As I will explain, the outcome that looks like losing may actually be the best path forward for the world’s remaining economies.
The fighting today is with respect to which parts of the world will get which energy resources, and at what prices. Even before the current conflict, there was a shortage of jet fuel and diesel. The only reasonable outcome I can think of is that the US will only be able to tap its own energy resources, plus those of its nearby neighbors (Figure 1). Consequently, the economy will gradually reorganize in ways that use fuels more sparingly.
The outcome outlined in Figure 1 implies that Donald Trump and the US-Israel coalition will lose the war against Iran. It appears that the physics of the situation (or perhaps the Higher Power behind the physics of the situation) has chosen the flawed personality of Donald Trump to accomplish the required result. This is a situation where what seems to be the US losing in its conflict against Iran is actually winning for the overall world economy. If oil can be used more sparingly in the future by servicing people closer to where end products are made, the available energy resources will provide greater benefit to society as a whole.
In the remainder of this article, I will try to explain the situation more fully.
[1] Background
In physics terms, an economy is a dissipative structure. In order to stay away from a dead state (collapse), it needs to “dissipate” energy of the right kinds. A human is also a dissipative structure. We dissipate food to stay away from a dead state.
From a physics point of view, fossil fuels are as essential to economies as food is to humans. Without fossil fuels, economies tend to collapse and die. With an adequate supply of easily extractable and transportable fossil fuels, economies are able to grow. However, when these fuels become less available due to the exhaustion of nearby resources, or for other reasons, economies are forced to shrink. Rising population can also be a factor because every person in the world needs food and at least minimal transportation. The war is about future standards of living in countries around the world.
An underlying problem is that the world now has too many people for the available resources, such as fresh water. One chart showing data through the end of 2023 indicates that the Middle East is home to 4,863 desalination plants, or about 42% of the world’s total. This region is acutely stressed for fresh water. The Middle East cannot grow much of its own food; it must depend on imports, which are grown and transported using oil.
Previous analyses (here and here) have shown that diesel and jet fuel supplies have been in increasingly short supply since long before the Iran War.
Critical minerals, used in electrification, are also in very short supply. In a finite world, the easy-to-extract minerals are extracted first, leaving the high-cost-to extract minerals for the future.
In today’s fossil fuel economy, oil is the largest component. Oil is usually the highest-priced of the fossil fuels because it is energy-dense and easy to transport and store. If oil supply fails, an economy is likely to collapse. Coal and natural gas are the other fossil fuels. Liquefied natural gas (LNG) is natural gas that is super-chilled and shipped long-distance by boat. Similarly to oil, its price is under pressure today.
[2] The world’s fossil fuel economy already seems to be at a turning point in its economic cycle.
It is well known that economies exhibit cyclical behavior. Researchers Peter Turchin and Sergey Nefedov analyzed eight economies that collapsed and published their findings in their book Secular Cycles. They found that populations that discovered new resources were able to grow for a period of time until they came close to the carrying capacity of the resources available. After approaching the carrying capacity, economies reached a period of stagflation, characterized by slower growth, inflation, and spiking prices as shown on Figure 3.
At this point, the fossil fuel system has been growing for over 200 years. It has undergone stagflation since the early 1970s. It is now ready to begin the downswing of the Crisis Years.
Now, the Iran War seems to mark the beginning of a fairly long Crisis Period. The Stagflation Period was expected to last 50 to 60 years. The year 2026 is 56 years after the time US crude oil production stopped growing, so the timing is roughly in line with expectations. However, we don’t know whether the Crisis Period will really last between 20 and 50 years, since the situation is now quite different compared to cycles before fossil fuels were added to the economy. But it does look like the world economy is headed for reorganization based on the limited fuel supply.
[3] In order for an economy to “work,” oil prices need to be both low enough for consumers, buying end products such as food made possible by the use of oil, and high enough for oil producers.
This issue is not one most people think much about. There are really two different oil price levels that are important:
(a) The price level affordable by consumers. If consumers cannot afford food or basic transportation, this quickly becomes a problem that leads to unhappiness with elected officials. This is the reason why elected officials often try to hold down oil prices.
(b) The price that oil producers require in order to make an adequate profit and allow investment in new wells to offset depletion in existing wells. In the case of oil exporters, oil prices may need to be very high to permit high taxes on oil exports to support food subsidies and other government programs.
I believe that a major problem we have reached today is that countries that are primarily oil exporters, such as Russia and countries in the Middle East, need far higher oil prices than consumers are able to pay. Even if the wars in Ukraine and Iran stopped tomorrow, the world would still have this underlying issue.
[4] Since 2014, oil prices have been too low for countries that use taxes on oil exports as a major source of tax revenue.
Figure 4. Oil prices in 2025 US$, with ovals marking three different oil price periods. Oil prices are based on oil data from the 2025 Statistical Review of World Energy, published by the Energy Institute, adjusted by the US CPI Urban increase to 2025 levels. The 2025 average Brent oil price is from EIA data.
Figure 4 shows average world oil prices on an inflation-adjusted basis, to 2025 price levels. As such, prices for earlier dates appear much higher on the graph than past observers would have seen them.
The low oil prices from 1948 until early 1973 were good for economies around the world, including the US. In the early days of oil extraction, oil was easy to extract and close to where it was to be used. The cost of extraction and transport was low. Consumers started seeing many more products become available. Many families in the US could afford a car for the first time. Also, the US was able to support the recovery of European economies from the impact of World War II at a cost that was not excessive.
In recent years, costs have risen. This is especially the case for the price needed by oil exporters. Part of the problem is that the size of the population requiring subsidy keeps growing, while oil production has been close to flat.
A second part of the problem is that economies of oil exporters often have few other sources of taxable revenue. Oil exporters are trying to change this by adding downstream manufacturing that uses the oil and gas they produce. A third part of the problem is that, as population grows, the higher population tends to use more of the available oil supply, leaving less for export.
Figure 6 shows that, in the 2011-2013 period, oil prices seemed to be high enough for most OPEC members (except Iran). Fiscal break-even prices indicate how high oil prices need to be, including the amount of tax revenue needed to balance budgets.
The notation in yellow on Figure 6 shows that the expected fiscal breakeven break-even for the period under analysis for all OPEC members combined was $105. EIA data shows that the average Brent oil prices during this period were $111 in the year 2011, $112 in the year 2012, and $109 in 2013. Thus, prices were high enough for most producers. Iran was an outlier on the high side, with a range for the 2013-2014 period of $110 to $172. (A more recent forecast for Iran shows a 2025 fiscal breakeven price of $124, which remains far above the pre-Iran war oil price.)
Figure 4 shows that oil prices began to fall in 2014. At these lower levels, it became increasingly difficult for oil exporters to obtain enough tax revenue to significantly help their local populations. They started needing to use more debt to fund their local economies. As a result, they gradually became increasingly unhappy. Figure 4 shows that the average price 2025 for Brent oil was only $65.
To make matters worse for oil exporting countries requiring high prices, oil price forecasts by the EIA and IEA for the year 2026 were even lower because of an expected oversupply of oil. Countries with growing oil production included Argentina, Brazil, China, and Guyana. In addition, some counties on the coast of Africa are hoping to add oil production. Unless world demand is growing rapidly, more oil supply tends to lead to lower prices and a worse situation for oil exporters trying to balance their budgets with taxes on exported oil.
[5] Without the war, LNG prices would also have been too low for LNG exporters.
LNG is a “modern” way of shipping natural gas. Only about 13% of natural gas is transported as LNG. It tends to be an expensive method of transport. Recent reports indicate that a huge amount of future LNG supply is planned for the next few years.
Adding a huge amount of LNG would probably cause prices to drop significantly. This would be great from the point of view of consumers, but it would likely leave prices too low for producers. As I see the situation, Middle Eastern producers are likely to need prices in the $15 to $20 range per million metric tons of LNG, while India is not willing to pay more than $10 per unit, and those wanting to replace coal are unwilling to pay more than $5 per unit. Thus, without the war, LNG would have had a similar problem to that of oil, with prices far too low for exporters.
[6] From Iran’s point of view, I see the war as similar to a suicide, when a farmer can no longer support his family.
With Iran’s fiscal breakeven price at $124 per barrel and the pre-war Brent price at only $65, Iran was already in an impossible position. In fact, Iran could see that all of the Middle East infrastructure would be close to worthless, at expected 2026 oil and LNG prices. So why not take it down as well?
If nothing else, a war might help raise prices, at least a bit. Notice that on Figure 4, oil prices bounced up a little from their very low level in 2022, the year when the Ukraine conflict started.
[7] Losing any significant share of energy supply is likely to significantly reduce world GDP.
If the energy supply were to be lost, the world would be dealing with the losing something equivalent to its food supply. If the world economy loses even 10% of its oil and LNG, it is not difficult to imagine world GDP falling by 10%. At this point, we don’t know precisely how much energy supply, of which kind, will be lost, or for how long. The amount lost could be far higher than 10%. Also, the outage could last for years.
There are many issues involved. Supply lines are breaking down forcing businesses to find closer sources for both energy products and products made using cheap local energy products, such as fertilizer and aluminum. The war, as it is taking place today, is leading to major damage to energy-related structures in the Middle East. Destroyed LNG structures are estimated to take at least five years to replace. Damage elsewhere is also immense. Rebuilding the oil infrastructure will also likely take at least five years.
[8] The US understands the importance of Middle Eastern oil and gas. It uses its strong relationship with Israel to further its military presence in the Middle East.
Israel is a very high-level ally. In fact, a 2025 US Department of State Fact Sheet says that the US is committed to helping Israel in the case of an attack:
Steadfast support for Israel’s security has been a cornerstone of American foreign policy for every U.S. Administration since the presidency of Harry S. Truman. . . Israel is the leading global recipient of Title 22 U.S. security assistance under the Foreign Military Financing (FMF) program. . .Israel has been designated as a U.S. Major Non-NATO Ally under U.S. law. This status provides foreign partners with certain benefits in the areas of defense trade and security cooperation and is a powerful symbol of their close relationship with the United States. Consistent with statutory requirements, it is the policy of the United States to help Israel preserve its QME, or its ability to counter and defeat any credible conventional military threat from any individual state or possible coalition of states or from non-state actors, while sustaining minimal damages and casualties.
However, if we look to see where US military bases are located, they are not in Israel. Instead, a map shows that the “persistent” US military bases are all located around the Persian Gulf (Figure 8).
These bases were clearly intended to protect oil transiting through the Persian Gulf. At this point, all of the persistent bases have been severely damaged by missiles from Iran.
The major interest of the US has been the availability of oil and natural gas from the Middle East. No one ever considered the idea that low prices might be the force that would bring down Middle Eastern oil and natural gas exports.
Friendship with Israel provides the US a convenient close by ally. It also pleases both Jewish Americans who support Israel and those evangelical Christians who hold a religious view that Israel is needed for the second coming of Christ. Some of the latter may even believe that a war in the Middle East could perhaps hasten this event.
