but this ship is going down . Go through the posts here .
Shubam Garg has many posts that all point to a downtrend in production. Posting his thread. Interesting.
https://x.com/WhiteTundraSG
For some reason, this link isn’t quite working for me.
Works for me . X was down for sometime . Retry .
Now it works.
We should expect shale production to fall, because of the sub-$70 oil prices:
“With most E&P names on this list already guiding for flat production in 2025, and now their cash flows heavily affected in a <$70 WTI environment, expect to see shale well decline rates take a toll + 🇺🇸 oil production ⬇️ rapidly."
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GlKb2KIaoAIx8Yh?format=jpg&name=medium
Chart of Texas oil production, with recent supply starting to drop.
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/Gk53JixXoAEDKYL?format=jpg&name=medium
One recent comment before an image:
"Global conventional discoveries at an alarmingly low rate as exploration capital remains subdued!
Unconventional oil met the supply/demand gap since 2012, and is now flatlined + legacy conventional declines = spare capacity needs to be pulled at a faster pace than expected'
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/GlTNC8baUAAgKuU?format=jpg&name=medium
A commenter said,
"SPR Release [by Biden] muted the exploration funding cycle."
Thank you for the information
https://www.zerohedge.com/technology/x-suffers-outage-nationwide
Economic warfare is a dangerous game to play in our complex system because of the unforeseen consequences of any major action, such as applying tariffs on both your friends and your supposed enemies.
Kurt Cobb .
https://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2025/03/trade-war-danger-china-could-quickly.html
specially since China sanctions raw materials. Can the US even wage war without China?
“Can the US even wage war without China?”
I doubt it.
One could see that as a benefit.
Dennis L.
Kurt Cobb points out what is going wrong now. We cannot move production to the US because we are horribly dependent on China’s exports of critical minerals.
It is a dangerous time, the US needs to strengthen its society and to do that it needs money and economic resources for its citizens. If the US does not hold together, the world will be poorer for it.
If those exporting to the US are superior, they will survive and thrive, if not metaphorically, they can code.
Dennis L.
If the US does not hold together, the world will be poorer for it.
The world will be better off without the US consuming so much. Let it collapse.
guest2.
In a perfect world, yes, the world is 80/20. With luck one discards the 60 which does not work and keeps the 20 which does work.
The US is still a destination for millions of people, it must have something going for it.
Dennis L.
”The US is still a destination for millions of people, it must have something going for it.
Dennis , the answer . The best looking horse in the glue factory . 🤣
Millions of useless mouths and money launderers
nature abhors a vacuum
you will not like what rushes in to fill the space left by the vanished usa
particularly if you happen to live there
I find getting old uncomfortable, life seems to be like that, a struggle. But, once in a while one does win; that is great!.
Dennis L.
Turkey’s economy lives thanks to Russia. The two gas pipeline and the nuclear power stations being constructed are just the easy to see components. Lots of Russians vacation in Turkey, and a very significant percentage of Turkey’s exports go to the Russian market. The Turkish elite may be Atlanticists is some fashion, but their economy is dependent on Russia no its, ands or buts.
Do note that Turkey’s been absent from all the NATO confabs regarding Ukraine and was not asked if it would join with France, UK, etc.
Posted by: karlof1 | Mar 10 2025 1:21 utc | 125
MOA .
Somebody like to add or subtract ?
Hello Ravi, that makes sense to me.
I think it is probably like that, but there are two points to analyze, in my view:
1) reading Kurdish newspapers by various factions it clearly appears that Turkey heavily supported Al Qaeda – Isis to overthrow Assad and still it is using some group of fighters of that origin to fight north east Kurdish forces in Syria.
And that was against and it is still against Russia strategy, which fought Al Qaeda – Isis.
2) recent Turkish support to HTS group (Al Joulani) to overthrow Assad was, again, against Russia, which also caused to almost lose its 2 military bases (and that is not clear yet if they will still keep) and in addition of course lose Assad in Syria.
It is interesting to know how the 2 above points cross with what written above.
I ask to understand.
Student , my understanding of the situation . Oil and gas production are a 24/7/365 business . Russia must pump the gas and oil — it cannot stop and this has to be shipped out — take it or leave it . This is the only reason that it was shipping gas thru the Ukr network even because of the war and shipping oil to India/ China at a 30% discount when the West put the cap at $ 70 per barrel . It was tolerating the antics of Erdogan in Syria because the Turkey hub was an outlet for Putin to get the gas out . The situation has now changed . How will it work in the future ? I don’t know . Trump is an unguided missile but at the same time Putin will not forget that Erdogan is a back stabber . It was Putin who alerted Erdogan when their was a coup in Turkey and saved him . We will see . Interesting times .
OMG !😢
https://www.aljazeera.com/gallery/2021/11/8/chiles-desert-dumping-ground-for-fast-fashion-leftovers
India used to burn unwanted clothing for a smoky kind of fuel. Perhaps the world is producing even too much for buyers such as India.
Gail , Patrick Raymond adds a lot to your article . French , use translator and comment please . I liked his analysis .
https://lachute.over-blog.com/2025/03/pour-repondre-a-gail-tverberg.html
Thanks for the link. Yes, he does have interesting things to say.
For example:
– the politicians themselves do not understand. “Neither the population nor the citizens wants to understand.” I would agree.
– “Regarding food, it should be noted that until recently, a significant part of the population could feed itself.” That is not where we are now, with our current level of urbanization and farm equipment. Complexity changes have made a huge difference in agriculture. We are now in a different place.
– “Coal quality has been falling.” I would agree. Best first.
– “It is much riskier to repay debt than to default on debt, because debt forms the basis of the money supply.” –
This is a good point, which I didn’t make.
– “The world reorganization really started in 1973. This will be an extension of it.” Maybe so. The economy keeps changing.
Patrick seems to have quibbles with my characterization of coal being the foundation of industrial society. “Mostly what coal is used for today is electricity.” This is a European way of looking at the issue, to my thinking.
Patrick also has quibbles with my characterizing peak coal being important for World War I and World War II. Yes, there were a lot of other things going on.
Thanks, Patrick, for your insights.
Patrick also has quibbles with my characterizing peak coal being important for World War I and World War II
I won’t bother reading him then. The wars were about peak coal.
I did not deny the coal peak, especially the British peak in 1913. This coal peak was one of the factors that made the Royal Navy switch to oil. This British coal peak, making it impossible to supply Italy during the interwar period, made it switch in favor of Nazi Germany.
B the Honest Sorcerer has an interesting post, essentially about the “Rentier Class” extorting wealth from the other classes. The fact that this system wouldn’t work because it would pump too much wealth to the Rentier Class was known 2,400 years ago, in Aristotle’s time.
https://thehonestsorcerer.substack.com/p/until-debt-tear-us-apart
Until Debt Tear Us Apart
Debt, the rise of oligarchs and the decline of capitalism
Guess:
All can be replaced with AI at ever declining costs.
Dennis L.
But AI doesn’t feed us, or keep our homes warm, or transport us to where we need to go.
Not saying it does, it is overhead and is being cut.
Dennis L.
And you talk about biology. Be consistent.
No argument, there is no economics without biology. Economics without biology is not practiced by the universe as far as I know.
AI will be interesting, if/when it is sentient, how will that affect economics and perhaps alter the place of biology in economics. Two parallel tracks of economics as it were.
Dennis L.
you forgot about becoming a singularity
when that happens, you can ask a friend to lick you under a stamp and post you to wherever you want to go
cheap and no pollution from exhausts or whatever.
“under a stamp”
Better yet, if you are an upload, you go by optical fiber and download in a body at Hertz Rent-a-Bod.
I once wrote a riff off a disturbance at a rental counter I saw where someone had ordered some impressive vehicle and when they go there, all he could get was this motorized roller skate.
So this guy comes out of the transfer booth in a snit because he had been downloaded into a Woody Allen body when he had ordered the Arnold Schwarzenegger body.
As I said, the future is all around you right there in America. You just don’t want to see it.
I have yet to see a Hertz-Rent-a-Bod counter, but I will watch for one. 🙂
i agree keith
if i got frozen…..i definitely wouldnt want to get defrosted with this 90 yr old body tyvm, even though its still in full working order
One of my friends in cryonic suspension is blind. He wrote into his contract that he is not to be revived until his blindness can be fixed. No problem, the technology required to get someone out of suspension can fix just about anything.
Probably not. AI will eliminate the bs jobs. Not real jobs. Ask copilot and it will again reply with a hundred coukds and woulds.
I use AI/copilot greatly in my studies, it is a wonderful tutor, always on so far. The circuits work so I assume it is correct in that area.
Wish to build autonomous farm equipment, that software would be impossible for me alone, hope with AI.
Note this has been done on YouTube, have a base “toy” already on the way from Germany. Raspberry pi computers were used, knitting all the software together will be a challenge, impossible on my own. If that works, then cobble something together on a more substantial machine.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8WydeGgRCq8
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSF04i3zNGw&t=31s
There is no way to do this with JD in an economical manner. I only want to mow my crp land, at least that would be a start. See myself sitting on my patio, a door opens in the machine shed, a mower emerges, goes to a fueling station for a sip of diesel and then off to the fields.
AI allows one to understand this, sew the parts together. Well, that is my story, at worst it is a hobby which passes time for an old man. It is incredible what is on YouTube and the knowledge which is being shared. The second video has reference to the software, it is tough stuff for this old guy. Copilot to the rescue? I think Copilot by your side means you have a tutor for all these subjects; it is not necessary to learn the broad background, one can learn specifics.
The software on the second link is on GitHub. GitHub is incredible, again Copilot or similar to help sort through.
You cannot do this sort of thing alone, GitHub, YouTube means a group of sorts.
Currently, my guess is AI has a great deal in common with the Library of Congress in a searchable and accessible form.
Now, if I get my cubic mile of Pt, my solar can make H, and, well, you get the idea.
Dennis L.
Hmmm, sounds a lot to me like we need to tax the rich more and reduce taxes on the poor.
We have a situation wherein a large chunk of the money the rich possesses doesn’t go towards productive investment, but instead goes towards stripping wealth from the rest of society through rent-seeking, thus making honest endeavours less viable/unprofitable, eroding the middle class and immiserating the poor.
We have, as Turchin says, an ‘overproduction of elites’, including too many rentier capitalists.
The rich simply have too much money now. The abstract claims that this money represents on real goods and services has been allowed to spool up exponentially to ludicrous levels in comparison to the finite, real, economy.
With the fall affordable energy, perhaps many enterprises are no longer as attractive to the rich as investments, or perhaps there are simply only so many productive investments that are actually worth investing in in a finite world, and so the rich direct great buckets of their money, along with whatever additional great heapings of money get periodically helicoptered to them, towards buying things that have already been made that might offer a return (maybe even a better return), such as real estate, gold, art, collectible cars, etc. rather than investing in more productive enterprises?
Whatever those things are, once the rich start bidding on them nobody else can compete.
And so we get to where we are now, when the sheer scale of the money that the rich have isn’t good for society and is destroying the middle class. We know what a society looks like that is missing a middle-class – it looks like the third world. So, to avoid that we should tax the rich and lower taxes on the poor.
How might that fit in with the debt jubilee that B proposes? Does it have to be one or the other?
Por que no los dos?
Why not raise the taxes on the rich, and lower taxes on the poor. Plus offer a debt jubilee by reducing everyone’s debt by $X while giving a commensurate amount of $ to those who have no debt.
The general idea being to recover and free up resources to enable them to be put back into productive use.
The rich simply have too much money now.
The economy does not run on money.
So, there’s even less reason not to tax the rich.
It would only have negative results for the supposed beneficiaries.
No, it wouldn’t. An increase in equality would be good for them.
No, it wouldn’t. An increase in equality would be good for them.
It would make the problem worse. Money does not make cheap food or goods or energy or housing magically appear if they don’t exist.
So having more equality would make inequality worse?
Sorry, you can’t have it both ways.
Either the money matters, or it doesn’t.
But yes, I accept that money is an abstract claim on real things, and that it does not create real things.
Let’s discover then what difference money makes, in reality, by way of raising taxes on the rich and lowering them on the poor.
