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Blind Spot and Fuel: a Review of Two Peak Oil Documentaries from 2008
Blind Spot: Peak Oil and the Coming Global Crisis
A documentary directed, written, photographed and edited by Adolfo Doring
Music by Randall Wallace
Produced by Michelle Cicalese, David Gil, Randall Wallace and Amanda Zackem
Presented by Wallace Global Fund in association with Dislexic Films
Release Date: October 2008
Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes
Fuel
A documentary directed and narrated by Josh Tickell
Written by Johnny O’Hara
Film editing by Michael Horwitz and Tina Imahara
Cinematography by James Mulryan
Music by Ryan Demaree and Edgar Rothermich
Produced by Daniel Assael, Darius Fisher, John Goldsmith, Tina Imahara, Robert Little, Laura Martorella, Gregory McClatchy, Janet Morrow, Stephen Nemeth, H.W. Pausch, Greg Reitman, Dale Rosenbloom, Todd Sali, Rebecca Harrell Tickell and Kevin Vickery
A Cinema Libre Studio release in association with Blue Water Entertainment, Open Pictures and Hero BX
Release Date: January 2008
Running time: 1 hour, 52 minutes
These two documentaries on the world oil crisis came out in 2008, a time of growing concern over humankind’s energy future. In the decade since then, public interest in the issue has waned, but the relevance of these films hasn’t—they remain valuable, engaging portraits of the quandary we face at the end of the oil age. Blind Spot provides the proverbial 30,000-foot view of our situation, whereas Fuel gives a personal, on-the-ground account of one man’s activist crusade. Both films are far from perfect. One fails to adequately address how we should respond to our crisis, while the other is unrealistically optimistic about the responses it suggests. Still, both are important films, and they’re all the more compelling when viewed together, given their disparate but complementary perspectives.
Blind Spot is uncompromising about the realities we face as we leave the era of cheap, abundant oil behind. A formidable cast of geoscientists, physicists, environmental analysts, inventors and other experts details the essence of our plight. Our modern world, which requires ever-increasing quantities of easily obtainable oil, faces a future of ever-dwindling supply. Because oil is finite and the rate of new oil discoveries has been dropping since the early 1960s, logic and mathematics dictate that its production will eventually reach an all-time high, followed by permanent decline. The numbers indicate that the point of peak production, a phenomenon called “peak oil,” is imminent. And, sadly, alternative energy sources, for all the hype they’ve generated, are powerless to save us. They are nowhere near as energy-dense as oil, and we’ve already waited too long to invest meaningfully in them.
This assessment has held up well. Most people wouldn’t know it, though, for all the obfuscation on this subject in the media. A lot of people today insist that world oil output has continued to climb steadily, a decade-plus after peak oil experts warned us it would begin to head downward. But such claims are based on a, let’s say, “creative” definition of oil. The peak oil predictions of the late 1990s to early 2000s had to do with crude oil as traditionally defined, whereas the figures most people hear about these days are more appropriately termed total liquid fuels. These include things like biofuels and tight oil from shale, which are not traditional crude. We now know that production of the latter peaked around 2005 to 2006, right on schedule (and, incidentally, even before Blind Spot’s release). Eventually, total liquids will follow suit.
Besides the specter of oil’s scarcity, Blind Spot looks at a range of deleterious effects the substance has had while plentiful. These include overpopulation, climate change, war in the Middle East, the economic decline of America’s middle class, health effects from automobile emissions and mass species extinctions.
Overpopulation is perhaps the most frightening of all the topics listed above. Richard Heinberg, a major peak oil author and senior fellow at the Post Carbon Institute, describes how, beginning around the early 1800s, oil enabled industrial agriculture. This in turn permitted the world’s population to increase sevenfold (seven-and-a-half-fold as of 2018). Blind Spot shows a line graph of world population growth from 1 A.D. to 2007, which reveals that as of 1850 there were fewer than one billion humans alive—a data point labeled “Earth’s Approximate Carrying Capacity.” Thus, Heinberg argues that absent oil, the planet isn’t capable of supporting more than about a billion people. Our task at this point, he says, is to reduce population as humanely as possible before nature does the job for us.
The miracle of petrochemical-based industrial farming is but one factor enabling today’s bloated human population; it’s also our luck that Earth’s current climate favors widespread human settlement and agriculture. Yet that propitious climate is among the things we’re destroying through our oil usage. Gases emitted by burning fossil fuel are altering the climate in ways that are fast eliminating human habitat. For this reason, if for no other, it’s fortunate that we’re depleting our oil resources. However, climate change researcher James Hansen suggests that the damage might already be done, due to positive (i.e., self-reinforcing) feedback effects. Hansen warns of “the danger that these positive feedbacks will cause a situation that begins to run under its own power.” In the 10 years that have passed since Blind Spot’s release, evidence in favor of this scenario has steadily mounted, with data repeatedly showing rates of change far beyond what climate scientists once said was likely.
Just as the science on climate change continues to grow more and more alarming, so research into the human health effects of automobile exhaust increasingly shows it to be deadlier than previously thought. Terry Tamminen, former head of the California Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) under Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger, reports that levels of exhaust pollutants once thought to be benign are, in fact, quite harmful. He also exposes some of the measures that oil and automobile companies have taken to bury this fact.
Apart from the harms that directly attend oil usage, there’s another host of troubling issues associated with fuels that have been touted as oil’s replacements. Blind Spot highlights two such fuels, ethanol and biodiesel. Cornell University ecologist David Pimentel, who chaired a U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) panel on ethanol from 1979 to 1983, decries the ethics of diverting food crops to fuel production. The number of malnourished people on Earth today is the largest in history, he observes, and increased biofuels production means less food to go to these already starving people. Biofuels’ other horrors include soil degradation, water depletion, deforestation and ocean dead zones caused by fertilizer runoff.
