Another Monday Message Board. Post comments on any topic. Civil discussion and no coarse language please. Side discussions and idees fixes to the sandpits, please.
I’m now using Substack as a blogging platform, and for my monthly email newsletter. For the moment, I’ll post both at this blog and on Substack. You can also follow me on Mastodon here.
John Quiggin 
On 18 Jan 2024, Nate Hagens published a YouTube video titled Leon Simons: “Aerosol Demasking and Global Heating” | The Great Simplification #105, duration 1:24:53. The video notes included:
<blockquote>On this episode, Nate is joined by climate researcher Leon Simons to unpack recent trends in global heating during 2023 and potential explanations and subsequent projections for the coming year. While the connection between human emitted greenhouse gasses and global warming is scientifically agreed upon, the other complexities and feedbacks of our climate system are still just beginning to be understood. Today, Leon theorizes on the intensity of aerosol masking from particulates such as sulfur, based on the connection between recent changes in marine fuel sulfur requirements and corresponding climate data. How will the global trend towards aerosol reductions affect near and long term global heating? What does this catch-22 mean for potential future climate action and policy? How should we be thinking about creating a more simplified global system in response to the unknown unknowns of our potential future climate?</blockquote>
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Streamed earlier today (Jan 22) on YouTube by Climate Chat was a video titled 2023: +1.54ºC! Why Is Global Warming Accelerating? Interview with Leon Simons, duration 1:29:24. The video notes included:
<blockquote>In this Climate Chat episode we discuss the rapid acceleration of global warming with climate scientist Leon Simons. The Berkeley Earth dataset shows the average global surface temperature in 2023 was +1.54ºC above the pre-industrial average. This is far above previous years and while there was an El Niño starting in 2023, it cannot explain the full jump in global temperature.</blockquote>
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On 12 Jan 2024, Berkeley Earth published their comprehensive Global Temperature Report for 2023 by Robert Rohde. Their latest prediction for year 2024 is:
<blockquote>We predict a 58% chance that 2024 is warmer than 2023 and 97% chance that it is at least as warm as 2016, making it very likely that 2024 will become either the warmest or 2nd warmest year on record.</blockquote>
From US energy regulator FERC, the latest monthly Energy Infrastructure Update for November 2023, (download https://cms.ferc.gov/sites/default/files/2024-01/November%20MIR%202023.docx , p.3) :
Electric Generation Highlights
• Clarion Boards LLC’s 18.0 MW natural gas fired Clarion Boards Project in Clarion County, PA is online.
• Inertia WS Holdings LLC’s 301.3 MW wind powered Inertia Energy Project in Haskell County, TX is online.
• Moraine Sands Wind Power LLC’s 171.0 MW Moraine Sands Wind Farm in Mason County, IL is online. The power generated is sold to Microsoft Corp under long-term contract.
• Fowler Ridge Wind LLC’s 103.6 MW Amazon Wind Farm in Benton County, IN has been rerated.
• Midland Wind LLC’s 100.8 MW Midland Wind Project in Henry County, IL is online.
• Myrtle Solar LLC’s 321.2 MW Myrtle Solar & Storage Project in Brazoria County, TX is online.
• Paris Farm Solar LLC’s 241.0 MW Eiffel Solar I Project in Lamar County, TX is online.
• Arrow Canyon Solar LLC’s 200.0 MW Arrow Canyon Solar Project in Clark County, NV is online.
• River Ferry Solar I LLC’s 165.3 MW River Ferry Solar I Project in Clark County, IL is online.
• Fox Squirrel Solar LLC’s 150.0 MW Fox Squirrel Solar Project in Madison County, OH is online.
• 224WB 8ME LLC’s 113.9 MW Galloway 2 Solar Expansion Project in Concho County, TX is online.
• CPV Maple Hill Solar LLC’s 100.0 MW CPV Maple Hill Solar Project in Cambria County, PA is online.
• High Point Solar LLC’s 100.0 MW High Point Solar Project in Stephenson County, IL is online.
