The shift away from coal corresponds to the development of fracking for oil, with the waste byproduct of gas coming up with the oil, ie, the gas was basically free.
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Energy Discussion
- Thread starter Treetop Flyer
- Start date
Politics! Every time nuclear power is mentioned Chernobyl, Fukushima and/or Three Mile Island are almost obligatorily mentioned. No matter that they were all older designs with much more risk than more recent designs, or that the US Navy has operated nuclear reactors safely for 70 years, or their ecological advantages, or....pick a reason. POLITICS!
And to be frank given the history of corporations and governments cutting costs coupled with human behavior I really wouldn't past someone, somewhere, somehow fucking something up with even one of the newer designs.
Human psychology again. I rest my case.
Interesting side note on this, during the depression my grandfather (a country lawyer) settled legal cases in barter often getting various plots of land across Texas. These were eventually leased for their mineral rights and paid him a tidy (but not millionaire) sum in oil revenue. When he died he basically kept it all together as an LLC and had the revenue divided equally between his heirs. Over time the oil ran out and the leases were renewed at a smaller amount for fracking. Just this month we signed a new lease where the wells will be pumped full of saltwater and that will then be extracted pulling up lithium!
Interesting chart on global electricity:
From Peter Zeihan, news on the seizure of Russian shadow tankers - he says it is now open season.
Don’t forget the nuclear waste argument which when taken for 50 years of production would fill a couple Olympic size swimming pools total…
We literally have a way to put all of it in the ground at depths that would be impossible to risk exposure but the nimby people come out screaming at the thought of it so it just sits in on site storage tanks.
I get that, but that is part of the price of living in a democratic society. Emotions can get pretty heated over nuclear energy and waste, especially given our history with both, and with the specter of Chernobyl and Fukushima looming in the background it will be hard to overcome.
To follow on with the shadow tankers, a fascinating discussion between Peter Zeihan and Scott Galloway.
Lot of energy being taken offline. The attack and destruction of Nordstream, regime reshuffling in Venezuela, attacks on the shadow tanker fleet and now perhaps the biggest of all, Iran and the Gulf States - and the country that is perhaps the furthest out (distance) on the energy chain is China.
Lot of energy being taken offline. The attack and destruction of Nordstream, regime reshuffling in Venezuela, attacks on the shadow tanker fleet and now perhaps the biggest of all, Iran and the Gulf States - and the country that is perhaps the furthest out (distance) on the energy chain is China.
And one that is becoming less vulnerable to disruptions in oil supply increased costs due to diversification of their power supply over the years. That includes heavy investments in renewables, which now account for ~32% of electrical generation (to include 10% from wind and 8% from solar) while coal has dropped from ~74% in 2006 to about 58% in 2024, along with an increasingly widespread adoption of electrical vehicles and an emergency oil reserve three times the size of our own.
We are being so fucking stupid about the energy long game right now, it almost makes me weep.
Maybe this Iran thing and $200/barrel oil will knock some sense into the electorate.
China has the biggest wind farms in the world, but our administration is actively shutting ours down - and halting construction of existing projects
I am genuinely sad that I won't see a shift from carbon based energy in my lifetime.
We should be building vast wind farms where it's windy and big solar where it's sunny. And investing in large battery storage. And reducing regulatory burden for next gen nuclear.
The headwinds of bad policy, insisting of using corn for ethanol, subsiding big oil are just too much to overcome politically at the moment.
We have bad energy policy in America and I am disappointed by it all
Pairs nicely with our food and health care policy.
My retirement plan is a yurt in the woods. I won’t be racking up million dollar hospital bills for my family or the taxpayers to absorb. You’re welcome.