Category Archives: Wood

Book review of Underbug: an obsessive tale of termites and technology

Posted on February 23, 2019 by

Preface.  I read this book mainly to find out where “grassoline” stood. Scientists thought 10 years ago that we could recreate the termite biota system of digesting biomass to create biofuels.  But this appears to be far in the future … Continue reading →

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Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”

Posted on October 18, 2018 by

Preface.  This contains excerpts from John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”. It’s one of my favorite books about natural resources, exploring the role wood has played in the rise and fall of civilizations since they … Continue reading →

Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsed, Deforestation, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth, Peak Resources, Soil, Wood | Tagged , , , , | 1 Comment

Vaclav Smil on wood

Posted on January 17, 2018 by

[ I’ve extracted bits about wood from Smil’s book about materials below, read the book for the larger context.  Enormous amounts of wood were used in former civilizations with much smaller populations than today, so it’s clear we can’t go … Continue reading →

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How burning biomass made us human

Posted on November 15, 2016 by

[ This is a book review of Wrangham’s “Catching Fire: How cooking made us human”. Fire enabled us to have larger brains from the increased calories in cooked food, held carnivores at bay, killed bacteria, and gave us many other … Continue reading →

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From Wood (10,000 BC to 1750) to coal (1750-1920) to Oil, Natural Gas, & Electricity to What?

Posted on July 2, 2014 by

Cutler J. Cleveland . Energy Quality, Net Energy, and the Coming Energy Transition.  Department of Geography and Center for Energy and Environmental Studies, Boston University The level of health, food security and especially material standard of living that exists today … Continue reading →

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Coal Power Plants stumped by Burning Wood

Posted on November 24, 2013 by

Power Plants Try Burning Wood With Coal to Cut Carbon Emissions.  Matt Wald. New York Times. November 3, 2013. There are many difficulties to burning wood in coal plants: Pound for pound, wood only produces 66% as much energy as … Continue reading →

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When deforestation begins after peak fossils, how long will it last?

Posted on November 23, 2013 by

Since we’re going back to the Wood as our main energy and infrastructure source after fossil fuels deplete, I thought it would be interesting to try to get an idea of how wood stacks up against other energy resources (below).   … Continue reading →

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Germany National Academy of Sciences report: Don’t use biofuels

Posted on August 10, 2012 by

July 26, 2012.  Bioenergy — Chances and Limits. German National Academy of Science (Leopoldina Nationale Akademie der Wissenschaften). Page 30-56 English Version. A major motivations for using bio-energy is to reduce climate change from carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions by substituting … Continue reading →

Posted in Algae, Biofuels, Biomass, Biomass EROI, Wood | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments