Can you bring in a guest editor to include a chapter on Bitcoin?
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Yes the easy stuff Chris and others who have knowledge about geology refer to is needing little effort to get lots of energy back. There were phrases such as sticking a straw in the ground and out comes oil. That’s what the 1960’s TV Show The Beverly Hillbillies centered around.
Decades ago, it was too easy to get large amounts of energy back with little effort. Those days are gone. We’ve burned through that, selfishly.
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Gail Tverberg, Chris, Charles Hugh Smith and others have mentioned is that as civilization becomes more complex, the typical answers are, adding more complexities to the problem. Except, what those who come up with these ideas fail to realize, is that it requires even more energy inputs to make it work, such as people, infrastructure etc.
Here Bill Gates has a solution for Canada’s Climate Change problem. Except it requires lots and lots of energy. Isn’t that the wolf cry of the Climate Change movement, that we are using too much energy and are ruining the planet?
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In Australia, we have this dream of becoming a “hydrogen superpower”. We have a dream for our economy to be energised by hydrogen, the most abundant element in the universe:
https://www.dcceew.gov.au/energy/hydrogen
Andrew Forrest, a billionaire, was once a fervent proponent of hydrogen energy. But 6 months ago, he threw in the towel:
Intuitively, I know that hydrogen can’t be the answer to our energy problems. It is the most reactive and smallest element in the periodic table. It will take tremendous amount of energy to undo the reaction of hydrogen with oxygen (or other elements) to get back the hydrogen. It is so small that I can imagine it will be quite impossible to store it and not let it escape.
I still don’t understand why the Australian government didn’t scrap the entire hydrogen energy idea. That webpage is still up today. I guess it is still costing Australian tax payers money to keep this dream alive?
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Coal fueled… I suspect “we” will rediscover clean coal technologies before going back to the stone age?
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because they are woke morons
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Human Energy in One Barrel of Oil
A barrel of oil contains the energy equivalent of about 23,200 hours of human work output. This computation is based on the energy content of a barrel of oil, which is approximately 5.8 million British thermal units (Btu). To put this into perspective, one gallon of gasoline, which is derived from oil, has the energy equivalent of 500 hours of human work output. Therefore, a barrel of oil, containing roughly 46.4 gallons of gasoline, equates to 23,200 hours of human labor.
We cannot replace the energy and work that can be performed by fossil fuels with muscle power. That’s how we lived before the industrial revolution. Few people nowadays would be capable to survive in such conditions. We just don’t have the skills or experience anymore.
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Interesting - young people want change (DUH! as the kids say)
The incumbent in every one of the 12 developed western countries that held national elections in 2024 lost vote share at the polls, the first time this has ever happened in almost 120 years of modern democracy. I
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Yes, and your intuition has been shown to be entirely correct in this. Two books I recommend are Richard Muller’s Physics for Future Presidents and Energy for Future Presidents. In one of these (both? I forget, but I think the first has it; my copies are loaned out at the moment) Muller looks at the problems with using hydrogen as a transport fuel. Apart from the question of “how do we make the stuff, and from what basic energy source?,” the fuel tank sizes needed are much, much larger than gas or diesel tanks holding a comparable amount of useable energy. If I remember his calculation result correctly, a compact car would have to be about the size of a full-size pickup truck in order to accommodate the hydrogen tank. And that’s just for a start, because hydrogen is nowhere nearly as safe as gasoline (consider that for a moment), the distribution problems (pipelines? tanker trucks?!?), and of course, you’ve got to make hydrogen from a primary energy source to begin with.
Anytime somebody comes around waving the hydrogen flag, I used to look for mushy brains, but now I just look to see how the scam works and who gets funneled the money.
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Not only that, but something like 10x the energy contained in food is required in fossil fuels to grow and prepare the food ready to be eaten. So the situation is even worse than you described, and why we couldn’t use animals to take up the slack for moving us around to any significant degree.
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Leaving coal out - meaning that although the CO2 thing is not the Emergency it once was (last year) that bureaucracy can’t turn that fast? Or that the big money will go nuclear
Just over here trying to get my house ready to sell in February and start construction on my farmhouse… if the shit can hold off till Q4 2025 that would be swell 
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@cmartenson a couple of additional charts you have used before that are critical to looking at the energy situation. First is the global oil extraction and reserves. Second is the US oil extraction, especially focusing on the shale oil reserves.
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Yes, you are quite right on this. However at least there are possibilities to escape this current situation. No-till cultivation, natural fertilisers, integrated pest management, crop genetic diversity, manual harvesting, simple processing and packaging, and local consumption can make a dent in that 10:1 energy ratio. Before oil, that’s the way it was.
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Given all of the issues related to energy supplies, why is there not more discussion and priority on using less?
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Jevons paradox.
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besides being so honest and informative, he really is a funny guy! I wonder if its scriptive or ad lib. You don’t have to swirl down the drain! I LOL at least 5 times. and this is not a happy discussion.
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The ADL & Advocacy Groups’ Perverse Incentives REVEALED
Why can’t advocacy groups just take a win as discrimination decreases?
Well, they’ve become a lucrative, powerful business in themselves. Leadership needs to keep their salaries and their power position. Can’t do that if you admit things are getting better for those you’re trying to support.
Is there any chance that instead of making up more nonsense divisive issues to divide Americans these groups could redirect their efforts towards dismantling the deep state, removing corporate capture and making life better for every American? Well, hate to say it, but they’re part of the deep state corporate capture swamp. Like congress, they too are beholden to megadonors.
Many of us have dropped our party affiliation in protest of their capture. Maybe we should do the same with our non-useful advocacy groups who can’t possibly survive in an America that’s nearing a level playing field (except for class).
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I continually hear people say Americans agree on more than we realize and the media forces are keeping us apart.
Ignoring that Williamson is associated with the touchie-feellie left, a lot of what she says sounds very much like what we’re saying. Listen carefully for what you will agree with. Honestly, many of us WERE never-Trumpers who had to reject the alternative. As with Gabbard, here’s another inside look at the corruption in the DNC.
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I. Loved. This.
WORTH EVERY PENNY.
i was gonna retire at end of June.
I think im gonna reconsider. Depends if i can get extension, garden, and greenhouse built by august.
And there is a member on here who commented that he always ends up doing the wrong thing…and i want to buy him a drink.
Just rebought a tiny house last May i owned 25 years ago cause it had land for a small garden and was heated with Natural Gas…i really hate zuckface.
Its not you. Its being at the tail end of the boomers…swear.
Maybe im gonna have to live with a spiral staircase loft bedroom at 70, no bathroom…have to go downstairs…and yes, with the loss of 4 gen family home i did not bother to save the old chamber pots.
With 2 cats…and i need a dog, otherwise i wont get ebough excercise.
I bought it because my friend died last May…and her old dog(special food 6 pills a day) was all i could do for her…her family couldnt handle the dog for the week it took her to die.
Of couse, the day after i got the house, the dog died.
Anyway, the only bright spot was the wood burning fireplace i put in 25 years ago is still there,and the sweep says its fine. Cant cook 9n it though.
Chris, Evie, and all here on Peak…Happy New Year, and all my thanks . To everyone here.
A wise person once said “I just want to know what is real.”
Thank you all for helping me know what is real.
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