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“Economies worldwide are bracing for another energy shock.
“Three major routes are now disrupted at once: the Gulf, the Red Sea and the Black Sea. Together, they threaten trade flows equivalent to nearly a quarter of global oil supplies just as reserves sit at multiyear lows.”
“Oil Prices Ignore the Warnings of the Physical Markets. Refinery Crack Spreads Grow.
“The paper oil markets continue to signal relative calm, with WTI futures hovering in the low-to-mid $80s per barrel range in late July 2026, even as the physical markets scream warnings of tightening supplies and stress.”
“US oil inventories fall to ‘precariously low’ level as Iran war disrupts supply…
“Drained supplies mean Washington is increasingly vulnerable to future supply shocks in the absence of a substantial buffer provided by the releases from the SPR, setting the stage for crude prices to increase significantly when the reserve hits its operational minimum.”
https://www.ft.com/content/86f37415-cc80-4ea6-bc03-87c96cb831f4?syn-25a6b1a6=1
“U.S. and Iran trade missile barrages as hopes for a resolution to the five-month war fade.
“The United States and Iran traded fresh missile barrages Thursday, shattering a brief lull and reviving fears that a five-month war could again spiral into full-scale regional conflict as Jordan and Kuwait reported Iranian strikes.”
“Old national debt warnings are new again.
“…historic fiscal alarms from the 18th century are re-emerging as developed market public debt scales toward unprecedented heights. Long-standing structural pressures mean that modern economic buffers have largely vanished, leaving sovereign nations highly exposed to shifting global capital.”
“US government borrowing costs hit highest level since 2007.
“US borrowing costs have hit their highest level since 2007. The Federal Reserve on Wednesday held rates steady, a decision that underscored fears that the central bank will not be able to contain the inflationary shock from Donald Trump’s Iran war.”
“There was a surprise slowdown in US economic growth in the three months to June despite an increase in consumer spending, according to official figures.
“The Commerce Department said the US economy grew at an annual rate of 1.5% in the second quarter, down from 2.1% seen in the first three months of the year.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/cd0xvrmlx2eo
“Pentagon Seeks $18.2 Billion in Iran War Funds for Interceptors.
“The Pentagon’s $67 billion request for emergency funding this fiscal year includes $18.2 billion to replace the US’s most advanced Patriot missile, Navy Tomahawks and the Army’s high-altitude interceptor known as Thaad, according to documents provided to Congress.”
“America Is Undergoing a Massive Debt-for-Equity Swap…
“The swap quarantines the fiscal problem; it does not cure it. None of that equity money funds the Treasury. Record foreign enthusiasm for American capitalism does nothing for a debtaholic government now selling $2 trillion net new debt a year, in large part to domestic buyers, including hedge funds and banks, who demand compensation.”
“The default rate across 1,300 US private debt borrowers tracked by Fitch Ratings rose to a record high in the second quarter, according to a report released Thursday.
“The trailing 12-month private credit default rate in the US increased to 6% as of the end of the quarter, up from a previous high of 5.7% reached in the prior three-month period.”
“US schools are struggling to keep the yellow bus running amid shortages and cuts…
“Districts are reducing routes and exploring new ways to get students to class as transportation costs climb… Student transportation has become more difficult for districts in the US in recent years due to factors such as a shortage of bus drivers, budget constraints and the growth of the school choice movement.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/jul/29/us-school-bus-cuts
“China expresses ‘serious concern’ over latest US trade restrictions.
“Tensions have risen again… over fresh US tariffs imposed on a majority of its trading partners last week. Beijing condemned the duties imposed on China and 59 other countries over alleged forced labor concerns, and warned Washington against waging a trade war.”
“Trump has singled out us Canadians for special treatment in his tariff war – there is no choice but to get nasty…
“…the nature of Trump’s actions has made resistance the only plausible Canadian response: caving in to the US president is toxic for Canadian voters. Some provincial resistance is likely due to unpopular regional leaders seeing salvation in battling Trump…”
“Burnham promises ‘pragmatic’ approach to North Sea oil and gas…
““There is a resource there. When people are struggling, we can’t ignore that. Hence, me indicating that to the president.” It remains unclear whether such an approach would involve allowing more drilling on existing licences or the issuing of new ones.”
