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Heinberg: An Order of Chaos, Please

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Trump’s Coal Delusions

During the second presidential debate on October 9, Republican presidential nominee (now President-Elect) Donald Trump claimed that “clean coal” could meet the energy needs of the United States for the next 1,000 years. Now that Mr. Trump will be in the position of making national energy policy, it’s worth examining that assertion.

First, does our nation really have 1,000 years’ worth of coal? No official agency thinks so. The U.S. Energy Information Administration estimates United States coal reserves at 477 billion short tons, a little over 500 years’ worth. But this calculation is probably highly misleading. A 2007 study by the National Academy of Sciences criticized the history of systematically inflated national coal reserves figures, while still allowing that, “there is probably sufficient coal to meet the nation’s coal needs for more than 100 years.” Still other studies ratchet that “100 years” down much further.

In 2009 I spent several months reviewing the available data and studies; the results were published as the book Blackout, which concluded that there is a strong “likelihood of [global coal] supply limits appearing relatively soon—within the next two decades.”

The U.S., China, Britain, and Germany have all already mined their best coal resources; what remains will be difficult and expensive to extract. Coal production from eastern states (West Virginia, Tennessee, Ohio, Pennsylvania) has been on the skids for decades as a result of the depletion of economically minable reserves. The focus of the industry’s efforts has therefore largely shifted to Wyoming, but production there is now waning as well. A 2009 study by Clean Energy Action, a citizen group in Boulder, Colorado, confirmed that Wyoming and Montana hold a large portion of remaining U.S. coal reserves, but also concluded that 94 percent of reserves claimed by the mining industry and the U.S. Energy Information Agency are too expensive to extract. It’s probably safe to say that there are sufficient supplies of coal there and in the rest of the U.S. to permit mining to continue for decades into the future—but only at a declining rate.

In short, from a supply standpoint alone, the idea of 1,000 years of coal—enough to supply all of our energy needs for a millennium—is so exaggerated as to be laughable.

Does attaching the word “clean” to the word “coal” somehow change that picture? Hardly. For years, Americans have seen billboards and TV commercials touting “clean coal,” while politicians on both sides of the aisle have extolled its promise. The technology to capture carbon emissions from coal-fired power plants has been tried and tested. Yet today almost none of the nation’s coal-fueled electricity-generating plants are “clean.”

Why the delay? The biggest problem for “clean coal” is that the economics don’t work. Carbon capture and storage (CCS) is extremely expensive. That gives the power industry little incentive to implement it in the absence of a substantial carbon tax.

Why would implementing CCS be so expensive? To start, capturing and storing the carbon from coal combustion is estimated to consume 25 percent to 45 percent of the power produced, depending on the approach taken. That translates to not only higher prices for coal-generated electricity but also the need for more power plants to serve the same customer base. Other technologies designed to make carbon capture more efficient aren’t commercial at this point, and their full costs are unknown.

And there’s more. Capturing and burying just 38 percent of the carbon released from current U.S. coal combustion would entail pipelines, compressors and pumps on a scale equivalent to the size of the nation’s oil industry. And while bolting CCS technology onto existing power plants is possible, it is inefficient. A new generation of plants would do the job much better—but that means replacing roughly 600 current-generation power plants.

Altogether, the Energy Department estimates that wholesale electricity prices with the initial generation of CCS technology would be 70 percent to 80 percent higher than current coal-based power—which is already uncompetitive with natural gas, wind, or even new solar PV installations.

The price per kilowatt-hour of electricity produced from solar and wind power is steadily dropping, with no bottom in sight. The only thing that keeps coal-based electricity even in the ballpark of prices for renewable energy sources is the industry’s ability to shift coal’s hidden costs—environmental and health damage—onto society at large. If climate regulations eventually kick in and the coal power industry adopts CCS as a survival strategy, the task of hiding from the market the real and mounting costs of coal can only grow more daunting.

The problem is that coal just isn’t “clean.”  CCS won’t banish high rates of lung disease, because it doesn’t eliminate all the pollutants from the combustion process or deal with the coal dust from mining and transport. It also doesn’t address the environmental devastation of “mountaintop removal” mining.

By the time we transitioned the nation’s fleet of coal-burning power plants to CCS (which would take three or four decades), the nation’s coal production would be supply-constrained as a result of ongoing depletion. Let’s face it: the coal industry is dying. If Mr. Trump wants to put the industry on life support by subsidizing it somehow, he will only delay the inevitable, while spending money uselessly to do so.

In all likelihood, our real future lies elsewhere—with distributed renewable energy and a planned substantial reduction in overall energy usage through efficiency measures and a redesign of the economy. The inevitable transition away from fossil fuels will constitute a big job, and it only gets bigger, harder, and more costly the longer we delay it. Claiming that it makes sense to return to coal at this late date is delusional for economic as well as environmental reasons.

An Order of Chaos, Please

According to polls and innumerable published interviews and anecdotes, Americans of all political persuasions just can’t wait for the nightmare of the current presidential election to end. It’s too ugly and demeaning. Wake us when it’s over!

Unfortunately, it’s not that simple. George Packer explains why in an article in the current New Yorker,Hillary Clinton and the Populist Revolt”; Terry Gross interviewed Packer on the November 3 edition of “Fresh Air,” and the podcast is worth listening to. To summarize just a little of Packer’s article and interview: Our current scorched-earth politics have historical roots, some of which have to do with economic and demographic trends, some with the personalities and tactics of significant players, of whom Packer singles out three sowers of discord on the political right: Newt Gingrich, Andrew Breitbart, and Donald Trump.

Gingrich (who will forever be remembered as having led the impeachment of then-President Bill Clinton for lying about an extramarital affair, while he himself was having an affair about which he lied repeatedly) introduced take-no-prisoners tactics to Congress, twice shutting down the government and raising partisan demonization to a dark art form. Breitbart upended traditional journalism with his eponymous alt-right website, helping create a political discourse in which facts and arguments no longer matter. Trump has more recently built on these dubious achievements, capitalizing on the disappointments and resentments of white wage-class Americans who were on the losing end of Washington’s and Wall Street’s giddy flings with globalization and financialization. Gingrich and Breitbart birthed a politics of destruction; now Trump stands Samson-like between the pillars of the temple.

The Trump phenomenon couldn’t have taken off if it weren’t for the fact that millions of Americans are already living a nightmare—at least, compared to how life was for them and their parents a few decades ago. Packer wrote revealingly of the declining prospects of wage-class Americans in his 2013 book The Unwinding, describing through observation, interview, and analysis the experiences of people caught up in cultural and economic decay. Starting in the 1980s, the Democratic Party—which previously represented the interests of labor unions and the wage-earning class—deserted that constituency in favor of urban professionals and various identity groups (African Americans, Latinos, liberated women, and gays). Meanwhile the Republican Party adopted a southern strategy, playing on white resentments lingering since the Civil War, cultivating the support of evangelical Christians, and making inroads among the languishing working class.

