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Good luck, LA. My own Dad had heart problems which got completely fixed at the local Hamas Command Centre. Sorry, I meant hospital. Gave him another good 10 years. Even frightening sounding heart procedures like bypasses are considered routine these days.
Thanks for your well wishes for my dad, Clark, which I’ll hope to pass on. He’s had some tests done and they think it’s atrial fibrillation. Unfortunately, he also had a scan, and they’ve found a growth on his left lung. Anyway, back to the oil & stuff:
P90 reserves (sometimes called proven reserves) are ones which are classed as having a greater than 90% chance of being economically recoverable at today’s prices with today’s technology. They are usually assessed by independent, highly-qualified petroleum geologists with full access to the appraisal well data. In the US and several other countries, oil company executives can get in a lot of trouble for exaggerating P90 reserves as it’s viewed as misleading investors and, at worst, could end up sharing a cell with Bubba – so they don’t tend to do it. At current consumption rates we have around 50 years of them left – hopefully most of them will be staying put though.
I’ve had a look at the charts for global oil consumption, and found that in 2023 it was only 0.4% higher than it was in 2018, so I’d say it’s almost plateaued. I’m not really a gambling gal, as Bradley Walsh says on The Chase, but I’d put folding money on average consumption in the years 2025-30 inclusive being lower than in 2023, as well as the average price per barrel being lower. Hopefully, I’ll live long enough to find out if I’m right.
Tradespeople who remove copper piping from people’s houses and replace it with stainless steel etc, will probably transport it in vans running on either petro-diesel, biodiesel or, most likely, a mixture of the two. Many people in the West will literally give their copper piping away for free, as well as putting up with some minor inconvenience, in response to calls from politicians who tell them it’s necessary to address the climate emergency, just like they queued for hours to have experimental vaccines that had received the absolute minimum of safety testing, and whose manufacturers had full indemnity for any adverse effects (including death), injected into them. Fortunately, the vast majority of them seem to have experienced no significant ill effects – at least so far.
I’ll try to respond to species preservation / rewilding stuff in due course. Off to the pub now. Enjoy the weekend.
Thanks for your best wishes for my dad, ET & Glenn. I’ll try to remember to pass them on. As much as I don’t like them, I should be grateful that we still have hospitals in this country – unlike the situation in most of Gaza and, the way things are going, maybe soon most of Lebanon.
Enjoy the weekend.
Lapsed Agnostic, sorry about the scan results, so best wishes for that too.
Thanks for the good news that the extraction rate of oil has slowed considerably. However, some years back some Gulf states declared two suspiciously sudden increases in their declared reserves, and I doubt that the US law you mentioned applies there. And come to think of it, a few winters back (I think it was the winter before Russia invaded Ukraine) the world suffered fuel scarcity. The OPEC countries were asked to increase production; they tried and failed. I also suspect that the US shale boom will run into production decline quite quickly.
Things not going too well for recycled mineral EV battery production, in Northern Sweden.
Quote France 24For Sandstrom, it is just a matter of days before “green dream” Northvolt will have to declare bankruptcy.
“Northvolt is the biggest green bubble in Europe to burst,” he said, noting that during its seven-year journey Northvolt “has gone from zero… to zero”.
https://www.france24.com/en/europe/20241002-mystery-deaths-and-mass-layoffs-europe-s-green-battery-dream-northvolt-turns-into-nightmareAlso, inexplicable deaths.
Quote France 24
“One colleague started bleeding from the nose all the time. Then she lost her fingernails,” Siri Almqvist, a Northvolt employee who had worked at the plant, told union magazine Dagens Arbete.In an investigative report published by daily Dagens Nyheter, some 26 serious workplace accidents have been reported by Northvolt staff since 2019.
Quote Reuters
STOCKHOLM, Oct 2 (Reuters) – Swedish battery maker Northvolt’s decision last month to scrap a major factory expansion in northern Sweden puts on hold key funding for the company that was agreed earlier this year, a Swedish government agency said on Wednesday.
