The US’s behavior towards energy seems virtually indistinguishable from what we would be doing if an adversarial foreign power was overseeing our affairs.
Cheap energy is life. Hard stop. Productivity cannot improve without it.
There will be debate by those who do not grasp its leverage in productivity until it hits their pocket books or wallets.
Other than nuclear, all other currently known renewabled solutions/replacements for energy are simple, childlike efforts.. Stage 1 thinking (T Sowell).
We are all CO2 generating cockroaches. Let engineers solve the problem.
Troubling thought... I've heard that the"choice that likely cost him the war" discussed above was likely due to Hitler's extreme paranoia. I'm no psychologist, but that level of paranoia likely comes from being a truly evil man in a generally good world.
So what happens then, psychologically, to the committers of atrocity today (Xi, Jong-un) when the general public is not nearly as united against them? When Chamath, Dalio, Trudeau, Klauss not only excuse their behavior but lavish them with praise.
We're giving our enemies confidence and making it more and more uncomfortable for allies to speak out.
So FDR was happy that 2400 Americans lost their lives at Pearl Harbor? I guess that's a nugget sensational enough to retain the readership of the revisionist/conspiracy theorist crowd.
lives are just a statistic to powerful elitists such as Roosevelt. They don't give a whit about you, me or average Americans, so long as they retain Power and influence
Being a former engineer for a large power company and having earned a Master of Science in Energy and the Environment, I had PV panels installed six years ago, with my estimated payback of 15-17 years, . . the right thing for an eco-freak to do. Before they could be installed, we acquired a VW e-Golf electric car. The savings in gasoline alone took the solar system payback down to 3 1/2 years. So, we added a used Tesla Model S, P85, and that took the payback down to less than three years, which means we now get free power for household and transportation.
But that is not all: We do not need to go to gas stations, we fuel up at home at night with cheap baseload power. During the daytime, the PV system turns our meter backwards powering the neighborhood with clean local power, which we trade for the stuff to be used that night. If we paid for transportation fuel, the VW would cost us 4 cents/mile to drive, and the Tesla would cost 5 cents/mile at California off-peak power prices.
No oil changes are a real treat along with no leaks. And since it has an electric motor, it needs NO ENGINE MAINTENANCE at all. We do not go "gas up", or get tune-ups or emissions checks, have no transmission about which to worry, no complicated machined parts needing care.
THAT is what will sell the EV, and the real problem is not powering them, (the power companies have been working on and praying for the EV for a generation), the problem will be dealing with an economy which has had a large portion taken out of it. Too much of our economy is dependent on the needs of the internal combustion engine, from mechanics to emissions checkers to the folk who make oil filters, and all the folk who support them. I see a rush to EVs, (go drive one, and see), and the implications of this advance as an impending wave of dislocation for this society for which we must plan now.
BTW, my nine-year old Tesla Model S is grandfathered in so I get free supercharging from any of the 20,000+ superchargers worldwide. I can go from my place to yours free. What is the cost of gasoline now?
I have worked with energy and electrical power all my life, so how am I supposed to respond to your silly nonsense about not understanding energy density? I told you my Tesla is NINE years old. It has never seen a mechanic, and I use it all the time. Li-ion batteries have already been recycled, and the new ones fashioned from the old parts worked better than the originals, for reasons they do not yet understand.
Gkam, for cars/smaller vehicles, I agree EVs make sense in a number of use cases. However, many areas don’t have the infrastructure for sufficient charging outside cities. I live in Canada and this is certainly the case.
The issue of energy density is a very valid concern. When you have a scenario where the vehicle has to haul more than just people and a bit of luggage, EVs severely fall over.
Let me explain:
My pickup which I use to haul has a 135L tank. I need that size for the work I do. 1L petrol = ~9kwh energy. For Tesla batteries I believe 1 kWh weighs ~6kg. So, 135L petrol tank to have energy equivalency is 16,038 lbs of batteries. However, if we assume the electric engine has 100% efficiency in the energy transfer to kinetic energy (which it doesn’t) and the ICE vehicle has only 25% efficiency in energy conversion, then we need ~4000lbs of batteries. The weight of my truck has now doubled and I’ll need a larger frame etc to support the weight. Now I’ll need even more batteries to do equivalent work to account for the 4000 lbs of batteries and a heavier frame. I typically only tow 8000 lbs. We’re now entering diminishing returns and the use case requirements fail. So energy density is an extremely important topic with EVs. Regards
The solution is right there, Nuclear Energy. The first country to embrace it and make the use of it as safe as possible. Could and mostly likely will gain the most power over the energy sector in the world. This would be a great help in saving the U.S. from the destructive path we are on.
