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World is "cooked" if we carry on with coal, US says


Eldorado

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The US envoy on climate change John Kerry has warned that the war in Ukraine must not be used as an excuse to prolong global reliance on coal.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Kerry criticised a number of large countries for not living up to the promises they made at the COP26 climate summit.

Climate diplomats meet again today in Bonn amid new, energy security worries.

If countries extend their reliance on coal in response to the war, then "we are cooked," Mr Kerry said.

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-61659620

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FrankenKerry's brain was cooked long ago.  Every economic ill that America is suffering right now stems from debt burden and the intentional gutting of our energy policies.  The Left has created an atmosphere that throttles energy production and runs prices up intentionally.  We were told yesterday to expect 4+ dollar gas "for the foreseeable future".  IT IS BEING DONE INTENTIONALLY.  Every other inflated cost ripples out from the elevated cost of production and distribution.  

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12 minutes ago, and then said:

FrankenKerry's brain was cooked long ago.  Every economic ill that America is suffering right now stems from debt burden and the intentional gutting of our energy policies.  The Left has created an atmosphere that throttles energy production and runs prices up intentionally.  We were told yesterday to expect 4+ dollar gas "for the foreseeable future".  IT IS BEING DONE INTENTIONALLY.  Every other inflated cost ripples out from the elevated cost of production and distribution.  

So get into your electric car and quit complaining about gas prices.

Or didn't you get one?

Believe it or not, the current high prices are, in part, the result of the oil companies doing the responsible thing for a change.

Even if they start drilling like mad right now, it will still be fall before new production comes on line.  When it does, the over-supply will cause prices to plummet below the profitability level, necessitating shutting down most $3 million wells.  Then they will be paying interest on the money they borrowed to drill those wells.  Guess who gets to pay that.  So by drilling only enough to meet needs, they avid the price swings.

Doug

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10 hours ago, Doug1066 said:

So get into your electric car and quit complaining about gas prices.

Or didn't you get one?

Believe it or not, the current high prices are, in part, the result of the oil companies doing the responsible thing for a change.

Even if they start drilling like mad right now, it will still be fall before new production comes on line.  When it does, the over-supply will cause prices to plummet below the profitability level, necessitating shutting down most $3 million wells.  Then they will be paying interest on the money they borrowed to drill those wells.  Guess who gets to pay that.  So by drilling only enough to meet needs, they avid the price swings.

Doug

I agree.   We should have been proactive and have the drilling happening already.  

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18 hours ago, Doug1066 said:

Even if they start drilling like mad right now, it will still be fall before new production comes on line. 

They were stopped from producing by crushing regulations that were put in place to achieve precisely that - STOPPING PRODUCTION.  You aren't a foolish person nor an uneducated man.  You KNOW what your party is doing and by supporting it you are also responsible for the suffering it is causing the poor and now, even the middle class.  How do you justify it?  Is it "for the greater good" or do you really just ignore the pain it causes others because you feel like you're "winning" some fight against your political enemies? 

You are going to see exactly how the majority in this nation feel about your vision for the future and it's only about 5 months away now.

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I was talking about drilling, as in OIL drilling.

But now that you bring it up:  I have seen first-hand the damage done by strip mining.  And the land owners get 3 cents per ton for it.  The original landowners sold their mineral rights during the depression when deep mining was the only technology available.  They sold it by the ton, figuring that maybe they'd get a little something for their coal.  Now it is three or four generations later and the great-grandchildren don't even know that they don't own the mineral rights.  Until one day the bulldozers show up and rip up their wheat field.  That's what it means to poor farmers.  So don't give me your crap.  More later.

Dog

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To continue:

Wind is the cheapest source of electric energy out there (c. 3c/kwh).  Gas-fired turbines are a close second.  Hydro is next.  I'm not sure about the current situation, but gas boilers, solar and oil are somewhere close to 4th-6th.  Coal is next and nuclear is a dismal 8th.  You can save consumers the most money by switching to wind ASAP.  You can save more money by telling your supplier you want the wind credit.  There are a few suppliers, like municipal power systems that keep the wind credit to themselves - you'll have to start a campaign to bring them to heel.  If you buy power directly from the company that generates it, they have to give you the credit.