In addition to their ecological and human health effects, ethanol and biodiesel lack the one thing that is oil’s greatest virtue: its energy density. Our present society needs fuels with high energy returned on energy invested (EROEI) ratios. The DOE research that Pimentel advised found ethanol to have a lower-than-1:1 EROEI, meaning that it takes more energy to produce than it yields in return. As such, ethanol isn’t an energy source but an energy sink. Pimentel adds that subsequent studies into ethanol and other biofuels have reinforced this finding. So, once the present glut of fracked tight oil from the American West begins to vanish, efforts to mitigate its decline by ramping up biofuel production are bound to be just as ill-fated as the attempt to reverse conventional oil’s downward spiral with biofuels 10 years ago was.
Blind Spot covers far more ground than has been described so far in this review. Beyond the hard science underpinning our energy picture and the ecological corner into which we’ve backed ourselves through our fuel choices, the film goes into the link between oil supply and economic growth, the psychological and sociological facets of our predicament, the tactics advertisers use to entice us to consume and how we, as a society, need new stories to make sense of our changing world. These discussions enter some pretty deep philosophical territory, but the thread that ties them all together—an awareness that infinite growth on a finite world is impossible—is remarkably simple.
Where Blind Spot falls down is in not exploring in earnest the matter of how to deal with our mess. The documentary spends some brief, isolated moments outlining the types of changes that are necessary, but these are mere asides. The problem isn’t that the individuals interviewed lack detailed proposals for addressing the challenges we face. On the contrary, they have plenty of thoughts on what we should do, as evidenced by the many books they’ve collectively written. It is the film that’s at fault for not allowing its experts to really delve into the subject.
My desire is not for the film to offer “solutions,” for it seems to me that its fatalism about the future is substantiated. But many issues that can’t be solved can nonetheless be responded to effectively, and this, I judge, is the case with peak oil. If only Blind Spot had closed with a section examining some of the promising suggestions that have been put forward by the many fine thinkers among its cast. As it is, the film ends on a stark warning about a coming mass die-off of the human population, voiced over the image of a poisoned, dead bird lying on its back. That sort of ending inspires not constructive action but melancholy.
A deeply personal film, Fuel is every bit as much a portrait of Tickell’s activist career up through early 2008 as it is a wake-up call to humanity. Tickell is an alternative fuels advocate who rose to fame during the late ’90s for embarking on a two-year nationwide tour to raise awareness about the merits of biodiesel. He traveled in a flamboyantly colored, diesel-powered van known as the “Veggie Van,” running it on used frying oil from restaurants he passed along the way. Fuel begins with an amusing scene in which he pulls his rig, in all its bright-colored glory (its paint job a mural of sunflowers set against a radiant blue sky) into a drive-through and asks for a medium soft drink—as well as all of the restaurant’s used cooking oil. We chuckle heartily as the flustered server struggles to understand Tickell’s request.
Tickell was born in Australia and moved to Baton Rouge, Louisiana, as a boy. Following the move, he was dismayed at no longer being able to play amid nature as he had back home. His new stomping ground was too toxic for such recreation. Tickell was a bright kid, and during a school science project for which he collected and analyzed local water samples, he gained his first clues into how the state government had long been controlled by oil interests, and as a result had been underreporting levels of toxic waste in the environment. Tickell went on to earn a college degree in sustainable living, which afforded him the opportunity to intern on some organic farms in Europe. It was on one of these farms that he first encountered biodiesel and decided to spread the word about it in America.
One distinct difference between Fuel and Blind Spot is that Fuel interviews not only scientists, entrepreneurs, scholars, politicians and the like, but also Hollywood celebrities. Among the stars it features—all of whom have supported causes related to getting off oil—are Julia Roberts, Woody Harrelson, Willie Nelson, Neil Young and Sheryl Crow. Their presence, together with Tickell’s beguiling, vulnerable and altogether touching narrative, lends Fuel a good deal more entertainment value and drama than Blind Spot. The soundtrack reinforces this tone, with songs by Crow, Nelson, John Mellencamp and other popular musicians conveying an inspirational, at times humorous, feel, as opposed to the solemn instrumental track of Blind Spot.
In many ways, Fuel and Blind Spot are well aligned ideologically. Tickell shows no signs of being what peak oil folks would call an oil cornucopian, or one who believes that we can magically make more of the stuff appear simply by wanting it badly enough. (He has other cornucopian leanings, but we’ll get to those later.) He grants the basic tenets of peak oil and includes clips from interviews he conducted with heavyweights on the subject like Colin Campbell and the late Matthew Simmons. Also like Blind Spot, Fuel makes a point of emphasizing how ubiquitous petroleum is in our lives, the connection between oil and war, oil’s adverse ecological and human health impacts and the existential threat that climate change poses. Both films are also critical of Americans’ profligate consumption, the advertising industry that encourages our wastefulness and the use of food crops to create fuel (they’re agreed that ethanol is a nonstarter).
Moreover, Fuel is sober enough to recognize that there’s no silver bullet when it comes to replacing oil. Tickell says we need “a barrel of solutions,” and to illustrate, he shows us a diagram in the shape of a barrel, with seven horizontal sections. These are labeled, from top to bottom, “ENERGY EFFICIENCY,” “PUBLIC TRANSPORTATION,” “PLUG-IN HYBRIDS/EV’s,” “SOLAR,” “WIND,” “BIOMASS” and “SUSTAINABLE BIOFUELS.” As he drills down on each category, we watch him meet with entrepreneurs, lawmakers and investors across America, as well as travel to Germany and Sweden to gain insight into what those nations have done to reduce their oil dependence. He talks with experts in wood-based bioenergy, wind power, tidal energy, diesel automotive innovations, biodegradable plastic alternatives, vertical farming, retrofitting for energy conservation and the use of wastewater as an algal biofuel feedstock. In short, rather than a single magic bullet, he fires a volley of projectiles, the better to hit an exceedingly daunting target.
