Comments by "David Elliott" (@davidelliott5843) on "Zeihan on Geopolitics" channel.

  1. Lithuania wants to buy Moltex nuclear reactors. These are low cost intrinsically safe and produce so little waste they are being built to burn used nuclear fuel. The hold up is the glacial pace of nuke regulatory processes. Nobody wants unregulated nukes but something has to be done to get new plant into use. Good safety does not have to be so ridiculously slow. But safety is always a great way to hide obstructive behaviour.
    32
  2. Utkin was a big fan of the Naxis and the SS. Hence, the Wagner name (a musician with the same political leanings).
    12
  3. Hey folks. This is Peter’s genuine channel. All others are stealing his material.
    11
  4. They are far too busy with the “internet”.
    11
  5. Donald Trump is 76. Joe Biden is 80.
    6
  6. The alleged truck bomb would have vanished the moment it detonated. However it appeared to have been enveloped in flames rather that generating flames. It’s highly likely that was a boat bomb of some sort.this time the blast was smaller but it still shifted bridge spans.
    6
  7. We will always need leaders who can see the big picture and the bigger picture.
    6
  8. If this atrocity does not speed up the F-16 snd F-18 aircraft nothing will.
    6
  9. EU did not exist before 1990 and had nothing to do with military security of Europe. It actually evolved from the Iron & Steel Federation (basically Germany and France carving up that market). Then we got the European Economic Community (EEC) which delivered the Common Agricultural Policy (CAP) that was a sop to inefficient French farming. It’s that very policy which will keep Ukraine out of EU. Their agricultural output would swamp the EU and gobble up massive subsidies.
    4
  10. The Russian fleet shot up a Dutch fishing boat because one captain said it was a Japanese torpedo boat. But they failed to hit it. Complete incompetence even at the earliest stage of their voyage.
    4
  11. Rostov on Don was considered part of Ukraine - 1920. Ukraine was the first language right up to the Caspian Sea. Soviets soon changed all that
    4
  12. Putin was a grey mid level administrator who got the job by stealth. His successor will not have that luxury.
    4
  13. Peter covers the stuff that mainstream media puts into the box marked “too difficult (for them) to understand”.
    4
  14. Russia did prepare but the endemic corruption (found in all one-party-states) torpedoed their military equipment.
    3
  15. Their ice cream maker is so hot it’s cool.
    3
  16. Not only was the dam blown from inside with pieces of turbine room thrown a few metres downstream, the Russians had already blocked the flow control valves. The lake was close to overtopping then - boom. Maximum possible damage.
    3
  17. By the way UK is not a “proper country”. Celts Angles, Saxons, French then since 1850 people from all over the Empire. “The Ukraine” or “Ukraine” is a country. Deal with it.
    3
  18. Don’t visit any Saudi embassy. Sorted.
    3
  19. Biden was the absent candidate and he did as little as possible in power. Even his resignation was ridiculously slow.
    3
  20. It’s not hard to look it up. But I’ll make it easy for you. “4 June 1989”
    2
  21. I wonder how badly Kingburn Spit was affected? The massive flood won’t have raised sea level so a crossing at the mouth of Dnipro could be viable. Especially as Russians have been washed out by their own flood.
    2
  22. Dartmoor in Southwest England has a new mine that’s being drilled to extract lithium brines. After lithium extraction, the salt will be pumped back to maintain the concentration.
    2
  23. Absolutely right. Nobody should be expected to work for nothing.
    2
  24. US nuke powered carriers need no bunker fuel. However they are limited by provisions needed by the crew and provisions needed by aircraft and anything thats not part of the ship propulsion system.
    2
  25. Peter talks more sense than almost anyone else. He’s not always right but he never claims to be and he checks back on earlier things he said.
    2
  26. I quite like the room acoustics on this video.
    2
  27. Blue collar does not automatically mean hard physical labour. Stone masonry is physically hard. Bricklaying is boring. Other jobs like plumber, electrician, HVAC, joiner are not heavy duty. I had a bulged disc at age 42 looking at pictures in my 20s my posture and side lean showed it was already there. My work was technical white collar. A chiropractor helped me recover. A good one in my 20s would have spotted the impending problem and helped me avoid the inevitable decline that eventually blew the disc.
    2
  28. Germany will soon find a way to open Nordstream 2. If I was into betting I’d put money on it.
    2
  29. Just be careful of all the fakes using Peter’s work. There are many.
    2
  30. Russia crashes anywhere from every 20 years to 50 years. The Soviet regime was one of the longest lived but even they had internal collapses. Death of Stalin, collapse of Kruschev after 1963 missile crisis, etc, etc.