“John Kerry: Europe’s Energy Crisis Is a Bigger Threat Than Any Weapon…
“Europe is now in an extremely precarious position, enduring historic and energy-threatening heat waves while also staring down the barrel of what is sure to be a ‘long, cold winter.’ The continent’s natural gas reserves are perilously low at just over 50 percent capacity, and imports are coming in at a trickle, with no relief in sight.”
“Europe makes trillion-euro bet to revive its battered industry.
“Europe is making a multi-trillion-euro wager on home-grown electricity and renewables to rebuild its competitive edge and revive an industrial sector battered by persistent energy shocks…. directing heavy capital into solar farms, modernized power grids, electric vehicles, heat pumps, battery manufacturing plants, and expanded transmission networks.”
“Spain deploys military to Ceuta after thousands of people breach Morocco’s border and at least 9 die…
““The situation is absolute chaos,” Rachid Sbihi, head of the association that represents Spain’s Civil Guard officers who police the border in Ceuta, told The Associated Press. “It’s not possible to give precise numbers, but there are thousands of migrants crossing,” he said, adding that the border had “totally collapsed.””
https://apnews.com/article/spain-ceuta-tarajal-morocco-migrants-5c864e5f951e2a7cf7a3eac417668e97
“Spain’s migrant crisis triggers Italian call for EU travel restrictions…
“Meloni said “Italy will not stand by and watch” events in Ceuta and vowed “extraordinary measures” to prevent any spillover effects, including the potential suspension of Spain from the EU’s Schengen free movement zone, although it was unclear how that could be implemented.”
https://www.ft.com/content/5546b044-0582-4ed9-8e61-bd1732f3063e?syn-25a6b1a6=1
“Merz’s secret plan to stop German ‘traitor states’ blocking NATO troops…
“German officials fear the Alternative for Germany (AfD) party could frustrate the movement of allied forces through two eastern states it is expected to win in September elections… Mr Merz’s government is preparing mechanisms to override state governments’ decision-making powers in the event of a crisis…”
“NATO jets scramble as Russian missile detonates in Poland…
“The missile, which entered Polish airspace early on Thursday, was part of a barrage of ballistic missiles and drones launched by Russia against Ukraine overnight, killing at least eight civilians, including children, and injuring more than 50.”
https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2026/7/30/nato-jets-scramble-as-russian-missile-detonates-in-poland
“Russian missile destroys US firm’s Kyiv drone factory.
“A drone factory in Kyiv destroyed by a Russian ballistic missile on Friday was owned by a US corporation registered in Delaware, in what appears to be the first time Moscow has targeted a US company in the conflict.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/30/us-firm-drone-factory-terminal-autonomy-ukraine-russia
“Ukraine adapts strikes on Russian energy industry to hit critical components.
“Ukrainian military planners, drone operators and energy specialists say Kyiv’s goal is no longer simply to start fires at refineries or destroy storage tanks, but to keep plants offline for longer and make each strike more costly for Moscow.”
https://www.ft.com/content/5ca782bd-5c4a-45f8-9a7a-5793d800321d?syn-25a6b1a6=1
“Desperate for Fuel, Russia Looks to Kazakhstan for Refining Capacity…
“Ukraine has spent months attacking Russian refineries, storage sites, export terminals, and other oil infrastructure. The latest round included the Omsk refinery, Russia’s largest, located deep in Siberia near the Kazakh border. The damage has created fuel scarcity in several Russian regions…”
“Oil Loading Again Suspended from Caspian Pipeline After Tankers Are Struck…
“Officials from the company, Kazakhstan, and Russia were quick to denounce the ongoing attacks, highlighting it as commercial infrastructure. The company said that pressure from Kazakhstan and other foreign shareholders, including the U.S. State Department, had “apparently been ignored.””
“China’s factory activity unexpectedly contracts in July on demand slump, typhoons…
“The official manufacturing purchasing managers’ index fell to 49.2 from 50.3 in June, National Bureau of Statistics data showed Friday, dropping below the 50-point threshold that separates expansion from contraction. Economists’ median forecast had pegged PMI at 50.”
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/31/china-pmi-factory-activity-economic-growth-exports-.html
“AI boomtowns worsen divide in China’s split-screen economy.
