Tag Archives: energy

A Century from Now Concrete Will be Nothing But Rubble

Posted on January 19, 2013 by

Photo: road abandoned since 1984 in the Florida Keys Concrete is an essential part of our infrastructure. And it’s all falling apart, as Robert Courland’s 2011 book Concrete Planet makes clear. The Romans built concrete structures that lasted over 2 … Continue reading →

Posted in Concrete, Infrastructure, Infrastructure, Predictions, Roads | Tagged , , , , , , , , | 3 Comments

Antecedents — too much oil needed to make wind, solar, batteries, and so on

Posted on December 31, 2012 by

Fossil fuels are used in every step of every process AND as a component of material objects from plastics to medicine and 500,000 other products. Any kind of alternative energy you care to name requires fossil fuels from the very … Continue reading →

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Drought affects Survival in many ways

Posted on December 14, 2011 by

Christian Parenti calls multiple crises “The Catastrophic Convergence” in “Tropic of Chaos, Climate change and the new geography of Violence”.  The problem isn’t that calamities happen simultaneously, it’s that they compound and amplify one another. Obviously drought reduces agricultural production.  … Continue reading →

Posted in 1) Decline, Drought | Tagged , , , | 1 Comment

Oilsands (also known as tarsands)

Posted on July 10, 2011 by

Tar sand excavation images: trucks landscape tarsand refineries overhead video: Beautiful Destruction – Alberta Tar Sands Aerial Photographs The problems with oilsands are: 1)   In the tar sands open-pit mines, to produce one barrel of synthetic crude it takes 2 … Continue reading →

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