Guest Post by Martin Armstrong
I just returned from New York City, the armpit of the world since I never saw an apple tree there yet, and I had a very interesting meeting behind the curtain. I thought I would share this subject which they agreed I could go public on without names of course. Besides the fact that there is an understanding that this entire Global Warming scenario is acknowledged nonsense for in real science you debate whereas this agenda seeks to shut down any debate whatsoever, there has been a geopolitical agenda that has been going on which is also why Trump has refused to join the club.
There are those who were using this movement for geopolitical reasons trying to oppress emerging markets which included China. When I was in Beijing back in 1997, 95% of the people were on bicycles. Today, perhaps 5% use bicycles that noticed on the streets. There were far more people riding bicycles in Amsterdam than in Beijing based on just my observations on my last trip to both places. In just 5 years, China had poured more concrete into their infrastructure than the United States had poured since the Great Depression. Trying to ban coal was perhaps a covert move to try to keep China from expanding.
But it had other problems. Angela Merkel banned nuclear power after the Japan nuclear disaster yet this meant that Germany would still be in a position to produce energy by coal. In Sweden, they used the Global Warming agenda to move to nuclear power.
The other covert agenda only required the simple task of following the money. From the very beginning, the movement to create nuclear power plants funded the agenda of Global Warming to clear the resistance to move to what they were calling a “cleaner” form of energy. The Trump administration has repeatedly vowed to help revitalize the nation’s nuclear power industry, which has struggled to compete with cheap renewables and natural gas. However, he has been unable to get that through Congress.
Meanwhile, the U.S. did agree to build six nuclear reactors in India, which has plans to massively scale up its nuclear-power program to meet the country’s growing energy demands as it reduces emissions. There is no doubt that the Global Warming agenda has also begun as a means to further the nuclear power industry in international markets.
The compelling argument used to convince that the world must turn to nuclear power plants centers on the fact that it is carbon-free energy to stave off global warming. It’s not at all clear that renewables can do the job alone and the dream of electric cars will never materialize without nuclear power on any grand scale. Nuclear is a proven technology, which already provides 11% of all electricity globally. They need the Global Warming propaganda to justify building nuclear power plants which are far more costly to construct – $5 billion to $10 billion a pop. Sometimes, it just helps to follow the money.
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And this is way offset by increasing emissions in places like China and India.
It’s easy to reduce emissions if you continue to offshore your heavy industry.
It’s all a very cynical shell game at this point.
Plus, the focus on CO2 disregards other, more potent, greenhouse gases (eg., methane and water vapor). All the IPCC yacking disregards these and also disregards all the feedback loops (eg., warming leads to more water vapor which leads to more warming..)
Pretty much no one is telling the truth, because the truth is too painful to bear.
So, what is “the truth” that is “too painful to bear”?
That Business As Usual cannot continue no matter who we elect, no matter how much we conserve here or spend there, no matter what ideology we adopt. That we are reaching the End of our exponential Growth, meaning the End of Human Prosperity (if not the end of the human species along with most others) and the beginning of a very dark and contentious period with -potentially- billions of deaths within the lifetimes of people posting here.
As Hollywood Rob says, most people are caught up in one B.S. (Belief System) or another, all promising something that isn’t going to happen. From Moslems and the Jesus crowd to the Green New Dealers and electric-car vendors… it’s all about denying reality in order to maintain psychic equilibrium with which to confront the future (and to keep reproducing and consuming). Denial itself is a Technology that keeps us breaking down energy gradients faster than we otherwise would be inclined.
Another aspect of “the truth too painful to bear” is that We Are Not in Charge. “We” cannot reverse climate change or recuperate Western Civilization any more than we can bring about the Rapture. Virtually all human stories are centered on Human Agency.. but what if there is no such thing? That would be the most Inconvenient Truth of all.
Is it possible that the denial part could also be in denying progress and improvements? Is it possible that the denial part is denying that “climate change” might be a manipulation event by people it benefits – nuclear promoters or otherwise? It is possible that the denial part is denying that new ideas and creations can lift societies up and happen continually?
I see the possibilities for constant DOOM, but I see more and more possibilities for positive actions/outcomes. I have been hearing nothing but constant DOOM for like 30 years (from all sides), and while bad things happen, there has been a HUGE amount more of positives in the last 30 years than DOOM. China, as one example, has pulled hundreds of millions out of abject poverty. They still have far to go and much progress to make, but, no one would have believed it if you told them in the 50’s.
It just seems that the real denial denies all progress over the last 100+ years because things are instantly perfect based on the doomsayers BS (belief system), and denies any good things have ever come of it, and denies that there will be any more good (outweighing DOOM) happening at all.
It’s just DOOM, DOOM, DOOM and I don’t believe it’s healthy or correct anymore.
I do not believe the climate change stuff at this point – after all the lies and getting caught lying about data manipulation masquerading and promoted as science it is recognized as a manipulation meme.
There is so much land/ocean that has not been explored for oil and other resources it is almost unreal. How much of China or India has been fully explored? What percent and based on what tech, when and which govs/corps? That data isn’t even available if you wanted to get it.
Betting against energy extraction and resource availability is fine if you want to. I suggest, if that is your position, to buy futures or just go long on any oil co., if the belief is that we are going to run out and oil will see massive price jumps. Do you have investment strategies that match your beliefs? Are you putting your money where your mouth/beliefs are?
Yes, I am getting out of the stock/money game and investing in tangible goods with high embedded energy as well as low-tech systems for water and heating. I’m trying to leave at least something of value behind to support younger friends when I’m gone.
