Random Thoughts And Predictions

* Fraternity gang rape was a widely acknowledge problem thirty-five years ago when I was in college. Apparently, nothing has changed.

* People in the developed and developing world are having fewer children. The extent to which this is happening and the pace at which this is happening is something that most people, even educated elites, don't fully really comprehend. It isn't necessarily a bad thing. Resources will be spread over fewer people, allowing the people who are around to face less scarcity. But I'm not sure anyone has really carefully thought through how it will change society, even though, in a lot of ways, it is a very predictable thing.

* One counterbalancing factor is that I don't think people really appreciate the extent to which medical advances will transform society either. People will live longer and will be healthier during their lives. Sickness and injury, even old age, are fundamentally solvable problems.

* Much of Africa, and pockets like Afghanistan and Gaza elsewhere, are still basically undeveloped. But those pockets will predictably experience economic development and demographic transitions too, just a bit later than the rest of the world. Indeed, the rate at which they experience economic development, once it really gets going, may actually be faster, because they can learn from the rest of the world's experience.

* Fossil fuels will become irrelevant, or at least much less economically important, with renewables, a mild resurgence of nuclear power, and EVs. This will topple a lot of autocracies. This will allow global warming to level off - still at a much hotter level, but that trend won't continue forever.

* The U.S. may be a generation or two behind Western Europe in secularizing, but its getting there. How will Christianity transform as it becomes a minority religion despite being the plurality religion of theists in the U.S. for the foreseeable future?

* Maybe AI will be a transformative technology, maybe it won't. Ditto for quantum computing. 

* There will be bumps along the way, but we do seem to be on a path towards mass production scale self-driving vehicles that make a large share of all vehicles.

* So far, the path towards urbanization has been steady for two or three centuries. Will remote work change that? I don't think that remote work is going away and I expect it will only become more common.

* Will falling birth rates take the economic pressure off of a switch away from red meat, which takes the most land and water per pound of any kind of food?

* Climate change should eventually push people away from the Southern U.S. and further north, particularly to the water rich Midwest.

* It won't take too many generations for mixed race "mutts" to become the norm and for single race people to become much less common, and this will probably drive changes in the way that we classify race socially. In much the same way that Italians, Germans, Scandinavians, Irish, Dutch, Russian, Greek, English, and Scottish people all collapsed into a broad "white" category in which lots of white people don't even know which European countries were home to their ancestors, I think that we'll see similar collapsing of categories now thought of as distinct into a general "brown" category that is a bit analogous to mestizos in Mexico, but with significant East Asian, South Asian, Southeast Asian, Middle Eastern, and Polynesian contributions in addition to European and Native America, and with non-negligible African ancestry contributions.

* We've seen the future of war in Ukraine. It is hard to say if it will be stabilizing or destabilizing. What does equilibrium look like in a spy v. spy escalation of drones and AI?

Fossil Fuels And The Bulk Freight Market (And More)

Executive Summary

Fossil fuels account for 40% of ocean freight, 51% of train freight, and 56% of barge freight. 

New technologies in renewable energy, nuclear energy, electric vehicles, batteries, and heat pumps, could dramatically reduce the importance of fossil fuels in the global economy, eliminating the need for this bulk freight. 

This shift away from fossil fuels would also greatly reduce pollution, slow or stop climate change, improve workplace and transportation safety, strengthen democracy in the world's most authoritarian states and far-right domestic politics, and reduce economic vulnerability and military logistics vulnerability to unrest and military activity in countries that produce oil and gas.

How Are Fossil Fuels Used? What Substitutes Are Available?

The predominant use of coal is to generate electricity and its market share of electricity generation is plummeting, mostly to renewables like solar power and wind power, and to a lesser extent to tidal, geothermal, hydropower, and biofuels like corn based ethanol and biodiesel made mostly from restaurant waste fats. Nuclear power provides a significant share of non-fossil fuel electricity and has been pretty stagnant, neither growing nor shrinking in market share much for decades, although new advances are poised to tweak up nuclear power use in some niche applications. A very small share of coal is used for making steel, for purifying water, and in other industrial applications. Coal can also be industrially transformed into a liquid petroleum fuel substitute or a natural gas substitute when oil and gas prices are high enough for this to make economic sense, which is rarely and too briefly to justify building the infrastructure to do it.

The increasing affordability of renewables combined with environmental regulation are making coal obsolete for electrical power generation which is its predominant use.

The predominant use of oil is as a transportation fuel and its market share of vehicle fuel types is also steadily losing ground to electric vehicles (and to a tiny extent, other non-fossil fuel powered transportation modes). 

Oil is used for electricity generation in Alaska, in Hawaii (which has fairly low per capita electricity demand), during disasters and at construction sites, for heating oils (mostly in the Northeast U.S.), for fertilizers, for lubricants, and to make plastics. But all of these non-transportation fuel uses collectively are a much smaller share of oil consumption than as transportation fuels. 

There are good alternatives to oil to generate electricity in Alaska and Hawaii. Better batteries can limit the need to fossil fuel electricity generation in natural  disasters, in remote locations, and at construction sites. Organic farming and eliminate the need for petroleum based fertilizers (and pesticides). Non-plastic materials can be substituted for plastics in many cases. Heating oils can be replaced by natural gas furnaces or heat pumps (which are powered by electricity).

Natural gas (and other gas state hydrocarbons like propane) is predominantly used for space heating and water heating and as a greener alternative for generating electricity on demand at power plants compared to coal or oil. But very small shares of natural gas use are also used for cooking, ornamental lighting, and as a niche transportation fuel (especially for United Parcel Service trucks, and to a lesser extent, other fleet vehicles). Electrically powered heat pumps, electrically powered evaporative coolers, electric cooking appliances, electric water heaters, and electric vehicles are the main alternatives to direct natural gas use, and renewables (paired with utility scale batteries) and nuclear power are the main alternatives to natural gas for electricity generation.