• Happy Solar 1 LLC’s 95.0 MW Happy Solar 1 Project in White County, AR is online.
• Elawan Dileo Solar LLC’s 71.4 MW Dileo Solar Project in Bosque County, TX is online.
• Landrace Holdings LLC’s 55.0 MW solar powered Landrace Holdings Project in Horry County, SC is online. The power generated is sold to Santee Cooper under long-term contract.
• Blue Harvest Solar Park LLC’s 49.9 MW Blue Harvest Solar Park in Putnam County, OH is online.
• Timber Road Solar Park LLC’s 49.9 MW Timber Road Solar Park in Paulding County, OH is online. The power generated is sold to Amazon under long-term contract.
• Flawan Pitts Dudik Solar LLC’s 49.6 MW Pitts Dudik Solar Project in Hill County, TX is online.
• Flint Hills Resources LP’s 45.0 MW Pine Bend Refinery Solar Project in Dakota County, MN is online.
• Indian Creek Solar Farm LLC’s 30.0 MW Prairie Creek Solar Project in Morgan County, IL is online.
• Dominion Energy Inc’s 20.0 MW Norge Solar Farm in James City County, VA is online.
• ELP Stillwater Solar LLC’s 20.0 MW Stillwater Solar Project in Saratoga County, NY is online.
• Blue Elk Solar VII LLC’s 12.5 MW Blue Elk Solar VII Project in Genesee County, MI is online. The power generated is sold to Consumers Energy Co under long-term contract.
• Dry Bridge Solar 1 LLC’s 10.0 MW Dry Bridge Solar (Brown Univ.) Project in Washington County, RI is online.
• Dry Bridge Solar 2 LLC’s 10.0 MW Dry Bridge Solar (Brown Univ.) Project in Washington County, RI is online.
• Dry Bridge Solar 3 LLC’s 10.0 MW Dry Bridge Solar (Brown Univ.) Project in Washington County, RI is online.
• Dry Bridge Solar 4 LLC’s 10.0 MW Dry Bridge Solar (Brown Univ.) Project in Washington County, RI is online.
• Gorham Solar 1 LLC’s 5.0 MW Gorham Solar Project in Cumberland County, ME is online.
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A list like this for just one month is of course useless for quantitative analysis, and isn’t even complete – a table elsewhere includes 5 more smaller fossil gas projects, and 23 solar. It does strikingly convey important qualitative information about the breadth and depth of the energy transition well and truly under way.
Gas is on the back burner with only one significant project. This is borne out in FERC’s table with the three-year running forecast, which gives “highly probable” net additions by December 2026 of 3.6 Gw for gas against 19.2 Gw for wind and 91.1 Gw for solar.
The renewable boom is very widely spread, both geographically and in size of installations. This reflects the fact that economies of scale are limited in wind above the minimum economic turbine size of about 2 Mw, and even lower in solar, where a 100 Mw farm consists of thousands of panels essentially the same as those that householders can bolt to their roofs.
5 megawatts of wind can be built in the USA for about $6.5m, solar a bit less, about $5m. Each of the 23 projects represented a significant investment by its backers. In some cases promoters expect to sell on a completed project to a long-term passive investor like a pension fund, but either way each project creates stakeholder owners. There are other stakeholders too: local and state governments levying property taxes: landowners collecting rent; the manufacturers, importers and installers of the plants; and maintenance workers, few in number but their jobs are long-term and local.
We can expect this growing mycelium of stakeholders to advocate for the maintenance of transition-friendly state and federal policies like maintaining tax breaks, cutting direct and indirect subsidies to fossil fuels, strengthening the grid to minimise offtake curtailments, and curbing monopsonistic abuses by electric utilities buying the output. In theory existing renewable investors would like to maintain legacy incentives and cut them for new entrants, but this is pretty much impossible to organise, and the proposition does not hold for the other stakeholders. The stakeholders collectively have to support the transition generally against the weakening fossil fuel lobby.
