Monthly Archives: August 2015

Vaclav Smil on natural gas (ethane) and plastics

Posted on August 31, 2015 by

Vaclav Smil. 2013. Making the Modern World: Materials and Dematerialization.  Wiley. Polyethylene (PE) is by far the most important thermoplastic (it accounted for 29% of the world’s aggregate plastic output, or roughly 77 Mt, in 2010), polypropylene (PP) comes next … Continue reading →

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

Posted on August 25, 2015 by

[ A book review by Alice Friedemann of “CYBER WAR. The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About It” by Richard A. Clarke and Robert K. Knake. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy … Continue reading →

Posted in Cyber, CyberAttack Book Reviews, CyberAttacks, Cyberattacks, War | Tagged , , , , , , | 4 Comments

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

Posted on August 21, 2015 by

 [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

Posted on August 18, 2015 by

[ 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?

Posted on August 15, 2015 by

[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

900 Tons of material to build just 1 windmill

Posted on August 15, 2015 by

You ought to watch “MidAmerican Energy Company – From the Ground Up: Building our energy future, one turbine at a time“. The pictures from the video below are also powerful since they capture how low the EROI of wind power … Continue reading →

Posted in Wind | 2 Comments

Utility, large-scale battery energy storage

Posted on August 15, 2015 by

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

Posted on August 13, 2015 by

[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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Why methanol is not an option to replace gasoline or diesel

Posted on August 6, 2015 by

[ Below is a U.S. House hearing on alternative fuels from which I’ve extracted the methanol portions.  Just a few of the reasons why this is not an option are: The California methanol effort was abandoned for many reasons, but … Continue reading →

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Distribution – why it is so hard to add E15 or E85 at a gas station

Posted on August 2, 2015 by

[One of the huge hurdles to shifting from oil to “something else” is the chicken-or-egg problem of no one buying a new-fuel vehicle with few places to get it, so few vehicles are made, and service stations don’t add the … Continue reading →

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