Packer doesn’t mention that American civilization was destined to unravel anyway. To understand why, we need an education in history and archaeology (read Joseph Tainter’s The Collapse of Complex Societies), an understanding of the implications of fossil fuel depletion (my own book The Party’s Over is not a bad place to start), and a little background in boom-bust economic cycles (try Turchin and Nefedov’s Secular Cycles, or David Graeber’s Debt). A small library of books has been written since the turn of the millennium describing the inevitability of civilizational decline or collapse due both to social pressures from unsustainable debt levels, increasing inequality, and rampant corruption; and to deeper infrastructural issues having to do with resource depletion, pollution (in the form of climate change), and the essential unsustainability of economic growth. Several authors, myself among them, have been warning that America risks coming apart. The current election cycle enables, or forces, us to watch the spectacle as it unfolds.

Of course, events will transpire differently depending on who wins. If Hillary Clinton is the victor, then we can anticipate a crisis of legitimacy, along with various manifestations of simmering rebellion. If Democrats fail to take the Senate, Washington will enter a (probably short) era of continual and complete gridlock, with full-time hearings and investigations. Republicans have already promised to block Clinton’s Supreme Court nominees, and Trump has warned of a constitutional crisis if Clinton is elected. In the best-case scenario (from the standpoint of maintaining the status quo), the Democrats do take the Senate, in which case there is at least the possibility of two more years of some increasingly bizarre and dysfunctional version of business-as-usual, until the mid-term election—when the Senate could very well flip back to Republican hands, particularly if there’s an economic recession (there will be an unusually large number of Democratic senate seats up for grabs then). If that happens, gridlock and witch-hunting would begin in earnest.

If Donald Trump wins, America won’t be great again—not by a long shot. Instead we will be treated to a different crisis of legitimacy: over half the country (including powerful members of the Republican party) will continue to regard the new leader with utter contempt, as they already do, and he will be nagged and hobbled by the Trump University fraud lawsuit and possibly other, more devastating legal challenges. It would be a non-stop train wreck with horrifying casualties, but the TV ratings would be fabulous. Trump has demonstrated a tendency to mow his critics aside and grab attention and power in any way possible; if he becomes president we’ll see how those tendencies play out on the world stage.

The government of the United States of America has developed increasing numbers of tics, limps, and embarrassing cognitive lapses during the past ten or 15 years, but it has managed to go on with the show. Yet as dysfunction snowballs, a maintenance crisis becomes inevitable at some point. When the crunch comes (most likely as a result of the next cyclical economic downturn, which is already overdue and could be much worse than that of 2008), we will reap the fruits of a system that is simply no longer capable of acting cooperatively to solve problems. The trials of legitimacy that both Clinton and Trump face mean that—regardless which is elected—the country will be less able to address existing threats (e.g., climate change) let alone new ones that may arise, such as a serious recession or a major natural disaster. Crisis will demand action, but how can action be mobilized with the country so politically polarized and the government itself in paralysis? The details of what emerges from here on will depend on all sorts of current unknowables. But those who think life in America can’t get any worse may have a few surprises in store. And we probably won’t have long to wait before that chain of surprises begins unreeling.

The nightmare of the election itself will end soon. But we may not like what we wake up to. Increasingly, it’s up to communities to build resilience—not just to climate change, but to the whole cascading chain of social, economic, and political impacts from the bursting of the fossil-fueled growth bubble.

The Case of the Vanishing Oil Reserves

Where are Philip Marlowe and Sam Spade when we need them? A crime is in progress, and only a detective who’s unafraid of stepping on powerful people’s toes is likely to get to the bottom of it.

Here’s what we know. Someone is stealing the world’s valuable petroleum reserves right from under our feet—and getting away with it. Politicians and the news media are barely mentioning the heist; maybe they don’t understand what’s happening, or more likely they have something to hide. But this is big. It could be the caper of the century.

A fat clue landed on my doorstep last week hidden in the newspaper business pages. It was an article describing Exxon’s announcement that it was writing down 20 percent of its booked oil reserves. The article noted that Exxon blamed low oil prices. That sounded fishy. I decided to do a little sleuthing and discovered that, at $50 a barrel, inflation-adjusted world oil prices are no lower now than they were in the 1980s and ’90s, when reserves were growing every year. Why didn’t Exxon mention that?

Imported crude chart

 

Exxon’s not alone. Other companies have been engaging in similar write-downs. They all point the finger at low oil prices—almost as if they’re working together, trying to distract attention from the real culprit. But who? Who’s stealing those reserves?

Another possible clue showed up in a report from Carbon Tracker, an organization that assesses how much of the world’s fossil fuels will have to stay in the ground if we’re going to avert catastrophic climate change. Carbon Tracker figures that a very large portion of oil reserves is unburnable, and that oil companies’ balance sheets should be adjusted to reflect that. So is climate action stealing Exxon’s oil? I decided to investigate. It turns out that, while opinions about the future of fossil fuels matter, and Carbon Tracker is trying to shift those opinions, oil companies’ assets probably won’t actually be stranded for this reason until the nations of the world adopt a hefty carbon tax. So, for better of worse, climate action is not yet leading Exxon and other companies to write down their reserves. I’m not saying the victim of this robbery is any angel. A lot of people have reasons to hold a grudge against the oil industry. But climate action is not the culprit here.

As I was dusting my computer keyboard for fingerprints, I accidentally clicked a link and landed on a Bloomberg article claiming that oil discoveries have been super-low the last couple of years. The article featured a breathtaking graph showing that the year 2015 yielded the fewest oil discoveries in decades—with 2016 on track to be even worse.

oil discoveries chart

 

Are the petroleum companies themselves guilty? Are they stealing their own reserves by failing to look for more oil? It didn’t make sense. The oil companies are in business to make money, and the only way they do that is to find oil, extract it, and sell it. Why would they be undermining their own business? Again, it looked like they were hiding something—a secret so massive that they were willing to cut their own financial throats rather than divulge it.

Now, I’m no Hercule Poirot, but I’ve been around the block a few times. And if there’s one thing my years as a gumshoe have taught me, it’s that when somebody big wants something covered up, expect a red herring, a smoke screen, a patsy. It wasn’t long before a rosy-colored fish of the family Clupeidae showed up. And it was already starting to smell. It was called “peak demand”—an idea that a few well-placed economists were selling, which said people just don’t want oil so much anymore because they’re driving electric cars. That would explain low oil prices, which would explain lower investments in exploration. But that didn’t make much sense: as of the end of 2015, plug-in electrics represented 0.1 percent of the world’s one billion cars. And Americans were buying bigger gas-guzzling cars and trucks again. That fancy moniker “peak demand” didn’t really explain anything; it just diverted attention. Sure, a generally weak economy and a few years of high production output from frackers working in tight oil deposits in the U.S. had driven petroleum prices lower. But that just brought me back to the question: Why are those prices killing oil reserves now, while the industry operated just fine at similar or lower price levels in the past?

