Back again with another Monday Message Board.
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John Quiggin 
This is a good article on what Israel’s vaccination outcomes mean for all of us.
https://capitalaspower.com/2021/09/israeli-data-demonstrates-the-importance-and-the-limits-of-vaccination/
Geoff – “And if, more likely when, those supplies diminish or are disrupted?”
Oil is not disappearing tomorrow. It has begun to be replaced but will be around for use as is for sometime yet, and likely necessarily maintained for and restricted to essential services use such as transport, agriculture, and “defense” for much longer. “This is a conflict of industrial capitalism ( China ) over financialised capitalism inflicted on us by neoliberals” – Michael Lacey
– “No fuel means fuel dependent equipment stops running, including the military.”
That’s effectively what I said. That’s why we need the strategic fuel reserves here (and Angus Taylor in storage there or anywhere away from government here). Also, of course, it’s needed to fuel the subs protecting the fuel reserve supply lines.. it seems we’re going in circles mate. What if Abbott had committed that $90billion into green power all those years ago, and if the who-can-guess-how-many-future-hundred-billions Morrison is putting up as a distraction now was instead also put towards funding green power? But here we are circled back to nothing at all to show except for a sunk reputation and a sunk $4billion to date with more yet to go to France, and here we’ll be again in ten and more years no doubt. And in ten years and more, if we’re allowed that time, we’ll still be risking circling for months more than halfway around the globe and back pulling into a US port and begging from our little RAN resupply ship for a bit of some shaky fading unreliable hegemon’s strategic oil supplies when ours have run out, as no tanker owner will risk sinking under actually, financially and with insurance unobtainable, to deliver here when China has finally been provoked too far and calls it time, and the hegemons’ oil stocks and supplies are also under threat.
– ” …it’s just another reason why we need to adopt electric vehicles faster.”
I might run with that mixing of topics, begging your forgiveness, and say it was done for subs a long time ago, but recharging options, range, and endurance are still problematical, but I won’t here for now.
– “I’d suggest Australia’s GHG emissions are a critical issue that cannot be ignored/dismissed.”
As I said before, that’s altogether another issue to choosing among submarine types, those on offer off the shelf or designed and built here, and inclusive of propulsion options.
– “Instead of 1.15 per cent of global carbon dioxide, Australia would be responsible for 9.4 per cent of the world’s carbon dioxide, third place globally.”
And how tiny a part of that would come from a few domestic diesel-electric subs?
– “Please elaborate.”
Geoff, I gave more than enough to duckduckgo on. In addition there are the prior expressions of interest from several players before completely redesigning a French graft was chosen. As for the non-nuke AIPs there’s French, Spanish, Swedish, German, Japanese…
Ikonoclast, “just deserts” there implies retributive religionist/libertarian type free will magical thinking from the stone age in spite of a now evident macro-deterministic / quantum-random universe. Natural living people rather than unreal counterfactual people cannot contra causally choose to do what they cannot choose to do. They are always doing the best they can just as nature has formed and continues to form them. They can do nothing other. Their just deserts from others are not servings of punishing retributive bitterness, but educative formative nudges including praise and blame with lashings of sweet lovingkindness always topped with a fair go. If you want to kill them, kill them, but don’t call it just deserts. As if anyone should be rewarded for doing/not doing something as if they had a choice when they never could choose otherwise. Call it collateral damage, or call it perhaps just plain necessity – unfortunate for them, unfortunate for you.
“Total war” is pure stone age thinking.
Let’s at least catch up with twentieth century naturalist thinking by someone like Einstein on the workings of the universe and (per Spinoza) limits of human agency, and with Lenin’s thinking on just war now being only ever against an oppressor (Lenin’s paras following there, The present war is an imperialist war… is remarkably congruent with and perhaps never truer than today).
I agree with you more than you probably think.
