[K-Dog]

2050? 2100? Never? That's understandable given the IPCC models access to oil until 2100; politicians like Rishi are betting big on North Sea deposits. Petroleum is the life blood of our global economy, and it's difficult to imagine it drying up. More often, when we talk about transitioning away from fossil fuels, it's because of the necessity to limit global warming—not because we run out.

But a team in Scotland are warning exactly that—we're running out. Fast. Alister Hamilton is a researcher at the University of Edinburgh and the founder of Zero Emissions Scotland. He and his colleagues self-funded research into oil depletion around the world and the results are shocking: We will lose access to oil around the world in the 2030s.

They calculated this by establishing the Energy Return On Investment (EROI) and found that whilst there will still be oil deposits around the world, we would use more energy accessing the oil supply than we would ever get from burning it. This is because we're having to mine further into the earth's crust to access lower-grade oil. According to their calculations, the oil in the North Sea will be inaccessible—in a dead state—by 2031, and the oil in Norway by 2032. Around the world, oil reserves see the same trend through the 2030s.

Petroleum is the life blood, and we haven't yet built out a different circulatory system to support renewable energy—in less than a decade, the world as know it could crash.

I fixed it.  Will Crash

Rachel Donald did good on this one!

Critics of peak oil conveniently forget about EROEI.  Oil will be left, shale rock will hold oil.  But fracked oil will become unobtainable long before it is gone.  EROEI screws the pooch.

46 minutes in Alister Hamilton mentions Sterling Engines.  I am going to build one.  I have been looking at them recently.  That part of the discussion is off point.  But interesting to me.  I want something that will use the earth as a heat ballast and take the air temperature difference to operate from.  On a hot day perhaps the cool reservoir could be cooled with evaporation.  All I am after is a few watts which I think I can do.

[RE]

46 minutes in Alister Hamilton mentions Sterling Engines.  I am going to build one.  I have been looking at them recently.  That part of the discussion is off point.  But interesting to me.  I want something that will use the earth as a heat ballast and take the air temperature difference to operate from.  On a hot day perhaps the cool reservoir could be cooled with evaporation.  All I am after is a few watts which I think I can do.

Stirling Engies have long been my favorite low-tech means of converting Solar-Mechanical energy directly, or Solar-Mechanical-Electric by using a simple electric generator instead of needing silicon wafers grown in a laboratory.

Fresnel lenses provide a cheap means of concentration the solar radiation to heat your liquid reservoir to vaporization temprature, then you use the vapor pressure to do the mechanical work of turning a pump or a generator magnet-coil for the electricity.



alternatively or in combination with the fresnel lens, you can use solar heated piping to preheat the cool liquid as it returns from the condenser to the storage tank for heating to vapor stage.



If you can't get your water tank to boiling temperature, you can use a heat exchanger to take the hot water and vaporize a liquid like methanol with a low boiing point.  You work with lower pressure so not as much power per stroke, but at lower temperatures it does the job of converting heat to work.

A nice goal to start I think is enough juice to keep cell phones charged, then move up to laptops.  Also run a water pump to raise water up to a high storage tank.  Then you could use that as a battery to drive a micro-hydro electric generator to make electricity as the water coming down turns a turbine, like a waterfall.

Take some pics or make a video when you get going on the project!

RE

[K-Dog]

I am watching this:

A very cogent discussion.  I have been waiting for someone to piss me off, and they have not so far.  Pictures of futuristic cities are hopium (unless they are ruins) with green vines growing on them.

Eighteen minutes in Roxanne Meadows mentions George Mobus and systems theory.  She questions the Earth's ability to provide endless abundance for all.  She says it was possible, but because of bad decision is may not be anymore.

Not your Daddy's Utopia .  I ignored Jacque Fresco's Venus Project as a fantasy divorced from reality.  It that was true it no longer is.  Likely never was, but future hopium tech has not been my thing.  Maybe it was bad marketing.  The core values seem correct.

The people at the Moneyless Society also have their shit together.

RE and I had Dinner with George Mobus the last time RE came down to Seattle.

[RE]

RE and I had Dinner with George Mobus the last time RE came down to Seattle.

That was a fun trip and good chat with George.  I stayed at a native run casino where I got all my meals comped for gambling, which you could do just by spending a couple of hours at the dime slot machines.  Most you could lose was a couple of dollars, and you got $25 to spend at any of 3 restaurants, a big buffet, a sit down Asian or an Italian Pizza/Hero deli.  They had all you can eat Lobster on Wed & Sun at the buffet.  I also did real gambliing at the Blackjack tables and won enouggh to cover my hotel bill, so all the trip cost was plane fare.  I also got a 1st Class upgrade from my AA miles on the way home.

The real adventure was trying to fit my folding electric scooter of the era into Kdogs trunk of his Mercedes.  Hilarious.

Far as the futurist ideas are concerned, the killer was the exponential population growth.  If we could have implemented sane birth control policies in the 3rd world and not simply dumped cheap surplus food from the "green revolution" on them, we might have had a shot at the techno utopian dream right up to the early 1980s.  That was not to be however, as capitalism saw the growing population as an endless source of cheap labor and voracious consumers.

