I agree Kieran; while America (and nice analytical use of Sara's Monopoly Board) has rather uniquely made the board grow post-1865, the trick is to finding the board's next real extension, rather than another (and there have been plenty) false dawns
Thanks, John. Sara’s Monopoly board is a great way to visualise the world, though Snakes and Ladders might be more fitting for my level! I can’t help but feel that the next extension must involve developments in access to non-intermittent, low-emission, usable energy which only nuclear can provide. Why? Because it would permanently shore up the foundations of the pyramid. What a thing to bring to the world. Another cracker. Listened twice now!
Nuclear energy can do electric power, but energy in application is not always electric power.
Sometimes the technology requires motion (kinetic), heat (thermal), material (chemical).
The EU "electrification" (really a wind industry lobby candy) is in many applications a useless, costly extra step in the middle, with no productive purpose. It's an own goal for the EU economy.
Eventually, the world will electrify, certainly for transport, with aviation coming last (for obvious reasons - batteries weigh the same full or empty, etc.). All of the fuels you mentioned are used to generate usable electricity. In the next decades, it will be about fossil derived feedstocks and intermediates for the products the developed world is hooked on (plastics, medicines, etc.), not just the liquid fuel they provide for taking us from A to B and keeping the lights on.
I cannot see why transport should electrify? Batteries are a huge weight and therefore a wasteful load to carry along, besides the space they take up and their short life; charging and discharging from the battery are wasteful processes and what you need is kinetic energy (and potential energy for airplanes) in use, not electric energy. Why squeezing a useless middleman?
A good diesel gets 60% for trucking (or 65% for shipping) well-to-wheels. Higher pressure and temperature from better material might increase that further.
And why would you operate a compressor in industry with a battery or a generator and electric motor in the middle? Why not run it on the turbine straight, without ever squeezing electric power in? Kinetic energy to kinetic energy - no waste in the middle. Far cheaper, lower investment, lower maintenance.
If the point is good materials in engineering, why not choose the best raw material, more often than not oil or gas based.
If the point is industrial heating, why not use powder coal? Nothing beats it. Superb combustion promotor for incineration of hard to burn materials or waste.
Electrification is an ideology, not a technology. Why such a fixation?
Hey Erik, yes that's why aviation will come last. The reality is that a battery electric drivetrain converts 85–90% of energy into motion, far surpassing 30–40% for ICE vehicles, which suffer from friction, heat loss, and idling inefficiencies. Even when factoring in grid energy losses and battery production, EVs consume less energy and emit less CO₂ over their lifetime.
Bigger concern is the next resource curse that will sprout out of this (e.g. mining of precious materials, where, and under whose control) and the political risks associated with this.
I'm a petrol head, who dreams of a V8 German estate to take the kids to football, but I can see the writing on the wall.
Most wind turbines have efficiency of 6% or such most of the time; solar photo 20% (just 5 hours per day); a gas turbine maybe 40%, to make the electric energy to begin with; nuclear at best 35%.
The battery itself adds that you need maybe 50% more kinetic energy to carry that heavy weight together with your car. Simple efficiency forgets to adjust that you need more kinetic energy to run an obese electric vehicle than you need for light weight gas or diesel vehicles.
For comparison you should knock off a third from your 85% and more for the waste in generating the electricity to begin with.
Manufacturing the battery slurps just about as much energy as the car requires, over its useful lifetime.
Your computation is pointless. It forgets that there is no electricity in nature and it needs to be manufactured.
In comparison refining is as the word says, refining (improving properties of oil to serve as fuel). Overall it turns oil into 94% (gasoline mode) to 92% (diesel mode) available fuel. The rest is used in the refining itself but sometimes with additional yield of hydrogen or petrochemical or coke or fertiliser or industrial heat in adjacent factories.
The cost says it all. Electric vehicles are never economically competitive. They are like a Louis Vuitton bag - an expensive fashion fad. More expensive in purchase and more expensive in operation (don't forget fuels pay massive taxes to government).
Now start to tax electric vehicles and electricity as you do conbustion engines and fossil fuels, instead of subsidising them.
Erik, I totally agree. Fossil fuels were the winners that built industrial society. But if solar was abandoned since the Middle Ages and is tiny, why is it now the fastest growing energy source globally, outcompeting fossil fuels in new capacity?
I work in a derivative of oil and gas, so I have no vested interest in suggesting this viewpoint. It is just that, to me, it is irrefutable. In the short term I'm fine, for my children it is a different world.
This is a fantastic whistle-stop tour of the world, John. I suppose 0.7% does matter when it’s funding 100% of your salary and a country club membership!
Maybe we think we’re at the top of Maslow’s Pyramid, forgetting that its foundations need constant support and maintenance. With the prioritisation of funds and resources seemingly inverted, we now have no choice but to climb down and shore them up.
Growth through regulation is undoubtedly an oxymoron. Many argue that the PRA and FCA’s overreach has seriously damaged the City of London, stifling innovation and drying up investment. More regulation here seems certain to suffocate progress rather than foster it.