[9] Trump realizes that winning the war against Iran is absolutely essential if the US is to retain global hegemony.
The US has been the holder of the world’s reserve currency since immediately after World War II. It was chosen for this role because it was the most trusted and dominant country in the world. International trade took place almost exclusively in US dollars, creating a high demand for US government debt. This allowed the US to import more goods and services than it exported, year after year. This advantage tended to raise the standard of living of US residents.
At one time, Saudi Arabia insisted that all oil purchases be made in US dollars. This requirement has recently expired, but, as a practical matter, the majority of purchases have continued to be through trades in US dollars.
One of the main ways that the US has maintained its hegemony is by building military bases around the world. With these bases, the US can claim to protect countries against aggressors. However, recent events have shown that Iran is able to take down the radar systems at these bases. Without radar, the bases are virtually useless. If the US is to maintain the illusion that it is truly at the top of the pecking order with its sophisticated weaponry, it must show that, together with Israel, it can prevail against Iran.
A disadvantage of the role of being the chief hegemon is ever-rising US government debt and the need to pay interest on that debt. This growing debt and the interest on the debt has become an increasing burden.
If the US should lose its hegemony role, the advantage the US has had over other countries in trade is likely to disappear. Repaying debt with interest is likely to become an even worse problem. If this should happen, Trump will no longer be able to think about making America great again.
[10] Conclusion
The world is now facing a problem that most people never considered possible: Oil and LNG prices can fall so low that production becomes unprofitable for major oil and LNG exporters. Until now, the trend among world leaders, including President Trump, has been to try to hold prices down for consumers, so that food and fuel for vehicles would remain affordable. However, this has created a problem in that prices have become too low for countries whose primary industry is being an oil exporter.
At this point, the world economy needs to make a major transition in order to deal with the inadequate level of fuels available for long-distance transportation. These same fuels are heavily used for farming and for many for commercial endeavors, such as building homes and roads. It is therefore necessary to find ways to use these fuels more sparingly. One way to achieve this is by reducing the length of most supply lines, as shown on Figure 1. Shorter supply lines will also be needed elsewhere in the world.
It is ironic that the world economy cannot make a change such as this without a war to focus our attention in this direction. Other changes will also be needed. Governments will probably have to become smaller and provide fewer services. Vacation travel will become the exception rather than the rule. “Working from home” will become the norm, whenever possible. I expect that the world’s population will need to fall, albeit in a fairly subtle way. I expect this will mostly be the result of shorter life expectancies.
We are fortunate that economies are self-organizing. If resources are available, even after a major schism such as the loss of the war against Iran, the self-organizing nature of the economic system will try to knit together pieces that can productively provide goods and services. This cannot happen instantly, but this feature means that there are likely to be some jobs and some goods and services available. Past cycles of the type illustrated in Figure 3 have eventually led to new beginnings.
If the US and Israel lose the current war against Iran, I expect President Trump to be blamed for this loss. However, I believe that this outcome would be best for the world as a whole.
Please see this .
” Rough table based on days cover minimums to illustrate whats about to hit the market in May and June.
Demand needs to get slaughtered going forward tank bottoms hit.
1bn barrels of storage drawn end June + 12.5mmbpd of demand loss . ”
*Restart not included
https://x.com/UnintendedCons5/status/2046791865291452916/photo/1
Where is “investor guy “ to save the day?
Add this to the mix. I posted this at undenial earlier today. Hot and salty.
Impact of 3 Months at Anchor
Ships at anchor are more susceptible to biofouling than those underway because barnacle larvae attach more easily to stationary hulls. Scout Boats
Fouling Severity: Barnacles and algae thrive in warm, salty waters (above 20°C); in such conditions, heavy fouling can manifest within months.
Performance Loss: Fouling increases drag, which can cut fuel efficiency by up to 40% and reduce speed by over 1.0–1.5 knots.
Maintenance Options: If a tanker has significant barnacle growth after three months, operators may choose in-water hull cleaning rather than an unscheduled dry dock. Divers or robotic cleaners (e.g., HullBot) can remove growth using water jets, scrapers, or brushes while the ship remains afloat. umsflorida.com
+2
Ravi you seem informed a relatively objective. In your opinion was China in big economic problems before the war? It’s hard to know what’s true.
In times of conflict objective analysis gets regarded as a weapon I’m afraid.kinetic action being a intensification as great powers act for their continuence.
“It’s hard to know what’s true.”
I am in the same camp as you . 😭
All we have is each other for knowing the truth. And that is enough because that is our evolutionary heritage.
China was in a horrific state. China has been surviving on discount sanctioned oil ever since peak global total oil liquids (on the fitted curve) arrived at the end of 2018. It’s no coincidence that that is when sanctions on VZ and Iran hit. In 2021, the US handed Iraqi oil to China on a platter as I’ve previously noted numerous times over the years. In 2022 China started getting Iraqi oil at a 30% discount. That same year, Russian sanctions started, followed by the price cap. That’s 50% of its imports.
China is a TBTF albatross of this cIvilization. Welcome to the biggest running backdoor energy bailout Phase 1 of the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda had to offer. Now it’s over.
Indonesia Secures 150M Barrels of Oil From Russia: Tempo
From where and how and when ????
A few days ago I was reading ” Mexico to supply ‘some’ crude to Japan to ease the situation ” . Mexico is a nett petro importer like Indonesia .
We are going to see a lot of BS soothing headlines in the future .
https://x.com/chigrl/status/2047269102050222119/photo/1
Self-rebalancing, self-adjusting “system” that the Blog Owner mentions frequently (recently).
Hopefully, all these rebalancing efforts will detectably smooth the dramatic glide down the Seneca Cliff…
While out in Kyoto today, I noticed that gasoline prices at the pump are surprisingly low – below what they have been for most of the past year or two.
However, diesel is now as expensive as gasoline. From personal memory, historically, diesel has always been cheaper. So I assume diesel is in shorter supply than gasoline at the moment.
Key Products from a 42-Gallon Barrel
Gasoline: ~19–20 gallons (42-45%)
Distillate Fuel Oil (Diesel/Heating Oil): ~11–12 gallons (25-27%)
Jet Fuel (Kerosene): ~4 gallons (9-10%)
Other Products: ~6 gallons (Hydrocarbon gas liquids, asphalt, lubricants, petrochemical feedstocks) .
Nothing surprising . Petrol is in extra supply vs demand .
OT on stablecoins (please, delete if inapproriate – but I find it very explanatory):
https://www.zerohedge.com/crypto/us-treasury-secretary-presses-senate-pass-crypto-market-structure-legislation#comment-stream
User “Dump” says the following:
(best shortest explanations I’ve recently found on stablecoins… Some other good comments there – quality reminds me of the good old ZH (before it was sold/resold many times in the last almost ~decades)).
P.S. I wish we had the transactional infrastructure and proto-stablecoins during the USSR collapse in late 1980-s – early 1990s…
So if I understand the idea correctly, we make money by shorting a given currency (the iranian and argentinian ones for example) and then sell stable coins to those who can afford them. What could go wrong?
So how exactly will all these non US nationals purchase these treasury minimis and with what currency? What use does the treasury have for those local currencies?; Are the buyers to obtain dollars for this already escaping their local currency and then do the same with the dollar to obtain stablecoin?
Then what will these stablecoin owners do with them or is the premise entire nations will all obtain stablecoin and use their phones for transactions? The newly offered digital yuan is a flop. No one wants it. They want real yuan (whatever that is);held digitally.
Market share is a very powerful thing.
Less oil. More tokens of assorted flavors. Interesting. Token lalapalooza. But this vast assortment works against the primary benefit of money itself. Universal acceptance.
I’m sorry sir we only accept border Collie coin here not Shepherd coin. Some people…
We have this belief in eternal replacement. If one energy source goes away there will be another. As infrastructure goes poof it will be replaced. As one currency loses favor another will manifest. Of course these things are very nice. Money is very nice. Like electricity the very essence of industrial civilization
Every dog has it’s day. So why are the shelters full?
energy is the essence of civilisation—not money or electricity
Energy is the fuel in the global engines and money is the engine oil. We face both a fuel and lubrication shortage. Incorporating a new source of suitable lubricant for the primary global engine helps with the lubrication problem.
next time you run out of petrol—try stuffing $£ notes in the filler tube
next time you need an oilchange—stuff the same notes into the engine
translation: I’m not listening so I might as well double down.in oblivion
real nice
money can never be anything other than a unit of energy exchange…..
now’s your change to dazzle us with intellect and prove me wrong…
Fewer effective flavors of tokens. The dollar stablecoin market — the only one that matters — is a decentralized, essentially free forex market open to anybody with a smartphone. When the dollar deflates, everyone will want them and be able to get them, and each of these forex transactions will fund the civilizational petrodollar and maximize the civilization’s ability to chase oil with fully backed/reserved (by T-bills) real monetary value.
Nothing is permanent. Nothing continues forever. We would like to believe that growth will continue forever, but it can’t.
Can stable coin act as a temporary bandaid? If so, how log can it act? I wouldn’t count on it doing very much for very long.
I think we have to put stablecoins in another context than a bandaid. It’s more like a tree faller’s makeshift tourniquet after the chainsaw cut a ring around his thigh and his femoral artery let loose. He’s gonna die but he’ll have time to write I’M SORRY on his helmet with the blood. The Hand’s apology is the decommissioning and also giving everyone plenty of warning.
Global energy markets are on the verge of a disaster
Scenarios now range from bad to awful
“To gauge how close the world is to energy catastrophe, The Economist has gathered a dashboard of indicators. It suggests that grave damage has already been done. Worse, without a reopening costs could soar, triggering events that cause the fuel system to seize up. A reopening of the strait now would—just—avoid a complete disaster. But some additional pain is already inevitable.
Three factors are pushing the world towards the cliff edge. Oil cargoes available to buy are drying up. Refineries are slashing output of fuel. And demand remains artificially high, especially in Europe. Something big must give somewhere large for energy markets to balance.
Take trade first. One reason the largest supply shock in petroleum history has not triggered global panic is that a near-record amount of oil was already at sea when the war started. As American warships set sail for the Gulf in February, countries there cranked up exports. After the latest deliveries, those seaborne stocks are now exhausted. So are most cargoes of Iranian and Russian oil, which were loitering at sea but found buyers after America eased sanctions on the two countries. Total volumes on water have fallen at record speed (see chart 1). For jet fuel and petrol they are well below historical norms, and possibly close to the minimum required for seaborne trade to function.
The last time oil demand fell by 10% in short order was during the covid-19 lockdowns of 2020, a shock that also brought about a fall in world GDP of more than 3%. The time to avoid a similar tumble is running out.
https://archive.ph/20260423091416/https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2026/04/21/global-energy-markets-are-on-the-verge-of-a-disaster
“The energy situation is grave,” might be a good way to summarize the problem. World GDP will fall. Many shelves will be empty.