My head was starting to hurt. I tossed back a couple of stiff shots of bourbon; then, to put myself to sleep, I picked up what I thought was going to be another boring oil report—though it did have an intriguing title: “Drill Baby Drill.” It was written by a retired energy analyst who had worked for the Canadian government. Probably nothing here, I thought. But then I came across a graph on page 44, and a light bulb came on in my brain—more like a twenty thousand-watt movie marquee. That graph put all the clues together in a way that made sense for the first time.

Oil and gas quality chartAfter staring at the chart for a few minutes, I realized the real culprit in the vanishing oil reserves caper is a shady character known to his underworld contacts as “Depletion.” Here’s how he works his racket. We’re using more oil every single year, which means that every year we’re depleting what’s left even faster than we were the year before. Depletion always takes his cut before anyone else, and it’s bigger every time.

Also, we’re always going after the best oil first (drilling down from the top of the pyramid in the graphic), leaving the poorer prospects for next year. When we get to the “energy in equals energy out” line, it will take as much energy to drill, extract, and refine a barrel of oil as the finished product will yield to society. At that point, the oil industry, and all the other industries that depend on it (and if you think about it, they all do: how do we get raw materials, spare parts, food, or even solar panels without oil-burning trucks and container ships?) are toast. History. Already the cheap conventional oil is mostly gone; most of what remains is going to cost more to produce, refine, and distribute than society can pay for, which means the oil industry won’t be able to afford to deliver very much of it. Everybody loses—except Depletion.

The oil companies are writing down their reserves because at today’s prices they can’t afford to extract an ever-increasing fraction of their remaining oil. Depletion has already taken what’s affordable. That would be less of a problem if society could pay an arbitrarily high price for oil, or if it could afford to invest more energy in obtaining oil than the finished fuel delivers. But neither is the case.

Nobody is willing to name the culprit. Not Exxon. Not the government. Not economists. They all point to the immense size of the overall oil resource pyramid and say, “There’s enough for decades! Centuries!” That’s how he gets away with it. Depletion is stealing our future, and nobody is talking.

That’s a beautiful racket, when you think about it. It’s in nearly everybody’s interest to just go along and say nothing. There are only two ways to exit the oil depletion game: switch to other energy sources or just use less. A few people are doing one or the other, but as a society we are addicts through and through. So we all whistle a happy tune and make small talk.

And me? There’s not much I can do but write this little detective story. Sometimes you get the bad guy, sometimes you don’t. It’s all part of the job, but sometimes the job stinks.



45 Comments on "Heinberg: An Order of Chaos, Please"

  1. dave thompson on Thu, 24th Nov 2016 11:35 pm 

    Great article focusing on the inevitable. Peak demand is a BS way of deflating the peak oil narrative. Depletion of viable net end user energy is the true story line.

  2. makati1 on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 12:39 am 

    Again, Heinberg is spot on. The triangle says it all.

  3. onlooker on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 2:33 am 

    I second what Dave said. Once society needs more energy to attain what is derived from the energy obtained , its game over. We are quickly getting to that point and feeling the consequent economic tremors as we do

  4. Go Speed Racer on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 2:50 am 

    Hey. Yesterday’s news wraps tomorrow’s fish.
    What’s with the dated article, pondering whether
    Trump is going to win?

  5. Davy on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 3:52 am 

    I disagree with this statement on one level but do agree the status quo is using this argument to deflate peak oil. “Peak demand is a BS way of deflating the peak oil narrative. Depletion of viable net end user energy is the true story line.” I would phase it this way depletion of viable net end user energy is half the true story line the other half is the economy that produces, uses, and prices oil. The two aspects are vital to modern civilization and vital to the each other.

    We peakers got one major point wrong with peak oil and that was discounting how peak oil affected the economy and how those results would affect peak oil dynamics. If we did not have the type of economy we have peak oil would be mute. Peak oil’s basis as a story narrative is a modern oil based economy. Humans didn’t have to be oil based we chose oil by choosing an economy that self-adapted into an oil based economy.

    Peak demand is an economic peak. That economy that chose oil is now peaking and in broad based decline. You can argue there is still growth in the economy just like you can argue oil production is still growing. Yet, we know it is not as simple as that. Not all oil is the same oil and a return on investment does matter. Yes, EROI for society does matter. Maybe not immediately and per an individual firm producing oil but society must produce energy at a profit. Wolves and men are bound by that relationship. The economy must have a positive return. We can argue growth today is tainted by Ponzi economics of debt. We can argue a significant amount of debt would be non-preforming if global finance normalized. A significant amount of debt is non-preforming now in a repressed global finance. This matters to the story line because the dynamics of peak oil differ when the economy that produces, uses, and prices it changes. Our global economy is changing and it is changing economic levels that matter to the economy and oil.

    Peak oil is part of peak economy. When your best oil has peaked you know by common sense your economy must adapted through substitution and efficiency to maintain output. We know this has happened to a degree but not nearly as much as the status quo narrative preaches. Renewables are not really a substitution for oil they are an extender of our oil based culture. If eventually we lower population and consumption in a different type of economy maybe renewables will be a transitional energy paradigm. Renewables surely don’t demonstrate this ability yet. The likelihood of population and consumption declines don’t look possible at the same time we produce our way into a transition. The dynamics of this global economy are minimum operating levels for economies of scale. You can’t lower population and consumption and not affect your minimum operating levels. If demand is dropping by extension population and consumption will fall eventually at some point but not safely beyond a point because consumption drives the economy that support population. It is not really a balance because the reality seems to be our system must grow. It has yet to prove it can degrowth so no balance just failure.

    We will not produce oil effectively in a depression. Even a recession has dramatic effects on oil. Oil has been in a recession lately and look at the state of oil producers and oil related debt markets. Oil depletion is a steady process that technology and its use in efficiency and substitution is not overcoming. We see diminishing returns to technology because all technology has oil as its foundation today. Renewables do not drive their own production except by an indirect amount through being a component of electricity generation. Limits are popping up with technology and they involve cost benefit as well as physics. This is a trap and the trap involves both macro demand and energy depletion and the inability of our modern civilization to substitute away from oil and still maintain our modern aspects.

    If demand drops quicker than oil depletion we may find ourselves with plenty of oil for a time depending on how this fall occurs with or without a peak. If oil peaks, which dropping demand will likely cause, I doubt the economy can recover. High quality conventional oil is said to have peaked in 05. We have found many ways to produce and use hydrocarbons since then. What we have not figured out is how to manage a global economy that went through a financial crisis in 08. I will challenge anyone here to tell me we are on the path of normalization of the global economy. What I see is a deadly combination of deflation and inflation in normal healthy times called stagflation but today called a prelude to collapse. Terms like helicopter money and negative rates are not discussed in a normal economy. They are just economic theories or banana republic policy. Oil and the economy are trapped in a death embrace. That is the story line.

  6. Davy on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 4:51 am 

    “It Is Up To Us — Paul Craig Roberts”
    http://www.paulcraigroberts.org/2016/11/23/it-is-up-to-us-paul-craig-roberts/

    “According to The Saker, Putin has begun removing the Atlanticist Integrationists, Russia’s Fifth Column, from influence. Let’s see if Trump can remove our fifth columnists—neoconservatives and neoliberal economists—who have sold out the American people and America’s integrity.”

