Category Archives: Antecedents

Alternative energy sources have too many fossil fuel antecedents to outlast or replace oil, natural gas, and coal. They will use more fossil fuel energy to construct than they will ever return in energy, a negative return on energy invested.

Antecedents — too much oil needed to make wind, solar, batteries, and so on

Posted on December 31, 2012 by

Fossil fuels are used in every step of every process AND as a component of material objects from plastics to medicine and 500,000 other products. Any kind of alternative energy you care to name requires fossil fuels from the very … Continue reading →

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MicroChips after Collapse: kiss your computer and cell phone goodbye

Posted on November 27, 2012 by

I encourage you to read about how pencils are made and Thwaite’s attempt to build a simple toaster from scratch before you read what follows.  I don’t even attempt to list the hundreds of materials, rare metals, complex chemicals, catalysts, … Continue reading →

Posted in 2) Collapse, Antecedents, Humpty Dumpty, Localization, Making Stuff, Supply Chains | Tagged , , , | Comments Off

Even Pencils will be hard to make

Posted on November 27, 2012 by

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 essay, … Continue reading →

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Toasters are Toast

Posted on November 27, 2012 by

Thomas Thwaites’ book, “The Toaster Project” illustrates why it will be so hard, if not impossible, to bounce back from collapse in the future to anything like what we take for granted today.  Thwaites set about trying to make a … Continue reading →

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