Preparing for Uncertainty and Self Reliance

[Montegriffo]

It won't though.
Most goods are transported by sea and road/rail. All of which will end up electric.

If you want to secure food production you just have to cut out the meat.
More effective to cultivate the pastureland and leave the woodland alone.

[Speaker to Animals]

It won't though.
Most goods are transported by sea and road/rail. All of which will end up electric.

If you want to secure food production you just have to cut out the meat.
More effective to cultivate the pastureland and leave the woodland alone.

You are not comprehending the problem, Monty. How much do you think it would cost to run a fucking freighter across the Atlantic or Pacific oceans with electric?

You do not grasp the energy efficiency of fossil fuels compared to literally anything else.

We are talking about massive ships, with unbelievable cargo loads, rocking 15,000 HP engines. Think about it for just a few minutes.

[Montegriffo]

I raise you 34,000 horse power.

The Most Powerful Electric Motor in the World

A high temperature superconductor (HTS) developed by Northrop Grumman Corporation and tested by the U.S. Navy holds this title. It is the world’s first 36.5 megawatt (49,000 horsepower) HTS ship propulsion motor. Its capacity surpassed the Navy’s previous test record, doubling the rating. The HTS motor performs at 120 rpm and produces 2.9 million Newton-meters of torque. It weighs in at approximately 75 metric tons.
Its Purpose

Why would anyone need an electric motor of this size? It was developed for naval ships. The coils of wire are designed to take up less than half the space of conventional motors but carry 150 times the power. As a result, ships can be not only more powerful, but more fuel-efficient and able to carry more cargo, personnel or weapons.

This powerful system was created to demonstrate HTS motors’ abilities and pave the way for this technology to power all-electric ships and submarines for the Navy. It is designed specifically for the next generation of warships for the Navy. HTS motors can also be used in commercial and merchant vessels, such as cruise ships and gas tankers.

https://actionelectricmotorandpump.com/ ... the-world/

[Speaker to Animals]

So your plan is to put nuclear reactors on freighters?

We have great ship engines right now. Totally electric. Our carrier fleets run for decades.

All powered by nuclear reactors.

What happens when the Somali pirates get a nuclear reactor, Monty?

[brewster]

the price of oil is going to skyrocket thousands of percent in a single day. There is no way to avoid that. When people generally figure out we reached it, there will be such a run on oil prices that a lot of people are going to become fabulously wealthy in a day, and most of us will be completely fucked.

Wow, what a failure to understand economics. There's so many moving parts, nothing skyrockets in a day purely for normal supply dwindling. Wars do that, and not by orders of magnitude. We will continue to do what we've always done, cycles. Supply gets low, prices go high, production increases from now profitable poorer sources, supply increases, prices drop. Rinse and repeat. As the cheap oil gets harder and harder to get, the cycles will peak higher and bottom higher. There will be no "this is it, ITS OVER!!" moment.

As for sea transport, if fuel hits a high enough benchmark, sail becomes practical, the trade winds have always been there. There's been experiments with using giant kites on existing ships to save fuel. Most cargo is not time sensitive in any way except interest costs. Think about that, and how pervasive it is through our whole economy. We burn fuel because it's cheaper than: fill in the blank. Paying interest, insulating, building more efficient devices, changing travel patterns, building public transport, prioritizing rail over roads, developing cities in a warmer/cooler climate, the list could go on forever. Burning fossil fuel is choice we make among economic choices we have.

[TheReal_ND]

We got a real jew here. Trying to jew the trade winds to keep fuel costs down and increase interest rates. Probably going to charge the customer full price for the fuel costs and add a fuel surcharge on top.

[brewster]

We got a real jew here. Trying to jew the trade winds to keep fuel costs down and increase interest rates. Probably going to charge the customer full price for the fuel costs and add a fuel surcharge on top.

And that's why you're poor and I'm rich, no vision. No idea when it's time to pivot. And no understanding of business. You charge what you can get. Always. Until someone undercuts you, then you charge less. There were commercial sailing cargo vessels well into the 20th century because with no fuel costs they could transport certain cargoes very efficiently.

[brewster]

Pamir, a four-masted barque, was one of the famous Flying P-Liner sailing ships of the German shipping company F. Laeisz. She was the last commercial sailing ship to round Cape Horn, in 1949. By 1957, she had been outmoded by modern bulk carriers and could not operate at a profit.

She was built at the Blohm & Voss shipyards in Hamburg, launched on 29 July 1905. She had a steel hull and tonnage of 3,020 GRT (2,777 net). She had an overall length of 114.5 m (375 ft), a beam of about 14 m (46 ft) and a draught of 7.25 m (23.5 ft). Three masts stood 51.2 m (168 ft) above deck and the main yard was 28 m (92 ft) wide. She carried 3,800 m² (40,900 ft²) of sails and could reach a top speed of 16 knots (30 km/h). Her regular cruise speed was around 8-9 knots.

She was the fifth of ten near-sister ships. She was commissioned on 18 October 1905 and used by the Laeisz company in the South American nitrate trade. By 1914, she had made eight voyages to Chile, taking between 64 and about 70 days for a one-way trip from Hamburg to Valparaíso or Iquique, the foremost Chilean nitrate ports at the time.

Think about it. This ship was one of 10, launched only 1/2 dozen years before the Titanic. The economy of the time said sail was a viable choice to make money. But this was about the time Rockefeller & Standard Oil were changing the landscape of the petro industry, and oil fired diesels & turbines were replacing coal at sea.

This is a riot, deja vu all over again! Https://www.nytimes.com/1981/12/06/maga ... power.html

If sail-assisted power is indeed imminent, as many of its advocates believe, we stand on the threshold of a new era, one that may prove to be more dramatic and lasting than that of the old square-riggers. When we scan the ocean's horizon 20 years from now, we may see ships with sails unlike anything we have seen before -some with a solid wing sail like that of an airplane's airfoil, others with soft sails of synthetic fibers and plastics. And these sails will be automatically trimmed, and furled or unfurled, depending on the wind direction and velocity, by microcomputers on the ship's bridge.

Yes, almost 40 years ago when the world economy had had it's ass kicked by oil shocks, people were taking sails for cargo ships seriously. Then oil prices dropped, and um, never mind. As always, innovation is all in the numbers.

[Speaker to Animals]

Any opinions on the feasibility of converting pasture or woodlands to farmland?

Pick your poison

That Bobcat E32 Mini-Excavator costs about 4 grand for a month's rental. How many acres do you suppose you could clear with that in a month?


It looks like his plan was to chainsaw the trees ahead of time, and then rent the tractor just on the stumps. But you'd need that tractor just to realistically haul the logs into sorted piles as well.

[brewster]

That Bobcat E32 Mini-Excavator costs about 4 grand for a month's rental. How many acres do you suppose you could clear with that in a month?

You can't use that!! It was made by scumsucking degenerate city dwellers. Real men use a team of oxen.