A utopian future is still a possibility IMHO, but only after a very large population knockdown of 90% or more.  Unfortunately, the devastation resulting from such a knockdown probably prevents that from happening also.  If I was young and healthy, I'd try to survive to help that be a long term outcome, after the current crop of Masters of the Universe have been sent to the Great Beyond.  Perhaps one of my few young readers will carry the torch after I am carved up for dinner for the staff of CNAs here when the food runs out. 

RE

[K-Dog]

Ninety percent of people consider the I.E.A. International Energy Agency a reliable source.  It is a Paris-based autonomous intergovernmental organization that provides policy recommendations, analysis, and data on the global energy sector.

Main stream respectable.  People involved pass for civilized.

Member countries provide the funding.  I do not think the data can be trusted.  No country is going to tell the truth about their energy reserves.  Since they control the money they never will.  This makes the agency a data laundry.

On page 299 of the report there are 235 billion barrels of conventional oil claimed for North America. But Prudhoe Bay only yielded 13 billion barrels of conventional oil.  Something stinks.  But the current American export rate could not be justified with the truth known so it makes sense.  This highly respectable autonomous agency can't be trusted.

Thoughts ?

[K-Dog]

People need to believe in the oil market, which in turn requires assuming it will last til they and preferably the next couple generations are dead.

Or at least everyone has to believe the can can get kicked down the road for a while.  Enough time for green tech and space aliens to rescue humanity and change the game.  Roll the dice one more time.


NO, an agency that curates truth for and funded by governments will give a truth that is half snake oil, but with the credentials of hard science to bounce the can one more time.

This is where most men of my demographic make themselves irrelevant.  Ultimately their fame and fortune depends on the system.  Their esteem and identity comes from the system.  The system made them what they are, yet they imagine themselves unique.  That is a contradiction that sanity must ignore. Consequently an ability for such made men to look within, at themselves.  Is not easy to cultivate.  As it is said in 'A few good men' - They can't handle the truth.


They can't give up faith in the system.  The system has given them special papers which say they know stuff and are special.  Somehow they get money.  They are threads in the fabric who imagine a system integrity that was never there.  They will hear no talk about how sausage is really made and what the ingredients are.  New truth must be documented in books before it can become real to such men.  They must continue to be deceived.

They cannot howl on the wild side.

What is the point. -- Only that the truth of our predicament will not have a day in the sun anytime soon.

[RE]

What is the point. -- Only that the truth of our predicament will not have a day in the sun anytime soon.

Well, we can still stay out of the sunlight and sleep during the day in coffins like Vampires. 

We are the Undead, Doomer Vampires sucking blood out of the neck of Capitalism.



RE

[RE]

He doesn't count natural gas and light-tight shale and thinks they aren't as 'useful' as diesel. Which is highly debatable. Not my field so idk.

Well, when his latest suspension finishes, I'm sure MKing(Tddos) will drop in his expert opinion on these calculations.  If he can manage to do it without insulting us or violating one of the other conditions of his participation on this forum, I might even leave it up.

RE

[K-Dog]

He doesn't count natural gas and light-tight shale and thinks they aren't as 'useful' as diesel. Which is highly debatable. Not my field so idk.

Well, when his latest suspension finishes, I'm sure MKing(Tddos) will drop in his expert opinion on these calculations.  If he can manage to do it without insulting us or violating one of the other conditions of his participation on this forum, I might even leave it up.

RE

Yes, he hosed himself good.  Got his foot real wet. 

After his juvenile insults got his ass banned, half a dozen things he would like to deny were posted.

[K-Dog]

These guys make for an interesting conversation.

More than sea level will rise.


Short term thinking increases.  People with money seem to be getting richer.  The divide grows.  The world does not change its ways.

For the second month in a row the CO2 concentration increase exceeds 1% for the year.  And the devil isn't doing it.  Rich people are.

[RE]

These guys make for an interesting conversation.

2 hours?  Can you give us a brief synopsis of this marathon talk fest?  Maybe give us the time on a coupe of highlights?  Last time I listened to Simon I was not impressed.

RE

[K-Dog]

A brief synopsis:

I am an hour and twelve minutes in now.  Simon went through a divorce ten years ago and his wife character assassinated him.  She messed up an intentional community he was involved in or something.  Did more than the sea level rise perhaps?  We do not have to know.

Talk of sea level rise, iron powder and other magic bullets that would take more organization than short term thinking will or can do.  The panel has the good sense to know as the future unwinds, the cost of doing everything is going red queen.  Despite a few burps of technonarcissism the panels digestion of reality is reasonable. 

The faster you run, the more you stay in the same place.  A lot of talk about making Hawaii into a food forest and thorium reactors to make the big island into a self-sufficient micro civilization able to reproduce enough modern technology on a sustainable basis to stay modern.  Simon pointed out while that is a great plan, nothing in Hawaii is organized to make this happen.

A mix of sanity and wild-assed dreaming.



Fun facts, if Britain had half the population and used 1/8 the energy they now do the Island would be sustainable.  Like Sandy said in the comments.  She learns something new every time.

