You mention a point where renewables penetration hits the point of diminishing results.
As it happens, that point was already reached few years ago in California, but also in Spain by Easter 2022.
I wrote a series of articles detailing some problems that we will face here in Spain regarding this issue. You can find an index of the 12 entries here:
Excellent article, not what people want to hear, but what they need to hear. Our "leaders" will keep building this house of cards until it falls down, and it's going to get ugly.
Wow! Truly mind blowing insights for revealing the unsustainable framework that supports our global economic systems of today. There is no future there. But devolving away from dense-energy complexity will be rough. I don’t see how our global human society can avoid tumultuous disruption as billions of people face increasing hardship and decline.
'Renewables' best use is small scale energy autarky. Homes, schools, small communities off-grid as much as possible, reducing national load and the possibility of hostile foreign hegemons turning off the lights in spite.
I'm of the opinion that as FF costs continue to rise, ingenuity - especially in China - will find ways to reduce the currently necessary use of those in the manufacturing and installation of future renewables, but it's hard to see a 100% 'transition'.
Of course, the true problem is the Piscean Age's vast over-population, largely caused by the mores, values and ideas of the Shit-Eating Romans, who destroyed the natural-minded Pagan societies and imposed a "Women are just cattle" mentality.
It'd be great if over-population was addressed though peaceful means - as the 'popular' alternatives tend actually to create HIGHER birth-rates to compensate, let alone being horrific in themselves - but the unreal 'Realism' of the 'developed world' will almost certainly make that impossible.
Only a small scattering of people appear to get this. The rest are either stumbling and bumbling along in either indifference or denial, the remaining are believers of alternative system retaining energies with a religious zealotry
Ourworldindata.org (thank you B for the link) is usually a good source for number crunched data. But I find a few irregularities in the energy per capita and energy per GDP numbers. Their definition of “primary energy” is “Primary energy is the energy available as resources – such as the fuels burnt in power plants – before it has been transformed.” Fair enough, but it penalizes countries that ship energy resources found and generated in one country to a neighboring country. Case in point - Bhutan has a ratio 15x that of neighboring Nepal. Both have similar climates, neither country has even an average GDP per capita. However, almost all of Bhutan’s primary energy, which is hydropower is sent to India, while Nepal gets energy from hydropower and a large portion from coal. Both countries use biomass in the form of wood and yak dung in the most remote regions. Secondly, a country such as Iceland uses a lot of energy to stay warm and has an extremely high ratio and primary energy number, but the source is almost exclusively thermal groundwater heated by volcanic activity.
“we should be building out an alternative, resilient, local, low-tech, low-energy society; restoring ecosystems and figuring out a new living arrangement with the natural world as we go.”
“With our population also peaking and declining due to falling birth rates, will we use this slight reprieve to make such an “Ecotechnic”, truly renewable and regenerative way of life happen? “
I couldn’t agree more, but good luck trying to sell decentralized off-grid and micro-grid energy production; investor owned utilities and their coal, gas, and oil suppliers won’t let that happen.
As for peaking and declining birth rates, thank big chemical and big plastic. PFAS’s and micro/nanoplastics in the male body are doing a pretty good job of that.
Excellent article that echoes much of the thinking of other people I follow. Not quite sure about “ With our population also peaking and declining due to falling birth rates” - the rate of increase is decreasing but the population is still increasing. The UN says “The world population is projected to reach 8.5 billion in 2030, and to increase further to 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion by 2100.” So in the timescale that we are mostly focussed on, barring major disasters / pandemics / wars / voluntary suicides (!) / mass migrations to Mars I’m not sure that that helps us.
I have some hope that we might have a major mind change and switch to low tech, more human powered life styles but I’m not holding my breath.
Sperm counts have declined by about 60% since 1950. The decline is accelerating and
continues by 2%/year. The already compromised reproduction will run into serious troubles from 2040 onwards. Probably too late to change anything for global warming which is now self-sustained.