Fossil Fuels And The Bulk Freight Market

 

The 40% breaks down as roughy 7-8% of total global ocean-going deadweight tonnage and vessel count (there are about 770 active LNG carriers in the world, which are specialized ships necessary to carry liquid natural gas) and about 32%-33% of total global ocean-going deadweight tonnage for coal and oil.[1] Natural gas is primarily transported on intra-continental pipelines, however, with some last mile transportation by truck, rather than by ships, trains or barges.

The numbers are similar for freight transported by freight train (51% of train freight is coal and oil) and over rivers and lakes by barges (56% of barge freight is coal and oil).

As of December 2009: "About 49% of rail freight is coal and another 2% is oil. About 10% consists of grain and grain products. Wood and paper account for 4%. About 10% of loads are non-petroleum chemicals. Stones, gravel, sand, clay and glass account for about 10% Most of the rest (13%) consists of other food products, metals and metal products, motor vehicles, waste and scrap materials."

As of September 2024: "In 2007, coal was the primary commodity moved by barge, accounting for 29% of all tonnages. Petroleum was the second largest commodity group in 2007, accounting for 27% of all tonnages. Crude materials, such as forest products, sand, gravel, ores, scrap, and salt, were the third largest commodity group in 2007, accounting for 18% of all tonnages. Food and farm products were the fourth largest commodity group in 2007, accounting for 12% of all tonnages."

Oil and gas firms accounted for 13.3% of U.S. capital expenditures in 2015, but only about 0.13% of U.S. employment (about 180,000 people); while in the same year the coal industry accounted for 0.16% of U.S. capital expenditures and 0.05% of U.S. employment (about 68,000 people) (and the coal industry has significantly contracted by more than 20% since 2015). By comparison, the retail trade industry accounts for 5.2% of U.S. capital expenditures in 2015 but 11.3% of U.S. employment. Wal-Mart alone employs about six times as many people as the entire oil and gas and coal industries combined. The U.S. oil and gas industry is important to Wall Street, but accounts for less than one in 500 U.S. jobs.

Fossil Fuels and Democracy

The share of an economy that comes from oil, gas, and coal is a good indicator of how authoritarian and far-right wing its politics are likely to be. The absence of production of these fuels in an economy, or reduced reliance of fossil fuel production, favors more democratic and more liberal government.

All of the world's remaining absolute monarchies (as opposed to merely symbolic constitutional monarchies) are in economies dominated by oil and gas revenues. Just one of the 36 countries with oil revenues as more than 2% or more of GDP has a healthy democracy (the outlier is Norway at #28 with 4.8% of its GDP from oil revenues is Norway). Norway's relatively healthy non-fossil fuel economy and democracy is in part due to the fact that it developed its oil and gas resources (mostly in the North Sea) fairly late in the history of these industries.

Among U.S. states ranked by fossil fuel production per capita, the only blue state in the top 8, is New Mexico (where it is 21% of GDP and which at #4 has all sorts of demographic and economic characteristics typical of red states, but votes blue because New Mexico has large Hispanic and Native American populations who are not welcome in the Republican party). Purple Pennsylvania at #9 and Colorado at #10 (each at about 5-6% of per capita GDP) are the only other blue states in the top 18 by fossil fuel production per capita. California at #19 has only $323 per capital of fossil fuel production (about 0.5% of per  capita GDP) and 17 states have no appreciable fossil fuel production per capita.

Environmental and Climate Harm

Coal and oil are probably the biggest drivers of air pollution and global climate change. They are also responsible for the workplace and transportation accidents associated with their extraction, delivery, and use. They are a very significant source of water pollution (including ground water pollution) and a major source of toxic and radioactive waste (coal has somewhat more than trace levels of radioactive elements in it). And, the extraction process destroys otherwise pristine open space and agricultural land, with coal being particularly damaging.

National Military and Economic Security

Reliance on fossil fuels, especially oil in the U.S., and both oil and natural gas in Europe, is also a major national security and economic stability risk, that subjecting economies that consume them to supply interruptions and risks caused by global military unrest associated with the authoritarian regimes that oil production based economies are so prone to be (e.g. unrest in the Middle East, Venezuela, Nigeria, and Russia). 

The Ukraine War has illustrated how vulnerable Russia has been to attacks on its oil and gas industry, which is not easy to defend, how dependent modern militaries are logistically on oil, and how dependent Europe and other world economies are on Russian oil and gas.

Reduced reliance of ocean shipping of fossil fuels also makes naval warfare and military control of seaways at choke points like the Red Sea, the Strait of Hormuz and the Persian Gulf, the Bight of Benin, the Panama Canal, the Strait of Malacca, the Bosporus Strait, the Strait of Gibraltar, and the Baltic Sea much less important and much less tempting for states that want to flex their military power and pirates.

References

[1] According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) in an entry about Liquefied natural gas made on June 21, 2024, and a report by Fortune Business Insights, Report ID: FBI103940 updated August 17, 2026 entitled "LNG Bunkering Market Size, Share & Industry Analysis, By End-User (Tanker Fleet, Bulk and General Cargo, Offshore Support Vessels and Ferries, Other) and regional Forecast, 2026-2034.

Oil And Water

Scarcity of oil and rising petroleum prices, and climate change driven drought, are a big deal. But there are fairly clear paths by which our society can adapt to both. Neither would be apocalyptic, even though it would drive significant, visible changes in our day to day material culture.

These matters are particularly worth thinking about on Earth Day, which is today.