On the Monopoly board, could Big Tech’s new digital blocks be nothing more than a short-term mirage? It once promised an escape from the horrors of the real world, yet today, perhaps the real world offers an escape from the horrors of Big Tech. ‘Go to Jail’ rather than ‘Advance to GO’?
Meanwhile, Mr Wright sees next-generation nuclear technology (SMRs, fusion, etc.) as part of the puzzle to meet rising energy demand. Stuff people actually need! This could be the creation of a real new US property on the board. One that doesn’t require Meta Ray-Bans to see.
With respect Erik, London is absolutely not dead. Whilst in a position of transition, it still holds a number of important advantages on the world stage. To name a few:
* Common Law Legal System and English Contract Law.
One thing is the stamp duty tax on stocks trading. Who wants to IPO in London? Go to NYSE or NASDAQ which have much more capital, much more liquidity and are far cheaper to trade.
But more mundane financial services have been flattened with regulation: no differentiation is even permitted, let stand alone innovation.
The "regulatory sandbox" is nonsense, a bit like Saturn (GM) being allowed to innovate but the other 8 GM brands languishing and resulting in two bankruptcies for General Motors and the demise of the tiny Saturn brand alongside it.
We end up pushing non-distinctive product, all competitors doing the exact same thing, and it is about cost and IT platforming. Clients need to do their own servicing. The same product as everywhere else and do your own administration and service.
In the meantime, we spend Monday to Friday filling regulatory requirements to fake that we are actually working on something valuable. We're busy, but we're not working!
The asset management industry is a government funding scam: the "Mansion House" accord and the "sustainability" and "impact" scams micromanage the country's savings into pointless and lossmaking ventures preferred & selected by goverment. Productivity is nil for these investments (corrupt scams really).
Take your money to the USA, Japan, India and do it from other platforms than the EU/Luxemburg RAIFs/Ireland ICAVs.
You've done the Monopoly board thing before. And you've also done the USAID thing before. But like telling stories: it gets better each time you tell it! You've said these things before but the way you put it all together this time was SO POWERFUL!!!!! Definitely worth revisiting the important stuff! And also you can't get better than cherry picking all the best bits from other podcasts to put together the ultimate podcast megamix!
I agree Kieran; while America (and nice analytical use of Sara's Monopoly Board) has rather uniquely made the board grow post-1865, the trick is to finding the board's next real extension, rather than another (and there have been plenty) false dawns
Thanks, John. Sara’s Monopoly board is a great way to visualise the world, though Snakes and Ladders might be more fitting for my level! I can’t help but feel that the next extension must involve developments in access to non-intermittent, low-emission, usable energy which only nuclear can provide. Why? Because it would permanently shore up the foundations of the pyramid. What a thing to bring to the world. Another cracker. Listened twice now!
Don't dismiss fossil fuels.
Back to Oil
Back to Gas
Back to Coal
Nuclear energy can do electric power, but energy in application is not always electric power.
Sometimes the technology requires motion (kinetic), heat (thermal), material (chemical).
The EU "electrification" (really a wind industry lobby candy) is in many applications a useless, costly extra step in the middle, with no productive purpose. It's an own goal for the EU economy.
Eventually, the world will electrify, certainly for transport, with aviation coming last (for obvious reasons - batteries weigh the same full or empty, etc.). All of the fuels you mentioned are used to generate usable electricity. In the next decades, it will be about fossil derived feedstocks and intermediates for the products the developed world is hooked on (plastics, medicines, etc.), not just the liquid fuel they provide for taking us from A to B and keeping the lights on.
I cannot see why transport should electrify? Batteries are a huge weight and therefore a wasteful load to carry along, besides the space they take up and their short life; charging and discharging from the battery are wasteful processes and what you need is kinetic energy (and potential energy for airplanes) in use, not electric energy. Why squeezing a useless middleman?
A good diesel gets 60% for trucking (or 65% for shipping) well-to-wheels. Higher pressure and temperature from better material might increase that further.
And why would you operate a compressor in industry with a battery or a generator and electric motor in the middle? Why not run it on the turbine straight, without ever squeezing electric power in? Kinetic energy to kinetic energy - no waste in the middle. Far cheaper, lower investment, lower maintenance.
If the point is good materials in engineering, why not choose the best raw material, more often than not oil or gas based.
If the point is industrial heating, why not use powder coal? Nothing beats it. Superb combustion promotor for incineration of hard to burn materials or waste.
Electrification is an ideology, not a technology. Why such a fixation?
Hey Erik, yes that's why aviation will come last. The reality is that a battery electric drivetrain converts 85–90% of energy into motion, far surpassing 30–40% for ICE vehicles, which suffer from friction, heat loss, and idling inefficiencies. Even when factoring in grid energy losses and battery production, EVs consume less energy and emit less CO₂ over their lifetime.
Bigger concern is the next resource curse that will sprout out of this (e.g. mining of precious materials, where, and under whose control) and the political risks associated with this.
I'm a petrol head, who dreams of a V8 German estate to take the kids to football, but I can see the writing on the wall.
