Robert Howard

@FMichel50 @ShounenFans @spirituality751 @TheDefiantGhost Your devices are always listening 😉

@ShounenFans @spirituality751 @TheDefiantGhost As soon as you use a phone, the GSM network knows where you are! If you also activate geolocation, it's even better! The only real solution, if you need to be discreet, is word-of-mouth messaging 😘

Edward Snowden in 2019: "The problem with applications like WhatsApp is, it was actually designed to have very strong encryption, just the same as the gold standard today which would be the signal messenger or the wire messenger, but then it was bought by Facebook because it was so good, and now Facebook is quite aggressively reducing the security of WhatsApp about once a quarter, and they’re trying to do it as quietly as possible, so a messenger that the people are comfortable using now is actually a danger to you."

@danielmullen @Object_Zero_ Will the oxygen they produce throug ionic reaction with water be an issue for the golal environment? I.e. Do we need tbis on the bottom of the ocean so we can breathe?

@Object_Zero_ The issue is that apparently these nodules are acting as mineral ‘seeding’ for life on the ocean bottom. Take the chicken out of the chicken soup, and it is not chicken soup anymore. The other matter is ‘plucking them up’ one-by-one versus actually strip-mining the ocean floor.

Deepsea Mining People talk about this and it never really sounds real or commercial, but… it’s probably going to happen soon. When everyone hears about “deepsea mining” they imagine digging a mine or a quarry under the sea, which is obviously far more difficult than doing the same thing on land. But that’s not what deepsea mining actually is. Here’s what to expect. The commercially interesting stuff is called polymetallic nodules (see picture below), these are found at depths of 4–6 km on the abyssal plain. You just pick them up like rocks off the floor. The Clarion–Clipperton zone (CCZ), which is the international waters West of Mexico, contains over 21 billion metric tons of these nodules, with minerals such as copper, nickel, cobalt and manganese making up roughly 30% of their weight. Copper is $6/lb cobalt is $120/lb It is estimated that the global ocean floor holds more than 120 million tons of cobalt, five times the amount found in terrestrial reserves. These nodules (the rocks), are worth $20-150 each. Collecting them isn’t really that hard (for skilled subsea engineers). For context a medium sized submarine is maybe 5,000 tons displacement and for mining you don’t need a pressure hull with people inside. So a 1,000 ton cargo space is 2 million lbs of nodules. You can probably haul $5-100m up from the seabed with each dive. You don’t even have to try and work out where all this stuff is. We already know where it is. You can even winch down a big scoop with a camera on it and just scoop this stuff up with a bucket and wire. I’m oversimplifying for effect, but honestly not that much. It’s obvious to me that deepsea mining is going to happen soon, and the first serious group of people to get financed will likely make a fortune. There isn’t even anyone you can pay for a license or ask for a permit. This is international waters. Someone should go and do this, for the benefit of all mankind. 😉

@rcolvile @LoftusSteve The UK north sea is a meture depleted basin. If the UK imports gas. How do we pay for the import without creating an unsustainable trade deficit? How do we avoid eventually destroys the currency and causing high inflation? Eventually losing imports due to bankruptcy.

Last week, the price of natural gas dipped below 72p/therm. It was a significant moment. Why? Because according to Ed Miliband's maths, it's impossible. (1/?)

@LoftusSteve Steve, would you please provide a source for your numbers. Hydro is shown as more expensive than onshore wind. For the past 200+ years hydro was the cheapest source of electricity ever invented. That is why it is used in very energy intensive industries e.g. aluminium smelting

1️⃣1️⃣ The cost of renewables under the RO scheme is staggering — averaging nearly £171 per MWh. This means consumers are paying more than double the market rate to subsidize renewable energy.

💰The Cost of Renewables 2025 Megathread💰 The Government is pushing the narrative that renewables are cheap and gas is the problem. It's been 18 months since my last thread showed this to be a lie. Have things changed? Or is Ed Miliband driving us towards ruin? 🧵

@pati_marins64 Good luck trying to maintain global trade by sea when every small littoral state can threaten shipping. If we are not careful global trade will be set back 500 years to before the age of sail opened up global trade. And we know who controls the new land based silk road.

@pati_marins64 The madness of the two main global powers, both dependent on global trade for their power and economy, promoting technologies that can threaten maritime trade. There were no lessons learned from the impact of small states like Ukraine and Yemen aquring navel drone technology.

