Quick takes and random stuff March 21, 2024
Quick takes and random stuff March 21, 2024
Immigration, oil, microplastic, crocuses, and more
Immigration follow-up
In my 2/27/2024 article On the complexities of immigration I had this to say:
Finally, we need a nuanced and thoughtful immigration debate. What is the appropriate level of immigration in terms of economics, and how does it affect culture?
Since that post, I came across a past Brooking article: New census projections show immigration is essential to the growth and vitality of a more diverse US population. (11/29/2023) They do excellent work summarizing different immigration scenarios, and they don’t recommend any one scenario. They have four such scenarios. Main: between 850,000 and 980,000 people per year. High: roughly 1.5 million people per year (occasionally approached in the recent past). Low: between 350,000 and 600,000 net migrants annually. zero: no explanation is needed. Two graphs.
The first is the U.S. population under the four scenarios. I noted in my article that the U.S. birthrate has been below replacement. If there is zero immigration, then the U.S. population starts to decline immediately. Even under the low scenario, the U.S. population will be lower in 2100 than now. I’m not sure we want the population to grow to 435 million, and so roughly, I would say the main scenario is a good start for discussions.
With that said, this is worth noting:
Each of the immigration scenarios except the “high” one shows declines in the nation’s youth population during every year of the projection period. Moreover, the years in which the number of seniors supersedes the number of youths occur before 2030 in all scenarios.
One other graph to address, to some extent, culture. First, note that under all scenarios, the Black population stays stable at 13%. The differences occur in the Asian, Hispanic, and White populations. In only the zero-immigration case will the White population remain a majority. Beyond that, though, the differences in the percent of the White population go down by 2 percentage points as immigration goes up. Is there a big cultural difference between 51% White (zero) and 45% White (main)?
The article is worth reading.
Graph of the week
This one comes from the paper Seabirds from the poles: microplastics pollution sentinels (3/6/2024). Note: MP is microplastics.
Overall, 3523 MPs were retrieved from stomachs, pellets, guano, and pouch contents. The number of MPs per sample was highly variable, with an average of 3.1 MPs per bird (min = 0, max = 36). Regarding MP shape, fragments were the dominant shape, making up 79%, while fibers accounted for 21% (Figure 3). Most of the fragments (Arctic, F.O. (Frequency of Occurrence) = 99%, n = 1687; Antarctic, F.O. = 79%, n = 308) were found in stomach contents, while the fibers were mainly found on pellets (Antarctica, F.O. = 81%, n = 315).
To add some context, this is from the abstract.
A total of at least 13 seabird species were reported to have ingested MPs from 1983–2023. Overall, 1130 samples were investigated, including stomach content, pouch content, guano, and pellets. Pellets were the most investigated substrate (699), followed by stomach contents (309), guano (101), and pouch contents (21). A median of 31.5 MPs per sample was found in the Arctic, with an average of 7.2 MPs per sample. A median of 35 MPs per sample was found in Antarctica, with an average of 1.1 MPs per sample. Overall, MPs were most frequently found in fragment form. A total of 3526 MPs were retrieved from stomachs (3013), pellets (398), guano (75), and pouch contents (40).
U.S. oil exports
The U.S. set a new record for oil exports in 2023, according to the EIA (3/18/2024).
Here are the top countries that import U.S. oil. Note that China is second on the list.
Where do electric batteries come from?
The Guardian is a clear left-leaning publication that favors renewables and electric everything. So, the article CATL, the little-known Chinese battery maker that has the US worried (3/18/2024), has to create a little stress.
China’s Contemporary Amperex Technology Co Limited, or CATL, is an energy storage specialist that is the world’s largest battery maker for electric vehicles (EVs). But despite the fact that the company controls nearly two-fifths of the world’s EV battery market – and has powered cars made by brands including Tesla, Volkswagen and BMW – it has long flown under the radar of US politics. Until now.
Regardless, experts agree there is no clear roadmap for the US to decarbonise its streets without cheap Chinese EV batteries – most likely from CATL or its main rival, BYD.
File this under yet another EV complication issue. We’ll see how it plays out.
How hot was February 2024?
Here is the February anomaly graph and the updated anomaly graph by month. 2024 was barely a record anomaly for February, which is not surprising given it is expected to be an El Niño month. Overall, it was still one of the top anomaly months.
Spring flowers
The crocuses aren’t happy with the return of winter weather. This is part of the 1600 blubs planted last fall.
The positive spin on emissions
The quotes and graph are from the section Emissions grew in 2023, but clean energy is limiting the growth of the recent IEA report CO2 Emissions in 2023. (March 2024)
Total energy-related CO2 emissions increased by 1.1% in 2023. Far from falling rapidly - as is required to meet the global climate goals set out in the Paris Agreement - CO2 emissions reached a new record high of 37.4 Gt in 2023.
It's no surprise that emissions haven’t fallen. The title suggests that emissions growth has slowed due to wind and solar. Fair enough. Now this.
The rate of emissions growth seen over the last decade is slower than that seen during the 1970s and 1980s, which saw major disruptions with the two energy shocks of 1973-4 and 1979-80, and a macroeconomic shock of global significance with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1989-90. When the last ten years are put in a broader historical context, a comparably slow rate of CO2 emissions growth only occurred in the extremely disruptive decades of World War I and the Great Depression. Global CO2 emissions are therefore undergoing a structural slowdown even as global prosperity grows.
The suggestion here is that prosperity can continue to grow while CO2 emissions slow. Maybe. The implication that they would like to be true is that we can reduce CO2 emissions and still have prosperity grow. I’m much less optimistic about that, as energy and prosperity are highly linked. A recent article by Gail Tverberg (Gail the Actuary) entitled Advanced Economies Will Be Especially Hurt by Energy Limits (3/17/2024) is worth reading if you think differently or, really, even if you agree with me, as Gail’s work is just worth reading.
The spinning CD
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