You can set it to music: https://youtu.be/vh-yCMyoWJk?si=EspWZjr7U7dUesNm Turn up the volume.
Rich text!!?? Whaaaaa … ? Thanks, professor!!
Great news, James!! And I’m enjoying the opera channel … I like the next song even better … don’t know what it is though …
Sometimes I could wish that you lived here instead, so you could help me think through some of the cray-cray choices that are being made. This is selfish of me though, so I’m glad it’s not the case.
Oh, also. A prayer request for the US election this year, people. We really need it. Ay caramba. (I am mildly hopeful though. But. With the inflation hangover, I may be smoking something, so to speak.)
Geoff,
Thanks for the update and empirical corrections. I just lost a longer post. I still have to find out how to reply reliably on WordPress, darn it.
Above, I was referring to the heatstroke issue.
Some Russian provincial cities having real problems this northern winter. See,
“‘Total Disgrace’: Anger, Frustration as Mass Heating Failures Across Russia Leave Thousands in the Cold” – The Moscow Times, Independent News from Russia.
File under: “When waging a pointless, inhuman war is more important than looking after your own people”. With climate change and more extreme weather events, many nations now look like losing the battle to maintain infrastructure. The diversion of resources to war, tourism, sport and other unaffordable absurdities (in a world in crisis) is making matters worse of course.
It’s my contention that goldbugs share much with crypto; they both hate regulation, reserve banks and taxation and harbour this desire to have and hold their own money.
The new president of Argentina, Javier Milei, holds strong libertarian views, saying that collectivism is the source of evil and that unbridled and unfettered capitalism will save the world. He argues that left alone markets can never fail and that govt intervention is the failure.
He’s also a great fan of crypto, in particular Bitcoin, arguing that it is an impeccable concept that will take money away from the central bank and restore it to private hands. His election saw the value of Bitcoin rise as punters anticipated the promotion of their preferred store of wealth.
So it’s with some amusement that his first acts, to drastically devalue the peso and to cut public expenditure, have been applauded by the IMF.
https://www.nytimes.com/2023/12/12/opinion/argentina-dollar-milei.html
For those who are interested:
“Individually optimal choices can be collectively disastrous in COVID-19 disease control”
– Madison Stoddard, Debra Van Egeren, Kaitlyn E. Johnson, Smriti Rao, Josh Furgeson, Douglas E. White, Ryan P. Nolan, Natasha Hochberg, Arijit Chakravarty.
“Background – The word ‘pandemic’ conjures dystopian images of bodies stacked in the streets and societies on the brink of collapse. Despite this frightening picture, denialism and noncompliance with public health measures are common in the historical record, for example during the 1918 Influenza pandemic or the 2015 Ebola epidemic. The unique characteristics of SARS-CoV-2—its high basic reproduction number (R0), time-limited natural immunity and considerable potential for asymptomatic spread—exacerbate the public health repercussions of noncompliance with interventions (such as vaccines and masks) to limit disease transmission. Our work explores the rationality and impact of noncompliance with measures aimed at limiting the spread of SARS-CoV-2. Methods In this work, we used game theory to explore when noncompliance confers a perceived benefit to individuals. We then used epidemiological modelling to predict the impact of noncompliance on control of SARS-CoV-2, demonstrating that the presence of a noncompliant subpopulation prevents suppression of disease spread. Results Our modelling demonstrates that noncompliance is a Nash equilibrium under a broad set of conditions and that the existence of a noncompliant population can result in extensive endemic disease in the long-term after a return to pre-pandemic social and economic activity. Endemic disease poses a threat for both compliant and noncompliant individuals; all community members are protected if complete suppression is achieved, which is only possible with a high degree of compliance. For interventions that are highly effective at preventing disease spread, however, the consequences of noncompliance are borne disproportionately by noncompliant individuals. Conclusions In sum, our work demonstrates the limits of free-market approaches to compliance with disease control measures during a pandemic. The act of noncompliance with disease intervention measures creates a negative externality, rendering suppression of SARS-CoV-2 spread ineffective. Our work underscores the importance of developing effective strategies for prophylaxis through public health measures aimed at complete suppression and the need to focus on compliance at a population level.”