I would not go long on any oil company as they are having trouble making money these days, and will lose even more in the future. New discoveries are running at 5% of replacement. At some point you can’t get blood out of a stone. This has been known for decades… BP=”Beyond Petroleum”, yeah? Each barrel of oil costs more to extract than the previous one. Of course there are those who think that (non-existent, right?) global warming will open up the arctic for more drilling, but I think we saw, with the collapse of some big rig or other a couple of years ago, the degree to which that environment is still hostile.
Gail Tverberg has some excellent writings on how the limiting factor in oil extraction won’t be the sheer amount of oil, or even the tech. that might be brought to bear.. it’s also the affordability. What can you DO with the oil that is going to “make” more money than the money you spent to get the oil out of the ground? By most reckonings, we have reached the point of diminishing returns on that score. You have to have PRODUCTIVE ENTERPRISES in order to expect future returns. What we are faced with now, without the enormity of fossil-fuel subsidies, is the END OF PRODUCTIVE ENTERPRISES in energetical terms. [News flash: a graphene space elevator is not productive for human purposes.]
When, in our industrial system, a calorie of food takes ten fossil-fuel calories to produce, that is a system which cannot continue in our upcoming energetical context. Whether the earth warms or not, the fact remains that we simply cannot afford Industrial Civilization any longer.
A key metric is energy PER CAPITA. As that figure declines, people will become more immiserated across the board and be less inclined to spend on “stuff”. Sure, China has experienced a boost (at the expense of the West to some degree), but they are struggling now, as well. The opening of their economy by the West was due to the need to expand Western DEBT, said debt being another Technology which (all together now!!) allows us to consume resources and energy faster than we would otherwise have done.
If a message of doom is not “healthy”.. how is a message of infinite consumption healthier? Just eat all the seed corn and things will be fine: “Jesus will come and clean up the Earth” (real person I know said this).
Anyway, this part of the discussion is moot, because it is not in the makeup of most people to question the Religion(s) of Progress, so they will not do so. We are not in control, so—sure—perhaps it is best if you go back to Denial… I just know that I cannot.
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The only reason we have been able to maintain debt-money systems is that we have always had some sleight-of-hand we could perform. “Invest” in trips to the Orient or the Americas and get a return. These returns always came from OUTSIDE the monetary system in which they were booked. Once the world got “full” and there weren’t any more “away” places from which to import energy and goods (while fraudulently pretending they came from INSIDE the system) well… along come fossil fuels, so now we can import energy from “away” and keep the Ponzi scheme going for another round. Now that the punch bowl is close to being drained.. well, Lordy, Lordy.. all of a sudden money doesn’t “work” anymore. Interest-based money is now “broken” because on every level that matters the material future has less to offer than the present.
It’s hardly a coincidence that peak conventional oil occurred more or less around the time of the Great Financial Crisis of 2007-8. It’s not a coincidence, either, that we are in a regime of negative interest rates. We simply are just no longer bursting with anything which could be described as capital and even if we had capital, there are few places to deploy it productively compared to the past. Everything has too high of a cost, and so we will have less of it one way or another. Another misunderstanding about production is that it is somehow separate from consumption (we famously “produce” oil, rather than extract it, or consume it). Increases in GDP are largely increases in waste. That we can’t keep up this level of expenditure would seem obvious to me…. not that we don’t *want* to.. we’ll do everything to waste as much as possible.. it simply won’t continue to be possible.
Maybe some shale guys, but all majors, pumping the vast majority of oil for the planet, are highly profitable – look at their financials to verify that.
EBITDA and Cash Flows are 10’s of billions for all majors like: Aramco, Sinopec, CNPC, XOM, RDS and the other top suppliers.
Really? Most of what “reckonings”? Whose? Based on what data? Again, how much of the planet has been fully explored? Where does that data come from? A blog like “ourfiniteworld” is not really authoritative – Gail has a masters in Math and, impressive as that may be, she is not an authority or expert. Her views and research matters, but, there are A LOT of others that also have research, data, resources, and views that contradict her and most of those people have degrees and access to data that would call Gails views into question.
No one is claiming “infinite consumption”. All resources are still “scarce” and that, by definition, means consumption has limits. This is confusing resource availability and distribution with a perceived infinite consumption level because the resources are so vast – and growing.
The only “sleight of hand” being performed in order to use the fiat currency without seeing riots is efficiency gains and that isn’t sleight of hand, it’s technological progress. A factory full of robots producing 10 times the amount of water heaters, for example, in 1/2 the time it took 1000 people for in the past IS an efficiency gain. How that increased wealth is distributed is a different topic – right now, fiat currency allows those gains to be disproportionately aggregated to the top percent.
The entire last paragraph you wrote contains numerous errors regarding basic economics, production, wealth creation, capital deployment, and distribution/aggregation.
Like this:
No one has this misunderstanding – the average person knows most things are produced FOR consumption. Most production is NOT art or collectibles. No one familiar with basic econ would claim that “production is somehow separate from consumption”.
” the resources are so vast – and growing.”
Is this your argument?
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Re. debt money. The very minute of its creation, it is unsustainable. I loan you 100 and you have to give me back 105, or 101, or whatever. But that extra 5% or 1% does not exist within the system; it can only be conjured up from “somewhere else”. Fossil fuels have been that “somewhere else” that makes it all seem to work.
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The focus on “production” obscures its wasteful nature. To “produce” more prisons or brain surgeries or plastic junk that ends up in a landfill is not a positive thing for society. My sister went to a noted business school and she could not comprehend my argument for why she should mulch her own leaves in her backyard instead of hiring a lawn service or paying extra in property taxes to have the town come and get rid of them with a giant sucker truck. She thought it was a good thing that someone had to make a truck, pay for it to be garaged, fueled, and repaired, pay for the driver and all his associated costs, insurance, wear and tear on the roads and tires and such, increased traffic and pollution… all to get rid of some frickin’ leaves.
