Natural Gas Saves Southern California From Blackouts

[ronwagn + 6,290]

Californians will be paying a lot more for energy when they close down all their natural gas plants, but when you live in a Blue State it will get ugly pretty soon. I live in one myself. 

https://www.latimes.com/environment/story/2020-09-01/california-gas-plants-stay-open-time-runs-low-for-climate-action

California to let gas plants stay open as time runs low for climate action

[Tom Nolan + 2,443]

I noticed that about California.  It is beyond me. California is nuts.  

  Actually, I think natural gas will be a big go-to in the future.  A lot of big money is climbing into the sector.  It is a relatively clean cheap fuel.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

3 minutes ago, Tom Nolan said:

I noticed that about California.  It is beyond me. California is nuts.  

  Actually, I think natural gas will be a big go-to in the future.  A lot of big money is climbing into the sector.  It is a relatively clean cheap fuel.

It is also unbelievably abundant. It could actually fuel all of our vehicles too. It needs to replace most coal burning. 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

1 minute ago, ronwagn said:

It is also unbelievably abundant. It could actually fuel all of our vehicles too. It needs to replace most coal burning. 

There are interesting designs being developed for railroad locomotive engines on steam, powered by coal or wood.  I would review the history of rail locomotives.  The original engines were steam and powered by wood fired boilers.  As power demands increased and train loads increased, heavier steam boilers were developed and in turn that led to the use of coal.  In the USA, that coal rapidly switched over to Anthracite, which is about 50% carbon.  Anthracite burns hot and the coal chunks last longer, so you can run that locomotive farther and faster and with more load for the same volume of coal in the coal tender.  

After oil was discovered and medium weight distillate became popular (what you would today refer to as #4), the substitution of fuel oil took hold.  The rail diesel was next developed and the steam engine, which was so labor and maintenance intensive, was history, except in outlier countries such as South Africa. 

Engineers have been studying the steam engine and particularly the "layout" of the various components, in an effort to up the brake mean effective pressure and thus the horsepower that can be developed.  One design is now up to 6,000 horsepower, which is a real monster. Can coal or wood steam make a comeback?  Yes, it can, if the "stranded assets" theory of oil reserves turns out accurate, and crude costs take off for the stratosphere.  The other big advantage of steam engines powered by coal is that they make the user independent of outside oil providers, places including Canada and the USA and India and South Africa, assuming that the assets in North America do turn out to be stranded, for whatever reason including field abandonment.  I don't see natural gas being viable due to the energy density issue. 

The point I make is that all our fuels (including nuclear) need to remain in the mix and available for development.  Cutting some out and down for ideological reasons is just going to come back to haunt us. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

10 minutes ago, Tom Nolan said:

I noticed that about California.  It is beyond me. California is nuts.  

  Actually, I think natural gas will be a big go-to in the future.  A lot of big money is climbing into the sector.  It is a relatively clean cheap fuel.

And therein lies the rub: utilizing the tactics of the clean, green, cheap movement, which tells us loudly, firmly and repeatedly that their breakthrough, watershed, old energy source replacement methods and technology are just beyond the horizon, "but nearer than you ignoramuses think(!)", we once again realize they are selling something akin to snake oil.  Something that won't be proven until "sometime" in the future.  A future where they will be retired or dead, with no accountability.  At which time the current citizens of that far away date will have no choice but to switch back to gas and oil, and possibly even coal, just to survive, let alone survive comfortably.

Beware the salesman scaring you into buying any "product", especially if that product is seemingly overpriced and if it comes with claims of "if you don't buy it your grandchildren will suffer and possibly even die from YOUR lack of action".  

I happen to know that there is gold buried just outside my back door, and if you'll just "invest" a few million $$ I'll be able to dig it up and I will then fly anywhere in the world to where you are and hand over your newfound riches.

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

4 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

Anthracite burns hot and the coal chunks last longer, so you can run that locomotive farther and faster and with more load for the same volume of coal in the coal tender.

Sounds like anthracite is a great battery!

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

Just now, Dan Warnick said:

Sounds like anthracite is a great battery!