“In Hefei, the heart of China’s memory-chip industry, factories can barely keep up with the world’s appetite for AI hardware. In Changchun, the rust-belt home of gasoline-powered carmaking, officials admitted to “unprecedented” difficulties — a phrase later removed after drawing social media attention.”
https://www.japantimes.co.jp/business/2026/07/31/ai-china-economy/
“AI reckoning makes South Korean economy run for cover…
“Korea sits at the front of a pack of economies — Taiwan, Japan, China among them — trying to ride the AI wave without wiping out. As the world debates whether AI is an economic asset or a liability, Korea may supply the first real answer.”
https://asiatimes.com/2026/07/ai-reckoning-makes-south-korean-economy-run-for-cover/
“South Korea’s ‘bipolar’ stock market: meltdowns, a record rally and what’s to come…
““The Korean stock market has been trading as if it has bipolar disorder, swinging from panic to euphoria almost overnight,” said Jung In Yun of Fibonacci Asset Management. “Today’s move looks like a violent reversal of an extremely crowded selloff.””
https://www.cnbc.com/2026/07/31/south-korea-kospi-samsung-sk-hynix-meltdown-record-rebound.html
“Japan’s yen jumps 3% as speculation over intervention swirls…
“The move in the yen follows growing calls for Japanese authorities to act to arrest a slide in the currency, and comes after interventions in April and May failed to provide lasting support… The Ministry of Finance and the Bank of Japan did not immediately respond to a request for comment.”
https://www.ft.com/content/8455ec94-0182-46a6-b5dd-2bb5b0a75a6c?syn-25a6b1a6=1
“Tensions remain high on Thai-Cambodian border…
“Nearly 150 people were killed and around 300,000 displaced during recent clashes. Thousands of Cambodians are now living in temporary settlements, unable to return home, while closed border crossings, unemployment and unexploded ammunition continue to strain local communities.”
https://www.dw.com/en/tensions-remain-high-on-thai-cambodian-border/video-78165458
“Nepal’s PM urges calm as three people killed after Hindu-Muslim unrest…
““I, on behalf of the government, sincerely appeal to the citizens, civil society, religious communities, all respected leaders, all political parties and responsible media, to exercise patience and restraint and maintain peace, harmony, brotherhood and national unity,” Shah said.”
“Clashes between security forces and protesters in Pakistan-administered Kashmir have killed dozens of people. Protesters are calling for changes to the election system.
“The protests took place between the rounds of regional elections. The first round was held on Monday. Reuters also said authorities have cut off communications access, including the internet.”
https://www3.nhk.or.jp/nhkworld/en/news/20260730_21/
“Deadly attack on police checkpoint in Pakistan leaves 15 dead.
“The assault on a checkpoint in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa comes days after another deadly clash in the volatile border province, where authorities have blamed a growing wave of attacks on militants operating from neighbouring Afghanistan.”
“Kuwait ups borrowing and puts brakes on public spending.
“Kuwait has increased borrowing and ordered ministries to rein in spending, as the closure of the Strait of Hormuz cuts off oil export revenue and deepens pressure on the Gulf state’s finances.”
https://www.agbi.com/economy/2026/07/kuwait-ups-borrowing-and-puts-brakes-on-public-spending/
“Saudi economy shrinks as Middle East conflict takes heavy toll.
“Saudi Arabia’s economy shrank by 4.8 per cent in the second quarter compared with the same period last year, the steepest quarterly decline since the Covid-19 pandemic, as the US-Iran war takes its toll on the Arab world’s largest economy.”
https://www.ft.com/content/6620ab3c-c46a-4d96-aede-0fce80a2b588?syn-25a6b1a6=1
“US-Saudi strikes on Iran-backed militia in Iraq have pushed the region into “uncharted territory”, analysts have warned.
“Amid stark warnings of a widening and increasingly “unpredictable” conflict, Riyadh’s decision to publicly join the US in striking sites associated with Iraq’s Popular Mobilisation Forces (PMF), killing at least 20 fighters, has added another complicating dimension to the war.”
“Saudis Form Military Alliance to Protect Red Sea Shipping.
“As the war between the United States and Iran widened, Saudi Arabia joined with over a dozen other countries, including Egypt and Turkey, to form a new defense coalition to stop attacks on shipping in the Red Sea.”
https://www.nytimes.com/live/2026/07/30/world/iran-war-strikes-trump
“Saudi Arabia prepares sea and possible land offensive against Houthis.
“Saudi Arabia is preparing for a major military offensive against the Houthis by sea and possibly by land in central Yemen, Yemeni sources believe, in a move to break the chokehold on its oil exports through the southern Red Sea.”
“U.S.-Iran war widens as Egypt targeted for the first time.