There’s a variable that’s not being taken into account in this matter: the logistics of supplying the fleet carrying out the blockade. They need fuel and all other supplies, and their normal supply centers are at bases within the Gulf, so the USA is also racing against time.
T-AO available for CENTCOM 4–5 theater, all already deployed
Sustainable replenishment flow from Diego Garcia ~26–28 kb/d
Actual fleet consumption ~56 kb/d F-76 only
Daily deficit covered by initial stock T-AO~28–30 kb/d
Initial stock in deployed T-AO ~700–900 kb
Days that stock covers the deficit~25–30 days from the start of the blockade (April 13)
Reinforcements available from CONUS: None without stripping another theater or civil freight (25–30 days)
Decision window before operational downgrade ~ end of April / first week of May
The lockdown began on April 13th. Today is April 22nd. We’ve been at it for 9 days. The comfort window for the initial stock of T-AOs closes approximately between May 5th and 12th, assuming Diego García can replenish at a normal pace and that the T-AOs complete their cycles without incident.
Copy/paste Quark .
Good point!
Very good points. Logistics are everything. The stockpile in Diego Garcia is not infinite either. There is not a oil field and refinery at Diego Garcia. It probably came from the Gulf too.How much fuel is consumed getting it to the war. Do you have the ships to do so. And then there is the bothersome habit of Iran to launch missiles at ships as fuel is transfered as they apparently have real time surveillance.
Some say logistics is the primary limiter in the Ukraine war. Yes there is a reason China stays close to home. Their operational balloon will get smaller as this progresses. Every operational balloon in the world will get smaller civilian military and individual.
We tend to regard things as infinite. It’s been that way most of our lives. Money is regarded as infinite also. A big pot of money somewhere and if it’s not distributed it’s because someone is stingy.
As many commenters have said you can’t print oil. But you can print money and as long as oil can be purchased with dollars reserve currency is the next best thing.
It is unclear exactly what the toll requirements are on the Iran side. There has been reporting that paying for oil in Yuan not dollars is required. I don’t know if that is true the tolls are not just about profit. If true it means the tolls are a reserve currency destruction machine. That all receipts are assessed who the business is being done with accessed. In the media the toll amounts are given in dollars. I’m not sure if this is true. Tolls paid in dollars would be favorable to reserve currency status. I actually think this unspoken issue is one of the many many reasons neither party can walk away. It highlights t reality that if Iran remains the defacto owner of Hormuz reserve currency utility will diminish and my guess is that is true regardless. I don’t think there is a way back to before even now.
My guess. This weekend or next. I don’t know what every result will be but I don’t think operational balloon will stop shrinking.
what stops Iran from hitting supply lines to Diego Garcia?
More than half of existing AI projects put on hold. Unavailability of critical components cited. Who would have thought LOL
It’s not even here yet. When it gets here those ai stocks are in for a bit of a “haircut”. A haircut with a wood chipper.
That’s one thing. The boondoggle bonds that were issued another.
What’s that noise I hear? It sounded like “poof” . Odd that. There it is again! And again! It’s like raindrops hitting a steel roof now.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=GQK9JhfirEk&pp=ugUHEgVlbi1VUw%3D%3D
Is this something that can be hidden for a while longer? If it is, I bet it will be.
Nature being unashamed will find uses for the unfinished AI facilities. Aaaargh it’s a armadillo infestation.
I am reminded of that guy that created a bootleg cryo facility where people freeze their bodies. Talk about energy input requirements. Maintenance was sketch and chamber temperature rose many times. That fundamentally somehow structure of the body could be preserved once the temperature rose in the chamber aka ewe was ignored and cooler temperature restored n the chambers. Finally he just split to Mexico. I don’t see how you could enjoy your morning coffee. Not leaving a mess is a worthy goal.
Things that need a lot of energy inputs to allow something contrary to normal conditions don’t tend to last.
The U.s has spent so much on AI I’m hearing that it’s about 85 percent of gdp?
EU RELEASES WARNING TO CITIZENS – PREPARE FOR ENERGY & GAS CRISIS
EU IS CONSIDERING ROLLING LOCKDOWNS FOR CITIZENS TO SLOW THE CRISIS
https://x.com/merlinscapital/status/2046937484454437262
https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_26_629
this is the end guys obviously the powers that be knew when the real peak will begin even Norm was calling for 2025 to be the beginning of the end so so it’s all downhill from now on for a lot of us within a month or even a little bit more things are gonna get tough lockdowns,food and water restrictions.airline closures and transport will probably be reduced to bicycles and walking crime will skyrocket as the have nots attack the haves the internet will stop and some countries like America will fare better.It was fun hanging out at OFW with like-minded folks hopefully we enjoy a couple more years together before the end.
If an area doesn’t have enough oil and natural gas, it pretty much has to tell people to stay at home. Temporary measures–at least as announced.
Lets not over-dramatize it, that’s not in that text – the member states and commission will simply convene tomorrow or so and chart ahead list of policies of curbing energy wastage in preferred domains ( by them ) and re-location of investments into ” energy savings ” and support for pre – selected segments of the energy industry, e.g. wind power which is under CHN export ban sanctions, hence they will likely subsidize domestic production instead.
There are many ” easy ” ways what they will likely agree upon, as hinted in the text they will focus chiefly on [ diesel and aviation fuel ] for now, as Gail mentioned numerous time already, i.e. cancelling short route-distance connection flights, banning say above ~1.6-2.5L diesel engine displacement car sales, banning car entrance into inner parts of cities or occupancy ( not allowed single driver ) etc.
The true ” horrors ” will likely have to wait past 2030s though..
Obviously, some nasty surprises could materialize before that threshold, most likely in mandates on ~freedoms of movement~ related, aka various bans on vacation travel, perhaps new tariffs announced on electricity consumption ( boilers-on per certain time slots only ), also various taxation scheme added – linked to energy heightened in food consumption areas etc.
when the Titanic was sinking a band was playing music to keep the passengers happy as they assembled to board their assigned lifeboats we aint got much time junior are u sure youre not playing in that band
Well, it had to be said about that not entirely correct reference..
In terms of outlook and timing lets re-post from those fine Surplus people, here Dr. T answers DaveInMyrs..
—
drtimmorgan on April 21, 2026 at 9:00 am said:
David:
Cautious though I tend to be, I can’t agree with “late this century”.
My expectation for ECoE (from all sources of energy) in 2026 is 11.7%, which is bad enough (remember this was below 2% during the high-growth years between 1945 and 1970). The projection for 2050 is close to 29%, a level at which IC is clearly impossible.
As I see it, “things have been starting to break” for some years now.
—
Certainly. Things have already been starting to break.
The Euro mainstream press says nothing. and the populace knows nothing. There were blurbs in the MSM about airport shortages, that is all.
~inverse logic meaning they must be panicking big time then..
I guess in reality this seemingly ” no worry ” attitude – it’s mostly about the freeze-out internal state of shock, realization that it is indeed already here during their watch, the long postponed and over predicted point from which on Europe is downgraded to even way lesser power status among former global competitors..
The practical consequences will be dire in terms of living standard free-fall in many dimensions incl. the beloved pillars up to this point like social and medical safety net. As on the street security has vanished a decade+ ago already in Italy, southern Scandinavia, W. Germany, France, ..
Simply, severe step down ahead.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h_yWd2sNiNc&t=845s
Larry C. Johnson on Trump’s mentality.
These don’t sound like good things to be saying about Pres. Trump. Larry Johnson is on an awfully lot of videos.
Canada doing good. Loony up. Pension funds holding energy paper paying out. Dollar settlement functioning. Can this keep Asia on life support?
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=1phDCFLSR6s&pp=ygUKQ2FuYWRhIG9pbA%3D%3D
Not all of Asia
I thought that there was already oil being exported by this route to Asia before. I would expect that the amount transported to Asia is pretty small, in the whole scheme of things.
”FT exclusive: Russia is planning to halt the flow of Kazakh oil to Germany, threatening a refinery that supplies 90% of the petrol, kerosene and heating fuel to the German capital, its airport and surrounding region” ?
https://x.com/FT/status/2046932346704744596?s=20
We have a thread on it bellow already: “April 21, 2026 at 9:09 am ” ..
Basically nothing burger or slight pre-warning.
An entertaining video on FE home Perth.
An awfully lot of things need to be shipped long distance there. Doesn’t sound sustainable, but there are no neighbors to bother.
If an area has its own oil supply and refinery to process its own oil supply then it is laughing or sustainable so yes it is not sustainable.Fast Eddie has gone to Peru for two months hopefully Peru is more sustainable if Fast Eddie is stranded there.
If Eddy is still ticking off the items on his bucket list, then things can’t be that bad.
An update on all flights cancelled worldwide .
https://www.msn.com/en-us/travel/news/the-world-s-biggest-airlines-are-canceling-flights-as-they-face-jet-fuel-shortages-and-rising-prices/ar-AA20j2P8?uxmode=ruby&apiversion=v2&domshim=1&noservercache=1&noservertelemetry=1&batchservertelemetry=1&renderwebcomponents=1&wcseo=1
Mostly trimming less profitable short hop flights and flights that are not always full.
The desalination front: Water as Israel’s Achilles heel
https://thecradle.co/articles/the-desalination-front-water-as-israels-achilles-heel
But would Tehran dare to do it?
If Trump is threatening all kinds of things, this would seem like an easy way of retaliating.
“But would Tehran dare to do it?”
If USrael targets Iran’s civilian power and water system, then yes. I can see Iran returning the favor not only to Israel but to the GCC.
Perhaps mentioned earlier, but in some extended version of the story – it does include pro BNS argument..
—
Federal Government calls on Belgians to “be prepared!”
” The Federal Government has launched a campaign to help people prepare for emergencies. Households across Belgium are being urged to be ready to cope for at least 72 hours, if for example there was a large-scale power outage or the internet was down. The initiative that was launched today (Tuesday 21 April) form part of a 4-year plan by the National Crisis Centre to improve public resilience amid growing geopolitical tensions and natural disasters. ”
” The campaign will expand over time to cover additional risks, including nuclear incidents. It will also involve local authorities to ensure guidance is relevant to everyday life. The authorities say that by improving the public preparedness the emergency services will be better able to focus on those most in need during a crisis. ”
https://www.vrt.be/vrtnws/en/2026/04/21/federal-government-calls-on-belgians-to-be-prepared/
—
Mention is made of non-perishable food and fresh water supplies for this period.
I am here . Nobody cares . Just as where ever we are on this planet . Art Berman coined the word ” Energy illiteracy ” . Nobody wants to listen . Disappointing — the public prefers to take selfies while the Titanic sinks . 😭
Looking at that, somewhat artificial, imaginary Silk Road route, wouldn’t it be easier to, eventually connect the Middle Empire to Europe, using uninterrupted 1435mm gauge – simply crossing Magna Khazaria and what was formerly known as “Ukraine”, instead?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/middle-corridor-emerges-strategic-lifeline-global-trade#comment-stream
Europe doesn’t have much to export.