That is exactly what it is:  has stored up ancient power.  But, not re-chargeable, at least not yet. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

17 minutes ago, Jan van Eck said:

There are interesting designs being developed for railroad locomotive engines on steam, powered by coal or wood.  I would review the history of rail locomotives.  The original engines were steam and powered by wood fired boilers.  As power demands increased and train loads increased, heavier steam boilers were developed and in turn that led to the use of coal.  In the USA, that coal rapidly switched over to Anthracite, which is about 50% carbon.  Anthracite burns hot and the coal chunks last longer, so you can run that locomotive farther and faster and with more load for the same volume of coal in the coal tender.  

After oil was discovered and medium weight distillate became popular (what you would today refer to as #4), the substitution of fuel oil took hold.  The rail diesel was next developed and the steam engine, which was so labor and maintenance intensive, was history, except in outlier countries such as South Africa. 

Engineers have been studying the steam engine and particularly the "layout" of the various components, in an effort to up the brake mean effective pressure and thus the horsepower that can be developed.  One design is now up to 6,000 horsepower, which is a real monster. Can coal or wood steam make a comeback?  Yes, it can, if the "stranded assets" theory of oil reserves turns out accurate, and crude costs take off for the stratosphere.  The other big advantage of steam engines powered by coal is that they make the user independent of outside oil providers, places including Canada and the USA and India and South Africa, assuming that the assets in North America do turn out to be stranded, for whatever reason including field abandonment.  I don't see natural gas being viable due to the energy density issue. 

The point I make is that all our fuels (including nuclear) need to remain in the mix and available for development.  Cutting some out and down for ideological reasons is just going to come back to haunt us. 

All options should be considered. LNG is fine for powering ships and locomotives. I don't see any difference between the needs of the two. You just add a car or two carrying the LNG that is connected to the locomotives. It is not a technical challenge at all. Some diesel is used to start such engines and possibly also for mountain climbs. 

[NickW + 2,714]

5 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

There are interesting designs being developed for railroad locomotive engines on steam, powered by coal or wood.  I would review the history of rail locomotives.  The original engines were steam and powered by wood fired boilers.  As power demands increased and train loads increased, heavier steam boilers were developed and in turn that led to the use of coal.  In the USA, that coal rapidly switched over to Anthracite, which is about 50% carbon.  Anthracite burns hot and the coal chunks last longer, so you can run that locomotive farther and faster and with more load for the same volume of coal in the coal tender.  

After oil was discovered and medium weight distillate became popular (what you would today refer to as #4), the substitution of fuel oil took hold.  The rail diesel was next developed and the steam engine, which was so labor and maintenance intensive, was history, except in outlier countries such as South Africa. 

Engineers have been studying the steam engine and particularly the "layout" of the various components, in an effort to up the brake mean effective pressure and thus the horsepower that can be developed.  One design is now up to 6,000 horsepower, which is a real monster. Can coal or wood steam make a comeback?  Yes, it can, if the "stranded assets" theory of oil reserves turns out accurate, and crude costs take off for the stratosphere.  The other big advantage of steam engines powered by coal is that they make the user independent of outside oil providers, places including Canada and the USA and India and South Africa, assuming that the assets in North America do turn out to be stranded, for whatever reason including field abandonment.  I don't see natural gas being viable due to the energy density issue. 

The point I make is that all our fuels (including nuclear) need to remain in the mix and available for development.  Cutting some out and down for ideological reasons is just going to come back to haunt us. 

Come off it - practically how efficient is steam 9-10%?

Sure - LNG / CNG maybe an alternative to diesel in non electrified routes once you have electric thats the route to go down. Here in the UK we live near the main line out of Felixstowe docks and many of the diesel electrics have been fitted with pantographs to utilise the overhead electricity on the mainline routes. 

 

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

22 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

There are interesting designs being developed for railroad locomotive engines on steam, powered by coal or wood.  I would review the history of rail locomotives.  The original engines were steam and powered by wood fired boilers.  As power demands increased and train loads increased, heavier steam boilers were developed and in turn that led to the use of coal.  In the USA, that coal rapidly switched over to Anthracite, which is about 50% carbon.  Anthracite burns hot and the coal chunks last longer, so you can run that locomotive farther and faster and with more load for the same volume of coal in the coal tender. 

