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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: wind
Movie review of Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”
Preface. This documentary was made by Jeff Gibbs, a writer and environmentalist, with Michael Moore as the executive producer. This movie is worth watching, and an entertaining and quick way to understand why rebuildable “renewables” are neither green or a … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Coal, Natural Gas, Solar, Wind
Tagged green power, Michael Moore, Planet of the Humans, renewables, solar, wind
15 Comments
Wind, solar, and natural gas are driving nuclear power out of business
Preface. I’m no fan of nuclear power because we may already be at peak uranium, there’s nowhere to store nuclear waste, and a spent nuclear pool fire could harm millions of people. But renewable wind and solar and natural gas … Continue reading
Challenges to making California’s grid renewable
What follows is a report from the California Energy Commission. But in less bureaucratic language, this may summarize it better (Petersen 2019): “I’ve always been amazed at a strange mental disconnect that’s common among renewable power advocates. On one hand, … Continue reading
Posted in Grid instability
Tagged california, grid, instability, intermittency, renewable, smart grid, solar, wind
1 Comment
Germany’s renewable energy program, Energiewende, is a big, expensive failure
Preface. After reading this post, or better yet the original 44-page document, you’ll understand why the Green New Deal isn’t working out despite being crazy expensive. The goal of Energiewende was to make Germany independent of fossil fuels. But it … Continue reading
Book review of Bryce’s “Power hungry: the myths of green energy and the real fuels of the future”
Preface. This is a book review of: Robert Bryce. 2009. Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future. This is a brilliant book, very funny at times, a great way to sharpen your critical … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Books, Other Experts
Tagged electric car, electricity, green energy, power density, wind
9 Comments
Challenges to the Integration of Renewable Resources at High System Penetration
Preface. This overview of challenges for wind and solar written in 2010 is still true today. We are far from being able to reach even a 50% renewable grid (excluding hydropower from the total) given the lack of storage, the … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid, Solar, Wind
Tagged electric grid, energy storage, forecasting, intermittence, smart grid, solar, wind
Comments Off on Challenges to the Integration of Renewable Resources at High System Penetration
Vaclav Smil: from wood to coal to oil, energy transitions take a long time
Preface. This post has a shortened, reworded, and heavily commented on article from Scientific American in 2014. You can also see two much longer articles about energy transitions by Smil from n 2008 and 2010 here: A transition from fossil … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Coal, Dependence on Oil, Energy Infrastructure, Vaclav Smil
Tagged coal, gas, oil, renewables, solar, transition, vaclav smil, wind, wood
1 Comment
Germany’s wind energy mess: As subsidies expire, thousands Of turbines to close
Preface. This means that the talk about renewables being so much cheaper than anything else isn’t necessarily true. If wind were profitable, more turbines would be built to replace the old ones without subsidies needed. Unless they can be dumped … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid & Fast Collapse, Energy Infrastructure, Wind
Tagged Energiewende, germany, recycling, subsidies, wind
8 Comments
Book review of Vaclav Smil’s “Energy Transitions: History, Requirements, Prospects”
Preface. In my extract of the 178 pages in the book below, Smil explains why renewables can’t possibly replace fossil fuels, and appears to be exasperated that people believe this can be done when he writes “Common expectations of energy … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy Books, Vaclav Smil
Tagged biofuels, coal, energy, geothermal, hydropower, kinetic, LNG, muscle power, nuclear, solar, vaclav smil, wind
13 Comments
Renewable EROI must include storage, low capacity factor, wide boundaries
[ Trainer argues that when you consider how the capacity factor of wind and solar are to fossil plants, seasonality of wind and solar the number of facilities is quite large to deal with the intermittency problem. Therefore the storage … Continue reading