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Recent Posts
- Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
- Why fusion power is Forever Away
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
- Homes & Buildings
- Book Review “The Outlawed Ocean” by Ian Urbina
- Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
- 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?
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
Preface. This is a very long post with summaries of two GAO reports on interdependencies of energy, water, and climate change from 2014 and 2012, which are still true today. While cheap and plentiful oil remains, these problems can be … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Energy Infrastructure, Energy Production, GAO Government Accountability Office, Interdependencies
Tagged climate change, energy, infrastructure, interdependency
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Why fusion power is Forever Away
Preface. When my husband Jeffery Kahn was a science writer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, astrophysicists told him fusion was 30 years away and always would be. ITER was supposed to be ready in 2016, but the completion date for … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy, Fusion
Tagged corrosion, electricity, fusion, ITER, plasma, power
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Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
Preface. Almost all environmental stories in the media are about greenhouse gases. Yet there are dozens of others in the meta/polycrisis and existential boundaries (Rockström 2009). Overpopulation is the driver, but the severity and magnitude is made possible by fossil … Continue reading
Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
Preface. This is an excerpt from Philippe Le Billon’s (editor) anthology “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars.” The coming energy crisis and climate change are likely to trigger resource wars as nations sink into starvation and poverty. Indeed, this is already … Continue reading
Posted in War Books, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged resource war, war
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Homes & Buildings
Preface. To prepare for the day when there is no natural gas, oil, or coal to heat homes and buildings, the best possible way to prepare for the future and lessen suffering would be retrofitting homes to use less energy … Continue reading
Posted in Conserve Energy
Tagged buildings, cooking box, homes, insulation, retrofit
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Book Review “The Outlawed Ocean” by Ian Urbina
Preface. This is a book review of Urbina’s “The Outlaw Ocean: Journeys Across the Last Untamed Frontier.” So many fishermen are enslaved for years, yet another reason to pay more for local fish at higher prices. Globally, so many fish … Continue reading
Posted in Fisheries, Fishery destruction, Natural History, Peak Food
Tagged fishery, peak fish, peak food, piracy, slavery
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Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
Preface. This is another “Scientists Warnings to Humanity” by many famous scientists, including Paul & Anne Erlich, John Harte, Peter Raven, and Mathis Wackernagel. Some of the challenges they point to are loss of biodiversity and consequent 6th mass extinction, … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Extinction, Overshoot, Scientists, Scientists Warnings to Humanity
Tagged biodiversity, overpopulation
5 Comments
Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
Preface. The wood world of the future simply won’t have the energy and minerals required to make electronic devices and the precision machine tools to make them. Once diesel fuel starts to decline, all supply chains will be affected. There … Continue reading
Posted in Microchips and computers
Tagged computer, computer chip, high-tech, motherboard
3 Comments
“More and More and More” one of the best books on energy ever written
Preface. This is about Jean-Baptiste Fressoz’s book “More and More and More”, an amazing history of energy and explanation of why there never has been an energy transition or will be. We just keep burning more and more and more … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Books, Interdependencies
Tagged coal, Fressoz, history of energy, More and More and more, natural gas, oil, wood
1 Comment
The staggering destruction of knowledge by Christians in the Roman Empire
Preface. Ever since reading Gibbons “The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire” I’ve been fascinated by the complexity of reasons for why the Roman Empire fell. But so many books and writings were lost that much remains unknown. Mainly … Continue reading
Posted in Preservation of Knowledge, Roman Empire
Tagged book burning, Christianity, collapse, preservation of knowledge, roman empire
1 Comment