Sorry, no. I think you were thinking about lignite. Anthracite is 92% to 98% carbon.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anthracite

[Dan Clemmensen + 1,011]

22 hours ago, Jan van Eck said:

Can coal or wood steam make a comeback?  Yes, it can, if the "stranded assets" theory of oil reserves turns out accurate, and crude costs take off for the stratosphere.  The other big advantage of steam engines powered by coal is that they make the user independent of outside oil providers, places including Canada and the USA and India and South Africa, assuming that the assets in North America do turn out to be stranded, for whatever reason including field abandonment.  I don't see natural gas being viable due to the energy density issue.

I'm confused. Assets become "stranded" because the price is lower than the cost of production, not because the price becomes high. Currently, coal mines and power plants are being stranded more rapidly than oil fields and refineries. If for some reason the price of coal or oil should go back up, the mines or fields become unstranded. Unless mines are easier to restart than oil fields, oil beats coal when that happens.

A hypothetical country that needed to go all-in on using coal instead of oil for transportation would shift to electric vehicles, not to coal-fired vehicles.

[Gerry Maddoux + 3,627]

The title of this thread is "Natural Gas Saves Southern California from Blackouts." I wander on here and feel like I'm in a Clive Cussler novel.

NG could save ALL of California from blackouts. This one is so simple that a moron could figure it out. Don't decommission NG powered utility plants! That's where the NG lines terminate. As solar and wind increasingly feed energy into lithium-ion storage banks, grit your teeth, California, and use NG combustion for redundancy. And wait. 

Soon the decomposition of methane gas into hydrogen, water and the end need--electricity--will be available from scaled up hydrogen cells. Those NG lines need to be lovingly maintained. Deconstructed methane molecules are carbon neutral. This is the ultimate peaker plant. 

In a sane energy world, the NG utility plants would be maintained and used at low level, always at the ready. As hydrogen cells scale up, use them more and NG combustion less. But always--ALWAYS--have enough redundancy to provide electricity for dialysis machines and operating rooms, and by the way, a little for air conditioners and Nancy Pelosi's hairdryer would be nice too. 

I have a vested interest but in my view not very many oil and gas assets are going to be stranded. So little has been invested in discovery of new fields since the bust of 2014 that even magnificent Guyana gets little news, and Africa even less. Investment bankers won't touch oil and gas, nor will most investors--even though around the world it still provides >90% of energy needs and virtually all of the plastics, pills, pacemakers, surgical parts and solar and wind machines. REE's may become scarce. Lithium may become very expensive. So may oil.

Give this a thought: world hegemony now hinges more on viruses and vaccines than war machines and rocket ships to Mars. Ours has become a dystopian world in which a novel virus was sent to 94 destinations from Wuhan and yet Wuhan is now enjoying parties, and schools and businesses have all reopened. Does that strike anyone else as unusual? Has no one else stuck this anomaly into their algorithms? Does everyone out there truly believe that we somehow wrestle Covid-19 to the ground and life goes back to normal?

Well, dream on! I'm now the one bending this very carefully worded thread into contortions but I have no recourse but to follow my own peculiar thread. Whether by accident (chimeric virus escapee made in the Wuhan Institute of Virology for purposes of creating a better vaccine) or evil intent (dirty chimeric virus made for the purpose of release), the fact remains that President Xi allowed infected people to leave the international airport in Wuhan until January 22, 2020 even after it became common knowledge on Christmas Day 2019 that the virus possessed incredible contagion. Not only that, but he was gathering up PPE and mandating masks, tracking down people through the facial recognition computer network, deadbolting people in their apartments, all whilst sending the virus on a global mission.

No matter whether Xi recognized that he possessed the ultimate warfare for waging WWIII in a quest for hegemony, he certainly recognizes it now. And he continues to house the only natural habitat for the deadly zoonotic coronavirus, constantly producing new chimeric genomes that can be quietly taken inside the Wuhan Institute for a bit of touching up. This is earth-shaking! And not being mentioned!