  7. Cloggie on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 5:16 am 

    I’ve had it with amateurs like low-hanging fruit cake Heinberg. He missed fracking and now he misses UCG:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_coal_gasification

    Heinberg c.s. made the mistake of assuming that conventional oil pumping is the only way to acquire oil.

    Now he thinks that the only way to acquire coal is for humans to crawl through mine shafts.

    Heinberg doesn’t like technology so in his eyes it doesn’t exist.

    http://tinyurl.com/z3kt6s3

    He claims:

    The U.S., China, Britain, and Germany have all already mined their best coal resources; what remains will be difficult and expensive to extract.

    The truth is vastly different:

    http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2593032/Coal-fuel-UK-centuries-Vast-deposits-totalling-23trillion-tonnes-North-Sea.html

    As we speak there have been at least 26 exploitation concessions granted by the UK government to explore UCG. And if these gigantic coal deposits have been found under Britain, you can safely assume they are present elsewhere as well.

    http://www.bgs.ac.uk/research/energy/UCG.html

    This technology has been operational for decades in the USSR until it was displaced by cheaper energy sources like oil.

    It works:

    http://www.lincenergy.com/acquisitions_yerostigaz.php
    Yerostigaz, located in Angren, Uzbekistan, is the only commercial UCG operation in the world. Operational since 1961, Yerostigaz produces UCG synthesis gas to be used for power generation

    In short, from a supply standpoint alone, the idea of 1,000 years of coal—enough to supply all of our energy needs for a millennium—is so exaggerated as to be laughable.

    The only one who is laughable is you Heiny. You haven’t done your homework as usual. Go back to your violin or write the sequel to your book Memories and Visions of Paradise: Exploring the Universal Myth of a Lost Golden Age (1989).

    Heinberg is a lost romantic who wants to go back to nature. That’s fine, even sympathetic, but his semi-scientific ramblings about the planet’s fossil fuel potential are just that: ramblings.

    Again: we do not have an acute fossil fuel depletion problem. We have an acute “too much fossil fuel problem”.

    What we should do is use the existing stock and move into renewable energy systems without delay.

    The energy policy of the EU is the correct one. Phase out carbon by 2050. For example in Holland by 2020 only energy neutral homes are being allowed to be built. Since 2015 already very strict rules are being applied.

    Meanwhile we have everything we need to set up a carbon free economy, now it is a question of policy decisions to get the job done in the coming three decades.

  8. peakyeast on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 6:07 am 

    @Davy: I think you should write a book about this subject. You have the I.Q. and the knowledge and you sure love to write.

    Thanks for being here, Davy.

  9. Davy on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 6:11 am 

    Clog, I think you and Heiberg should find common ground would be a better way to look at it. This is a bit extreme: “Heinberg is a lost romantic who wants to go back to nature. That’s fine, even sympathetic, but his semi-scientific ramblings about the planet’s fossil fuel potential are just that: ramblings.” This extremism can be turned back on you. You are a lost technophile who wants a shiny new world built on technology and innovation with reduced carbon and more complexity with still unproven technology and scaling. Who is more the romantic?

    You grudgingly admit to problems but only in passing. Your optimism borders on fantasy because your vision has yet to be realized. Remember I want nothing more than parts of your vision to be realized at least in the respect to avoiding collapse and the resulting reduction in complexity. To me you are in “soft denial” like most greens and techies. We can’t have our cake and eat it. We will have to pay a price for past mistakes and you seem to think we can skip that step. I am not discrediting you in regards to technological potential only discounting you because of limits and diminishing returns from systematic decay. If anywhere has the potential to realize some of your vision it is northern Europe. I know I lived there once and it is an amazing place. But that is only a small part of the greater world that is interconnect in a web of survival.

  10. onlooker on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 6:20 am 

    I’ve had it with amateurs like low-hanging fruit cake Heinberg. He missed fracking and now he misses UCG:—-Patently ignorant statement to discount the physical thermodynamic properties of the energy we are now trying to attain and deriving less and less energy Net Energy from these sources. Careful Cloggie they may start mocking you like Boat.

  11. Hubert on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 6:21 am 

    This guy has become a mindless dribble. He probably drives an SUV like most stupid, hypocrite liberals.

    No Coal = No Electricity

  12. makati1 on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 6:35 am 

    Cloggie…what grade of coal? Lignite? Barely more energy than wood. Plenty of that left but it is not usually worth mining. Takes more energy than it produces. LMAO.

  13. Davy on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 6:36 am 

    Thanks Peaky but I am not a writer really. I am dyslectic and have problems spelling and with grammar. Maybe this disability allows me to see things differently in some ways. I am half ass backwards and in some way that is what is going on with life with its catch 22’s and paradoxes. I know Korowicz, who is a strong influence on me, said this about his dyslexia. What I am doing is more a mental exercise to keep my brain from atrophying and an effort to help my fellow board members and myself get a grasp of a strange world we are entering. I continue to be here and write about decline because for me it is still valid. When I am proven wrong I may have little to say, LOL.

    There are times I would like to go offline completely and just get absorbed into nature. This would be easy for me to do out here in the fields and woods with the animals but a part of me feels that day is ahead. If the grid goes unstable then our daily visits on this board may end.

    What I like about this board is the diversity of writing. I try very hard to stay within a short essay length because in this day and age people don’t have time for rambling. There are several here who say a lot with few words. I would like to trend that way but it is hard because so many issues are complex and require discussion. Some don’t have the time I do or they don’t care to. I love doing what we do here so I make time. I don’t watch much TV or listen to much music. Thanks for your kind words.

  14. Cloggie on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 8:47 am 

    Cloggie…what grade of coal? Lignite? Barely more energy than wood. Plenty of that left but it is not usually worth mining. Takes more energy than it produces. LMAO.

    You missed the point, with UCG there is no mining. Mining is soo pre-2000. Mining is very energy intensive and unpleasant work.

    Please read:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Underground_coal_gasification

    Short story: you pump O2 in underground layers of coal and harvest methane, hydrogen, carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide, which you process “upstairs”.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lOBXsmKdlcA

    Again, it is something you don’t want to do for centuries, but a few decades is tolerable, if the alternative is mass starvation.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MBpj42CF2yI

  15. Cloggie on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 8:59 am 

    onlooker says: Careful Cloggie they may start mocking you like Boat.

    There is nothing that inflates my ego more than fighting 40 forum posters at the same time.lol

    http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128473

    (Cloggie=9/11-investigator)

  16. peakyeast on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 8:48 pm 

    @Cloggie: I followed your link on internationalsceptics.com and read a number of pages in the thread incl. the last 2.

    But I cannot see ANY reason in the thread as to why you were banned. You seem almost civil and informative all the way.

    I did notice that a lot of the other users also has been banned. So I suppose they have rather strong opinions on whose opinions that are allowed a voice.