Unfortunately, however, some of the solutions that Tickell examines reflect a delusion on his part. He appears to take it for granted that our species somehow has ultimate control over its destiny, no matter that it’s the biosphere we’re destroying that put us here and continues to support us. “We can sustain every living human being,” Tickell glibly assures us, “as well as the human beings that will come. The choice is ours.” He also uses the phrase “almost insurmountable” to describe the challenges we face. How can he draw such a fine distinction? Couldn’t an equally valid case be made that our crises are just shy of surmountable? The filmmaker provides zero evidence in support of claims such as those quoted above; he merely asserts them.
Worse yet, he ignores a wealth of evidence that goes against these optimistic statements. He never brings up the Club of Rome’s landmark 1972 report titled The Limits to Growth (to say nothing of its subsequent updates). Since this study remains one of the most prescient ever conducted on the implications of continued growth in the global population and economy through the end of this century, its omission from Tickell’s assessment is glaring. Tickell also avoids mentioning the DOE’s 2005 Hirsch Report, which stressed the need to begin our shift away from oil at least 20 years in advance of its peak, lest the transition fail miserably. Tickell’s faith that humanity can somehow magically avert certain disaster is no doubt reassuring to many viewers, but it has nothing to do with reality.
Numerous other vital topics go neglected in Tickell’s selective analysis. For instance, he states that biodiesel’s EROEI is 3:1 (a figure that contradicts the DOE findings mentioned earlier, but let’s grant for argument’s sake that it’s correct). The next logical question, which Tickell doesn’t ask, is whether a 3:1 EROEI is actually sufficient to power industrial society. The belief among many who have studied the energetics of complex human systems is that it isn’t—not by half. And just as with EROEI, Tickell fails to pose questions about a raft of other necessary topics relevant to our energy situation, including the vast number of finite resources besides oil that are nearing peak production, the paradox inherent in striving toward ever-greater efficiency (peakists will know this as the Jevons paradox), the failings of free trade and nature’s status as the ultimate arbiter of what takes place in human economic affairs.
Even so, you don’t have to share Tickell’s blind trust in human ingenuity to applaud him for at least proposing solutions. Peak oil author John Michael Greer has sensibly argued that what we need right now is a fruitful state of dissensus. Greer reasons that because so much is still unknown as to which approaches will work and which won’t, we need to research as many avenues as possible to weed out the promising ones from the duds. I don’t know whether Tickell is aware of Greer’s ideas, but his openness to a range of potential responses, as demonstrated in Fuel, makes him an exemplar of dissensus.
69 Comments on "Blind Spot and Fuel: a Review of Two Peak Oil Documentaries from 2008"
BobInget on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 9:11 am
Did you know?
LNG is gas that is supercooled until it turns into a liquid. While LNG use as a shipping fuel is still too small to affect its prices, the projected uptake is supporting the outlook of companies like Royal Dutch Shell PLC on expectations that LNG demand will continue to grow.
The shipping industry currently consumes about five million barrels a day of oil, and most of the industry is expected to meet the new obligations by either switching to more expensive low-sulfur fuels or installing ”scrubbers” that clean sulfur out of exhaust fumes.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 9:54 am
Blind spot is an excellent movie..So is “Critical Mass”..
Robert Inget on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:03 am
(repost)
Underlying decline rates are extremely high. Since the end of 2014, the decline rates at the Eagleford & the Bakken have averaged roughly 39% and 28% per year, respectively. What this means is that if you stopped drilling today, those are the rates at which production would decline by this time next year.
Let’s look at an example. At the end of 2014, the Eagleford was producing 1,604 mbopd. By April 2018, the wells that were on line at the end of 2014 were producing just 316 mbopd. That works out to an annual decline rate of about 39%: 1,600 x (1 – .39)^3.33 (years) = 309.
This is a classic case of having to run faster to stay in the same place, with more rigs & continuous improvements in completion technologies in a heated battle against physics & Mother Nature. The only things we know for certain are that: 1) there is not an infinite amount of shale acreage; 2) over time, operators will be faced with drilling in more marginal locations; 3) well spacing can only be reduced so much before new wells cannibalize production from existing wells, hurting the overall economics; 4) decreasing ‘reservoir’ pressures and increasing gas cuts (and maybe water cuts) are inevitable; 5) completion technologies have continued to make quantum leaps, but cannot avoid the law of diminishing returns forever.
Duncan Idaho on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:13 am
On this date—
1814 — British troops burn the Capitol & the White house after US troops, fleeing so fast that only eight of them were killed, left Washington DC virtually undefended.
GetAVasectomyAndLetTheHumanSpecieDie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 11:32 am
My preferred peak oil documentary is
A Crude Awakening – The Oilcrash
Available full version on tube
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=odCZpBPfFQk
A lot of good documentary about peak oil have been made. Nothing has changed since then. This is why collapse is baked into the cake and only collapse can bring changes forwards. This is why there are so many collapse through human history.
Anonymous on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 3:37 pm
Massive fail. Peak oil from ten years ago is a joke. Heck, Michael Ruppert probably killed himself from disappointment in doom not happening.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 4:36 pm
Anoymous
Peak oil has passed..That is why the price of oil has sky rocketed since 2005 ie scarcity..Next comes the shortages and collapse..