1. Does free will exist?
It’s doubtful. On an upwards causation model, which is basically determinism all the way up, how can there be free will? I mean in a monist, physicalist world. On an emergent phenomena, upwards causation model, the best we can get to is chaos theory, still not free will. On an emergent phenomena, downwards causation model, it’s still hard to see how free will appears out of macro or top down determinism. On a quantum indeterminism model, indeterminism is just chance, not choice: again, no good path to a free will model.
On the theory that some quantum effect sized structures do exist in synapses or elsewhere in the brain, that model may yield a theory of pseudo-free will at best: behaviors complex enough to be indiscernible from true free will. It may be that the subjective (qualia) illusion of free will is necessary for higher animals so that they don’t feel like the lower brain (as an uncontrollable inner force) is pulling all their strings. That feeling may be incredibly horrible to experience and drive the aware being to self-destruction. Evolution could select for the illusion of free will to avoid the human animal seeking self-destruction as full self-awareness arises.
2. “Just deserts” may well be rationalization before and/or after the fact. If certain sorts of retribution are more or less hard-wired and then rationalized before and/or after the fact, are we justified in making a judgement of that? In turn, if we then are hard-wired to be judgemental, in those cases, we too just “do what we do”. Abandoning choice and free will as theories leaves us open to criticism of our criticism of anyone else. In turn, we could defend ourselves as having no choice either. I think it may be a case of us not having free will but being constrained in some manner to act, moralize and philosophize as if we do. The internal contradictions of the non free will theory look too great to rationalize. Yet, we can find no empirical model of free will.
3. Total War
Total War as I propound it is intended to remind us that war is indeed terrible and that war, in modern systems, always tends to total war or at least to have many collateral victims. Viewed in that light one should always be careful about letting the illusion of being able to wage “limited war” tempt us into war in the first place. And we need to be aware that pushing less powerful peoples to war, on limited war theories, often pushes them into the position of having to wage total war against us, to the extent they can do so. One of the rules of limited war seems to be “The war must happen on your territory.” Then we act surprised and outraged when they attack targets on our territory.
Those waging defensive war for survival are pushed into total war. IN that case, less than a total war effort on the aggressor’s part will almost always lead to the defeat of the aggressor, unless there is a very great strategic mismatch. There may be rare cases where the aggressor is actually waging a justifibale war. This is especially so in turning a just defensive war into an offensive war to end a totally intransigent external threat. The war against Nazism is about the best example available and for fairly good, but not impeccable, reasons. In that case, matters likely will be at such an extremis that only total war will suffice to end the threat. But total war still needs to turned off at the point of unconditional surrender and the complete dismantling of the threat.
Of course, all this is just me pontificating about my theories. I might be wrong about everything.
“”The greater the state, the more wrong and cruel its patriotism, and the greater is the sum of suffering upon which its power is founded.” – Leo Tolstoy.
“Those who make peaceful revolution impossible make violent revolution inevitable.” —John F. Kennedy
COVID-19 is (Far) Deadlier Than the Flu for Children.
https://sciencebasedmedicine.org/covid-19-is-deadlier-than-the-flu-for-children/
The most pertinent passage if you don’t feel like going to the link.
“There are two ways to compare the diseases: which is more dangerous for those who contract it and which is more harmful overall, the latter being the more important of the two metrics. It may be true that children younger than 5 years have a slightly lower risk of dying if they catch COVID-19 than if they catch the flu. However, as COVID-19 is much more contagious, its total harms for children exceed that of the flu, a very simple point that often eludes those who compare these diseases.
Comparisons between the flu and COVID-19 are confounded by the fact that much of normal life was suspended the past year and masks were ubiquitous. These measures lowered the transmission of both diseases. Therefore, the most meaningful comparison between the two diseases is the past year. The numbers couldn’t be clearer. According to the CDC, 490 children under age 17 years have died of COVID-19 in the US. This number was derived from an analysis of 83% of the total number of COVID-19 deaths, so the actual number of pediatric deaths is certainly a bit higher than this.
In contrast, the CDC reported that just one child died of the flu during the 2020-2021 flu season. Those who compare the two diseases curiously omit this fact.” – Jonathan Howard on July 16, 2021, Science Based Medicine.