If you have an electric vehicle, you can recharge it for about 50 cents.  I just filled my tank for $51.16 of gasoline.  As soon as electrics acquire the legs for a cross-country drive and can be easily re-charged, I intend to buy one.

Biden's Build Back Better plan included provisions for increasing wind and solar power and cutting the price of electric vehicles.  If it weren't for Joe Manshin, we'd be starting construction about now.  That would have meant jobs in Oklahoma building windmills and power lines.  I'm still seeing tower bases going through town on 24-wheel semis. and we still have about three years worth of blades to install.

By pushing coal, you are undermining the income of the very people you claim to be concerned about.  We have already designed the technology for control of global warming and we are continuing to improve it.  Implementing it will produce jobs in rural areas and cut costs for everybody.  Time to start supporting wind.

Doug

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Oh jeez. How much waste is produced to create these alternatives? How much energy is expended to turn raw materials into solar panels, batteries, and turbines? How much co2 is created just too make them?

We're screwed so why even bother. 

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8 hours ago, and then said:

They were stopped from producing by crushing regulations that were put in place to achieve precisely that - STOPPING PRODUCTION.  You aren't a foolish person nor an uneducated man.  You KNOW what your party is doing and by supporting it you are also responsible for the suffering it is causing the poor and now, even the middle class.  How do you justify it?  Is it "for the greater good" or do you really just ignore the pain it causes others because you feel like you're "winning" some fight against your political enemies? 

You are going to see exactly how the majority in this nation feel about your vision for the future and it's only about 5 months away now.

Stopping coal prduction might just have something to do with running out of coal.  When I was in high school we had "600 years of coal."  That was determined by assuming that any coal seam we knew about was technically feasible to mine.  But when we actually drilled into them, most turned out to be too thin, or crooked or unminable.  And then there's the destruction of mountain top removal.

And reversing regs will only accelerate the increase in prices and the decline of America.

Doug

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1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

Oh jeez. How much waste is produced to create these alternatives? How much energy is expended to turn raw materials into solar panels, batteries, and turbines? How much co2 is created just too make them?

We're screwed so why even bother. 

I don't have the current figures, but wind is now generating more power than it takes to build new wind farms.  Hydro is already tapped out.  We had a 15% increase in efficiency about three years ago when a new paint was applied to solar panels.  The future of solar seems to belong to perovskites.  Last I heard we had already achieved 37% efficiency and there were 600 more compounds in need of testing.

I'm sorry, but I'm about three years out-of-date on power.  Last I heard, we were generating about 26% of our energy from WWS.  We could still become energy-independent by 2050 if we had the foresight to do it.

Doug

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10 hours ago, XenoFish said:

Still doesn't matter. Society is doomed anyway. 

And you guys accuse the left of doom and gloom!

Doug

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9 minutes ago, Doug1066 said:

And you guys accuse the left of doom and gloom!

Doug

They're the source of it. 

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3 hours ago, XenoFish said:

They're the source of it. 

This country (and the world) has a lot of problems, all demanding our attention.  "Don't worry; be happy" is one way of dealing with them.  It does nothing to mitigate anything, but it makes the right-wingers happy.  They blame anything that goes wrong on the left.

I have been involved in climate-related issues since 2001.  I am specifically tracking Oklahoma's temperatures and precipitation.  Oklahoma has nine climate divisions, all of which are now at the warmest level they have ever achieved.  Currently, we are getting wetter, but still have a ways to go to reach our all-time moisture records.  That's the climate rule:  warmer-wetter/cooler dryer.

Our extra moisture is coming from the Gulf of Mexico.  As the Gulf warms up, more moisture evaporates from it.  What goes up must come down and that moisture falls as rain, or snow, in Oklahoma and other eastern states.  Some of that extra moisture is falling on my house as I write this.