“The U.S.–Iran conflict has dramatically expanded into Egypt for the first time. A drone attack struck a U.S.-owned gas storage tanker at Egypt’s Mediterranean port of Damietta, setting two ships on fire. This strike marks a critical turning point. Egypt is a close U.S. ally and regional mediator that had previously avoided direct military involvement.”
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/07/30/world/video/ebof-egypt-drone-strike
“Southern Lebanese towns near Beaufort Castle hit by Israeli strikes.
“Israeli forces struck near Beaufort Castle in southern Lebanon. The military said it used 700 tonnes of explosives to destroy parts of a Hezbollah tunnel network. Israel agreed in June to a phased withdrawal from Lebanon, and have the Lebanese military handle disarming Hezbollah.”
“Trump claims agreement for ‘complete disarmament’ of Hamas in Gaza but support uncertain.
“Donald Trump has said a deal has been reached for Hamas to disarm and for Israel to withdraw its forces from Gaza, however briefings from both sides exposed disputes over its implementation that could prove difficult to overcome.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2026/jul/31/trump-hamas-disarmament-agreement-gaza-board-of-peace
“Child soldiers recount horrors of Sudan’s war and presence of Colombian mercenaries…
“The boy, now 17, told The Associated Press that those who ordered him strapped to the gun were Colombian mercenaries providing military aid to Sudan’s Rapid Support Forces against the army in the war, now in its fourth year.”
“Fastest growing Ebola outbreak is worsening hunger in eastern Congo, UN agency chief warns.
“The fastest growing Ebola outbreak ever recorded is leaving thousands more people hungry in eastern Congo, a region engulfed in conflicts and a fight over precious minerals, the head of the U.N. food agency warned on Wednesday.”
“Nigeria’s Banditry Crisis Worsens…
“Alliances between bandits and jihadist groups are amplifying the threat. JAS (Boko Haram) has supplied equipment, advisors, and bomb-makers to bandit allies, with further links to Ansaru, ISWAP, and JNIM. The Soufan Center calls this “militant convergence” a major expansion of operational reach and extremist influence.”
https://www.eurasiareview.com/30072026-nigerias-banditry-crisis-worsens/
“US Risks Getting Sucked Into a Sahel Quagmire.
“Amidst a widening security vacuum and failing Russian security efforts, this potential intervention in Mali and surrounding areas could draw the U.S. into a long-term, complex counter-terrorism campaign with limited intelligence and local cooperation.”
“Cannibalism as a Policy Challenge.
“Prompted by a friend’s comment that the United States is siding with cannibals, Michael Shurkin considers the implications of the U.S. supporting the Malian government, given recently surfaced videos in which government-backed security forces appear to engage in cannibalism.”
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2026/07/30/cannibalism-as-a-policy-challenge/
“Ghana hit by nationwide blackout as power plants fail…
“Most of the country’s electricity is generated by ageing hydropower plants, which have suffered from poor maintenance over years. The addition of gas has eased power cuts, but the sector remains vulnerable to transmission failures and fuel supply interruptions.”
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/crmrkgr4z0jo
“Libya electricity blackout protests expose country’s failing grid…
“Amid a blistering heatwave with temperatures exceeding 48 degrees Celsius (118 degrees Fahrenheit), chronic power cuts have ignited a new wave of protests and civil disobedience across the capital, Tripoli, and surrounding areas.”
“‘To play God’: How US pressure has shattered Cuba’s healthcare…
“Although healthcare in Cuba remains free, public and universal, experts say its reach and quality have diminished significantly. That has translated to a cost in human lives. Fernandez is seeing the toll of the political conflict firsthand in his young patients.”
“Nvidia’s $750-billion AI bet deepens fears of a circular tech bubble…
“[Circular] transactions have left many AI companies increasingly intertwined, potentially exposing the sector to systemic shocks. Among the central concerns is also the industry’s rising debt levels, with many AI companies boosting borrowing to fund their data center and chip projects.”
“The AI bubble could burst — and take the economy with it…
“There are steps policy makers should take to better safeguard the financial system from the threat of a systemic shock. Instead, regulators are taking steps that threaten to inflate the bubble still further and make the consequences of its collapse more severe.”
https://www.bostonglobe.com/2026/07/30/opinion/ai-bubble-economy-regulations/
“How El Niño could be the next big supply chain nightmare…
“When combined with other inflationary causes and pre-existing supply chain vulnerabilities, the extreme weather driven by El Niño is expected to serve as a formidable second shock to the worldwide food system.”
https://uk.news.yahoo.com/el-ni-o-could-next-152838524.html
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You can read the previous “Economic” thread here. I’ll be back tomorrow with a “Climate” thread.
