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Recent Posts
- Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
- “More and More and More” one of the best books on energy ever written
- The staggering destruction of knowledge by Christians in the Roman Empire
- The staggering cost of Net Zero in Britain
- Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
- Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?
- What would happen if trucks stopped running?
- How to survive a nuclear winter
- The insect apocalypse will kill billions more people than climate change
- The war on drugs. A book review of “Chasing the scream”
- Peak crude oil did not happen in 2018. But we are running out of time
- Sheriffs have too much power
- Book review “They poisoned the world: Life & death in the age of Forever Chemicals”
Yearly Archives: 2017
Oil shortages and climate change may lead to refugee camps even in the U.S. and Europe
[ Will refugee camps be the cities of tomorrow in the U.S. and other developed nations? As oil shortages disrupt supply chains; food shortages grow larger every year from climate change, topsoil erosion, and shortages of natural-gas fertilizer; and rising … Continue reading
Why vultures are so important — and dying off
University of Utah. May 5, 2016. Why vultures matter—and what we lose if they’re gone. Original paper: Evan R. Buechley et al, The avian scavenger crisis: Looming extinctions, trophic cascades, and loss of critical ecosystem functions, Biological Conservation (2016).Vultures in … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss
Tagged biodiversity, rabies, vulture
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Wind and solar need natural gas to balance intermittent, variable, and seasonal power
Preface. The highest wind states are getting more and more dependent on natural gas to balance wind and solar as they live and die. Yet conventional natural gas in the U.S. has peaked (half of our national gas, and declining … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas, Solar, Wind
Tagged energy storage, intermittent, natural gas, solar, wind
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The effects of Middle East events on U.S. Energy markets
[ Of note from this U.S. House 2011 hearing: John Hofmeister, former President of Shell Oil. Matt Simmons, who passed away this past summer, used to speak of the Straits of Hormuz as, we live one day away from an … Continue reading
Posted in Chokepoints, Threats to oil supply, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged oil chokepoint
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Minerals: Natural gas from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”
Preface. This is just a small sampling of what Bardi thinks might happen post fossil fuels, mostly shortened and reworded. Here are 7 other posts from this great book: Mining: Waste, Pollution, Destruction Ugo Bardi predictions of the future Minerals … Continue reading
Posted in EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Oil & Gas Fracked
Tagged EROEI, EROI, fracked gas, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
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Anyone who whines about airplanes should have to take the Oregon Trail
Source: Book cover of “Oregon Or Bust: True Short Stories from the Descendants of Oregon Trail Pioneers, Prospectors, Trappers, and Settlers in the Great Northwest Hardcover” by Gentry Ward Cutsforth (2012), XLibris. Preface. Also listen to the Louis CK rant … Continue reading
Posted in Airplanes, Lithium-ion, Transportation What To Do
Tagged airplane, battery, oregon trail, transportation
3 Comments
California hits the solar wall
[ What is a solar wall? Read part 1: California could hit the solar wall and then excerpts from the following article in the financial times, Britain’s Wall street journal. I’ve also reworded some of it. Renewables are rendering existing … Continue reading
Electromagnetic Pulse weapons & cyberattacks can bring down the electric grid
Preface. At some point of energy decline the electric grid will fail, and civilization will take a giant step downward (financial systems gone, knowledge stored gone, computers / phones inoperable) and so on. Vaclav Smil (2015) in his book Energy … Continue reading