[FRIAM] Conversations with George

[steve smith]

Marcus wrote:
>
> But we don’t all need yachts because the green ammonia shipping lets 
> the goods come to us?
>
I don't think of mega-yachts as being maintained for fetching groceries 
(or Cybertrucks or Christmas dolls or other plastic junk)?

<rant about material transport>

    I live 100 yards away from the famous Otowi Bridge "whistle stop" on
    the Chile Line that Edith Warner manned for the boys school,
    Bandalier, San I, El Rancho...  but the whole rail was
    decommissioned and relocated to Burma (where they also used narrow
    gauge).

    I don't think there was a huge volume of freight going through that
    stop, especially near the end when truck travel was likely
    displacing...  the auto bridge at the location was built in 1924
    (100 years ago)!   Current pueblo population is similar to to 1600s
    when there were no long-distance material transport. Today there is
    a constant stream of Amazon, UPS, FedEX trucks in and out, but
    nothing compared to what streams by on it's way to Los Alamos!   Of
    course it is only fair that trucks head the other way to WIPP loaded
    with canisters contaminated glovebox gloves.

</freightRant>

<discursive fantasy about self-reliance>

    Folks used to get along "just fine" without global supply chains of
    the style currently in use, and in fact apparently *critical* to
    most of us now.   I can't guess what I'd find absent in my life
    within weeks of a collapsed global supply chain, but it would
    probably be more than iPhones, Xmas Dolls, and off season
    Strawberries.  For all my attempts at self-reliance, I suspect I'd
    last only a week or two longer than the average...   Assuming my
    gun-bristling neighbors don't shoot me on Day 1 to take my chickens
    and solar panels...   they won't likely be ready to turn me into
    long-pig-jerky for a few more months...   or maybe they'd give me
    enough respite to build out a full Crusoe suite of DIY defenses by
    which time I'd be ready to make jerky of them and collect their guns
    and ammo for the waves of walking dead from TX and CA to come
    later?   Palisades and deadfalls and spike-pits and such?  Probably not.

</discursion>

> And there could be a lot less of us.
>
Especially if there are releases of ammonia-fuel similar to the 2000gl 
diesel spill in Baltimore Harbor today.

<deathByAmmonia>

    6000gl ammonia (based on 1/3 volumetric relative energy density)
    would be quite the tragedy?   If *not* anhydrous (i.e. 30% solution
    in water) it would be (much) more of an environmental than human
    disaster though... so a few safety precautions would nicely shift
    the risk from humans to other parts of the biosphere...  fewer
    people would die in the first hour or day of acute symptoms but
    maybe just as many down the line of much more chronic/latent
    conditions?

</ammoniaDeath>

But Senator Ernst reminds us "we will all die' and therefore we should 
"get right with God" or somesuch.  Brilliant!  (Occupy Heaven!)

<StephenKing story cautionary tale>

    I recently watched Stephen King's /the Stand/ mini-series and saw
    that his estimate was 92.4% death rate or a reduction from 8B to <
    1B which was last seen (I think) in pre-pre-industrial (ca 1800)
    times.  It appears an abrupt reduction in population leaves a
    plenitude of material goods to indulge in (or fight over)... don't
    need global supply chains for the hard-goods for years or decades? 
    See discursion above!

</SK story review>



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