[RE]

A lot of talk about making Hawaii into a food forest and thorium reactors to make the big island into a self-sufficient micro civilization able to reproduce enough modern technology on a sustainable basis to stay modern.  Simon pointed out while that is a great plan, nothing in Hawaii is organized to make this happen.

Forget the organization, Hawaii is far too overpopulated for it's available resources for growing food or water to drink.  Before you even think about reorganizing and making it a sustainable food forest, either 90% of the population has to emmigrate off the Island or die off.  Also helpful would be sea level to stop rising and rainfall to return to preindustrial levels.  Then you also need to wait for the chemicals to rinse out of the aquifer.

This idea ranks right up there with micro-nukes solving our energy deficit problems.  Simon and his crew are hopium addicts.

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/hawaii-water-crisis-climate-change/

Hawaii is "on the verge of catastrophe," locals say, as water crisis continues

RE

[K-Dog]

Simon and his crew are hopium addicts.

I can't agree.  Hopium addicts are out of touch with reality.  Simon and his crew are not.  They do calculations and figure this or that out, and at the end of the day they are saying.  Oh fuck, we are fucked!  Just like I do.  Just like you do.

Who was it that was in here extolling the virtues of flow batteries a few weeks ago?  Who was that hopeasaurus?

If you have criticism worth sharing we could get in touch with Simon and make a video.  But if you are just bitching I'll ask why.  We are all on the same team here.  If Simon and I got to talking things could get interesting.  We are both engineers.

Concerning hopium.  Simon I and others can figure out how to make things work.  Collapse could be designed with a reasonably soft landing engineered in.  But that won't happen.  The problem is people.

People were going off  the 'deep end' concerning peak oil twenty years before climate change came along.  Global heating was a back story on NPR when you and I were preaching doom and gloom.

Did we wake anybody up with our rantings?  Only people who wanted to rant with us for whatever reason. People who benefit greatly from current arrangements have their own tribe.  We are their enemy.  They being the dominant tribe construct the narrative that keeps everyone else in thrall.  It was a knee-jerk thoughtless reaction for them to recognize that we are not part of their narrative.  This is something I did not understand starting out.  I thought people could be convinced by logic and reason.  I did not understand that cultural conditioning will defeat logic, and self-interest makes people stupid.

Simon and his crew don't get that the elite have had a few hundred years to develop an elite culture that seamlessly excludes everyone else.  With an appearance of not doing so.  That is the big problem.  Bigger than the technical issues.  Western culture is fine with some people getting some, and some people getting none. 

A system that refines exploitation is not intellectually able to deal with a new world where limits make the consequences of exploitation a necessary part of the calculation.  That the system can't deal with externalities and humans are unable to see externalities is bad enough.  What makes things horrible is consideration of externalities cuts profit.  Dealing with consequences means there is less to skim on the top.  Capitalism lives off the skim.  (theft)

The lifestyle of many Americans depends upon profits.  In a world of change profits generally suffer. 

It is easy to see the problems as technical, and the natural human urge is to solve problems.  But collapse is a social problem first, and a technical problem second.  Society controls what technology is used and how it is used.  Simon, I and any other smarty pants who come up with a technical solutions are only pawns in a game.  We are ignored unless we are useful for other reason.

It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.  A rentier has a salary that depends on him not understand the details of where the profit he/she exploits comes from.  If you have a passive income you are going to tolerate injustice.  Your understandings will be by your own choice limited in scope.

Capitalism depends on maximizing exploitation.  The salary of everyone who has any power in America comes from the exploitation of someone else.  The American system is engineered to keep anyone who does actual real work powerless.

Cultural hegemony keeps things going full speed to oblivion.  Everyone is united in their stupidity.  Nurds make You-Tube Videos that get 2K views if they are good.  They imagine they make a difference.  Videos that support existing arrangements dominate with millions of views.

Things could not be more fucked up now if Satan himself were pulling the strings.

It is foolish to be convinced without evidence, but it is equally foolish to refuse to be convinced by real evidence.  The real evidence says that for the second month in a row CO2 is up over 1% for the year.  Sorry to tell you this Greta, but your generation does not hold any power, and for all your rantings you are ignored with CO2 emissions higher than they have ever been.  The dependence on the finite resource has never been higher.

I am the only one who looks at what the annual change in CO2 is every month.  It is published on the main page.  The calculation accounts for seasonal variation.  In a nation of hundreds of millions I am the only one who does this.  At a website actively repressed by the deep state.

The future of humanity is in peril, but a nation committed to quarterly profit can not see another way.

The four horsemen wait to ride.  The horses chomp on the bit.

[RE]

If you have criticism worth sharing we could get in touch with Simon and make a video.

I told you last time after watching the video about the micro nukes I would be happy to do a talking heads show with Simon.  Nobody ever contacted me after that.

As far as it not being hopium with the food forests in Hawaii, after reading the article about the problems with the aquifer, rising sea level and diminishing rainfall, not to mention the outrageous population density (they have the population of Alaska on a Postage Stamp in the middle of the Pacific), HTF is that the least bit realistic?

RE