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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”
Tag Archives: collapse
Even Pencils will be hard to make
Preface. 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 … Continue reading
Posted in EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Localization, Supply Chains
Tagged collapse, EROEI, manufacturing, peak oil, pencil
2 Comments
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 mostly from the textbooks of Quirk (2001) and Van Zant (2004). … Continue reading
Posted in 2) Collapse, An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Interdependencies, Localization, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Microchips and computers, Supply Chains
Tagged collapse, computer chip, fragility, microprocessor, precision, preservation of knowledge
8 Comments
Civilization will collapse in 20-40 years from deforestation
Preface. At current rates of deforestation, forests will be gone in 100-200 years. Long before that, in 20-40 years, the effects will be felt, with a 90% chance of civilization collapse likely. Below “deforestation in the news” are excerpts from an … Continue reading
Posted in Deforestation, Limits To Growth
Tagged collapse, deforestation, limits to growth
14 Comments
Escape collapse on a DIY floating island
Preface. Build your own sustainable floating compound. At Freedom Cove, food preparation takes up a large part of the day. Without a refrigerator or freezer, the couple catch fish and grow almost all the food they consume in a large … Continue reading
Book Review: The Fall of the Roman Empire: A new history of Rome and the barbarians
Preface. Most historians see the fall of the Roman Empire as due to the invasion of barbarians from the North, partly pushed towards Italy by the brutal Huns. These lands had never been conquered by Roman armies because they were … Continue reading
Book Review of “Against the Grain. A Deep History of the Earliest States”
Preface. Energyskeptic.com is ultimately about the rise and fall of civilizations, although I didn’t know that when I first started writing this as an energy and resource blog. Our civilization too will fail as fossil fuels decline, and then we’re … Continue reading
15 Nations that Collapsed because of Drought: will we be the 16th?
Preface. Another repercussion of drought may be the Muslim religion as Fleitmann (2022) proposes below. This post began with 10 civilizations that collapsed due to drought (below), and I’ve added 5 more. Will the American South West be #16? Lynn … Continue reading
Posted in Collapsed & collapsing nations, Drought & Collapse
Tagged Akkadia, Anasazi, Arabia, civilization, collapse, drought, Harrapan, Himyar, Khmer Empire, Maya, Ming Dynasty, Tang Dynasty, Tiwanaku Empire
1 Comment
How a pandemic or bioweapon could take civilization down
Preface. I just listened to a 3.5 hour podcast on pandemics and bioweapons with the best up-to-date coverage I know of, and more interesting to listen to than reading a book or article. Just one of many scary problems: synthetic … Continue reading
Posted in 3) Fast Crash, Biowarfare, Interdependencies, Pandemic Fast Crash
Tagged biowarfare, bioweapon, collapse, CRISPR, interdependency, pandemic, synthetic biology
3 Comments
Fall of Indus valley & Akkadian civilizations from climate change
Preface. Any civilization or region that survives energy decline must then survive climate change for many centuries. As far as the wind systems that collapsed the Akkadian empire, it’s already happening: “Greenhouse gases are increasingly disrupting the jet stream, a … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Collapsed & collapsing nations
Tagged climate change, collapse
Comments Off on Fall of Indus valley & Akkadian civilizations from climate change