Snap
Multiculturality&Diversity, perhaps? MainLand Han will teach those, um, recently arrived to EU humans how to really work, and in no time at that😅
I imagine some comfortable, well-secured cattle railway cars doing Paris-XinJang in less than 24h non-stop, along those nice and modern 1435mm rails?
Russia, the world’s second-largest fertilizer producer, accounts for about 20% of the global trade>>>
⚠️Russia Caps Fertilizer Exports Till December in Global Crunch
Russia extended fertilizer export quotas until December as a global deficit deepens due to the Iran war and disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz, a key route for the seaborne trade in nutrients.
Russian producers are allowed to export 20 million tons of fertilizers for the period from June 1 to Nov. 30, the government said in a statement Wednesday.
The effective closure of the strait has cut off about a third of the seaborne fertilizer trade, fueling fears of a food crisis. Nations have raced to secure alternative supplies for farmers, but top producers including China and Russia have capped exports, forcing buyers to pay premiums for limited volumes. (Bloomberg)
We lose multiple exporters of fertilizer at once.
Fly me to the moon ………
….. Hey Huston, we have a few problems here.
Excuse my spelling~~!
Characteristic, honest, persuasive faces of your regular crisis actors…
yup
they waste $50 bn just to put fake videos on youtube and keep eddy lookalikes in drivel.
I’m amazed at the stamina of the fakeaholics and conspironuts on OFW—no matter what the event—its always faked by somebody
Wanted to express almost the same (in my Simplified English) – say, waste only $1bn to send the crisis actors around the Earth in the low, speedy orbit in a cheaper and safer tin can for a few days, and then pocket the remaining $49bn (that would be really needed for a real near-Lunar mission) 😅
the more complicated the conspiracy, the more conspironuts will belive it
ofw is their natural home
Out of respect to your age, documented authorship and not being a “Slovakian”, I am not going to argue with you, NP.
But – yes, being banned (under one of my more active avatars) on Reddit just this last weekend (after telling some stupid Hispanic about Murray’s 1994 “Bell Curve” book and their, Hispanics’, IQ being only slightly higher, than that of the Sub-Saharan “Slovakians”), I do feel welcome here at OFW and sincerely enjoy being here as at the last of the clearnet places dealing with Energy and Degrowth, where a variety of opinions and viewpoints is still allowed (by the Benevolent Hostess).
I’ve read on ZH and some IT-news places, just during the last 2 weeks, about age-restrictions on GNU/Linux usage in California, tightening the surveillance over and, otherwise, free-speech on the local Internet in both UK and Canada.
We all know, how it ends.
only by allowing varied views can you judge the veracity of the commenter…this is how ofw works.
but even established and verified intellect does not exclude dogged insistence on ‘alternative facts’ when every thread of common sense says otherwise….largely, i think, because to admit those ‘alternative facts’ are simply wrong would be to admit foolishness, which nobody likes admission of. (me included).
this is how cults arise….why flat earthers hold conventions to reassure each other, by self agreement, that the earth is proven flat, so they elect speakers they can applaud on the subject. …why 6 moon landings were faked (why fake 6?)….and now yet another moon circuit must, by definition, also be faked.
it being a total waste of human resources is another matter entirely…
nothing can shift the rapturemonger from his certainty of rapture—once in, you are condemned if you leave, (A holy version of the mafia if you like).
Trump capitalises on the same level of daftness—once you agree with his policies, you cannot disagree because the entire edifice of trumpism collapses around you if you do….by agreeing, you become part of his support structure.—a fool in command hires people more foolish than he is….. and gets rid of clever opposition, for obvious reasons..
Out of respect to your age, documented authorship and not being a “Slovakian”, I am not going to argue with you, NP.
Not arguing with beligerant senile old fools is not a kindness; it is the worst kind of deception.
X Soviet. Funny the usually stoic beyond belief Putin just said that at the end of a press session with also a very uncharacteristic Cheshire cat smile on his face. “We all know how this ends”.
Norman, I suppose you think you are talking sense, but from where I am standing reading this, you are just letting out brain farts.
But enough about you.
Now, on the subject of that video above, which you obviously didn’t watch, despite me going to all that trouble to post a link for you, the host Jimmy Dore and I are of the same opinion. We don’t know whether Artemis went around the moon or not, but there are some curious anomalies in the video of the mission put out by NASA and broadcast on mainstream media.
Jimmy and I both still have some curiosity about what’s going on in the world. I find that most people my age do not have much curiosity and many people of any age never did. Their minds are closed. They are not willing to accept or consider new knowledge that may conflict with what they already think they know.
The key issue here, I think, is the craving for certainty, which is a character trait eceedingly common among mid-wits and dimwits alike.
As Michael Riley explains:
The rub comes when we confuse confidence with certainty. For whatever reason, when we discuss politics or religion or some sensitive social issue, probability is not enough. We crave certainty. Psychologists call this desire for certainty “cognitive closure.” We want the final word on the matter, to settle the dispute unequivocally, and eliminate any and all threads of ambiguity.
Hanna Hart adds context:
When you are “trapped by rightness,” you close yourself off and fail to question your own beliefs and assumptions. You stop really listening to others and instead “listen to win” or “listen to fix,” both of which keep you trapped in the sense that you know better than the other person.
The way out of this trap is simple—but not easy. Instead of regarding certainty as a rational assessment that you have conducted a thorough and reasoned review of the evidence and come to an unbiased conclusion, you need to begin to regard your own certainty with skepticism. If you find yourself feeling sure that you are right (a sign of this is when others look wrong to you), ask yourself: “What do I believe?” This question helps shift you out of the language and mindset of knowing and creates space for other beliefs. Then ask, “How could I be wrong?” This second question explicitly welcomes uncertainty and requires that you surface the collection of assumptions upon which your certainty is based. Finally, you need to “listen to learn”—suspend your judgment and allow your thinking to be shaped by the thinking of others. In this way, you can climb out of the trap of your own making and improve your thinking.
Even at 90, you can improve your thinking, Norman. But to do that, you’ve got to learn to listen.
Fly me to nowhere .
https://www.dw.com/en/germany-news-lufthansa-scraps-20000-flights/live-76891766
These are characterized as short haul flights. The US lost a whole lot of short haul flights over the years.
Not really surprising. Fits in with past “advances”.
April 1 launch. At least they have a sense of humor.
Have you ever placed a very hot frying pan or baking tray into the sink and then poured could water onto it? The metal could be at 200 degrees C and the water vaporizes instantly producing a hissing sound and a short burst of white vapor, or in other words a puff of steam.
One of the “anomalies” alluded to in the video was that when the Orion capsule splashed down, although it was supposed to have been very hot, and the ocean is full of water, no such rapid flash boiling was observed.
I wondered about that. My first thought was that I don’t know how hot the heat shield would have been at splashdown. Maybe it had cooled sufficiently during the descent that it was no longer hot enough to raise steam.
So I did what any non-expert would do in 2026. I asked an AI.
Is anyone the slightest bit curious about what the AI said?
I was curious about the question and I was quite surprised at the answer.
A good back-of-the-envelope estimate is:
Peak (during hottest part of re-entry): about 2,700–2,800 °C (often quoted as ~5,000 °F) on/near the shield surface. (livescience.com)
At splashdown (order-of-magnitude): likely still on the order of ~500–1,500 °C, with a “rough middle” guess of ~1,000 °C (≈ 1,800 °F).
So, in degrees C, a simple estimate is: ~1,000 °C at splashdown (say a few hundred to ~1,500 °C).
Why you might expect steam
At ~500–1,500 °C on the surface, the outer surface of the heat shield is far hotter than boiling water, so any water contacting it would flash to steam very quickly.
However, things are never that simple:
Why you may not see “a lot” of obvious steam
In practice, several things reduce what you’d notice:
Only a thin surface layer is that hot. Heat shields are made to be ablative/thermally resistant; the bulk can be cooler than the surface peak.
Splashdown happens in seconds and at the surface boundary layer. Water doesn’t sit there long enough to produce sustained, visible steam clouds—much of the interaction is a brief “flash” and then quenching.
Steam production can be obscured. You can get rapid boiling/flash vapor plus spray and droplets, which can look more like turbulence and white spray than a distinct steam plume.
Ablation products and hot gases matter. Some heat transfer is via burning/pyrolysis gases and ablation residue rather than directly heating liquid water.
Told you so . TACO .
https://ourfiniteworld.com/2026/04/02/losing-the-iran-war-may-be-the-best-outcome-for-the-world/comment-page-7/#comment-506880
With the April 22nd end of the Iran-US ceasefire approaching, each day that passes is one less before the Trump administration starts hitting some big dates:
May 1st: The need to add 68 billion cubic metres (bcm) of natural gas to European storage over the summer to cover the winter heating season.
May 14th to 15th: Postponed Meeting of Presidents Xi and Trump
May 25th: Memorial Day, the start of US summer driving season
June 11th: Start of Football Word Cup in Canada, US and Mexico
Some deadlines .
https://rogerboyd.substack.com/p/iran-so-now-what?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=571129&post_id=194883378&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=true&r=26quge&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
What I am looking for is — will Trump again make a statement on Friday and next Monday to jawbone the oil price . He is making all the effort to see that it does not touch $ 100 . His current ceasefire announcement pushed the price by $ 4 but now it has retraced $ 3.50 . Current Brent at $ 100.58 .
Is this ceasefire for an indefinite period or 3-5 days ( Fridays to Mondays ) ?
https://www.zerohedge.com/geopolitical/iran-seizes-two-ships-hormuz-chokepoint-tehran-received-some-signs-us-ready-end
” Anthropic has opened an investigation after discovering that a small group of Discord users gained unauthorized access to the AI company’s powerful new Mythos model, Bloomberg reported on Tuesday.
The Mythos AI model is designed to find software flaws — raising fears it could also accelerate cyberattacks.” ?
https://cybernews.com/security/anthropic-mythos-ai-unauthorized-access/
Should China be ‘worried’ ?
did they download the source code, or just got to play with the interface?
Know nothing about “Anthropic” (and couldn’t care less – in the lines of reante’s insights about all that vapoware), but Discord, IMO, is a well-established, heavily centralized, proprietary-protocolled (“Dave” – you must be kidding me…) honeypot for brain-dead gamers and similar losers. So I’m not suprised for a second, that our Masters use their (technologically differentially advanced) shills in various creative combinations, to distract the stupid sheeple from the Epstein Strait chaos…
It’s interesting to see Chris Martenson chasing the idea that AI and the current war situation that is having on fuel and food production is a sign that TPTB are trying to get rid of us.
Behind a paywall: “They don’t announce it. We don’t vote on it. They just turn the dials and watch the numbers fall. Today we follow the pattern nobody wants to say out loud: if energy and food are being quietly throttled, then the question isn’t whether it’s accidental… it’s who decided there are too many of us to keep the machine running.”
https://peakprosperity.com/episode-19-of-the-wake-up-call-what-are-the-ai-models-telling-them/
Nevermind peak oil. He’s on that list under “everyone else.” What a jackass. Nothing worse than a peak oiler bargaining with Collapse by demagoguing.