These figures indicate that COVID-19 disease is about 500 TIMES! more lethal than “the flu”, meaning the average seasonal flu, to children. It is very likely still at least 10 to 50 times more lethal to children than a new variant flu pandemic would be. Plus, there is not really any flu equivalent to “Long COVID”. Though there are other flu sequalae like pneumonia, which is also can be a sequela to COVID-19 anyway.
The article is from July ’21. New data seems to be pointing to more serious COVID-19 disease in children from new COVID-19 pathogen variants. Statistics are useless, worse than useless, unless valid comparisons on a true “like-to- like” basis or true ceteris paribus basis are made. Opening up without safe vaccination of children, as far as we can determine and execute that, equates to throwing vulnerable children to the virus.
People who want to make Social Darwinist survival of the fittest arguments need to be honest as in, “Yes, we should just let weak children die, like the Spartans.” However, a complex, eusocial species especially with technologically high productive powers, derives a significant proportion of its evolutionary fitness from the cooperative protection of all it members (this is the natural law neoliberalism falls foul of) and the use wherever possible of all its members’ particular gifts. There’s no reason, for example, that a person in a wheel-chair cannot be a genius who assists humanity in the sciences, social sciences or the arts. We have seen real examples.
Svante: – “Oil is not disappearing tomorrow. It has begun to be replaced but will be around for use as is for sometime yet, and likely necessarily maintained for and restricted to essential services use such as transport, agriculture, and “defense” for much longer.”
Your statements seem to me to be a whole lot of ‘hopium’.
Svante, “begun to be replaced with what exactly? “[S]ometime yet” – what amount of time? And where, pray tell, are these adequate and affordable supplies of petroleum-based fuels coming from in the meantime to maintain these, as you describe, “essential services use such as transport, agriculture, and “defense”“?
The Berlin-based Energy Watch Group (EWG) published in Mar 2013 their comprehensive report titled Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the Supply Outlook that included Figure 6: World oil supply from individual countries indicating world oil production from 1900 to 2012, including crude oil, condensate, natural gas liquids (NGLs), heavy oil and tarsands, as well as a list of post-peak (with year of peak), at-peak (with year of beginning of plateau) and pre-peak producing countries.
Click to access EWG-update2013_long_18_03_2013up1.pdf
Since the EWG report was published:
* Azerbaijan has peaked and is now in decline;
* Sudan and South Sudan have peaked and are now in decline;
* China has peaked (in 2015) and is now in decline;
* Thailand has peaked (in 2016) and is now plateaued; and
* US tight oil has peaked (in 2019, before the COVID-19 pandemic).
It seems to me the world is running out of pre-peak oil producing countries. That means a post-peak production regime is inevitable. It seems the all-time global production peak occurred in Nov 2018 (before COVID).
The key questions I see now are:
1. What will be the global oil supply decline rate?
Some petroleum experts suggest somewhere between 4 and 7% per annum, year-on-year. Dr Robert Hirsch said on 7 Nov 2012 in the YouTube video titled Dr. Hirsch, “The Nexus of Energy and Risk in the 21st Century”, from time interval 21:54:
4 to 7% decline rates are for ‘conventional’ oil fields. ‘Unconventional’ oil field decline rates are much, much higher. All US oil production growth since about 2005 was due to ‘unconventional’ tight (shale) oil.
That means, using the rule of 72, a halving of global oil production will likely occur within 10.3 to 18 years.
2. Can petroleum-dependent technologies be replaced with non-petroleum-dependent technologies in a timely manner to avoid a global petroleum supply shortage?
So far, I don’t see it happening anywhere near that fast enough.
Svante, perhaps you could direct me to evidence that suggests the world is transitioning that fast?
Geoff Miell,
Oil production has likely peaked because of demand, not supply. If there was a supply crunch you would see sky high prices, but that isn’t the case. Of course Covid and the resulting supply chain issues have clouded the issue but longer term oil prices are in decline. A post Covid economic boom may also disguise this.