85% is not well to wheels.
Most wind turbines have efficiency of 6% or such most of the time; solar photo 20% (just 5 hours per day); a gas turbine maybe 40%, to make the electric energy to begin with; nuclear at best 35%.
The battery itself adds that you need maybe 50% more kinetic energy to carry that heavy weight together with your car. Simple efficiency forgets to adjust that you need more kinetic energy to run an obese electric vehicle than you need for light weight gas or diesel vehicles.
For comparison you should knock off a third from your 85% and more for the waste in generating the electricity to begin with.
Manufacturing the battery slurps just about as much energy as the car requires, over its useful lifetime.
Your computation is pointless. It forgets that there is no electricity in nature and it needs to be manufactured.
In comparison refining is as the word says, refining (improving properties of oil to serve as fuel). Overall it turns oil into 94% (gasoline mode) to 92% (diesel mode) available fuel. The rest is used in the refining itself but sometimes with additional yield of hydrogen or petrochemical or coke or fertiliser or industrial heat in adjacent factories.
The cost says it all. Electric vehicles are never economically competitive. They are like a Louis Vuitton bag - an expensive fashion fad. More expensive in purchase and more expensive in operation (don't forget fuels pay massive taxes to government).
Now start to tax electric vehicles and electricity as you do conbustion engines and fossil fuels, instead of subsidising them.
Scale up kills all those fake arguments.
Erik, I totally agree. Fossil fuels were the winners that built industrial society. But if solar was abandoned since the Middle Ages and is tiny, why is it now the fastest growing energy source globally, outcompeting fossil fuels in new capacity?
I work in a derivative of oil and gas, so I have no vested interest in suggesting this viewpoint. It is just that, to me, it is irrefutable. In the short term I'm fine, for my children it is a different world.
That board started growing from Plymouth, Massachusetts outwards in 1620.
It grew so much that a century and a half later the Tea Party and Independence became inevitable: you outgrew England and the United Kingdom.
Time to grow into Canada now. Alberta is inviting you to get the process started. Time to cross the Rubicon. The Best Is Yet To Come!
This is a fantastic whistle-stop tour of the world, John. I suppose 0.7% does matter when it’s funding 100% of your salary and a country club membership!
Maybe we think we’re at the top of Maslow’s Pyramid, forgetting that its foundations need constant support and maintenance. With the prioritisation of funds and resources seemingly inverted, we now have no choice but to climb down and shore them up.
Growth through regulation is undoubtedly an oxymoron. Many argue that the PRA and FCA’s overreach has seriously damaged the City of London, stifling innovation and drying up investment. More regulation here seems certain to suffocate progress rather than foster it.
On the Monopoly board, could Big Tech’s new digital blocks be nothing more than a short-term mirage? It once promised an escape from the horrors of the real world, yet today, perhaps the real world offers an escape from the horrors of Big Tech. ‘Go to Jail’ rather than ‘Advance to GO’?
Meanwhile, Mr Wright sees next-generation nuclear technology (SMRs, fusion, etc.) as part of the puzzle to meet rising energy demand. Stuff people actually need! This could be the creation of a real new US property on the board. One that doesn’t require Meta Ray-Bans to see.
With respect Erik, London is absolutely not dead. Whilst in a position of transition, it still holds a number of important advantages on the world stage. To name a few:
* Common Law Legal System and English Contract Law.
* Time Zone Advantage.
* FX & Derivatives Market Dominance.
* Historical and Cultural Prestige.
Tally ho!
London is dead.
One thing is the stamp duty tax on stocks trading. Who wants to IPO in London? Go to NYSE or NASDAQ which have much more capital, much more liquidity and are far cheaper to trade.
But more mundane financial services have been flattened with regulation: no differentiation is even permitted, let stand alone innovation.
The "regulatory sandbox" is nonsense, a bit like Saturn (GM) being allowed to innovate but the other 8 GM brands languishing and resulting in two bankruptcies for General Motors and the demise of the tiny Saturn brand alongside it.
We end up pushing non-distinctive product, all competitors doing the exact same thing, and it is about cost and IT platforming. Clients need to do their own servicing. The same product as everywhere else and do your own administration and service.
In the meantime, we spend Monday to Friday filling regulatory requirements to fake that we are actually working on something valuable. We're busy, but we're not working!
The asset management industry is a government funding scam: the "Mansion House" accord and the "sustainability" and "impact" scams micromanage the country's savings into pointless and lossmaking ventures preferred & selected by goverment. Productivity is nil for these investments (corrupt scams really).
Take your money to the USA, Japan, India and do it from other platforms than the EU/Luxemburg RAIFs/Ireland ICAVs.
You've done the Monopoly board thing before. And you've also done the USAID thing before. But like telling stories: it gets better each time you tell it! You've said these things before but the way you put it all together this time was SO POWERFUL!!!!! Definitely worth revisiting the important stuff! And also you can't get better than cherry picking all the best bits from other podcasts to put together the ultimate podcast megamix!