Comments by "Tony Wilson" (@tonywilson4713) on "Peter Zeihan Blames the Jones Act for Why He Doesn't Care about the Key Bridge | Better Call Sal!" video.

ENGINEER HERE and I TOTALLY AGREE with your assessment of Peter as I have the same issue when he talks about engineering topics. He's great on geopolitics but lousy on engineering. Here's 2 examples. 1/2 to most of the time he talks about things like the Russian Oil wells freezing and being out of action for decades because the American experts have left Russia IS SIMPLY WRONG because he assumes that over the last 20-30 years NONE of the Russian engineers or maintenance people learned anything from operating those wells. Sorry but its an absurd idea that the American experts never trained the local Russians on how to look after their own oil wells and/or that the Russians never learned anything off the Americans. Second, Peter often mentions that Wind and Solar need 100% (or close to) of their lifetime costs up front compared to things like a nuclear power station or coal fired power station because those stations have fuel costs for the lifetime of their operation. Its actually true that when you look at LIFETIME costs Wind and Solar have most of those costs upfront because they have few costs after construction. BUT engineers and investors don't consider lifetime costs as much as they do CAPITAL COSTS which is the money you have to spend getting approvals, getting things designed, getting things constructed and then commissioned so that whatever it is your building can start earning money. In terms of CAPITAL COSTS wind & solar now annihilate nuclear and handily beat coal and other fossil fuels. Just go and look at the costs per Megawatt installed (and that word "installed" is really important). Where there is a leveling of that space are in the grid modifications to link the Wind & Solar to the power grid. I think Peter's problem in these areas is that he does NOT consult with good subject matter experts (SMEs) like the does in other areas. This is why he has certain figures that are way off. Its also likely his economics is skewed by the incredibly poor way economic is taught and that's a subject I have been researching for sometime because it has had huge effects on engineering but that's a much longer discussion. By the way - I'm Australian and love the channel. I was like many introduced to you by Ward Carroll another of the rare breed of YouTubers who endeavor to educate people.
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ENGINEER HERE (and I left a more detailed comment to Sal's pinned comment at the top) In a nutshell Peter is (as Sal points out) VERY GOOD at geopolitics. I find Peter's also fairly good at putting things into historical context, which (in general) is done so badly that it makes people like Peter look very good. BUT where I see Peter get things WRONG and wrong often is on the specifics of engineering and I gave 2 examples in the other comment. I'm less certain about your comment on demographics, because I don't know what your friends have said he gets wrong on that subject. When I have seen others criticise his demographic analysis and ask what's wrong - they usually fall flat or silent or both. I'm not a demographic expert by any means but what I can see (quite easily) is that demographics like economics is at a crossroads where there are 2 camps diving off. One has a very delusional "business as usual" attitude and one with an almost equally delusional "this is a catastrophe" attitude. I tend to think we are more in the middle of those and business will NOT continue "as usual" but we are NOT YET in the catastrophic state some(or many) claim either. However I would temper that with "We might NOT be in a catastrophic state, but if we don't start doing things that need doing we will be."
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@FoldedCloak That's a good point but its also the same point people can make about Sal regarding shipping. I can say the same about many of the people I watch here on YouTube. the difference is Sal does NOT stray outside his area of expertise. I actually found Sal because Ward Carroll (Ex F14 RIO) pointed out his channel. Ward is an expert on Naval aviation NOT shipping so he linked people into Sal's work. That's where Peter Z goes wrong. He doesn't engage other subject matter experts (SMEs) as much as he should. However Peter is not even 1% as bad as the political commentators who are just 2 howling packs of clowns that yell at each other in ways that make any sensible dialogue impossible.
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@cragnamorra YES I noticed that one too. I think it was a typo because its simply idiotic to think a carrier can go that fast. A quick check says that 90knots is 166.68kmh or 103.6mph. Its so ridiculous that it has to be a brain fart or typo. FYI - I'm Australian but did my degree in Aerospace Engineering in America. In my last semester I did a class in nautical navigation (I liked sailing). It was a class hosted by the US Navy for their ROTC students. So it was a military class with USN officers for instructors. They were awesome too and treated me very well. It was a class that had the occasional civilian (like me). Its was in 1987 and at that time there were some very serious political differences between Australia and Indonesia. So I asked one of my USN instructors a few things. In that conversation I remember 2 things. 1) He assured me that America would not allow Australia to be touched because there's a couple of incredibly important US bases here. 2) Officially America could have aircraft carriers in Australian waters in 30 days. He told me quite seriously it would be less than 8. As an engineer I can do the calculation. In 8 days (192 hours) from San Diego to Brisbane which is 6260 nautical miles you only need to do 32.6 knots. In most cases San Diego would be the LONGEST distance as Hawaii, Japan & Guam are a lot closer. Published speed of Nimitz and Ford class carriers is simply put as "in excess of 30knots" but there are claims that its over 40knots. BUT THERE'S NOBODY saying anything over 50 let alone 90. So sorry the 90 knots just has to be a brain fart or typo. That said the actual disturbing thing is that NOBODY called him out on it.