A lot of oil companies have seen the writing on the wall and have started to divest out of oil. Why do you think the Saudis are selling off bits and pieces of Aramco? Coal, by far the dirtiest fuel, is in steep decline in most advanced countries and it is only a short matter of time before that happens more widely.
As for non petroleum technologies taking over – I think the evidence is everywhere. In fact events are happening so rapidly that I no longer worry much about political inaction over climate change or the arguments for or anti climate change that we’ve seen in the recent past. Most of that – on both sides – is hot air at this stage, because economics, not politics, is driving this.
Plenty of people, including Tony Seba (‘Rethinking Transportation’) and Prof Wills (Twitter) think that within the next 6 – 8 years, electric cars will be the majority of cars sold, and the change over will be more or less complete in 10 – 12 years. This is way faster than previously predicted. Exponential growth has happened over the last 10 years ( thanks to free enterprise mass manufacturing lowering prices ) but we are only now seeing the effects of it, and the next few years will likely confirm it. It took 7 years or so to get to 1% EV sales, but only 3 years to get to 5%. We may easily get to 20% in another 3-4 years.
Similar changes are rapidly happening in almost every other aspect of human endeavour. The future is bright – not bleak – like so many here think.
That’s more going around in circles, Geoff. I effectively have said earlier and did in fact say “ten and more years” a few times.
“something of the order of 5%. Maybe it’s 4%, maybe it’s 6% … the kind of situation you’re talking about over a ten year period.” – your Hirsch quote.
“a halving of global oil production will likely occur within 10.3 to 18 years” – yourself.
By “ten and more” I had in mind a rather high level of certainty for ten with it decreasing out to twenty years. But barring the end of days some things will still be oil fueled for much longer, no doubt.
“It’s going to be very complicated, depend on a whole variety of different parameters” – Hirsch again, and exactly right, and in more ways connected to oil than he implies there. It will not be equal across the globe and across time. Petroleum fuels will still be the go-to fuel for some significant uses for some with the resources and power over their own/others’ resources at least out to the middle of the century. Petroleum fuels are almost the perfect liquid fuels. They are easier now to get from the Earth to refine than to synthesize from what may or may not be green feedstocks and will remain so for some time yet. For many years yet they will remain competitive in strategic terms for some. Strategic for agriculture, transport, and defense. This country and much of the world for some considerable time is going to keep turning oil into food, be stopped when ice trucks stop, and keep fighting with and over oil for yonks yet until any new technological or post apocalyptic dawn adequately dispenses with oil for those purposes.
Geoff, you’ve continued not to address the topical issues of requiring adequate sovereign strategic oil reserves and refining capacity and their location in the developing global context for the time being and for, say, at least another twenty years and counting. Also how those should be protected, and how ultimately foreign controlled nuclear powered subs might suit that defensive purpose better than other submarine options. Also you’ve not explained how the oil burnt in fueling a diesel-electric sub might weigh so heavily on total national GHG emissions.
Svante: – “By “ten and more” I had in mind a rather high level of certainty for ten with it decreasing out to twenty years. But barring the end of days some things will still be oil fueled for much longer, no doubt.”
Hirsch’s quote: “…we’re talking about something of the order of 5%. Maybe it’s 4%, maybe it’s 6%. It’s going to be very complicated…“; IMO is referring to the global context. I’d suggest net oil exporters will keep more and more oil for themselves to buffer their own supply-demand gap, as their ‘post-peak’ oil production rates decline, and thus will be exporting much less oil over time. For net crude oil/petroleum fuel importers, which is what Australia is (among many, many other countries), the crude oil/petroleum fuel supply situation will deteriorate much sooner, and I’d suggest the supply decline rate will therefore be much steeper. Australia is also in the unenviable situation of being at the end of a very long supply chain. Other countries along that supply chain, ahead of Australia, will likely have first dibs on those volumes in the rapidly shrinking export oil/fuel market.
