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- 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”
Tag Archives: biodiesel
Can we eat enough fried food for biodiesel to keep trucks running?
Fatberg from London sewer If the U.S. can’t make enough biodiesel from plants, then the question becomes: Can we step up our fast-food game? Can we eat more French fries? Biodiesel is already made from used cooking oil (11.5% of … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiesel, Farming & Ranching
Tagged biodiesel, fast food, fatberg
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Why it is hard to replace diesel with biodiesel
Biodiesel is the great hope, our main hope, the only renewable fuel of all the many options, and the closest to the diesel essential for rail, trucks, and ships to do the actual work of civilization. The U.S. produces over … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiesel, Food production, Oil, Peak Biofuels, Peak Food, Transportation, Water
Tagged biodiesel, diesel, EROI
1 Comment
Corn for ethanol & soy for biodiesel tremendously destructive
The Green Gold Rush to make biodiesel has begun in earnest in California. It would not be profitable without subsidies from LCFS credits, federal RIN D5 credits, and Blenders Tax Credits at $3.32 a gallon, which is enough to cover … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiesel, Peak Food, Pesticides, Soil, Water Pollution
Tagged aquifer depletion, biodiesel, corn, erosion, ethanol, pollution, soybeans, topsoil
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Challenges & opportunities for alternative transportation fuels and vehicles. U.S. House hearing, 2011
Preface. Congress is aware that an energy crisis looms, though they seldom acknowledge or deal with it. Here are a few excerpts from this U.S. House hearing (2011) The American energy initiative part 6: Challenges & opportunities for alternative transportation … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, U.S. Congress Energy Policy, U.S. Congress Transportation
Tagged biodiesel, biofuel, cellulose, energy crisis, energy dependence, natural gas
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Power density of biomass, wind, & solar take too much land to replace fossil fuels
Volumetric versus specific energy density for selected energy carriers. Source: Palmer, G. 2020. Energy storage & civilization: a systems approach. Springer. Preface. Vaclav Smil writes “The fact that wind, solar, and biomass have incredibly low energy density per square meter … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Coal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Oil
Tagged alternative energy, biodiesel, biomass, coal, ethanol, natural gas, oil, renewable energy
1 Comment
Peak soil: Industrial agriculture destroys ecosystems and civilizations: Biofuels make it worse
Preface. In 2018 I thought it was time to reorganize this post, as it grew more and more bloated and disorganized with new information. Eventually it turned into my 2021 book Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Biofuels, Biomass, Energy, Peak Biofuels, Peak Topsoil, Soil
Tagged aquifer depletion, biodiesel, biofuel, climate change, EROEI, EROI, erosion, ethanol, fertilizer, hunger, peak soil, pollution, topsoil
2 Comments
Effects of biodiesel on diesel engines: John Deere
[ Since petroleum is finite, the most important focus of U.S. energy research ought to be keeping trucks operating, since civilization ends when trucks stop running. Ideally this would be done with a “drop-in” fuel that can be burned in … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiesel, Trucks
Tagged biodiesel, diesel engine, John Deere
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Energy generation water consumption
[ Notice how much water biofuels use, especially soybeans for biodiesel Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer] Notes from “Working Document of the NPC Future Transportation Fuels Study. Topic … Continue reading
Posted in Biofuels, Energy Production
Tagged biodiesel, biofuels, consumption, corn stover, E85, energy, water, water use
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Large agribusiness gets corporate welfare via illegal ethanol subsidies
What more proof is needed that the Energy Returned on Energy Invested of ethanol is negative? They’re losing money and getting corporate welfare to keep the scam going, meanwhile destroying prime topsoil, poisoning the land with pesticides, and eutrophying the … Continue reading
Posted in Biofuels, EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested
Tagged agribusiness, biodiesel, EROEI, ethanol, illegal, subsidies
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Germany National Academy of Sciences report: Don’t use biofuels
Preface. This German study explains why biomass doesn’t scale up to make biofuels, whether from algae, cellulose, or plants, as well as why trying to do so would harm the environment. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Women in ecology author of 2021 … Continue reading
Posted in Algae, Biofuels, Biomass, Biomass EROI, Wood
Tagged algae, biodiesel, biofuel, environment, ethanol
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