Re: The Physics Behind the Spanish Blackout

On 12/06/2025 13:29, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 12/06/2025 7:32 pm, David Brown wrote:

On 11/06/2025 17:19, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 11/06/2025 10:58 pm, David Brown wrote:

On 11/06/2025 13:03, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 11/06/2025 5:05 pm, David Brown wrote:

On 10/06/2025 19:01, Bill Sloman wrote:

On 11/06/2025 1:32 am, David Brown wrote:

On 10/06/2025 15:49, Bill Sloman wrote:

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Why would the "fossil carbon extraction industry" even care about this book?  You seem to be imagining some shadowing conspiracy group that is directing a war on electricity and the earth's climate. That's nonsense - there's just a bunch of companies trying to make a profit from their businesses and investments, and down-playing the risks in order to make a short-term profit.

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It is not nonsense. It has been going on for some twenty years now. George Monbiot in his 2006 book "Heat" devoted a chapter to it.
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https://www.monbiot.com/books/heat/
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In 2010 it was worth writing a whole book about it
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https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merchants_of_Doubt
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It did point out that the same people who were lying about climate change had originally started their businesses to lie about the health risks of smoking tobacco, which made the story even better.
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People who want to keep on selling gasoline to car drivers don't want their customers to switch to electric cars, and they spread lying propaganda to discourage them.
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It's just normal capitalism, and like any other branch of industry, it is a problem when they are too powerful.  But it doesn't help to be paranoid and imagine a conspiracy that does not exist.

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The "conspiracy" really does exist, and it is well documented. There's nothing paranoid about being realistic about the way consumers are misinformed. Ignoring the manipulation saves you from having to think about it, but that's a false economy.
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Companies that make their living from fossil fuels do not care about some little book written by a journalist.  Why should they?

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Because well-informed customers do read that kind of book, and make choices that cost the fossil fuel companies sales,
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You are /completely/ disconnected from reality.

 I'm sure you like to think that.

No, I'd prefer it if you were more realistic.

 

How many potential car customers read books like that?  0.01% ?  Maybe 0.001% ?  Of those, how many people choose to buy an electric car rather than a fossil fuel car because they have read such a book?  In total, you could count the cases on the fingers of one hand.

 Individual car customers may not read that kind of book, but they read newspapers and get exposed to the prevailing climate of opinion.

I believe I explained all that.

Tesla's car sales around the world have dropped dramatically in the past six months, apparently because of his US- government activities.
 

The drop in Tesla sales are partly due to Musk and his drug-fueled rampage, partly due to Tesla been left behind by other EV companies in terms of price, reliability and features, and partly due to a general dislike of the company and its policies (such as being aggressively anti-union, and having a tendency to sue their own customers).
I do not believe that Tesla sales are done because of some book.

People's thoughts on what is "right" - morally, environmentally, politically, religiously, etc., - are based on what they hear from friends, what they see on TV, Youtube, Tiktok, and the like.  Books are a tiny, tiny proportion of the influence - or rather, an influence on a tiny, tiny proportion of people.

 Says somebody who doesn't seem to read enough of them, and is now making excuses for it.

These discussions would be a lot nicer if you stopped making up random shit.

 

And all these sources of influence can be highly biased, present a distorted view, or be completely wrong. Books are not immune to that, though they are usually be more factually reliable than Tiktok.

 It's easier to sue somebody who has published a malicious lie in a book.
 

Are you giving that as a reason why books are usually more factually accurate than random videos online?  If so, then I guess I can agree with you, though I don't think it is the most important reason.

Once a potential customer has decided on their idealistic stance - they want to "go green", or they think climate change is all a conspiracy theory from the Chinese - they look at the practicalities and the economics.  And those override the idealism nine times out of ten - idealism typically only matters in the event of a tie.

 I don't think that many people adopt any kind of idealistic stance, but they do worry if the people from whom they buy their consumer durables look to be unlikely to stay in business much longer.

That is a practical reason, and like other practical reasons is usually more important than idealistic reasons.

 

Those small proportions do add up, gradually.  If one in ten buyers chooses the environmentally better option, then that will lead to greater availability, better infrastructure, lower prices, and more investment and development in the field - making it a more practical choice for others.
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None of this is, however, affected by books by journalists "revealing" the "truth" about some industry.

 It depends on the nature of "the truth" revealed. Ralph Nader had quite a lot of influence.
 

As I said, very occasionally books have an effect.  Ironically, if your imaginary evil industrial masterminds have any sense, they will learn from Nader that the best way to deal with "revealing the hidden truth" books is to ignore them.

Very occasionally, some politician might have read the book and ask challenging questions in parliament, or the author will appear on a panel show or debate show and raise awareness.  But that's rare.  Virtually all such books generate a few inches of newspaper column (for those that still read newspapers), then migrate to airport bookshops.  Most copies that are bought are unread - and for most that are read, the reader will think "that's interesting and thought-provoking" - then forget about them.  Again, the tiny levels of influence do add up, slowly, and it is a good thing that these kinds of books are written and published.  But to imagine that they directly affect companies' bottom lines through "informed customers" is ludicrous.

 The fossil carbon extraction industry is spending quite a lot money on lying propaganda designed to limit the influence of some of those books.
It would be ludicrous if it didn't work.
 

I say all this as a person who reads such books (though not those particular ones you happen to have read) - and who tries learn from many sources.

 Without much evidence of success.
 

The people  who read a book like that have no influence of significance. The people that invest in their companies, or buy their products, wouldn't bother with such a book.

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The do get bothered when the sales volumes start to shrink. Oil companies used to advertise their products to get the sales volumes up.
That's what you do when you care about what your customers think.

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Of course companies care what their customers think, and what influences them!  That is why they advertise.  But they do not care what books they read, because the influence is totally and completely negligible.

 You may want to neglect it. The money spent on lying counter-propaganda suggests that companies involved don't share that view.
 

*They do not care about the books*.
Sure, they lie and produce counter-propaganda.  But they are not targeting books or book-readers, because those are a /tiny/ proportion of relevant people (customers, politicians, regulators, etc.). Customers don't read books or newspapers - they watch influencers on social media.  Politicians don't even read the bills they sign into law, much less boring books that attack the industries that sponsor their political campaigns.
Even if some oil company released a counter-statement condemning one of your favourite books as incorrect, pretty much no one would notice because no one reads about that kind of thing.

 

Norway is the country with far and away the highest per-capita electric car ownership - perhaps 50 times that of Australia (though Australia's rate is increasing faster).  Solar power, and house batteries, are very rare here - it is not the sunniest country on earth.

 It's not so much lack of sun as being close to the Arctic circle. The sun doesn't far above the horizon in winter, and doesn't stay above it for all that long.

Consider "Norway is not as sunny as Australia" as dumbing it down for you while giving the relevant information, rather than an astronomically and climatically correct detailed description of why solar panels are more useful in Australia than Norway.

 

The "environmentally damaging" line seems to come from the usual propaganda sources. Nobody seems to be much fussed about Australia's lithium mines, which is odd because our greenies get excited about most mining operations. Australia has quite a lot of lithium mines with many hard-rock, pegmatite-hosted lithium resources, largely in Western Australia.

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Australia's lithium mining is a noticeably less environmentally damaging source than many other sources of lithium throughout the world.

 Which has more to do with our greenies being a noisy bunch, by international standards, than anything fundamental.
 

It has more to do with where the lithium is found, in what form, and what is needed to extract the lithium.  But you are probably right that environmental activists have more influence on reducing the damage in Australia than in many other parts of the world.