IMO, Australia’s crude oil/petroleum fuel import supply level of certainty is of the order of a few years, rapidly deteriorating thereafter.
So I don’t see the point of “requiring adequate sovereign strategic oil reserves and refining capacity” for the Australian context, when I think that Australia’s crude oil/petroleum fuel import supplies will likely evaporate much sooner than a two decade timeframe. IMO, far better to invest on technologies/infrastructure to end Australia’s petroleum fuel dependency as soon as possible (or at the very least rapidly diminish it). Unfortunately, IMO our pollies and policymakers (and many other people) don’t see the urgency – they are all energy-blind. By the time the indicators are undeniable, it will be a shock, and likely be far too late to mitigate without huge suffering.
Svante: – “Petroleum fuels will still be the go-to fuel for some significant uses for some with the resources and power over their own/others’ resources at least out to the middle of the century.”
The operative word is some. Only the very few net oil exporter countries will have that luxury. For every other country, I’d suggest the imperative is to rapidly reduce oil dependency, or risk becoming energy-starved.
Svante: – “Also how those should be protected, and how ultimately foreign controlled nuclear powered subs might suit that defensive purpose better than other submarine options.:
I think it’s possible Australian diesel subs might not have adequate fuel supplies available to operate effectively in the 2030s.
The proposed Australian nuclear-powered subs, that are likely to be available no sooner than 2040, would be too late to protect Australia’s “sovereign strategic oil reserves” – there wouldn’t be any to protect.
Svante: – “Also you’ve not explained how the oil burnt in fueling a diesel-electric sub might weigh so heavily on total national GHG emissions.”
That’s a strawman argument framed by you, Svante. And you Svante, have continued to distract away from & deflect my original question: And how does burning more petroleum fuels help with reducing Australia’s GHG emissions?
Joe Blow: – “Oil production has likely peaked because of demand, not supply. If there was a supply crunch you would see sky high prices, but that isn’t the case. Of course Covid and the resulting supply chain issues have clouded the issue but longer term oil prices are in decline.”
Are oil prices in decline? Where’s your evidence, Joe? What I see from The Energy Bulletin Weekly for Sep 20, includes (bold text my emphasis):
https://www.resilience.org/stories/2021-09-20/the-energy-bulletin-weekly-20-september-2021/
Joe Blow: – “Why do you think the Saudis are selling off bits and pieces of Aramco?”
I’d suggest the steady decline of Saudi Arabia’s (and the world’s) largest producing oil field, Ghawar, might have something to do with it – see Figure 12 at: https://crudeoilpeak.info/the-attacks-on-abqaiq-and-peak-oil-in-ghawar
Perhaps it’s a case of finding some schmucks that will part with millions/billions of dollars for part of Aramco before they realize it’s an overvalued and steadily declining asset?
Joe Blow: – “Plenty of people, including Tony Seba (‘Rethinking Transportation’) and Prof Wills (Twitter) think that within the next 6 – 8 years, electric cars will be the majority of cars sold, and the change over will be more or less complete in 10 – 12 years. This is way faster than previously predicted.”
EVs would certainly help. But I’d suggest the critical liquid fuel that currently drives economies is diesel – diesel for the road trucks, rail locomotives and marine vessels that transport the goods that keep economies/livelihoods maintained and keeping people fed and healthy. Diesel also powers the agricultural machinery that enables putting food on plates and the mining machinery that provides the raw materials for our modern society. ALL of these need to be transitioned away from petroleum-dependency on the same timescale. Joe, can you please provide evidence that indicates this is happening?
Joe Blow: – “Similar changes are rapidly happening in almost every other aspect of human endeavour.”
If that were the case, then human-induced GHG emissions would be declining. They are not, as reported recently:
https://www.reuters.com/business/environment/un-says-world-likely-miss-climate-targets-despite-covid-pause-emissions-2021-09-16/
Joe Blow: – “As for non petroleum technologies taking over – I think the evidence is everywhere. In fact events are happening so rapidly that I no longer worry much about political inaction over climate change or the arguments for or anti climate change that we’ve seen in the recent past.”