The Giant American Manta Ray The Manta Ray is, without exaggeration, the most fascinating underwater drone ever built. Since I’ve been talking a lot about the seas lately and new Chinese technologies, it’s worth remembering that the United States is finalizing tests on something truly groundbreaking. Imagine a metal manta ray with a 14-meter wingspan and weighing nearly 30 tons that can be launched from any pier in the world and then simply disappears for months, or even years without ever needing a mother ship, refueling, or a crew. It glides through the ocean in absolute silence, carrying tons of sensors, mines, torpedoes, and electronic warfare equipment. It can hibernate on the seabed when it wants to save energy and surface when it needs to receive orders via satellite. This giant can deploy smaller units connected by fiber-optic cables or using acoustic communication. Estimates suggest it could travel 18,000 km or more with solid-state batteries. The secret lies in its hybrid propulsion system: the primary mode is buoyancy-driven gliding. It fills ballast tanks with seawater, dives at an angle, then expels the water and rises, converting vertical motion into horizontal forward movement with almost zero energy consumption most of the time. Only a few minutes of pump operation are needed per cycle. When it needs to maneuver quickly or sprint, it switches to conventional propellers. This combination enables autonomy that can last years, especially because the vehicle has energy-harvesting systems that capture power from the ocean’s thermal gradient (warm surface water, cold deep water) and possibly from ocean currents too. It’s a technological marvel unlike anything we’ve seen before in the military domain. The vehicle is transported in standard shipping containers and can be assembled in the field in just a few days and this means the United States can deploy it anywhere in the world without relying on large naval bases. When it enters operational service (expected between 2028 and 2032), the U.S. Navy will gain a capability far beyond any current UUV. The Manta Ray doesn’t need to return, makes no noise, leaves no logistical trace, and can loiter for extended periods waiting for orders or simply monitoring key routes. But it’s not all smooth sailing. Chinese researchers from Northwestern Polytechnical University claim they have been developing biomimetic manta ray UUVs since 2006, with six prototypes ranging from 10 to 700 kg. According to them, in 2023 a 460 kg prototype successfully passed a 1,025-meter depth test in the South China Sea, and multiple variants have completed 60-day underwater gliding missions. That’s still a much shorter endurance than the American prototype has demonstrated so far, possibly because the objectives aren’t identical. My impression is that these are somewhat different projects. While the Chinese appear to focus mainly on swarm-capable units (with potential applications in underwater reconnaissance, anti-submarine, and anti-ship tasks), the Americans are developing a single large platform optimized for long-term persistent monitoring. The U.S. project is a 30-ton drone; the Chinese ones are 10–700 kg. China also claims that in 2025 it began testing swarms of these vehicles near coral reef areas, suggesting the start of a direct race with the Americans.  The fact is that more and more unmanned underwater vehicles are emerging every day, and they will pose a major threat, especially to large manned submarines. A small 100 kg UUV could damage the rudder, propeller, or another critical point of a multi-billion-dollar nuclear submarine. After a series of canceled programs in recent years, the Pentagon desperately needs a big, innovative success like the Manta Ray to reinforce its reputation for effective program management.

@ChinainEnglis This has immense geopolitical implications. No diesel for tractors means reduced need for heavy oil imports from the middle east. US military doctrine of blockading shipping to China will become much less effective. Huge changes in global balance of power outside public notice.

@hakflo @danfaggella @sudo_silly Please explain what "duck and cover" looks like in the context of ASI's controlling all the technology, and infrastructure on the planet. With access to biotechnology and perhaps nanotechnology. Any advice would be much appreciated.

@danfaggella @sudo_silly AI is a bit like going into a world with a high probability of nuclear war. Humanity need to learn to do the "duck and cover" (whatever means we can survive), even if the outlook appears grim.

ai safety and alignment research people tell me REGULARLY: "i totally get that AGI, if created, would end us. and I agree that long-term, posthuman life should bloom. but dude I can't talk about that stuff. donors/employees wanna think we can have an eternal hominid kingdom."

@TRR1_CR @LootCritter @zhao_dashuai Yes, and submarine drones are a rapidly expanding threat to most navies and maritime shipping. Navy fleets and maritime ships may soon require a halo of defensive drones above and below the water as protection from enemy drones. A nasty, nightmarish development.

@LootCritter @zhao_dashuai Logistics is the name of the game. That said unmanned vehicles will go towards the logistcs and they have announced a drone carrier (the Sichua). I agree, not much of a threat to the US now, but considering the advances tha thave been made in a short time, they will be.

A guy in China made a model of every ship in the Chinese navy.

@MurielBlaivePhD @imaMFbird @yanisvaroufakis Please explain the war of 1812 between Britain and the US. When British troops attacked Washington and burnt down the White House.

@imaMFbird @yanisvaroufakis For sure. Well, democracies are not supposed to invade others. In fact that's what I was always taught in high school.

Guess which American had this to say yesterday about the Iraq war? “I think a lot of European nations were right about our invasion of Iraq. And frankly, if the Europeans had been a little more independent, and a little more willing to stand up, then maybe we could have saved the entire world from the strategic disaster that was the American-led invasion of Iraq.”

@AlekYerbury @aswren Here I disagree with Adam. If you look and biophysical economics I.e. flows of energy, raw materials, food, manufacturing capacity you can see the trend clearly. European geopolitical strategists correctly predicted the rise of Russia and US in the 19th century.