I fear you are missing perhaps the key trend: dramatic declines in battery storage costs and concomitant dramatic increases in global installations. California, the world’s fifth biggest economy if it was a nation, added over ten GW of battery storage in just the last four years, cost effectively. This is transformative and is also just the start bc what I call the Kammen Curve (a type of Wright’s Law) dictates that for every doubling of global installations we’ll see about 17% drop in price. Rinse and repeat. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/01/california-crosses-10-gw-battery-storage-threshold/
It's possible that we'll get economies of scale for battery production, but if the above article is correct about material req'ts, this may not happen.
As for the articles that describe CA's new battery storage, they all praise the new capacity but none of the ones I've seen mention the cost of these batteries. Can you point me to that?
The actual facts are NOT "debunked", merely the straw-man "facts", which were posted to be debunked.
I have been reading all of this since last Saturday, and posting it as "unconfirmed", but we are past that now. It is confirmed. The videos from little boats are real. Watch them:
CONFIRMED: USS EISENHOWER AFLAME AS SECOND ATTACK DESTROYS FLIGHT DECK – MANY DEAD AND WOUNDED (CONFIRMED VIDS/PHOTOS)
Why not rotate them like usual? Pentagon chief extends deployment of carrier strike group in Red Sea as Houthi attacks go on
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group that for months has launched crucial strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen to protect military and commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden will remain in the region for at least another month, according to U.S. officials. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed the order last week to extend the four ships’ deployment for a second time, rather than bring the carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, and its three warships home. The other ships in the strike group are the USS Philippine Sea, a cruiser, and two destroyers, the USS Gravely and the USS Mason. https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-05-31/aircraft-carrier-red-sea-deployment-extended-14042845.html
The official denial includes photos you "should not believe" with a red line through them (including a new one), indicating that this denial defense is failing to hide the reports.
Disinformation campaign uses fake footage to claim attack on USS Eisenhower
False claims of a missile attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels against an American aircraft carrier in the Red Sea over the weekend were followed by a flood of doctored images and bogus videos online, which were amplified by pro-Chinese and pro-Russian social media accounts.
The U.S. Navy said there was no truth to the messages claiming the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower had been severely damaged or possibly sunk.
"The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) remains in the U.S. Central Command region. The sailors and the ship are ready and postured to respond to any contingency at a moment's notice," a Navy spokesperson told CBS News on Tuesday. "We are committed to protecting freedom of navigation and commerce in the region alongside our partners and allies." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yemen-houthi-attack-disinformation-uss-eisenhower/
"Let’s start by making a simple statement first: There has been no energy transition ever taking place in human history."
That seems rather absolutist. Surely, energy transitions routinely take place when Adam Smith's "invisible hand" tells them to.
For example, we've largely transitioned away from wood. One need only look at the difference in forest cover between the mid-1800s and the mid-1900s. Forests recovered as fossil sunlight became the dominant energy source.
Another example: whale oil was once the dominant lighting fuel, to the point that whales were very nearly hunted to extinction. Once we began lighting with fossil sunlight, whale populations began to recover.
But yes, fossil sunlight is special. Due to oil's energy density, combined with ease of storage and movement, it is difficult to envision a replacement.
But there *will* be a replacement for oil, because economical oil will run out.
The way things are going, I think the next "energy transition" will be to current photosynthesis… if we survive so long.
Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is giving us the finger.
The Industrial Revolution in England was allowed by coal being used to power looms and to help dig coal, while forests became ships of war and transport.
That came to my mind, but the forests still got used for what was most valuable.
By and large, I agree with most here, but there is no law that there could be no "energy transition". Three examples come to my mind: The abolishment of swiddening, the replacement of draught animals with tractors, steamships instead of sailboats. I am sure there are more such examples. And transitions can go many ways. In Sweden, district heating abolished coal and oil since 1970s and turned to biomass instead.
Having said that, in most cases, new energy sources tend to be put on top of existing ones.