So spending more money or energy does not, in my mind, transfer to more “wealth”. Wealth is the state of being well, just as health is the state of being hale. If you think our current way of doing things enhances well-being, we will have to disagree. A woman staying home with her kids isn’t “producing” a lick of GDP. Bringing her into the workforce with all the associated costs: clothing, transportation, daycare, etc. increases GDP by a lot, but does not increase WELL-BEING.
My “argument” was that you presented a lot of statements that just aren’t true and I addressed many of them point-by-point.
You claimed, for one example, that oil co’s aren’t profitable. That is not correct and I told you why.
All of your emotional positions regarding trade and consumption are subjective and a lot of people would not see things the way you do or let you dictate to them based on your subjective views.
Again, go live with the Amish, but don’t expect many to follow you.
Who are you to judge anyone and determine their well being for them? What you like is what you like – your sister, your bring up in your example, is her own person and may not agree with what you like. Are you going to use Force to make us all do what you say is best?
Again, I think what you really want is for everyone to do exactly as YOU SAY.
That is unrealistic and is never going to happen. If you don’t like people producing and trading things, then live with the Amish – but even the Amish produce furniture and food and trade and consume!
Look at your own accusations, which are filled with emotion! I am not telling anyone to do anything.. again, you are making this up. I have no interest in using force against anyone… where do you get that from? … is it some kind of psychological projection?
My example about my sister was to illustrate the UN-economy of so-called classical or conventional “economic” thinking. It has nothing to do with what I “like”.. it has to do with seeing the world as made up of energy and materials which can either be conserved or squandered. That we “choose” to squander them and cannot control ourselves is my conclusion, since we are not in charge but are subject to larger biophysical forces.
Do you have any solid facts backed by good data or not?
Your math major blogger claiming to be a geology expert that knows all things oil, doesn’t count.
Your anecdotal posts about your sister and climibing trees don’t count.
Telling me to fuck off when I present alternatives to your “oil is running out today” and the world sucks DOOM, doesn’t count.
You are distorting what I said, and your only “alternative” seems to be unproven thorium reactors built by the company that brought us the F-35.
Now you are confusing posters – I didn’t bring up Thorium reactors. I brought up Fusion reactors.
Thorium reactors are fission reactors and fusion reactors don’t use thorium fuel – but you knew that because you are the smartest person in the world and way smarter than the fools at Lockheed in your own mind. You have said that indirectly, multiple times now.
And F-35 design is childs-play in your vast brain size, right? It is something to be ashamed of, right – no civilian use will ever come out of that and certainly nothing you will ever use personally, right? Everyone at Lockeed is an idiot, liar and evil and you know it because you know everything and are the smartest person on the entire planet.
I don’t give a shit what kind of reactor it is.
No human-constructed reactor of any kind is possible without massive amounts oil supporting it forever.
What about this do you not understand?
This is a good series of posts:
https://www.economic-undertow.com/tag/triangle-of-doom/page/22/
You can trace in real time Steve Ludlum’s predictions about the paradoxical-seeming drop in oil prices in response to scarcity.
His trend line leads right to where we are now ($50-something).
1.) There can still be plenty of oil, and at the same time it be uneconomical to retrieve it.
2.) You cannot build any kind of non-renewable “renewable” without oil.
Oil is a commodity. The price varies based on a huge number of factors – like production which is not over 80 million barrles per day compared to 52 in the early 80’s. BOE is well over 100M bpd. Almost all energy production is up by 50% or more since the 80’s. It isn’t a straight line.
Your uknown blog reference is quoting Malthus and Malthus has been proven wrong 1000 times over.
Again though, you are the smartest person that has ever lived, so I am sure you know exactly why everything Malthus ever said was exactly right….
hmm, thought there would be more to chew on.
here’s a thought: There is no new clean energy or “green” energy sources that can compete with fossil fuel, and electric cars will only work for coastal cities (where it is already a bitch just to find a parking space) to travel short distances.
This is probably closer to the truth than any politician or environmentalist will ever admit to, yet, they continue to blow their horn, making you realize that they are not interested in debating the subject, what they really are after is your consent, your subjugation, and they are using every trick a clever trick to convince you to change your habits, while they do just the opposite.
” I just got back from a cruise around Greenland, and I saw glaciers melting, my gosh, we have to do something…” said the putz who drives a Prius with “save the whales” bumper stickers.
If the nuclear industry would actually and finally be fully responsible for safely handing their OWN waste issues (rather than massive subsidization, etc. by the government), this form of energy would probably be ok. But just like all the rest of the energy market, government has its dirty hands all over this industry in ways that privatize profits while socializing costs.
Can there actually be truly safe nuclear energy? Who really knows. Will it be as “inexpensive” as the current, government-subsidized/protected version? Who knows. I would be more than happy to see ALL energy be free of government intrusion, paying its own way, competing with everything else. Not going to hold my breath.
That’s just bullshit, Mr. L. How would promising technology companies like Solyndra and Tesla get funded without subsidies and tax credits?
Is that sarcasm?
Yes.
There is a limit to “following the money”, because money is going to money heaven as the things that back up money promises [more available energy and physical resources in the future than there are in the present] go away in an increasingly obvious fashion.
