hockeydork

Because electric cars are coming, there's no stopping them. Oil industry knows this but is going to squeeze out as much profit as they can. It's what I'd do if I was CEO of Chevron. I drive a G8 with an LS3, so I love gas. The electric car is coming and will significantly dent oil demand.

I've been E85ing mine, working great for now. Mileage is down slightly but we'll worth it cost wise.

Def interesting. One has to assume that if you have somebody in office whose going to push to keep doing things the way we've been doing them, oil producers will be more comfortable pushing investment toward future production. If you get somebody who wants to turn they way we power our world on its head, those investments are going to lag. Transitioning to different power sources, even if its only partially, isn't going to be seamless. CD players didn't disappear over night when the ipod was first released.

"Time to let the American broomstick fly and hear the sounds of freedom". You know even on days when I've almost given up on this place, some girl calling the countdown total restores my faith in one sentence.

I'd like to keep political bashing out as well if we can, we've got a whole presidential thread for people to crap on their respective most hated candidates. I would like to add that from a long term policy perspective fossil fuel prices will inevitably go up even adjusted for inflation, never down. I am not saying this has anything to do with the recent spike, but as more oil is pumped from the ground, there's less in the ground, which long term (talking over hundreds of years) is going to force the prices higher. Oil isn't anymore free from the econ 101 supply and demand curve than any other desired good.

might work out to this later

Another helo down. The music overlay is interesting, but whatever gets the going and pumped up I'm all for it.

Cool map that Peter Zeihan had linked in a twitter thread. I know I am the wind nerd in this thread but....look what happens if you can get turbine heights to 200 meters. https://globalwindatlas.info/area/United States of America

That would for sure be convenient. I wonder if this highlights an additional need in US capabilities as well. Seems we don't really have a system the sits in between a shoulder fired 40k stinger and a 3 million dollar patriot.

I've seen that storage system as well, which does look promising.

Just hoping the Ukrainians can keep the Russians from flying with impunity with their shoulder fired/whatever mobile soviet SAMs they have left. I wish there was a mobile SAM system that could be supplied to them. The defensive nature isn't nearly as inflammatory.

There is also some promising kinetic storage systems in addition to batteries, i.e. masses spun at high speed in a vacuum to later take the energy back out. Tech is still teething, but I think we'll see progress in that area. There's just never really been a need for mass power storage like this before, the system was design around on demand fossil fuels. I still think the US could be powered mostly by renewable, especially if you look at the evolution of wind turbines, how far they've come, and how as they get bigger and bigger the power they can extract goes up exponentially. But if we can't get it to work, than nuke as the back bone, supplement with as much wind/solar as we can all the way. Anything to break us from the instability of this fossil fuel death grip. America cannot be chained to countries that dislike us.

There is def not a crystal ball on this one, but If the choice is between a Putin 2.0 and Ukraine, and Putin 1.0 and no Ukraine, I'm taking Putin 2.0, at least we have a shot 2.0 will not be as much of a soviet nut case. He can double down, doesn't mean he still won't lose.

I think there is merit to what you are getting at, which is does punishing a civilian population under the rule of an oppressive regime really have an affect on that regime, because that regime is oppressive and doesn't give a shit about its people to begin with, so it'll just run its own people into misery. That logic checks, but I think that is more applicable in a third world country like NK where the people are (and quite literally) left in the dark. Russia is not that place tho. These citizens have had access to western thoughts. It isn't a place where you are either a peasant or a soldier. They are civilized, and I think there BS meter may be significantly higher. If we do nothing militarily, and nothing economically, you are basically affirming that autocrats can start redrawing borders. The amount of suffering that could come from this in the future is immeasurable. Also the meme is really more of a jab at the Kremlin's justification for invasion, the idea that because "this is how something once was", that's justification to always put it back that way. You were once my wife, but now were divorced, but because you were once my wife I can show up uninvited to dinner with your new husband any time I like. Nobody wins in war, lives are destroyed on both sides forever. None of this is "funny", literally zero. But if you live the holier than thou life tho and have never laughed at any dark humor good for you, and that is an earnest even tho you just called me a P*ssy.

Looks like Kirby said no bueno to the Migs, thankfully. I think that could've kicked off WW3.

Roger, makes sense.

Isn't it different tho, because it was foreigners on German and Japanese territory. Those soldiers and civilians (thought) they were defending their homes, which is why they fought to the death. The Ukranian's are the ones defending their homes, and they are the ones who are probably only going to fight harder. Nobody is pushing for Ukrainians to advance into Russian territory and rule Russia. Just for them to leave Ukraine, which Putin could do with a phone call but won't because of his massive ego. He could end it all right now.

Also, noble indeed, but its not fair for you to feel like you have to carry the burden of somebody else's poor decisions. If you were commanding a nuclear sub and got word DC just got nuked by the Russians, are you going to not nuke Moscow because of the innocent civilians who literally had nothing to do with it? Putin knew that the global response to this was possibly going to be crippling sanctions against his country. He and his enablers did it anyways. Don't carry his bad karma baggage for him. Last thing we need is for people in the west to start feeling bad for him and like they're responsible somehow for all of this.

They've already been taught to hate us (especially the older population). The youngins (the ones protesting on the streets in Moscow & who know how to get to free media) know whats up, they are the internal hope for changing this. It's the only way to put pressure on the Kremlin without nuclear badminton.

I am def not qualified to comment how effective they would be in helping the Ukrainian war effort. But I agree they'll get punched by cruise missiles almost instantly. I don't know what their dollar value is (any idea?), but I think that money could be spent way more effectively (food rations, more anti tank missiles, maybe a medium range SAM?). Even without their fighters/bombers, I feel if Russia wants to just level Ukraine, they have plenty of rockets and artillery to do it, and even without their Air Force I feel like they probably brought a shit ton of their own SAMs to wreck 30 Polish Migs pretty quickly.

Meh, wanna know whats not funny? Having artillery shells landing in apartment complexes, for no reason, in a country that did jack shit to antagonize its neighbor. Maybe the Russian people need to go drag their government out of the Kremlin, the jig is up. Maybe Alex Ovechkin needs to sack up and say you know what, Putin, playing in the NHL is better than the KHL. I guess the Russian conscripts are innocent, since they got told to go blow shit up and kill people, half of whom probably have no idea why. Ukrainian's are sure as shit innocent, they didn't do anything wrong either. The 14 year old brainwashed jihadi in Afghanistan who picked up an RPG was innocent too. So its either the civilian Russian grandmother who has to choose between continuing to gobble Putin's chode of lies or getting her Visa turned off, or the Ukrainian teacher with two days military training shooting at invading Russians, wondering if he'll make it to the end of the week while his wife and kids flee to Poland. If the Russians starve, its their own damn fault. Better a dead Russian than a dead Ukrainian, that calculus is simple right now. Or we could send Americans to die.

This one made me chuckle.

It is not a panacea solution for sure and has its drawbacks until something like kinetic strorage systems are viable, but even adding an additional 10 percent adds such stability to the rest of the energy market. Wind is an inexhaustible fuel source, unless the sun blows up, in which it is game over anyways. I think most agree going forward there is going to be a combination of sources to achieve reliable/sustainable US energy independence and stability.

This has been one of the most interesting points. We have the Ukrainian military leveraging geolocating/literally the public of the world to find Russian armor. What a resource to tap. The Russians have their population walled off who think nothings going on. Crazy how much of a disadvantage you are at when the free world hates you.