Within this dystopian world that President Xi has created is Beijing, where the Tesla gigafactory is being built--and studied like crazy for improvements and refinement--similar to a SARS virus--so that the NIO can be made more cheaply, with battery-swapping potential written into the Internet sales agreement. They're creating "Tesla of China." It's going to be easier for them: China is lithium-rich (more than Lithium Valley in Nevada). Also in China are 99% of the known REE's. And don't forget that 82% of all American medications are STILL made in China, or their precursors are. And your Apple phones, for Pete's sake. The very country that released a pandemic upon the world is now developing a digital yuan (soon-to-be backed by gold?), served up by Alibaba and Ant Financial, underwritten by the mighty ABC (Agricultural Bank of China). In China they're putting in hundreds of coal-fired utility plants! The electricity from those will recharge the little Li cars and NIO's--the cars of the country people. 

I didn't mean to make this into a book but the same people who are raving about EV are the very ilk who also like to talk about the Big Reset, like there's some key to it and they have that key in their $600 Jeans pocket. I have news for you: a Big Reset is coming, all right, but it might not be what you think. For example, if Trump by some miracle gets reelected, American drugs and phones and cars are coming out of China, and Xi will be made insular. Australia and the UK will follow America's lead. In that case they will need those coal-fired plants to recharge their NIO's, but they'll also be working on the next easily-deniable tool of hegemony: a novel, chimeric coronavirus. Only this time--if not last time--they'll have their people vaccinated. On the other hand, if Mr. Biden gets in--also by some miracle as the poor man can't seem to string two sentences together and cross-conjugate them in any fashion--then it will be business as usual with China, which if many are to be believed, means selling secrets to their military. Either way is a Big Reset. In either format, California is going to need solar, wind, NG and H2 (from NG--the gas lines are already there for Pete's sake!), and the world--especially the poor world--is going to need combustible NG, LNG, CNG, oil and distillates.

So that I don't turn Atlas Shrugged into War and Peace, I'll skip the part where a major earthquake occurs, or Mount Rainier blows off its summit and sends volcanic mudflows--lahars--across town to reach the Puget Sound. Or another Mount St. Helens causes a solar eclipse for days on end, or the usual hundred-years flood (past due as the last Great Flood of California caused poor Mr. Hearst to have to paddle to his inauguration while the whole Central Valley was under 15 feet of water) puts solar farms into a newly-formed river. Or even the unintended consequence of millions of acres of solar panels changing the weather more than have fossil fuels. Or wind farms offshore California changing the wind patterns to the worse. No, I'll skip right over these. It's time for me to close.

I can guarantee you that worldwide hegemony does not depend on the same imponderables as this time last year. Think about that. Think about Covid-20. We are not going back to business as usual without paying a mighty price: giving in to President Xi and his machinations. We are also not going to stand up to President Xi without paying a mighty price: trade, iPhones, medications. It's like an investment: past results do not necessarily predict the future. There is only so much we can learn from Covid-19. And we're ignoring the whole lesson. 

We're looking at a Big Reset. And always at the epicenter is the coronavirus. After all, it lives in the Horseshoe bats in the Yunnan province. And anyone with a CRSPR can install a new can-opener to enter the human cell. Progress could well be a world powered by green energy. Or, if you're of a different mindset, it could be a virus that makes all of that seem very silly.

So thank you, California, for your wine, lettuces, iPhones, EV's and all. And you too, Seattle, for the new Sears and Roebuck catalogue from which to order our doodads. But don't forget that we're all in this together. When your lahar begins to run toward the Space Needle, we want to be there to help you.When your earthquake occurs, or your Central Valley runs under 20' of water (they say the weather is getting worse every year), we want to send our RIB's and helicopters and food and blankets. We will also provide you with natural gas until you can dig your solar panels out of the muck and we'll not laugh about it. But please, when you talk about the Big Reset, consider that the world is, whether we admit it or not, interconnected, and it won't help much if you have the next great Great if the people who wish to do us harm don't quite see it that way, or the poorest amongst us are eating grass for nourishment and burning old tires for warmth. 