Nice article, as always.
You mention a point where renewables penetration hits the point of diminishing results.
As it happens, that point was already reached few years ago in California, but also in Spain by Easter 2022.
I wrote a series of articles detailing some problems that we will face here in Spain regarding this issue. You can find an index of the 12 entries here:
https://beamspot.substack.com/p/indice-de-lavadoras
It's written in spanish but Google translate may do a decent job. It's long, BTW, and I can send a PDF containing its 360+ pages.
Meanwhile, last week there was an "event" that almost results in a complete blackout, showing the increasing brittleness of Spain's network.
I'm currently trying to write some articles more explaining and analyzing data that show clearly that this problem was caused by a wind llull...
Excellent article, not what people want to hear, but what they need to hear. Our "leaders" will keep building this house of cards until it falls down, and it's going to get ugly.
Wow! Truly mind blowing insights for revealing the unsustainable framework that supports our global economic systems of today. There is no future there. But devolving away from dense-energy complexity will be rough. I don’t see how our global human society can avoid tumultuous disruption as billions of people face increasing hardship and decline.
'Renewables' best use is small scale energy autarky. Homes, schools, small communities off-grid as much as possible, reducing national load and the possibility of hostile foreign hegemons turning off the lights in spite.
I'm of the opinion that as FF costs continue to rise, ingenuity - especially in China - will find ways to reduce the currently necessary use of those in the manufacturing and installation of future renewables, but it's hard to see a 100% 'transition'.
Of course, the true problem is the Piscean Age's vast over-population, largely caused by the mores, values and ideas of the Shit-Eating Romans, who destroyed the natural-minded Pagan societies and imposed a "Women are just cattle" mentality.
It'd be great if over-population was addressed though peaceful means - as the 'popular' alternatives tend actually to create HIGHER birth-rates to compensate, let alone being horrific in themselves - but the unreal 'Realism' of the 'developed world' will almost certainly make that impossible.
'Intelligent' species my left buttock!!
…and prior to that was the “cattle are just cattle” mentality!
Uhh, no it wan't. The Pagan worldview did not think "just" about anything of the Natural World. It was all alive, and conscious. And important.
Exactly
if over-population was addressed though peaceful means > might enjoy https://www.resilience.org/stories/2024-06-05/peak-population-projections/
Another fantastic and to the point essay.
Only a small scattering of people appear to get this. The rest are either stumbling and bumbling along in either indifference or denial, the remaining are believers of alternative system retaining energies with a religious zealotry
Ourworldindata.org (thank you B for the link) is usually a good source for number crunched data. But I find a few irregularities in the energy per capita and energy per GDP numbers. Their definition of “primary energy” is “Primary energy is the energy available as resources – such as the fuels burnt in power plants – before it has been transformed.” Fair enough, but it penalizes countries that ship energy resources found and generated in one country to a neighboring country. Case in point - Bhutan has a ratio 15x that of neighboring Nepal. Both have similar climates, neither country has even an average GDP per capita. However, almost all of Bhutan’s primary energy, which is hydropower is sent to India, while Nepal gets energy from hydropower and a large portion from coal. Both countries use biomass in the form of wood and yak dung in the most remote regions. Secondly, a country such as Iceland uses a lot of energy to stay warm and has an extremely high ratio and primary energy number, but the source is almost exclusively thermal groundwater heated by volcanic activity.
“we should be building out an alternative, resilient, local, low-tech, low-energy society; restoring ecosystems and figuring out a new living arrangement with the natural world as we go.”
“With our population also peaking and declining due to falling birth rates, will we use this slight reprieve to make such an “Ecotechnic”, truly renewable and regenerative way of life happen? “
I couldn’t agree more, but good luck trying to sell decentralized off-grid and micro-grid energy production; investor owned utilities and their coal, gas, and oil suppliers won’t let that happen.