” TPTB are trying to get rid of us” doesn’t sound like a way to make friends with the Powers that Be.
Luckily for him he’s being herded into it anyway, gonna come out of it a card carrying national socialist as if it was his own idea to become one.
do i understand you correctly by saying this controlled demolition is solely to decommission all the nuclear in time? it’s that there is no alternative?
and the reversion to ‘social nationalism’ 😉 is what organically will occur when the hand’s ability to coordinate global energy/finance ends?
i mean it’s not like these uber elites are benevolent or self-sacrificing? surely they are more sociopathic than most? are you maintaining they are overriding their short term survival instinct?
The NPP decommissioning argument is debatable because it does not fit reality.
If pursued as regional policy, good enough, but not globally valid. Because clearly some countries are NOW in mad dash to increase their NPP fleet ( CHN ), also pre-existing installations have been granted extensions for ~60-80yrs life-cycle operation span in the West..
Also as mentioned recently the BNS could be valid for CHN also only with the proviso they are building these sites as per conventional NPP setup, the generator – steam equip. halls, HV connectors etc. BUT the reactor bldg. itself, will be eventually fit with something else, namely fusion reactor, as some CHN gov circle leaks suggested.
“Some countries” can attempt to build whatever their own stupid sheeple allows them to.
The question – will those “countries” be able to procure the necessary fuel to run those NPPs and/or the necessary sulphuric acid to refine that fuel to the necessary condition?
I’m referring to something in the lines of the 1st Matrix (1999) movie – what use is the call to one’s lawyer, if one has their mouth shut tight?
Sorry I forgot – social nationalism not national socialism. Old subversive habits die hard.
I wouldn’t say solely, but I have always seen the nuclear power industry as the only thing in industrial civilization that surely threatens the lives of the Elites, so in that sense it is the ultimate reason for being for the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda. But obviously if you’re going embark on a DA, it’s a complex operation that manifests many changes in service of attempting to close the nuclear Pandora’s Box.
Capitalism cannot close the box, right? So capitalism has to undergo a carefully engineered fall with a stablecoin buffer, into an effectively global populist public banking system. Geopolitical discord cannot close the box. Growth culture cannot close the box. Belief in nuclear as a clean, increasingly valuable aenergy resource relative to fossil fuels cannot close the box. Everything has to be inverted before the box can be closed, right. Farming doesn’t include the waving of wands.
The social nationalisms are absolutely not organic, or I wouldn’t have been tracking the social engineering of them on and off here for the last six years. The Hand’s ability to operate the DA doesn’t end until the international system ends which will be coincide with nation states ending because no nation state can achieve autarky. I put the Hand’s death at 3-8 years away is my WAG.
Does anyone here want to live in a collapsed world full of spent fuel pools subject to grid failure? Nobody wants that, because that is like living not just through a collapse that will probably kill you, but it’s like living through collapse on a suddenly inhospitable planet itself. Is there anything structural about Collapse that comes close to that? (Anybody who would answer that by saying violence or lack of food is a selfish dead person walking.) The Elites are no different. They’re people with children and grandchildren. They put their pants on one leg at a time. The nuclear situation is absolutely untenable and that is about to be made extremely evident such that nuclear power becomes a bigger nightmare than the manufactured fearful demonizing of the Elites. Hand will obviously be smart about it and prioritize the spent fuel for disposal while the operating reactors are carefully monitored for grid susceptibility and for overall cost-benefit analysis, with reactors only shutdown when necessary but also using highly conservative assessment metrics. That general dynamic maximizes MPP.
I’m not into the political ponerology thing anymore. The bigger picture of the DA supplanted that anti- elitist mythos that serves the DA’s undermining of plutocratic Capitalism/Fascism. Why? Because by that point I had been herding and farming long enough to see the structural reality. The reality is you have to walk into a barn and stalk a flighty ram and grab it and wrestle it down and cut its throat in front of everyone because when you take it around the back of the barn they all just follow you around the back anyway, to watch, because that ram is family. And I’m the big daddy doing the deed. I’m the one that feeds them. The ewes know that I’m the one that enables them to have another lamb in the spring. The rams will often react to one of their brothers getting taken by becoming spirited with each other and clashing horns. I prefer to use a knife but I shoot them in the field as necessary. I always try to be as discreet about it as I can but that’s often not possible, so they all watch. I partly just picked up the pistol and silencer that I did for being more discreet. Am I a functional sociopath or a functional psychopath for farming? Absolutely I am under Natural Law. But it’s not the killing that makes me those things, it’s the controlling. But that’s what farming is and if you don’t do it you have a massive dieoff in combination with a horrific razing of the pastures a couple winters from now. Farming is a soft-deterministic intensification of production and there’s no turning back.
The System is psychopathic, not the Elites. Not the Hand. Not me. Not you. Anybody who thinks that personalities are the problem is just an infantilized consumer being a woke little baby. Most of the people here ain’t doing jack shit about collapse. They might be buying a few things here and there. Picking up a practical skill maybe. Or maybe just aged out of running the bottleneck. Meanwhile the Hand is working overtime month after month and year after year, to seek a Glide Path Option for this motherfucking nuclear shit show. Carrying everybody’s asses and providing plenty of notice between the lines. 75,000 Gazans out of 2.5M, in order to help end Zionism? It could have been a lot worse. And the Hand is still keeping them fed. The Hand is ending the necessary MPP economic system that everyone hates except the assholes of the world. Soft-determinism. Marvin Harris. That’s what allows me to more or less predict all this shit and to know that the Hand is enlightened despite its functional psychopathy. We’re all made functional psychopaths by this system. No surprise then that everyone has someone else to blame, by manipulating the reality in service of their blame game.
The enlightened person only has themselves to blame if ever blame is called for. We can hold others accountable but you can’t blame brokenness anymore that you can fix the past. The neotonous woke baby wants to blame someone he’s never even met before, only seen on a screen. That type of behavior is so far out of whack from Natural Law that it’s self-destructive. But in the meantime the Hand encourages people to take that ruinous path in accordance with free will, because anti- elitist fear-based herding — pushing the stock with dogs or sticks, instead of leading them — is the only way to get people to want a politics of Less, so that when Less comes, neotonous politics won’t drive them to the type of destructive behavior that imperils the massive decommissioning project and the secondary general goal of struggling through deeper collapse which is of no concern to me because the news pretty much won’t exist anymore thank god. There’s no way of seeing beyond the global DA and there never will be.
thanks for the considered (and considerate 😊) response..
food for thought
you’re asking ‘is there anything structural that compares?’..what happens to the aerosol masking effect (global dimming) with the end of industrial civilization? would that not have a knock on effect on positive feedback loops and runaway temps and be equally catastrophic?
and how would they continue to seed the atmosphere with artificial aerosols if ‘the hand’ has ceased to exist?
Yeah good call, global dimming is another biggie but it’s not controllable in any way. I guess we could say it’s a truly structural feature of Collapse whereas nuclear power industry fallout is only potentially so given that it’s clearly still within the power of civilization to decommission – notwithstanding the absolute effectiveness of the decommissioning, which FE would again no doubt argue against were he still here. But my feeling is that it would keep the vast majority of radiation sequestered. The decommissioning plan would be like the body’s intelligent, last-resort carcinogens storage protocol we call cancer.
“doesn’t sound like a way to make friends with the Powers that Be”
That is a good way of saying, the Plebs storming the castle gates with pitchforks and torches.
Nathaniel and Gail has some good remarks put in here a few days ago and I would like to reiterate. Even if SoH is open, it is not likely to have any insurance and until that time no ship will go in. However, another critical point is – no ship owner will go in either because the ship might be stranded if things go south again. It will be a huge stranded asset inside the Gulf. I guess even if it opens today, it is still closed.
My comment – same goes for repairs. A large international team has to be there onsite and no repair team will be there if it is not safe (yes no insurance will cover the repair team if it is not safe).
Question – How do you define “safe”? Could be years or never happen at all?
I define safe as the Global Peace Accords, but you already knew that.
Safe is perhaps “backed by a power that can really enforce peace.” If China can carry a big enough stick to enforce peace (and I am not sure that it can), this might be the thing that would bring safety. Dr. Mirandi, in the video I commented on before, talks about safety coming from the equivalent of coming from a big daddy who can enforce safety. This is the video link again.
Gail, the 20-day limit is about to come up. Maybe you can extend to 30 days?
I already have extended the limit.
My husband and I will be flying to Boston tomorrow for a short visit, returning on Saturday. That is where my daughter and family live. I have a four year old grandson (only grandchild).
Enjoy your trip!
We have made quite a few of these short trips. It is difficult to have visitors for more than a short time. This way we don’t disrupt the family for too long. And I do try to check comments from time to time.
Australians after the oil runs out! (comedy)
https://apocalypseofsean.substack.com/p/australians-after-the-oil-runs-out
Lol
“UKW/MW” – I want to cry with blood (from nostalgy). For you, ‘Murcans, “MW” stands for what you call “AM” here. Primitive, ancient, extremely energy hungry way of transmitting (~90% of input energy are literally wasted on a non-coding “carrier” frequency). By Summer of 1992 all listenable post-Soviet AM transmitters shut down – no energy, no money in the middle of economic collapse. “UKW” (FM1 here?) did well and even expanded in the coming years into FM2 band. SW did well too in the 1990s.
TL;DR: if you plan to listen to your “AM” radio, when something really serious happens, don’t hold your breath – AM band will go silent overnight.
Animals are capable of acts of cleverness that are astounding. They to balance between dual operating systems. Maximum power principle and not maximum power principle.
Behavior demonstrates operating systems.
Twice the USA has had leaders that dance to another drum. And all the politicians support their behavior. They share a operating system.
We are surprised. We think they are mad. We thought their operating system was something else. We thought it was sophisticated not clever. We are unable to accept the reality the behavior demonstrates. The reality is it was never completely hidden. Such a primary operating system could never be hidden completely. We discarded that because it did not fit our paradigm.
What cuts through the veneer? Existential threats. A experienced organism identifies existential threats and behavior matches. It’s not nice at all. We all like niceness. I like niceness very much. What we like does not matter. .
Honesty is relative. Organisms that practice maximum power principle as a primary always give hints. They may attempt to hide it out of cleverness but to do so completely is beyond their capability. The question is are we listening? Usually not. We like things nice. I like things nice. It’s only when things turn out to be not nice that we listen. After that we can develop listening skills that don’t fit our paradigm. Often we cal this intuition. Intuition is not magical. It is the part of us that is willing to listen.
I think we will continue to be surprised as great nations continue to reveal their operating system is maximum power principle These behaviors often seem clever but not sophisticated.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=R9f8Kt2E6K0&pp=ygURY2FuYWRpYW4gcHJlcHBlciA%3D
That’s what I’m talkin bout, dog. You da man.