The actual objective of Westminster in Ukraine is, and has always been, never to escalate but simply to perpetuate. It's the same with Gaza. They have put the war into a sustainably profitable state. Escalation is too risky but peace ends the profit. They do not ultimately want any side to fully win. You can see this in how, since day one, the West has always given Ukraine just enough materiel to stave off defeat, but never enough to actually turn the tables. If they wanted to escalate, they would have done it whilst Biden was in the White House, because they knew Trump was likely to defund it. The ultimate goal is endless proxy war for war profits and not global conflagration which Westminster is aware it couldn't win in its current state.

I have a masters degree in geopolitics and I’ve been a consultant for defence industrial planning that’s worked directly with the DoD, MoD and NATO and I don’t have a clue what’s happening or going to happen wrt to russia/ukraine. Be so skeptical of people selling ‘obvious truth’

@basedlewis @aswren Does anyone understand the target audience for talk of sending troops to Ukraine? Governments understand the UK military situation. Does the UK public care or understand? What am I missing?

@basedlewis @aswren I think it was after the Azerbaijan Armenia war that a defence think tank calculated a UK armoured brigade would only last a week if attacked by the limited drones used in that war. The Ukraine war is using orders of magnitude more drones. Rapidly destroying men and equipment.

The UK military literally does not have to capacity to wage war lol. I feel like I’m living in a madhouse. They can beat their chests all they like it doesn’t change material (or materiel) reality

@YaoZBird @jcchristopher @chamath Declining US birth rates and constrained immigration will reduce unemployment rate. However, it may be inflationary.

@jcchristopher @chamath Employment is a big factor, guess if the market goes down, employment would go up or down and who would suffer the most?

1. Trump is more popular with young people than old people. Most young people don’t own stocks or homes (aka they are asset-light). 2. Trump is also more popular amongst working and middle class folks. Most of these folks are also asset-light. It stands to reason that a fall in asset prices (stocks down or home prices down) have very little impact on his core constituents. To that end, I won’t be surprised if Trump has little reaction, then, to an equity or home price market correction. Separately, the upside of shrinking these asset prices is that it gives the folks mentioned above a legitimate chance to buy into those markets at lower levels, making equity ownership and/or home ownership more possible. Tangentially, if Trump figures out how to get rents lower, he will unite young people and asset-light working people into a reliable voting block for the foreseeable future. He will have given them the trifecta: cheaper stocks, cheaper homes, lower rent. Said differently, don’t presume that the stock market going up is a useful barometer anymore. In fact, it going down may be a better signal for his popularity. Time will tell.

@MikeGil61338704 The EROI quotes on renewables is not accurate. Almost 20 years ago a detailed analysis on wind turbines showed and Energy Return On Invested of 20:1 for well sited onshore wind. The study included all the energy inputs for the concrete. 40:1 for solar back then.

@MikeGil61338704 @SRSroccoReport @SantiagoAuFund Perhaps US domestic energy production is mostly fake and low EROI so there is no choice but to import part of China's 4.5 billion metric tons per year of high EROI coal energy as imports.

remember, foreign firms will never move manufactuing facilities to the US as a result of tariffs...

@couldasaid @DougChapmanSNP @SSETransmission @SSE @ofgem @nationalgriduk Would you please elaborate in more detail. It would love to learn the error in my reasoning.

@RobHowardT @DougChapmanSNP @SSETransmission @SSE @ofgem @nationalgriduk Bollocks mate

🌊 Ofgem has today confirmed its final approval on the costs associated with the delivery of Eastern Green Link 2 (EGL 2 ) - the UK’s single largest electricity transmission project ever. Find out more: ssen-transmission.co.uk/news/news--vie… @ofgem @nationalgriduk

@aeberman12 How much diesel can be produced from that? How much of that is less than API 40? If 1/3 is NGL, does the rest have an API low enough for diesel production? Does removing the NGL reduce the average API enough for diesel production?

U.S. crude oil production reached a new record of 13.4 mmb/d in August 2024, surpassing the previous record set in December 2023. eia.gov/todayinenergy/… #energy #OOTT #oilandgas #WTI #CrudeOil #fintwit #OPEC #Commodities #commoditiesmarket

@aeberman12 Hi Art, slight tangent. How much Diesel can be produced from domestic US oil production? Approximately 2/3 is API 40+. Assuming 1/3 of light shale oil "total liquids" is not NGL and can be refined, what is the diesel fraction of the remaining light oil? Does anyone know?

Sanctions have crippled Iran’s energy sector, halting development at fields like South Pars, which needs $20 billion for equipment Iran can’t produce or import. At the same time, resources are drained to fund proxies in Lebanon, Israel, and Yemen. bloomberg.com/news/articles/… #energy #NaturalGas #shale #fintwit #oilandgas #Commodities #ONGT #natgas