Monthly Archives: August 2015

Will we go out with a whimper instead of a bang? Cyberwar more likely than nuclear war

Preface.  This is a book review of Clarke & Knake’s “Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About IT”. The ransom cyber attack on the colonial pipeline forced the shutdown of a vital pipeline delivering … Continue reading

Posted in Cyber, Cyber Attack Books, CyberAttacks, War | Tagged , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Just 16,000 catenary trucks (out of 5.6 million) would use 1% of California’s electricity generation

Preface. We must electrify trucks since fuel from oil, coal, and natural gas is finite, and biomass doesn’t scale up.  Without transportation, electricity contraptions like wind turbines, solar facilities, and nuclear power plants can’t be built. A wind turbine, for … Continue reading

Posted in Electric & Hydrogen trucks impossible, Trucks: Electric | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 2 Comments

Pedro Prieto – what life used to be like decades ago in small Spanish villages

 [I’m reading James Howard Kunstler’s excellent trilogy “A World Made By Hand” now to get an idea of what life might be like post-peak when the worst of the crisis is over. Prieto’s vivid descriptions are wonderful, I wish he’d … Continue reading

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Dmitry Orlov: How Russians survived the collapse of the Soviet Union

[ A great post by Dmitry Orlov about what collapse may be like, the best strategies to survive, and why the Russian way of life and culture prepared them far better for hard times than will be the case in … Continue reading

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When will the Alaska pipeline turn into an 800-mile-long Popsicle?

[Below are excerpts on the Alaskan pipeline from Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman.  This is a great book, yet leaves so many possible rust stories uncovered, that I hope Waldman writes Rust II (or any other topic — … Continue reading

Posted in Flow Rate, Threats to oil supply | Tagged , , | 8 Comments

Utility, large-scale battery energy storage

Hodson, H. July 25, 2015. Power to the people. NewScientist. Demand for electricity varies every second, minute, hour, day, and season.  Production is easy to provide from always-ready natural gas and coal. But as we move towards a 100% renewable … Continue reading

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Robert McNally on energy at U.S. Congressional Hearings

[I think it is interesting to know what Congress hears about energy from experts, and what the official U.S. energy policies are.  It is frustrating that Energy Return on Invested (EROI) is never discussed, even by intelligent analysts like McNally.  … Continue reading

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