Floating LNG regassifiers (FSRU) are built around several parallel trains of pumps and heat exchangers/evaporators. Cryogenic liquid goes in and pressurised gas (mostly methane with a few percent ethane) comes out and is fed into the country’s grid or directly to a turbine generator set. They cost about a billion dollars. LNG tankers cost about a quarter of a billion. Those hit in Egypt may not be complete losses but repairs will be expensive with long downtime.
The FRSU gas capacity was 450 mmscfd out of about 6400 total demand, so Egypt is going to be 7% down, probably more in terms of electricity supply, which is already overstretched. My guess is USA and Israel will be blamed more than Iran. Add on the coming drought and likely bread shortages, escalating disputes with Ethiopia and Sudan, and a demographic time bomb and Egypt is a step closer to ex-powder keg status.
We are facing four epoch defining events: the biggest single climate disruption in the industrial age, the biggest single pop of various market bubbles, the biggest single energy disruption ever seen, and global war in some form; and the media doesn’t seem to grasp any of it. It can do “tomorrow will be the same as today” or “tomorrow will be as much different from today as today was from yesterday” and that’s it. Any big changes and it can only cope by assuming that things will quickly revert to BAU. The alternative media is no better than the MSM, and if I hear another youtube advert, whether that fake bullshit sincerity from the presenter or poorly made and obvious bullshit AI mush, I might go spare. I repeat – we should never have left the savanna; hunter-gatherers had no idea how lucky they were, despite the frequent struggles to survive.
“…the media doesn’t seem to grasp any of it.”
George, it is very much human nature to assume that tomorrow will be more or less like today, aka status quo bias. And Bill Rees would point out that our brains are adapted to deal with immediate rewards and local threats rather than slow-moving, abstract, global risks.
The strike on Egypt is alarming and, along with the Saudi strikes on Iraq, the Ukrainian attacks on Iranian shipping and Kazakh infrastructure, the Russian strike on a US drone factory etc. add to the sense that we are no longer dealing with contained regional conflicts.
Thanks for this, George. Cogent as always. The “four epoch defining events”. 🎯 AKA polycrisis, metacrisis,
For those of us who still have abundant food, clean running water, a decent place to live, this is the calm before the shitstorm.
Oxygen boils at -183C. Nitrogen at -196C. The entire industrial gas industry runs on that 13-degree gap. That difference is enough to separate them inside a single machine called an air separation unit. An ASU cools air to -190C, liquefies it, and pulls the components apart by boiling point. One large unit produces over 3,000 tons of oxygen per day. The feedstock? The air around you. That oxygen goes to steel mills, hospitals, semiconductor fabs, and rocket engines. The nitrogen goes to food packaging and pharmaceutical manufacturing. The argon goes to welding and silicon crystal growth. Three companies control ~70% of the world’s large-scale ASU capacity: Linde, Air Liquide, and Air Products. Unlike oil or copper, none of it can be stockpiled. Liquid oxygen and liquid nitrogen boil off up to 1% per day in storage. There is no strategic reserve.
https://x.com/Gaurab/status/2039169148883009728/photo/1
Alfa Laval, a Swedish company most people have never heard of, leads the $20 billion global heat exchanger market. Five firms control over a third of it. Most are European. A refinery runs on heat exchangers. Pipes move hot fluid past cold fluid at every stage of the process. Hundreds of them sit in a single facility, each designed for a specific temperature and pressure. Refining is heat management that happens to produce fuel. When we were building our plant in Houston, we competed with data centers for every piece of critical equipment. Heat exchangers were no exception. Titanium or superalloy units take over a year to fabricate. Only a handful of shops worldwide are certified to build them. A single fouled heat exchanger can shut down an entire process line. In a refinery running 100,000 barrels a day, that’s $1 to 2 million in lost margin every day. When one breaks, there is no domestic alternative at scale.
https://x.com/Gaurab/status/2043764178381668726/photo/1
Thanks, Ravi – both great examples of how vulnerable civilisation is to Liebig’s Law of the Minimum. Some of these critical inputs you barely hear about until supply becomes a problem. The importance of Spruce Pine, for example, had totally flown under my radar until it was hit by Hurricane Helene:
“A tiny town in North Carolina that’s just been devastated by hurricane Helene could end up severely disrupting the global supply chain for microchips and solar panels. Nestled in the Appalachian mountains, the community of Spruce Pine, population 2,194, is known for its hiking, local artists and as America’s sole source of high-purity quartz.”
https://www.npr.org/2024/09/30/nx-s1-5133462/hurricane-helene-quartz-microchips-solar-panels-spruce-pine
Treasury Secretary parrots Elon Musk’s claim that Americans won’t need to save for retirement because of AI’s abundance
Wow, just wow.
