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Miscellanea: The War in Iran

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Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#561

Post by scoofy »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #543
scoofy wrote: post #471

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It really is crazy that environmentalists were like, "hey look, free energy," and suddenly everyone started screaming "No, boo! We like the way things are!" I have a friend who has never used an induction range before that is dead set that he never wants one. I just don't get it.

> environmentalists were like, "hey look, free energy," It's not free. It costs trilliions of dollars to build and maintain. I think it's worth it. But one place where the climate-change movement lost the plot was in underplaying costs and overplaying the doom.

If I install solar panels, a battery, and a next gen breaker box in CA, even with premium equipment and no subsidies, I'm looking at a max payback period of like 20 years, right? At that point yea, it's effectively free energy.

Is it an investment? Sure, but it's an investment that trivially pays for itself.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#562

Post by triceratops »

Forgeties79 wrote: post #387
amarant wrote: post #278

A core trait of my personality can be summed up as "always look on the bright side of life". To that end: This war seems more than likely to drive up oil prices not only in the near term, but in the medium and long terms too! In addition, petroleum usage seems likely to become dependant on sucking Iran's proverbial dick, a notion that very few people in The West will find palatable. Optimistically then, perhaps this…

For the US to start going that route we need a certain group of politicians to stop telling everybody that windmills are killing whales and birds en masse, claiming solar "isn't there yet" (somehow it never is), and that there is such thing as "clean coal." Literally the only thing I don't hear them fighting (loudly) against is hydro power.

The politicians say what the people with money want them to.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#563

Post by chasil »

nostrademons wrote: post #461
ericmay wrote: post #338

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Self-sufficiency is a myth. Even if you wanted to try and be energy independent, for the short and medium term (and maybe longer, who knows?) you will be dependent on China and all the baggage that they bring because of their dominance of rare earth mineral processing. Need a new solar panel? Don't make a certain country mad (whether that's your local Ayatollah or CCP official). And that's just energy. What about pha…

There is a huge difference between buying a solar panel once and having it generate energy for the next 30 years vs. buying a barrel of oil now and consuming it by next week. It's the same difference as buying a house now and owning it until it collapses vs. renting a house and being at the mercy of your landlord, or buying a piece of shrink-wrapped software and using it for the next 18 years vs. renting a SaaS subsc…

The oil products are needed by many industrial processes.

My secret suspicion is that Trump knew of Israel's attack on the Qatar/Iran natural gas in advance.

If the Persian Gulf is closed for a long period, shale oil in North America will do very well.

Israel also has new natural gas reserves that will be in high demand.

Is the loss of market share of the Persian Gulf nations an unintended side effect?

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#564

Post by XorNot »

leonidasrup wrote: post #450
buran77 wrote: post #341

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The petrochemical industry is huge we've yet to find alternatives for it. Half the stuff around you was made with something derived from oil, and you can't replace that with wind or sunlight in the foreseeable future.

Very little oil is used to make plastic. In Europe between 4–6% of oil and gas is used for producing plastics and globally around 6% of global oil is used. By contrast, 87% is used for transport, electricity and heating. https://www.bpf.co.uk/press/Oil_Consumption.aspx

6% is hardly a small fraction at scale.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#565

Post by oa335 »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #466
watwut wrote: post #393

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Israel does not want functional moderate goverment in Iran. It would bomb and kill anyone who tries that. Israels plan is to periodically bomb and keep Iran failed state. It is working on making itself larger cleansing whole areas around it and settling it.

> Israel does not want functional moderate goverment in Iran Israel would probably be fine with a moderate government in Iran. A moderate Tehran doesn't encourage Hamas and Hezbollah to randomly lob rockets into Israel. Even if Israel disagreed, a moderate Iran balances Israel in the region. An Iran that has beef with literally every single one of its neighbors other than Turkmenistan cannot provide that balance.

> Israel would probably be fine with a moderate government in Iran.

Maybe, but I think they are genuinely aiming for a failed state.

Israel is a state with a political apparatus that is predicated on providing security. That apparatus needs a persistent (but non-serious) threat to remain in power. I think best case for that power is to have a number of failed, weak states in the Middle East that occasionally launch relatively impotent attacks against Israel. This would also have the side effect of giving hard-line elements in Israel the enough justification to expand their borders and continue ethnic cleansing (e.g. what is happening in Lebanon right now).

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#566

Post by UncleMeat »

chasil wrote: post #563
nostrademons wrote: post #461

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is a huge difference between buying a solar panel once and having it generate energy for the next 30 years vs. buying a barrel of oil now and consuming it by next week. It's the same difference as buying a house now and owning it until it collapses vs. renting a house and being at the mercy of your landlord, or buying a piece of shrink-wrapped software and using it for the next 18 years vs. renting a SaaS subsc…

The oil products are needed by many industrial processes. My secret suspicion is that Trump knew of Israel's attack on the Qatar/Iran natural gas in advance. If the Persian Gulf is closed for a long period, shale oil in North America will do very well. Israel also has new natural gas reserves that will be in high demand. Is the loss of market share of the Persian Gulf nations an unintended side effect?

Full solarization will not eliminate our need for fossil fuels. But it would reduce it so dramatically as to render our current market unrecognizable.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#567

Post by UncleMeat »

r2_pilot wrote: post #412
mememememememo wrote: post #392

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A country that goes all in renewable is in a stronger positon. UK power grid doesn't give a fuck about this war. Sure China. But unless they send in an army to retreive previously sold panels, or block the sun they can only harm future increases to supply.

Or wait 20 years for the panels to degrade...

All of the material in those panels is still there. You can break them down and build new panels out of their parts.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#568

Post by UncleMeat »

XorNot wrote: post #564
leonidasrup wrote: post #450

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Very little oil is used to make plastic. In Europe between 4–6% of oil and gas is used for producing plastics and globally around 6% of global oil is used. By contrast, 87% is used for transport, electricity and heating. https://www.bpf.co.uk/press/Oil_Consumption.aspx

6% is hardly a small fraction at scale.

If we could reduce our oil usage by 94% I'd weep with joy. Yes that's still a lot of oil. But it would be a complete sea change from what is currently happening.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#569

Post by andriy_koval »

JumpCrisscross wrote: post #520
andriy_koval wrote: post #512

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Don't need a full-scale invasion. Just a land grab on the coasts. They can't do it alone. But they can provide troops (and mercenaries) as well as staying power where the U.S. cannot. they couldn't win this against much closer, smaller and weaker Yemen. They just don't have functional military. > mutualize the damage. Pot Iranian tankers. Seed their ports with mines. I don't believe they will do this because they l…

> couldn't win this against much closer, smaller and weaker Yemen. They just don't have functional military KSA went it alone in Yemen. And from that–as well as various proxy wars in Africa–both it and the UAE have learned. > don't believe they will do this because they love oil money too much Loving oil money means wanting to export your oil. That said, I think the monarchies are more politically vulnerable. So it's…

> KSA went it alone in Yemen.

there were many countries involved in coalition. UAE specifically sent troups to https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_Aden_(2018)

But the issue is that KSA just didn't perform on the ground, well equipped troups were overrun by Houthies with AK consistently. Not clear if they changed anything.

> Loving oil money means wanting to export your oil.

right, if Iran will take reasonable cuts, gulf states won't escalate.

Re: Miscellanea: The War in Iran

#570

Post by andriy_koval »

sysguest wrote: post #539
andriy_koval wrote: post #495

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That functionally cedes Emirati and Saudi sovereignty to Iran. Today it's $2mm. Tomorrow it's anything else Tehran requires. the point is besides full scale invasion which Saudi and UAE won't do, there is no reliable way to remove threat of Iran striking oil infra, they just don't have way to deal with the problem.

well I don't actually think Saudi & UAE will send their own countrymen... rather, they'd just use oil money and pay gurkha mercenaries

this didn't work for them in Yemen. And Iran is farther and stronger.
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