WE are turning away from centralized sources in favor of distributed sources changing the granularity of the stand-alone areas. Transmission lines are expensive and vulnerable to bad weather and bad people. They tie us together, but we can start standing alone when necessary with PV, wind, storage, and microgrids.
Yes Ian that may be the best approach to provide some cover against a falling stock market in 2022. I really believe we could see way way over $100 by this time next year, so a "flutter" might be well worth it. When I occasionally buy options I always assume the money is lost anyway, as an amateur options player.
Why? The sun is the most abundant source of energy we have and until we decided we wanted to be cool in the summer it provided most of the heat energy people needed. When I was young in the late forties and fifties we used a solar device regularly. It was known as a clothesline where we dried our clothes. It was quite cheap in terms of money but required more labor. So perhaps we can chalk up the high cost of fossil fuel to human laziness.
Greed and keeping up with the Kardashians plays a roll too. Many estate covenants and even some government codes make using cloth lines illegal, mostly part of making real estate "nicer" so the developers can gouge more. They, after all, select the local and state governments, that the voters rubber stamp.
Every economy needs cheap energy to grow. High energy costs increase input costs which make turning a profit damn near impossible. This goes for almost all industries, high energy prices increase input costs in all industries. We are going to be hitting an economic wall soon as energy cost sap disposable income leading to negative GDP growth. That is a devastating for a debtor nation to stop growing. It could cause the great financial reset.
It is interesting to note that besides the spike in Oil prices, China shut down their economy for 3 weeks in August 2008 to make air clean for Olympics. Just a coincidence or ????
please check out thundersaid energy. you might start with the realvision interview of rob west on 9/6/21. a realistic path to net-zero, including using gas and nuclear as well as carbon offsets, faster than most realists would think. worth following.
Seems like the fracking industry is always 20 dollars per barrel away from profitability. Oh sure the "experts" say they are profitable at 50 dollars but we have yet to see good sustainable profits. The reason is, they have tremendous input costs. The price of oil goes up and so does their input costs. There is a short time between when the price of crude goes up and it is finally felt in the cost for materials and products to drill and complete a well. During that time, some profits can be realized.
Aubrey Maclendon, CEO of Chesapeake energy said, and I'm paraphrasing. "We never made a dime fracking for gas, we made money flipping real estate". Of course he is no longer the CEO. He was indicted years ago and died in a single vehicle accident.
I worked in the Barnett shale. I wrote software that controls the actual fracking truck. I visited the headquarters of Chesapeake energy in OK city a number of times. The main lobby was interesting. It had a huge stretched out natural gas powered chopper. That's right, an authentic Orange County Chopper. Looking back, it seems so fitting. The US fracking industry is not that much different than the chopper craze.
"The US’s behavior towards energy seems virtually indistinguishable from what we would be doing if an adversarial foreign power was overseeing our affairs."
Much like Nobel Prize winning Physicist Glenn T. Seaborg's comment about the American Educational System.
Make no mistake. Our democracy IS being threatened. And the side that is actively working to destroy it is the "American" left. They are no longer our countrymen. With luck they will be booted out of office come November.
However ... the voters continuing to elect destructive leftists in 3rd-world s41th0les like Portland lead me to think many of my 'fellow Americans' WANT the country to fall apart.
Cheap energy is life. Hard stop. Productivity cannot improve without it.
There will be debate by those who do not grasp its leverage in productivity until it hits their pocket books or wallets.
Other than nuclear, all other currently known renewabled solutions/replacements for energy are simple, childlike efforts.. Stage 1 thinking (T Sowell).
We are all CO2 generating cockroaches. Let engineers solve the problem.
Troubling thought... I've heard that the"choice that likely cost him the war" discussed above was likely due to Hitler's extreme paranoia. I'm no psychologist, but that level of paranoia likely comes from being a truly evil man in a generally good world.