Still, I refuse to treat this as a left-right issue because I don’t think there is a left anymore. It’s all different flavours of right, with different kinds of rationalizations and obfuscations around the same set of policies. I suppose everyone is free to delude themselves however they like. When the democrats say the same thing under the aegis of MMT or whatever it will magically turn into yet another step forward on the infinite march of progress… yay!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DRkCefHXlSo
Jupiviv, I guess it makes a perverse kind of sense that the world’s richest man and the US Treasury Secretary have this level of faith in technology and don’t actually understand how abundance is generated. We need this level of delusion to keep the system going now.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zwbZyPfgOnA
Where is the uS drone factory located. that was attacked?
Curt, the article says it was the Terminal Autonomy drone plant in Kyiv. It’s owned by a US corporation registered in Delaware.
The attack on the FSRU at Damietta illustrates just how vulnerable the global LNG market really is. A Floating Storage and Regasification Unit is not simply another ship, but a floating gas-processing plant. Only around fifty of these highly specialized installations are currently in operation worldwide. Replacing one takes years, as only three South Korean shipyards—HD Hyundai Heavy Industries, Hanwha Ocean and Samsung Heavy Industries—possess the technical expertise, industrial facilities and supply chains required to build them.
These shipyards are already operating under severe capacity constraints. Their order books are dominated by LNG carriers, naval vessels, offshore platforms and other high-value projects, leaving little room for additional construction. New orders often have to wait years before a production slot becomes available. As a result, there is virtually no global reserve capacity to replace a damaged or destroyed FSRU within a meaningful timeframe.
The vulnerability, however, extends far beyond the FSRU itself. The entire LNG supply chain depends on a limited number of highly specialized assets: liquefaction plants such as Yamal LNG, Arc7 ice-class LNG carriers, conventional LNG tankers, floating regasification units and the import terminals that feed gas into national transmission networks. Every link in this chain requires advanced engineering, long construction times and scarce industrial capacity, leaving little redundancy when disruptions occur.
Recent attacks on LNG carriers in the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov demonstrate that this logistics network has itself become a military target. The conflict is no longer aimed solely at energy production facilities, but increasingly at the infrastructure required to transport, process and deliver energy to end users.
This makes the LNG market far less flexible than it is often portrayed. On paper it appears to be a global commodity market capable of redirecting supplies wherever needed. In reality, it rests on a relatively small number of difficult-to-replace industrial nodes, supported by an equally limited shipbuilding base. It is this concentration of specialized infrastructure—and the years required to reproduce it—that constitutes the market’s greatest strategic vulnerability.
Thank you, Zip.
This is very much David Korowicz territory. We have sacrificed resilience for efficiency and created a brittle complexity, vulnerable to cascading failures. And now, in our tribal madness, we are attacking our own critical nodes. Picture a bunch of angry people, standing on thin ice, lobbing heavy rocks at one other…
Our master of metaphor strikes again!
I once tried to learn bridge. One of the few things to stick with me was advice that, if the only way to win a hand was that the cards fell in a certain way, then you should play assuming that was the case. I think that is how techno optimists think. The only way to maintain their high consumption, conscious free, happy motoring lifestyles is if renewables are as good energy sources as fossil fuels (they aren’t in almost all the important ways) and be entirely environmentally benign, and that the only reason they aren’t sweeping all before them is a conspiracy from those nasty billionaires and their pesky and misled minions. Obviously it would be impossible for the optimists to be mistaken or biased in any of this, or to have insufficiently studied what renewables can actually do, for how long and at what cost.
That thinking is now extending to carbon capture and storage – we’ve gone to far and must remove carbon for industrial civilisation to survive, therefore it must be easy, all the technology exists (actually none does) and it just needs scaling (nobody is going to get far on this because the costs will quickly be seen to be prohibitive).
“…the only reason they aren’t sweeping all before them is a conspiracy from those nasty billionaires and their pesky and misled minions.”