Ruppert got out while the going was still good..You might envy him in a few years..
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 9:45 pm
“The World’s First Electric Autonomous Container Ship To Set Sail In Norway”
https://cleantechnica.com/2018/08/23/the-worlds-first-electric-autonomous-container-ship-to-set-sail-in-norway/
Battery-driven, short distances only. For larger distances they could use hydrogen or some derivative.
“Yabut, oil is irreplaceble?!”
It isn’t.
makati1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 9:50 pm
Cloggie, hydrogen is not a fuel any more than electric is a fuel. Both are derived from FFs. They cannot exist without FFs. Dream on.
Anonymouse1 on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:01 pm
Cloggenfraud is ‘right’ as usual. For longer distances ‘they’ could use any of cloggenyid approved ‘derivatives’*
Such as, but not limited to….
-Unicorn ass gas
-zero-point energy
-Di-lithium crystals
-hyper-fuel
If none of these are readily available to fuel cloggenfruads robo-ships, they can always be powered by wishful thinking. Oh, its roboSHIPs now. I guess flying electric robo cars are so…..3 months ago.
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:16 pm
“Cloggie, hydrogen is not a fuel any more than electric is a fuel. Both are derived from FFs. They cannot exist without FFs. Dream on.”
North-America is no front-runner in all matters renewable energy, so makati and mouse1 are excused to not be fully up to speed with developments in Europe.
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/28/700-mw-renewable-hydrogen-plant-to-be-built-in-france/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/12/11/high-temperature-electrolysis/
https://deepresource.wordpress.com/2017/08/09/first-climate-neutral-power-station-in-the-netherlands/
MASTERMIND on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:17 pm
Clogg is so fucking stupid its almost unbelievable..He is a conservative though and they have the lowest IQ’s of all white people..And he always uses sources from the big tech industry that have obvious conflicts of interest..He is just a lonely angry incel..
MASTERMIND on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:20 pm
As The Wealthy Flock To The Major Cities On Both Coasts, Poverty And Suicide Soar In Rural Areas
America’s wealthy households are increasingly moving to coastal cities on both sides of the country, but those with more modest incomes are either relocating to or being pushed into the nation’s Rust Belt, according to a new study.
According to estimates by the U.S. Department of Agriculture, nearly a quarter of children growing up in rural America were poor in 2016, compared to slightly more than 20 percent in urban areas.Perhaps not surprisingly, the report found the highest concentrations of child poverty, overall, in the Mississippi Delta, Appalachia and on Native American reservations.
The suicide rate in rural America is 45% greater than in large urban areas, according to a study released last fall by the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. A more recent CDC report said Montana’s suicide rate leads the nation, coming in at nearly twice the national average. A third long-touted CDC study, currently under review, listed farming in the occupational group, along with fishing and forestry, with the highest rate of suicide deaths.
http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/as-the-wealthy-flock-to-the-major-cities-on-both-coasts-poverty-and-suicide-soar-in-rural-areas
Die Whitey Die! You will be replaced!
LMFAO!
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 10:47 pm
“-Unicorn ass gas
-zero-point energy
-Di-lithium crystals
-hyper-fuel”
“Clogg is so fucking stupid its almost unbelievable..He is a conservative though and they have the lowest IQ’s of all white people..And he always uses sources from the big tech industry that have obvious conflicts of interest..He is just a lonely angry incel..”
This is the “quality” of the “arguments” you can expect from North-America: cursing, sneering and yelling and zero substance. A spent force, a has been, yesterday’s news.
Millikike gloats: “Die Whitey Die! You will be replaced!”
Yeah, with this trash:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6096553/Chicago-street-violence-laid-bare-shocking-video-two-men-murdered-2017.html
And millikike is too stupid to understand that majority non-white ZOG-USA will constitute a threat to no one, just another stupid Brasil.
But white despair is guaranteed to explode in the near future, so the joint will be broken up, not a minute too early.
Cloggie on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 11:01 pm
White farm seizures beginning in South-Africa:
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-6094565/White-farmer-set-game-reserve-seized-South-Africa-calls-theft.html
SA going the way of Zimbabwe, that is down the drain. More proof that black and white can’t live together and should prepare for the Great Divorce, world-wide. Russia and Australia have signaled they are prepared to take in large numbers of Boers of Dutch descent from SA if tshtf.
https://www.rt.com/business/432375-russia-south-africa-farmers/
https://www.rt.com/business/427405-south-african-farmers-visas-australia/
For me it is an open question where real violence will begin first: in the US or SA.
MASTERMIND on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 11:03 pm
Clogg
That is a baseless neo nazi conspiracy..You are so fucking dumb..Look at your sources you moron..RT and Dailymail?
Daily Mail hoodwinked by spoof blog about UKIP flag flying above Ely Cathedral
http://www.cambstimes.co.uk/news/how-the-daily-mail-got-hoodwinked-1-5660809
HAHA
MASTERMIND on Fri, 24th Aug 2018 11:04 pm
Saudi Arabia runs out of oil by 2040
Crunching the numbers on ARAMCO Oil reserves: Saudi Arabia will run out by 2040 at current production rates..
https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/e/2PACX-1vSdLxDjC7CWIlfuLhuLp4eKKU301OjQ7iWVqd6ttNyToAsSrlzXSFphcRx1snqojiIDKleAETBdU-6S/pubhtml#
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 12:20 am
Cloggie: “Solar and wind capturing devices are not alternative energy sources. They are extensions of the fossil fuel supply. There is an illusion of looking at the trees and not the forest in the “Renewable” energy world. Not seeing the systems, machineries, fossil fuel uses and environmental degradation that create the devices to capture the sun, wind and biofuels allows myopia and false claims….”
http://sunweber.blogspot.com/2011/12/machines-making-machines-making.html
“Energy Return on Energy Invested (ERoEI) is only a part of the the equation. There is a massive infrastructure of mining, processing, manufacturing, fabricating, installation, transportation and the associated environmental assaults. Each of these processes and machines may only add a miniscule amount of energy to the final component of solar or wind devices. There would be no devices with out this infrastructure.” Nuff said.