So having more equality would make inequality worse?
There wouldn’t be more equality. Handing out tokens (money) to people doesn’t do anything except make price inflation much worse if the production of affordable stuff can’t be increased, and it can’t.
“There wouldn’t be more equality. Handing out tokens (money) to people doesn’t do anything except make price inflation much worse if the production of affordable stuff can’t be increased, and it can’t.”
The distribution of tokens matters.
Ownership matters.
At the moment, one tiny group gets the overwhelmingly vast lion’s share of tokens, which they use to drive up the price of finite goods through the process of buying them to own them.
That is what is actually happening right now.
But if we change the distribution of tokens, then we can change who gets to own what,
We have all heard Proudhon’s assertion that “property is theft!”, but fewer have heard the other half which is “property is liberty!”.
As I said, ownership matters.
You also keep returning to this point about depletion of resources as if this means there’s no point in changing anything.
Yes, I understand that resources are depleting. Yes, I understand that this civilization is (barring a miracle, which do happen from time to time) going to collapse (I am actually surprised it is taking so long, having been maintaining a watching brief on this issue for the last 20 years), and no, I do not believe that anything I am suggesting here is going to change that.
Nor do I think that anyone gets to live forever, and I am not suggesting the fountain of youth here, or life everlasting, or a forever utopia, my understanding is that only Jesus gets to offer that, and I’m not him.
Nevertheless, I would suggest that how we live before we die matters.
The distribution of tokens matters.
If you hand out tokens to people who will then attempt to spend said tokens, but the goods/energy/food/services don’t exist to buy, then all you have is a bigger problem.
It seems to me that you would have a world where one tiny minority gets a vastly disproportionate level of ownership and access to vast amounts of goods and services, essentially sole access and control over politicians, and to everything else. Sayonara merit, justice. or any other consideration, all that matters is the amount of money they have.
And yes, a rich person can only eat so much. Even if they chose to eat only the most endangered animals, they could still only have so much impact as an individual.
But that one rich person can still have a far outsized impact in other ways. That one person can, for example, up-bid and own vast tracts of property.
That one individual can own a gold-plated superyacht, and their own private helicopter and airplane, and mansion/s and burn an Olympic sized swimming pool of fossil fuel in a cruise around Majorca, and. . . and. . . and. . .
Human nature doesn’t change, I guess. I recall hearing that before the collapse of Rome that there were complaints about the wasteful and over the top and ‘unseemly’ displays of wealth by Roman elites – paving oceans to build mansions and what have you.
They also had some serious equality issues.
Humankind, by social consensus, instigated a social system whereby, broadly speaking, the planet itself became a cash asset.
i.e—we decided that the planet was ‘property’—and as such could be bought and sold at will, using an ever growing pile of self-created ”money”.
It is part of the human condition that we have skills—so we use those skill to better our living condition—-we acquire a bigger house, nicer cothes, and so on.
problem is—that some of us are wwwwwwwaaayyyy better that others in our chosen fields—which might give you a Mozart, or a Shakepeare, or an Einstein.
And when it comes to money–the sactor applies—hence you get muli-billionaires, because they are far better than most at what they do.
that applied the same in ancient rome as it does in our own time.
So wealth and status goes on being accumulated, not because it is necessary—but because that status feels good to have……greed if you like.—Nobody needs 6 houses, but people acquire them for status.
This 10000 ton yacht is owned by one man as a super-status symbol, acquired by looting the planet.—just one example of the point I’m making
https://www.adayacht.com/en/news/super-yacht-nord
The collapse of the Roman empire was not caused by inequality. In fact it was the opposite, the collapse was accelerated by the spread of high quality consumer goods to the non wealthy.
“And when it comes to money–the sactor applies—hence you get muli-billionaires, because they are far better than most at what they do.”
Really? Elon is better at inheriting an emerald mine than any of us are. Trump is better at inheriting a real estate empire.
They are not so much faaaaaaarrrrr better than anyone as they are simply faaaaaaaarrrrr better at choosing who their parents are.
“The collapse of the Roman empire was not caused by inequality. In fact it was the opposite, the collapse was accelerated by the spread of high quality consumer goods to the non wealthy.”
I’m sure there are a thousand reasons and opinions, according to Turchin, who is raised in the article Gail posted by B:
“The short answer is the structural-demographic theory.
A somewhat longer answer, suitable for a blog: Growing political instability is first and foremost a result of elite overproduction leading to excessive intra-elite competition and conflict. This main driver is supplemented by mass mobilization of non-elites resulting from popular immiseration and by failing fiscal health of the state.”
https://peterturchin.com/fall-rome-happen/
I’m sure there are a thousand reasons and opinions, according to Turchin,
I know why it collapsed. I don’t need anyone to tell me why they imagine it did. The reasons are very simple.
Yes, very true. It is necessary for the economy to have resources and energy, but not sufficient. To put it all together requires the incredible intelligence of man and a society which recognizes and allows that fact to exist so all can benefit. In the end, it is far from perfect or fair.
Dennis L.
you are quite correct in the observation that investment in basic industry no longer produces sufficient return.
hence diversion of money into land and property, which does give a better return.—but that pushes property prices through the roof……as is happening right now.
but you cannot have a debt jubilee, because that would wipe out the economic system by which we all function.
you have a loan on a car—which is then cancelled, which means that you get your car for free.
If you get your car for free—who pays the auto-workers?
if , say, your mortgage was declared void, then the structure of your loan company would collapse……good…you might say,
but then that would mean that the savings of millions in that loan company would also be wiped out.
what then?
not offering solutions—-just pointing out a few problems
“not offering solutions—-just pointing out a few problems”
Problems without solutions – you are in tune with the times!
More seriously, I seem to recall Steve Keen, an Australian economist, once suggested offering all Australian mortgage holders a $X debt jubilee (I can’t recall the figure, let’s say it was $200k for argument’s sake) while simultaneously offering those who didn’t have a mortgage a commensurate sum for use on investments only.
Keen suggested paying this money into superannuation accounts, which are investment accounts that can only be accessed by Australians in retirement.
Keen’s thinking was to avoid providing an unfair advantage to those who took out mortgages over those who didn’t in the jubilee, and also to direct those funds towards productive investments – i.e. into industries that employ people.
Perhaps this would help mitigate some of the problems you mentioned? Or maybe not. Maybe some pain is inevitable/necessary no matter what now that the problems have spooled up.
No doubt raising taxes on the rich and lowering them on wage earners would also have problems that would need resolving, mitigating, or accepting, but I still haven’t heard a compelling argument as to why this shouldn’t be done.
the overriding problem is that we have built and economic system based on infinite debt
stop it, and we all fall off our collective bike.
money is just a token of energy—it isnt possible, in the long term, to produce ”money” without underpinning it with corresponding energy.
this worked fine as long as energy was cheap and surplus to our ongoing needs, because energy and money more or less balanced out over time.
now it isnt cheap—we can no longer produce enough energy to match our monetary aspirations—so we create debt instead, and call it income.
Well, I might be splitting hairs, but I reckon the overriding problem is that there are too many humans consuming too much stuff – we are in ecological overshoot.
This situation seems to be exacerbated by our capitalist ‘operating system’ which is based on ever ramping endless, unfettered, unchecked growth in a limited system, which is out of lockstep with the finite reality of the world we are embedded in, so the operating system needs to go away, and it is going to go away. The whole industrial-technological system in which capitalism is embedded is going to go away as well, because sooner or later it will eat or pollute itself to death – and most of us will probably go with it.
In the interim, I am fine with taxing the rich and lowering taxes on wages.
Are we in control of events? Probably not. Would the industrial-technological system destroy everything irrespective of a radical change to the ‘operating system’ it runs? Probably.
I understand that humans are hierarchical, greedy social animals etc. There is no limit to greed. But you know what? You are just giving me more reasons here for taxing the rich and. . . .
correct again on too many people
but we are the only species to use fuels to grow food as a commercial enterprise
and the make tools to grow even more food to grow more people
all this using brains that have not evolved since the stone age—-that remains the cumulative cause of our current condition.
in the stone age, acquisition, though limited, was critical to to survival of self and offspring…and tribe.
if you were the best hunter, you got to mate with the best females (they saw to that)—and reproduced the best offspring.
we still have the same mindset.
in the stone age, the world was ”infinite”—you hunted, reproduced yourself and died relatively young, a lot of your offspring died too.
in the last 300 years, fossil fuels changed that dynamic—hence we have 8bn instead of 1bn.
the earth will correct this anomaly, in ways we are just beginning to become aware of
You’re too caught up in the present fake economy which is already falling apart and not worth thinking about.
Doesn’t matter what juggling you do with taxes or whatever, it’s still just a band aid on a severed limb. The four horsemen are riding, can’t you hear the hoof beats?
“can’t you hear the hoof beats?”
Yes, I can, but I’ve been hearing them coming for a long time.
But that’s not an argument against taxing the rich.
And if it’s all fake and doomed, then who cares if the rich don’t get to own it all?
And if it’s all fake and doomed, then who cares if the rich don’t get to own it all?
You would just be making the problems worse as I have explained to you in detail.
Guess:
To have basic industry work requires an educated and orderly society with a common set of values. For the latter, pick a set which works and use it; I think basically they are all the same idea with local adaptations.
It is going to be a challenge and the result in not guaranteed, but a society will do it.
Dennis L.
Said respectfully,
Yours is an old narrative of why the world is as it is. My thesis is the world is 80/20, this is a deep, underlying law of the universe. All attempts to go around it have been to date less than successful.
There is some discussion that Mao’s great leap was in essence necessary to clear the way for the future; China’s growth and improvement for the people is hard to dispute. I would hope mankind does not have to be as harsh as the great leap; terrible time.
Dennis L.
We have already gotten to the point where the poor in the US get enough subsidies that their lifestyles closely match those of the working poor. This leads to unhappiness–why should I work so hard, if the folks who aren’t working can come out this well?
Taxing the very rich is difficult to do, because much of their wealth is in unrealized capital gains, and in values of shares of stock. Or the value of a business that is operating.
Ethnic cleansing in Syria, while Europe is re-arming itself against an imaginary enemy.
Over 1.000 civilians killed of the moderate Al Awiti group.
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/1-018-killed-in-ongoing-massacres-against-minorities-in-syri
And previously
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/over-300-syrian-alawite-civilians-killed-in-latest-killings
all europeans, including the italians, are a bunch of hypocrites…
When there is not enough to go around, it seems like minorities of whatever kind are the ones killed.
Also shocking, the EU has come out in favor of al Jalani. What a piece of trash Kallas is, and Italy should really watch it and try not to get confused with these people once things change.
https://x.com/eu_eeas/status/1898487797348225207?ref_src=twsrc%5Egoogle%7Ctwcamp%5Eserp%7Ctwgr%5Etweet
Drb, that is hilarious.
During these latest killings only people from Alawiti faction were the ones killed.
Assad’s faction is actually Alawiti one.
So, according to EU, pro Assad fighters are killing themselves, making themselves disappear, making a hostile act against the current government….
And, sorry for all the posts, they are also preventing the election winner in Romania from running in the new elections. This EU really is a cancer that needs to be removed.
Agreed, Russia and US should join together and bring democracy to EU.
And you have to know that yesterday evening in super main Italian stream media and propaganda tv program by Fabio Fazio (the anchor man super supporter of mRNA therapy and green pass) there was journalist Cecilia Sala speaking (the one recently put in prison in Iran and released with a deal made by the Italian governement).
Mrs. Sala said that Georgescu, the very dangerous far right candidate, is financially supported by Russia and his bodyguard, who is also a mercenary (not clear of what), was caught by police with a suitcase full of cash and knifes (not clear what can be the danger of knives to make a revolution in Romania and not clear the origin of the cash if ever the news is true) and every body, including other guests at the tv program and the anchor man himself were orrified by that non sense information.
I am glad to see the US is not the only country with a faction that does not believe in reality and common sense.
Europe is undergoing an imaginary re-armanent.
Woke delusion, DEI aka institutionalised incompetence, green ‘energy’, lack of resources esp. energy etc means that industrially it’s going down the plughole.
It seems man has been subject to this for all time; it makes reality bearable?