Beam is rackin up the frequent flyer miles. Beam loves highly conductive metal.
Hand is covering for the peak oil BNS with the “They’re destroying the oil for Great Reset depopulation agenda!” zombie dissident narrative that was groomed into the movement by plandemic. Naturally the two great set-pieces of the DA are symbiotic. It matters not that probably a fifth of those pareto principle zombie dissident comments are probably from the horse’s mouth.
In truth the Hand is doing its best to manage a worst case scenario, and doing it the only way it knows how, by playing god. Welcome to the People Farm. Hand is going into retirement because Hand’s lifespan is coming to an end in a few years or so. Time to downsize. The ambitious, proud, successful farmer always waits til the last minute. Naturally his wife would disagree with his sense of timing. Wife thinks he left it too long. Tim Watkins, Nate Hagens, and all the rest are playing the role of armchair quarterback wife. It’s not that they don’t mean we’ll, it’s that they’re at a remove and not in the trenches. The Hand loves the Farm and the killable family just as I love my farm and my edible family.
C’mon man . This ain’t reddit. This is family.
Unless I missed you guys talking about it here’s so good gossip that was published in the Mirror and talked about by Larry Johnson on Nima’s show. Supposedly on Saturday Trump wanted to get his hands on the nuclear football and General Caine jumped up and said no. Lol.
Minutes 8.30-10.30 below
https://youtu.be/qEMEE6d7nHQ
Yeah exactly. It’s not like the Hand doesn’t give plenty of notice. It always does. Look at the BNS. PLENTY of notice. Ditto the plandemic. It’s not its responsibility to babysit people who don’t want to know, and people who are in no position to know aren’t it’s responsibility either under the law of Shit Happens. All it can do is give plenty of notice and let the chips fall where they may. Hell, Shit Happens is ultimately even how they became members of the Hand. They were in the vicinity of the Egregore and became the Egregore. It’s all Marvin Harris’ soft-deterministic “cultural materialism.” Welcome to Civilization.
More like welcome to civilization not now. Hey we still have humor. That’s a lot. Ke sera.
Tribal societies were the epitomy of engineering. Nothing is perfect. Yeah I know everyone is a critic. Still… No accounting for taste I suppose.
I’m certainly not perfect. I’ve tried not to waste too much. I certainly used my share in the big picture. A bath every day… Is that ostentatious?
I guess we could say that they were the epitome of low-intensity engineering, but I think we could find characterizations better suited to the general grace with which they approached their ecologies.
I shower about once every ten days and haven’t used soap in fifteen years unless I just got finished wrenching on one of my probably dozen or so internal combustion engines. A dozen, is that ostentatious? I ended up in the vicinity of them. Was never supposed to.
I also take a bath every day. It’s almost illegal not to in this country.
Haven’t used soap in fifteen years?
If you aren’t careful, you could end up like this:
In general Reante’s approach is conformable. Basically bodily odeurs as meant in upper arm pits of human-iods are caused by ~evaporating action as byproduct of running the digestive+immune+.. systems.. Peculiarly though, one arm pit side is always more stench pronounced that the other and it is caused by the asymmetric placement of internal organs and different lengths of their veins, glands etc.
That’s all easily testable from say eating on empty large dozes of fresh spring onions, garlic or even large%% coffee biscuits. The flavors are being passed through-out very clearly..
Also interestingly it takes only one ( max two days if physically inactive ) to wash it off easily with very token water amount, no soap etc. This has been corroborated in accounts on baroque era nobility-hygiene when there was high #1 priority to preserve the very expensive wardrobe, and obviously the ~strong perfume application did not work long enough or become even counter productive after few dayz of application.
Also as mentioned, one per week quick shower of whole body is recommended to wash away other bodily parts, basically the same approach as you have to persuade your stinky dog to take a bath after a while..
The above is basic first-second year of medical school material..
/end of today’s gross content overview from ABC-living hints on this crazy sim-planet programme ..
Back in rural USSR we were normally taking full bath once a week (usually on Saturday) in a heavy alloy bathtub, and changing our underwear and socks the same time also once a week (by Friday, my socks used to become semi-rigid, especially in summer time – my feet sweat and, probably, dead skin cells). Father and grandpa used to shave everyday (with blade and brush and some sparingly boiled in a teapot (on an liquified natgas)water – my earliest childhood recollections, later with primitive soviet electrical shavers in 1980s). My grandma forced me to wash my face and feet every night (in that order, in the same small amount of warm water, without soap) in a small aluminum basin, using the warmed up water in the same small teapot, that father and grandpa used in the morning. We did not have TP till early 1980s or so (probably, last year of Brezhnev reign), Communist newspapers and old homework submission of my mom’s and grandpa’s students’ were used for that purpose. Underwear (except for socks, which were wearing out fast) served forever and was worn with small holes, until falling apart. People stunk, even women and girls. Clothes had to be regularly ironed, mother used to iron even underwear for the whole family. I have a slight idea, what women did for their monthly hygiene needs – my mother was always nagging my father for more cotton balls (not even balls, but huge blobs of white cotton) and clean gauze.
Ex-CCCP, thanks for that account..
Sorry, to learn even young ladies sort of smelled foul in your growing up yrs, they should have employed that easy feudal one day trick as described above.. Perhaps that’s just your impression as they returned home late tired from work assignments, shopping in overcrowded bus / tram etc.
Allow, for tangential, you mentioned aluminum bowel – bucket – basin. That’s what driving me nuts in recent years how even esteemed ecologists and various back to nature advocates are then in day-day y/y practice and throughout sun-rain-freeze cycle using cheap plastic contraption for feeding and watering their animals, while it leaks out dangerous poisons not only in-situ but eventually into their food on the table as well.
For that reason ( intuitively before research confirmation decades later ) I alwayz used at least zinc plated metal buckets and occasionally in smaller diameter aluminum or even stainless ( kitchen very small sized ).. It’s not money question – if you calc the entire longevity in many decades..
Awesome x- that was fun to hear about your childhood. I like it if my wife hasn’t showered for a few days and the baking soda she put under her arms after her last shower has worn off. For a couple years she decided to only take sponge baths with the wash cloth. She likes my smell too.i believe that’s one of the keys to a good match .
I’m surprised that the commie women didn’t fashion their own reusable menstrual pads. All you gotta do is cut a couple pieces of cloth to shape, sew em together,and affix snaps to the wings on each side so that you can run the wings under the underwear and snap them together, holding the whole thing in place. Then you soak the dirty one in cold water overnight and water the plants in the morning!
They probably did :
https://www.google.com/search?channel=fs&client=ubuntu&q=menstrual+diy+socialism
https://www.amazon.com.au/Women-Have-Better-Under-Socialism/dp/1568588909
On the video, Canadian Prepper talks about a number of oil refineries and storage places suddenly going up in smoke. Some of these were probably premeditated.
Walking around my neighborhood, a friend of mine who also likes to walk pointed out that a house in my neighborhood burned to the ground recently. She said that a week ago, she encountered a home in the next neighborhood over that burned to the ground. And when she went online, she found other home fires.
I remarked to her that I could think of a couple of reasons for fires. One would be electrical vehicles or electrical scooters being charged, and having problems. The other would be the large number of homes that homeowners are having difficulty selling because no one else can afford them. Insurance people know that in the restaurant business, restaurants that are losing money seem to go up in smoke more often. I would wonder if the same phenomenon hits homes that cannot be sold for the value the homeowner thinks they have. Of course, people would want to get their things out, so this would not work as well. They would get caught.
This is worrying . The 3 ports are from where 80% of India’s import of Russian oil came from = 1.60 mbpd . Now India will have to look for other suppliers while the pipelines are drying out .
” ➡️ The ports of Primorsk, Ust-Luga, and Novorossiysk account for almost half of Russia’s crude and product exports, and all three have been under repeated drone strikes since late March (see our report from last week 👇).
➡️ We didn’t know what the net effect of the shutdowns and restarts would be, but now we are getting an idea.
➡️ The Druzhba pipeline usually ships 200kbd to Hungary and Slovakia, but it went offline in late January, so wouldn’t have affected the April-vs-March figure.
https://x.com/RusOilGasExpert/status/2046564887816528249/photo/1
Please read this . I am underestimating the problem . India imported 2.25 mbpd in March after the US waiver . In Jan- Feb it was 1.50 mbpd . This means that India grabbed all the Russian oil that was at sea . Now the offshore cushion is gone and the loading points are damaged . Double whammy .
https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/indias-march-crude-imports-slide-iran-war-russian-volumes-hit-record-high-data-2026-04-21/
So India seems to be heading in a direction similar to South Korea.
India Income per capita $ 2800
SK Income per capita $ 34000
No match . India is already way down the road to a collapse .
Yikes ! Is Europe next?
My impression is that 20% tried to join the global economy and 80% scrap along with just enough to eat. To collapse one has to have something to start with.
Please clarify Gail
There have been various discussions about India. It has been having problems because its liquefied natural gas has been cut off. This natural gas is used in at least four ways: for the cooking gas that many people use; for fuel for all of the three wheeled vehicles that are abundant in India; for creating the electricity to balance the wind and solar on the grid; and for making nitrogen fertilizer. Losing this natural gas, and not being able to afford to pay enough to bid other liquefied natural gas (LNG) away from competitors is a major problem.
Now, the recent comment says that oil supply is being lost. Losing imported oil besides all the benefits provided by imported LNG will be a major blow to the Indian economy, I am afraid.
At some point Indias government will demonstrate behavior that is maximum power principle. This behavior is not necessarily sophisticated. It will do whatever behavior it perceives has the best chance of restoring energy inputs. This behavior is often surprising as the models we held o be true are found to be false.
Two weeks . Currently there are elections in 4 crucial states which Modi must win , so all tough decisions are postponed .
I’d say India will demonstrate behavior that is in accordance with the MPP of the entire civilization, not necessarily India itself. I’d say that that self-sacrificing behavior is extremely evident already, as it sits there, a nuclear power, doing nothing as it’s world comes crashing down. No one doing anything, anywhere. Everyone frozen in lockstep by an elected official of a single country whose own military is having to restrain. Only a think tank operating in God Mode can produce this post- historical freeze frame we’re in. Naturally, one erratic man threatening civilizational collapse is the inverse of the truth of the reality. Truth and fiction living side by side in two-faced harmony.
Exclusive-Russia to halt Kazakhstan’s oil flows to Germany via Druzhba, sources say
Reuters 21.4.2026 By Gleb Bryanski
MOSCOW, April 21 (Reuters) – Russia is set to stop oil exports from Kazakhstan to Germany via the Druzhba pipeline starting from May 1, three industry sources said on Tuesday.
The sources, who spoke to Reuters on condition of anonymity, said that an adjusted oil exporting schedule has been sent to Kazakhstan and Germany.
A halt to Kazakh flows would add more uncertainty to Germany’s fuel supply as the Iran war disrupts energy shipments from the Middle East only a few years after Berlin’s decades-long energy ties with Russia were upended by the war in Ukraine.
Kazakhstan’s oil exports to Germany via Russia’s Druzhba pipeline totalled 2.146 million metric tons, or around 43,000 barrels per day, in 2025, an increase of 44% from 2024, and 730,000 tons in the first quarter of 2026.
A complete halt would remove about 17% of the up to 12 million metric tons of oil a year processed by Germany’s PCK refinery – one of the country’s largest – in the northeastern town of Schwedt, fuel from which powers 9 out of 10 cars in the Berlin and Brandenburg region.
Russia’s energy ministry did not immediately reply to a request for comment. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said he was not aware of a move to stop the oil exports.
“We will try to check it,” Peskov told reporters on a daily conference call.
Kazakhstan’s energy ministry and the German government did not immediately respond to requests for comment.
ENERGY TIES UPENDED
Russia’s political and business relations with Germany have been frayed by the conflict in Ukraine. Deliveries of Russian oil were halted after the start of the war and Berlin placed the local units of Russia’s largest oil producer Rosneft under trusteeship in 2022.
Kazakhstan has supplied oil to PCK via the northern spur of Druzhba, which traverses Poland, since 2023 but supplies have been repeatedly interrupted by Ukrainian drone attacks on the Russian section of the pipeline.
A spokesman for Poland’s pipeline operator PERN told Reuters the company is ready to ship oil for non-Russian shareholders of PCK via the port of Gdansk if asked to. Schwedt refinery holders include Rosneft, Shell and Eni.
(Reporting by Gleb Bryanski; Additional reporting by Dmitry Antonov in Moscow and Marek Strzelecki in Warsaw;Writing by Vladimir Soldatkin; Editing by Jason Neely and Kirsten Donovan)
[ Germany consumes 2,056,735 barrels per day (B/d) of oil as of the year 2024. ]
Hence a mere gesture as in change your warring policy, slap of hand ?
To be felt in and around the capital chiefly?
–
The suggested amount of oilz to be deleted is on par of overall oil consumption in small industrialized Alpine/ClubMed country ala Slovenia with pop of 2M ( vs 83M GER )
–
( for comparison ):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_oil_consumption
Germany is relatively far away from the North Sea oil, extracted by Scotland and Norway. It has been more dependent on Russian oil than European countries farther west. Cutting off 43,000 barrels of crude oil supply per day will push Germany down further.
Hello Gail,
but Germany is well connected through pipelines with Norway, please see links below.
In my view, it is the reason why Italy is crying now for Hormuz crisis and asking to revise financial stability pact and Germany is in silence.
Souther Europe should be more affected in the next months. Germany knows, in my view, but it is not much interested about other people’s problems…
https://map.gassco.eu/map
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/production-and-exports/the-oil-and-gas-pipeline-system/
You are right. It is southern Europe, Italy and Spain, that cannot get the oil from Norway. I would expect Greece has a problem, too.
If oil is high-priced, the tour boats have trouble selling tickets. This all adversely affect many countries of Europe, but I would expect the Southern ones would be especially affected.
Student etc . Please note that I have said earlier ” all of Norway’s production is pre booked via pipelines ” very little sea exports .
Norway : Total crude production 2025 — 1.95 mbpd average .
Exports :
Norway is a major oil exporter, with its primary crude petroleum markets in 2024 being the United Kingdom, the Netherlands, Poland, Germany, and Sweden. In 2024, the UK received 18.4% of Norwegian oil deliveries, followed by the Netherlands (15.6%), Poland (13.8%), and Sweden (10.5%).
Norskpetroleum.no
Norskpetroleum.no
Key Oil Export Destinations (2024–2025):
United Kingdom: Top destination, receiving a significant share of crude.
Netherlands: Major hub for Norwegian oil imports.
Germany: Increasing demand, becoming a top partner for Norwegian oil and gas.
Poland: Significant recipient of Norwegian oil deliveries.
Sweden: Key Nordic partner for oil and refined product exports.
Norskpetroleum.no
Norskpetroleum.no
By the way Norway is past peak and no more additional production will be coming .
Schwedt supplies most of Berlin, but Returnique has a point: 43mbd are only 2% of what germany connsumed in 2025 every day. Most of the Khazak oil comes via Triest/TAL pipeline (as does the Kazhak oil in Schwechat/Austria).
It is not 2% that matters —- when you are on the downward slope of the ” Seneca Cliff ” even 0.2 % matters . A small hole can sink a big ship . The 2% less oil supply means the hole just became bigger and is going to take water at an accelerated rate .
The trick is that Germany continues to massively de-industrialize, so in aggregate the effect of less energy for now will be quite limited. Lot of the manuf. base has been offloaded eastward to nearby countries witch cheaper energy and half/third the salary levels.. So, the DE corp HQ remains in position of keeping some of the surplus value to itself.. for a while longer.
And then blow it on stupidities like flooding fine coal mines ( as in impossible to re-use again ), arming the boyz from Lvov.. or the most recent brainiac project placing FR nuclear assets around EU territory..
This is part of the beginning of THE END. Norway will provide oil to the EU for a while. Then later decide to hoard it and get real value for it from Asia. Then EU will invade Norway to control the oil. The entire EU will be desperate by then.
Expect Mad Max.
I agree at least to your first 2 sentences. N lately seems to be on a roll wrt zu medium and medium sour crude (ENI, World Energy Review 2025, p. 101). Why is that? Bc. the EU has much too much of the light and sweet stuff.
It is so strange …. When I read mainstream media it sounds like no big deal. When the agreement is made the world can go back to normal and making money. No wonder investor guy is so confused when he comes here. I think if you haven’t been following Gail and others your perception is off…. Could we be wrong? I personally don’t know why oil is not at least $140
One of the possible answers is very ugly.. don’t read it further hah.
Basically, it depends on the over-all evaluation of the situation and fitting explanation grand theory for it. So, if you follow the theoretical option of very advanced multi-front/domain depletion as per today it simply means there has been so much of [ future demand brought to present ] that oil / energy prices CAN’T spike much under any imaginable horrendous duress. That’s why some oil-energy-policy analyst make the kiddie mistake when applying 1970s oil crisis metrics – according to them it should be now 3-6x worse hence $200-400 per barrel easily.. Well, apparently that has not and won’t happen under the grand theory of said advanced – terminal depletion of this civ version.. So, in practical terms we crossed the Rubicon and we will never revert to previous energy / material / food / .. opulence of the past. It’s a downhill motion from right now.. And in more granular detail, yes the ~2.5-3rd world goes down first ( as per Lagarde / Birol / .. ), but some industrialized outliers like SKorea would be in the early wave affected more severely as well..
I think the reason that the price of oil isn’t terribly high is because businesses and individual citizens cannot afford terribly high-cost oil. More young people are using bicycles and scooters to get around because they cannot afford automobiles. Airlines are going broke with the increases in jet fuel prices that have been announced. Many flights have already been cancelled.
There is an alternative to higher prices, and that is less usage. We are heading toward less usage.
Gail I think I remember you saying a while ago that the world cannot handle the price of oil over $80 for very long. I have seen a couple of comments/articles that demand destruction is already beginning.
I haven’t seen anyone comment on the fact that the oil coming through the straits is the good stuff, the high energy stuff. Cutting this off is a whole lot worse than loosing the low energy LNG oil being exported out of the states??
Sorry I meant NGL’s not LNG’s
I hope this helps in answering some questions .The breaking point for oil is here . According to the analysis the US admin will come under pressure to stop exports by July as domestic prices will go too high for political comfort .
https://www.hfir.com/p/wctw-the-oil-market-breaking-point-eab
If 1.5 mbpd of diesel is stopped from exports then we are in deep goo . High chance it could be first .$ 5+ effect is already showing .
Diesel is around $6.60/gal here in Oregon and gasoline $5.
Well, the issue is that you in Oregon can ” run into hillz ” fix there something up w.out or with just few gallons of fuel and have ample food next season, which is kind of impossible to do in most of India..
It is easy to make a decree that bans too much.
It makes perfect sense to ban at least some product exports, starting in July, or even sooner. Natural gas liquids are considered “products.” We have far more of these than we need. We should continue to offload them to countries that can use them.
We also export some product to use as diluent for their oil sands oil, so that it will flow through pipelines. This should be exempt because it is necessary. The diluent is extracted and reused, so it is not really exported.
There are also details on the crude oil that should be exported. Much of our oil is too light for our refineries and our end-product needs. This is especially true of the oil from shale.
If we ban too much exports, we run the risk of having to stop production of the oil we badly need because the system is being overwhelmed with volumes of “products” that our system is not set up for making use of.
Of course, if we stop getting imported steel pipes from China, we will likely have to cut back greatly on drilling anyhow.
Reante-
If only a modern rebel-reactionary Johnny Hempleseed would crop dust a load of male pollen onto all those lonely ladies from Willamette to Applegate maybe the average Oregoon would snap out from their Amnesia Haze and by miracle of transesterification produce biodiesel for the booming filbert (hazelnut) industry so that we don’t have to rely on imports from Turkey.
Hey sciou I hear that. I replied to you yesterday but it never posted. I also replied to you weeks ago on the homosexuality conversation but I’m pretty sure that one was censored.
People assume that the oil from the Gulf is the “good stuff,” but I think this understanding is flawed. They believe EROEI models that do not include total costs of production, including necessary taxes. They do not realize that the Middle Eastern oil wells are mostly very old. They are reaching depletion, too. The wells start producing more and more water, relative to the oil produced.
People are taken in by the ridiculous “reserve” amounts that Middle Eastern countries have been publishing for years. These need to be understood as wishful thinking. Oil stops being produced when the price of oil falls too low for the countries producing it. With the large dependent populations in Middle Eastern countries, tax levels need to be high to cover the cost of imported food. If there is less food available worldwide, food importers will be in terrible shape.
Back in 2005, Matt Simmons wrote, Twilight in the Desert: The Coming Saudi Oil Shock and the World Economy. He was early in his timing, but the point is still there. Many people have been depending way too much on permanent oil from the Middle East. Their wells “water out,” just as other wells do. If prices are very high, perhaps new techniques can get out more. But with low oil prices, the Middle East is as vulnerable as anywhere else.
Middle Eastern oil tends to be on the heavier side, so it yields quite a bit of diesel and jet fuel. In this sense, it is very good oil. Also, if populations in these countries should fall, it is possible that lower extraction prices might be acceptable.
Thank you Gail! Depletion is reality. Every thing else is theatre.
Actually the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda controls the depletion dynamics. Has done for 7 years now. The DA is the reality and everything else including depletion is the theater
If civilization is a managed agricultural system — which of course it is by definition — then managed depletion is no longer a geological phenomenon. It’s a managed phenomenon (“play”) no different from how surfing is a managed phenomenon (“play”) of climate dynamics.
That’s deep huh?
