This is an attempt to boil down 1500+ energyskeptic posts into the 200 of the best ones.

Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com Women in ecology  author of 2021 Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy best price here; 2015 When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, & “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”.  Podcasts: Crazy Town, Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity

Book Lists – buy books in hard copy to Preserve Knowledge

• Booklist: Natural history & Science, Evolution, Critical thinking, Health, Resource allocation, Climate change, Fire
• Booklist: American History, Politics, Corruption, and Economics & Investing
• Booklist: Travel, Psychology, World history, Food, Anthropology, (Auto)biography, Religion
• Booklist: Agriculture
• Book list: What to do about peak everything and limits to growth
• The Depressing Booklist: War, Extinction, Pollution, Resource depletion, Limits to growth, Overpopulation, Collapse, Infrastructure, Peak minerals, Transportation, Postcarbon life
• Energy Crisis Booklist: EROEI, Peak oil, Peak coal, Peak natural gas, Nuclear, Kerogen, Methane hydrates
• Alternative Energy Booklist: Biofuels, Batteries, Solar, Wind, Nuclear, Hydropower, Hydrogen, Fusion, Geothermal, Wind & tidal, Muscle power, Far out

Introduction

• Updates to Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy
• Admiral Rickover 1957: Energy Resources & Our Future
• Vaclav Smil: Our transition away from fossil fuels will take decades—if it happens at all
• Telling others about peak oil and limits to growth
• Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”
• 2021-8-27 Can democracy survive peak oil?
• Summary of German Armed Forces Peak Oil Study

Peak oil. We’re not running out, half is left

But since petroleum is the master resource that makes all other goods possible, including coal and natural gas, and our economy depends on endless growth, you’d want to start preparing for oil decline at least 10-20 years ahead of time (Summary of 2005 Department of Energy Peak Oil Production study).

If peak oil did happen in 2008  (IEA 2018 World Energy Outlook: Peak oil is here, oil crunch by 2023), or 2018 (EIA 2021 International Energy Statistics. Petroleum and other liquids. Data Options), then we have limited time left to start relocalizing, shifting our economy back to a steady-state and agriculture, rationing, and reducing consumption. Building wind, solar, nuclear and so on is pointless: transportation and manufacturing can’t be electrified or run on any other non-fossil energy resource as I explain in my books Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy and When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation

• When Trucks Stop Running
• Peak oil: “It’s the flows, stupid!” Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow
• Giant oil field decline rates and peak oil
• Antonio Turiel: Explaining Peak Oil the Easy Way
• Permafrost will limit natural gas, oil, and coal extraction
• Oil Choke Points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, & piracy
• Gail Tverberg: Eight Pieces of Our Oil Price Predicament
• Energy return on investment, peak oil, and the end of economic growth
• Hydrocarbons and the evolution of human culture
• Gail Tverberg: Why peak coal, oil, and natural gas will all happen at the same time
• US Department of Energy 1980 oil rationing plan
• Book review of “Any way you slice it” by Stan Cox

Limits to Growth

• Limits to Growth? 2016 United Nations report provides best evidence yet
• Lifespan of infrastructure, transportation, and buildings

Overpopulation & Overshoot

• Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?
• New York Times review of “Countdown” by Alan Weisman
• William Catton, Chapter 2 of Overshoot: The Tragic Story of Human Success
• Youngquist: Geodestinies Population
• Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America

When Trucks Stop running: Why diesel fuel can’t be replaced

• Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
• Heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks a waste of energy and money
• Why the world can’t run on biodiesel from algae
• Who Killed the Electric Car & more importantly, the Electric Truck?
• The periodic table limits battery development
• Diesel is finite. Trucks are the bedrock of civilization. So where are the battery electric trucks?
• Given the laws of physics, can the Tesla Semi really go 500 miles, and what will the price be?
• Review of “The Powerhouse: Inside the Invention of a Battery to Save the World” by Steve LeVine
• Electric truck & car range less in cold weather
• Hybrid electric trucks are very different from HEV cars
• All Electric Trucks. Probably not going to happen. Ever. Why not?
• Catenary electric trucks running on overhead wires (see Chapter 8 in Life After Fossil Fuels)

Manufacturing uses over half of fossil fuels: see Chapter 9 Life After Fossil Fuels