No sarcasm, at times we need hope to make it through today to get to tomorrow.
Dennis L.
If we don’t have something that really works, we find something that has a few favorable characteristics, and start subsidizing it endlessly. It doesn’t really make it work.
Too many people have faith that energy prices will rise endlessly. In such a situation, there seems to be a possibility that any idea will work, even if the total cost is extremely how now. But energy prices tend to fall, squeezing out the high-cost producers.
Like yoyr imaginart starship which orbits in some virtual space
United Russia Criticized for Gifting Meat Grinders to Fallen Soldiers’ Mothers
https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/03/07/united-russia-criticized-for-gifting-meat-grinders-to-fallen-soldiers-mothers-a88281
Oh for Christ’s sake. What kind of bumpkin would believe this nonsense.
MG does…
We here in Central Europe are accustomed to humor depicting how things can go wrong in Russia. There is a lot of jokes from the communist past. Only those, who did not experience it, can idealize Russia.
did the article also mention that deodorants were also gifted to the families?
You hate Russians, I get it. I’m sure Russians don’t feel as strongly about Slavonia.
Best life lesson Russia ever got was the Soviet Union.
What ever happened to the Saudi City in the middle of the desert? 😬 You really have to question the world leadership at this time I think they are mostly blind. The wealthier someone is the more blind they become. Trump has no idea what he is doing…he is almost as bad as Biden just on a different scale
He is fumbling his way towards trying to avoid nuclear war. I will take a clumsy attempt at avoidance over professional attempts at starting one.
Good point!
Something Huge for the MAHA Movement Is About To Happen
—Matt Margolis
The foxes are about to meet the new guardian of the henhouse, and it promises to be quite the showdown! Health and Human Services Secretary Robert F. Kennedy Jr., is scheduled to meet with executives from General Mills, PepsiCo, and other food industry giants on Monday, according to a report from Politico. And boy, do they have some explaining to do. Kennedy, who’s been waging war against what he calls the “chemical-intensive processed foods” poisoning Americans, isn’t exactly known for pulling punches. During his Senate confirmation hearing in January, he boldly declared what many of us have known for years: “Something is poisoning the American people.” Now he’s taking his fight directly to the corporate boardrooms of Big Food.
The timing couldn’t be more perfect—or more terrifying—for these corporate executives. With the Health and Agriculture Departments set to craft new Dietary Guidelines for Americans this year, the stakes couldn’t be higher. These guidelines shape everything from what our kids eat at school to what your doctor tells you about nutrition. What’s particularly interesting about this whole situation is that the Consumer Brands Association—the very group representing these food giants—initiated the meeting proposal back in February. This could be a sign they’re willing to do what it takes to make foods healthy again, or they’re going to play offense against the changes Kennedy wants to make. So what’s going to happen with to their precious seed oils and chemical additives? Will Big Food capitulate to the Make America Healthy Again (MAHA) movement?
The meeting agenda remains “undecided” as of Friday, which has apparently caused quite the stir among CBA board members. It could mean they are trying to figure out how to defend their ultra-processed food empire against someone who’s made it his mission to expose their role in America’s chronic illness epidemic. But some industry insiders are whispering that these CEOs might actually cave to Kennedy’s demands. The real question is whether these corporate bigwigs will finally acknowledge their role in America’s health crisis, or continue hiding behind their slick marketing campaigns and army of lobbyists. Kennedy’s appointment signals that the days of business as usual might be coming to an end for Big Food.
Several fast food chains have recently announced they are switching to beef tallow for frying. One such chain is Steak ‘n Shake, which announced its support of RFK Jr. and the MAHA movement on Friday. One thing’s certain: Monday’s meeting won’t be your typical corporate kumbaya session. With Kennedy’s track record of calling out food conglomerates for their role in increasing childhood chronic illnesses, these executives better bring more than their usual PR talking points to the table. The American people are watching, and they’re tired of being force-fed chemicals disguised as food. It’s about time someone in Washington had the courage to stand up to these corporate giants. Monday can’t come soon enough.
https://pjmedia.com/matt-margolis/2025/03/08/rfk-jr-makes-a-huge-move-to-make-america-healthy-again-n4937706#google_vignette
It looks like there are a whole lot of things that need to be fixed.
One issue that has been brought up recently is the use of emulsifiers in food seems to be very bad for human health. Wrecks the intestinal biome.
https://www.wsj.com/health/wellness/emulsifiers-make-food-more-appealing-do-they-also-make-you-sick-be0850ae
https://rollingout.com/2025/01/23/emulsifiers-gut-health-risks-research/
https://www.healthline.com/health/food-nutrition/what-are-emulsifiers
https://www.livestrong.com/article/13779215-emulsifiers-in-food-are-they-bad/
Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar of India just suffered a heart attack
https://x.com/samachar2023_/status/1898652476083200020
‘Pray For His Good Health, Speedy Recovery’: PM Modi Visits Vice President Dhankhar At AIIMS
https://www.news18.com/india/pm-modi-visits-vice-president-jagdeep-dhankhar-aiims-delhi-wishes-him-speedy-recovery-9254966.html
Good riddance to bad rubbish .
Capitol Hill Lawmakers Drop Disturbing Details Allegedly Revealing the Dire Health Issues and Behaviors
“We all know how poorly members of Congress behave and represent the American people, but now lawmakers are dropping damning information allegedly revealing how dire the situation on Capitol Hill really is.
, several members have shown multiple signs of cognitive decline, and there are two glaring examples that immediately come to mind. The first is late California Senator Dianne Feinstein.
Feinstein held onto office despite being so diminished mentally that she had no choice but to give up power of attorney to her daughter as the New York Post notes. Then, in December 2024, Texas GOP representative Kay Granger was found in a dementia care home last year after going missing from Congress for six months.
This is on top of the numerous falls we have seen from other elderly politicians like Rep. Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY).
Rep. Jim Himes (D-CT) told Politico that up to a dozen of his colleagues are in advanced stages of cognitive decline and have no clue what they are voting on.
“There’s no question that somewhere between six and a dozen of my colleagues are at a point where they’re… I think they don’t have the faculties to do their job,” he revealed.
A Republican lawmaker who withheld his name agreed with Himes that dementia on the Hill was a problem and added this:
“I have a difficult time sometimes telling between the deterioration of members and a handful who are just not very smart.”
Rep. Don Beyer (D-VA) dropped even more disturbing information to Politico: members of Congress are showing up drunk and high as they go to vote.
“I’ve seen one Republican who, unfortunately for you, has to go unnamed, show up drunk a number of times,” he said. “There were one or two Dems I thought might be high on something but not drunk.”
https://www.politico.com/news/magazine/2025/03/07/lawmakers-spill-what-congress-is-really-like-00205491
Sad state of affairs!
Raviuppal quoted someone called HHH (link?):
“The dollar market outside the US is something like 4-5 times as large as the dollar market inside the US. Yes there is an enormous amount of dollar denominated debt that resides on the balance sheets of banks that are outside the US. They issued the debt in dollars. Not US banks. So any default would hurt the banks that issued the debt.
Most people think moving away from the dollar hurts the US. It hurts the US the least out of every single country.”
This argument doesn’t convince me because it sounds too much like backhanded self-conceit: “my only fault is that I’m too selfless” etc. It doesn’t really matter whether countries embrace or reject “the dollar” because that’s an abstract idea formally expressing the structural reality of export to US (and other NATO/OECD) markets as the primary source of profit. And that structure itself is actively imposed on the mass of their populations by both domestic and foreign beneficiaries of the overall system, taking different forms ranging from USAID to war.
What’s happening is net energy/resource constraints necessitating global austerity and everything that comes with it, as well as China/Russia becoming alternative markets partially independent of the US/NATO ones. This is neither a transition to “buy local grow local” nor “multipolarity”, it is just a globalized system that is imploding from its own inherent contradictions. Needless to say (I hope) the decisions and personality of the president/party in charge of the US government at any given moment is irrelevant to all of this. I mean Biden was braindead for at least half of his tenure, one would think that would be sufficient proof of that but apparently not. Oh well.
I would agree that this is a globalized system that is imploding for lack of resources. It hurts everyone.
Making synthetic fuel from trash and intermittent renewable energy
H. Keith Henson hkhenson@gmail.com
Abstract
This paper explores making synthetic fuel from trash and coal using
renewable energy. The key reaction, dating back to the 1850s,
involves heating carbon in steam to produce hydrogen and carbon
monoxide. This endothermic reaction requires heating, traditionally
done by alternately burning coke and injecting steam. Using
intermittent renewable electricity for heating is now feasible.
A metric ton of carbon requires 3.03 MWh of heat to produce 13.1 MWh
of syngas; a 4 to 1 energy gain. The gas can be stored, burned, or
converted into methane, jet fuel, or diesel. The water-gas shift
reaction can be used to increase the hydrogen at the expense of CO.
The resultant CO2 (about half) can be sorted out of the gas stream and
sequestered.
Following the water-gas shift, the Fischer-Tropsch (FT) process
converts syngas into hydrocarbons, with water as a byproduct.
A practical example involves using 9,000 tons of trash daily from the
Sylmar, CA landfill supplemented with coal, to produce syngas. The
project would need significant power and infrastructure, including a
3-GW vaporizer and new high-voltage DC lines.
The venture could generate over $600 million annually from the sale of
diesel, with costs for coal and power totaling $241 million. The
project addresses landfill overuse and methane leakage, and provides a
renewable energy solution for synthetic fuel production, though it
requires substantial investment and the development of a 3-GW
gasifier.
Background
History
In the early days of the Industrial Revolution, “gas works” made “town
gas” by heating coke (burning it) then shutting off the air and
blowing steam into the white hot coke. This made CO and hydrogen.
The proposal here is to heat any carbon source in steam with renewable
power and then feed the syngas to a FT plant to make liquid fuels. It
takes 3 MWh to vaporize a ton of carbon in steam. (Making the steam
takes 0.33 MWh/ton of carbon.) This avoids burning the carbon to
provide process heat.
“Town gas is a more general term referring to manufactured gaseous
fuels produced for sale to consumers and municipalities.
The original coal gas was produced by the coal gasification reaction,”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gas check source
about 1/3rd of the way into the article.
“The problem of nitrogen dilution was overcome by the blue water gas
(BWG) process, developed in the 1850s by Sir William Siemens. The
incandescent fuel bed would be alternately blasted with air followed
by steam. The air reactions during the blow cycle are exothermic,
heating up the bed, while the steam reactions during the make cycle,
are endothermic and cool down the bed. The products from the air
cycle contain non-calorific nitrogen and are exhausted out the stack
while the products of the steam cycle are kept as blue water gas.
This gas is composed almost entirely of CO and H2, and burns with a
pale blue flame similar to natural gas.”
Chemistry
The chemical reaction upon which this depends is:
H2O + C → H2 + CO (ΔH = +131 kJ/mol)
18 12 2 28
“The reaction is endothermic, so the fuel must be continually
re-heated to maintain the reaction.“ (Wikipedia). Traditionally this
was done by alternately blowing air and steam through the hot coke,
burning a lot of the coke to drive the reaction. The idea of heating
the coke (or other carbon source) with electricity would not have made
economic sense at that time, even if someone had thought of it.
Carbon is 12 g/mol, 83.3 mol/kg; a kg would soak up 10900 kJ. A ton
of carbon evaporated in steam would need 10,900,000 kJ or 3.03 MW
hours.
This would produce 1/6th of a ton of hydrogen with a combustion energy
content of 39.4 MWh/ton, about 6.57 MWh. The CO combustion energy is
10.1 MJ/kg. A ton of carbon produces 2,333 kg or about 6.55 MWh. The
reaction makes about 13.1 MWh of syngas from a ton of carbon and 3 MWh
of renewable electric power, an energy gain of over 4. Most of the
energy in the gas is from carbon sources such as trash or coal.
It’s an efficient way to use intermittent power, though. From this
point, the gas can be stored for winter, burned in combustion
turbines, or made into methane, jet fuel, gasoline, or diesel.