1.) Tim Garrett did a paper demonstrating that civilization is a heat engine, and that GDP tracks energy use by a constant factor. While all life is dissipative, humans have perfected technologies which allow us to turn more resources into heat and waste pollution faster than otherwise would have occurred. That’s all we do. The extent of this was modeled decades ago, with great accuracy in hindsight:
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/sep/02/limits-to-growth-was-right-new-research-shows-were-nearing-collapse
2.) “Renewables” are neither “green” nor renewable, and have a negative EROEI.
3.) Nukes arguably have a negative EROEI if you take into account all of what they currently think of as decommissioning and (for human lifetimes) INFINITE waste management which they still don’t even know how to do!
4.) The fact that pseudo-green politicians/WallStreeters/bogus capitalists like Musk are going to try to milk the coming catastrophes for all they’re worth doesn’t mean the catastrophes are fake.
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https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eroi-charles-hall-will-fossil-fuels-maintain-economic-growth/
A modest assessment puts nuclear EROEI at 5:1. Still not enough to run IndCiv.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/eroi-behind-numbers-energy-return-investment/
Really, though.. TANSTAAFL.
Technically speaking, we can never get back more energy from a process than the amount put into it: that’s not how our physical world is designed.
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I enjoy the discussions on “Our Finite World”.
The “Energy Skeptic” looks at similar issues, but I don’t like her sloppy approach to layout and lack of distinguishing citations oftentimes.
http://energyskeptic.com/
“Tim Garrett did a paper demonstrating that civilization is a heat engine, and that GDP tracks energy use by a constant factor. “.
A few problems with some of the analysis above that I can see.
1. The Federal Reserve. When you use GDP (measured in dollars that can be printed easily) vs. an actual physical commodity which cannot be simply printed at some bureaucrats whim, then the calculations are NOT a constant. Unfortunately for all of us, NO government will EVER put out statistics measured in Joules of energy, or some other physical constant. Because at that very moment the fraud of our nations (world) economies would be exposed.
2. Nuclear is probably THE MOST viable green energy there is. The EROEI is several 100:1. The problem is the method of nuclear we have been using since the 60’s. Briefly, there were two designs for civilian nuclear power proposed and tested – Plutonium based actively cooled and safety monitored nuclear reactors, and Thorium based passive safety monitored nuclear reactors. Unfortunately for all of us, the military decided to move forward with actively cooled / safety regulated Plutonium based reactors.
The problem with active reactor designs is that they need constant water cooling to keep from over heating and causing 3 mile island or Chernobyl. It also uses a fraction of the fissile matter, so thus you have a constant bad side effect of having to dispose of nuclear waste product. The safer design, called LFTR (Liquid Fluoride Thorium Reactors) were never adopted.
Both designs were tested and proven in the 1960’s at the Oak Ridge labs.
The LFTR design can burn up not only its own fuel, but can also use the nuclear waste products from other reactors as its “seed”. This would be a way for us to burn up a lot of this old reactor material rather than store it in the mountains of Nevada and other states for the next 50,000 years.
There are companies currently working on LFTR technology now that have working prototypes, the only thing keeping them from market is that most current Reactors must have a reasonable expectation of at least a 30 year run time. The current LFTR reactors can only proof of concept for about 10 years due to the corrosive effect of the molten salt on the plumbing. If they can find a material not corroded by the salt, then you are looking at a startup that may actually be worth a crap to IPO. The company to watch is TerraPower – backed by the Bill Gates foundation (if I recall) and another smaller startup that I cannot recall now, but in my opinion had a superior design.
Of course the MSM and the “greenies” tell you little about this, as I am sure their donors / owners would rather you not know. As Mr. Liberty sites above, there is just too much Government involvement in this, therefore the guns are protecting the status quo, and new practical tech is not able to get the attention it needs.
This is quite fanciful.
To base future assumptions on technology which does not exist is delusional. The IPCC does the same thing with its phantom “carbon capture” tech.
And even if this thorium business did kinda “work” (to the same extent that solar panels kinda “work” today..)… you say yourself you’d have to build them all out again every 20-30 years, just like the optimistic estimates for solar. You won’t even be able to figure out where to get the concrete for these things in thirty years. Industrial Civilization cannot be run on electricity, full stop.
None of this is, as they say, “sustainable” by any stretch of the imagination. All of this investment should be put into contraception for humans and breeding horses and oxen for transportation again.
I disagree based on observation and progress.
Progress happens. To base things on projections – even if some might be incorrect – is not delusional, as you say. Projections are made and updated constantly and progress takes place with projections as a guide. It’s part of planning and advancement.
Right now, Lockheed has a working fusion reactor. The working model fits on 2 skids and produces over 50 megawatts. One that fits on a semi-trailer yields 200 megawatts. That is progress.
You should take a look at it:
https://lockheedmartin.com/en-us/products/compact-fusion.html
Again, progress happens, things change, technology (people+experience+time) creates things that we NEVER thought of – like the internet if you are old enough.
Efficiencies also take place – doing more with less happens ALL the time.
As super capacitors come on-line, you can expect “battery” powered “stuff” will, indeed, run Industrial Civilizations based on electricity. Wait until they are silcon based and super CHEAP.
Look at ryobi (and other) tools for example – you can now get batteries for Ryobi tools that will power all kinds of power tools that never would have been envisioned as reliable/durable “cordless” just 20 years ago (or at all 30 years back). They now offer circular saws, chainsaws, nailguns that compress air on-board, and on and on.
How about graphene – soon enough, it will be cost-effective and buildings over a mile high WILL start going up. A space elevator could be reality with graphene if it wins out over other technological advances.
Things change and pass you by as you age. You can say it won’t happen and then scream it won’t happen, but it will even if you don’t believe it and instead believe all progress will simply stop. It won’t.