George, the opposing belief, held by those who see net zero for the farce it is, is equally irritating, ie that climate change must be a conspiracy peddled by globalists and green ideologues, who want to restrict freedoms and make everyone poorer.
Propane & natgas have a near infinite shelf life if the container is kept in good shape.
Gasoline, diesel, and other refined fuels have shelf life measured in months or a few years at best.
Therefore, it is best to make sure your enemies don’t have facilities for propane & natgas.
Bob Shaw Are Humans Smarter than Yeast?
A few years back I added two more 100 gallon tanks of propane to the one I had. Haven’t had to refill yet since I only use it for cooking but wanted more fuel backup for the wall heater I can use as emergency heating . I have a feeling before those run out after TSHTF, I’ll be more than ready to exit stage left.
We use propane for cooking because power-cuts are an issue up here. Apparently, it’s not great for your health but I won’t lose any sleep over that:
““For too long it has been easy to dismiss the dangers of gas cookers,” said Sara Bertucci from the EPHA. “Like cigarettes, people didn’t think much of the health impacts – and, like cigarettes, gas cookers are a little fire that fills our home with pollution.””
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2024/oct/28/pollutants-from-gas-stoves-kill-40000-europeans-each-year-report-finds
Perhaps Jeff Currie is an interesting example of where this discussion really leads. I sa his ‘piece of conversation’ withe Nate Hagens.
Currie is undoubtedly one of the world’s leading commodity analysts. Yet he seems to have enormous confidence that investment capital, supported by AI, battery technology and innovation, will ultimately overcome the constraints facing the energy transition. In that view, capital allocation itself becomes the coordinating mechanism: if something is needed, markets will fund it, engineers will build it and technology will scale.
The difficulty is that capital does not create industrial capacity overnight.
Money cannot instantly produce a new LNG liquefaction plant, an Arc7 ice-class carrier, a floating regasification unit or a high-voltage transmission network. It cannot shorten the construction time of a refinery, create experienced welders, expand a congested South Korean shipyard or accelerate geological processes.
This is where I think the debate becomes more interesting than simply “technology versus scepticism”. The real question is whether financial models adequately account for physical systems. Investment can finance expansion, but it cannot abolish constraints imposed by engineering, logistics, supply chains, industrial lead times or the availability of materials.
The fundamental divide is therefore not between ‘green ideology’ end techno-optimists and techno-pessimists, but between those who believe capital primarily shapes the physical world and those who see the physical world as ultimately defining the limits within which capital can operate.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ij1_uxiXmm8
Zip, I hope Nate reined him in. Capital is not some magical force but is itself a claim on future surplus energy. It cannot substitute for the net energy required to build and operate new industrial capacity.
Have a look… it is fascinating Wallstreet stuff. And no Nate is more an old ‘schoolmate’ from the old boys network.
Jeff Currie is smart but has a severe cognitive gap about the future
While looking for the blogpost I wrote about the strategic implications of a war-mongering US hegemon developing floating bombs when that same hegemon was marketing the drone technology that would make it obsolete, I found this excerpt:
“While discussing the driverless future of motoring in the US, a reader, a very Portland reader, so much of a vegan, nature-loving, pot-smoking, Capitalist-hating, Corporations-ruin-everything and Noam Chomsky-is-a-hero-working-against-the-system-from-the-inside Portland denizen, that you could use her as the prototype for a Portlandia inaction figure, flannel shirt and all, bemoaned the nascent technology that was making the driverless car possible, because, “I’m glad I wont’ be around then, because I cannot imagine a future where I wouldn’t be able to floor it down a lone country road”, speeding through the blur of nature, so to speak.
That has got to be one of the most depressing things I’ve ever heard. Because it so forcefully implies there really is no hope. A future constrained by rising oceans and a desertified arid West, constant warfare and starving billions as industrialized civilization goes through its death throes? No problem. Being unable to drive? Put me in my grave now. Wow. It is really that pervasive, that desparate, our lives are that empty, that to consider a future without cars is worse than considering the extinction of life itself. That is the state we are in.”
The inevitability of the current conflagration really hit home with her words. That was in 2015.
Rob, that’s some pretty stark compartmentalisation there. 😂
Regarding Pan’s cannabilism link above:
These soldiers are just doing research in test kitchens to perfect recipes.
They want to be first to publish the cookbook. Gotta beat Martha Stewart and other well-known chefs.
Best-selling cookbooks are bloody profitable!