Oil

A very large share of all petroleum consumption is for transportation, mostly cars, trucks, construction vehicles, boats, ships, and trains. Advances in battery technology, and EV manufacturing and infrastructure are making electric vehicle alternatives to all of those technologically viable. And, advances in renewable energy and nuclear power can replace almost all of the fossil fuels in the electrical power grid. Coal is well on its way to be phased out in the United States and much of the developed world. Alaska and Hawaii are the only U.S. states where a significant share of electricity is generated from petroleum. Heat pumps are paving the way as an alternative to heating buildings that were historically heated with heating oil in the U.S. (mostly in the Northeast). 

Heat pumps and evaporative coolers (together with better insulation) also dramatically more energy efficient than conventional air conditioning, and renewables like solar and wind combined with modern batteries are particularly well suited to meet the demand for electricity to provide cooling.

Lots of fertilizers that are petroleum based could also become unaffordable, as they have as global petroleum supplies have been interrupted by U.S. and Israeli attacks on Iran, and its counterattacks. But organic farming techniques are now well established enough that these methods pose an obvious alternative path for agriculture is petroleum based fertilizers cease to become economically viable. Dutch models of intensive hydroponic agriculture suggests another off ramp from what is now considered conventional agriculture.

There are some applications where there aren't good alternatives to petroleum, like plastics and jet fuel. But these are such a small share of total petroleum consumption that these uses could be sustained, even if they become more expensive, even if petroleum prices soar and the supplies contract greatly. 

Of course, plastics and petroleum based fabrics like nylon, have only been in wide use for about sixty years. If plastic becomes too expensive, we can revert to using metal, glass, wood, and plant and animal fiber alternatives for applications like kitchen ware and trash bins that aren't uniquely suited to plastic, as traditional alternatives becomes more affordable relative to plastic with rising petroleum prices.

The changes wouldn't be geographically neutral. A collapse in demand for petroleum driving by electric vehicles and organic farming would crush the economies of petrostates in the Middle East, in Brunei, in Nigeria, in Venezuela, and in select states within the United States. West Virginia has already seen its coal based economy collapse, as have many historically coal mining economy based regions in Europe. Wyoming will follow suit. 

On the other hand, rare earth rich areas who supply key components of modern batteries and electronics, may see mineral economy booms.

Water

In most of the arid west, marginal agricultural activity consumes 80%-90% of all fresh water, while landscaping and golf courses consume about half of the rest of the fresh water. If water becomes scarce, entire regions can eliminate their water hungry landscaping, golf courses can close or become much more expensive or use artificial grass, and marginal agricultural operations can close.

In places like the Arabian Peninsula, Greece, Utah, and California, desalination technology might become more prominent as a water source, at least for high value municipal waters uses like drinking, cooking, and bathing, and gray water systems would use non-potable water (such as salt water from the ocean or salt water lakes) in applications where drinkability wasn't important, like flushing toilets.

Climate change that produces global warming ultimately both gives and takes away arable land. It renders much of the arid West unsuitable for farming and ranching, but makes places that were too cold for farming in the past, more suitable for it. Even when climate change doesn't actually change the total amount of arable land somewhere, it may change the kind of agriculture that is appropriate in that place.

Places that used to support subtropical orange groves may freeze more often and get dryer and become more suitable for cotton and the soft wheat varieties currently grown in places north of Florida in the American South. Crops now grown in the South might start to be grown in the Midwest. The abundant corn and wheat fields of the Great Plains and Midwest might move north to Canada. The Great Plains might transition from grain farming to cattle grazing.

I'm not a climate scientist. I don't have exact models of exactly when and where climate zones that are suitable for particular crops and livestock will relocate. But that's the basic concept.

The ongoing wars across the Sahel of Africa illustrate how ugly the process of having herders ecologically forced into historically horticultural land can be without strong geographically large states to force the transition to be made with money instead of violence can look. But with strong states that remove violence as a viable option, the transition, while still massively disruptive, could be less tragic in places like North America and Western Europe.

Similarly, the skiing industry might relocate from places like Colorado and Vermont to places like the Yukon and Alaska, in North American, and from places like the Alps in Europe to the northern Urals and the Himalayas in Eurasia.

Many Sunbelt communities in places like Arizona and Texas and Florida may see the waves of migration to avoid the cold winters of the north replaced by migration north to avoid the months of hundred degree plus water in the Sunbelt which are already commonplace in cities like Phoenix and Las Vegas, while the rust belt, with its winters made milder due to global warming and abundant fresh water, may start to look more attractive, and may attract mass return migrations.

One of these days, people in the Sunbelt may return to the traditional solution of having midday siestas, inside cooler, shaded adobe insulated homes, and becoming more active once the sun goes down and the air cools late into the evening.

Coastal communities will have to build dikes or lose land area as sea levels rise, and many will have to remake their architectural landscape in the face of increasingly severe storms, something that will hit the U.S. states of Florida and Louisiana and some islands in Oceania particularly hard.

Species limited to narrow microenvironment ranges will go extinct en masse, as human encroachment upon their habitats, ecological disruption, and human predation have already done to many species already.

How fast will it happen?

We are, in 2026, at about the place on this path that we thought we'd be in the year 2006, back in 1986. Events like the transitions to EVs and heat pumps and renewables and industrial scale organic farming happened, but it took about twice as long as futurists at the time thought that it would.

Climate change, on the other hand, is happening faster than expected by a decade or three. The changes that were initially looking like they would take a century to run their course are now looking like they will occur in half of that time.

Certainly, these transitions are medium to long run trends. They will probably takes decades more to run their course. These transitions probably won't be complete in my lifetime, although they probably will run their course in the lives of my children, or at least, in the lives of my future grandchildren. Less poetically, this time frame is about 30-90 years.

But these trends are both massive and inexorable, like plate tectonics but much, much faster. Fast enough that it will be visible in future tree ring records.