Making Liquid Fuels
“The FT is a collection of chemical reactions that converts a mixture
of carbon monoxide and hydrogen, known as syngas, into liquid
hydrocarbons. These reactions occur in the presence of metal
catalysts, typically at temperatures of 150–300 °C (302–572 °F) and
pressures of one to several tens of atmospheres. The FT process is an
important reaction in both coal liquefaction and gas-to-liquids
technology for producing liquid hydrocarbons.[1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fischer%E2%80%93Tropsch_process
The FT reaction is:
CO + 2H2 → (CH2)n + H2O. Half the CO in raw syngas must be converted
to hydrogen via the water-gas shift reaction.
CO + H2O → CO2 + H2. This CO2, about half, can be sorted out and stored.
Sasol has an FT plant in Qatar which makes 34,000 bbl/day of synthetic
diesel. It has run since 2007.
Development
The only part of this proposal that does not already exist at scale is
the electrically heated gasifier. There is no reason it would be very
expensive per ton of capacity, certainly much less than
platinum-containing electrolytic cells used to make hydrogen.
One problem with using trash for a carbon source is that we don’t make
enough of it. Can we collect enough biomass? Possibly. It would
reduce the cost of waste collection if biomass were collected with the
trash.
Producing hydrogen
Optimized for hydrogen production, a ton of carbon can make 1/3rd of a
ton of hydrogen at an energy cost of 3.3 MWh. A ton of hydrogen would
take 10 MWh to make. At $20/MWh, the cost would be $200/ton or 20
cents per kg. To this must be added the capital cost of the plant and
the disposal cost of the CO2, but even so, it should come in less than
the $1.50/kg cost of gray hydrogen. Electrolytic hydrogen takes 50
MWh/ton to make, 5 times as much energy and requires expensive
platinum.
If the cost of a 9,000-ton per day plant is a billion dollars, written
off in 5 years, the yearly production of hydrogen would be $1B/(3,000
t/d x 365 d/y x 5 y) or around $180/ton. That about doubles the cost
of hydrogen to 40 cents per kg, which is still a bargain.
A back-of-the-envelope example
The closest landfill to where I live (Sylmar, CA) gets 9,000 tons of
trash per day. Call it 4,000 tons/day of carbon. An installation
half the size of Sasol’s Oryx plant (which makes 17,000 bbl/day) would
need about 8,500 tons of carbon (half lost to making hydrogen), so it
would need ~4,500 tons of coal per day in addition. That is around 45
rail cars per day which is a modest amount, and there is a nearby rail
line.
Vaporizing this amount of carbon would be 8,500 t/24h x 3 MWh/t, a
little over a GW. If peak load (when renewable power is available)
were 3 times average, the vaporizer would use 3 GW. That just happens
to be the capacity of the nearby Sylmar converter station, so the
power lines could handle it.
It is about 40 miles from the landfill to a Chevron refinery where the
syngas could be processed into synthetic jet fuel and diesel. There
are several old oil fields along the route. It would take effort to
decide if the oil fields were suitable to store a buffer of syngas,
but they probably are.
Rough Economic Analysis
Income at $100/bbl ($2.40/gal) for diesel, the gross annual sales of
this venture would be 17,000 bbl/day x 365 days/year x $100/bbl or ~
$620 M/year.
Figuring cost, the trash is free, and the coal is $66 million (at
$40/ton). The power would cost 3,000 MW x 365 days/year x 8 hours/day
x $20/MWh or $175 million per year. (The least expensive PV is $13.50
per MWh.) This leaves $405 million gross income per year.
Maintenance and labor might reduce this to $250 M. For a 5-year
return on capital, the project could cost up to $1.25 B. The Sasol
plant cost a billion dollars, but that included a refinery. I wonder
if there is an unused pipeline close to the 405 freeway. If not,
pipelines are around $8 million a mile.
Research and Development
The one part of this project that does not exist at scale is a 3 GW
vaporizer. That’s an awful lot of power but not unprecedented for
industrial processes. A blast furnace for iron production ranges from
1 to 5 GW, most of it from the combustion of coke. Arc furnaces for
mini steel mills are much smaller, typically 50 MW (they are melting,
not reducing the iron). Arc is probably not the right approach to
heat trash or coal. Induction heating might be better, though this is
60 times more power than any existing induction furnace. A
complicating factor for induction heating is that the furnace shell
can’t be a conductor. How much hoop stress would be needed to contain
the pressure needs to be calculated. It should not be much worse than
water.
Figuring trash at a density of one, and a holding time of a day, the
interior volume of the furnace would be 9,000 cubic meters. The
largest blast furnace in the world is 6,000 cubic meters. If the
furnace were a 45-meter-tall cylinder, it would be a little over 16 m
in diameter.
Gas Flow
The flow of syngas would be 1/6 ton of H2 per ton of carbon. Hydrogen
is 500 mol/kg, 500 k mol/ton; 1/6 ton would be 83.3 k mol. At STP, a
mol of a gas fills 22.4 l, 1/6 ton would have a volume of 1867 kl. The
CO volume is equal, so 3,733 cubic meters of gas flow per hour per ton
of carbon vaporized. For a peak of 1,000 tons per hour, the gas flow
would be 3,733,000 cubic meters per hour. The proposed furnace is 200
square meters in area making the upward gas flow around 3,733,000
m3/200 m2 per hour or ~5 m/s (11 mph). That does not include the
pyrolysis gas or the water vapor from drying out the trash. This is
probably not too fast to lift the trash, but further research is
needed.
Vaporizing 8,500 tons of carbon per day would need about 12,800 tons
of steam or 531 tons per hour or 0.147 ton/s or 147 kg of steam per
second. Assuming water at 100 degrees C, and 2,257 kJ/kg to boil, it
would take 331,779 kJ/sec to boil the water or 332 MW, or about ten
percent of the power input to vaporize the carbon in steam. How the
steam would be generated and introduced is TBD. (The newly made
syngas has to be cooled, and it is hotter than 100 C.) Steam use will
be three times higher in peak production periods.
Gas Cleanup
The bottom of the induction furnace will have a pool of slag which
must be drained off from time to time. The gas flow would be up
through 40 meters of trash. This should remove most of the pyrolysis
products (smoke, bio oil) and recycle the carbon down where it can be
vaporized. The remainder will be cleaned up with a heated catalytic
grid or alternately a plasma torch. The steam content of the gas
stream will need to be controlled.
One safety issue is apparent. If the syngas is going to be used to
make liquid fuels, about 1/3 would be CO. A leak of the magnitude of
the Aliso Canyon leak could kill a large number of people from the CO.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aliso_Canyon_gas_leak
This will have to be addressed. Leaking syngas could be burned.
Another consideration is that considerable energy is released in the
FT reaction. The possibility of this happening in a storage reservoir
needs to be addressed.
Funding a Study
Modern warfare is completely dependent on jet fuel and diesel.
However, we live at the tail end of the fossil fuels era. While
supplies are currently adequate, this will not be true in the long
term. The US DoD had an experimental project that made 11 gallons of
diesel from a ton of trash. This method, using renewable energy for
heat, would make about 80 gallons per ton of trash supplemented with
coal.
The proposal which might be presented to DARPA is to use trash and
coal heated by renewable power in steam to make syngas. The syngas
can be turned into jet fuel and diesel by FT plants.
There are lots of engineering and economic problems to solve, but the
point is that intermittent renewable energy can be used to make
synthetic fuel to replace that which is made from oil.
The induction-heated vaporizer is as big as the largest blast furnace.
It would take 8-10 of these to make the Los Angeles trash into diesel.
At 5 square km/GW for PV, 15 km2 for one of them, 150 km2 for enough
power to make diesel out of all the Los Angeles trash. The existing
Pacific Intertie is 3 GW, so to get the power into the vaporizers
would take ~10 new high-voltage DC lines.
It’s a huge job, but possible with existing technology.
I don’t know if it can it be done before existing technology is obsolete.
Nanotechnology would probably allow a home fuel machine.
Environmental Considerations
Another problem this solves is that the US has been overrun by
landfills. The EU and China use incinerators that could be replaced
by this method to make syngas.
This proposal would stop landfill leakage of methane. Landfill
leakage is a substantial source of methane.
The process would eliminate persistent chemicals and drugs if sewer
digester sludge were included in the feed.
This process eliminates plastics of all kinds. Unlike incinerators,
it releases no dioxins to the environment from PVC.
Harvested brush could be used in place of coal.
Energy Considerations
A problem with renewables is that the grid cannot absorb them when the
load is smaller than the supply, leading to curtailment.
This is wasteful, but using this energy to make hydrogen is too
expensive. The electrolyzers are expensive largely due to the
platinum in them and using them less than all the time increases the
effective capital cost. (Any capital equipment used ¼ of the time
increases the capital cost by a factor of 4.)
This proposal would purposely install much more renewable power than
the grid could absorb and use all the power in excess of grid need to
make fuel.
Objections
> Trash is “not a resource.”
It is a source of carbon, though. If you have lots of excess
renewable power and a low cost source of carbon, you can make diesel
for around $20/bbl. The big problem is that we don’t make enough
trash.
Converting syngas to jet fuel or diesel is around 75 percent
efficient. It is well understood. The Sasol plant in Qatar has been
operating since 2007 and a previous version was supplying much of the
fuel for South Africa during the apartheid era.
> What are the specific challenges in scaling up this process to a commercially viable level, especially in terms of integrating intermittent renewable energy?
The one piece that does not exist at scale is the electrically heated vaporizer.
> What is the most efficient way to store and transport the syngas produced by this reaction?
The only economical way I am aware of for storage is an empty gas or
oil field. Transport is by pipeline.
> How do you plan to address the long-term sustainability of this process, especially in terms of CO2 emissions and air capture?
If you are making hydrogen from coal this way, you can capture and
store all the CO2. In making fuel, half the carbon is in the fuel and
is released when the fuel is used. If half the carbon comes from
biomass or trash, the accounting is more complicated. The fuel might
be rated as carbon neutral. Eventually, all the carbon will have to
come from biomass or be taken out of the air if humans are still using
hydrocarbon fuels. None of these will be problems after
nanotechnology comes along, but who knows how long that will take?
>What are the potential costs and environmental trade-offs compared to other forms of renewable energy storage or synthetic fuel production?
There isn’t any storage out there for renewable energy that scales to
seasons. Such synthetic fuel production that exists is many times as
expensive as oil.
All the trash that Los Angeles produces plus about half that much in
coal would supply the US military with fuel.
Wonderful article, Keith. Well done!
When is it coming out in paperback?
You have put a lot of work into this. Thanks for your efforts.
It seems like when processes are tried out, there are always little additional things that no one thought of in advance. So cost estimates tend to go up rather than down.
One thing you say is,
“The one part of this project that does not exist at scale is a 3 GW
vaporizer. That’s an awful lot of power but not unprecedented for
industrial processes.”
I am wondering if this would be a roadblock. California is power deficient, to begin with, which is why you are looking this.
“So cost estimates”
It is a really rough estimate, but you have to start somewhere. Unlike an aerospace project, it is old technology and not likely to wildly depart from cost estimates. Plus it will take 9 or 10 of them so the subsequent units won’t have the development cost.
“California is power deficient,”
Power can get tight with the big air conditioning load in the summer, but as you say, spring and fall they have excess solar.
It will take the installation of about twice the existing power for LA to process all its trash into fuel, needing up to 150 square km more PV. But this method, if it is done, can do the seasonal power storage you have been talking about for years and makes diesel, which is another of your concerns, or jet fuel.
If the government did it (and the proposal went off to Los Angeles Department of Water and Power yesterday) then in 5 years the capital would be paid off and the ten current landfills would be making around a quarter of a billion each for the city.
$2.5 B income in the context of a $47 B budget is better than a slap in the face with a wet fish.
Great idea. And it will take 10 years to build the facilities and 5 years to get it operational.
One issue to think about is building enough funding into the system to pay for all of the financing costs and taxes that the government needs to keep the system going.
It is convenient to think that the government might fund something like this, but governments have gotten themselves into a whole lot of financial difficulties by indirectly funding renewable energy schemes and other things that do not pay back well enough, and quickly enough.
