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Recent Posts
- Why the U.S. is ignoring nuclear winter in nuclear policies & strategies
- Oil choke points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, accidents, & piracy
- Nuclear weapons must be reduced or we risk nuclear winter
- Fusion is already running out of fuel
- Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018
- Wood, the fuel of preindustrial societies, is half of EU renewable energy
- 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”
Category Archives: Limits To Growth
Limits to growth: Oil & Gas Fracking sand
Preface. Below is an excerpt about fracking sand from Beiser’s 2018 book “The World in a Grain. The Story of Sand and How It Transformed Civilization”. In 2022 fracking sand has gotten so expensive it’s a factor in why production … Continue reading
Posted in Limits To Growth, Oil & Gas Fracked, Peak Sand
Tagged fracked natural gas, fracked oil, sand
1 Comment
Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves
Preface. Phosphate is absolutely essential for both plants and animals. It’s estimated that Morocco has of 75-85% of phosphate reserves that might last for 300-400 years. Or peak in 25 years. Walan (2014) has estimates of researchers who’ve predicted peak … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Limits To Growth, Peak Food, Peak Phosphorus, Recycle
Tagged agriculture, food, peak, peak phosphate, peak phosphorus, phosphorus, reserves
Comments Off on Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves
Book review of Wrigley’s “Energy and the English Industrial revolution”
Preface. I’ve made a strong case in my book “When trucks stop running” and this energyskeptic website that we will eventually return to wood and a 14th century lifestyle after fossil fuels are depleted. So if you’re curious about what … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Energy Books, Farming & Ranching, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth
Tagged coal, industrial revolution, land, wood
5 Comments
Vaclav Smil. Making the modern world: materials and dematerialization
Preface. I can’t believe I read this book, it is just a long litany of the gigantic amounts of materials we exploit, with no analysis, implications, or the meaning of what impact this will have on the planet. I certainly … Continue reading
Posted in Infrastructure Books, Life Before Oil, Limits To Growth, Peak Resources, Vaclav Smil
Tagged materials, recycling, vaclav smil
9 Comments
75% of Earth’s land is degraded threatening 3.2 billion people
Preface. By 2050 95% of Earth’s land could be degraded and reducing or even preventing food production, forcing hundreds of millions to migrate. More than 75% of our planet has been altered by humans, a figure that will likely … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Limits To Growth, Peak Food
Tagged biodiversity, erosion, limits to growth, peak food
Comments Off on 75% of Earth’s land is degraded threatening 3.2 billion people
Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”
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
U.S. Industrial farming destroys future food production for centuries
Preface. Below are excerpts from a devastating critique of current farming practices by the National research council who show the myriad ways that industrial farming is harming the land and future food production.
Conventional economic theory ignores the laws of physics
Preface. It’s the energy stupid! These figures clearly show a link between energy and the economy. Conventional economic theory has to ignore energy or that would prove that there are Limits to Growth. What follows is from Nafeez Ahmed’s 2017 … Continue reading
Posted in Limits To Growth
Tagged economists, energy, GDP, laws of physics, limits to growth, money
3 Comments
Limits to Growth? 2016 United Nations report provides best evidence yet
Preface. This is a summary of a United Nations report that ought to scare the pants off of anyone who understands exponential growth. Here are a few examples what that means: If 2 grams of gold grew at a 5% … Continue reading
Gail Tverberg: 2017 The year the world economy starts coming apart
[ Note: In a 2016 post “Overly Simple Energy-Economy Models Give Misleading Answers” Tverberg points out that: “The common lay interpretation of simple models is that running out of energy supplies can be expected to be our overwhelming problem in … Continue reading
Posted in Limits To Growth, Net Energy Cliff
Tagged collapse, limits to growth, net energy cliff, peak coal, peak oil
4 Comments