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Recent Posts
- 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?
- What would happen if trucks stopped running?
- How to survive a nuclear winter
- The insect apocalypse will kill billions more people than climate change
Author Archives: energyskeptic
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
The staggering cost of Net Zero in Britain
Preface. Below are excerpts from cost estimates for achieving net zero in Britain. The £7.6 trillion by 2050 leaves out the trillions required for the gobsmacking cost of massive transmission and energy storage systems to back up, store, and balance … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy
Tagged alternative energy, net zero, renewables
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Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
Venezuela has an incredibly high oil reserves-to-production ratio This is calculated b dividing proved oil reserves by its annual production. That tells us how many years proved reserves would last if production stayed constant, and no new reserves were discovered … Continue reading
Posted in How Much Left, Peak Oil
Tagged R/P ratio, reserves to production ratio
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Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
Preface. Below is a very short summary of a book written by the founding father of human ecology, William R Catton Jr called Bottleneck: Humanity’s impending Impass written in 2009. His first book in 1980, Overshoot, introduced basic concepts of … Continue reading
Posted in Collapse of Civilizations, Energy Books
Tagged bottleneck, catton, collapse, overshoot
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