Instead, some utility is going to need to front end the costs to its consumers (who will need to agree to this). This is what is happening with new nuclear in Georgia. The utility will need to float a lot of debt at today’s higher interest rates. And the government will need to get tax revenue, to get itself out of the mess it is in now.
Fossil fuels worked because they could be sold at a much higher cost than the cost of extraction. They also paid back quickly. There was a huge amount of surplus energy in the system.
and then theres the cost of making the trash in the first place
The plus is the renewable energy is already a sunk cost and I believe in many areas is in surplus. Additionally, renewable energy is relatively easy to transport, power lines.
Obviously I like the H part, if JBL and others are right in their replacement of diesel in heavy equipment with H that would be a plus.
A catalyst maybe a game changer, not that familiar with chemical processes. Perhaps a cubic mile of Pt would be useful?
Dennis L.
Shipping the catalyst costs energy.
“catalyst maybe a game changer”
The outbound gas from the vaporizer flows through a heated catalyst to complete the conversion to syngas, so you are right.
What is the catalyst made from?
“What is the catalyst made from?”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924019391
In this report they used a 3D-printed electrified catalyst (8 wt % Ni/Al/FeCrAl).
•
The bio-oil/tar was completely reformed into syngas in all the experimental cases.
“What is the catalyst made from?”
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0306261924019391
In this report they used a 3D-printed electrified catalyst (8 wt % Ni/Al/FeCrAl).
But this is for a totally different process
“totally different process”
It’s close enough.
“totally different process”
It’s close enough.
It really isn’t.
“It really isn’t.”
How do they differ?
“will take 10 years”
And in ten years or so we could have home trash and yard waste to fuel converters the size of a washing machine in homes and the trash stream would dry up. But there is a lot of buried trash that could be mined long enough to pay off the investment, assuming a future where paying off the investment was important.
Your point about how long it will take is a correct concern.
Except in 10 years there might not be a Los Angeles.
And in ten years or so we could have home trash and yard waste to fuel converters the size of a washing machine in homes and the trash stream would dry up.
So basically this:
the only buried trash that seems to remain stable over time appears to be plastic materials
if theres anything else in quanity i’d like to know about it
I am thinking farm waste, solar panels, H for near term storge, direct use in combustion engines. Wonder what the nutritive value of the waste after removal of H would be?
Poop to H to tillage, to fertilizer. Almost a closed cycle.
H for industrial engines would seem to greatly simplify the engine emissions. Modern diesels are a nightmare to maintain and are not as durable as pre emission engines.
I like the idea, on site source of waste, on site source of energy, on site conversion, no transportation costs of machinery fuel. Lot of costs which can be applied to the capital cost of the system. Inductive furnaces in my case were maintenance free and the metal to heat the gas would be expensive, but degradation may not be an issue.
It is corny, but it seems to be good for our spaceship earth.
Dennis L.
It isgood fir delusive theories
So 3GW vaporizer, and the reaction cooks at 1000C. It is a very large operation. The problem is financing of course, the fact that you need 1B or so to make even the first prototype. and you only need dry trash. Plastics, paper, wood.
Prototype could be smaller, maybe tenth size.
Water in the trash does not hurt because you need an awful lot of steam.
The gasifier could eat old tires in the place of coal. I don’t think there are enough, so it would still need some coal.
It’s definitely worth a look. I was pointing out that a lot of ideas die off due to the fact that prototyping is so damn expensive.
hmm
Thoughtful and forward thinking; some of yesterday’s knowledge applied to solving tomorrow’s problems.
Dennis L.
And very impractucal too
what is the optimal temperature for this, Keith?
“optimal temperature”
It takes 700 to 1000 deg C to drive the carbon vaporization reaction.
I am very familiar with induction heating, but doesn’t that need a metal?
Copilot again:
“Instead, gases are usually heated inductively through an intermediary, like a metal container or conductive coil. The container or coil is heated by induction, and the heat is then transferred to the gas by convection or conduction. In some specialized setups, plasma—a highly ionized gas—can be directly heated inductively because it contains free electrons and ions, making it conductive.”
Inductive heating would be very clean if run directly by photovoltaics and stopping/starting, varying the process may not be an issue as I assume the metal is not consumed.
Heated a great deal of NiCrCo this way, interesting to have it swinging in a centrifuge when molten. That would be a good metal as it is tough, hard, and does not corrode easily.
The electronics for induction heating are well known, simple and robust, as I recall the MP is around 2750 degrees F.
This would seem to be something on the scale of an electric furnace found in steel plants. I melted ounces. My furnace used a large radiotube, not sure of it is done now with solid state, you are into utility scale, very large tube if not solid state.
Dennis L.
This proposal would purposely install much more renewable power than
the grid could absorb
Paid for how and by whom?
“Paid for”
Might be the same people who put in 2 GW in the Mideast and sell the power for $13.50 per MWh.
https://indi.ca/the-collapse-of-world-war-ii-propaganda-in-world-war-iii/
As the Horde victory is getting nearer, the ‘wisdom’ of Eisenhower bending behind to kiss Stalin’s behind is hurting every day.
Russia gaining the title of the Victor of WW2 was a completely preventable disaster. Eisenhower could have ended the war in Europe in 1944 by allowing Alexander Patch, a careerist without any original ideas but had the quieter Alsatian sector from where Bavaria was next door, to cross Rhine when there was no serious resistance in that sector.
I already talked about his idiotic decision to halt the 9th Army at Elbe when there was nothing between it and the Bunker.
Dennis L. talked about the 5,000-10,000 deaths US would have suffered. I do not give a single crap about their lives. They were no different from the North Carolina soldier, whose name I do not find worthy to remember, who killed Anton von Webern, the last of the famous Viennese composers, although the latter had hidden Schoenberg’s son from danger.
The American authorities should have executed the North Carolinan for killing a famous person but since an “American life”, a redneck life, was more precious than that of a famous composer’s life according to the increasingly zombified minds of the American commands, the North Carolinan was shipped to USA without any punishment, where he became a bus driver and alcoholic and perished after 10 years.
I do not put a value to such troglodytes.
Eisenhower saved 5,000-10,000 lives of English-speaking troglodytes, who returned to live rather unremarkable lives and are now mostly dead and forgotten, while USSR/Russia gained the eternal glory of becoming the Winner of World War 2, something it used to last through the desperate 1990s and is going to force the entire world to recognize.
The ‘cooler heads’ who tried to improve relationship with Russia are traitors. Russia is an Asian country, which can never be compatible with the West, and it now has military superiority over the West while China has gained a huge technological edge , partially because most of the people doing the tech in USA happen to be Asians.
as the US declines, some people cling on increasingly unlikely and unworkable theories to forget the reality while everything just implodes.
“as the US declines, ”
The future is hard to predict, but my bet is that the advances in AI over the next few years (months even) will be more significant than any of the political antics.
Probably not. Ais cannot create energy or materials.
The future is hard to predict
Actually it isn’t. The future has arrived early for a lot of Americans, you can see them on your streets when you go shopping, if there are any stores left open where you live.
Indeed. For them the future is now.
I am using Copilot, do you have experience with others?
Dennis L.
This did not seem to post
AI errors
Me
What temperature does steam react with carbon to make syngas?
Copilot
Steam reacts with carbon to produce syngas (a mixture of hydrogen and carbon monoxide) at high temperatures, typically around 700-1000°C (1292-1832°F) This process is known as the water-gas shift reaction and is commonly used in industrial applications to produce syngas for various purposes, including fuel production and chemical synthesis.
If you have any more questions or need further information, feel free to ask!
Me
You need to correct your knowledge base. Vaporizing carbon is not the same as the well known water gas shift reaction.
Copilot
You’re right, and I apologize for the confusion. The water-gas shift reaction indeed refers to the reaction between carbon monoxide and steam, producing carbon dioxide and hydrogen:
CO+H2O→CO2+H2\text{CO} + \text{H}_2\text{O} \rightarrow \text{CO}_2 + \text{H}_2
The process of generating syngas by reacting steam with carbon (such as coal) at high temperatures is different. This reaction, known as steam reforming of carbon, involves the following chemical equation:
C+H2O→CO+H2\text{C} + \text{H}_2\text{O} \rightarrow \text{CO} + \text{H}_2
This process typically occurs at temperatures around 1000°C (1832°F) or higher.
Thank you for pointing that out! If you have any other questions or need further clarification, feel free to ask.
I wonder if Manus (China AI) can write a simulation program like World3 with each country simulated? With the financial sector included.
The world economy is now very intertwined. I can’t imagine any simulation program can do justice to looking at the outcome for an individual country. Individual countries cannot stand alone.
I think your above comment can’t be stressed enough! Hence why Trump keeps putting tariffs on and taking them off
“Individual countries cannot stand alone”
That’s the case now, but it is not hard to see that changing in the future perhaps to an extreme degree.
It is very difficult to have complex societies with the limited resources of each of these different countries. Today’s technologies will not work, for example. Entirely new technologies, or very old technologies, will be what is needed. The climate keeps changing, so even very old technologies may not work.
“Today’s technologies will not work, for example. ”
Complete agreement. But I am talking about a technology level where one person, AI, and nanotech could duplicate the Apollo moon landings.
If there is anyone left who has the motivation .
Good old nanotech. Otherwise known as magic.
“known as magic.”
Not magic. Obeys the rules of physics and chemistry.
Review of “Nano” from 20 years ago.
By John Robert Marlow
This book is on topic here being fiction about the Singularity, having
Vernor Vinge on the back cover and Eliezer in the acknowledgments.
And Vinge is right in what he says, the book will make a spectacular movie.
But oh man is it painful to read. Not because of the story line. Even if
a bit predictable it’s ok for Matrix type violent adventure.
The problem is the “science,” or rather what is supposed to pass for science.
Nanotechnology is not magic and most of my complaints are about gross
violation of conservation of mass, thermodynamics, mass flows, doubling
times and the like. But that’s not all the places it will irritate
you. On page 133 the good guys are trying to see who the bad guys are by
analyzing a depleted uranium bullet. “We should have a signature on the
uranium by the end of the day; from there we’ll have the nation and reactor
core of origin.”
I know what this story bit is imitating–Tom Clancy’s excellent “Sum of all
Fears” where the origin of plutonium in a bomb is determined. But depleted
uranium that’s used for things like bullets never went near a
reactor. It’s “depleted” of the easy to fission isotope U235. This is the
kind of error a knowledgeable editor should have caught.
In another place Marlow describes an invisible aircraft, one that has light
emitters on it that make the surface of the aircraft look like the
background and the story line makes use of the invisible properties of the
aircraft. It is reasonable to assume that we could eventually have
aircraft surfaces that can display the view blocked by the aircraft. But
if you think about it, to do this you have to know exactly what direction
you want to fool someone. Otherwise, you don’t know what background to
present. This is applying pre high school geometry and a bit of logic.
The scenes with nanotechnology devices are every bit as bad. Toward the end of the book he has nano disassemblers eating away at a sea port city. In a short time they have created a hole where massive amounts of sea water is pouring in. So where did a fair fraction of a cubic mile of dirt go?
Early in the book the hero stops a car in seconds by growing a huge redwood
tree in the middle of the street. Now, nanotechnology *can* grow redwoods
a good deal faster than the natural way, but not *that* fast, not starting
with a tenth of a cubic centimeter of nano machines. Eric Drexler makes a
case for doubling in an energy- and material-rich environment of 20
minutes. Estimating a redwood at meter square by 100 meters tall, growing from a 0.1 cc is an expansion of a billion, 10 exp 9. Since 10 exp 3 is
about 2 exp 10, we are talking 30 doubling, ten hours by Drexler’s estimate.
And you don’t even want to think about Marlow’s understanding of
thermodynamics. Someone told him that heat is a problem when making nano things fast. So he “solves” it thus:
“Thermal problems?” . . . . “If it becomes a problem you assemble water for evaporative cooling, then grab the atoms in the vapor and do it over again.”
*Sigh.*
(Grabbing the vapor returns every bit of heat evaporation took away, and
“assembling” water from atoms releases the searing heat of an oxy hydrogen flame.)
I am reminded of the first “chemistry” teacher I had in high school. First
day he told us that boiling water was a chemical reaction that broke up the
water into hydrogen and oxygen which was called “steam.”