Even more things will be created that you can’t begin to imagine – they are being created right now, with science you don’t even know exists. None of us do, but it’s there and it’s ahead of everyone that isn’t working at SkunkWorks or other Research Centers and Corps or Universities in the U.S., China, India, Japan, Brazil, Russia and all over this planet.
There is no stopping it at this point short of a mass-destruction-event like asteroid or massive thermonuclear war or plague.
Climate change, Global Warming, etc. are manipulation-memes, nothing more. Everything they said would, without question, happen in a specific timeline has NOT happened – even running out of low EROEI oil (claimed to be gone by this time just 15 years ago by Matt Simmons and many others).
They (the U.N. and others) began saying the earth will “insert your apocalyptic climate meme here”, back in the 80’s and earlier.
How many times will these claims be made before one realizes it’s a hoax and manipulation meme? Most realize they have been played already.
The things you mention are only “progress” to the extent I already acknowledged: that they allow us to consume more energy and resources faster than before. Usta be a person walking around consumed 100watts. Now everyone has a smartphone, so the load is that much greater per capita. This will not continue because it cannot. Currently-producing oil wells are declining at a rate of 6% p.a.
Re. efficiency.. ever heard of Jevon’s paradox? The more energy “saved” the more people not only make up for but exceed consumption.
Not being immune to the forces I described, I bought into battery-powered tools. Gotta replace my first batch after 2 years. In a few more years, these things will be bricks just like dad’s old eight-track tape player or Polaroid camera. They are just another way of turning energy and materials into irredeemable toxic waste and waste heat. More stranded tech. More bullshit like the electric-car bullshit to keep people from looking around and noticing that things are inexorably turning to shit.
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My observations are 1.) the oceans are warming and acidifying where they are not radioactive. They have little to no life left in them (source: vacation day at the Maine seacoast.. no kelp, no fish, no fishy smell, no seagulls). 2.) Trees are dying everywhere I look . 3.) Insects are no longer around.. birds are many fewer in number. Etc., etc. Everything you trumpet as being “progress” comes at the cost of something in the natural world. At some point in this wonderful development, there is nothing more left to support human beings.
My observations of the built environment are equally as dire: roads, houses, institutions (even conceptual institutions like nations, religions, legal systems) are crumbling because there is less and less of real energy and materials which can be afforded to put into them. Look around you.. do our cities, suburbs, or rural areas look in any way like they are “advancing”?? Everything is increasingly crapified: food is a prime example. People cannot even write legibly any more. They cannot afford to paint or heat their houses which are succumbing to gravity’s siren song. We can’t enforce borders and we’ve given up on arresting people for shoplifting (another nail in the coffin of retail) or fare-jumping (contempt for civic institutions as well as a resource hemorrhage).
Yet we’re going to build a frickin’ SPACE ELEVATOR out of GRAPHENE?
Grrrr. Now you are just yanking my chain.
Fuck off.
Nobody is going to live on the Moon, on Mars, or in a god-damned space station.
That is exactly the kind of Denial of Reality I am talking about, so—while this kind of B.S. infuriates me to no end—I’m glad you commented since it is exemplary of exactly what I was talking about.
Chubby: OK, so I read thru the entire thread and then came back and re-read this particular post. I find your observation regarding the insects, oceans and animals disturbingly accurate. I noticed far fewer bugs in the garden, ditto bird at the feeders and a paucity of hummingbirds. I live in South Central Texas and not too far from the Eagleford. The stink of the burn off from the fracking hung over the area this morning along with a cloying taste at the back of the throat. Folks around here call that the smell of money, what I call it isn’t fit for polite company.
Talk of nuclear power always omits the nuclear waste and pointedly ignores the ongoing crisis with Fukushima. There is nothing benign or safe about nuclear energy.
You are spot on in your other commentary as well.
Would you be so kind as to give a hint as to your background? Nothing personal, this is the internet, but I get the sense that you are also an educator or present your information in a professional format.
1.) I have not observed the same thing in oceans I have visited in the past 5 years – the majority are productive and healthy. Fukushima is a problem on the west coast depending on the area measured, what is measured and how it is measured.
2.) Trees are dying from invasive species (ash) and specific fungus (maple, oak and conifers). That is not unheard of. Also, the U.S. has more tree coverage now than in the past 200 years. Most forests are productive and logged or used for other products (which must be traded and consumed – like most products) like maple syrup or nuts.
No, they are crumbling (in SOME areas) because fiat currency has disproportionately aggregated production/efficiencies to the top percent bracket. Theft via money debauchery isn’t the same as running out of resources or energy.
This was an example of how progress works – not something YOU, personally, will have available to you tomorrow.
Again, in your mind and tomorrow, sure. But I am talking about progress and that doesn’t happen in a day. Ideas become reality over time, not with the flip of a switch.
The world doesn’t stop because of your personal belief system. Progress will take place. Advancements will be made. New technologies will come on line. Problems will be solved. New problems will arise. The sun will shine some days. Some days it will rain. People will explore and move to space stations and other planets – WITH TIME.
What you propose with going back to horses is ludicrous and will solve nothing. No one is going to do that or even want that besides a few. If that is your desire, there are Amish communities all over the country. Join one and quit accessing the internet and contributing to what you define as problems and insurmountable DOOM.
You are correct. There is no solution.
I just think horses are nice.
Horses are also “renewable” on a scale of thousands of years. Nuclear power plants are not renewable even a little bit.
Trees are succumbing to pests that they would have otherwise been able to shrug off, had they not been weakened by ground-level ozone and other polluting substances, drought, increased UV, and so forth.
Do you see any trees around that look climbable, like when we were kids? I don’t. Many just look like they are falling apart, leaves blotchy, bark peeling, limbs broken off…
I remember as kids we used to collect brightly-colored fall leaves for art projects in grade school. Nowadays the schools use colored paper; the actual leaves are too mangy and diseased-looking to be worth collecting.
==
“Theft via money debauchery ”
In my understanding, money is “debauched” by the very process of diminishing resource returns which I have been trying to explain.
You have no idea what you are talking about and continue to just spout emotional-based, subjective wants.
Horses are the best resource and are “renewable”? That is a statement with no truth or scientific backing. Why not use elephants or donkeys or oxen, too while we’re at it? Again, you can live Amish, but don’t expect most people to follow.
The U.S. has more forested acreage than in the last 200 years – whether you can climb trees or not is irrelevant and silly and is not data.
Global warming/Climate change is a false narrative – insects aren’t disappearing, trees are not all dying off and there is still wildlife in abundance.
Leaves – dead leaves – are “too mangy” to be worth collecting? You claimed leaves were mulch up above, and saying they are too mangy is not real data and has nothing to do with anything.
Your understanding of resources, economics, science and a good number of other topics is what has been debauched.
You can mock me all you like.
That horses are more renewable than nuke plants is beyond contention.
You just don’t seem to get it.
I don’t expect people to “follow” me.
Quite the opposite.
You don’t like what I am saying, so you invent that I am ordering you to do something.
I’m not.
What does leaves being easier to mulch in place rather than haul away in expensive trucks have to do with the fact that they also happen to be scrofulous these days? You are not being logical here.
Insects are indeed disappearing. Down by 35%-75% in less than thirty years (so much for the people who want to use them as an alternate protein source).
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/insect-ldquo-armageddon-rdquo-5-crucial-questions-answered/
https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2017/05/where-have-all-insects-gone
https://www.popularmechanics.com/science/environment/a26323324/insect-population-ecosystem-collapse/
There was no mocking – you are the one that told me to “fuck off” above, remember?
I am questioning your assertions, your sources and your intentions, all of which are based on zero or manipulated data and stats.
It’s not that I “don’t like what you are saying”, it’s that I find your assertions to be similar to assertions about “climate change” and “global warming”. They are false and the sources you are citing either use faulty data or just make it up.
Claiming leaves are “mangy” and can’t be used for school leaf-books is the kind of logical fallacies you have used in the entire thread.
Hauling leaves away in “expensive trucks” may be more logical than composting – for reasons of sanitation, among others – but YOU don’t get to decide that for everyone.
Insects are not “disappearing” and your sources for that are known to be agenda-driven liars that twist data to paint any picture they want. Like the climate change advocates do.
Based on what you have presented, you love DOOM and are fixed on it. Nothing will fix it. All solutions presented are garbage in your mind and just add to problems.
I actually feel sorry for you because your religion of DOOM has consumed you – you can’t even recognize potential for improvements in the human condition at this point. A working fusion reactor that fits on 2 pallets is only more problems in your mind. Potential for real spaceships, moonbases and countless other superior technological achievements, that will happen in time, are only more problems in your mind. Unreal.
You need to go to a real research center and talk to some of the young people there. Maybe that will open your eyes to what is taking place – take your focus off the DOOM for a while.
Agenda-driven liars?
Look, you appealed for observations, and I gave them. Now you say they aren’t valid.
Usta be you’d have to stop your car and wipe the insect goo off the windshield every so often. Now you almost never have to do that. Observation: insects are disappearing.
Lockheed-Martin (agenda-driven liars) are not going to tell you that.. that’s not in their interest.
In all of this, I don’t WANT to be right, but I know that I am, and that you are wrong. Do you think for some reason I don’t want the world to be stable and happy and prosperous? Do you think that my doom-y impressions are somehow responsible for taking away your moon bases and space elevators?
Ha ha.. I checked out your Lockeed-Martin link, which is (unintentionally?) HILARIOUS!!
INFINITE ENERGY.
All righty then!
What would happen if humans had access to “infinite energy”?
They’d burn to a fucking crisp, is what.
Jesus Fucking Christ.. It’s bad enough as it is.
Do you have any criticisms, constructive or otherwise, to add based on the science and advancement of how the energy produced is possible? How can a reactor that fits on 2 pallets produce 50 megawats when a Tokamak, for example, would require vastly larger space? Could it be from technological progress/advancement?
Your personal belief system doesn’t get to define what is “bad enough” for everyone. Most won’t agree with your views.
Infinite Energy is kind of like “infinite memory” for computers. It means that there is more than you can use. No matter what I do, I can’t personally fill Ten 5TB solid-state drives with pictures and movies and even if I did, there would not be time to view everything. In that case, I have “infinite” access to computer memory.
Same with what Lockheed, and many others, are trying to develop – a clean source of energy that replaces the oil you claim is almost gone. Now that an idea is being presented to replace the oil, you just kick it down and don’t even want it to be available because everyone already has too much in your view! What do you want besides everyone to live like you in a cave while living in fear of total DOOM!?
From what you have written, you want to be King – of everyone and with regard to energy consumption and use for everyone. That is unreasonable and unhealthy and isn’t ever going to happen.
The world WILL move forward, even if there are setbacks, and it WILL pass you by.
I never said such a thing. That is a libel that you have invented. I am merely making statements about how I see the world functioning. Except for the part about horses, I don’t think I have been making value judgements about it one way or the other.
Things are as they are. If they could be different, they would be, but they can’t so they aren’t.
The world is not going to pass me by. I am just as much a part of it as anyone else, and I have the same (non-negotiable) impulses to maximize my energy throughput.
