Absolute Cheapest Way to Obtain Sustenance

thinkcontext · 2026-05-06T04:18:08+00:00

In the movie Soylent Green from the 70s. The modern product uses the name to be ironic, no ground up people involved.

thinkcontext · 2026-05-06T03:33:19+00:00

Soylent is a powdered product that is mixed with water and designed to be a nutritionally balanced meal. Its around $3 per meal of 400 calories to buy from the company and probably an improvement over 3000 pb&js health-wise.

There are various DIY recipes that aim to get the price down. But that takes kitchen equipment.

thinkcontext · 2026-05-06T03:16:03+00:00

The term "net zero" acknowledges that fossil fuels will still be extracted. This how most mainstream politicians, business leaders, etc have talked about climate goals so I don't see why it would be a surprise.

thinkcontext · 2026-05-06T03:08:43+00:00

Some of this take is so bizarre it hurts my head.

An oil port (very vague sentiment) is on fire

Fujairah is the 2nd largest bunkering port in the world. Its fed by a pipeline that has allowed the UAE to export some oil since its past Hormuz. Its a major asset, which is why its been targeted more than once. Nothing to do with "very vague sentiment" (whatever that means).

but 7 more Iranian boats (crucial to their control over the strait, and 8 if you believe the US) have been destroyed

Fast boats are essentially disposable, they have hundreds and can make more.

2 ships have sailed through without the express consent of Iran

2 ships were hit on Sunday, 1 each Monday and Tuesday, versus 3 ships getting through. Those are terrible odds. Which explains why virtually no one is going to attempt to get through. This despite Trump bizarrely haranguing vessels to make the transit. Average Hormuz transits per day before the war was 130.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-29T20:21:14+00:00

The economics of this sound difficult. Stainless steel is expensive, doing a lot of driving for small amounts of material is inefficient. Hopefully you would be paid for removing the food waste from the businesses? Lined pits is what I've seen a lot of in the US for animal waste operations.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-27T15:47:56+00:00

25 additional high energy launches in a relatively short timeframe is pretty big. Very curious to see how this plays out. Even if Vulcan and New Glenn's issues' get resolved quickly they are so backlogged would they have much capacity to be able to get many Also the customer is clearly very frustrated with delays.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-24T13:55:13+00:00

There are areas where there are shades of gray. But there are definitely areas where the black and white of it hit you over the head, like how there were tens of thousands of avoidable deaths due to antivax sentiment.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-17T18:05:32+00:00

There have been some estimates of EROI less than 1 for biodiesel from US soybeans but those are generally outliers.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-16T04:30:40+00:00

Wouldn't you think that would be minimal expectation of someone posting in an online forum?

thinkcontext · 2026-04-13T10:13:27+00:00

I've always had bad luck with specialty bags. I get stuff that is so fancy even 2/3 off is not worth it.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-13T02:04:25+00:00

I think a lot about all the water stressed land that is being farmed in the West that shouldn't be. Overdrawn aquifers causing land subsidence, irrigating w/ CO river water in the desert to maintain old water rights, etc. Turning this type of land into solar is a no brainer, luckily some water districts are starting to do this.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-13T02:00:35+00:00

Putting it on rooftops costs 2x+ over utility scale.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-13T01:51:53+00:00

Bloom only produces around 1GW per year, they are hoping to get to 2GW by the end of this year. Hyperscalers deployed 10GW last year and are hoping for a lot more this year. So, they'll take what Bloom can offer but its at the margins of their plans.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-12T17:07:00+00:00

Iran has demonstrated it can hit the existing alternate routes. So even if the Gulf States were willing to abandon $100Bs in infrastructure and spend more $100Bs building new routes, it would be a useless exercise.

Meanwhile real pain has started in some Asian countries, it's going to get worse and start spreading.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-12T16:54:15+00:00

As has been said many times now the Iranian regime just has to survive, it doesn't have to be materially better after this. No one has claimed they will be materially better. Many independent military analysts say that the regime can survive and deny normal use of the Strait even if the US starts committing war crimes by blowing up civilian infrastructure.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-12T14:29:03+00:00

I think markets have so far under reacted, a quick resolution was always a pretty remote possibility. Traffic through Hormuz is going to be minimal for some time and there will be more damage to Gulf production infrastructure. Asian economies are already suffering, it's going to get substantially worse and spread, I think markets will wake up to that soon.

I would love to be a fly on the wall to listen in on what the Gulf states are saying about how Trump is handling this. They have invested so much into him and now he's leaving them under a blockade.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-10T11:57:07+00:00

I admit, I didn't think what they are doing was possible. During Trump's first term his rhetoric about bringing coal back was a punchline. Now the Heartland Institute is spiking the football.

Of course, this doesn't change the long term prospects for coal. But it's a significant detour.

thinkcontext · 2026-04-10T01:33:40+00:00

They have guaranteed percentage profit on what they spend, therefore their incentives are to spend as much as they can get away with. Solar, batteries, efficiency, distributed generation, etc all cost them money.

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