Cash-strapped Northvolt in September announced it would slim down and cut jobs, sparking fears that Europe’s best shot at a home-grown electric vehicle battery champion may stall due to production problems, sluggish demand and competition from China.
https://www.reuters.com/markets/europe/northvolts-15-billion-funding-guarantee-hold-swedish-debt-office-says-2024-10-02/It is interesting that this plant only uses recycled minerals but they do seem to be having a lot of teething problems.
Quote France 24
The enthusiasm was palpable when Northvolt finally opened the doors to its lithium-ion plant in the small Swedish town of Skelleftea, near the Arctic Circle, in 2021. The company, led by Tesla’s former chief products officer Peter Carlsson, was going to do what no one else had previously managed to do: produce “the world’s greenest battery”. It also planned to build battery cells composed of 100 percent recycled nickel, manganese and cobalt.Michael
You can catch your nemesis, Mr Miliband, on the Today Programme about 8:40am and hear his optimism and assurances that renewables and EVs will save the UK and the World from collapse. To save you the trouble (and a possible stroke), he states that carbon capture is now the way forward: remove it from the atmosphere and store it safely underground. Sounds good – use the remaining FF reserves for energy but take the ‘bad bits’ out the waste and put them in a hole, perhaps an old coal mine or oil well. Why we didn’t just leave oil and coal there in the first place wasn’t considered. Perhaps fittingly, they’ve allocated the ‘black hole’ (£22b) to pay for the investment over the next 25 years. It’s all good. The transition will boost the economy and infinite green growth will be the new norm.
There, you knew it was going to be ok all along with Ed at the wheel… 😎
From FT article:
“The planned carbon storage sites to secure support are Italian oil giant Eni’s project in Liverpool Bay, in the north-west, and the Northern Endurance Partnership off the coast of Teesside, in the north-east, being developed by BP, Equinor and TotalEnergies.
One of the planned power projects to win support is BP and Equinor’s planned Net Zero Teesside gas-fired power station. Lord Ben Houchen, Tees Valley mayor, said work should start by the end of this year, creating 4,000 construction jobs.”
Funny that, it’s Big Oil getting the money to develop this…
“The government said its support, of up to £21.7bn, to be funded by a mixture of levies on energy bills and Treasury funding, should attract about £8bn of private investment into the projects. ”
Archive.is doesn’t seem to be working and waybackmachine just shows subscription page so had to post original link to FT itself.
Shibboleth, it has finally stopped raining, so now going out for a country/hill walk with a mate.
I’ll delve in to Ed.Milliband when I get home, on the news I have heard that they are going to be pumping 20-22 billion pounds in to Carbon Capture, apparently this has already happened in Norway.Most carbon capture consists of pumping carbon dioxide into depleting oil wells to help push more oil out; consequently it ends up producing more emissions overall. I guess this is also why most of the public money is going to the fossil fuel companies, so you could call it a fossil fuel subsidy. I think all but one project has captured less CO2 than was proposed; from memory, they usually manage between 20% and 60% of the proposal. It’s also expensive, so when the price of oil falls the companies suspend carbon capture. One scheme went bust and was abandoned, but the relevant government didn’t get their taxpayers’ money back. There’s also no public regulation, so we’re trusting the companies not to over stress the wells causing some or all the CO2 to blow back out.
“If the world – and Europe – are to achieve their climate targets, a wide range of climate measures are needed, including large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS). Norway’s investment in CO₂ capture, transport and storage includes a host of activities, from research and development to full-scale demonstration and international advancement of CCS.”
https://www.norskpetroleum.no/en/environment-and-technology/carbon-capture-and-storage/“For some industries, especially cement production and waste incineration, the capture and storage of CO2 is the only way to significantly reduce greenhouse gas emissions.
The Norwegian Parliament (Stortinget) has decided to support the realization of Longship, Norway’s full-scale project for CCS, and the project is currently under construction. Norway has suitable conditions for facilitating the capture, transport and storage of CO2.”
One must remember that per head Norway is the richest country in Europe.
They can afford the green energy movement– “If the world – and Europe – are to achieve their climate targets, a wide range of climate measures are needed, including large-scale carbon capture and storage (CCS).”
