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: January 2021
How are microchips made?
Preface. Computer chip fabrication plants need to run continuously for weeks to accomplish the thousands of steps needed to make microchips. A half-hour power outage at Samsung’s Pyeongtaek chip plant caused losses of over $43 million dollars (Reuters 2019). Chip … Continue reading
Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
Preface. The wood-based world of the future simply won’t have the energy and minerals required not just to make electronic devices, but the precision machine tools to make them. As diesel fuel grows scarce and the economy fails, supply chains … Continue reading
Posted in Microchips and computers
Tagged computer, computer chip, high-tech, motherboard
3 Comments
Many steps using fossil fuels to make cans & potato chips
Preface. I am gobsmacked by how much energy goes into making beverage cans and potato chips, look at all the steps, each one using energy! Why haven’t we run of oil yet? Especially when you look at everything else out … Continue reading
Will the Great Game be won by Cyber Attacks?
Preface. This is a book review of Joel Brenner’s “America the Vulnerable: Inside the New Threat Matrix of Digital Espionage, Crime, and Warfare”. The ransom cyber attack on the colonial pipeline forced the shutdown of a vital pipeline delivering half … Continue reading
Posted in China and War, Cyber, Cyber Attack Books, CyberAttacks, War Books
Tagged china, cyber attack, cyber war, Russia
Comments Off on Will the Great Game be won by Cyber Attacks?
Book list: What to do about peak everything and limits to growth
If you search on prepping you’ll get 62 million results, but that hasn’t been my focus. I’m madly in love with my techno-optimist husband, we’re both senior citizens, and so we’re not going anywhere or preparing. Where best to be … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Book List, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged book list, survival, what to do, where to be
14 Comments
328 Million Americans use 3.2 million pounds of minerals, metals, and fuels in their lifetime
Preface. Even if you go off the grid, civilization is using up minerals at an exponential rate to maintain the non-negotiable American lifestyle, which in 2006, required 3.7 million pounds of minerals, metals, and fuels in each person’s lifetime, or … Continue reading
Posted in Mining, Peak Critical Elements, Recycle, Recycling
Tagged consumption, critical elements, limits to growth, peak minerals
6 Comments
Batteries use rare, declining, critical, & imported elements from unstable countries
Preface. Since oil and other fossils are finite and emit carbon, the plan is to electrify society with batteries. But doh! Minerals used in batteries are finite too. And dependent on fossil-fuels entirely in their life cycle, from mining trucks … Continue reading
Posted in Batteries, Mining, Peak Critical Elements, Peak Rare Earth Elements
Tagged batteries, peak minerals
7 Comments