Antius on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 12:20 am
The next Venezuela:
https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-08-24/meanwhile-next-venezuela
Blacks simply are not cut out for industrial civilisation, or indeed civilisation in general. They are protohumans. They are what we evolved from; and in the natural order of things they would go the way of the Neanderthal.
It is only the civilisation framework provided by white Europeans that allows them to rise above the most slovenly subsistence lifestyle. But they forever live in our shadow and bitterly resent our superiority. They will always bite the hand that feeds them, in this case quite literally.
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 1:14 am
Antius, and maybe it is because we have keep them down for the last 500+ years? After all, skin color is a genetic variation depending on the place your ancestors lived on the planet, not indicative of intellectual ability.
Ancient Egyptians were black. They built the pyramids, the Sphinx, and a very rich civilization along the Nile. It lasted for thousands of years. White civilizations barely manage 100 years before they collapse.
I.Q. measurement is a device used by whites, to prove they are superior, by designing a test that favors Westerners, not one that measures things outside Western values.
Perhaps if things had been different, Africa may be the dominant country now and not America. Think about it. Racism is a Caucasian illness. One soon to be erased by interbreeding and shrinking Caucasian numbers.
Antius on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 1:16 am
“Solar and wind capturing devices are not alternative energy sources. They are extensions of the fossil fuel supply”
Makati, Whilst this is true at present, I have never entirely understood what would prevent the use of solar/wind/nuclear electric power in carrying out the tasks involved in making wind and solar panels.
Mining equipment requires a lot of mechanical power. But that mechanical power can come from electric motors or compressed air provided by electric motors. Transportation of ore can be accomplished using battery electric vehicles over short distances and by electrified railways over longer distances.
Ores can be crushed using electric powered mills. Aluminium ores are reduced using electric power in present production processes. Iron ores can be heated in electric induction furnaces if a little recycled metal is added. The only part of the process where some form of chemical fuel is indispensable is the reduction of oxides into metals. That is where hydrogen, biogas, etc, come into play.
If there is a future to industrialisation, it would appear to be an electric future. In a purely technical sense, it would appear to be feasible. Whether it is affordable is another matter.
Antius on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 1:39 am
“Ancient Egyptians were black. They built the pyramids, the Sphinx, and a very rich civilization along the Nile. It lasted for thousands of years. White civilizations barely manage 100 years before they collapse.”
Ancient Egyptians were a Mediterranean people.
‘The problem, it was thought, is that mummy DNA couldn’t be sequenced. But a group of international researchers, using unique methods, have overcome the barriers to do just that. They found that the ancient Egyptians were most closely related to the peoples of the Near East, particularly from the Levant. This is the Eastern Mediterranean which today includes the countries of Turkey, Iraq, Israel, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon. The mummies used were from the New Kingdom and a later period, (a period later than the Middle Kingdom) when Egypt was under Roman rule.’
‘Modern Egyptians share 8% of their genome with central Africans, far more than ancient ones, according to the study, published in the journal Nature Communications. The influx of Sub-Saharan genes only occurred within the last 1,500 years. This could be attributed to the trans-Saharan slave trade or just from regular, long distance trade between the two regions. Improved mobility on the Nile during this period increased trade with the interior, researchers claim.”
https://bigthink.com/philip-perry/were-the-ancient-egyptians-black-or-white-scientists-now-know
If the blacks contributed to Egyptian civilisation at all, they were basically tagging onto something that others had already built.
The rest of the shit you talk about is (hopefully) a sick fantasy.
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 2:17 am
Antius, they were mostly black, not the Hollywood “Ten Commandments” version. They had a lot of African blood. Many of the Pharaohs were black. Egypt is an African Country, not a Mediterranean country. Ignorance is rampant in Caucasian minorities, especially in America.
“The mummies used were from the New Kingdom and a later period, (a period later than the Middle Kingdom) when Egypt was under Roman rule.” (New Kingdom = ~1500BC to Roman times ~1000BC.)
Meaning that the mummies tested were NOT the ones who built the pyramids or even within 1,000 years of the Old Kingdom. Their headline “Were the ancient Egyptians black or white? Scientists now know” is pure bullshit, or at the very least, deliberate disinformation.
Your source is bias and only suggests that they were not black. Genetics is still a young science and has little experience with long dead mummies. When they have tested hundreds of older mummies (3,000BC – 2,000BC, come back with the results. Testing a few mummies is not a statistic, it is a small sampling, like taking a poll. You get out what you want to prove and ignore the variations.
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 2:23 am
Antius, as far as renewables made from 100% renewable power. Hahahahahahaha! Not possible! You have no grasp of reality in that area, just wishful thinking and denial of reality, like Cloggie.
Electric will end when the last panel or tower wears out. No parts or means to repair will be available without FFs. None. But all things that use electric will be gone before that happens.
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 2:31 am
“The rest of the shit you talk about is (hopefully) a sick fantasy.” – Antius
The thoughts and refs I post here are reality, not “shit”. Denial only makes it worse for you, not me. I live in the real world and am preparing for a real future that is going to be so different and difficult that you cannot imagine it, not a unicorn wish, full of ‘ifs’ and ‘maybes’. Escapism is a disease rampant in America.
“Definition of escapism: habitual diversion of the mind to purely imaginative activity or entertainment as an escape from reality or routine.” M-W
Cloggie on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 3:13 am
Antius, and maybe it is because we have keep them down for the last 500+ years?
Tell me makati, how do you keep stone age cannibals down? Inquiring minds would like to know.
Africa would be much better of if it was still colonized by Europeans. But the new American colonizers of Europe after 1945 had different designs (kosher run global empire, run from Washington and NYC) and made it clear to the Europeans in no uncertain terms that they had to abandon their empires world-wide. Even US c*ck-sucker Winston Churchill launched a feeble protest against this demand, to no avail.
I claim that Rhodesia and Apartheid South-Africa were much better places to live for average Africans than Zimbabwe today or South-Africa after the coming inevitable “break”:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Netherlands-South_African_Railway_Company
https://www.thepatriot.co.zw/wp-content/uploads/2014/12/141.jpg
https://europeansworldwide.files.wordpress.com/2017/10/harvest-time-at-mazoe-1965.jpg
But makati, you are just an egalitarian North-American as everybody else here, with the consequence that you have lost your country and are now forced to “enjoy” the demise of said country from a “safe distance” and gleefully announcing its demise 24/7.
I have never understood that attitude. Americans: quint-essential cosmopolitans, “eternal emigrants”, without a place they can call their home, not Europe where they originally came from, not America, a place pulled from under their feet like an old carpet, courtesy The Tribe, and now the Philippines or Italy or Canadian sticks or God knows where else.
Admit it makati, white Americans like you (if you are one) fucked-up majestically. Your demographic was unable to generate an elite strong enough to withstand The Tribe. Instead you let yourself being used, together with your Soviet palls, to destroy your own mum (“Greatest Generation” my foot).
And now you are destroyed yourself, with mum slightly less so and Russia meanwhile on track again. Now roll over and die and prepare yourself for a multi-polar world, defined by Greater Europe and China and America balkanized. That is what you get and deserve after a life-long career of “racism”-howling, pretending you were something better than these Europeans, you temporarily vanquished on orders of your owner Uncle Schmull.
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/09/25/chamberlain-and-the-forrestal-diaries/
Cloggie on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 3:32 am
Antius, as far as renewables made from 100% renewable power. Hahahahahahaha! Not possible! You have no grasp of reality in that area, just wishful thinking and denial of reality, like Cloggie.
Eh makati, both Antius as well as my nothingness have studied energy matters in depth, very much unlike you.
Furthermore, your collapse fantasies are somewhat at odds with the findings of the one and only original technological and scientific powerhouse on this planet, Europe.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_policy_of_the_European_Union
(100% renewable energy base by 2050)
https://documents1940.wordpress.com/2017/09/26/origin-scientific-accomplishments/
You may now kiss my ring.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yEPSJF7BYOo
(enjoy your masters Jon and Sascha)
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 4:54 am
Cloggie, you and Antius are racist and dreamers, not realists. I don’t debate with deniers or white supremacists.
“White supremacy or white supremacism is a racist ideology based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races.” WIKI
Nuff said.
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 4:59 am
Cloggie, I might add that you are becoming even more delusional than Davy. Europe is dying along with the Us. Nothing will save it. You will be Africanized as time goes on. Whites are blending with all colors so that ‘permanent tan’ is the future.
Cloggie on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 5:02 am
Some still may doubt whether peak oil is real and has importance for the current situation, others simply move on.
New offshore wind project “Hollandse Kust” (“Dutch Coast”) could be the first to use the new 12 MW General Electric wind turbines:
https://www.offshorewind.biz/2018/05/03/vattenfall-shines-more-light-on-hollandse-kust-zuid-1-2-win/
The scope of the entire project with farms I-IV has a capacity of 1500 MW nameplate (or 700 MW real average power).
Average overall Dutch power consumption is 13 GW 24/7/365.
In other words we are talking about an additional 5.3% Dutch fossil power generation being replaced by renewable electricity by 2022.
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 5:06 am
Cloggie: “But makati, you are just an egalitarian North-American as everybody else here, with the consequence that you have lost your country and are now forced to “enjoy” the demise of said country from a “safe distance” and gleefully announcing its demise 24/7.”
I am American by birth but not by choice. I am cheering on the demise of both the US and the EU as they are destroying the very ecosystem we need to survive and are the cause of so much unnecessary death and plundering around the world. The sooner the West collapse’ the better for the other six plus billion of us.
And, yes I got out of the police state before it slams the door. As have hundreds of thousands of other intelligent Americans. Only a fool stay in a collapsing building.
Cloggie on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 5:19 am
Cloggie, I might add that you are becoming even more delusional than Davy. Europe is dying along with the Us. Nothing will save it. You will be Africanized as time goes on. Whites are blending with all colors so that ‘permanent tan’ is the future.
That is indeed what Americans, 2nd rate Europeans (“huddled masses”), the underclasses of Europe, that fell of the European truck 1-2 centuries ago, equipped with extreme low sense of ethnic pride, would love to see happening.
Americans are the quint-essential anti-Europeans, who would love to prove they are better. Here the leader of the French New Right Alain de Benoist, accurately describing the American anti-European mindset:
https://www.radixjournal.com/2018/01/america-a-view-from-the-french-new-right/
But I am telling you that populism is on the rise in Europe, like it is in America. Europeans are far harder and more ruthless than feebler Americans.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/opinions/1985/05/05/their-wehrmacht-was-better-than-our-army/0b2cfe73-68f4-4bc3-a62d-7626f6382dbd/
When Europeans wage war, expect millions to get killed, where Americans run for their mummie after 40k death.
Europe has thrown out Islam 3 times before, in 1942-1944 it has kicked out millions of Jews, in the nineties Yugoslavia was thoroughly cleansed and “balkanized” and so has recently Donbass. Nothing is irreversible, where natural ethnic tensions will continue to exist.
You yourself have predicted that a civil war in America is going to happen (between ethnicities) and once we in Europe finally get rid of the US overlord (we are almost there), in the coming decade, these IQ70-85 Muslims and Africans will prove to be no match for us.
makati1 on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 5:30 am
Cloggie, Europe has to import most everything it needs, especially energy for heat. What does that say about the future? You are a burned out area, not a growing one. “Make Europe Great Again” is just as much a joke as the “Make America Great Again” is.
You might want what you claim will happen, but I do not see it happening. I see either a war with Russia, started by your own elites, and/or the Islamification of most of Europe in the next decade. A war will cut off your heat. Are you prepared?
Antius on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 5:31 am
“You yourself have predicted that a civil war in America is going to happen (between ethnicities) and once we in Europe finally get rid of the US overlord (we are almost there), in the coming decade, these IQ70-85 Muslims and Africans will prove to be no match for us.”
Indeed. I sometimes wonder if mass immigration into Europe turns out to have a silver lining. As the oil, coal and gas become more scare, the dark skinned people will be the future slaves serving white Europeans. They will be the underclass that work the fields.
Davy on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 5:45 am
“For me it is an open question where real violence will begin first: in the US or SA.”
We have had continual race problems since the start of the country and it will continue until the end. This is the relief value that keeps us living together. All this civil war talk is way off the mark. There is an internal civil war going on in DC that is the most interesting in regards to what direction the US and by extinction the world will go in. The rest of the country is very diverse in regards to demographics. Some areas will be worse off than others and some areas will only have small islands of disturbances. To compare the US to South Africa is a gross inaccuracy.
Davy on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 6:16 am
“Blacks simply are not cut out for industrial civilization, or indeed civilization in general. They are protohumans. They are what we evolved from; and in the natural order of things they would go the way of the Neanderthal.”
Blacks are not as good at industrial civilization but it was never their design. They had a culture that was fine until whites destroyed most of them. Blacks that are good at white industrial civilization are very good because they have a step curve to negotiate to success. They have a niche in the American culture. The ones that are failures are failures partly because of white civilization nurturing failures. I am not sure we can say they are naturally less intelligent when one considers the tests are white test on colored people. I would also ask if white civilization that is responsible for the destruction of the earth through white industrialization should be placed on a pedestal. This way of life is a proving out to be an evolutionary dead end. All the great white cultural achievements mean little when one considers the earth is becoming uninhabitable because of the ways of the whites. In that sense then should whites be acting superior or should they be humble?
DerHundistLos on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 6:19 am
The farm seizures in SA are morally wrong and it will result in a genocide for wildlife. One need only read about what happened in Rhodesia, and for the world community to stand by the sidelines for a second time is inexcusable.
Davy on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 6:35 am
“Makati, Whilst this is true at present, I have never entirely understood what would prevent the use of solar/wind/nuclear electric power in carrying out the tasks involved in making wind and solar panels.”
The real question is systematic and behavioral. If we were ever going to get to the point where fossil fuels are greatly reduced in modern living then we would have to have a transition systematically and with behavior. The technology and the economy are available. The behavior would have to change. We would have to adapt to intermittency. Agriculture and living arrangements would have to be transformed to reflect less dense and diffused power sources.
The big systematic question is if we can make the leap across the chasm of getting from here to there without losing the economy that allows modernity. Behavioral changes are involved on all levels. Populations must be greatly reduced. The existing population will either have to be smarter and much smaller or there could be a combination of more and less advanced with more population then just the smart scenario. When I say less advanced this is in respect to maybe having far more people living like Amish on the land growing food without industrial agriculture. Those in the urban areas smarter and more technological producing goods but at a much lower amount. Consumerism would likely not work in this new world. Leisure and travel greatly reduced. Diets very much different. Localism would be a key. Wisdom would have to treble. The ability to say no to technology and growth absolute.
It is for this reason I feel any talk of 100% renewable except in Byzantium regions is not realistic. Maybe northern Europe can get there but it will only work if the rest of the world allows it. The road to 100% renewables is much bigger than technology and economy. The ability of the world to change in time is doubtful. Time is our scarcest variable. Cooperation and sacrifice likely is not there. Everyone wants the other to change. Weapons of mass destruction are too easy to use to enforce the will of the more powerful. It is more likely nature will take us to a different world. Nature already has an established path. She is already making changes while we talk about it.
Davy on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 6:40 am
“Cloggie, I might add that you are becoming even more delusional than Davy.”
Billy, I would watch what you say about me because I can go back to giving you a constant rash of hell.
Davy on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 6:43 am
“I am cheering on the demise of both the US and the EU as they are destroying the very ecosystem we need to survive and are the cause of so much unnecessary death and plundering around the world. The sooner the West collapse’ the better for the other six plus billion of us.”
AH, check this link out and tell me who is destroying the ecosystem of the world. I think it is all the world including Asia:
https://tinyurl.com/nb6a2aj
Antius on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 7:29 am
“White supremacy or white supremacism is a racist ideology based upon the belief that white people are superior in many ways to people of other races.” WIKI”
That is simply the reality of the situation Makati; as witnessed by two millennia of white European technological progress and global domination.
