Categories
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Recent Posts
- Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe
- Book review of “Chip War” and the Fragility of microchips
- The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital economy
- Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
- What percent of Americans are rational?
- Book review of Lights Out. A Cyberattack. A Nation Unprepared. Surviving the Aftermath
- Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
- Book review of “Prime Movers of Globalization: the History & Impact of Diesel Engines & Gas Turbines”
- Mental Health. Coping with the future: notes from Jackson & Jensen’s “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”
- Tesla Semi trucks hauling corn chips
- What is the plan for an electric grid outage that lasts for months?
- Where to be? Links to Superfund, hazardous waste and other toxic sites in U.S.
- Why methanol cannot replace petroleum in shipping
- Why is everyone afraid of AI taking over? It makes stuff up!
- Do you want to eat, drink, or fly?
Monthly Archives: April 2015
David Hughes: Has Well Productivity Peaked in the Nation’s Largest Shale Gas Play, the Marcellus?
[This is big news since other major plays have already peaked. It looks like the Marcellus is on Hughes predicted by 2018 peak with the latest data published] Has Well Productivity Peaked in the Nation’s Largest Shale Gas Play? By … Continue reading
Posted in Other Experts
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Natural Gas limits: 20-40% of recoverable resources are low EROI Sour Gas
SBC. October 2014. Factbook Natural Gas Factbook. SBC Energy Institute There are 855 trillion cubic meters (tcm) of technically recoverable resources, which means that regardless of cost … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas
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Coal or Biomass & Coal to Liquids: CTL, DCL, & CBTL technology
Gray, D., et al. August 1, 2012. Topic Paper #8 Production of Alternative Liquid Hydrocarbon Transportation Fuels from Natural Gas, Coal, and Coal and Biomass (XTL). National Petroleum Council Background With national energy security still being a dominant concern because … Continue reading
Posted in Coal to Liquids (CTL)
Tagged CBTL, CTL, DCL, XTL
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Better truck fuel efficiency to delay the end of the oil age
NAS. 2010. Technologies and Approaches to Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles (National Academy of Sciences Study) This free, 251 page document is one of the best I’ve seen on the myriad ways trucks could double their … Continue reading
Posted in Transportation What To Do, Trucks
Tagged aerodynamic, fuel efficiency, hybrid, lightweighting, mpg, peak oil, ton miles, truck
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New land converted to cropland to grow biofuel crops equal to 34 coal-fired power plants
Summary of article below: Between 2008 and 2012 over 7 million acres new land, much of it grasslands, were converted to croplands, damaging native ecosystems, and mimics the extreme land-use change that led up to the Dust Bowl in the … Continue reading
Petroleum council urges Arctic oil to offset declining production in lower 48
The U.S. should immediately begin a push to exploit its enormous trove of oil in the Arctic waters off of Alaska, or risk a renewed reliance on imported oil in the future, an Energy Department advisory council says in a … Continue reading
All Electric Trucks. Probably not going to happen. Ever. Why not?
There are “forms of transport that cannot be electrified — heavy-duty trucks and planes… Even if the electricity problem can be solved, it won’t address the needs of planes, trucks, ships and some industrial heating that cannot be electrified” (Long). … Continue reading
Posted in Batteries, Lithium-ion, Trucks
Tagged A123, all electric, battery, e-truck, electric truck, fuel cell, Smith Electric, subsidy
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GAO on why ethanol, and other non-drop in fuels, face pipeline & installation at service station challenges
[The challenges that ethanol faces in being put into new or modified pipelines and added to gas stations are issues faced by all alternative fuels (methanol, CNG, LNG, DME, diesohol, CTL, hydrogen, and so on) in a transition from gasoline … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Biofuels, Fuel Distribution, Pipeline
Tagged biofuel, E85, ethanol, non drop-in fuel, pipeline, service station
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Biofuels do not scale up enough to power society
Richard, T. August 23, 2010. Challenges in scaling up biofuels infrastructure. Science. (329) Below are excerpts from this paper. Look at the impossible scale of biomass required: 150 EJ/year = 15 billion metric tons of plant biomass = 200 billion … Continue reading
Posted in Biofuels
Tagged biofuel, delivery, densification, lignocellulosic, limits to growth, scaling up, transport
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