Evidence where, Joe? Please elaborate.
If you don’t want to worry about climate change then please don’t read the latest ClimateCodeRed.org post on Sep 20 headlined Renowned climate scientist warns rate of global warming during next 25 years could be double what it was in the previous 50.
There’s much work to be done. The evidence/indicators I see show the economy-wide energy transition is not happening fast enough to avoid catastrophic climate change and civilisation collapse.
Geoff – Re “Other countries along that supply chain, ahead of Australia, will likely have first dibs on those volumes in the rapidly shrinking export oil/fuel market.” Here you are make one of the arguments for siting truly sovereign strategic oil reserves and refining capacity on Australian soil.
– “So I don’t see the point of “requiring adequate sovereign strategic oil reserves and refining capacity” for the Australian context, when I think that Australia’s crude oil/petroleum fuel import supplies will likely evaporate much sooner than a two decade timeframe.” So why’d you quote former air vice-marshal and deputy chief of the Royal Australian Air Force John Blackburn – now a consultant on defense and national security – earlier when he has thought it, and as far as I know would still think it, highly important? Why’d you earlier calculate an estimate out to 18 years on your quoted authority’s numbers? There’ be oil for diesel electric subs in twenty years and on, but Slomo’s nukes on the never-never can’t float for a further twenty at least and most probably shall never float.
– “IMO, far better to invest on technologies/infrastructure to end Australia’s petroleum fuel dependency as soon as possible (or at the very least rapidly diminish it).” Do you really think that can or will massively shift in a few years let alone for defense use purposes? If it doesn’t, what will happen? What is your plan ‘B’? What is your strategy to preserve and defend your new near instant Australian energy paradigm plan ‘B’, it’s energy mining, refining, production, necessary offshore imports, it’s storage and distribution sites from maritime based threats?
– “Unfortunately, IMO our pollies and policymakers (and many other people) don’t see the urgency – they are all energy-blind.” Agreed. But that is the reality.
– “By the time the indicators are undeniable, it will be a shock, and likely be far too late to mitigate without huge suffering.” True. And that is what must be planned and provided for. And preferably survived. The reality, coming sooner or not much later to a place near us.
– “The operative word is some. Only the very few net oil exporter countries will have that luxury. For every other country, I’d suggest the imperative is to rapidly reduce oil dependency, or risk becoming energy-starved.” Some countries today export a flood of oil yet are atrociously energy starved domestically. Living well in a way that is by comparison to the wider world today energy-starved is the way of the future. Resistance is futile, but resistance is strong. The twentieth through twenty-first centuries so far have been riddled with oil resource wars and threats of war. That is not likely to change any time soon other than to escalate. And you may certainly add to that other resource wars including those related to alternative energy systems.
– “I think it’s possible Australian diesel subs might not have adequate fuel supplies available to operate effectively in the 2030s …The proposed Australian nuclear-powered subs, that are likely to be available no sooner than 2040, would be too late to protect Australia’s “sovereign strategic oil reserves” – there wouldn’t be any to protect.” There are a number of ways to come by diesel fuel or its reasonable energetic substitutes other than the usual way, some are greenish and not well developed, others such as coal/gas to oil, certainly not green though arguably greener than nukes, are well established and are being further strategically developed today for example by Sasol Synfuels – wikipedia.org/wiki/Sasol
“According to the Gasification and Syngas Technologies Council (2016), a trade association, there are globally 272 operating gasification plants with 686 gasifiers and 74 plants with 238 gasifiers under construction. Most of them use coal as feedstock.[3]” – wikipedia.org/wiki/Coal_gasification_commercialization > globalsyngas.org/syngas-technology/syngas-applications/synthetic-fuels/
https://i0.wp.com/globalsyngas.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/img-e-gas-gasification3.jpeg?fit=737%2C415&ssl=1
https://i0.wp.com/globalsyngas.org/wp-content/uploads/2021/04/img-gas-to-liquids.jpeg?w=580&ssl=1
If diesel-electric subs (eg., those making up more than half of new Russian sub production today as a best fit for purpose) are not useful in 40 years and more it won’t be due to a lack of diesel for the subs. The brand here for centuries yet may well be Waratah from Central Qld. There are other combustible and liquid or compressed fuel and oxidiser alternatives. Combustible fuels will likely be in use well past 2040, if we actually make it that far, and will be strategic and strategically stockpiled and require defending. They will be necessary for national “defense”.
