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?
Category Archives: Supply Chains
Opposition to mining will prevent a green transition to renewables
Source: Bare (2012) Environmentalists win review of two more plants near Rosemont copper mine. Arizona Capitol times. I could overwhelm you with world-wide trillions of tons of mining waste and how China has rendered 20% of its farmland too toxic … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Energy Supply Chain, Mining, Peak Copper
Tagged copper, mining, renewables, supply chain
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Cybersecurity supply chain deep dive assessment U.S. Department of Energy
Preface. I’ve been reading about cyber threats since 2007, and a problem still true today is that the government can do nothing except a few puny regulations here and there for the most part, since critical infrastructure like energy and … Continue reading
Posted in CyberAttacks, Energy Supply Chain
Tagged cyberattack, department of energy, energy, supply chain
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Interdependencies & supply chain failures in the News
Preface. Joseph Tainter, explains in his famous book “The collapse of complex societies” how complexity causes civilizations to collapse. Fossil fuels have created the most complex society that has ever, or will ever exist, using fossil energy that can’t be … Continue reading
Posted in Interdependencies, Microchips and computers, Supply Chains
Tagged autos, electric grid, ford, interdependency, microchip, plastic, supply chain
2 Comments
Even Pencils will be hard to make
Preface. Most of us are unaware of how complex our society is, how things are made, how food is grown, how stuff is delivered, and the people, energy, transportation, and kinds and sources of materials in every day objects. This … Continue reading
Posted in EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Localization, Supply Chains
Tagged collapse, EROEI, manufacturing, peak oil, pencil
2 Comments
The Fragility of Microchips
Preface. This is an introduction to how microchips are made to give you an idea of how difficult and amazing they are. This is a very high-level overview gathered mostly from the textbooks of Quirk (2001) and Van Zant (2004). … Continue reading
Posted in 2) Collapse, An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Interdependencies, Localization, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Microchips and computers, Supply Chains
Tagged collapse, computer chip, fragility, microprocessor, precision, preservation of knowledge
8 Comments
High-Tech can’t last: limited essential elements with limited lifespans
There are 17 rare earth elements in the periodic table. About nine of those elements go into every iPhone sold… and if China were suddenly to disappear from a map tomorrow, Apple would lose about 90% of those elements. Source: … Continue reading
Korowicz: A study of global system collapse
Preface. I’ve extracted about half of Korowicz’s paper, left out the references, math, charts, and tables, so you might want to read the original document yourself. This is a great explanation – one of the best – of the intertwined … Continue reading
From wood to fossil fueled civilizations — the greatest tragedy mankind will ever know
Preface. These are my notes from this book about how we went from an organic sustainable economy to a temporary fossil-fueled one. It’s one of the few books I’ve found that explains what life was like before fossil fuels in … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Life Before Oil, Supply Chains
Tagged agriculture, biomass, coal, food, industrial revolution, transition, wood
5 Comments
What would happen if trucks stopped running?
Preface. In “Why You Should Love Trucks” I showed that essential supply chains depend on trucks nearly completely. Because of little inventory and dependence on just-in-time deliveries, our civilization would almost immediately feel the repercussions of trucks stopping. In fact, … Continue reading
Posted in Cascading Failure, Dependence on Oil, Electric & Hydrogen trucks impossible, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Oil Shocks, Transportation Infrastructure, Transportation Supply chain, Trucks, When Trucks Stop Running
Tagged civilization, electric trucks, life without lorries, trucks, trucks stop running
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Book review of “Empires and Barbarians: the fall of Rome and the birth of Europe”
[ After these introductory comments is my book review of Heather’s “Empires and Barbarians: the fall of Rome and the birth of Europe. What follows is from Ward-Perkins “The Fall of Rome: And the End of Civilization” about the role … Continue reading
Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Roman Empire, Supply Chains
Tagged fall of civilization, immigration, roman empire
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