A “clean source of energy” does not exist, because the laws of physics dictate that for every energy transaction there will be waste (heat and pollution). There is only so much heat and pollution that the Earth can absorb before it starts to impinge negatively on biological processes (as we are clearly seeing should we choose to look).
You ignored, so I will repeat:
Do you have any criticisms, constructive or otherwise, to add based on the science and advancement of how the energy produced is possible? How can a reactor that fits on 2 pallets produce 50 megawats when a Tokamak, for example, would require vastly larger space? Could it be from technological progress/advancement?
Your personal belief system doesn’t get to define what is “bad enough” for everyone. Most won’t agree with your views.
I don’t know what you mean by “bad enough”.
I don’t care who agrees with my views.
Reality is not subject to popularity contests.
The laws of thermodynamics are as follows:
0.) there is a game.
1.) you can’t win.
2.) you can’t break even.
3.) you can’t get out of the game.
Are you talking about this reactor?
I still fail to see what is SUSTAINABLE about this or any other nuclear project. No one will be able to maintain them in the future.
Some oil co.s may currently be profitable, but there is a desperation regarding new capital investment. Clearly, they are making business decisions not to invest in future exploration and development. Why might that be? My assumption is that they don’t feel it’s economically viable.
(random example article)
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-aramco-oil/aramco-ceo-sees-oil-supply-shortage-as-investments-discoveries-drop-idUSKBN19V0KR
Your laws of thermodyanmics are….simplified, to say the least. Inaccurate, really.
What does “sustainable” mean? If it works for 30 years until the next energy source is found/invented is that “sustainable” to you? Anyone that uses the word “sustainable” in regards to energy is almost always spouting nonsense. It goes hand-in-hand with the green energy crazies and is a word of subjective definition. It can mean a wide variety of things to different people at different times describing different sources.
“No one will be able to maintain them” you assert.
Really? According to who? It seems that’s nothing more than your opinion? Do you have any data or facts to back that up? You must have access to Lockheeds longterm maintenance plans, right?
You are claiming, indirectly via challenges using word-games, to be smarter than the individuals working on fusion reactors at the Skunkworks. Do you actually believe that?
I don’t.
Only 400 years from now?
I thought Global Warming was supposed to kill at least 10 years ago?
Ha Ha! This claim completely false, but go ahead, keep worshiping false gods of DOOM!
I am not making any claims about 10 years or 400 years. I offered what I thought was an interesting disconnect between the world of people studying real material phenomena, and the world of finance and infinite growth/progress assumptions like yours.
How is it false, please.
Now you want me to prove a negative?
Everything you have asserted is based on logical fallacies.
In particular you confuse progress and efficiencies with “infinite growth” and use terms that are absolutely loaded and have twisted and/or fluid definitions.
Any time I brought up a valid critique of what you posted, you ignored it and/or changed topics or brought up some anecdotal irrelevancy.
Your understanding of econ, geology, science, finance, and several other fields is unrealistic and based on a thought process that resembles that of a cult. No facts will be addressed. No progress will be allowed. Only DOOM.
Good luck to you and your cult-like worship of DOOM.
Good luck escaping the planet!
Good luck with your cult of DOOM. We won’t be “escaping the planet” – the intelligent people that don’t worship DOOM will be out creating new technologies and resources that, in your doom-loving mind, you aboslutley know will fail because as you made clear about 30 times, everything sucks and nothing can be fixed – ever, and because you say it is gospel, so why even bother?
As you stated above, “you know you are right”, so you are smarter than people working at Skunkworks and everyone else on the entire planet; they are all wrong and anyone researching anything regarding advancement is just wasting their time – because you say so. And even if something worked or helped, according to you it would just create more problems and cause more energy to be consumed -which just creates more unsolvable problems in your cult of doom circular-logic. You know everything and, sorry to say, there are no solutions to any problems – especially technological solutions. You are the smartest person in the world in your own mind. Your grasp of science and all research is simply beyond everyone else on the planet – especially people at real labs doing real research – and you know, for sure, everyone is DOOMED.
https://www.tullettprebon.com/Documents/strategyinsights/TPSI_009_Perfect_Storm_009.pdf
How come entropy is a law defied, so far, by the fact of human civilization — among other things like the formation of the earth itself? Where is the chaos? Seems always to be in the future. But then maybe this civilization is just one of many that have been covered up with dirt and ashes.
Still, what law is it that “allows” the accretion that allows a civilization to arise in the first place?
If you say “Time will tell,” then I guess you will be one who thinks in terms of eons rather than generations. How does that help us live our lives happily? Must we always keep the dreaded Yellowstone eruption at the forefront of our minds even as we cruise the world as spiritual beings?
Yes, this civilization will go the way of previous ones.
What allows for accretion is accessible energy.
You may find this presentation useful in outlining the situation:
“Chaos” is an underlying constant, for now. What looks like “order” to us is really a kind of disorder: look at how we move banana molecules from Costa Rica to Cleveland, aluminum molecules from China to Chile, and oil molecules from Saudia Arabia to.. everywhere! The reason intermediary organization happens is because it allows us to access more energy than otherwise possible: it allows us to break down more energy gradients faster. An “ordered” universe is one in which everything has reached equilibrium (not a state we want to, or could, live in).
I don’t “cruise the world as a spiritual being”.. just doesn’t happen to be part of my personal B.S.
Chubby, with all due respect, I think you are simply….wrong. First off, the entirety of industrial civilization RIGHT NOW is running on electricity, with the exception of motor cars and other transport mediums that require portability. The ONLY reason we are using fossil fuels for fixed production is due to NOT having efficient alternative base load civilian power. If Carter had not basically scared the hell out of any electric utility investing the necessary funds to build nuclear plants, you would see a lot more nuclear power (the wrong kind in my opinion) but nuclear just the same.