This has been the case for a long time; from memory, the IPCC 5.5 and 6 reports both relied on carbon capture and storage, if “global average temperature increase” (which must be recognised as a specialist, technical measure, completely unlike temperature in everyday experience) is to be kept below 1.5 centigrade.
This is an appalling case of the preceding and current adult generations leaving our shit for future generations to clear up, with technology that might never work at the scale required, while constantly adding to the gathering disaster by belching out ever increasing emissions. Irresponsible parenting on a colossal scale.
The global heating problem, discovered and confirmed in the 1800s, has been left unaddressed far too late, so that the economic system could create increasing numbers of billionaires. What on Earth will future generations think of us?
Rather interesting chat.
mainly about Dark Oxygen but covering other themes as well.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KTrEaJnriK0
The chap seemed to suggest there might be more metals on the ocean floor, than has so far been mined on land.
However as complex life at deep ocean depth ( about minus 4,000 Metres) needs this Oxygen to exist, if too many nodules were sucked up, this deep ocean life would probably suffer.
I think they said that the high Oxygen zone, was about four and a half metres thick, laying on the ocean floor, so the implication was that complex life was restricted to this horizontal zone.
The amount of Carbon (food) that was available over a one square metre patch, per year was slightly less than one sugar cube, so very minimal. there does seem to be a huge diversity of life in the zone, where no sunlight can ever reach.“The Faunal diversity on nodual rich areas is even higher than most tropical rainforests”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iixZ6UptVNo&t=31sMaybe if these metal lumps are removed to make batteries, complex life that has been abundant for hundreds of millions of years, will fail?
Let’s hope some of the legislators read this report on the diminishing capacity of our oceans, trees and vegetation to capture carbon from human emissions, which really should wake them up to the futility of current policies. There seems no end to this madness.
https://arxiv.org/pdf/2407.12447
And in the Guardian: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/14/nature-carbon-sink-collapse-global-heating-models-emissions-targets-evidence-aoe
I would like to ask Ed Milliband six questions
1) what provision have you made for recycling wind turbine blades?
2) what provision have you made for recycling E.V. batteries?
3) what provision have you made for the two million on street E.V. charging points?
4) what provision have you made for quadrupling the U.K. grid?
5) what are you going to do to replace methane, which currently allows us to produce half of the U.K. electricity production?
6) what provision have you made to dispose of nuclear waste?Shibboleth
I expect you know of this batholith
Haig Fras, North West of Cornwall, now seems to have statuary protectionI expect this rock is stuffed full of metals, like Tungsten/Tin/Copper/Zinc/Lead/Gold/Silver.
Fantastic habitat for cold water coral
Located 95 km north-west of the Isles of Scilly, Haig Fras is an isolated underwater granite rock outcrop in the Celtic Sea.https://jncc.gov.uk/our-work/haig-fras-mpa/
It is the only recorded substantial area of rocky reef in the Celtic Sea beyond the coastal margin and inshore waters. It supports a variety of fauna ranging from jewel anemones and solitary corals near the peak of the outcrop to encrusting sponges, crinoids and ross coral colonies towards the base of the rock
Anyone heard of these people?
“National Energy System Operator (NESO),
a new publicly-owned body tasked with connecting generation projects to the grid.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cly4kwep3kwoor this crowd
Great British Energy
“Great British Energy will be a new, publicly owned, clean energy company.
Great British Energy works with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero.”
It smacks of ENRON
Michael:
– “4) what provision have you made for quadrupling the U.K. grid?”
The grid is being upgraded, though I don’t know how much. There are new pylons scheduled to be installed just down the road from my place.
– “5) what are you going to do to replace methane, which currently allows us to produce half of the U.K. electricity production?”
It’s nearer a quarter:
However, demand for electricity would have to increase to supply all the new heat pumps, electric vehicles etc. Personally I expect disaster to be upon us before upgrades are complete.
Whatever happened to Boris Johnson’s kickback to Rolls Royce sorry I meant small modular (nuclear) reactors?
Clark, let’s say you are correct and the U.K. now only makes electricity by using one quarter of the input from Methane/North Sea Gas.