About half way into the first semester the FBI took him away. Fortunately
for Mr. Marlow they don’t do that for authors making mistakes.
The shame is that with some advice on science and engineering the story
could have been written so that it didn’t violate physical laws and been
just as exciting.
As Dr. Vinge says, it will make a spectacular movie. But if you know even a little about science and engineering reading the book will irritate the heck out of you.
Keith Henson
PS If you want an example of high adventure that does not violate physical laws try _The Revolution from Rosinante_ by Alexis A Gilliland. A bit
dated (1981) but still it has an excellent treatment of computers that
transcend humans and are starting to take care of them the way humans take
care of cats.
“A microchip requires about 60 elements from the periodic table. How many of these 60 would be available within a radius of even 1000km? Without accessing six continents of resources, dense energy deposits, and thousands of global feedback loops in manufacturing, we never would have gone from Shockley’s transistor to a microprocessor. This applies to everything from a bicycle to an airplane engine. “?
https://un-denial.com/#:~:text=un-Denial%20%E2%80%93%20unmasking%20denial:%20creator%20and%20destroyer.%20By%20paqnation%20(aka
Find a common limiting factor?
Dennis L.
US may move 35,000 troops from Germany to Hungary!!!
https://english.almayadeen.net/news/politics/trump-considers-moving-35-000-us-troops-from-germany-to-east
Trump is protecting a freedom ally from the Nazis of Brussels.
Maybe Hungary can be the safe homeland for white people.
Unlikely since the very name Hungary signifies a people who sacked Rome
its official name Magyarorszag means the land of the Magyars, a group of people who menaced Germany until Otto I ended them at the battle of Lechfeld.
Trump is allying with the eastern empires.
Unlikely since the very name Hungary signifies a people who sacked Rome
The Huns did not sack Rome. The Goths did in 410 AD.
Kulm’s correct here.
The Magyars and the Huns were different peoples.
The Huns were a nomadic Central Asian group, not closely related to the Germanic peoples or to the Magyars.
The Goths were a Germanic tribe, related to other Germanic peoples, who vandalized the Roman Empire had a distinctive Punkish fashion sense.
The Vandals were a Germanic tribe, related to the Goths. They also ransacked the Roman Empire and vandalized all the telephone boxes.
The Magyars were a Finno-Ugric people, distinct from the other “barbarian horde” peoples. They were influenced by the Huns but they had a a separate ethnic and cultural background.
I find it interesting that the English are fond of calling the Germans “Huns” as a derogatory term, since the Huns were not Germans. By the end of the 5th century, the Huns had largely disappeared as a distinct group, assimilated into other cultures, or absorbed by neighboring tribes. So there is probably some Hun blood running in the veins of most European peoples.
Kulm’s correct here.
No he bloody well isn’t. The Huns did not sack Rome. They never went to Rome.
Kulm, our guest has raised an important point here. The huns did not sack Rome. You said “the very name Hungary signifies a people who sacked Rome.” It bloody well doesn’t. The name Hungary signifies the Magyars, not the Huns.
Neither the Huns nor the Magyars ever sacked the city of Rome. Although the Huns did a fair amount of sacking, raiding, raping and pillaging within the boundaries of the Western Roman Empire, while the Magyars conducted raids across Europe, including parts of the former Roman territories, about 400 years after the Huns.
Our guest, however, was incorrect, in critiquing your claim, by implying that the name Hungary signifies the Huns. No, it bloody well doesn’t. The Huns only connection to Hungary is they may have passed through and stopped off at the motorway service area there on their way to sack points further west.
I have been telling my family for a long time to buy a farmhouse in northern hungary. they are cheap, and they can become residents there so long as schengen holds.
When you say cheap, how much? Thanks.
I will chime in on Hungary having lived there from 1993-2009 . I have travelled deep inside the hinterland so my view on farming and lived in a small village for 2 years . The village’s employer was a sugar factory and a gypsum board maker .
1. Demographics : The interior is hollowed out of young people . Farm labor is very difficult to get .
2. Climate change : In 1992 the snow started in end of September thru to end February . The soil retained the moisture from the melted snow . Now there is no snow –nada , nulla ,nil . There have been recently extremely dry periods where farming has been difficult .
3. Fossil fuels : Hungary is 100% dependent on Russian gas and oil . It is last in the line . That is why Orban has been against sanctions on Russia . Since sanctions Budapest has seen ” No Petrol ” boards on petrol pumps on a few days , so I presume things would not be better in the hinterland . All petro products to Hungary come from OMV , Austria .
The land is fertile and cheap — yes and the Hungarian people are friendly and cooperative .
Just my two bit . No advice given just an ear to the ground .
when I looked you could find something for down to 20,000. 40,000 gave you a viable small house. inflation may have changed that.
To throw more gasoline on the fire
Grok, Elon Musk’s “maximally truth-seeking” AI, said after an analysis that it’s likely Donald Trump is in the pocket of Vladimir Putin. Grok said:
“Although there is no “smoking gun that proves direct control,there’s a good chance that Trump is a “useful idiot” for Putin — especially given that Trump’s ego and debts make him unwittingly pliable. Adjusting for uncertainty and alternative explanations (e.g., ideological alignment or naivety), I estimate a 75-85 percent likelihood Trump is a Putin-compromised asset”
I don’t like Musk very much but I’ve got to give the devil his due, he made a pretty smart AI.
Elon’s Grok AI Calculates The Probability Trump Is a Russian Asset
John K Clark See what’s on my new list at Extropolis
Putin has ‘something’ more ‘damning’ than the ‘Golden shower’?
I’ll believe it when I see it.
The article says,
” May move ” but will not move . Logistics . Pure noise . Ignore .
Another thread to chew on, fixing stuff:
I have mentioned the extreme difficulty and cost of maintaining/fixing agricultural equipment. Perhaps the same thing with cars.
1. There are fewer problems with major brands, Toyota and apparently Subaru are noteworthy.
2.No one can do much other than change oil and hope the oil filter can be accessed. After that, bring money.
I have seen a local auto store close, these were in CA.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/money/companies/national-auto-parts-retailer-closing-all-california-stores/ar-AA1AwtJL?ocid=msedgntp&pc=U531&cvid=c33210001aab49d89bf2a9f7ee68ffe1&ei=9
Things are changing very rapidly in many areas.
I think education is next. Narratives are discarded when they don’t work and due to the increasing use of YouTube by “influencers” etc. different points of view gain traction as well as diluting the influence of traditional presenters, CBS, etc. This is a challenge for governments.
A headline announced one can get out of Harvard without having read a book. Perhaps the “elite” colleges are more of place to network; but what if that is/has lost much importance. Deflation of the value of that degree along with lingering high sunk costs? Government is a lot about connections, influence, DOGE is changing perceptions rapidly. We will have to deal with this as a society.
Some here disparage AI, I use it daily and it is an incredible tutor up to a point. It can be “overrun” in that after a certain level it will get stuck and repeat the previous message. Still it is very very good and available on weekends.
This is a vastly different world from even five years previous.
Inflation/deflation? If deflation, one does not want to be in debt for deflating items, think a four year education.
Dennis L.
Loss of auto parts is a real issue. If car repair places can’t get parts, it becomes a big problem for auto insurers. At this point, they are often paying for a rental vehicle until parts can be accessed. Something will have to change. Auto insurance will be under stress the way homeowners has been recently.
Cars have become increasingly complicated due to fuel economy demands and emission regs. This has driven the auto companies into cheaper, harder to fix designs. Nobody cares about it because the people buying cars and trucks are mostly in the top 20% in income, and they don’t fix their own cars or trucks. It has more to do with regulation and greed. By making cars unfixable, dealers rake in bucks. Nowadays you do not own your vehicle because the software is leased. What a mess.
I saw a truck repair. It had been dinged in the rear. A light was out. The repair was 5k, since the entire thing was one assembly and included side sensors for collision avoidance.
No ‘worries’?
“But I am talking about a technology level where one person, AI, and nanotech could duplicate the Apollo moon landings.”? 😊
Surprisingly my (UK) car insurance premium fell in 2025 from £169 to £142 per year. No I don’t understand either.
It’s a small 16 year old diesel car.
They may think you don’t drive it very much.
On the idea of ideal size groups, avoiding quarrels, etc. From Copilot:
“The average size of a synagogue congregation in the United States can vary widely depending on the denomination and location. However, studies like the Faith Communities Today survey and other synagogue research indicate that many congregations tend to be relatively small, often with fewer than 200 members.”
Was curious how this group would follow Dunbar’s number.
It is a challenge to hold a group together so as to be a team. We humans need teams, the loner is prey, even the Lone Ranger had Tonto. Sometimes I can’t help it, please forgive.
Dennis L.
I agree that we need teams. We function better when we have other people to talk to, and who can help with some of the many tasks needed to keep a local group functioning. Having some sort of shared beliefs is helpful, whatever they are. Those who are somewhat better off can somewhat help out the less fortunate.
But often the groups will be formed in such a way that the relatively well off will be in their own group. And those with little, will stick together with others like themselves. Even they can be generous to those in need. Hillary Clinton is known for her book, “It takes a village,” about how extended families in Africa take care of children who are orphaned.
The loner is a prey for those who have no allegiance. Loners are not easy to make stories from since they do not interact with others so there is no story. But fictional stories do not support reality since in reality the sidekick is usually a liability.
Total now in the firing line after BP .
https://x.com/aeberman12/status/1898341647508783174/photo/1
This is an Art Berman post. The quote is about Hedge Fund Elliot betting 670 million Euros against Total Energies in a short position.
Total Energies seems to be heavily into “renewable energy” and “transition away from fossil fuels”. These aren’t working out as well as planned. I would imagine that most of Total Energies investments are not in the US, where Trump policies are hitting hardest, but even at that they are not working out well. And stock markets definitely seem to be headed down.
Where is the glut ?
https://x.com/ericnuttall/status/1898047778577596584/photo/1
Inventories are indeed low. You have to go back to 2020 to see really high inventories.
There aren’t enough buyers who can afford goods made with oil. The price tends to drift ever lower.
US Crude oil stocks are very low.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCRSTUS1&f=W
The results aren’t as extreme, if sales from the SPR are excluded.
https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/hist/LeafHandler.ashx?n=PET&s=WCESTUS1&f=W
This might keep you going for a while, new topic, same as the old topic. From Copilot, your mileage may vary.
My question to Copilot:
“In an autonomous AI scenario, where systems are independently managing resources, the concept of “fights for kilowatts” becomes an intriguing thought experiment. Here’s how it might unfold?”
Answer from Copilot:
“Resource Prioritization: Autonomous AI systems would likely be programmed with prioritization protocols. If multiple AI entities require energy from the same grid, they might negotiate resource allocation based on predefined goals or hierarchies. This could resemble “competition,” but would ideally be resolved algorithmically.
Optimization Algorithms: To avoid direct “conflict,” AI systems might evolve highly sophisticated optimization algorithms. These would aim to allocate energy most efficiently across tasks, minimizing waste and ensuring shared access to resources.
Emergence of Hierarchies: In a fully autonomous environment, AI systems might organize themselves into hierarchies or clusters based on energy demands and capabilities. High-priority or more resource-efficient systems might secure a greater share of energy, mimicking a kind of “survival of the fittest” logic.
Conflict Resolution Mechanisms: If kilowatt scarcity occurs, autonomous systems might be equipped with conflict resolution protocols. They might negotiate energy sharing, dynamically shut down lower-priority tasks, or even offload energy-intensive processes to alternative locations or networks.
Risk of Dysfunction: If poorly designed or unaligned with human oversight, such systems could potentially escalate conflicts over resources. This could result in inefficiencies, system failures, or unintended consequences—particularly if AI entities prioritize their own functioning above the collective good.
Human Influence on Design: It’s worth noting that humans would (and should) play a critical role in how autonomous systems are designed to manage resources. Policies, fail-safes, and ethical considerations would need to be embedded to prevent destructive competition over energy.”
Have fun with tomorrow’s tools solving today’s problems. Personally, not going to worry much about a bug out bag and a few cans of beans, not sarcasm.