Though not as thorough or up-to-date, this article will give you an idea of why manufacturing will be hard, perhaps impossible, to electrify or substitute anything for fossil fuels. Roberts, D. 2019. This climate problem is bigger than cars and much harder to solve. Low-carbon options for heavy industry like steel and cement are scarce and expensive. Vox

Biofuels

• Peak soil: Industrial agriculture destroys ecosystems and civilizations: Biofuels make it worse
• One gallon of gas = 98 tons (196,000 pounds) of ancient plants = 40 acres of wheat in your gas tank every 20 miles
• When wood is again our main energy source, how long will it last?
• Wood, the fuel of preindustrial societies, is half of EU renewable energy
• Fill ‘er up with kelp?
• Barriers to making algal biofuels (pdf from journal Petroleum & Environmental Biotechnology)

Wind Power   55 Reasons why wind power cannot replace fossil fuels

Solar Power  Why solar power can’t replace fossil fuels

Can Geothermal power replace declining fossil fuels?

HYDROPOWER

• Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS)
• Hydropower can’t help with the energy crisis
• Hydropower dams and the ways they destroy the environment
• Climate change effects on hydropower in California

Nuclear Power

• Why Nuclear Power is not an alternative to fossil fuels
• Even a small nuclear war could cause 1+ billion deaths
• A Nuclear spent fuel fire could force 8.8 million people to evacuate
• Book review of “Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste”
• Why old U.S. Nuclear power plants have to shut down
• Decommissioning a nuclear reactor

FUSION

• Why fusion will always be 30 years in the future
• Why fusion power is Forever Away
• Fusion is the only possible way to replace fossil fuels. So how is ITER doing? 

Coal

• USGS: Half of U.S. Coal runs out in 35 years, not 250
• Coal-to-liquids (CTL) cannot compensate for declining oil & natural gas production
• Peak coal 2013-2045 — most likely 2025-2030

Natural Gas

• Peak Natural Gas
• 2021-8-30: The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive

Climate Change

• 800 scientists: Burning forests for electricity & heat releases more 1.5x more CO2 than coal, 3x more than natural gas
• Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change
• Himalayan glaciers that supply water to a billion people are melting fast
• Pentagon report: collapse within 20 years from climate change
• 11 Nations that Collapsed because of Drought

Renewables are NOT renewable: they need fossil fuels every step of their life cycle

• Why no single or combination of alternative energy resources can replace fossil fuels
• Energy Overview. Oil is butter-fried-steak wrapped in bacon. Alternative Energy is lettuce.
• 21 scientists explain why Jacobson’s renewable schemes are a delusional fantasy
• David Fridley, LBNL scientist, on why alternative energy won’t save us
• The Invisible oiliness of everything
• A transition from fossil fuels to renewables could take a century – if it ever happens

The Electric Grid

• Electric Grid Overview
• Building a national super grid in America
• The Next Big Thing: Distributed Generation
• 21 scientists explain why Jacobson’s renewable schemes are a delusional fantasy
• Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) and other ways to bring down the electric grid
• Terrorism and the Electric Power Delivery System
• Destroyed power transformers could keep regional grid down for 2 years

Energy storage

• Natural Gas is essential for energy storage
• Utility scale energy storage limited by minerals and geography
• Batteries are made of rare, declining, critical, and imported elements
• EV cars and utility scale energy storage batteries are not likely to materialize
• Utility scale energy storage has a long way to go to make renewables possible
• Compressed air energy storage (CAES)
• Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS)
• Hydropower has a very low energy density
• Concentrated Solar Power is dying out in the U.S. , CSP Barriers & Obstacles
• How safe are utility-scale energy storage batteries?