    Do you have an explanation for the ban?

  17. Apneaman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:01 pm 

    old dutch, the humans won’t need all that energy for more than a few decades anyway. The hour is very late.

    The Arctic Is Seriously Weird Right Now

    Instead of expanding during this cold, dark time of year, sea ice is shrinking

    https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/the-arctic-is-seriously-weird-right-now/

    Tick tock tragic mofo’s

  18. Apneaman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:04 pm 

    Overheated Arctic sign of climate change ‘vicious circle’

    “Freakishly high temperatures in the Arctic driven by heat-packed oceans and northward winds have been reinforced by a “vicious circle” of climate change, scientists said Thursday.
    Air above the Polar ice cap has been 9-12 degrees Celsius (16.2 to 21.6 degrees Fahrenheit) above average during the last four weeks, according the data from the Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), which tracks hourly changes in Arctic weather.”

    Read more at: http://phys.org/news/2016-11-overheated-arctic-climate-vicious-circle.html#jCp

  19. Apneaman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:13 pm 

    Climate change happening ‘too fast’ for plant and animal species to adapt

    http://www.independent.co.uk/news/science/climate-change-extinction-species-happening-too-fast-for-plant-and-animals-to-adapt-a7433111.html

    Ahh who needs em

    Food: Ecosystems provide the conditions for growing food. Food comes principally from managed agro-ecosystems but marine and freshwater systems or forests also provide food for human consumption. Wild foods from forests are often underestimated.

    Raw materials: Ecosystems provide a great diversity of materials for construction and fuel including wood, biofuels and plant oils that are directly derived from wild and cultivated plant species.

    Fresh water: Ecosystems play a vital role in the global hydrological cycle, as they regulate the flow and purification of water. Vegetation and forests influence the quantity of water available locally.

    Medicinal resources: Ecosystems and biodiversity provide many plants used as traditional medicines as well as providing the raw materials for the pharmaceutical industry. All ecosystems are a potential source of medicinal resources.

    http://www.teebweb.org/resources/ecosystem-services/

  20. Apneaman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:17 pm 

    Climate: Too Far & Too Fast?

    “Scientist Tobias Friedrich says Earth could heat up 6 degrees C., almost 11 degrees F, in a single lifetime.”

    http://www.ecoshock.org/2016/11/climate-too-far-too-fast.html

  21. Apneaman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:20 pm 

    Arctic ice melt could trigger uncontrollable climate change at global level
    Scientists warn increasingly rapid melting could trigger polar ‘tipping points’ with catastrophic consequences felt as far away as the Indian Ocean

    “Climate tipping points occur when a natural system, such as the polar ice cap, undergoes sudden or overwhelming change that has a profound effect on surrounding ecosystems, often irreversible.”

    “Scientists have speculated for some years that so-called feedback mechanisms – by which the warming of one area or type of landscape has knock-on effects for whole ecosystems – could suddenly take hold and change the dynamics of Arctic ice melting from a relatively slow to a fast-moving phenomenon with unpredictable and potentially irreversible consequences for global warming. For instance, when sea ice shrinks it leaves areas of dark ocean that absorb more heat than the reflective ice, which in turn causes further shrinkage, and so on in a spiral.”

    https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2016/nov/25/arctic-ice-melt-trigger-uncontrollable-climate-change-global-level

  22. rockman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:25 pm 

    Mak – “Lignite? Barely more energy than wood. Plenty of that left but it is not usually worth mining.” Well, so far it works well in Texas, the largest coal and electricity consuming state by a large margin. And at current consumption a 100+ year supply. The bad news: Texas has no plan to turn away from lignite. But some good news: thanks to world class wind power we aren’t building more coal fired plants to meet our ever increasing electricity demand. We are also about to start up the world’s largest CO2_sequestration project to handle the second largest source of GHG emissions…a plant which has half its burners using lignite.

    BTW chatting with one of my infusion techs today learned he was from the Philippines. Asked if your tag had a specific meaning: he said watcher…or observer. If correct sounds like a good a fit.

  23. Apneaman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:30 pm 

    Average Arctic temperature in Svalbard ‘could end up above freezing for first time in history’

    “This is a little bit shocking,” Isaksen said. “If you had asked me five or 10 years ago, I could not have imagined such numbers in 2016.”

    http://www.independent.co.uk/environment/arctic-temperature-ice-above-freezing-record-svalbard-norway-climate-change-global-warming-a7438981.html

  24. rockman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:34 pm 

    “Donald Trump claimed that “clean coal” could meet the energy needs of the United States for the next 1,000 years.” Actually that’s possible. In fact, it might be inevitable. One should remember that meeting one’s need is not only a function supply but demand. How many folks here really beleive the US will be consuming as much energy from any and all sources in 2116 as we are in 2016?

  25. Apneaman on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:44 pm 

    Increasing Methane Releases in Arctic Proven by International Expeditions

    “The Arctic Forum’s participants shared some outputs of the last expedition to the East Siberian Arctic Shelf at the press conference in Tomsk Polytechnic University on Thursday. According to them the expedition confirmed the increasing releases of the greenhouse gas methane.”

    http://tpu.ru/en/news-events/987/

    DOE Meeting Summary –

    Catastrophic Methane Hydrate Release
    Mitigation

    “The total quantity of methane hydrates in the ocean sediment is estimated to be around 10,000 GtC. The methane hydrates in sediment considered part of U.S. territory alone could supply U.S. natural gas needs for 1000 years. Because of this enormous quantity, methane hydrates are being investigated as an energy source to replace petroleum and conventional sources of natural gas, although an extraction technology for ocean sediments does not presently exist.

    There is some evidence that massive releases of methane from ocean sediment hydrate deposits may have been indirectly responsible for ending some of the ice ages. Were such releases to occur today because of warming of the oceans or as a result of seismic events, the result could be a sudden rise in atmospheric
    temperature, triggering feedback mechanisms that might lead to rapid melting of polar ice.

    In the slides, the example of a 1 GtC release was used. That represents 0.0”

    http://www.physics.rutgers.edu/~karin/140/articles/MethaneHydrates.pdf

  26. makati1 on Fri, 25th Nov 2016 9:45 pm 

    rockman, Nice translation. The US has a lot of intelligent, talented and well educated Filipinos and Filipinas. Most are temporary workers on visas or green cards, not citizens. As things ‘tighten up’ there, I expect a lot of them to return to the Ps.

    One of my friends has a sister who is one of them. Her daughter is in a private grade school in Cali, but she is coming back here to live when the daughter gets to high school age. She doesn’t want her to be exposed to American teens. I cannot blame her. Some of my grand kids are American teens and they are so warped…

    As for Texas and energy … plans and the end result are usually two different things. A lot of good intention never materialize. We shall see.

  27. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 4:00 am 

    Rockman said “Donald Trump claimed that “clean coal” could meet the energy needs of the United States for the next 1,000 years.” Actually that’s possible. In fact, it might be inevitable.