So what happens then, psychologically, to the committers of atrocity today (Xi, Jong-un) when the general public is not nearly as united against them? When Chamath, Dalio, Trudeau, Klauss not only excuse their behavior but lavish them with praise.
We're giving our enemies confidence and making it more and more uncomfortable for allies to speak out.
So FDR was happy that 2400 Americans lost their lives at Pearl Harbor? I guess that's a nugget sensational enough to retain the readership of the revisionist/conspiracy theorist crowd.
lives are just a statistic to powerful elitists such as Roosevelt. They don't give a whit about you, me or average Americans, so long as they retain Power and influence
You have revealed more about yourself than about Roosevelt.
Anyone happen to know what the average temperature of the earth is ?
Being a former engineer for a large power company and having earned a Master of Science in Energy and the Environment, I had PV panels installed six years ago, with my estimated payback of 15-17 years, . . the right thing for an eco-freak to do. Before they could be installed, we acquired a VW e-Golf electric car. The savings in gasoline alone took the solar system payback down to 3 1/2 years. So, we added a used Tesla Model S, P85, and that took the payback down to less than three years, which means we now get free power for household and transportation.
But that is not all: We do not need to go to gas stations, we fuel up at home at night with cheap baseload power. During the daytime, the PV system turns our meter backwards powering the neighborhood with clean local power, which we trade for the stuff to be used that night. If we paid for transportation fuel, the VW would cost us 4 cents/mile to drive, and the Tesla would cost 5 cents/mile at California off-peak power prices.
No oil changes are a real treat along with no leaks. And since it has an electric motor, it needs NO ENGINE MAINTENANCE at all. We do not go "gas up", or get tune-ups or emissions checks, have no transmission about which to worry, no complicated machined parts needing care.
THAT is what will sell the EV, and the real problem is not powering them, (the power companies have been working on and praying for the EV for a generation), the problem will be dealing with an economy which has had a large portion taken out of it. Too much of our economy is dependent on the needs of the internal combustion engine, from mechanics to emissions checkers to the folk who make oil filters, and all the folk who support them. I see a rush to EVs, (go drive one, and see), and the implications of this advance as an impending wave of dislocation for this society for which we must plan now.
That's really funny. My Tesla is nine years old and can outrun any ICE car off the light.
Don't forget to pen your garage door before you warm up your toxic emitter.
I brought it up because according to you it should have been dead for years now.
BTW, my nine-year old Tesla Model S is grandfathered in so I get free supercharging from any of the 20,000+ superchargers worldwide. I can go from my place to yours free. What is the cost of gasoline now?
I have worked with energy and electrical power all my life, so how am I supposed to respond to your silly nonsense about not understanding energy density? I told you my Tesla is NINE years old. It has never seen a mechanic, and I use it all the time. Li-ion batteries have already been recycled, and the new ones fashioned from the old parts worked better than the originals, for reasons they do not yet understand.
I do not understand your ignorance of EVs.
Gkam, for cars/smaller vehicles, I agree EVs make sense in a number of use cases. However, many areas don’t have the infrastructure for sufficient charging outside cities. I live in Canada and this is certainly the case.
The issue of energy density is a very valid concern. When you have a scenario where the vehicle has to haul more than just people and a bit of luggage, EVs severely fall over.
Let me explain:
My pickup which I use to haul has a 135L tank. I need that size for the work I do. 1L petrol = ~9kwh energy. For Tesla batteries I believe 1 kWh weighs ~6kg. So, 135L petrol tank to have energy equivalency is 16,038 lbs of batteries. However, if we assume the electric engine has 100% efficiency in the energy transfer to kinetic energy (which it doesn’t) and the ICE vehicle has only 25% efficiency in energy conversion, then we need ~4000lbs of batteries. The weight of my truck has now doubled and I’ll need a larger frame etc to support the weight. Now I’ll need even more batteries to do equivalent work to account for the 4000 lbs of batteries and a heavier frame. I typically only tow 8000 lbs. We’re now entering diminishing returns and the use case requirements fail. So energy density is an extremely important topic with EVs. Regards
GJR, Thank you for the reply.
All I have to say is Rivian.
Ford Lightning.
Chevrolet electric truck.
The solution is right there, Nuclear Energy. The first country to embrace it and make the use of it as safe as possible. Could and mostly likely will gain the most power over the energy sector in the world. This would be a great help in saving the U.S. from the destructive path we are on.