My written records go back to 1826 (actually 1824, but the earliest records have a lot of gaps).  My tree-ring proxies are quite variable.  I have a post oak chronology going back to 1611 and an eastern red-cedar chronology back to 1307.  Most reach back to about 1750.  Sediment cores from Great Salt Plains and a little pond near Bartlesville provide sediment and pollen records clear through the last ice age.  These are my data sources.  With them I can document a lot of climate changes.  For example:  2000 years ago there was a pine forest where Bartlesville is now.  The nearest natural pine stand to Bartlesville is now 80 miles away.  So we are dryer now than then.  Before the last ice age Oklahoma was mostly a sand sea.  For about 4000 years after the last ice age we were also a sand sea.  We have a lot of grassed-over sand dunes.  The only thing needed to start the sand moving again is a massive fire in the spring, just before greenup.  We are that close to the threshold.

The Arctic Ocean has lost around 30% of its summer ice cover since about 1950.  If it loses enough, it will open a new evaporation basin in the Arctic Ocean.  That would then draw warmer water northward to replace the evaporation losses and warm Greenland and Europe.

The Polar Vortex, which stayed over the North Pole until about 2007 has moved to Greenland during the winter months.  Arctic storms trying to get by it have to divert to the south, bringing severe cold to the lake states and New England - yes, global warming has made Michigan colder.  Why did the Vortex move to Greenland?  Permanent ice in Greenland and open water in the Arctic Ocean - Greenland is now colder.  What happens to the Vortex if the Greenland glaciers melt?  I don't know.  But whatever does will be something we've never seen before, something that will change weather, freezing out crops and affecting both our food supply and economy.  Michigan apple growers are already suffering from the economic effects of climate change.

I don't make predictions about the future of climate.  I look at the past.  When I wonder what things will be like with a two-degree rise in temps, I look to see what the world was like last time that happened (the Altithermal).  Then the Arctic Ocean was open - and polar bears survived it.  So I don't think we have to worry about extinction of the polar bear (World Wildlife Fund advertisements notwithstanding.).

Climate change will affect different locations differently.  With the melting of its permafrost, Russia will have a lot more land to devote to wheat farming.  It will be a big help to them.  Could global warming affect the monsoons?  Maybe.  If they move north again, the Sahara will bloom.  On the other hand, Oklahoma could again become a sand sea.  And Michigan will be frozen out of the fruit business (It's already happening.).

Shifting transportation to wind power could be a big help and we are poised to do that.  It will happen whether government bankrolls the effort or not simply because wind is cheaper and solar is catching up.  We could also shift home heating to wind by converting houses to electric heating.

These efforts will reduce pollution of particulates and other smog-producing chemicals as well.  Wouldn't it be terrible if we cleaned up the world and we didn't have to?

The left, especially the lay public, has used scare tactics to try to get action on some urgent issues.  Unfortunately, scare tactics don't work very well - consider their effect on you.  But ten miles for a penny's worth of power is a good incentive.  I grew up next to four smoke-belching chimneys run by the Cleveland Electric Illuminating Company (CEI).  They burned coal.  A smoke-free windmill sounds great by comparison.

We're offering you a clean future that costs less than what you're paying now.  Don't be afraid of the changes.

Doug

Edited by Doug1066
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On 6/7/2022 at 6:02 AM, Myles said:

I agree.   We should have been proactive and have the drilling happening already.  

My daughter would agree with that.  She's an oil company geologist.  Most of our current energy woes started about three years ago when OPEC, afraid it was losing its influence, started playing with oil prices, the equivalent of shouting:  "Remember me!  I'm still here."

So if you're an oil company executive, trying to anticipate energy needs and future prices to determine how many wells you need to drill now to be ready for the market six months from now, it is easy to miscalculate and drill too many or too few.  Too many means you are paying interest on money spent to drill wells and you have no income to cover it.  Too few means you are losing money because you weren't ready.  And OPEC, anxious to increase its own future profits, is ready and able to increase or decrease its own pumping to damage your production ability.  In a very real sense, we are engaged in an international price war over oil.

A good reason not to drill wells in the face of market uncertainty is that once drilled, a well will produce for about 20 years.  We have enough pumping capacity that we can temporarily stop drilling with no loss of profits.

So it really doesn't matter what we did three months ago, as OPEC can adjust its pumping to offset us.