    In 2016 I trust statements made by fossil fuel professionals like Rockman much more than by dreamers like Heinberg. Technology makes all the difference and makes old assumptions obsolete, like the ones from Hubbert. Hubbert was right but in hindsight irrelevant.

    In 2016 we have no fossil fuel depletion problem, the limiting factor is the atmosphere. I disagree with the notion that 1000 years of “clean coal” are “inevitable”. It is a political battle that is going to decide what energy sources we are going to use.

    One thing is certain: we are going to have all the fossil fuel we need to build that renewable energy infrastructure. I no longer worry about depletion.

  28. makati1 on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 4:25 am 

    Cloggie. All I can do is shake my head at your denial of reality. No significant “renewable” energy structure is EVER going to be built. It is not politics that will decide, it is the ongoing collapse of the financial system and, even more so, the collapse of the ecology supporting homo sapiens survival. How much hydrocarbon energy that is left plays zero part in the equation. But, dream on if it keep your blood pressure down.

  29. Shortend on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 4:35 am 

    Ap, we are no better than drug addicts needing the next fix….and will end up the same with a needle in our arm dead from some bad junk.
    Look how we are poisoning the basic life systems for so called economic growth.
    We get a high believing accumulation will get us up the tower of Babel, not seeing the fall.

  30. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 5:00 am 

    Peaky said: I did notice that a lot of the other users also has been banned. So I suppose they have rather strong opinions on whose opinions that are allowed a voice.
    Do you have an explanation for the ban?

    First 9/11: this week a video surfaced with Donald Trump saying on the very day of 9/11 that bombs were used to bring down the WTC towers.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0STS7HBi5Cw

    Trump = God.lol

    The task (of defeating the oligarchs/neocons) that Trump is facing is much more difficult than the one Putin had in 2000. Fortunately Trump has a tool to get the job done: a real independent investigation of 9/11. Trump understands that 9/11 was an inside job. If he can make that truth obvious to the public, some major cleanup of the US power structure can begin (“drain the swamp”) in order to end Weimerica and restore the old constitutionalist republic of 1776 (“America First”).

    What we currently see is a life-and-death struggle between Team Trump (a German disguised as an American, taking back America) and the old NWO guard that won’t give up that easily. Soros is now using his co-tribalist Jill Stein to get a recount started and torpedo a Trump presidency in the last minute.

    About the banning on the forum (the “internationalskeptics” forum was renamed from JRef-Randi)…

    In 2001 I believed the official 9/11 narrative. But ca. 5 months after 9/11 the internet began to morph into a global discussion platform, unforeseen by the 9/11-plotters. I remember posting my first forum post early 2002 on Dutch Pim Fortuyn forums; Pim Fortuyn can be see as the Dutch Trump; Fortuyn was assassinated indirectly by the leftist establishment. I took a year off and wrote tens of thousands of posts on Dutch political forums and gradually turned from a leftist liberal money making IT-yuppie into what is now called an alt-right adept. Thanks to the internet I also gradually morphed into a 9/11-truther. By 2006 I heard myself saying to a very good Dutch customer of mine that “9/11, they did it themselves”. At the time I also read Heinberg (“The Party is Over”), which made me predict to the same customer that in 10 years time (now) “Jan Modaal” (Dutch Joe Sixpack) would not be driving a car anymore. I was very wrong. Traffic jams here are longer than ever.

    Fuck you, Heinberg.lol

    Eventually the customer was forced to throw me out, not because of my views about peak-oil or 9/11, but because of resistance of the staff of his company against technological renewal, which would make years of work by prominent members of the staff obsolete. The customer had attempted to use me to do the dirty work for him and break the resistance of the staff, but failed. The company went bust recently.

    [part 1]

  31. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 5:22 am 

    @peaky – continued

    I was thrown at in 2008 and I used the opportunity to take a few months off and really dig into 9/11 suing the resources of the internet. The result was this blog:

    http://how911wasdone.blogspot.nl/

    Next I registered at several internet forums dedicated to 9/11 to test the theory. The most prominent by far was a leftist NWO forum Randi-JRef. Discussion here:

    http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=128473

    As you can verify I wrote more than 4000 posts there until I was banned, but not because of 9/11. After I had become convinced that 9/11 was an inside job, I began to question: “what else did they lie about?”. I wasn’t they only. Very prominent leftist-leaning 9/11-truthers like James Fetzer or Kevin Barrett did the same. And the topics most at hand to question next was the WW2 and holocaust narrative.

    So with limited knowledge about both subjects, I merrily began to question those taboo subjects at the same forum where I launched my 9/11 probe:

    World wars:
    http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=178524

    Holocaust:
    http://www.internationalskeptics.com/forums/showthread.php?t=148049

    In the end I was banned because the holocaust thread dragged on for 139 pages and my 40 or so leftist opponents couldn’t destroy my arguments so the leftist owner of the forum had no choice but to ban me.

    That was 2008. These discussions were reason for me to invest a lot of time in studying WW1 and WW2. Rereading the thread about WW1 and WW2 I now know so much more and would have had much better arguments than I had in 2008.

    [part 2]

  32. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 5:25 am 

    Correction:

    “I was thrown at in 2008” = “I was thrown out in 2008″

    “suing the resources” = “using the resources”

    My apologies.

  33. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 5:30 am 

    makati says Cloggie. All I can do is shake my head at your denial of reality. No significant “renewable” energy structure is EVER going to be built. It is not politics that will decide, it is the ongoing collapse of the financial system and, even more so, the collapse of the ecology supporting homo sapiens survival.

    There have been many financial collapses. In the grand scale of things, financial collapse is a “minor event” as compared to fossil fuel depletion or world wars. Financial collapse is bad news for pensioners like you. You get over it in a decade or so while life continuous.

    Regarding the collapse of the eco-system… now that’s a circular argument if there ever was one! The idea of setting up a renewable energy system is precisely to prevent such a collapse!!! The good news is: we have enough fossil fuel left to do it, but it will be a race against the clock.

  34. rockman on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 6:54 am 

    Cloggie – “I disagree with the notion that 1000 years of “clean coal” are “inevitable”. Actually I see the potential for an inevitable 100 year time frame…and not necessarily “clean coal” but just coal…period.

    “It is a political battle that is going to decide what energy sources we are going to use.” What battle? The world is running on a hell of lot of oil, NG and coal today…life is good. And there’s no serious “battle” underway now. Lots of sabre rattling rhetoric for sure. But nothing close to changing the path we’re on as witnessed by the ever increasing level of CO2. Now jump forward decades when oil/NG become less available/more expensive. Would be nice if the current global economy could still be where it is today thanks to the alts. But I very much doubt it…just not enough time IMHO. The primary energy source available then will be coal.

  35. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 7:16 am 

    Rockman says: And there’s no serious “battle” underway now.