It didn’t happen by accident. All of the prosperous countries (The white west, Russia, Japan, Korea and increasingly, China) are high IQ countries. Black Africans have never been anything other than flea bitten savages. Ever since I can remember, there have been television advert sob stories demanding money to feed starving black kids with flies buzzing round their faces. Maybe if these people could stop cutting each other up and actually develop some technology and infrastructure, they wouldn’t be in this position. But they can’t. They are flea bitten savages.
After watching my own country fill with muds and hearing about the thousands of young English girls getting raped by various shit skin savages, my tolerance for left wing racial equality propaganda is at a low ebb. I want these people gone from my country and from the western world and I don’t care anymore how it is done.
Cloggie on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 7:54 am
There is an internal civil war going on in DC that is the most interesting in regards to what direction the US and by extinction the world will go in. The rest of the country is very diverse in regards to demographics.
You make it sounds as if the rest of the country is immune for what happens in Washington.
I must remind you of the recent events in capital Kiev, where a regime change had strong repercussions only a few months later of what happened in the East of the country. A vassal of Moscow, Janukovitch, was toppled in Kiev by a NATO/EU/CIA sponsored Euro-Maidan crowd from the West of the Ukraine (with historic roots in Poland and Austria-Hungary, not Russia). A few months later the military uprising in the Russian majority East began, obviously covertly supported by Russia, that could not afford to see thousands of Russians being slaughtered by western Ukrainians (“Natzis”), exactly like how Germany could not stand idly by in 1939, while watching how Germans forced to live in Versailles-Poland were persecuted and ethnically cleansed from “Poland”.
The Americans had incited the Poles to go tough on the Germans, so they could get their desired war in Europe started. Likewise, the Americans hoped they could provoke Russia to intervene in Ukraine and restart the Cold War. But Putin understood the trap that was laid for him and didn’t bite. And to the credit of Germany and France, they intervened without the Americans and could prevent worse (“Normandy-format”).
Morale, don’t think for a minute that this conflict can be confined to Washington if the Deep State and its media manage to topple a legitimately elected president Trump. The campaign is relentless and I have seen nothing like this during my life:
https://twitter.com/TIME/status/1032790895891042304
If Trump goes, regardless how, it will be the start signal for an uprising, rather in months or weeks than in years. Expect the insurgents to receive support from Russia and China, perhaps even from populist-run European countries, like Hungary, Poland, Italy or Austria.
fmr-paultard on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 8:37 am
Indeed. I sometimes wonder if mass immigration into Europe turns out to have a silver lining. As the oil, coal and gas become more scare, the dark skinned people will be the future slaves serving white Europeans. They will be the underclass that work the fields.
antius the tard: haha keep dreaming. history showed that muslims enslaved tons of whites and white women. if the word “harem” sounds arabic because it is. does it rhyme with the word “haram”? sure does. i don’t like slavery because i’m a tard and former paultard, my mission in life is to uphold liberty like president paul told me to.
MASTERMIND on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 8:49 am
CLogg thinks populism can save his economy..Putting the lowest IQ white people in charge will save everything..
Clogg the government can’t save Europe no matter who the fuck is in charge..You are just rearranging chairs on the titanic.
https://imgur.com/a/pYxKa
Tick Tock!
MASTERMIND on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 8:51 am
Clog
Hungry, Poland and Austria..Those are so real juggernauts.. And we all know how bright polish people are?
LMFAO!
MASTERMIND on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 8:56 am
Antius
The white have a higher IQ because the white liberals have an above average IQ..If you look at just white conservatives their IQ’s are no greater than minorities you fucking idiot..
Why Liberals Are More Intelligent Than Conservatives
“Analyses of large representative samples, from both the United States and the United Kingdom, confirm this prediction. In both countries, more intelligent children are more likely to grow up to be liberals than less intelligent children. For example, among the American sample, those who identify themselves as “very liberal” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 106.4, whereas those who identify themselves as “very conservative” in early adulthood have a mean childhood IQ of 94.8.”
https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/the-scientific-fundamentalist/201003/why-liberals-are-more-intelligent-conservatives
MASTERMIND on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 8:59 am
Antius
If you look at the white conservative IQ its no greater than minorities..And if you consider the fact minorities are more athletic, can sing, dance, and are funnier than white conservatives..I would argue that minorities are Superior to white conservatives..
That is why you are being replaced..Girls don’t like dumb peckerwoods with no artistic
MASTERMIND on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 9:13 am
Terrorists readying chemical attack to frame Damascus & provide pretext for US strikes – Russian MoD
https://www.rt.com/news/436812-syria-chemical-weapons-provocation/
Another false flag is coming..Fourth times a charm?
fmr-paultard on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 9:27 am
^mm^ is right, conservatism is stupid. just look at islam conservatism. tard logic is solid here because i’m a tard myself.
antius the tard: the only reason i’m fighting for liberty because supertards found america on that ideal. plus when you said “enslaving” this is not what happened in history of europe. you eurotards paid the jizya at the time of supertard jefferson and he fought the barbary war against muslim pirates in the mediterranean. supertards were generally isolationists and anti-war but they fought, imagine that.
i object to slavery because you’d end up enslaving christians or non-muslims that are sold to you by muslims. if you didn’t sack constantinople and actually helped when asked then brothertard joe wouldn’t be converting to islam and said “iran is the greatest nation!”…no big brother tard joe, in iran — by law — church steeples are required to be lower than minarets and that’s if they’re permitted to be built at all.
fmr-paultard on Sat, 25th Aug 2018 9:29 am
how come aswang never talked about phils slaves in arab world right now? how about muslim self rule in phils due to collapsed nation status? defintion of collapse is sharing of the use of force. collapsed govt of phils doesn’t enjoy monopoly of force.