Doug

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There are a variety of ways to calculate electrical costs and each method can vary depending on things such as discount rates and estimated retirement costs.  Here is a list of costs compiled by the IPCC using a 5% discount rate:

Cheapest:  Hydro;  Cost $22 per Mwh

Second place:  Onshore wind; $59 per Mwh

Third place:  Geothermal; $60 per Mwh

Fourth Place:  Coal:  $61 per Mwh

Fifth Place:  Nuclear (New):  $65 per Mwh

Sixth Place:  Gas (CC):  $71 per Mwh

Seventh Place:  Solar (Utility):  $110 per Mwh

Eighth Place:  Offshore Wind:  $120 per Mwh

Ninth Place:  Solar (Rooftop):  $150 per Mwh

Not included on the list are perovskites, the up-and-coming form of solar.

As greater capacity is installed, wind and solar get cheaper while coal and oil remain unchanged.

Doug

Edited by Doug1066
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On 6/7/2022 at 6:02 AM, Myles said:

I agree.   We should have been proactive and have the drilling happening already.  

Wouldn't have done any good.  The refineries closed down and/or laid off most of their workers when covid hit two years ago.  Now the demand for fuel is back and there is a glut of crude on the market, but they can't find skilled workers to reopen the refineries.  They all went and got other jobs that paid as well or better than refinery jobs.  They're not interested in coming back.  So until the workers can be found/trained, refineries are going to stay closed.  All the drilling you want to do will only add to the glut.

Besides, all Biden can do is order more drilling permits to be issued.  But petroleum companies usually keep a half-dozen approved permits on hand for each rig for five or six rigs, in case they need to start drilling in a hurry.  So all Biden could do is add to the surplus of drilling permits.  This is a supply-chain problem.  Your sainted oil companies have to solve it because there's nothing the government can do.

Doug

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On 6/7/2022 at 4:02 AM, Myles said:

I agree.   We should have been proactive and have the drilling happening already.  

Sounds a little bit like an addict who doesn't want to take the cure.

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On 6/6/2022 at 2:08 PM, Eldorado said:

If countries extend their reliance on coal in response to the war, then "we are cooked," Mr Kerry said.

 

kerry.jpg

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16 minutes ago, Tatetopa said:

Sounds a little bit like an addict who doesn't want to take the cure.

Sometimes the cure is worse than the illness.

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1 minute ago, XenoFish said:

Sometimes the cure is worse than the illness.

The soaring oil prices have nothing to do with the Biden administration's policies toward coal, or oil either, for that matter.  See Post 18.

Doug

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Just now, Doug1066 said:

The soaring oil prices have nothing to do with the Biden administration's policies toward coal, or oil either, for that matter.  See Post 18.

Doug

More blah, blah, blah from you. 

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50 minutes ago, XenoFish said:

More blah, blah, blah from you. 

If you think I'm wrong, post a counter-argument.  Show us you know something.

Doug

Edited by Doug1066
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On 6/7/2022 at 9:57 PM, XenoFish said:

Oh jeez. How much waste is produced to create these alternatives? How much energy is expended to turn raw materials into solar panels, batteries, and turbines? How much co2 is created just too make them?

We're screwed so why even bother. 

As far as CO2 goes, wind is now self-supporting.   That is, it is now reducing CO2 emissions by more than it takes to produce new systems.

A wind turbine costs about $3 million, about the same as an oil well.  About one well in six is a dry hole, but wind turbines work when launched (About 10% break down at some point.).  Turbines and towers are carbon-fiber.  Solar panels are not yet commercial; though, some have been installed as PR gimmicks.  Perovskites are on the market, but will probably undergo vast increases in efficiency, so don't rush to install them yet.  A wind turbine lasts about 20 years, but produces as much power at the end of its life as it did at the beginning.  Oil wells also last about 20 years, but production steadily declines with age.  My last well dividend of 240 was $13.68.  The first was over $500.00 (That's a 25% non-drilling lease.).  The average wind turbine pays about $8000 a year.  "Poor farmers" who lease out wind sites aren't poor any more.  They can keep right on raising cattle til it's all gone.

Doug

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