The free choice, free market, free-to-create-negative-externalities approach to epidemic / endemic disease control does not work. (It also does not work for stopping climate change.) Gee, who woulda thunk it? Well, just about anybody with an analytical brain who does not credulously accept unfettered free market and individualist ideologies.
Iconoclast, There are benefits to me in being immunised or taking action to protect myself from infection. In undertaking such actions I will compare these benefits with any inconvenience or health costs that will accrue to me and take the actions if benefits exceed costs. But if I am selfish I won’t account for the benefits that accrue to others from taking these measures so I will underinvest in protective measures from a social viewpoint. Yes, it is called an external cost that is ignored here and the reason for intervening in private decision making to get people to take protective measures. I don’t know a single economist on the planet who would reject such reasoning.
Ditto for climate change. It is in individual national interests to hope every country will mitigate but selfish individual countries will only do so if the benefits they derive exceed their individual national costs. Selfish countries will ignore the benefits to other countries from their decisions to mitigate. A cooperative agreement seeks to internalise these external benefits.
That free individual choices don’t necessarily lead to efficient outcomes in these situations (and many others) would be taught in every undergraduate economics program everywhere. Yes, in both cases there are externalities. It isn’t some profound radical insight but standard economics.
Iko: A tip to avoid losing draft comments to enemy action (power cuts, cat walking on the keyboard, spouse officiously shutting down your computer to save the planet) or endogenous age-related brain rot: compose anything longer than one short paragraph in a word processor. Set this up to autosave every 5 minutes and make backups. As a bonus you get a better spellcheck, access to special characters, and a file copy at negligible extra effort. When you copy and paste your handiwork into the blog web page, WordPress may destroy your fancy formatting, so you need to run a final check.
James,
Yes, a piece of wisdom I have given out to others and then forgotten to apply to myself.
Anonymous at Jan 23, 2024.
Re “It isn’t some profound radical insight but standard economics.”
Perhaps so, but it isn’t applied. It seems to be taught everywhere but applied nowhere. It certainly would be radical if it were applied.
The Stage 3 Tax cuts look like they will not go ahead. It is the second major deception by the Albanese Government – the other being that it would not subject superannuation funds to increased taxes. Both measures will be enthusiastically supported by most of those on the left. Perhaps less strongly supported by the latte left in Double Bay and St Kilda.
The first two stages of tax cuts “rewarded” low and middle income earners and Stage 3 was intended to “reward” those on “high” incomes – people earning incomes at about the level or above of a university professor. I use the “…” symbols here as the initial moves were not real reductions at all – the first two stages only incompletely compensated low/medium income earners for bracket creep. Ideally bracket creep should be prevented by legislation but no politician will ever vote for that reform.
The decision to forgo the Third Stage cuts amounts to an effective increase in taxes on high income Australians who are not compensated for bracket creep as well as a increase in the number of Australians who fall into this bracket.
It is scarcely surprising that the proposed reforms gave much larger benefits to high income households than those lower incomes (the standard defence of the Albanese deception) since high-income earners pay most income taxes in Australia – the top 10% of income earners pay 46% of all income taxes. The bottom 50% of income earners pay 11% of all income taxes. It amounts to squeezing the top hard.
The top income tax bracket in Australia cuts in at a level established by Kevin Rudd in 2007 at $180,000 – if it were indexed that would be $260,000 today. Under the Albanese policy switch this will not change – nor will the effective marginal tax rate of 47% (computed inclusive of the Medicare levy) be cut.
When does “soak the rich” as an ethic become excessive?
There must be some upper bound since only fools would argue for total equality of incomes – the substitution effects providing disincentive effects on work effort would become ridiculously high. Is the only acceptable tax reform one that always increases progressivity short of that driving total equality? The decision to forego the Stage 3 tax cuts is not only politically deceptive (after repeated assurances prior to the last election that the reforms would proceed) but will impact on 1 million “rich” Australians. But “soak the rich” will always win in a democracy where most taxpayers get benefits from this soaking.