Let’s get us some more Robert Wyatt lyrics:
“It’s so easy to look down from above (helicopter viii-shuuun)”
https://youtu.be/jVyDd-jmqHs
As I intimated, the ceasefire was the melodic bridge into a chorus of demand destruction.
Less usage is very hard for Americans as they have to drive large trucks to the grocery store
Agreed! They need to impress their neighbors.
Ursulaeists are not banning theirz trusty [ awd/4×4 ]..
Soon we will all want our daily “bowl of beans”
No Trucks needed
BTW…my wife and I have 60 potato plants growing nicely right now. 30 onion, a row of corn and then oneof beams, and so on.
I scored 60 welded 4×8 ft woven wire panels in an industrial liquidation for a total of $300 dollars.
Right now I have a 50 ft by 25 ft garden completely fenced in with these 4×8 ft panels. Helps to keep critters and deer out.
I have only used 17 or so of the 60 panels. This winter I will expand it.
It helps if you live in an area where the soil is good and already own substantial land. Acquiring the land is a major hurdle for most people.
Acquiring the land is never easy, be it for the financial angle or general multitude of hurdles to overcome.
Where land is plentiful and cheap ( in fin terms ) – people don’t like to live. And where they would prefer to live is land expensive and ~depleted already.
But the worst combo is the sheer illusion to firstly rejuvenate the land and then with that ” temporary success of reversal to normal ” sell the new produce / crop off-farm aka into distant markets. That’s how in short all civ in the end tend to vanish..
Farming and its product-consumption should stay strictly locally defined – contained.
South Korea braces for an end to modern life as we know it
State employees hit with driving ban as households limit electricity use to battle energy crisis
“Satellite photographs reveal a brightly illuminated South Korea – dominated by its sprawling capital Seoul, home to 26 million people – while to the north, a sea of blackness stretches for 250 miles to the Chinese border, interrupted only by a smudge of light from Pyongyang.
South Koreans have long regarded the image as evidence of their ultimate victory over the North and its belligerent leadership, and of the wider triumph of capitalism and democracy.
However, in a matter of weeks, the lights may also begin to go out in Seoul, Busan and other towns and cities across South Korea as a result of the Iran war.
The world’s 12th-largest economy has emerged as the frontline of the global energy crisis triggered by the conflict, with its oil reserves at risk of running dry even if Tehran reopens the Strait of Hormuz to tankers with immediate effect.
https://archive.ph/20260421070919/https://www.telegraph.co.uk/business/2026/04/20/south-korea-braces-for-an-end-to-modern-life-as-we-know-it/#selection-3493.0-3509.168
This is a worthwhile article. South Korea is at the forefront of oil shortages because it has so little of its own fossil fuels and is so dependent on oil and LNG from the Middle East.
The country has been experiencing the lowest birth rate in the world, suggesting that the country already has symptoms of overpopulation.
People are being told to bicycle instead of drive. They are also being told to use as little electricity as possible. Operate their clothes washers only on the weekends. It is not just oil that is in short supply; it is electricity, too.
the Hand rolled out Smart Meters across the developed world for a reason. Custom brownouts and rolling blackouts.
You are correct. A while back, our electrical company came and replaced our dumb meter with a smart meter that can read out usage from a distance and also cut off supply, if the electrical company desires.
Benefit of cheap batt. storage vs US income level ( while it la$ts x petroYuan or other next such scheme be it merely regional feudum ).
Then 20+yrs from now ~solved.
Also with a smart meter they have control of solar power and can sent it to nuclear plant to keep spent fuel pools safe the elders have thought of everything when collapse or mad Max comes.
Yes, that given priority to PV ( on the grid ) has been a big thing recently in many countries..
South Korea is a leader in birth rate decline. It’s a race between them and Japan to the bottom.
Purely coincidentally, both countries had a period of radical feminism a while back, which means relationship formation has now dropped through the floor.
Modern feminism is another good peak energy indicator, in that it’s based around maximum entitlement and minimal comprehension of physical reality i.e. limits.
One could make the counterargument that war had a larger effect on the birthrate of two asian countries. One could also make the argument that the birthrates of caucasians and asians are more sensitive to war whereas Africans seem unaffected and everyone else, is trending towards below replacement birthrates more slowly.
The F-thing is policy. The status quo is what it is because the ruling class does not want birth rates to rise.
https://iac.gatech.edu/featured-news/2023/12/dobbs-impact
RT says that Iranian negotiators are arriving in Islamabad. It is logical to assume it is because Usrael wants to kill them. What for otherwise? I think Marandi is part of the group.
One has to wonder to what degree it is Iranian leadership not learning lessons versus pressure being applied by, for example, China, who has all sorts of leverage.
And after they get killed what is China going to say? sorry?
Yes, solly.
This is just 45 minutes ago .
Iran’s parliament speaker rejects talks amid US threats .
https://www.argusmedia.com/en/news-and-insights/latest-market-news/2816814-iran-s-parliament-speaker-rejects-talks-amid-us-threats
I will believe only when IRGC says so . Rest is just speculation .
Agree, it’s not true. The Iranians are mocking the US about it
https://www.tasnimnews.ir/en/news/2026/04/21/3571504/vance-has-headed-to-pakistan-five-times-in-past-days
We must remember that it’s the same old game(as the Iranians are happy to point out)
https://www.tasnimnews.ir/en/news/2026/04/21/3571482/us-government-media-surrounded-by-illusions
While we’re on the subject of BS, China has not been putting any pressure on Iran, mainly because they, unlike the west, understand that they can’t(Xi’s words should not be viewed as reported, that wasn’t the meaning at all).
I’m enjoying people trying to twist this huge embarrassing lose into a win(how trumpian), while ignoring where we were, compared to where we are now and all the lies they swallowed whole in between, but still refusing to see what’s staring them in the face.
When is Trump going to blow up all their bridges and has anyone told him that there are over 300,000 of them? Given US production and assuming that they can source the needed rare earths, it should be completed in around a thousand years.
Every kneejerk action and inevitable change of course, is seen as a weakness of position and thinking.
https://en.mehrnews.com/news/243849/Misreading-Tehran-Culture-history-and-collapse-of-coercion
Latest I see from Pakistan, no change
“We are making intensive efforts to persuade the Iranian leadership to participate in the second round of talks”
“Pakistan, as a mediator, is in constant contact with the Iranians and is working hard to pursue a path of diplomacy and dialogue”
Anyone know what time the ceasefire ceases?
What is the existential issue? Energy flow. Iran and USA are behavioral Ally’s in the extreme. Iran is ceasing energy transit with its actions. USA is ceasing energy transit with its actions. Motives are opaque. Actions are not.
A strange dance where both proclaim their wishes to be one thing and demonstrate the opposite with the other.
Do they even know what they are?
Both Iran and the USA are acting in the direction of cutting off energy flow. Yet the Maximum Power Principle indicates that if there are energy sources that are economically extractable, they will tend to be extracted. The system will gradually adapt to whatever energy and other energy resources are available. Thus, if a forest burns down, or if it is killed by an invasive insect, after a few years, new plants (often trees, but perhaps other species) will grow to take advantage of the sunlight, water, and other resources available.
Thus, if a shortage of diesel cuts off many of US exports, the US may be left with a large amount of natural gas liquids that it currently is exporting, that perhaps by decree, can no longer be exported. Somehow, businesses will figure out ways to make use of the natural gas liquids. They may not move heavy vehicles, but very light vehicles could be powered with them, for example.
That applies to this announced/supposed round of talks, but remember they went to the last round after they’ve had leadership assassinated twice during previous negotiations. They should have learned their lesson and so should have China. The heart surgeon may not be up to the task.
Some ” goals ” have been finally reached, namely creating that buffer zone in ~former southern Lebanon ( all bridges gone ), also Don publicly said Israel did not persuade him for the attack on Iran but BNS did. Plus there was notably further deterioration in RoW posturing against these two, like historically unprecedented. Plus wobbly economy and the upcoming Q3 elections.
Hence the chances for some kind of deal are very high.
Although it could take form of ever ongoing lower intensity skirmishes as various Iranian ~independent factions duke it out. So, the Hormuz throughput could be re-instated only partially in the near-mid term. But better than nothing, world will tend to adjust somehow..
One could just as easily say that it’s logical to assume that the American delegation’s plane will fall out of the sky in a plot twist.
ECB President Christine Lagarde warns of possible food rationing due to fertilizer disruptions in the Strait of Hormuz
https://x.com/i/trending/2046494887676375225
The end of more?
Yet official sources, including the search engine “A.I” (the elite themselves relaying their messages to their Indian servants) results claim there are no official degrowth policies.
That’s why it’s called the Non-Public Degrowth Agenda guest. It’s officially unofficial.
You appreciate humor! Nice. One of the few things we have.
It has been said somewhere by some people that a lot of economic growth is population growth and that you need more people to produce more output.
Although, officially, the elite deny this.
https://cis.org/Camarota/There-No-Evidence-Population-Growth-Drives-Capita-Economic-Growth-Developed-Economies
They favor immigration because without it there would no population growth, and labor shortages and other economic problems. Immigration allows for a low, controlled amount of growth that mostly goes towards raising up asset values.
Good point, the US govs policies in terms of tightening formerly lax immigration procedures is most likely not only about ( incoming crime wave nor politics in the Gulf ) – it’s also about the realization US econ on the whole can’t feed+ so many people to deemed avg standard ( plywood bungalow + clunker + supermarket chem. goodies + job + .. , ).
The high interest rates made borrowing money to pay for social programs unsustainable. Taxes have not been the primary source of funding for government spending for a long time. The U.S. government has been borrowing for decades.
Yes, that’s the point, as it is apparently not enough to soldier on as before even with this nice $1-2T bonus y/y..
According to the AI summary:
On April 20, ECB President Lagarde told the Association of German Banks that prolonged closures of the Strait of Hormuz – vital for one-third of global seaborne fertilizer trade – would shift from inflation to rationing, severely hitting economic growth.
One thing that greatly cut food waste in 2020 was closing restaurants and cafeterias, and forbidding big gatherings like wedding celebrations. These types of users tend to have more waste than that used at home, especially if food is in short supply. I would expect restrictions similar to 2020 before outright food rationing.
Wearing a COVID mask cuts waste too (‘cos you can’t eat through it).
Surely we just need more jabs rolled out to cull a bigger chunk of the useless eaters?
Another timely anthrax outbreak would suffice
and then an anthrax vaccine would be added to
the growing list of mandatory vaccines.
There’s got to be a limit as to how many vaccines
the human body can absorb in a monthly time-frame.
They say ‘Overloading the immune system is unlikely because vaccines use only a tiny fraction of the immune system’s capacity.’, That can’t be true. Some vaccines create a strong immune response, with fevers, chills, or other headaches. Taking a day off from work or school because the vaccine made you sick suggests a weakened form of one virus can potentially tax the immune system. Now, add two or three vaccines with a moderate to severe immune response on top of that and the possibility of overloading the immune system goes up.