Okay, if anyone is left reading, God bless you, for you have just witnessed the burning out of a fuse in a once-fine brain. The doing-in of a fossil. The sputtering-out of the last remnants of hope. Let's see, what was this thread again? Yeah, now I remember: it was about the fact that California is, if it were a country, the sixth most productive in the world. But somewhere in the back of my mind I recall a rolling blackout. I see horrible pictures in the periphery of my vision. Excuse me for doddering, it's time to take my memory pills and instill my glaucoma drops.  

[Coffeeguyzz + 454]

Mr. van Eck

The Forida East Coast Railway has been running a fleet of 24 GE locomotives fueled by LNG/Diesel for several years now.

The tender behind the locomotive is an ISO container (similar to what is increasingly used on short hop marine vessels such as the new Tasmanian ferry).

More and more companies around the world are expanding their involvement with natgas applications regarding power plants, storage, transportation, etc.

As the cost and size of mini/micro (re) liquefaction hardware continues to drop, it is conceivable that in far flung places such as the new LNG tank in Fairbanks, Alaska,  using virtually 'free' Boil Off Gas to power reliquefaction, this fuel could have a very extended (indefinite?) shelf life.

Several newer LNG carriers are using this technology now.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

20 hours ago, NickW said:

Come off it - practically how efficient is steam 9-10%?

Sure - LNG / CNG maybe an alternative to diesel in non electrified routes once you have electric thats the route to go down. Here in the UK we live near the main line out of Felixstowe docks and many of the diesel electrics have been fitted with pantographs to utilise the overhead electricity on the mainline routes. 

 

Britain is an Island. North America is a bit larger. Overhead lines are fine, but they must cost a lot over long distances. Possibly a third rail would be better but dangerous. I used to get around Los Angeles in streetcars as a child. Then gasoline fueled buses took over. The electricity is and would be mainly from natural gas anyway IMHO.

[ronwagn + 6,290]

4 hours ago, Dan Clemmensen said:

I'm confused. Assets become "stranded" because the price is lower than the cost of production, not because the price becomes high. Currently, coal mines and power plants are being stranded more rapidly than oil fields and refineries. If for some reason the price of coal or oil should go back up, the mines or fields become unstranded. Unless mines are easier to restart than oil fields, oil beats coal when that happens.

A hypothetical country that needed to go all-in on using coal instead of oil for transportation would shift to electric vehicles, not to coal-fired vehicles.

Natural gas makes more sense for large vehicles.

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 9/5/2020 at 6:52 PM, NickW said:

Come off it - practically how efficient is steam 9-10%?

Modern-design rail steam locomotives achieves aabout 27% thermal efficiency.  A rail diesel is typically ab out 32%.

What this does not reference is the huge cost difference in the fuel.  Coal runs about nine times cheaper than diesel.  The seven major Class 1 railroads in the USA would save about nine billion dollars a year just on their fuel bill if they went back to steam.

I would also note that "modern steam" has no black smoke or particulate emissions.  The technology is to inject some steam into the fire-grate, with a much thicker layer of coal being burned, and  the coal is transformed into a soup of combustible gases.  Those are ignited with a spark device, and the gas cloud then burns as if it were natural gas.  You get a nice clean burn and a lot higher efficiency.  9% went out about 100 years ago. 

You might wish to reflect that technology does march on - even in antique steam rail locomotives.  Don't be surprised when you see them again on the lines.  (One of my next product lines.) 

[Jan van Eck + 7,558]

On 9/6/2020 at 3:47 PM, ronwagn said:

Natural gas makes more sense for large vehicles.

I will do a write-up for you on the new order-book for crusie ships, beig built with LNG as their fuel.  Quite an impressive list, actually; a lot of new tonnage coming.   You have to wonder where the customers are going to come from. 

[ronwagn + 6,290]

They will come eventually. 

[Dan Warnick + 6,100]

7 minutes ago, ronwagn said:

They will come eventually. 

Google "modern steam powered locomotives" for some interesting information.

[Eyes Wide Open + 3,554]

On 9/6/2020 at 11:55 AM, Gerry Maddoux said:

The title of this thread is "Natural Gas Saves Southern California from Blackouts." I wander on here and feel like I'm in a Clive Cussler novel.