And, in regards to you claiming that nuclear does not deliver more than 100:1 EROEI, I have a working prototype to prove you are wrong on that – THE SUN. Granted, that is fusion, and not fission (which IS less efficient than fusion), but you must realize that one lump of coal burned could heat a 400 sqft space (approximately) for about an hour through chemical reaction, while that same lump of coal contains enough Thorium energy (exploited through fission) to power a small city for about 1 year. Now, considering we in the US are basically the Saudi Arabia of coal, and Thorium is plentiful in coal, with that kind of yield of energy, I figure conservatively we have about 10,000 years worth of energy at our disposal. Try doing that with Solar, Wind or fungus or any current green energy utopia being pushed by liberals that is fantasy.
You may believe that is not sustainable, and in the bigger picture, I would guess that you are correct (as the sun itself will eventually burn out) however I am willing to try that vs. a windmill or a solar panel.
Now, about not being able to have a reactor need replacement in 30 years, that is an ECONOMIC limitation, NOT a proof of concept limitation. The plumbing issue can be dealt with, just not well enough to make the current ECONOMIC case to a utility, under the current Government regime and status quo. We had computers the size of a room (with less power than your cell phone now) that, at the time had to have at least a 10 year operation life due to the cost. Now, the average computer costs a tenth of what it cost in the seventies, and a lot of people change them out every 3 years.
So how do you suppose a base-load utility would look at the economics of a Thorium (LFTR) reactor if its passive operations cost was a tenth of their current Plutonium reactors, AND their natural gas turbine (or coal fired) turbines? And say the cost to build and permit (Government crap that costs many times more in some cases than the construction itself) went down, or was eliminated (I know a fantasy that government would not want their cut)? The NIMBY crap with Nuclear is pure fantasy with a LFTR design due to its inherent self regulation and safe immediate shutdown (through a frozen salt plug) if the system has a problem.
I am as skeptical as anyone else on here about everything, however when I see something that makes sense, I do have to give credit where it is due, and in the case of LFTR technology, there is little to not like about it as a true “green” and sustainable energy source. And, unlike the other “green” tech currently in development or production, it provides a constant base-load power, as well as was proven to ACTUALLY WORK in the 1960’s. Unless of course you think we should all go back to life without modern convenience, like air conditioning and electric lighting?
There is nothing “green” about any kind of nuclear reactor, thorium or not. You leave out of the equation all the fossil fuels needed for mining and construction of the plants, which cannot be done with electricity. So this is just not going to lead anywhere.. it’s just a way to waste more energy and resources in the interim.
I am not saying what *should* happen. I am saying what I believe *will* happen.
Re. your Point #1:
Synopses here:
http://nephologue.blogspot.com/2018/05/whats-your-carbon-footprint.html
http://www.inscc.utah.edu/~tgarrett/Economics/Economics.html
A salient paper is here:
https://www.earth-syst-dynam.net/3/1/2012/esd-3-1-2012.html
World GDP directly corresponds to energy use which directly corresponds to emissions. Dollars are inflation-adjusted. The printing of extra dollars cannot and does not conjure up more goods and services out of thin air, I think we can agree.
Another issue with some nuclear and non-nuclear power plants is that they have had to be shut down due to the surface water they use for cooling being too hot to work. (Surface water is getting too hot.. but there’s no global warming.. naaah.)
http://www.ecology.com/2012/06/05/water-cooled-power-plants-warming-climate/
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-finland-nuclear-fortum-oyj-idUSKBN1KF2CO
https://uk.reuters.com/article/us-nordics-nuclearpower-explainer/in-hot-water-how-summer-heat-has-hit-nordic-nuclear-plants-idUKKBN1KM4ZR
https://www.miamiherald.com/news/local/community/miami-dade/article1983871.html
Basically the article posits that Bruce Springsteen, Bonnie Raitt and Jackson Fucking Browne – with their “No Nukes” crusade – had stymied nuclear energy, so the Global Warming hoax had to be created to counteract Jackson Fucking Browne. I’m torn. On the one hand, climate change is bullshit. On the other hand, Jackson Browne is bullshit.
I like how you cut to the chase.. that is an unlikely scenario!
Still, Jackson Browne isn’t all bad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oU2GtxFomIY
Just because I can’t quit burning pixels, here’s a chart:
Good research, Chubby. We are circling the drain, and the only thing mankind can turn to is self-delusion. That works up to a point…….
There is little doubt that industrial pollution entering our air and water is a bad thing and should be curtailed as soon and as much as possible . However allowing any nation thru what ever world agreement reached by a worthless body of government representatives to pollute more and more with no sanctions or consequences is useless . The United Nations , The US Congress etc are all are all nothing but a conglomeration of entitled bags of shit from across the US and around the globe . Their combined actions destroy everything they touch except their entitled position and those crony capitalists that support their endeavors . They will use armed conflict to further their real combined agenda and armed badge wearing minions on the payroll to control the populations .
As for global warming , clean air and water the “THEY” don’t give a shit about any of that or you and your children . By now anyone with active brain cells should realize this .
1984 is here just later and tweaked but as oppressive as described .
See how socialism works for the wealthy elites and the parasites that are supported by their organized theft and control !
Remember corporations are people when donating to politicians but not held to account by the same tax laws as individuals . Please explain that one ? I can : bribery & fraud !
Corporations are just another Technology which allows for pulling future consumption into the present, allowing us to burn through energy and materials faster than we would otherwise. Everything else is rationalization after the fact.