    2
  31. Italy should be talking to Moltex Energy. They have a salt reactor that (1) can burn nuclear waste and (2) can burn uranium to almost zero reactivity (no long term waste). All in an intrinsically safe reactor that has no moving parts.
    2
  32. People are concerned that Trump would stop support to Ukraine. I don't think he will. When Trump was elected, Putin immediately paused his Ukraine annexation and restarted when Biden showed his political weakness over Afghanistan. Trump warned Putin to not use chemical weapons in Syria. Putin ignored him and got hit by 200 Tomahawks onto Russian bases in Syria. Trump is perfectly capable of doing the same again and Putin knows that.
    1
  33. Carbon dioxide is 0.0004 of the atmosphere. Water from 0.5% is an import warming gas is 1000 x as abundant as CO2. Why does anyone think co2 is the culprit? Because the models say so and there are no models that include water effects so they must be right. Oh yes.
    1
  34. Why did UK go out of its way to prevent shale oil happening? We know that oil wells are not disruptive - we have many including Wytch Farm Dorset the biggest on shore field in Europe. Why does UK government not want shale oil?
    1
  35. It’s a Go Pro on a stick and he uses the flip screen to keep himself in frame.
    1
  36. Lithium is needed for batteries but it’s a small percentage. Thankfully iron, phosphorus and manganese are cheap and plentiful. This makes stable batteries that don’t self ignite. The old nickel/aluminium/cobalt should be scrapped. How will this particular lithium mine operate? If it’s a brine then extraction is easy.
    1
  37. Either ISIS did it - in which case Putin’s security is useless. or It’s an FSB false flag event as an excuse to restart Putin’s mass conscription.
    1
  38. Best case scenario - Russia fixes the damaged bridge rail tracks, then and runs another train that derails due to damaged concrete beneath.
    1
  39. Trump seems to have started the refusals to keep propping up China. Obama probably had similar ideas but could find a way to spin it so sat on his hands. Trump just said, do it. All Biden has to do is follow the path already set.
    1
  40. The people who decide the election live in three to five swing states. Very few indeed actually decide who the president is. Past experience shows that bare faced lies from Democrats are believed by these voters. How they can be so naive is anyone’s guess.
    1
  41.  @stephenglover8828  You are 100% right but the swing voters seem to be very easy to swing. Promise them the sky and they’ll flock to your door.
    1
  42. UK mineral rights have been held under “crown ownership” since 1066AD. You nigh own the land for property or farming but you do not own the mineral (or water) rights.
    1
  43. Epoch Times California has a piece about farmers capturing flood water which would otherwise into the sea. They did the work at entirely at their own cost only to get charged for using the water they saved in the first place.
    1
  44. The total lack of progress shows that Russia was always going to dump the wheat deal. They were also a massive bottleneck on ship movements so Ukraine is better off without the deal. Russian attacks on civilian ships will totally expose who is the real problem here.
    1
  45. Watch a few contributors and the habitual liars soon turn up. Peter is great but I resent his attitude towards NewsMax and by omission Epoch Times. His attitude towards the new Twitter X is very telling. Musk is not perfect by any means but he has removed the extreme Leftist/Woke bias of the old Twitter. That can only be a good thing.
    1
  46. Ukraine was never going to cross the Dnipro in force. Even without the flood it’s just too wide. The NPP is shut down so needs minimal cooling. But we can’t trust Russia regarding the NPP being left unmolested.
    1
  47. Ukraine seems to be applying heavy pressure to dug-in Russians. Private Conscriptovich gets ever more jumpy and finally make a run for it. Ukraine finishes the job with a cluster round.
    1
  48. Maps of Ukraine from around 1918 show Rostov and the whole Sea of Azov as part of Ukraine. Some even show a finger of land that reaches the Caspian Sea from Ukraine How many people are there in existence who would want that situation restored?
    1
  49. Check out Moltex Energy. Their nuclear reactor has similar build cost to gas fired plant. Running costs are low because it naturally follows load demand AND it burns nuclear waste. Net results are 20x more power per kg of fuel and a short life waste.
    1
  50. Five weapons hit the air base and falling debris caused other damage. That’s a pretty poor show for an event Iran has been setting up since HAMAS did its dirty deeds.
