Ch 8.3 - Energy
"We know what a world without fossil fuels looks like - we used to live in it. It was cold, poor, ignorant, starving, and backward." - Ross McKitrick
Narrative: Climate change is an existential threat. No other environmental issue even comes close. CO2 levels are too high and still rising. If we don’t take drastic measures soon humans are done for.
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a. Fossil Fuels
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"The State of California makes more money off a gallon of gas via taxation, than Exxon/Mobil does by producing it." - Unknown
"Imagine thinking oil and gas are subsidized. The reality is that oil and gas are one of the most heavily taxed industries in the world. After severance and product taxes, they're by far negative in net subsidies." - Unknown
"This year, government oil and gas revenues are set to make a new record of $2.5 trillion, according to Norway's Rystad Energy. For context, global GDP will be about $102 trillion. With high commodity prices, many governments produce over $50 per barrel. Two dollars are paid in taxes to governments for every dollar spent producing oil and gas. Against $2 trillion in global taxes on oil and gas production, you would need more than $2 trillion in subsidies to be "propping up" fossil fuels. They compare the supply cost of the product with the prices paid by users in the country and multiply that by the total consumption of the product. If the international price of gasoline is $4/gallon, but the price locally is $2/gallon, the explicit subsidy would be $2/gallon times the total gallons of gasoline consumed in that country for that year." - Unknown
"I suggest expunging 'fossil fuels' from your vocabulary in favor of hydrocarbons—a much better and more precise word." - Unknown
"The only proven alternatives to hydrocarbon fuels are poverty, cold, disease, and darkness. All other supposed choices are expensive fictions you can only indulge in if you have a lot of hydrocarbons." - Unknown
"Before the manufacture of petroleum products started in the 1850s, the lifespan from birth was just 38 years." - Unknown
"As an oil industry worker, I can tell you that I only put up with the sh*t because there are no Karens, the guys I work with are savages which makes it fun and the pay is excellent. You nationalize this with a bunch of useless govt idiots trying to make it work, it will end over night and we'll be living in mad max world. I fancy my chances in that world, but blue haired Karens will be dishing out hand jobs for diesel in weeks." - Unknown
"They are trying to ban any form of energy that you can bottle up and store. This is a war on the prepared. Ask yourself why they would want people to be weak and unprepared for what is coming. Now would be the time to buy that extra 1000 gallon propane tank if you have the resources to do so." - Unknown
"If we aren't hearing the alarm bells, it's because we're deaf..." - Javier Blas, Bloomberg Opinion on tight gasoline and diesel inventories
"Groceries: laundry soaps will be powders in square cardboard, no more using petroleum to make wastefully shaped plastic jugs, or shipping water or empty air space.
Milk: Moo milk will be at a premium for years until the herd ages out (or burger will be cheap), since diesel's used to raise and farm crops to feed the animals, then move milk to a packaging facility, then distribute the containers. Powdered milk will be the norm. (Get used to it now.)
Deliveries: Amazon prime will become amazon premium, where you pay monthly to only get the cloud-based services, no more free shipping.
Logistics: Distribution will need to get much more efficient. We'll try to have computers do it, but things will change so.fast the ai can't learn what we want it to in time. Human logisticians will be more popular than internet influencers." - Unknown, on what a diesel shortage would look like
"Look at the pipeline projects that aimed at transporting gas to Europe. Nabucco (Azerbaidschan to Europe): cancelled. Katar/Arabian peninsula to Europe: blocked (Syrian crisis). East Med (Israel, Cyprus, Greece, Egypt) to Europe: cancelled, Southstream, Russia to Europe via Black Sea: cancelled. Northstream: destroyed: West Africa to Europe (blocked). Jamal (Russia to Europe): Deliveries stopped (response to sanctions), Sojus (Russia to Europe via Ukraine): Deliveries stopped (war). Bruderschaft (Russia to Europe via Ukraine): ?, Turkstream (Russia to Turkey/Balkans via Black Sea): Does not deliver to central and Western Europe. The biggest available gas deposits exist in Russia, the Arabian peninsula, Iran, Turkmenistan, China. The majority of smaller countries exporting gas is out of reach for Europe (Africa, Near and Middle East, Asia, South America). The only viable option remaining is the US." - Unknown
"Ideally, the U.S. should be interested in anything that brings more oil and gas online and stabilizes the market. Sure ... sure .... Nah ... the deep state doesn't like competitors in the gas industry. Not when it's getting such good prices supplying Europe after Nordstream." - Unknown
"Gosh, burn natural gas to heat water to make steam to turn turbines to turn generators that send electricity through wires that average 50% loss due to resistance to make heat is more costly than burning the natural gas locally for heat? Who would have guessed?" - Unknown
"If our power grids are vulnerable why ban gas stoves? Ohhh." - KelemenCari
b. Clean Energy
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"Taken together, the grid has been called the largest machine in the world, comprising eleven thousand power plants, three thousand utilities, and more than two million miles of power lines. In practice, however, there are three separate U.S. grids, or self-contained interconnections of power production and transmission. These are the Eastern, Western, and Texas interconnections." - Unknown
”Wheel out. Get shorty. Fat boy.” - Trading strategies used to exploit the California power grid from the movie The Smartest Guys in the Room
"Wind and solar energy is not green energy. It's leprechaun energy. It's associated with the color green and there's always a pot of gold at the end of the rainbow you will never reach." - Unknown
“On wind energy, we get a tax credit if we build a lot of wind farms. That's the only reason to build them. They don't make sense without the tax credit.” – Warren Buffett
"For instance, a 3-MW wind turbine contains up to 4.7 TONS of copper. Onshore wind farms use approximately 7,766 lbs. (3.883 TONS) of copper per MW. Offshore wind farms use over 21k pounds per MW (10.5 tons). PER MW nameplate." - Unknown
"Did you know they have to 'jump start' those ****ers by using LOTS of electricity FROM THE GRID to get them rolling before they can start feeding power back ONTO the grid?" - Unknown
"Solar power systems use abt 5.5 tons of copper per MW (heat exchangers of solar plus wiring and cabling that transmits the electricity in PV cells). 262 GW of new solar installations between 2018 and 2027 in North America alone = 1.9 billion lbs. of copper." - Unknown
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