NG could save ALL of California from blackouts. This one is so simple that a moron could figure it out. Don't decommission NG powered utility plants! That's where the NG lines terminate. As solar and wind increasingly feed energy into lithium-ion storage banks, grit your teeth, California, and use NG combustion for redundancy. And wait. 

Soon the decomposition of methane gas into hydrogen, water and the end need--electricity--will be available from scaled up hydrogen cells. Those NG lines need to be lovingly maintained. Deconstructed methane molecules are carbon neutral. This is the ultimate peaker plant. 

In a sane energy world, the NG utility plants would be maintained and used at low level, always at the ready. As hydrogen cells scale up, use them more and NG combustion less. But always--ALWAYS--have enough redundancy to provide electricity for dialysis machines and operating rooms, and by the way, a little for air conditioners and Nancy Pelosi's hairdryer would be nice too. 

I have a vested interest but in my view not very many oil and gas assets are going to be stranded. So little has been invested in discovery of new fields since the bust of 2014 that even magnificent Guyana gets little news, and Africa even less. Investment bankers won't touch oil and gas, nor will most investors--even though around the world it still provides >90% of energy needs and virtually all of the plastics, pills, pacemakers, surgical parts and solar and wind machines. REE's may become scarce. Lithium may become very expensive. So may oil.

Give this a thought: world hegemony now hinges more on viruses and vaccines than war machines and rocket ships to Mars. Ours has become a dystopian world in which a novel virus was sent to 94 destinations from Wuhan and yet Wuhan is now enjoying parties, and schools and businesses have all reopened. Does that strike anyone else as unusual? Has no one else stuck this anomaly into their algorithms? Does everyone out there truly believe that we somehow wrestle Covid-19 to the ground and life goes back to normal?

Well, dream on! I'm now the one bending this very carefully worded thread into contortions but I have no recourse but to follow my own peculiar thread. Whether by accident (chimeric virus escapee made in the Wuhan Institute of Virology for purposes of creating a better vaccine) or evil intent (dirty chimeric virus made for the purpose of release), the fact remains that President Xi allowed infected people to leave the international airport in Wuhan until January 22, 2020 even after it became common knowledge on Christmas Day 2019 that the virus possessed incredible contagion. Not only that, but he was gathering up PPE and mandating masks, tracking down people through the facial recognition computer network, deadbolting people in their apartments, all whilst sending the virus on a global mission.

No matter whether Xi recognized that he possessed the ultimate warfare for waging WWIII in a quest for hegemony, he certainly recognizes it now. And he continues to house the only natural habitat for the deadly zoonotic coronavirus, constantly producing new chimeric genomes that can be quietly taken inside the Wuhan Institute for a bit of touching up. This is earth-shaking! And not being mentioned!

Within this dystopian world that President Xi has created is Beijing, where the Tesla gigafactory is being built--and studied like crazy for improvements and refinement--similar to a SARS virus--so that the NIO can be made more cheaply, with battery-swapping potential written into the Internet sales agreement. They're creating "Tesla of China." It's going to be easier for them: China is lithium-rich (more than Lithium Valley in Nevada). Also in China are 99% of the known REE's. And don't forget that 82% of all American medications are STILL made in China, or their precursors are. And your Apple phones, for Pete's sake. The very country that released a pandemic upon the world is now developing a digital yuan (soon-to-be backed by gold?), served up by Alibaba and Ant Financial, underwritten by the mighty ABC (Agricultural Bank of China). In China they're putting in hundreds of coal-fired utility plants! The electricity from those will recharge the little Li cars and NIO's--the cars of the country people. 

I didn't mean to make this into a book but the same people who are raving about EV are the very ilk who also like to talk about the Big Reset, like there's some key to it and they have that key in their $600 Jeans pocket. I have news for you: a Big Reset is coming, all right, but it might not be what you think. For example, if Trump by some miracle gets reelected, American drugs and phones and cars are coming out of China, and Xi will be made insular. Australia and the UK will follow America's lead. In that case they will need those coal-fired plants to recharge their NIO's, but they'll also be working on the next easily-deniable tool of hegemony: a novel, chimeric coronavirus. Only this time--if not last time--they'll have their people vaccinated. On the other hand, if Mr. Biden gets in--also by some miracle as the poor man can't seem to string two sentences together and cross-conjugate them in any fashion--then it will be business as usual with China, which if many are to be believed, means selling secrets to their military. Either way is a Big Reset. In either format, California is going to need solar, wind, NG and H2 (from NG--the gas lines are already there for Pete's sake!), and the world--especially the poor world--is going to need combustible NG, LNG, CNG, oil and distillates.