Conclusion

These are huge, traumatic changes that will force mass migrations and fundamental changes in people's day to day culture. But they don't mean the end of modern life as we know it either. And falling birthrates will eventually lead to smaller global and regional populations that put less strain on scarce water and fossil fuel resources.

Affordability

What are the easiest policies to make life more affordable?

* Unilaterally end tariffs.

* Legalize car imports from China and reduce trade barriers to importing smaller cars from Europe. This would greatly increase choices and competition for basic cars.

* Support the infrastructure to shift to electric vehicles making us less vulnerable to global petroleum prices and less incentivized to go to war over oil.

* Eliminate fares for high volume transit routes.

* Encourage renewable energy sources like solar and wind which are now cheaper than coal and are not subject to natural gas price fluctuations.

* Remove barriers to building affordable housing, especially zoning that restricts density and rules out multi-family housing, parking mandates, lot size limitations, and aesthetic building code requirements. Encourage high quality manufacturing of homes and large components of homes in lieu of stick building everything on site.

* Encourage the Fed to take a more gradual approach to increasing interest rates when economic conditions call for it to do so, so that housing markets have time to adjust to higher mortgage rates which decrease affordability until housing prices transition to adjust to the ability to pay.

* Tax unoccupied housing more heavily to discourage hoarding of empty housing that reduces housing supply and drives up housing prices.

* Enact policies that financially penalize profitable companies for the burden that they impose on government when a significant share of their workers need welfare to make ends meet, in part, by increasing the minimum wage.

* Shift revenue sources for ECE (early childhood education)-12 education from property taxes to income taxes. This makes the taxes more progressive. It increases funding equity between places with large property tax bases per student (like rich suburbs and resorts) and places with small property tax bases per student (like low income municipalities and rural areas). This also reduces housing costs.

* Make free meals for all part of the standard ECE-12 education package.

* Make access to ECE and kindergarten and afterschool programs universal.

* Encourage international students at colleges and universities who basically subsidize domestic students by paying full tuition.

* Publicly fund higher education, without significant student loans, with all students with a reasonable chance of completing their degrees, while limiting admissions for students who have a high probability of failing. This makes access to higher education possible for working class and middle class kids increasing their future incomes and class mobility while making the economy more productive, and reduces the squeeze on families at the low end of upper middle class who don't easily qualify for need based grant financial aid, but still pay higher shares of their income than others.

* Reinvigorate vocational programs at high schools and community colleges for students for whom a traditional liberal arts college curriculum or four year degree isn't a good fit.

* Establish new medical school and medical professional school capacity to increase the supply of doctors and other medical professionals.

* Welcome foreign medical professionals, thus increasing the supply of medical professionals whose compensation is driven up by a limited supply, especially in rural areas where domestic medical professionals are least likely to prefer.

* Medicare for all or similar universal health care financing, that cuts out health care billing and insurance company administration costs and profits, ends barriers to health care for the self-employed and unemployed and those with jobs providing only second rate health insurance with high deductibles, funds health care in proportion to ability to pay, ends medical debt and bankruptcies, takes pressure off high cost ER care, and improves the bargaining power over drug costs and other provider costs. Health care expenses of employers also reduce wages more or less dollar for dollar.

* Broaden access to long term care, including home health care and assisted living, on a basis similar to universal healthcare, and finance it with estate taxes.

Cleaner Diesel As An Interim Solution

This is potentially a quick interim fix to diesel pollution that could be quickly adopted at the refining industry level by a handful of major oil companies rather than through vehicle purchases that could take decades to phase in. 

Scientists are exploring a surprisingly simple way to clean up diesel engines: adding tiny droplets of water to the fuel. During combustion, the water rapidly vaporizes, triggering micro-explosions that improve fuel mixing and lower combustion temperatures. 

Studies show this technique can slash nitrogen oxide and soot emissions by more than 60% while sometimes even improving engine efficiency. Because it works in existing engines without redesign, it could provide a quick path to cleaner diesel use.

From Science Daily citing: 

Chukwuemeka Fortunatus Nnadozie, et al. "Advancements in diesel emission reduction strategies: a focus on water-in-diesel emulsion technology" 4(1) Carbon Research (2025) DOI: 10.1007/s44246-025-00210-y

Quick Hits

* Property crime rates in 2024 were the lowest that they've been since 1976.

Pretty sure that the labeling of this lines is wrong.

* Immensely increased H1-B visa fees will devastate the supply of physicians in the U.S., especially in rural areas, that are already being pummeled by immense cuts to Medicaid funding and ACA health insurance subsidies used mostly by self-employed people like farmers.

* Large office properties in metropolitan Denver are selling at immense discounts. Some of them are being converted to apartments or condos.

* In a broken clock's right twice a day moment, Trump's push for American automakers to start make microcars in the Kei car and Smart car sizes wouldn't be a bad thing, although his opposition to electric vehicles is horrible policy.

Personal Reflections

* This year I'm going to be a sag wagon husband, taking my wife to her Horsetooth Half-Marathon in Fort Collins in April (one of the most difficult half-marathons there is, due to extreme elevation changes in the course) and to the New York City Marathon in November. As I write this post, my wife is doing an 18.5 mile training run for the 13.1 mile Horsetooth race.

* This year, our house which we bought twenty-five years ago turns 100 years old. We've been generally good stewards of it. Its fair market value is more than triple what it was when bought it. But our twenty-five year old swamp cooler is due to be replaced, so we'll do that this spring. I'll be getting bids next week. We're suffering from renovation and repair fatigue, however, after several major projects, so we may pause that, apart from landscaping (to eventually kill the lawn and replace a badly weather damaged back patio gazebo), for a while.