    1
  51. Wokes have so depressed millennials, they can’t see any point in raising children. Which is of course the point.
    1
  52. UK has them coming over in rubber boats. China can have them.
    1
  53. It was never a secret that Wagner is part of the Russian state. It was always about creating trouble in Africa and Middle East.
    1
  54. Ukraine will box Russian ships into their ports. They hit the tanker AFTER it had unloaded AND they hit the engine room. Minimal pollution as the main tanks are undamaged.
    1
  55.  @joeyarrazolo5227 it’s simple enough to google both of them.
    1
  56. We really do not know the danger profile of ionising radiation. We have indications that low doses are beneficial (just as sunlight, ultra violet, is good in low doses). But the regulators have ultra sensitive equipment and assume anything above ambient is harmful. No surprise they scare everyone sh**less. There is zero perspective of what the actual risks are. Because a high dose is always bad. We simply don’t know where the bad starts.
    1
  57. What’s happening about the alleged connection between Putin and Trump. Does the latter naively believe he can negotiate or has money changed hands?
    1
  58. Finland during WW2 bought German weapons because USA and UK ignored them. They were not allies and Germany was too busy to invade Finland.
    1
  59. During one of his rant videos, Prigozhin accidentally let it slip that 30,000 Wagner regulars were killed in Bakhmut, plus another 40,000 disposable ex convicts. At that rate, the 250,000 total dead on Russian side is not so far-fetched.
    1
  60. Vance was chosen as Trump’s VP for the same reasons as Biden chose Harris. Empty suits can’t challenge the top bloke.
    1
  61. If King Salman was really keen to help Palestinians he would move them all to the Saudi desert. He is not even considering such a move. Along with every other Arab state, he doesn’t care.
    1
  62. Ukraine has significantly better demographics than Russia. Their armed forces are also about 20% female (many more women if they need them) and they have not yet touched their reserves.
    1
  63. WW2 was a continuation of WW1 caused by endless political cockups and appeasement of dictators. WW1 was triggered by the Russian Tzar backing up Serbia followed by UK getting involved when it really had nothing to gain.
    1
  64. Since Finland and Sweden joined NATO, the Russian Baltic coast is little more than the St Petersburg waterfront. Kaliningrad is irrelevant. Ukraine is busily sinking their Black Sea fleet. They are screwed.
    1
  65. Austria had a nuclear power plant ready to go. Then the Greens managed to get it permanently mothballed. European Greens were of course funded by KGB. But obviously it was nog to sell more Russian gas.
    1
  66. Moltex Energy - British nuclear power manufacturer has an intrinsically safe reactor that has no moving parts (there is a coolant stirrer - that’s it). It is low cost to build and to operate. The power output naturally follows demand. It can lose all external cooling without coming to harm. It can burn new uranium or the old irradiated fuel. The HUGE benefit is there is almost no waste. The very stuff that makes today’s waste radioactive for geological time is burnt up by a Moltex reactor. 30,000 years 1/2 life drops to just 30 years. We all need these. Germany especially needs them.
    1
  67. Putin is working on Soviet v2. Even if he loses in Ukraine, he will be delayed but he not stop. If he wins in Ukraine, his new Soviet will arrive even faster.
    1
  68. The built in conservatism of older people has created massively over managed companies like VW. It’s also preventing VW from adapting to electric cars with good software. Result is expensive cars that nobody wants to buy with software nobody likes that VW sells at a loss. Tesla is eating their lunch. BMW is so wedded to engines they can’t see anything else. Daimler (Merc) is little better. They are all dead men walking.
    1
  69. Ukraine is likely to have ten F-16 operated by 20 pilots. That’s a small force by any standard.
    1
  70. Regulatory control is hugely important. However European regulators have been actively using regulations to stall progress. Moltex Energy has a self regulating reactor that Babaock were eager to build. It is self regulating, intrinsically safe, cannot overheat, cannot run dry and has extremely low corrosion issues. It literally burns high grade nuclear waste. It can extract 99% of the fissile energy vs just 4% in the not intrinsically safe PWR reactor. Build costs are about the same as combined cycle gas fired plant. Thats ridiculously cheap for any nuke. However Moltex gave up with UK and moved to Canada. They expect to have a reactor making power by 2030. Canada has one of the best nuclear safety records in the world.
    1
  71. Another point. The Moltex is a fast reactor. It can be fuelled with plutonium, natural uranium, spent nuclear fuel or even expired nuke bomb cores. The process to convert the fuel into a salt denatures the stuff. It becomes so expensive to separate you are better off building your own reactor.