We cannot afford nuclear power and with PV at at under 2 cents/kWh, no fission or fusion system can even approach that price.
so solar and wind are cheaper? How does the scalability of that work? Nuclear is far more dense and produces sustainable outputs..
WE are turning away from centralized sources in favor of distributed sources changing the granularity of the stand-alone areas. Transmission lines are expensive and vulnerable to bad weather and bad people. They tie us together, but we can start standing alone when necessary with PV, wind, storage, and microgrids.
The majority of people can't afford that though.. Government also makes it extremely difficult and expensive for individuals to do..
And that would be France.
Yes Ian that may be the best approach to provide some cover against a falling stock market in 2022. I really believe we could see way way over $100 by this time next year, so a "flutter" might be well worth it. When I occasionally buy options I always assume the money is lost anyway, as an amateur options player.
Greens are not smart enough to destroy our country by themselves. Question is who is? Russians, Chinese, or off shore Hedge Funds?
"If energy is life then the lack of energy is death." Suppose that statement is not true. Then what?
We go back to burning wood?
Why? The sun is the most abundant source of energy we have and until we decided we wanted to be cool in the summer it provided most of the heat energy people needed. When I was young in the late forties and fifties we used a solar device regularly. It was known as a clothesline where we dried our clothes. It was quite cheap in terms of money but required more labor. So perhaps we can chalk up the high cost of fossil fuel to human laziness.
Greed and keeping up with the Kardashians plays a roll too. Many estate covenants and even some government codes make using cloth lines illegal, mostly part of making real estate "nicer" so the developers can gouge more. They, after all, select the local and state governments, that the voters rubber stamp.
Every economy needs cheap energy to grow. High energy costs increase input costs which make turning a profit damn near impossible. This goes for almost all industries, high energy prices increase input costs in all industries. We are going to be hitting an economic wall soon as energy cost sap disposable income leading to negative GDP growth. That is a devastating for a debtor nation to stop growing. It could cause the great financial reset.
It is interesting to note that besides the spike in Oil prices, China shut down their economy for 3 weeks in August 2008 to make air clean for Olympics. Just a coincidence or ????
Mr Doom, just watched your interview on RV with Tony Greer - looking good my man. Great to see you "streaming live" from the coop, sorry, studio.
please check out thundersaid energy. you might start with the realvision interview of rob west on 9/6/21. a realistic path to net-zero, including using gas and nuclear as well as carbon offsets, faster than most realists would think. worth following.
Fully agree. That young man's work is excellent.
They have a free brief newsletter which allows you to follow their work
Thank you Jeff....done!
Tell me this didn’t really happen in the US and I’ll tell you you’re crazy. https://youtu.be/pOmXiapfCs8
Seems like the fracking industry is always 20 dollars per barrel away from profitability. Oh sure the "experts" say they are profitable at 50 dollars but we have yet to see good sustainable profits. The reason is, they have tremendous input costs. The price of oil goes up and so does their input costs. There is a short time between when the price of crude goes up and it is finally felt in the cost for materials and products to drill and complete a well. During that time, some profits can be realized.
Aubrey Maclendon, CEO of Chesapeake energy said, and I'm paraphrasing. "We never made a dime fracking for gas, we made money flipping real estate". Of course he is no longer the CEO. He was indicted years ago and died in a single vehicle accident.
I worked in the Barnett shale. I wrote software that controls the actual fracking truck. I visited the headquarters of Chesapeake energy in OK city a number of times. The main lobby was interesting. It had a huge stretched out natural gas powered chopper. That's right, an authentic Orange County Chopper. Looking back, it seems so fitting. The US fracking industry is not that much different than the chopper craze.
Said chopper.
https://www.designbyjoyce.com/paulsr/chesapeake-bike.html
"The US’s behavior towards energy seems virtually indistinguishable from what we would be doing if an adversarial foreign power was overseeing our affairs."
Much like Nobel Prize winning Physicist Glenn T. Seaborg's comment about the American Educational System.
Make no mistake. Our democracy IS being threatened. And the side that is actively working to destroy it is the "American" left. They are no longer our countrymen. With luck they will be booted out of office come November.
However ... the voters continuing to elect destructive leftists in 3rd-world s41th0les like Portland lead me to think many of my 'fellow Americans' WANT the country to fall apart.
Sad.