* We could find ways to pay off our small mortgage faster than it is scheduled to be paid off with increased principal payments, if we felt an urgent need to do so. But why waste an ability to borrow money at a 3.625% fixed rate with tax deductible interest that helps our credit rating, while inflation eats away at the inflation adjusted value of the loan principal every year? The money that would be used to pay off the loan can be invested instead for better returns, even in very safe bond investments (or even if it were in high return FDIC guaranteed CDs).

* We've received our compost bin as part of a new City of Denver program that has finally come into being. It takes a little getting used to in daily life to split waste into three categories instead of two and we've thrown out some waste that should be composted. But, we'll get the hang of it. The City also didn't pick it up the first time we put it out on a collection day for some reason.

* In contrast, we've pretty much gotten used to the new policy of having to bring reusable bags to the grocery store or pay a 10 cents per disposable bag tax on that formerly free service.

* One of my two cars has been unofficially the kids car for a long time, but this year, we will officially be a one car household as title to our kid's car is passed down to the next generation. 

* My Nissan Juke will hit 60,000 miles right around the tenth anniversary of purchasing it this year and is in pretty much perfect condition, except for some cosmetic hail damage that we don't plan on fixing. 

* The only thing the Juke lacks that I would actively like to have is a blind spot detector. I wonder how hard it is to add one on an aftermarket basis. 

* If I drove in the mountains more, I'd get snow tires, as the Juke is otherwise a perfect snow car. But I don't drive in the mountains all that much, and Denver doesn't get enough snow to justify snow tires, in lieu of all weather tires with a decent tread.

* My plan is to replace my Juke with an EV (not a Tesla) sometime after the next generation of far superior solid state batteries enter the market, the Trump tariffs have been repealed, and the national charging network is better, perhaps five to ten years from now. This will require emptying the garage (which currently has so much stuff stored there that there is no room for a car), moving the garage stuff to a new backyard shed, and installing an EV vehicle charger (which Denver's building codes now require in new garages, I've heard). The new EV could very well end up being my last car. 

* Incidentally, even though Nissan sells decent enough EVs, it's looking like there's a good chance that Nissan won't exist anymore by the time my next car purchase rolls around. The company is in dire straights, and a contemplated merger with Honda has apparently fallen through.

* Also vaguely car related, I have dropped SiriusXM, which my car is equipped to receive. I almost always listen to Spotify using Bluetooth to my cell phone instead when I'm out and about, and don't drive enough in places with no cell phone access to justify keeping it. 

* My generation has seen vinyl records, cassettes, CDs, iPods, videocassettes, large format video disks, DVDs, 5.25" floppy disks, 3.5" floppy disks, CD-ROM, DVD-ROM, hard drives with actual disks in them, and analog broadcast television all come and go (we were too young to really experience 8-track tapes). We have seen digital broadcast television, digital radio, dead tree format newspapers and magazines, large movie theaters, satellite TV (first with large dishes and then with smaller ones), short wave radio, land line phones, pay phones, pagers, slow speed intercity passenger rail, paper checks, personal letters, "dumb" Blackberries and flip phones, and home yogurt makers, lose their shine too. Denmark's Post Office is discontinuing letter delivery at the end of this year and taking away all of its post boxes. Analog FM and AM radio are also just dying a slow and gradual death (especially AM radio). Wrist watches used to be a daily necessity and are now jewelry and a fitness tracking device. Vinyl records are actually coming back, but it's a niche thing that probably won't get big. We saw supersonic commercial flight come and go, but it looks like it will return soon, beyond a niche. So, seeing satellite radio start to lose its relevance too isn't all that shocking.

The story of AM radio over the last 50 years has been a transition from being the dominant form of audio entertainment for all age groups to being almost non-existent to the youngest demographic groups. Among persons aged 12–24, AM accounts for only 4% of listening, while FM accounts for 96%. Among persons aged 25–34, AM accounts for only 9% of listening, while FM accounts for 91%. The median age of listeners to the AM band is 57 years old, a full generation older than the median age of FM listeners.

From a 2009 Federal Communication Commission report (via Wikipedia). A person who was a median aged AM radio listener in 2009 is now 73 years old. Baby Boomers are between the ages of 61 and 79 in the year 2025. As of 2024, the average AM and FM radio listener combined is 57 years old, and 62% of all AM and FM radio listeners combined are 55 years old or older. AM/FM radio formats that were historically mostly AM like talk radio and religious programming, have the oldest listeners (although Spanish language radio formats which were also historically AM dominated have younger than average listeners, and country music formats are only a little older than that).

* I've also decide not to renew my digital Washington Post subscription this month, even though I've read it regularly since college, because the editorial interference of Jeff Bezos in the paper is undermining the quality of the product. I'll probably remove it from the sidebar of this blog as well.

* Today is the start of daylight savings time. I would eliminate it and have standard time all year round if I could. There is nothing wrong with changing the time that businesses and governments open and close during the course of the year if particular businesses and governments want to change that on a seasonal basis.

* My new office, across the street from Shotgun Willies, is so far a success. At a recent deposition I hosted there, that went smoothy from a logistics perspective, opposing counsel and her paralegal were plotting and scheming about how to get a coffee maker a nice as mine for themselves.

* Evidencing my progressing older age, I got a colonoscopy last month. It went fine and I don't have cancer, but it isn't something that I'm looking forward to the next time it is scheduled, a few years from now. The pre-procedure purging is harrowing.

* In very positive news, they are on the brink of introducing a new and affordable screening test for pancreatic cancer, which was the main cause of death of my father, his brother, and two of my not related by blood aunts. If there is a genetic risk factor, my brother and I probably have it, and we will probably live to benefit from this screening test. In even more positive news, they are close to being able to provide a pancreatic cancer "vaccine" that would prevent some subtypes of pancreatic cancer, although this isn't quite as imminent.