As for peaking and declining birth rates, thank big chemical and big plastic. PFAS’s and micro/nanoplastics in the male body are doing a pretty good job of that.
Excellent article that echoes much of the thinking of other people I follow. Not quite sure about “ With our population also peaking and declining due to falling birth rates” - the rate of increase is decreasing but the population is still increasing. The UN says “The world population is projected to reach 8.5 billion in 2030, and to increase further to 9.7 billion in 2050 and 10.4 billion by 2100.” So in the timescale that we are mostly focussed on, barring major disasters / pandemics / wars / voluntary suicides (!) / mass migrations to Mars I’m not sure that that helps us.
I have some hope that we might have a major mind change and switch to low tech, more human powered life styles but I’m not holding my breath.
Sperm counts have declined by about 60% since 1950. The decline is accelerating and
continues by 2%/year. The already compromised reproduction will run into serious troubles from 2040 onwards. Probably too late to change anything for global warming which is now self-sustained.
I fear you are missing perhaps the key trend: dramatic declines in battery storage costs and concomitant dramatic increases in global installations. California, the world’s fifth biggest economy if it was a nation, added over ten GW of battery storage in just the last four years, cost effectively. This is transformative and is also just the start bc what I call the Kammen Curve (a type of Wright’s Law) dictates that for every doubling of global installations we’ll see about 17% drop in price. Rinse and repeat. https://www.pv-magazine.com/2024/05/01/california-crosses-10-gw-battery-storage-threshold/
It's possible that we'll get economies of scale for battery production, but if the above article is correct about material req'ts, this may not happen.
As for the articles that describe CA's new battery storage, they all praise the new capacity but none of the ones I've seen mention the cost of these batteries. Can you point me to that?
I appreciate your insightful comments, but we still need to build the movement on a socio-cultural level.
The transition is upon us, but not officially announced quite yet:
CONFIRMED: USS EISENHOWER AFLAME AS SECOND ATTACK DESTROYS FLIGHT DECK – MANY DEAD AND WOUNDED (CONFIRMED VIDS/PHOTOS) https://www.theinteldrop.org/2024/06/03/confirmed-uss-eisenhower-aflame-as-second-attack-destroys-flight-deck-many-dead-and-wounded-confirmed-vids-photos/
https://x.com/JMforum/status/1796658280103621107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1796658280103621107%7Ctwgr%5Eb3d7f107fcbac548196b55559da635d2f91e39cf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_
https://www.vtforeignpolicy.com/2024/06/confirmed-uss-eisenhower-aflame-as-second-attack-destroys-flight-deck-many-dead-and-wounded/
Debunked. You should read a variety of sources. It appears that your echo-chamber has excessively influenced you.
"The Houthis did not provide evidence for their claim. Defense officials have denied that the Eisenhower was attacked." https://checkyourfact.com/2024/05/31/fact-check-was-the-uss-dwight-e-eisenhower-struck-by-houthis-rebels/
"The image posted Monday is of Russia's Admiral Kuznetsov, an aircraft carrier that has repeatedly suffered damage. It is docked in a ship repair site in the Russian city of Murmansk, as images from Google show." https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/fact-check-do-photos-show-uss-eisenhower-damage-after-houthi-strike/ar-BB1nCe1M
"But a defense official told Business Insider the reports of the Eisenhower being hit were false, and that they were unaware that missiles had even been fired at the flattop or in its vicinity." https://www.businessinsider.com/houthi-rebels-didnt-hit-us-aircraft-carrier-as-they-claimed-2024-5?op=1
Next time, spend ten minutes on Google before re-posting Houthi popaganda.
The actual facts are NOT "debunked", merely the straw-man "facts", which were posted to be debunked.