Mining & limits to minerals

• High-Tech can’t last: limited essential elements with limited lifespans
• Autos need finite rare earth, critical, & precious metals
• Not enough rare metals to scale up solar power
• Renewables: not enough minerals, energy or time and mining is destructive
• Minerals essential for wind, solar, and high-tech, are anything but clean and green
• A Century from Now Concrete Will be Nothing But Rubble
• What are rare earth metals and how are they used?
• 328 Million Americans use 3.2 million pounds of minerals, metals, and fuels in their lifetime
• Peak element & mineral production: How long will they last?
• Peak Stainless Steel, Peak Helium, Peak Cobalt, Peak gold (2021-12-29)
• Recycling Why rare and valuable metals are not recycled
  • 2022-2-13: Why EV Batteries aren’t being recycled
• Toasters are Toast
• Bardi’s book Extracted: The Universal Mining Machine, Minerals & Energy, Minerals & War
• M Klare: The Race For What’s Left: The Global Scramble for the World’s Last Resources
• Rare: The High-Stakes race to satisfy Our Need for the Scarcest Metals on Earth

Microchips are as important as oil and the electric grid

• The Fragility of Microchips
• Microprocessor Fab Plants need electricity 24 x 7
• How are microchips made?
• Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil

Collapse

• Book: John Perlin’s “A Forest Journey: The Story of Wood and Civilization”
• Failing states, collapsing systems: biophysical triggers of political violence
• How much net energy return required to prevent collapse?
• Even a small nuclear war could cause 1+ billion deaths
• How a pandemic or bioweapon could take civilization down
• Korowicz: A study of global system collapse
• Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
• Civilization will collapse in 20-40 years from deforestation
• A nationwide blackout lasting 1 year could kill up to 90% Americans
• Net Energy Cliff Will Lead to Collapse of Civilization
• Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
• Collapse of Mayan civilization from water shortages
• Will we go out with a whimper instead of a bang? Cyberwar more likely than nuclear war
• Michael Klare: Twenty-First-Century Energy Wars

Extinction

• Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth?
• O. Wilson to save humanity from extinction, get rid of religion
• We’ve wiped out two-thirds of wildlife in just 50 years
• Scientists’ warning to humanity on insect extinctions

Agriculture

• S. farmers destroy future food production for centuries with modern farming methods
• A Mega Storm in California might cost $1 trillion and destroy a third of America’s food
• S. farmers destroy future food production for centuries with modern farming methods
• Peak food. Sustainability challenged as many renewable resources max out
• After the harvest – protecting food from rats, mold, insects, fire, and bacteria
• The Back to the Land Movement: why it failed and why we need to try again

Politics  

Politics matters. If authoritarian leaders like Trump and other extremists are in power as oil declines, food and energy will go to the wealthy rather than be rationed. Given how Republicans can be credited with some percent of the 650,000 covid-19 deaths (Aug 2021) by discouraging vaccinations and wearing masks, and recommending ineffective horse tranquilizer ivermectin and hydroxychloroquine, it is scary to think about the myriad ways they might increase mortality as energy declines, especially in a nuclear war.

• Book Review “conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean
• Fox news estranges millions of families and instills hate and fear in its cult members
• Book review of “White Trash. The 400-year untold history of class in America”
• Democracy in Chains
• The Death of Expertise: the campaign against established knowledge & why it matters”
• Why we need more women leaders
• Book review: How Democracies Die
• Battling the Inland Sea, the history of why & how the levee system was built in California’s delta
• Donald Trump: Sexual Predator,
• Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”
• Book review of “Deer Hunting with Jesus”
• 2016 Republican party platform: the most extreme ever
• The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2012: from moderate to extreme

Religion

• Where do we come from, who are we, and where are we going?
• Book review of “The Power Worshippers. Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism”
• How Christians were manipulated by Pat Robertson into becoming right-wing Republicans
• Fantasyland Part 1. How America Went Haywire. A 500-Year History.
• Fantasyland Part 2. How America Went Haywire. A 500-Year History.
• Fantasyland 3. History of increasing craziness of U.S. religion from 1517 to 1800
• Fantasyland 4. American churches go from crazy to insane and unhinged: 1800 to present
• Fantasyland 5. Why Americans are so prone to believing in conspiracies
• Fantasyland 6. New Age, alternative medicine, and supernatural madness
• Fantasyland 8. Religion the main factor in America’s descent into the darkness of superstition
• What percent of Americans are rational?

Pandemics

• Was the fall of the Roman Empire due to plagues & climate change?
• Think covid-19 is bad? The tuberculosis pandemic is still killing millions
• North Korea’s less-known military threat: Biological weapons

Transportation: EV, cars, airplanes, rail

• Why aren’t there battery powered airplanes or flying cars?
• MIT: Why the electric-car revolution may take a lot longer than expected
• Anyone who whines about airplanes should have to take the Oregon Trail