* It is a relief that both of our children have finished college, secured good jobs in the tech sector, established themselves in their own apartments, and found good relationships with significant others. 

* It would be nice if they could buy homes for themselves, but the housing market is the toughest for buyers that it has been in at least thirty-years right now, due to a surge in mortgage interest rates, while home prices mostly remain sticky at prices established when mortgage interest rates (and hence home affordability) were half what they are now.

* We've very much enjoyed being able to see our children's significant others this year. We'd welcome their upgrades to official son-in-law and daughter-in-law status, but that's up to the kids to decide. We are proud of the progress that our daughter's boyfriend has made toward becoming a Chartered Financial Analyst®, and are excited about our son's girlfriend's first half-marathon in the District of Columbia next weekend that she is just finishing her training to prepare to run.

* My official running competitions have been limited to 1 mile fun runs and 0.5 km races with donuts at the half-way mark. 

* I'm more ambivalent about my daughter's new dog, Oakley, because, as most people who know me are aware, I'm not a dog person. But, I'm learning to tolerate him.

* Both my nephew and the daughter of a dear friend of the family are applying to colleges this year. They have gotten out all of their applications, and have received acceptances and rejections from some schools so far. Even if none of them remaining responses are acceptances, they each have decent options. Over the next month or so, they'll each hear from some remaining schools that haven't given them an answer so far and they'll make their big decisions. For different reasons, neither will be going to schools in red states.

* Next year will be senior year for both of my nieces, so we'll get to watch the process of them deciding what to do after high school again next year as well, from front row seats. My brother and his wife will probably move to a different home in the Boston metro area once they become empty nesters.

* On July 3, 2025, less than four months from now, this blog will be 20 years old.

The Geopolitical Impacts And Timing Of The Decline Of Fossil Fuels

Colorado will not use any coal for electricity generation by 2031. It currently has ten coal fired power plants. It will take three of them off line in 2025. The rest are scheduled to be taken off line in the five years that follow.

Colorado will be more aggressive than most states in this time frame, but some states are already coal free, and almost all states are reducing the extent to which coal powers their electrical grids.

Greatly improved solid state electric vehicle batteries will start coming on line in 2025 and vehicles powered by them will make up a large share of new vehicles by 2031, greatly reducing gasoline and diesel consumption.

These developments, taken together, will greatly reduce U.S. fossil fuel consumption over the next seven years, and the reduction will be particularly dramatic for coal consumption. The falling demand for coal will hit Wyoming and West Virginia hard, because they are the two dominant producers of coal right now in the U.S. (the U.S. imports little, if any, coal). This will also heavily impact freight rail and barge transportation demand, because those are the two main ways that coal is delivered to power plants. Coal is the single largest revenue stream for both means of transportation.

The coal fired power plants are being replaced largely by wind, solar, and natural gas over the next seven years. So, the U.S. is going to see continued strong demand for natural gas, which is mostly sourced from North America, but should be seeing a gradual decline in petroleum demand (a fuel that the U.S. is largely self-sufficient in now, although global oil prices still influence domestic oil prices). The energy self-sufficiency of the U.S., however, buffers it from major macroeconomic shocks driven by rising oil prices like those seen in the late 1970s and early 1980s.

The increase in the share of vehicles that are electric, spurred by solid state batteries, will be global. Indeed, many places in Europe are already in the lead on this front. And, since gasoline and diesel powered vehicles are the predominant end use of oil, this should drive down the price of oil in the global market. This will make high cost oil producers, like fracking wells and off-shore oil rigs, uneconomic first.

Meanwhile, the Ukraine War has put intense pressure on Europe, which has cut off or reduced access to Russian oil and gas, to be more efficient in order to reduce its fossil fuel consumption, to increase it share of renewable power, to delay shutting down coal fired power plants, and to keep its nuclear power plants on line. This may mean more insulation, more blankets and sweaters, more heat pumps, more electric vehicles, a shift to buses and trains, and fewer natural gas power plants.

China is in the way of these developments strongly addressing global warming, because it seems to be increasing, rather than decreasing, its coal consumption in the short to medium term. 

But China is also a world leader in electric car production and in building a high speed rail network, so China may play an important part in reducing global petroleum consumption. And, China's path in electric vehicle development is likely to heavily influence countries in Southeast Asia that in its sphere of influence, and to a lesser extent, may influence Africa and South America in which China has attempted to expand its economic influence.

China is also a leading producer of high efficiency, low cost solar panels, and eventually this, together with its rapidly declining fertility rates and starting to shrink population, may make its current round of investments in coal fired power plants short lived.

As oil demand and prices fall, this will eventually undermine the often authoritarian leaning countries with heavily oil dependent economies, in the Middle East, but also Brunei, Russia, Venezuela, and Nigeria. It will also impact Norway, the U.K., Canada, and U.S. states like Alaska, Louisiana, and Texas that are major oil producers. Oil wealth is what has made ultra-conservative Islam feasible in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf states. It has been central to the economies of Iran and Iraq. It has been an important factor allowing Russia and Venezuela and Iran to continue to be authoritarian.

These countries will see a collapse in their standard of living and they will face intense pressure to convert to a commercial economy. Most of their "guest workers" will be sent home for good.

Automobile Manufacturing Moves From The Rust Belt To The Sun Belt

The prototypical Rust Belt job, in motor vehicle manufacturing industry, left Rust Belt centers in places like Michigan and Ohio. But, lots of those jobs moved to places like California and Alabama, rather than off shore.

The Tesla Cybertruck And Industry Standards

Telsa has finally starting selling its weird modernist looking, stainless steel, bullet proof cybertruck. A tweet at X explains another thing about the new model that is a landmark change in automative electronics standards:

Techies are obsessed with Cybertruck's 48 volt architecture. 12 volt has been the standard for over 50 years, though a 1965 VW bug actually had a 6 volt system. . . . 