    The world is bigger than the US:

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_European_Union

    https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paris_Agreement

  36. Apneaman on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 7:36 am 

    old dutch, If you believe “fossil fuel professionals” then does that mean you believe me too? I built the Alberta tar sand processing plants, and tank farms and oil refineries and petrochemical plants in western Canada and other cancer infrastructure as well and I was nicely compensated for it so that makes me a fossil fuel professional too. They still pump your gas at some gas stations in Alberta. Do those guys N gals qualify as fossil fuel professionals? They get paid to handle fossil fuels, so technically they are professionals. Fuck are you ever one stunned cunt. For someone who styles himself as a research guru, you are easily impressed with self aggrandizing cancer kings like rockman. Hey have you ever had an actually job? Oh right you worked at a Kraut bank. You studied physics and then worked at a bank – it all makes perfect sense bullshitter. You’re not a very good liar old dutch. You go on about your physics training and accume, but have NO scientific argument for your climate denial and that’s a dead give away. See, the ones who make the or rather made the best denier arguments are the ones who have knowledge of physics, chemistry, planetary history, etc – not the ignorant political/tribal morons. You could say they are knowledgeable political/tribal morons with STEM training. You’re not one of them. You don’t know the basics or use the language. Just a lying, paranoid conspiracy tard with too much free time. Listen to your hero rockman as he tries to use his training/knowledge of geology to cherry pick, conflate, distort facts to deny and protect his industry and thus his identity.

  37. Davy on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 7:47 am 

    Financial collapse is different this time. It will be global and affect economies of scale. All nations have been denationalized and some more than others. It is not clear how this will unfold nor is it easily predictable. Naturally, countries and regions will fall back on themselves to produce goods and services. This will involve disruption to supply chains and support networks. Vital pieces will be missing and this will disrupt production processes in some cases whole factories will be shut in and stranded. That creates a negative economic feedback loop. The degree and duration of this process is very important. If it happens quickly economies can shut down in as little as a few weeks. Vital infrastructure and networks could be damaged permanently. We are talking permanent disruptive changes. It will be peak civilization.

    Some nations will do better than others in this devolution of globalism. Some industries will do better than others. This devolution will be most difficult for those industries and nations that have the most complex processes and who are global in sourcing raw materials and marketing of the finished process. We can easily say high end products will be less available and or unavailable in many cases in a breakup of globalism. Typically high end products have multiple parts sourced from multiple locations. Intellectual expertise is likewise sourced from afar.

    The idea of a breakdown of globalism is not defined in scale or time. We have no historical context for this kind of process. It almost happened in 08 but an actual full collapse process it was not. We can agree globalism has sustainability issues because of the minimums of economies of scale to function. Global finance is absolutely essential for economic liquidity from confidence in trade and exchange. We then have a twofold issue of human nature and the physical process. Trust and logistics make it all work. Both are fragile especially human nature. Global panic could be deadly.

    The resilience of the global system currently is amazing but this comes at a cost of potential catastrophic failures. Risk has been dispersed globally but this creates a global reaction to certain failures. We only have historic financial failures to refer to. The most recent was the only really global one and it was not a failure. It was very telling because we came close to a Minsky moment of economic, political, and social paralysis. This was averted only by huge political and economic effort and amazingly through the decisions of just a few men. The 08 crisis also opened a Pandora box of moral hazard sowing the seeds of future failures of corruption and repression.

    Comparative advantage and the pursuit of affluence has driven global integration. It was the cooperative environment of mutual affluence that cemented this human system. It may have started as a so called Pax Americana but it turned into a global drive to grow in mutual prosperity. Now we must ask ourselves should we turn away from this trend for reasons of survival. Since global social narrative is in many cases in denial to any deviation from the status quo this question is really only talked about in fringe and obscure places. It is far from mainstream and in fact the issues of a collapsing status quo are suppressed in most cases by business and governments.

    If we are to survive a coming financial decline then we need to start a process of devolving to regional organizations at least on some levels. We do not have to ditch globalism completely. In a way we will have to use globalism to leave globalism. In another sense it may take a financial crisis to avoid a financial collapse although you would think we would have learned in 08. Maybe it needs to be worse than 08. What is certain to me is denial and repression of this collapse trend will not end well. We are seeing political trends away from global integration with Putin, Brexit, and Trexit among others but we have yet to see real economic trends away from globalism. This is dangerous because it is an unbalanced cooperative competition. We can’t turn our backs on each other when we share the duties of taking care of each other.

    It is only in the last decade we are seeing a growth decline coming from limits to globalism. We must start this devolution process soon or we may find a very dysfunctional future of random failures that could have been avoided. Food and fuel are very high on the list of items we should try very hard to build resilience in. Politically we need to quit pointing fingers and start holding hands but we know that is unlikely. Instead we can hope locals chose to come together. We can hope groups of people with mutual needs will come together. Globalism has destroyed many communities both physically and as groups. Too much outsourcing and unrestricted movements has made everyone less safe.

  38. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 8:39 am 

    As usual Friday produces just insults and no substance:

    old dutch, If you believe “fossil fuel professionals” then does that mean you believe me too? I built the Alberta tar sand processing plants, and tank farms and oil refineries and petrochemical plants in western Canada and other cancer infrastructure as well and I was nicely compensated for it so that makes me a fossil fuel professional too. They still pump your gas at some gas stations in Alberta. Do those guys N gals qualify as fossil fuel professionals? They get paid to handle fossil fuels, so technically they are professionals.

    What is your point? Are you, as a self-described “cancerous fossil fuel professional” with Heinberg or with Rockman and me? Are we running out of fossil fuel soon or do we have for centuries left? Nothing of substance where it counts, no surprises here. Just whining that the world goes kaputt.

    For someone who styles himself as a research guru, you are easily impressed with self aggrandizing cancer kings like rockman. Hey have you ever had an actually job? Oh right you worked at a Kraut bank. You studied physics and then worked at a bank – it all makes perfect sense bullshitter.

    I graduated in physics and worked a few years at a university on renewable energy related topics. My last attempt at scoring a renewable energy job was at the top floor of a hotel in a big European city with a Canadian entrepreneur having a job interview (so I could be with my Canadian sweetheart in Canada). I was in said city to present my university work at the yearly World Solar Energy Conference. Later I got the message from Canada that the job wouldn’t materialize. Those were the Reagan years when the whole world lost interest in renewable energy and everybody, including me, jumped on the IT-wagon, which wasn’t too difficult since I had done little more than computer modelling at the university. Until today they still can’t find enough developers to match demand, so even grey-haired old-timers (ca. 60, not 74 as you on lying against better knowledge) like me are still heavily in demand.

    but have NO scientific argument for your climate denial and that’s a dead give away.

    I could of course point at my posts in this thread that I advocate switching to a renewable energy as quickly as possible to avoid too much climate change, but nothing in your Euro-trash lying little nihilistic brain is interested in any truth whatsoever, so keep lying on as you please.

    You are mentally stuck at 14 years old level. A 14 year old is interested in firecrackers to get exited. Your interest in climate change is sensationalist only, just to sex up your boring life in a Chinese city. And you as a car parts salesman and oil industry worker wants to claim the moral high ground? Sucker.