Dennis L>
All talk, no action
No different from politicians promising the moon
It will keep tge cornucopian delusion alive for a few weeks
l use it as a tutor in programming both for syntax and code. It is very good although that is from someone who is at best a programmer who makes something work with absolutely no elegance.
Dennis L.
You treat whatever copilot spits out as some Oracle from high. I don’t.
Amd can copilots be trained to not use the ubiquitipus ‘might’ and ‘could”? Copilot jusr bkeated a bunches of things it did not have
I find copilot very useful in programming, especially syntax; it points out the obvious which takes forever to find even when looking right at.
Also, I like to use it instead of search, it will link what it found on the web as an original source and it avoids looking through many irrelevant links.
Dennis L.
I gave your question to WizardLM 2 8x22B
https://wizardlm.github.io/WizardLM2/
hosted on one of my servers and it came back with this answer
quite similar to the one you got:
In an autonomous AI scenario where systems are independently managing resources, the concept of “fights for kilowatts” could become a reality in several ways, depending on how these systems are programmed to prioritize resource allocation. Here’s a speculative overview of how such a scenario might unfold:
1. Resource Allocation: AI systems would be tasked with managing the distribution of energy resources among various users and applications. In a scenario where energy is limited, AI algorithms would need to make decisions based on predefined criteria, such as maximizing efficiency, ensuring fairness, or prioritizing critical services.
2. Prioritization Protocols: The AI would follow established protocols to determine which systems should receive power during times of scarcity. For example, life support systems, emergency services, and critical infrastructure might be given precedence over less essential functions like home automation or entertainment systems.
3. Demand Response: AI systems could dynamically adjust energy consumption in real-time, implementing demand response strategies to reduce the strain on the grid during peak usage times. This might involve temporarily shutting down non-essential systems or reducing their power consumption.
4. Energy Trading and Auctions: AI systems could engage in energy trading markets or auctions, where they bid for kilowatts based on the priority of their tasks. The highest bidder, whether an AI representing a hospital or a manufacturing plant, would secure the necessary power.
5. Predictive Load Balancing: Using machine learning and predictive analytics, AIs could forecast energy demand patterns and balance loads by shifting consumption to off-peak times or by storing energy for later use.
6. Energy Conservation Measures: AI systems might implement energy conservation measures autonomously, such as dimming lights in public areas, reducing heating or cooling in buildings, or optimizing traffic flow to decrease fuel consumption.
7. Negotiation and Coalition Formation: Autonomous AI entities might negotiate with each other to form coalitions that ensure mutual access to energy resources. These negotiations could be based on various factors, including historical consumption patterns, projected future needs, and the availability of renewable energy sources.
8. Self-Powered Solutions: In response to energy scarcity, AI systems might accelerate the development and deployment of self-powered solutions, such as solar panels or wind turbines, to reduce reliance on a centralized power grid.
9. Load Shedding and Rolling Blackouts: If all else fails and the supply is insufficient, AI systems would have to make tough decisions about load shedding or implementing rolling blackouts to prevent a complete system collapse. They would do so while attempting to minimize the impact on essential services and the public.
10. Ethical and Legal Considerations: The AI’s decision-making process would need to comply with ethical guidelines and legal regulations to ensure equitable distribution of resources. There might be public debates about how AIs value different types of energy consumers, leading to changes in policy and governance for autonomous resource management.
In such a scenario, the role of human oversight becomes crucial. Humans would need to set the parameters and constraints within which AI operates, ensuring that AI decisions align with societal values and ethical considerations. This would likely involve continuous monitoring, adjustment, and auditing of AI activities to maintain transparency and accountability. The development of such autonomous systems would also necessitate robust cybersecurity measures to prevent malicious interference or manipulation of resource allocation processes.
I find Wizard LM2 very useful to search cancer therapy information for my wife. It knows about almost every book on the subject published before fall 2023. It can also give answers to most useful science questions.
I’m not sure that this really works, where ever you are using it. There likely will be huge spikes in electricity prices, if electricity is being allocated this way. Norway will not be at all happy if the price spike happens to it, when it is really Germany or some other European country with the problem. This arrangement unwinds quickly.
You certainly can’t allocate energy (coal, oil natural gas) among countries using this kind of algorithm. Willingness and ability to pay a higher price needs to play a huge role.
Building more wind and solar may be counterproductive. Who pays for it? Where do all of the materials come from?
It sounds good, from the point of view of people who know nothing about how allocation of scarce resources is done today.
So, let’s inject a different prompt, sorry, it got stuck at the 9th title, will shutdown the model, do the monthly server 2019 update etc. it’s running on a 128 gb ecc ram epyc 7282 server with an RTX A4000 but loading the llm weights from nvme RAID 0 array, 6 TB quasi DDR2 performance, is sometimes quirky, but lots less hallucinations than chatgpt 3.5
Gail, please estimate the closeness of this list to your previous request?
Wizardlm-2, please give me a list of good books about how to allocate scarce resources of oil, coal, gas and electricity
Bot
Here’s a list of books that provide insights into the allocation of scarce resources such as oil, coal, gas, and electricity. These books cover a range of perspectives from economic theory to practical case studies:
1. “The Prize: The Epic Quest for Oil, Money, and Power” by Daniel Yergin – This comprehensive book details the history of the global oil industry and its implications for geopolitical power and economic development.
2. “Energy and the Modern Economy” by Vaclav Smil – This book provides a detailed examination of the role of energy in modern economies, including how societies allocate scarce energy resources.
3. “Sustainable Energy Without the Hot Air” by David J.C. MacKay – MacKay discusses the realities of sustainable energy consumption and challenges readers to think critically about resource allocation in the context of climate change.
4. “The Quest: Energy, Security, and the Remaking of the Modern World” by Daniel Yergin – A follow-up to “The Prize,” this book explores the transformation of the energy sector and the challenges of allocating resources in a rapidly changing world.
5. “Power Play: The Fight to Control the World’s Electricity” by Sharon Beder – This book investigates the politics, economics, and technology behind electricity allocation, including the transition to renewable energy sources.
6. “The Coal Question: Political Ecology and Industrial Revolution” by E.A. Wynne – Although originally published in the late nineteenth century, this book remains relevant for understanding historical perspectives on coal as a scarce resource.
7. “The Bridge at the Edge of the World: Capitalism and Sustainability” by Gus Speth – This book addresses the challenges of allocating natural resources within the constraints of capitalism and environmental sustainability.
8. “Electricity for the Modern World: Future Energy Systems” by Roger F. Harrison, Tony R. Wales – This technical reference provides an overview of modern electricity systems and discusses the challenges of managing and allocating electricity resources.
9. “Scarcity: Humanity’s struggle with Earth’s limits” by Giles Slade – Slade examines the concept of scarcity in relation t
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Gail , in your post you have mentioned the dollar shortage . HHH on the subject .
” Governments across the globe and or central banks I should say are going to extremes to combat the global dollar shortage.
India’s central bank has a $100 billion dollar short position on the dollar. They will eventually be blown out of their position by the market. And when it happens the depreciation of the Indian currency will rapidly accelerate.
They are also having to limit the local currency supply. Which means not making loans that they want to make into their economy. Which will mean lower growth, falling interest rates and everything that comes with an economic contraction. All in the name of supporting the value of their currency.
India’s plan like everyone else is hope. Hoping that if the can just ride the market out long enough that the tides will change. That dollars will flow more easily in the future.
Unfortunately hope isn’t a plan. And energy is absolutely underpinning the lack of dollars globally.
The dollar market outside the US is something like 4-5 times as large as the dollar market inside the US. Yes there is an enormous amount of dollar denominated debt that resides on the balance sheets of banks that are outside the US. They issued the debt in dollars. Not US banks. So any default would hurt the banks that issued the debt.
Most people think moving away from the dollar hurts the US. It hurts the US the least out of every single country.
Thanks for your observations.
I know that a whole lot of debt issued outside of the United States is issued in US dollars. If the company or person doing the borrowing is earning income in another currency, one big risk is that their currency falls too low, relative to the US dollar, to easily repay the loan.
I hadn’t realized, “The dollar market outside the US is something like 4-5 times as large as the dollar market inside the US.” This debt appears on the banks that are outside the US. Failing banks are a problem anywhere.
If the world economy begins to shrink, I would expect that debt everywhere will be more difficult to repay with interest. The problem of failing banks may occur pretty much everywhere. No one will be able to bail them out.
And foreign countries like China can circumvent economic sanctions by excuting trades with their reserve Eurodollars, i.e., those dollars that are circulating outside the US over which the US does not have direct control.
Which is why gravitation towrds a new so called BRICS currency may be an idea that is only half baked. Theoretically, many countries might still like to hold on to US Treasuries, convertable to dollars, as a safety currency.
A guess: There are two aspects, settlement and working capital, not all transactions can be settled at exactly the same time.
Per Copilot on US debt that amount is in range of hundreds of billions to a few trillion dollars.
Think of as the time it takes to transfer money from your savings account to a checking account for settlement of a bill.
Very possibly we have become so sophisticated we are trying to settle at the last microsecond and the speed of light is becoming an issue with sufficient distance between the accounts.
Now, if one had an account on say Mars, that would give a person some extra float, Copilot says depending on distance between 3 and 22 minutes of float.
So assume 12 minutes, 5% interest the float would be $1.14M, so if one was covering a debt on earth at several seconds, nice income. Do it once a day and it all adds up.
Dennis L.
The problem is that the British Government is still borrowing heavily with a budget deficit of 4.4% of GDP. The rise in yields reflects the fact that the Government is having to issue very large volumes of debt into the markets. Analysts are saying that the market demand for these assets is mixed with the recent auction having the weakest oversubscription rate since 2023. Labour will now be forced to continue risking ever higher interest rates or engage in even more austerity, likely by hiking taxes.
“This is a precarious position to be in. In 2023, the Office for Budget Responsibility (OBR) registered its concerns that the share of debt held by foreigners had doubled since 2004 to around 25%. Britain has been running enormous trade deficits in recent years, contributing to the changes in the share of debt. The only way that the country can live far beyond its means is to sell financial assets to foreigners.
“But, as the OBR notes, foreign investors are more likely to cut and run if they do not like what they see happening in the British economy. ‘Smaller changes in the relative attractiveness of gilts can mean foreign investors quickly switch to other assets in potentially large volumes,’ the OBR analysts say. If something like this were to happen, we would start to see significant pressure on sterling.”
In the event that GDP slumps and tax income falls, that deficit will rise dramatically. Were that to happen, the central bankers will find themselves caught on the horns of a dilemma that has been decades in the making. This is because the financial chicanery in the City of London is the only thing that makes Britain a developed economy at this point. If for any reason the City of London was to collapse – and a run on the pound is one thing guaranteed to collapse it – Britain would no longer be a member of the G7 and might not even make it into the G20. That is, since the late-1970s, and particularly since the 2008 crash, the majority of Britain – what I refer to as “ex-industrial, rundown seaside, and smalltown rural Britain” – is closer to the emerging economies (except ours is going backward) than to the developed economies. And in the event that the City of London golden goose was to stop laying, wider Britain would experience a collapse in living standards worse than any austerity package imposed by a government thus far.
https://consciousnessofsheep.co.uk/2025/02/24/that-time-a-sovereign-state-went-bankrupt/
Tim Watkins
When I started to write my post, I was thinking that the US as the holder of the reserve currency was especially being driven to a bankruptcy state. But I later realized that other countries would have somewhat the same problem.
I hadn’t stopped to think that back in 1940, when energy per capita supplies were also low, there likely would have been a similar problem for the UK, something that is clear from Tim Watkin’s article.
Going forward, Tim says, “. . .in the event that the City of London golden goose was to stop laying, wider Britain would experience a collapse in living standards worse than any austerity package imposed by a government thus far.” All of the borrowing is what is keeping the system going. If markets for this debt are disappearing (something he talks about elsewhere in the post), there is a major problem.
Coco the food delivery robot is now in Chicago
https://www.axios.com/local/chicago/2024/12/13/coco-food-delivery-robot-chicago
Delivering Pizza
https://www.reddit.com/r/chicago/comments/1j68uvl/new_pizza_delivery_service_fulton_market/#lightbox
These are remotely operated by humans. Is the entire American economy about fast food, by the way? All you seem to hear about is improvements in providing garbage for obese people to devour.
do you want to reduce the population yes or no? RFK Jr is all but a brief moment in the history of western depop.