The reality is that the car industry has been moving toward 48V for the last decade. But it's a difficult transition. Part of the reason is that we've moved from MECHANICAL linkages to ELECTRONIC. Things like the air conditioner, power steering, and power brakes tapped into the main engine mechnically. Power brakes, for example, were powered by the vacuum generatedby the engine. Even the original Tesla Model S didn't have electronic brakes -- it had an electronic device generate a vaccuum, which then powered normal brakes. 

Nowadays, everything is electronic, not just in electric cars, but in traditional gasoline cars as well. Lower voltage means power needs to be delivered by thicker copper cables, which now becomes a major expense for the car, as well as an extra hundred pounds of weight to carry around. 

Increasing the DC voltage to 48V from 12V reduces the the copper thickness by exactly 4 (Ohms Law), reducing the cost and weight of copper by 75%. 

Specifically, one of the things driving the change is "Power over Ethernet". I know what you are thinking, WTF is Ethernet doing in a car??? 

Here's the deal. There are cameras throughout the car now that need to send hi-def video from the edges of the car to the central computer. This far exceeds the bandwidth of old technologies so they are using gigabite Ethernet these days. They've developed a special wiring standard that needs only a single pair of copper wires for both transmit and receive ("Single Pair Ethernet"). They've also developed enough technology to use that same pair to transmit power. These cameras use several watts of power, so would otherwise need additional cables for power. Single-pair Ethernet carrying power thus solves a ton of requirements for car makers. The desired voltage of such systems is 48 volts. 

The same revolution is happening for consumers, by the way. The USB C Power Delivery standard maxes out at 48 volts when you try to power your laptop at 240 watts. Power = volts times current, and USB cables support a maximum of 5 amps of current. 

48 volts is where government regulators have decided that DC electronics are "safe" from electrocuting people. Getting much beyond that introduces a whole new level of government interference and regulations. 

Thus, 48 volts is probably going to be the standard for cars, Ethernet, and USB for the next hundred years. 

Tesla's Cybertruck is making the jump early. . . .  it's likely going to result in a lot of recalls as Tesla makes fixes. But that's okay for a low-volume, new product. What Tesla doesn't want is to change to 48 volts in a Model Y and suddenly have to do a recall of a million vehicles. Cybertruck is a good test platforms to get it working. Presumably, we'll next see it in the higher end Models S/X, and then eventually in the Models 3/Y.

What Makes A Good Snow/Off Road Car Or Truck?

What makes a good snow/off road car or truck?

Of course, learning how to drive in snowy, slippery, and off road conditions (ideally, both in the light and in the dark) matters just as much as the vehicle itself. But the vehicle matters too. 

In order of importance, a good snow/off road car or truck should have these characteristics and/or features:

1. Tires properly inflated for the conditions with lots of tread. Tires let you stop, which is more important that four wheel drive or all wheel drive which lets you go. Chains can partially make up for otherwise insufficient tire tread.

2. Sufficient clearance. Mazda Miatas are horrible and can't even clear a couple of inches of snow on a raised driveway (in common with many sports cars designed for peak speed in dry paved roads). Five inches is usually tolerable. Subarus, at 8.7 inches with a couple of exceptions (e.g., the Impreza) are usually adequate for even off road conditions. Jeeps and Hummers are better. In theory, things like angles of attack and various other measurements of a vehicle's capabilities to handle variously shaped terrain also matter, but in practice, if you have enough ground clearance, everything else will probably work out as well. A decent suspension is also closely related to adequate clearance.

3. Four wheel drive or all wheel drive (four wheel drive is marginally better than all wheel drive, and more than four wheels, for example, on a fire truck or 6x6 or 8x8 wheeled vehicle, can be better). If you can't have either of these, front wheel drive is better than rear wheel drive.

4. An ability to intentionally drive in low gear (not a big factor as almost all vehicles can do this).

5. Traction control and anti-lock brakes. You have to know you have these features, however, as you drive differently with them when you are skidding.

6. Fog lights, if you are driving in blowing snow or fog.

7. More weight, within reason. More weight generally means more traction, but too much weight (e.g., more than ten tons) can make it impossible to cross bridges in rural areas. More weight also usually means less fuel efficiency, which is a problem if you need to travel for long distances between refueling opportunities.

8. Narrower width, within reason. A narrower vehicle can fit through tighter spaces, around tighter corners, and into smaller parking spaces. But if the vehicle is too narrow this can lead to a problematic high center of gravity.

9. Lower center of gravity and height, within reason. Vehicles with a higher center of gravity are more prone to rollover accidents. A vehicle that is taller is more prone to being blown around by high winds and can't pass through narrow underpasses.

10. Traction generating tools on hand in case you are stuck (this could be kitty litter, traction boards, shovels, or other traction generating devices).

11. A full sized spare tire and jack and tire changing tool(s).

12. Greater range with a suitable fuel tank to support it. When you are far from civilization you need to be able to travel further between refueling. Range is a combination of fuel efficiency and the size of your fuel supply.

13. A decent heater and air conditioning that work.

14. Rear window wipers and washers (to clear mud that flys up in your rear window as you drive and falling snow).

15. Straight up and down windows (this reduces the time spent clearing snow from the windows, but reduces fuel efficiency and aerodynamics).

16. A winch. This is the ultimate way to get yourself or a pal unstuck, but is only needed if somebody really screwed up in the first place a long way away from a tow truck.

17. Extra bright headlights, if you are driving in the dark off-road.

18. Metal cages for vulnerable parts. A front metal grill in front of the bumper and metal cages around headlights and any other vulnerable parts of the vehicle can reduce damage if something bumps them, which is more likely in snowy, slippery, and off road driving.