Harry Clarke (I cite my name – the new WP software describes me as anonymous)
Adjusting to changed circumstances is more important than keeping a so-called promise that locks us as a nation into greater inequality and lack of revenue to deal with the climate change emergency and the health and housing crises, to name a few issues.
I am not a fan of Albanese’s government. They are still neoliberals but they have a slight amount of realism and compassion. The other mob have none of those qualities at all.
The theoretical question about whether this upper bound exists has no practical relevance so long as there’s no evidence that we’re approaching it.
Why China cannot decarbonise
https://press-files.anu.edu.au/downloads/press/n10704/pdf/08_focus_smith.pdf
Roger_f: – “Why China cannot decarbonise…”
Meanwhile, Prof Eliot Jacobson tweeted Jan 26:
Extreme weather events are the top risk facing supply chains in 2024, according to an annual outlook report from Everstream Analytics.
On 12 Jan 2024, Berkeley Earth published their comprehensive Global Temperature Report for 2023 by Robert Rohde. On the question of whether global warming is accelerating, there are already indicators that suggest that:
Either China (and every other nation) finds ways to decarbonise, and quickly, or humanity likely won’t have an ongoing civilisation in the next few decades.
Modern Times update
In the wake of the latest episode of the long-running quality control scandal at Boeing, this lesser one has popped up https://therecord.media/bosch-rexroth-pneumatic-wrenches-vulnerabilities-disclosed:
“Several vulnerabilities have been found in a popular line of pneumatic torque wrenches made by a subsidiary of Bosch, a German engineering and technology corporation. The mechanical wrenches are typically found in manufacturing facilities that perform safety-critical tightening tasks, especially automotive production lines, according to researchers at industrial cybersecurity firm Nozomi Networks. The vulnerabilities in the Bosch Rexroth NXA015S-36V-B nutrunner/pneumatic torque wrench have not been exploited yet, the researchers said. But the discovery underscores how the manufacturing process offers potential avenues for malicious hackers.”
The security risk is hypothetical, publicised by an interested party, and Bosch claim they have already fixed it. What makes my blood boil is something else.
Battery-powered torque wrenches are standard gear today, in garages and production lines. The torque for tightening nuts is set manually, and the tool applies it accurately until the setting is changed. What Bosch did is network the tool over WiFi. This offers no benefit to the operator, but allows management to monitor and control the operator’s work, and by deskilling to shift it to less skilled and cheaper workers.
It’s as pretty a parable of alienation and the infantilisation of manual work as anything you can find in Marx or Chaplin. Do we really want to keep going down this road? Do you want to fly in planes assembled by low-wage workers with roughly the baseline manual skills of yours truly, quickly trained in a few repetitive procedures, or by skilled workers who have earned their personal responsibility for quality production from full training and proven conscientiousness? A decade ago, Toyota, who make boring cars that don’t fall apart, and are faithful disciples of Deming, decided to reduce the numbers of robots on its production lines. Robots won’t tell managers when things are going wrong. https://qz.com/196200/toyota-is-becoming-more-efficient-by-replacing-robots-with-humans
I can see one exception where this technology would be justified. Army combat engineers are trained to assemble temporary bridges of the modular Bailey type quickly and even under fire, bolting together small steel components in situ like Meccano. Trained sappers are a scarce resource on the front line, and at a pinch wifi battery wrenches could be operated by any other soldiers around.
Chaplin v. a lot of hexagonal nuts. https://sbiff.org/wp-content/uploads/moderntimes-1080×675.png
The COVID-19 bad news just keeps on coming. Channel 9 News surprisingly did a report last night on the high level of COVID-19 infections occurring in Qld hospitals and the concerning number of deaths involved. Infectious disease controls against air-borne illness in Qld hospitals are clearly barely existent or largely ineffective. There is no will among our leaders to do anything about it.