    1
  72. Peter should take a close look at Moltex Energy and their self regulating Nuuk reactor that’s fuelled by “spent” fuel removed from existing reactors.
    1
  73. Putin owns GazProm. GazProm has its own PMC. All they have to do is offer jobs to ex Wagner troops.
    1
  74. US government dysfunction goes right back to slave ownership. The founding fathers wanted to maintain their way of life by vlogging up government with checks and balances. They all owned slaves and it took another 100 years and z civil war to get anything done. Plus another 100 years to repeal segregation laws.
    1
  75. Duran have become Russian propagandists. Back in 2021, they were saying Ukraine is not a real country.
    1
  76. Post 1990 and especially since 1997, we have had successive socialist governments that have expanded the welfare state. We now have a class of people who choose not to work. More correctly make it their job to maximise their income from the state while giving nothing back. Call me a right wing nutter but go to any of the “rough” areas and you’ll see exactly what I mean. Covid and the furlough (money for nothing for everyone) has totally screwed the national finances. There was no effort to evaluate the benefits or the costs. One big cost is even more people being economically useless (sorry) inactive. This state giveaway is a big part of why so many migrants cross the Channel. They see it as a pot of honey. It’s not of course but it’s too late by then. UK left EU but then did nothing significant to capitalise on the advantages. Huge swathes of clumsy regulations could have been dumped. The Tories did nothing. Labour will simply add to those regulations.
    1
  77. This is why the world population will not get much higher than it is now.
    1
  78. The Wuhan lab was totally shut down for two weeks during October 2019. That’s been proved by a total lack of mobile phone signal for the whole time. A Chinese university published the virus genome to the academic world. Within hours they were told to take it down and destroy all data and all samples. Images on the laboratory web site showed rusty refrigerators with damaged seals. A clear sign of poor management & penny pinching. Immediately after comments were raised the images were removed. We do not know if the equipment was rectified. None of these are smoking guns but the collection gets pretty ** close. Then there’s the fake cleaning operation at the wet market and claims that pangolins were involved. Animals that are hibernating at that time of year.
    1
  79. All funded by a pair of despots.
    1
  80. Future grain exports either won’t happen or be seriously reduced because Ukraine farmers have not been able to grow their crops.
    1
  81.  @hughmungus2760  there is no need to cite any papers. Because (1) there is no firm evidence that’s not been collated and rewritten by CCP. (2) CCP does not know real figures, because their apparatchiks only post data that makes them look good. Western papers have to deduce the figure from what does leak out. They arrive at intelligent estimates.
    1
  82. Watch the recent lecture by Patrick Moore (founder of Green Peace). He points out the ice core evidence that CO2 follows global warming. It’s not a significant cause of the warming. He also shows that 300 years ago, the planet was approaching CO2 levels low enough to significantly deplete global plant life. 200ppm. The (then) current cold period began to naturally warm from around 1850. CO2 levels unchanged. The warming continues today but CO2 only really began to move after 1950. We are now at 400ppm. Plants are happier and the warmer weather is better for everyone. Far from killing the planet humans have saved it from a CO2 death. Volcanoes are no longer keeping up with biological CO2 sequestration. Mankind came to the rescue.
    1
  83. Mainstream media are so one-sided they can’t see their own blind spots. Don’t listen to them for anything. There’s always an angle and it’s always well to the left of centre.
    1
  84. The last naval drone attack attack was filmed from a nearby civilian ship. The drones were clearly visible yet the Russian warship was not shooting. The ship was double tapped. The first impact was clearly visible on IR as a diving drone hit the same hole. That sank the ship.
    1
  85. Added to all that Peter says - HYDROGEN IS NOT A FUEL. it does not exist on earth it’s it’s elemental form. Hydrogen is at best an energy transport medium. But it makes metals brittle and it literally leaks through seals. H2 molecules are that small. Fuel cells waste about 50% as heat and they can’t ramp up or down very quickly. They need batteries to control the power output. IC engines waste 60 % to 75% of their input energy. How can this ever be a sensible use of scarce energy sources?
    1
  86. Everyone is concerned that if Putin takes Ukraine, Eastern Europe will be next. Ukraine people will be used as cannon fodder. Israel has realised they’ll also be at risk. Putin has to be stopped. Europe is even slower than Russia. Americans are full of their own stuff. Someone has to step up.