19. A stronger engine. The big concern here is the ability to generate lots of torque in low gears. But this is well down the list of factors that are likely to make a big difference, and this usually comes at the cost of less fuel efficiency which can also be an issue since it limits your range.

20. Heated seats.

There are other things worth mentioning that are good to have including which relate mostly to what you carry and how: 

* a good emergency kit and set of survival supplies (especially water, something to hold water, blankets, food that doesn't have to be cooked, a lighter, a knife, rope, flares, and a good first aid kit);

* good places to stow your camping, biking, skiing, fishing, snow shoeing, or other gear for your outdoor adventures (either inside, or in a truck bed, or in a roof rack or on a trailer for which you have a hitch - covered storage is usually better than uncovered storage, unless you routinely carry oversized and odd sized cargo);

* a place to charge phones and other electronics, or back up charging devices;

* satellite radio for places with no radio channels and no cell service;

* easy to clean upholstery covers and footwell covers.

* extra motor oil, coolant, windshield wash, car fuel, and a stand alone battery jumping machine; and

* a satellite phone.

It is also worth noting that if you have more than one vehicle, only one of them needs to be good in snow and off road conditions in most cases. Your other vehicles don't need to be equally capable unless you truly live in the deep wilderness. 

If you face extreme conditions only infrequently, the best option may be to rent or borrow a vehicle suited for extreme conditions in the rare circumstances when those capabilities are necessary.

Biden World

Welcome to Biden world.

Inflation is modest (3.4%). Economic growth is high (4.9% annualized, seasonally adjusted). Unemployment is low (3.8%).

Teen birth rates in the U.S. are at an all time historic low.

Violent crime was near a 25 year low before the pandemic in 2019, and is returning to the trend line after a pandemic surge:

The murder rate in big cities that bounced up in the pandemic (2020-2021) has fallen again (down 5% in 2022 and down another 12% so far this year compared to the same time period in 2022) to return to almost pre-pandemic levels.

The war on marijuana is almost over and Biden is working to remove its Schedule I controlled substance status (which would end punitive federal taxation of the industry and allow marijuana businesses to use banks):

Russia's conventional military might has crumbled and NATO is stronger. The U.S. is out of Afghanistan. Israel's continued existence is not seriously threatened. China has not invaded Taiwan.

COVID deaths are way down.

More than a thousand people have been held criminally accountable for the January 6, 2021 attempted self-coup and even the people at the top are being held accountable.

Bad cops are being held accountable at much higher rates in recent years.

Coal consumption in the U.S. is down more than 50% from its 2008 peak, and continues to fall. Renewable generation surpassed coal and nuclear in the U.S. electric power sector in 2022:

According to J.D. Powers & Associates:

Sales of electric vehicles (EVs) in the United States rose by two-thirds in 2022, comprising 5.8 percent of all new vehicles sold. This represents a significant increase from the 3.2 percent market share in 2021.

This is expected to increase substantially again in 2023. 

Motorcycles Still Aren't Safe

Riding a motorcycle is one of the most dangerous legal things that you can do. 

The 149 motorcycle fatalities in 2022 [in Colorado] accounted for 20% of the state’s total traffic fatalities but the motorcycles involved represented only 3% of the state’s vehicle registrations, CDOT officials said in a news release. The number of motorcycle fatalities has generally risen since 2003 when 73 motorcyclists died. . . . Of the 2022 fatalities, over half of the motorcyclists were not wearing helmets, and nationwide, DOT-compliant helmet use decreased by 4% from 2020 to 2021.

From the Denver Post.

Comparing motorcycle fatalities to vehicle registrations also greatly underestimates how dangerous motorcycles are, because the number of passenger-miles per year driven per motorcycle is vastly lower than the number of passenger-miles per year driven per car.

This isn't a new observation. I first made it at this blog in a post on October 18, 2005, not long after I started it. At that time, motorcycle accidents had gone from accounting for 5% of all fatal vehicle accidents to 10%, and motorcycle riders were 28 times as likely to die per passenger-mile are car passengers. Now, in Colorado at least, motorcycle accidents give rise to 20% of fatal vehicle accidents, so the relative risk faced by people riding motorcycles is now probably closer to 50-60 times that of car passengers.

Electric Cars Increasingly Don't Run On Coal

The message of this meme used to be much more true than it is today.

The U.S. electrical grid is gradually growing less dependent upon coal, particularly in many states that have higher rates of electric car usage. 

Ten states and the District of Columbia have an above the national average share of battery electric vehicles market share (the same rankings hold true if you look at the market share of battery electric vehicles and plug in hybrid electric vehicles combined). 

Six of those states have electrical girds derived less than 10% from coal, including three of those states with no coal powering their electrical grids at all. California, Massachusetts and Vermont use no coal. Washington, Oregon and Nevada used less than 10% coal. 

The District of Columbia, Arizona, Colorado, Hawaii, and Maryland have power grids that are less than 90% coal-free.

Market share data from here.

The average share of electricity generated from coal in the US has dropped from 52.8% in 1997 to below 22% since 2020. Firm plans are in place to reduce that share going forward. 

In 2018, 16 of the 50 Federal States of the US had either no coal power in their power production for the public power supply (California, Idaho, Massachusetts, Rhode Island and Vermont), less than 5% coal in power production (Connecticut, Maine, New Hampshire, New Jersey, New York, Delaware) or between 5 and 10% (Alaska, Nevada, Mississippi, Oregon and Washington State).

Including Alaska is somewhat unfair, however, since it generates much of its electricity with oil unlike every other state except Hawaii. 

(Source)

Hawaii is also notable for having the lowest electricity consumption per capita (despite having a significant average number of non-resident tourists not included in the denominator of that calculation), which mitigates the dirty character of its electrical grid.