Also, “Study links COVID-19 infections in pregnant women to (an increase in) respiratory health issues in newborn babies”. Reported on the ABC and other sites.
We’ve become a society which does not care about dangerous infections or takes only minimal and ineffective actions against them. This mirrors how we have become a society that does not care about climate change (in any way that leads to even the most basic effective action). We’ve become a society, nationally and globally, that doesn’t care about the future at all, only about greed today and having fun and spectaculars tomorrow, no matter the long term costs. We’ve become a society which pays no attention to the science because that would require that we make profound changes in everything we do.
It becomes very hard to wrap one’s mind around how deeply we are in trouble. I guess that’s why most people have given up and are just living for the day. Living that way of course only accelerates the disaster.
A fine takedown by Mike Barnard on FCEV maintenance costs. Short take: FCEVs are twice as complex as BEVS (same battery system, added fuel cell system). Real data on hydrogen buses confirm the higher maintenance costs you would expect. Assumptions of low FCEV maintenance costs are fiction. He does not say “lies”, but I will. https://cleantechnica.com/2024/01/26/hydrogen-fleets-are-much-more-expensive-to-maintain-than-battery-even-diesel/
I’m still loving the rich text!! Thank you!!
Not that you asked, professor, but it would be pretty cool to have a way to give a thumb’s up to other comments. (It sometimes seems awkward – maybe just to me - when no one says anything - yet, it may not always be necessary to make a new comment.) A checkmark, a star, just something positive.
Re Ike: choice between neolibs and nutjobs - same here but worse. Our nutjobs are nuttier, and we also have a significant group of greenwash neolibs, a most dangerous subset. (I’d put an emoji but I don’t know which one.)
Total agreement about Boeing. What a disgrace. It perhaps comes from their board. A few years back, they were playing off unions in different states - so, it has been publicly known that they are s-heads. Sorry to swear, but it’s true.
And don’t get me started on GM. Anyway. Keep hope alive!
“No-one has yet come up with even a partial explanation as to why it is only safe for scientists working with SARS-COV-2 to do so under stringent precautions in a Level 3 biosecurity lab, but for your Auntie Nelly, already in hospital, it’s just an inconsequential ‘cold’.” – Dr David Berger.
In other words, it is not safe for people in hospital (or out of it for that matter) to catch SARS-COV-2, a biosecurity Level 3 disease.
Other “common examples of microbes found in BSL-3 labs include yellow fever, West Nile virus, and the bacteria that causes tuberculosis. Microbes found within biosafety level 3 settings are so serious that work is often strictly controlled and registered through the appropriate government agencies.” – Consolidated Sterilizer Systems, Laboratory Biosecurity Level Checklist.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/1748917066587852851.html
We are living in a public health “Barbieland” (Brendan Crabbe) where people are pretending this pandemic is not happening, not continuing.
Excess mortality as a percentage above expected by jurisdiction in 2023:
Qld 10.1% , NSW 10.7%, Victoria 13.2%, Tasmania 13.6%
That looks continuing to me and indeed in most states the figure is higher than in 2022.
Recently, we see the evolution of the now dominant “Pirola”, JN.1, which represents a “step-change” in COVID-19 evolution, in many ways equivalent in magnitude to the step-change to Omicron back in the day. This virus has reached no evolutionary ceiling or stasis yet (that’s not how evolution works anyway) and does not look likely to. Every new major variant is a new “tree of bad chances”.
Why do people persist in playing in this lottery of doom? They have been misled and they can’t think for themselves. In his thread, Dr. David Berger refers to the issue of behavioural economics or behavioural insights which disciplines are being misused to manipulate the population into acceptance of, even support for, the endless pandemic.
People will reap what they sow. This pandemic already is and will continue to be a harvest of death, illness and misery for large swathes of the population. Nothing will change this disastrous course until we make a step-change in how we run our society and do it on scientific and humane principles.
Anonymous above is me, Ikonoclast. I thought I had posting sorting and it goes and stuffs up again. What in heck is wrong with word press or the way I use it? Any thoughts?