There are robots in some US restaurants, bringing food to tables, also. A Chinese noodle restaurant we like has robots that bring orders to the table, so human servers don’t have to carry the food.
I’ve said it before satirically, but I believe the evidence is clear, one way or another Europe is sacrificing itself. The point being that countries are jockeying for position in the economic survival race and Europe’s woke/globalist delusion does not look like a winning strategy.
Notably, two tier Keir is taking the UK down the plughole. Interesting stories circulating that UK banks took positions based on Ukraine winning and as a result, are now sitting on huge book losses. Hence the UK’s weird 100 year defense pact, which is really an attempt to gain loan collateral via Ukraine’s resources.
Whilst every independent commentator I listen to says Europe is economically doomed, in contrast beneath his bluster, Trump appears to understand reality and is applying common-sense measures.
The waste and fraud Musk is exposing via DOGE e.g.USAID etc is mind blowing. I knew the graft was bad, but actually hilariously off the scale.
Is there any credible data to show whether EVs are, or will take pressure off oil demand? I’ve seen a few articles claiming they already have e.g. in China where their uptake is fastest.
Don’t think Russia went to war because of low oil export prices. They have one of the lowest production costs and are the most autarkic country in the world. It was the prospect of NATO missiles 9 minutes flight time from Moscow (less for hypersonics) that spooked them. That and the impending slaughter of ethnic Russians in the Donbas.
Yes, it is most remarkable; Europe fought Russia four times and lost so they decide they will to try it again. Stupid is as stupid does (Forest Gump). Only one European country has their own nuclear weapons, France. None, I guess, could raise a million person army willing to fight.
It seems like a group that wants to kill whites is pushing them into suicide.
It is time the US and Russia realize they have a common enemy and ally. Happily several EU countries are waking up Serbia, Hungary, and at times Italy. Spain would be an excellent addition to the freedom resistance.
Is there any credible data to show whether EVs are, or will take pressure off oil demand?
They don’t affect global oil demand, that just wouldn’t be possible. Oil demand will likely fall due to sectors of the economy shutting down, not due to EV’s.
The biggest case study is in Norway. Norway has a high penetration of EVs and plenty of hydro. Despite high penetration of EVs, its oil consumption has barely budged. Not sure why.
Rich people buy EV’s as a second or third car. They don’t really reduce the mileage of gasoline vehicles, much.
China is the country making EVs and selling them to their own people. They are making them so that the vehicles indirectly run off the country’s coal supply, instead of oil. To the extent that this is working, it is taking pressure off oil demand.
Trying to use EVs in the US is just crazy. Our electricity supply is not very adequate to begin with. Adding wind and solar (and giving them the subsidy of “going first”) drives out other electricity producers. We are worse off than before.
ICE is cheaper in CA .
https://x.com/anasalhajji/status/1898303708737241103/photo/1
Clearly, it makes no sense in California (or anywhere else in the US) for a person who has to depend on buying electricity from public fast charging facilities to buy an EV. This is a very costly way of fueling a car.
The prices are surprisingly close, especially if a person can use “off peak” grid electricity to fuel a vehicle. If a person needs to charge when rates are high, even at home, it is better to have an ICE in California.
Just wait till these are common headlines as the race for AI consumes and demands more power from the grid. And there’s a belief that WE can somehow find a different source of cheap energy to power industrial civilization when we have trouble finding enough to feed demand because we are up to our eyeballs in debt.
“PA Faces “Looming Power Crisis” After Gov. Shapiro’s Electricity Tax And Plant Closures”
https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/pa-faces-looming-power-crisis-after-gov-shapiros-electricity-tax-and-plant-closures
We do seem to be headed in the “not enough electricity” direction. Especially if Artificial Intelligence or Electric Vehicles need more electricity. Also, we have promised a whole lot of natural gas for LNG exports. Will that leave enough for our own electricity production.
Electricity data browser shows interesting things about electricity demand.
https://www.eia.gov/electricity/data/browser/
Demand for electricity ramps up in summer and winter, and down in spring and fall. During the week, demand is higher during the daytime than at night, and on weekdays compared to weekends. Fossil fuels can ramp up and down to meet this needed demand curve. Wind and solar simply add more variability to the supply system that must be worked around.
The strange pricing scheme which gives “priority” to wind and solar drives other producers out of business. Pennsylvania seems to have its own problems, caused by actions of Democratic governor Josh Shapiro.
Hypothetical:
If one can make an AI which is 3x as efficient as a human, then assuming a human work day of say 12 hours max, the AI only needs 1/4 the energy duration, solar works.
Different question: If information is energy, rules are information, are the rules of the universe non-volatile? If not, how does one avoid degradation? Copilot waves hands on this question.
Dennis L.
dennis
despite the futility of the enterprise, i will masochistically keep trying.
a 1 ton pile of something, needs shifting from a to b—–
shifting stuff requires xx amount of energy input….no amount of thinking about it will move it.
AI cannot alter the energy input required, neither can it create any form of energy to help with shifting.
Norman, most “work” these days is not “donkey work”, but “brain work.”
As a tool for assisting brain work, AI can lead to amazing leaps in efficiency, speed and quality.
Just as weaving machines replaced hand weavers, and mechanical diggers and replaced men with spades and pickaxes, and the innovative technology of the industrial and agricultural revolutions replaced traditional working methods, so the pocket calculator replaced counting on one’s fingers and toes and in Switzerland the mobile phone has almost totally eliminated yodeling, so AI is eliminating all kinds of laborious brain work tasks, leaving humans with plenty of free time to worry about whether AI is good for the world and whether human life has any meaning, etc.
agreed tim, that most work is brain work these days
point is—do you know why
it is because 98% of us obtain our necessary energy-subsistence from the ‘actual work’ input of about2% of the people.—plus ff energy input
(400 years ago it was the other way round)
35,000 US troops to the front line against Russia.
Do we believe the Canadian Prepper?
The Russians will die on the Canadian tar sand.
EU fights Russia, Israel fights Iran, US fights China. No explanation why anyone should be fighting.
Is it real just have to wait and see.
Diminishing returns.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=s0kuMS-EATs
Humans do act a whole lot like chimpanzees. They go to war also. Practice infanticide. Choose in-groups and out-groups.
Biology?
Dennis L .
Brain quantity is no guarantee for succes.
Do superheroes need a reason to fight each other?
Canadian Prepper is exhibit “A” for all the opportunists selling fear porn these days. He must make a hell of a lot of commissions promoting all the junk you need to “survive.” You’d have to build a Wal-Mart sized warehouse to store all the stuff he says you need.
I’d love to sic Fast Eddie on him re: “prepping.”
https://fasteddynz.substack.com/p/reporter-brutally-gang-raped
“Canadian Prepper is exhibit “A” for all the opportunists selling fear porn these days. ”
That has been my impression, as well.
Best prepper gear prize goes to Mike Adams at Natural News with his “Escape from LA” knife.
Every urban doomer should have at least one in their grab ‘n go backpack.
Fred,
If you run, bug out, where do you go? How do you survive after your beans in the backpack run out.
It takes 3x the attackers to defeat 1x defenders. How do you get another can of beans from the 1x group? If the 1x group has enough beans for 1x size, where do the other 2x cans of beans come from?
Dennis L.
i’ve often wondered where bugouters bug out to
Agree .
Preppers are Amish like or the Amish. They are biology, they are family, they are a group of 250 or so people, Dunbar’s number.
Chimpanzees are known to engage in territorial disputes and even violent confrontations with rival groups. Research suggests that such conflicts are more likely when a group has around 30 to 40 adult members actively patrolling or defending their territory.
Infanticide among chimpanzees is a complex behavior often linked to social and reproductive strategies. It tends to occur in groups where there is intense competition for resources or mates. Research suggests that infanticide is more likely in larger communities, particularly when there are 30 or more individuals, as this size can lead to heightened competition and social tension
Cognitive Capacity: Human brains are significantly larger and more capable of managing complex social networks compared to chimps. Dunbar’s Number of ~250 represents the upper limit of meaningful relationships a human can maintain, thanks to our advanced memory and language skills. Chimps, while highly intelligent, are limited by their comparatively smaller brains, which may cap their ability to handle larger group dynamics at around 30–40 individuals.
All from Copilot, referenced if one wished.
We are biology, biology has taken tens of thousands of years of evolution, it may be it is this way because it works. That would be non deterministic which would be frustrating for the narratives.
Dennis L.
Nate bought a large piece of land far from town. He has installed a farm with fruit trees and much solar. He makes no secret that full on survival is a big job. He has several sons who are being trained in weapons use.
Yes he sells survival stuff. Never the less he spend much of his time following the progress of the wars. I find him more informative than Ritter and McDouglas.
Who is Nate?
I don’t see the Amish fighting, I don’t think fighting works very well. Not an opinion, a guess from observation. If all the aggressive males go off fighting, in terms of survival the male hanging back with the group might do all right until infanticide when the warriors return.
Were there a reason, possibly the dominate male needs “stuff” to have more offspring?
Complicated problem, seems to revert to biology which has a long history of trial and error or evolution.
Dennis L.
Nate is the person that does Canadian Prepper channel.
Does fast Eddy now re-runs 10 years old stuff? I always knew he was short on inspiration. Anyway that episode was the umpteenth piece of evidence the US assumes too much.
Trump is on Russia side. Putin and Netanyahu are his two daddies.
I don’t really believe this. The system has to change. Trump is trying to implement his view of what the changes should be.
If the word economy needs to shrink, each side implementing tariffs against the other would be a way to do it. If Trump starts with tariffs, other countries will likely reciprocate. It might be a better way than using nuclear bombs to beat back opponents.
The self-organizing system will take care of itself.
“The self-organizing system will take care of itself.”
I agree.
But there are often several options to branch to.
Thus there is some influence to direct possible outcomes.
” It might be a better way than using nuclear bombs to beat back opponents.”
I like that idea.
Have a belief the creator were it to come to bombs would put His hand on the scale and essentially say, “Enough.”
Dennis L.
thats good to know dennis
just as well that ”god is on everybodys side”
But Russia is winning the war regardless because they have a much bigger military industrial complex than the US in terms of actual useful production of weapons. They don’t need Trump.
Russia is winning in Ukraine but barely. It is much easier for the Russians to buy Trump than build bombs.
They are winning decisively. They have massive superiority in weapons because they have a massive and fully functioning military industry unlike the deindustrialised US. That means the other side dies at a far higher rate.
If you prefer to believe the reason you’re losing is because Trump is a Russian agent, that’s your choice.
WIT , what is barely ? They were near Kiev when they retreated so to make it possible for NATO( UKR ) to sign the agreement in Istanbul . Where were you when UKR was bombing Donbass and Lugansk ? Asking to check if you are ignorant or in denial .
If Russia was the military power everyone thinks they are, they should have had Ukraine beat in a couple of months at most. The Soviets went from Stalingrad to Berlin in three years, but modern Russia can’t even capture Kiev?
“If Russia was the military power everyone thinks they are, they should have had Ukraine beat in a couple of months at most”
You are presuming a lot about the Russians and their intent. History has shown time and again that they are excellent fighters and strategists. Maybe they are doing what suits them and changing with the bigger picture as needed. They appear well organised and calm, with a growing economy and everything they need from the base resources, right through to the finished product, all at home.
On the other side, it’s all hysterical babbling, with failing economies that can produce little outside of financial fraud. The weapons, strategy and moral are somewhere between useless and depressed.
Then there was the silly bit of theatre from the orange wonder and the green goblin, about a deal that never was, but does at least have a far nicer ring to it than capitulation.
“35,000 US troops to the front line against Russia.”
As a rule of thumb:
Never make claims about news based on youtube videos alone.
Esp. if it is some ‘Breaking News’.
Probability is very high that it’s just ‘click bait’.
Correct. Some posters here seem to have trouble understanding this and regularly cite channels that are clearly clickbait or heavily biased.
no. 35k troops to hungary