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Category Archives: Manufacturing & Industrial Heat
Utility scale energy storage limited by minerals and geography
Preface. Natural gas is finite, but aside from (pumped) hydropower, natural gas is the main way wind and solar are balanced now. Therefore, a tremendous amount of energy storage will be needed in the future as natural gas declines. The … Continue reading
Lifespan of infrastructure, transportation, and buildings
Preface. What follows is from the International Energy Agency 2020 report “Energy technology perspectives” on how to transition to net zero emissions by 2050. This might require the replacement of just about everything, since power plants, steel blast furnaces, cement … Continue reading
Posted in Airplanes, Automobiles, Concrete, Dams, Electricity, Energy, Limits To Growth, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Oil & Gas, Transportation, Trucks
Tagged buildings, cement, infrastructure, lifespan, steel, transportation
4 Comments
Not enough rare metals to scale up solar power
Preface. Sunshine may be free, but the materials to make solar contraptions sure aren’t. Since sunshine arrives in a diluted form, vast expanses of solar photovoltaic panels will be needed to produce the world’s 24,000 Terawatt hours of electrical power … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Elements: Critical, Elements: Rare Earth, Mining, Photovoltaic Solar, Recycle
Tagged gallium, indium, photovoltaic, PV, rare earth, Ruthenium, solar, tellurium
5 Comments
What are rare earth metals and how are they used?
Preface. After oil, the main feature of new products will be drastic simplification. The re-use of existing stuff. Lack of precision machine tools as they rust away. Back to basics: wood, iron, and clay. Yet every high-tech object depends on … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Elements: Rare Earth, Mining
Tagged gallium, indium, mining, rare earth, solar
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Toasters are Toast
Preface. 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 … Continue reading
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 from two textbooks full of mind-boggling processes and complexity. Microchips are … Continue reading
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