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@Thomamps That's a great point about where things get made. One of the things for any ship or tug boat is the engine and I just checked a couple of the smaller classes the USN navy has. Its latest tug-salvage-rescue boats the Navajo-Class has Wartsila Diesel engines which are Finnish. My bet would be is you'd find similar if you start going through the other classes. There'll be bits of stuff from all over the world. I'm actually Australian and have been looking at what our Navy is up to, which is how I know about the Navajo-class. One thing I picked up is the propulsion unit on the Virginia-class submarines is actually British. So your point about trucks is just as valid for ships.
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@cragnamorra That's a good point on the drones. What he may have meant was that the drones would run out of range. Either way its an incredible brain fart on his part and as I said the fact NOBODY called it out is even more damning.
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@cragnamorra You'll love this bit on my first nav class. As it was a military class the moment the teacher walked in the guy nearest the door called "Officer on deck" and all the ROTCs snapped out of their seats to ramrod attention. The Lieutenant slowly walked up the aisle towards the front and suddenly stopped next to me. I was still seated wondering WTF was going on. He looked down at me and very seriously said "You must be the civee. We get your type doing this class every so often." It was kind of intimidating, but that was probably the point. By about the 3rd or 4th class I had joined in the stand to attention. Eventually he again stopped by me and told me I didn't need to stand at attention. By that stage I had picked up a little on the language and simply said something like "Sir. If they have to stand so will I. Sir." I didn't try and make a thing off it as I was just trying to fit in. What I found out later was how well that simple act was appreciated. After that both officers who taught us and the ROTCs all treated me well and it ended up being one of my favorite classes to look back on and I wished I had been able to do another semester and do the second nav class (there were 2).
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@CoffeeAndPaul Good comment. I've done some work in Australia's oil & gas sector and all you've said about refineries lines up with our situation. The problem I have had with Peter is that he's making a huge claim that significant parts of the Russian system will fail because the American and other Foreign expertise has left. There's no doubt that if any technological sector suddenly has a bunch of people leave (especially when they are from the higher levels of expertise) that it has a negative effect, but that negative effect is also countered by what the local people have learned from those experts. I work in control systems and no matter what industry I have been in I've had to help train the "natives" who will spend their lives working on the pile of stuff I've delivered. I know from experience that if you don't want ugly phone calls in the middle of then make sure the locals know how to diagnose things and where possible FIX things. I just find it totally implausible that the Russians have NOT learned from those Americans and others who've been there for most of the last 20 years. The question should be HOW MUCH they have actually learned and HOW WELL they can apply it? I can't answer that but you probably can.
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@cragnamorra Yeah it was a simple thing but the respect that I got back left an impression that has stuck. On the course I did. We started with a lot of basic chart work and plotting courses around harbours. We then did a pile of celestial navigation. Our main project was plotting the course using basic principles from New York harbour (or the Chesapeake??) to just off the coast of Britain. That included using a Great Circle Chart to get the intermediate positions and then translate that onto the Atlantic charts. We had to pre-prep a couple of star fixes as well. When I went to the chief and asked why the emphasis on celestial when GPS was at that time accurate to about 1m for the military (there was no actual admission but it was certainly under 10m). He said something I have never forgotten and its an incredibly important thing across ALL OF THE ENGINEERING FIELDS - Calibration. He said "The stars don't move." Yes we know they shift but his point was we know exactly where each star is and will be for 1,000s of years to come. What he explained is that the stars are 100% reliable while sensors and computers can make mistakes. He then pointed out "If you have to fire off a nuclear armed weapon you better know where its going to go and to do that you need to know where you are in the first place." He told me that ANY SHIP armed with nukes checked its GPS against the sun & stars every 4 hours, while the rest did it 1 or twice a day (I forget which). As I said it was one of my favorite classes, because of how much I ended up learning.
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@lisizecha9759 And your point is?????? Cos I got that. Duh.
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@FoldedCloak Agreed. just the other day I saw a video that looked back on something Jon Stewart said over 10 years ago not that long after 9/11. Jon pointed out that 24/7 news has to hype stories up and fill the vacant space with opinion because there's just NOT enough interesting FACTUAL things to keep audiences engaged 24/7. He said 9/11 was perfect for their business model because it allowed opinion and hype to fill the air and keep people engaged. This is a major problem in the world right now. I'm an engineer and we have to deal with facts. Its the very nature of our profession. We don't get to do conjecture or things go badly - the Boeing Max-8 being a good example but there are others. In just the last few days I have seen several news stories on energy (wind/solar & nuclear). AT NO TIME was an engineer interviewed on any of these programs. In one on nuclear (by DW in Germany) they had 3 people on. One was an Austrian physicist who has done some work in nuclear, but the other 2 were a political science professor and the other a consultant with a degree in Chinese Language & Literature with a masters in International Studies. You'd think DW being German would have easy access to plenty of German Engineers including those form the German nuclear energy industry. I see this sort of media behavior constantly.
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