It seems I had a login issue with the C-19 post, maybe. This is a test. – Ikonoclast.
Lithium ion batteries are a bust IMHO. They are simply not safe enough. I’ve watched the increasing reports of lithium battery fires with concern. So have fire departments. Yet, researchers have analysed data from the National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB).They found that per 100,000 cars sold in each category, electric vehicles had the lowest number of fires. Hybrid vehicles had the highest risk ratio for fire and traditional cars were in the middle.
https://www.popsci.com/technology/electric-vehicle-fire-rates-study/
On the other hand, lithium fires present “unique” difficulties to extinguish. But fuel and plastics fires are pretty nasty too are they not? Lithium batteries have unique disposal problems and cause fires in waste stream processing when improperly disposed. ICE fuel disposal is fine right? It mostly goes out the exhaust pipe but… um… climate change.
When I say lithium ion batteries are crappy IMHO, that is not me saying ICE vehicles are good. It is me saying lithium ion batteries are not good enough going forward. They will have to be superseded by something better with higher energy density, higher safety profiles, better recharge characteristics and so on.
I have a few lithium ion batteries including one for an electric mower and one for other gardening implements. I have high quality ones but I am still becoming more careful about charging and supervising charging. I don’t fully trust them anymore. I will likely never change my ICE ride-on mower for a lithium ion battery ride-on if one even came on the market with power, endurance and price in its favour. I could never trust its safety. I will never purchase a lithium ion battery EV either. This marks a change in my thinking.
Lithium ion battery EVs will never work at scale. This is not me saying ICE vehicles are environmentally sustainable. Of course, they are not. I further doubt that EVs will ever work at scale and be sustainable, no matter the battery type. In a sustainable future, private automobiles would have to become a thing of the past.
EVs would need to overcome the safety issues and the ecological footprint issues (still vast from mining, changing, disposal). Electric vehicles will never work at scale for long haul or long distance travel. The charging logistics will not work. How long does an ICE vehicle spend at a bowser? It depends of course on fuel capacity and lo-flow/hi-flow bowser pumps but let us say 5 minutes for automobiles.
How long does a depleted EV stay at a charging station? At a public DC fast or ultra-rapid charging station it can take between 20 to 60 minutes to recharge from 10 to 80 per cent. Who goes to 80% on a long trip? Let us take the average to near 100% as 50 minutes. I think this optimistic. Therefore, we will need about 10 times the charging stations compared to fuel bowers and maybe 10 times the footprint in all areas. Good luck with that. This is for long trips.
In a city and making urban commutes, trickle charging from an ordinary power point will be a lot more viable, at home and in car parks. So maybe that will work. But overall, everyone on the planet with an EV will not be sustainable anyway. As usual, we are kidding ourselves about sustainability. Everything we do is unsustainable and every conceivable alternative, at least in a consumption-worshiping society is unsustainable. Everybody is living in fantasy land, IMHO.
But I am willing to hear arguments about why I am wrong.
Rain bomb hits Samford and Moreton Shire. More houses flooded in my area this time around. Several houses were demolished after the last rain bomb. I guess they will be demolishing a few more this time, if consistent. Meanwhile, so far as I can tell, developers are still being permitted to put houses in dubious locations. The old regulation permitted slab homes 0.5 m above a 1 in 50 year flood level probability. If that is still in place it is wholly inadequate. 1in 50 is now 1 in 2 so far as I can tell, at least in La Niña years. It looks like La Niña years may be becoming far more common for Australia. Hard to tell as the climate destabilises.
We have entered the era of continuous emergencies and we are doing nothing to prevent them and nothing to prepare for them. Always playing catch-up after the last disaster. Climate change is global. Damage is local for people.