I have a gas cooker, I have gas central heating, I doubt I am alone.
I expect many millions of people cook on Natural Gas.
I expect many millions of people heat their water with Natural Gas.
I expect many millions of people use Natural Gas to heat their homes.
Natural Gas is going to be needed for quite a while, in the United Kingdom.Michael, they’re not my figures, they’re from the industry, I linked to them earlier on either this thread or the other.
Yes, the UK is utterly dependent on natural gas, despite politicians having forty years warning.
Now, let me think; how many different energy policies have I seen in my life? I remember Parkray burners designed to burn the coke that’s left after making town gas from coal – council houses (remember them?) all over the country were fitted with Parkrays. Then there was a big push for electric storage heaters, ‘Economy 7’, most of the electricity derived from coal. Then natural gas, and an astonishing national government funded operation to convert every gas appliance in the country – that was back when governments could actually achieve things other than starting wars. Then combi boilers. Then condensing combi boilers. Government subsidies supported each of these schemes. They’re all dependent on combustion.
I had an Ascot, in my council flat, in the seventies, i actually thought it was useful.
No double glazing and no actually central heating, just a two bar electric fire in the huge living room, no cavity walls and no loft, just an arched concrete roof. Top floor, incredibly cold in the winter, used to freeze the curtains against the windows.
Anyway, the Ascot, any tap you turned on, it took about 90 seconds to warm, then hot water came out of that tap, so almost no gas wasted.
The electric fire did nothing to warm the flat up, unless you got near enough to burn yourself.
We used to sit in sleeping bags, to stay alive, in the winters.I thought this was pretty bad.
Chinese funded Gold mining.
‘We are poisoning ourselves’: Ghana gold rush sparks environmental disaster.
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cn9dn8xq92joCould this be our “Mineral Future”
under Ed Milliband?https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cy439453xg7o
Quote BBC
“Lithium battery caused tower block blaze, says LFB.
The LFB has said its investigation team believe the fire was started accidentally, caused by the failure of a lithium battery.”Imagine when there are two million on street E.V.Chargers.
Twenty million E.V.’s on the roads of Britain plus electric scooters, invalid carriage, bikes, motorcycles, vans and busses.
They are going to need a much bigger and better equipped Fire Service.Michael, your cold flat sounds dreadful; all I can offer is sympathy. Ascot water heaters have always seemed highly efficient to me; far more efficient than modern combi boilers.
I think there’s a quality control problem with lithium batteries. I have read, but not attempted to verify, that proper construction and well designed charging systems reduce the risk of fire and explosion to levels similar to other batteries. Safety improvements have had to be applied to every energy technology, steam engine boiler explosions were once commonplace, and I even have a barometer awarded to my paternal grandfather for boarding a runaway horse-drawn cart in Ilford High Street and thereby preventing a collision with pedestrians.
Michael, do you know where most nuclear waste comes from? It’s from the uranium-238 that makes up over 97% of most nuclear fuel rods.
Natural uranium consists almost entirely of two isotopes of uranium, U235 (about 0.7%) which is a fuel, and U238 (nearly 99.3%) which isn’t. The uranium is ‘enriched’ by removing some U238 (which becomes ‘depleted uranium’, a barely radioactive but chemically poisonous disposal problem) and made into fuel rods containing about 2.5% U235 (fuel) and 97.5% U238 (impurity).
When used in a nuclear reactor, the U235 produces energy as it gets split into ‘fission products’, the bulk of which have a relatively short decay time, a couple of hundred years – one of them, iodine 131, just 80 days. The U238 however isn’t a fuel and thus doesn’t get split. Instead it gains neutrons, becoming the heavier ‘actinide’ or ‘transuranic’ elements such as plutonium that remain radioactive for thousands of years.
In short, if you don’t want long-lived radioactive waste, don’t put U238 in your reactor!
Britain developed an incredible reactor for burning all the excess plutonium (which is still stockpiled and guarded 24/7); the design is in the Kew archive. Maggie Thatcher scuppered it along with the rest of the UK nuclear power industry because her campaign manager held the license for US pressurised water reactors.