  39. peakyeast on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 9:22 am 

    @cloggie: Thanks for your explanation and links. Wondering about 9/11 makes you a nutjob automatically (just like peak anything or climate change before it became a politically correct issue or PRISM or or.. and and and) – which IMO means its important to wonder about. Especially given the extreme lack of government initiative and quality of the commission report.

  40. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 9:22 am 

    Peakyeast is right, after years of forum participation, Davy’s prose has meanwhile reached a polished quality that he could consider beginning a blog, although he probably would miss his “buddies” here.

  41. peakyeast on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 9:39 am 

    @cloggie: I am sorry your Fridays always are bad and confrontational.

    So: Here is a big hug and a pat on the back. You are a fine dude, dude – and I love your comments.

  42. rockman on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 10:35 am 

    Cloggie – “Rockman says: And there’s no serious “battle” underway now. The world is bigger than the US”.

    Oh, do you mean the WORLD that is currently consuming record volumes of oil? You mean the WORLD that’s increasing NG consumption:
    “Consumption of natural gas WORLDWIDE is projected to increase from 120 Tcf in 2012 to 203 Tcf in 2040 in the International Energy Outlook 2016. By energy source, natural gas accounts for the largest increase in WORLD primary energy consumption.

    Or maybe you mean the WORLD’S position on the worst GHG component of the fossil fuels, coal? Let’s see what the global watchdog, the IEA, has to say:

    “Is coal production declining? No, far from it. Since the start of the 21st century, coal production has been the fastest-growing global energy source. While provisional IEA figures show a slight decrease in 2014 driven by a decline in China and some exceptional circumstances such as unrest in Ukraine, the IEA sees GLOBAL supply increasing at an average rate of 0.6% through 2020. This incremental growth stems from OECD non-member economies, the Medium-Term Coal Market Report 2015 reports, while falling output in OECD Americas and OECD Europe leads to an overall decline in OECD production despite increased volume from OECD Asia Oceania.

    What about coal consumption? GLOBAL coal consumption increased by more than 70% from 4 600 Mt in 2000 to an estimated 7 876 Mt in 2013, and at a 4.2% annual rate, coal was the fastest-growing primary energy source in the ten years through 2013. But demand growth has slowed of late. Preliminary data for 2014 showed the first actual decline since the 1990s, falling 0.9%; but the main driver of that result was a reported drop in Chinese demand that is based on preliminary data. Indeed, the IEA expects slowed but continued GLOBAL coal demand growth, with the Medium-Term Coal Report 2015 seeing a 0.8% increase through 2020.”

    But I’m sorry for interrupting you: please continue bragging about the WORLD’S response to climate change and the WORLD’S huge ongoing battle against GHG. LOL.

  43. Cloggie on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 11:00 am 

    Rockman, if you allow me to quote myself: It is a political battle that is going to decide what energy sources we are going to use.

    You see that there is a lot of “going” going on in my statement. Nowhere do I say that much results have been achieved so far. I am leaving open if we are going to have a future based on fossil fuel (with probably disastrous results for the environment, unless we use expensive CO2 sequestration) or we switch to renewables.

    On a global level, that battle indeed still needs to begin. In Europe the battle has already been won. Everybody in Europe is convinced that we are going to have a future without carbon and politics in Europe is acting on that convinction.

    https://ec.europa.eu/energy/en/topics/energy-strategy

    2020 – The EU has set 20% targets for renewable energy, greenhouse gas reduction, and energy efficiency for 2020.

    2030 – The 2030 Energy Strategy proposes targets for renewables, energy efficiency, and greenhouse gas reductions for the period between 2020 and 2030.

    2050 – EU strategy for the transition to a competitive, secure and sustainable energy system by 2050 and for reducing greenhouse gas emissions by at least 80%.

    Perhaps we’ll miss a target by a few years but eventually we are going to achieve it.

    Britain led the way in the 19th with the exploitation of coal and the 19th century was British.

    The US led the way in the 20th century with the exploitation of oil and the 20th century was American.

    I’ll leave it to you as an exercise to figure out what is going to happen in the 21st century, energy-wise.

    P.S. you do know what they say in Texas about bragging? lol

  44. Apneaman on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 11:32 am 

    old dutch – typical alt right victimization cries again. You scum fucks and your never ending victimization claims put those eternally offended unversity PC liberals to shame.

    If anyone is sensational around here it’s you and your stupid fucking Alex Jones links. The guy screams with his hair on fire half the time and imbeciles like you can’t get enough. Every minute of every day there are cabals of billionaires spending all their time, money and energy to hatch evil plots against you and your righteous buddies. How flattering is that?

    Unlike you and your conspiracies, I post actually observable consequences of AGW and human cancer growth. The stuff I post is not speculation. It’s happening. What’s your usual response? Ignore it and post another Alex Jones video or talk abou 100 years from now energy issues. It’s unlikely there will be any humans in 100 years, yet you and rockman and other head up ass retards around here keep speculating about it as the disasters increase in frequency and intensity worldwide. That’s some very convenient escapism. Too bad it’s not working.

    Looks like about 40% of the lower 48 is in drought and it’s almost December.

    http://droughtmonitor.unl.edu/

    Southeastern US wildfires still blazing

    “Fires continue to blaze in the southeastern United States with no end in sight. Here’s a satellite look at a few of them.”

    http://earthsky.org/earth/southeastern-us-wildfires-tennessee-northcarolina-southcarolina-georgia-nov2016

    Southeast’s Air Quality Is Worse Than Some Chinese Cities Right Now, Thanks to Wildfire Smoke

    “As of early Tuesday afternoon, the Air Quality Index (AQI) rose above 150 in several cities and locations in Tennessee, South Carolina, North Carolina and Georgia.”

    “The Environmental Protection Agency warns these “unhealthy” levels could lead to some adverse health effects for all, not just sensitive groups.

    The previous afternoon, a haze of smoke over Atlanta, Georgia, rivaled any scene you would see on the hottest, most stagnant summer afternoon.”

    https://weather.com/news/weather/news/southeast-air-quality-smoke-wildfires-nov2016

    See the difference? You post conspiracy and speculation.

    I post actually consequences of AGW.

    I do it every damn day.

    Dozens of unique consequence events of AGW and that is but a small slice of the number of them happening everyday.

    Not some future scientific model projections – no no no. Real shit happening to real people everyday. Right here. Right now.

    Why don’t you go to where those people have had their homes, businesses, health, lives destroyed by the latest fire, drought, rain bomb, etc and tell them they are just being “sensationalist”?

  45. Apneaman on Sat, 26th Nov 2016 11:37 am 

    SPEI Global Drought Monitor

    http://sac.csic.es/spei/map/maps.html

    Wildfires tear across drought-stricken parts of Peru

    http://www.reuters.com/article/us-peru-wildfire-idUSKBN13K03I

    Thousands flee after wildfire roars through Israeli city of Haifa

    In rare move, Israel called up hundreds of military reservists to join overstretched police and firefighters

    http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/israel-fires-1.3865299

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