    1
  87. Nuclear power using PWR reactors (as we do to date) only extracts about 4% of the fissile energy the rest is long lived heavy elements like plutonium that can be used in weapons. Moltex is a British company developing nuclear power that uses 99% of the fissile energy. It literally burns the existing used fuel. It’s also low cost and intrinsically safe. We already have more than enough plutonium to arm every country in Europe with nuke weapons. We should be using the 100x more “waste” for power generation.
    1
  88. Ukraine grain exports are being deliberately stalled by Russia, aided and abetted by UN operatives who just let it happen. The question is why is Ukraine not throwing Russia off the grain docks?
    1
  89. The car industry keeps telling us they are short of chips or something else important. They are not telling us that people do not want their products. Like it or not, electric vehicles are taking over. They need much less labour to build and they last at leat double the miles maybe quadruple.
    1
  90. A sniper taking out train drivers could stall progress on the bridge. Dead driver = stopped train. There’s no side access to the engine so restarting won’t be quick.
    1
  91. Back in 2008 Tony Seba forecast the fall in cost of batteries. He was laughed at. 2003 prices proved his predictions were exactly right. Tony says the price fall has only just started. Some are still laughing but the smart money is on Tony. By the way, lithium is important but actually a small percentage of what goes into batteries. Iron, manganese and phosphate are plentiful = cheap. Cobalt and nickel are rare, expensive and batteries really don’t need then any more.
    1
  92. BBC continues to elevate Russian propaganda as “news” while Ukraine’s reports are “claims”. Their daily news hardly ever mention the Russian atrocities and there’s always the undercurrent of escalation looming. Anyone would think Putin was slipping a few tenners under the table.
    1
  93. Canada has a Nordstream gas pumping turbine. But they are not delivering it, because they don’t trust Germany to keep it out of service.
    1
  94. Peter. Please look at the molten salt reactor (MSR) technology of Moltex. They use chloride. It’s non corrosive when there’s no oxygen. Fluoride in other MSRs is always corrosive. More importantly Moltex reactor is cheap same cost as gas fired. BUT they burn nuclear waste which is free or even a negative cost. They get paid to take it.
    1
  95. Peter said that Evergrand is the largest property company not owned by Chinese government. Those that are owned by government/CCP will get a different fate. Who knows what CCP will do.
    1
  96. China has the industrial capacity to get pipelines from Russia built very quickly. They don’t, because they have no oil industry expertise and absolutely none of the western companies capable of such a huge project are totally not interested. China s as Lao knows that Russia also has no indigenous expertise and their Ukraine behaviour shows Russia can never be trusted.
    1
  97. Iran probably has a weapon. But does it actually work?
    1
  98. Estonia also wants to buy the Moltex waste burning nuclear reactor. Hopefully they’ll not lose interest before the interminable homologation process completes. In short, Estonia does what if can regards energy.
    1
  99. Putin has been given way too many reasons to back down. Bug the future will be a continuous depletion of his military. Bases logistics and front lines will all get hammered. The wet Fall/Autumn will slow things down. However, winter in a Russian trench, where they don’t even get water supplied will be hell for those man.
    1
  100. Russia is already rebuilding the Northern Crimea bridge. Ukraine will no doubt hit it again. Hopefully either side of the repairs and the pillars below.
    1
  101. I hope Peter is right about the Turks helping Ukraine. But I suspect they won’t want to get caught. So those drones are more than likely going all the way around from Odessa.
    1
  102. Russians lie all the time about their wonder weapons. Reality is much more believable. Think about their new tanks and fast jets. All blow but no go.
    1
  103. Putin is using this debacle to to draw media interest away from his failures in Ukraine. Iran is simply a proxy of Russia. As is Syria.
    1
  104. while Russia wasn't looking, Ukraine has moved troops across the Dnipro. That could run behind the trenches into the highly fragile flanks.
    1
  105.  @shamogidash This Russian attack on Ukraine was planned around 2005, when they installed a puppet government. The proxy war in Donbas kicked off after The Maidan revolution. The puppet leaders in the South and East were never removed. They are the only reason Russia took as much as they did.
    1
  106.  @qdav5  S400 is not significantly better than S300 - and - it still can’t see drones.
    1
  107. Wheat survived just fine during the Roman Warm Period and the Medieval Warm Period. It will be just as happy through the current warm period. 1875 was at or about the median temperature. Outside current politics there is no reason to believe that 2375 will be any warmer than 1875.
    1