– ““Also you’ve not explained how the oil burnt in fueling a diesel-electric sub might weigh so heavily on total national GHG emissions.” … That’s a strawman argument framed by you, Svante. And you Svante, have continued to distract away from & deflect my original question: And how does burning more petroleum fuels help with reducing Australia’s GHG emissions?” Nope. This is another instance of you continuing to distract away from, deflect, and evade my original question and hijack the topical thread that had developed on defense and nuke or diesel sub purchases for Australia by conflating it with a topic of your choice being the reduction of Australia’s total GHG emissions. Full circle.
Geoff – “Joe Blow: – “Why do you think the Saudis are selling off bits and pieces of Aramco?”
I’d suggest the steady decline of Saudi Arabia’s (and the world’s) largest producing oil field, Ghawar, might have something to do with it – see Figure 12 at: https://crudeoilpeak.info/the-attacks-on-abqaiq-and-peak-oil-in-ghawar
Perhaps it’s a case of finding some schmucks that will part with millions/billions of dollars for part of Aramco before they realize it’s an overvalued and steadily declining asset?”
Why are BAE and Lockheed Martin just now to be allowed, subject to US Congressional approval, to sell their subs to Australia? Probably it’s a case of finding some schmucks that will part with hundreds of billions of dollars for their now and future superceded sub duds before they realize it’s an overvalued and
steadilyrapidly declining asset. Current anti-submarine warfare developments now render them similar to US carriers as more than sunk costs to be written off in future.Svante; – “Here you are make one of the arguments for siting truly sovereign strategic oil reserves and refining capacity on Australian soil.”
Nope. That’s 20th century thinking. You’ve wilfully ignored my previous statement: “IMO, far better to invest on technologies/infrastructure to end Australia’s petroleum fuel dependency as soon as possible (or at the very least rapidly diminish it).”
IMO, that seems consistent with what John Blackburn is advocating, who reportedly said in 2020:
https://www.informa.com.au/insight/australia-needs-a-military-approach-to-liquid-fuel-security-john-blackburn-ao/
The Australia Institute tweeted on Mar 18:
Svante: – “Some countries today export a flood of oil yet are atrociously energy starved domestically.”
Which “some” countries? What do you do define as a flood of oil – what volumes are you referring to? Or are you just ‘hand waving’ (again)?
Svante: – “This is another instance of you continuing to distract away from, deflect, and evade my original question and hijack the topical thread that had developed on defense and nuke or diesel sub purchases for Australia by conflating it with a topic of your choice being the reduction of Australia’s total GHG emissions.”
IMO, you are distracting with less important issues and ignoring the biggest elephant in the room: “If we don’t solve the climate crisis, we can forget about the rest.” – Professor Dr Hans Joachim Schellnhuber
https://horizon-magazine.eu/article/i-would-people-panic-top-scientist-unveils-equation-showing-world-climate-emergency.html
Svante (4 Dec 2020, Thread: The path to decarbonization): – “I am actually prepared to bet on this as there is a high probability I’ll live to see the result. If those authorities research results are proven correct, as I think they are, then I expect that like most people I will by then be relatively poorer than now, so I could do with a betting win around about that time. It would be a decent win by any terms if current low future inflation projections hold, as they may well do, for there is not all that long to wait.”
IMO, it seems like you are one of these Doomists that Michael E Mann refers to, with much Distraction & Deflection from what really matters. Full circle.