So that I don't turn Atlas Shrugged into War and Peace, I'll skip the part where a major earthquake occurs, or Mount Rainier blows off its summit and sends volcanic mudflows--lahars--across town to reach the Puget Sound. Or another Mount St. Helens causes a solar eclipse for days on end, or the usual hundred-years flood (past due as the last Great Flood of California caused poor Mr. Hearst to have to paddle to his inauguration while the whole Central Valley was under 15 feet of water) puts solar farms into a newly-formed river. Or even the unintended consequence of millions of acres of solar panels changing the weather more than have fossil fuels. Or wind farms offshore California changing the wind patterns to the worse. No, I'll skip right over these. It's time for me to close.

I can guarantee you that worldwide hegemony does not depend on the same imponderables as this time last year. Think about that. Think about Covid-20. We are not going back to business as usual without paying a mighty price: giving in to President Xi and his machinations. We are also not going to stand up to President Xi without paying a mighty price: trade, iPhones, medications. It's like an investment: past results do not necessarily predict the future. There is only so much we can learn from Covid-19. And we're ignoring the whole lesson. 

We're looking at a Big Reset. And always at the epicenter is the coronavirus. After all, it lives in the Horseshoe bats in the Yunnan province. And anyone with a CRSPR can install a new can-opener to enter the human cell. Progress could well be a world powered by green energy. Or, if you're of a different mindset, it could be a virus that makes all of that seem very silly.

So thank you, California, for your wine, lettuces, iPhones, EV's and all. And you too, Seattle, for the new Sears and Roebuck catalogue from which to order our doodads. But don't forget that we're all in this together. When your lahar begins to run toward the Space Needle, we want to be there to help you.When your earthquake occurs, or your Central Valley runs under 20' of water (they say the weather is getting worse every year), we want to send our RIB's and helicopters and food and blankets. We will also provide you with natural gas until you can dig your solar panels out of the muck and we'll not laugh about it. But please, when you talk about the Big Reset, consider that the world is, whether we admit it or not, interconnected, and it won't help much if you have the next great Great if the people who wish to do us harm don't quite see it that way, or the poorest amongst us are eating grass for nourishment and burning old tires for warmth. 

Okay, if anyone is left reading, God bless you, for you have just witnessed the burning out of a fuse in a once-fine brain. The doing-in of a fossil. The sputtering-out of the last remnants of hope. Let's see, what was this thread again? Yeah, now I remember: it was about the fact that California is, if it were a country, the sixth most productive in the world. But somewhere in the back of my mind I recall a rolling blackout. I see horrible pictures in the periphery of my vision. Excuse me for doddering, it's time to take my memory pills and instill my glaucoma drops.  

Great commentary, it is good to see true reflection on the state of energy. To your point the US and Germany spent a few billion and say 5/7 yrs developing a method to blow up the atom to produce unchained energy. One would think it is time to spend a few trillion using AI, Quantitative computing along side with human intervention to take the next step harnessing that event.

Trillions upon trillions have been spent on green energy and where are we?

Chasing windmills and batterys?

Opps now as to world integration in regards to hygiene and health standards? It very easy to state the world has a long way to go.

Edited September 24, 2020 by Eyes Wide Open

[A/Plague + 50]

On 9/5/2020 at 8:01 PM, Tom Nolan said:

I noticed that about California.  It is beyond me. California is nuts.  

  Actually, I think natural gas will be a big go-to in the future.  A lot of big money is climbing into the sector.  It is a relatively clean cheap fuel.

the future belongs to renewable energy - hydrogen, sun and wind ... all that burns is carbon monoxide and, accordingly, global warming. everyone has already realized this