Preface. Most of what is in “Life After Fossil Fuels” is also posted here at energyskeptic (especially Peak Soil). And also in my other book “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation“. The advantage of books over the many posts here lies in connecting the dots and covering the huge amount of material that needs to be understood to understand the coming energy crisis, how it will affect us, and what to do about it.

Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy”, 2021, Springer; “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan Chips and Crackers”. Podcasts: Collapse Chronicles, Derrick Jensen, Practical Prepping, KunstlerCast 253, KunstlerCast278, Peak Prosperity , XX2 report

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Table of contents: Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy

 

1 Introduction

• The coming energy crisis
• Time’s a wastin’

2 We Are Running Out of Time

3 Wood World

• Forests and the rise and fall of civilizations
• Transportation in Wood world
• Land and forests restricted the size of cities
• Fossil World

4 We Are Alive Thanks to Fossil-fueled Fertilizer

• Natural gas fertilizer and population explosion from 1.6 to 7.8 billion people
• Fertilizer harms the land and atmosphere
• What could replace fertilizer? The dirt on dirt

5 Without Transportation, Civilization Ends

• Wood World horses are now fossil world diesel engines and gas turbine machines
• When trucks stop running
• Since diesel is finite, we need to replace it with Something Else

6 What Fuels Could Replace Diesel?

• Wanted: A renewable commercial fuel for existing engines and infrastructure
• Non-renewable commercial liquefied coal
• Non-renewable compressed natural gas or liquefied natural gas
• Peak natural gas in the U.S.
• Non-renewable non-commercial exploding hydrogen
• Ammonia and Power-to-gas (P2G)
• Non-commercial oil shale
• Renewable and commercial biodiesel

7 Why Not Electrify Commercial Transportation with Batteries?

• When it comes to diesel, electric cars are irrelevant
• The heavy lift to improve transportation batteries
• Batteries have a weight problem
• Fast charging
• But what about the Tesla semi-truck?
• Off-road trucks are off-the-grid

8 Catenary Electric Trucks Running on Overhead Wires

• Will it work?
• A catenary system would cost a truckload of money
• Dual propulsion doubles to triples the cost

9 Manufacturing Uses Over Half of All Fossil Energy

• Industrial fossil-fueled high heat makes cement, steel, roads, bridges, dams, and buildings
• Renewable high heat must be reliable
• There is no way to store high heat
• Electrifying manufacturing
• Manufacturers have to move next to a thermal heat source if it can’t be stored
• Hydrogen
• Power2gas aka power-to-methane
• That leaves biomass, once again, as our post-carbon savior

10 What Alternatives Can Replace Fossil-fueled Electricity Generation

• Power Players: Job applicants to replace fossil-fuel generated electricity
• That leaves photovoltaic solar and onshore wind to save the day
• Wind turbines and solar panels are RE-BUILDABLE, not RENEWABLE
• There’s not time, energy, or materials to make so many rebuildable contraptions
• Biomass electric power

11 Energy Storage: Excess Electricity from Solar and Wind Must Be Stored

• A national grid
• Seasonal energy storage
• Pumped hydro storage
• Energy storage with electrochemical batteries
• Underground compressed air energy storage (CAES) gas turbines
• Concentrated solar power (CSP) with thermal energy storage
• Thermal energy storage
• Biomass energy storage

12 Half a Million Products Are Made out of Fossil Fuels

• Seeking 500 million tons a year of something that can replace fossil fuel products
• Biomass chemicals and plastics
• Recycling and burning

13 And the Renewable Winner Is…

14 Scale: How Much Biomass is Required to Replace Fossil Fuels?

15 Grow More Biomass: Where’s the Land?

• Where’s the crop land?
• Much of earth’s land is degraded or unavailable
• Let’s grow food and biofuels on other nation’s land
• Food production shows signs of peaking
• Genetically engineer plants to grow faster, get larger
• Post-harvest food loss
• The cool-chain will be far more local
• Conclusion: Too little land, too many people

16 The Ground is Disappearing Beneath Our Feet

• Why is soil erosion happening much faster now than in the past?

17 Grow More Biomass: Phosphorus Fertilizer

• Phosphorus is hard to come by
• Phosphorus runoff can harm ecosystems

18 Grow More Biomass: Climate Change

• Tipping points
• Drought and Heat
• Floods and wind
• Forecasts call for more pests, more weeds
• Climate change effects on California agriculture

19 Grow More Biomass: Dwindling Groundwater

• Corn and soybeans can drink other crops under the table

20 Grow More Biomass: Vertical and Rooftop Farms

• Vertical farms in buildings
• Rooftop gardens

21 Grow More Biomass: Pesticides

• Pesticides, like antibiotics, are running out
• Before and after pesticides
• It’s a war out there

22 Ethanol and Energy Return on Investment (EROI)

• Why is ethanol EROI so low?
• The main difference between a negative and positive EROI is byproduct
• Falling over the burrito energy cliff

23 Corn and Soy Are Supervillains

• Food versus fuel
• Too many pesticides
• Corn and soy already take up half of U.S. cropland
• Corn and soy cause the most soil erosion
• Corn and soybeans are water hogs (sorry pigs)
• More fertilizer, more dead zones
• Industrial farming is great for jellyfish
• Somebody send the Bat Signal!

24 Corn Ethanol. Why?

• What is the point of making ethanol?
• Greenhouse gas emissions?
• E15 increases the damage by 50%
• Transportation of ethanol from Midwest to coasts a waste of diesel energy
• Ethanol raises food prices and harms people and businesses
• Ethanol was mandated to enrich the wealthiest companies and farmers in the Midwest

25 Biodiesel from Algae

• Where’s the flat 1200-acre land for ponds?
• Where’s the water?
• Carbon dioxide problems coming and going
• Microscopic algae are as voracious as food crops
• Where’s the energy?
• Sorry to let the air out of your balloon
• Protect algae from crashes by sheltering them in photobioreactors
• Algae may be green, but they’re not clean

26 Fill ‘er up with seaweed

• Too low-fat for biodiesel

27 The Problems with Cellulosic Ethanol Could Drive You to Drink

• What plants is ethanol made from in the U.S.?
• Why is cellulosic ethanol so hard to make?
• EROI of cellulosic ethanol
• Another reason for negative EROI: Plant residues are fluffy
• Energy grass crops are no better than food crops
• Where is the land to grow energy crops?

28 Biodiesel to Keep Trucks Running

• Scale
• Biodiesel requires a lot of water
• Bad chemistry
• A barrel of crude oil is only 10-15% diesel

29 Can We Eat Enough French Fries?

30 Combustion: Burn Baby Burn

• Burning biomass is dirtier than coal
• California biomass electricity generation
• Wood from burned forests to generate electricity
• Biomass fire and explosion hazards
• Economic and energy costs (EROI)

31 Wood and Coal Steam Engines Started the Industrial Revolution

• Steam engines won wars
• Noisy, complex, and lots of maintenance
• Wood is less energy dense than coal or oil
• Enormous amounts of fuel and water were needed
• Energy efficiency & EROI
• Deforestation
• Boiler explosions
• Steam power will come back to replace muscle power
• Energy slaves
• Steam engines were the first form of energy able to reproduce itself
• Horses will be recalled from the pasture

32 Wood Gas Generators

• North Korea shows the way

33 Conclusion: Do You Want to Eat, Drink, or Drive?