I have been reading all of this since last Saturday, and posting it as "unconfirmed", but we are past that now. It is confirmed. The videos from little boats are real. Watch them:
CONFIRMED: USS EISENHOWER AFLAME AS SECOND ATTACK DESTROYS FLIGHT DECK – MANY DEAD AND WOUNDED (CONFIRMED VIDS/PHOTOS)
https://www.theinteldrop.org/2024/06/03/confirmed-uss-eisenhower-aflame-as-second-attack-destroys-flight-deck-many-dead-and-wounded-confirmed-vids-photos/
Video clip of missile hitting Eisenhower, which I have posted before is now "confirmed":
https://x.com/JMforum/status/1796658280103621107?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw%7Ctwcamp%5Etweetembed%7Ctwterm%5E1796658280103621107%7Ctwgr%5Eb3d7f107fcbac548196b55559da635d2f91e39cf%7Ctwcon%5Es1_
US Navy Warships Fight Off Missiles That Are ‘Way Faster’ https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/world/us-navy-warships-fight-off-missiles-that-are-way-faster/ss-BB1nDe93
Why not rotate them like usual? Pentagon chief extends deployment of carrier strike group in Red Sea as Houthi attacks go on
The U.S. Navy aircraft carrier strike group that for months has launched crucial strikes against Houthi rebels in Yemen to protect military and commercial ships in the Red Sea and Gulf of Aden will remain in the region for at least another month, according to U.S. officials. U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin signed the order last week to extend the four ships’ deployment for a second time, rather than bring the carrier, the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower, and its three warships home. The other ships in the strike group are the USS Philippine Sea, a cruiser, and two destroyers, the USS Gravely and the USS Mason. https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2024-05-31/aircraft-carrier-red-sea-deployment-extended-14042845.html
The official denial includes photos you "should not believe" with a red line through them (including a new one), indicating that this denial defense is failing to hide the reports.
Disinformation campaign uses fake footage to claim attack on USS Eisenhower
False claims of a missile attack by Yemen's Houthi rebels against an American aircraft carrier in the Red Sea over the weekend were followed by a flood of doctored images and bogus videos online, which were amplified by pro-Chinese and pro-Russian social media accounts.
The U.S. Navy said there was no truth to the messages claiming the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower had been severely damaged or possibly sunk.
"The USS Dwight D. Eisenhower (CVN 69) remains in the U.S. Central Command region. The sailors and the ship are ready and postured to respond to any contingency at a moment's notice," a Navy spokesperson told CBS News on Tuesday. "We are committed to protecting freedom of navigation and commerce in the region alongside our partners and allies." https://www.cbsnews.com/news/yemen-houthi-attack-disinformation-uss-eisenhower/
"Let’s start by making a simple statement first: There has been no energy transition ever taking place in human history."
That seems rather absolutist. Surely, energy transitions routinely take place when Adam Smith's "invisible hand" tells them to.
For example, we've largely transitioned away from wood. One need only look at the difference in forest cover between the mid-1800s and the mid-1900s. Forests recovered as fossil sunlight became the dominant energy source.
Another example: whale oil was once the dominant lighting fuel, to the point that whales were very nearly hunted to extinction. Once we began lighting with fossil sunlight, whale populations began to recover.
But yes, fossil sunlight is special. Due to oil's energy density, combined with ease of storage and movement, it is difficult to envision a replacement.
But there *will* be a replacement for oil, because economical oil will run out.
The way things are going, I think the next "energy transition" will be to current photosynthesis… if we survive so long.
Adam Smith's "invisible hand" is giving us the finger.
The Industrial Revolution in England was allowed by coal being used to power looms and to help dig coal, while forests became ships of war and transport.
That came to my mind, but the forests still got used for what was most valuable.
I am including this in today's blog post.
Heady times...
:-o
By and large, I agree with most here, but there is no law that there could be no "energy transition". Three examples come to my mind: The abolishment of swiddening, the replacement of draught animals with tractors, steamships instead of sailboats. I am sure there are more such examples. And transitions can go many ways. In Sweden, district heating abolished coal and oil since 1970s and turned to biomass instead.
Having said that, in most cases, new energy sources tend to be put on top of existing ones.