Another day, another climate change rain bomb. This time hitting Samford and Moreton Shire again, in my general locality, and hitting many other places too. At least some houses flooded in my suburb by the last rain bomb (a whole 2 years ago) were demolished. Presumably some others in my general area were also demolished after that event. Well, more have flooded this time. So either this event was worse (shorter so far but more intense) or more houses need to be demolished or drainage has worsened or these houses were built since the last local floods, or any and all of these. In so many ways we are not preparing for the massive climate change and climate destabilisation imminent and already hitting us. It has started. Australia is in massive trouble and is still doing nothing substantial about it. We should be on a permanent footing of climate-proofing, pandemic proofing, housing security, food security and energy security programs. Anything less and Australia disintegrates.
I think a lot of people think if 90% of the population is okay then the nation is okay. That’s a hell of a risk to take. One bad event in your life and you can fall into the 10%. It can happen so easily. Wake up people. This level of existential risk, social risk and lack of planning and social support is dangerous for everybody.
On 29 Jan 2024, Prof Jacobson posted on his blog a piece headlined How Hot is Hell? I Mean Earth? He states:
His analysis indicates for 2024, with the average of the previous 10 years as actually measured, together with the forecast for the next 10 years based on models, the Earth System is at +1.38 °C (relative to the 1850-1900 baseline). This is a much higher estimate than what most climate scientists are stating.
His analysis indicates the current decadal average gain is 0.30 °C, rising to 0.35 °C per decade by 2034. The +1.5 °C multi-year threshold is projected to be breached by the end of 2028.
The +1.5 °C breach timing looks consistent with Table 1 in the 1 Mar 2021 paper by Claudia Tebaldi et al. titled Climate model projections from the Scenario Model Intercomparison Project (ScenarioMIP) of CMIP6. They use an 11-year running mean.
And yet many don’t want to believe that holding at +1.5 °C is now impossible. Dr Ella Gilbert, in her YouTube channel, explores the question: Is it time to give up on the 1.5°C climate target?
It seems obvious, from the recent Nemesis programs, that the LNP’s only policy is that they aren’t Labor. In this regard they mimic US Republicans, whose only policy is that they don’t like that the President is a democrat.
Deep state is what Republicans call their public service and in Australia the LNP’s continued demolition of the PS has left the govt without a quality resource to rely on. Hence Robodebt.
This demonisation of the PS has its roots in the corruption of govt by both fossil fuel and media interests, IMO.
Re energy and carbon; where exactly is the world at?
https://www.nathanielbullard.com/presentations?fbclid=IwAR1N3OyLd6UCuvFJmhI7yVFFhLEAdYQ3A0nDdvl7YbClm9BhueR_3rhfZxY_aem_AbU2Zi874zJjIJ87fFbCU3P33xFAAcQEuYIv66hcbrOR3ir5EtL-Z8BRVbT6kk8IUB0
Roger_f: – “…where exactly is the world at?“
Prof Eliot Jacobson tweeted Feb 2:
A bigger y-axis will likely be needed soon.
A deeply troubling discovery’: Earth may have already passed the crucial 1.5°C warming limit
https://theconversation.com/a-deeply-troubling-discovery-earth-may-have-already-passed-the-crucial-1-5-c-warming-limit-222601
300 years of sclerosponge thermometry shows global warming has exceeded 1.5 °C
https://www.nature.com/articles/s41558-023-01919-7
Sclerosponge thermometry shows the more nearly true immediate pre-industrial global average temperature was lower than estimates used by IPCC. This recalibrates our baseline. We appear to have already exceeded a 1.5 °C global average increase.
Still trying to figure out to which extent the lack of Ukrainian artillery ammunition is caused by the US simply not delivering any more with Trump Republicans gone so much more mad than usual. There is also a lack of production capacities, which is the major constraint. It seems most western countries are not making much of an effort to speed things up like it would be appropriate under the circumstances. Rather, things go the regular bureaucratic way, with local opposition to new construction throughout the legal system in business as usual mode and companies making sure they make as much money as possible before they start making an effort. France does not even plan to make an effort to increase production.
In fiscal terms, this is all small change, even in the worst possible, suppliers exploit the situation scenario. The US factories are government run, by the way, which seems to be the wiser choice. They also seem to supply the best quality.