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Recent Posts
- Trump eliminates birth control abroad
- In a world without people, how long would NYC last?
- Network States to replace democratic governments with billionaire Silicon Valley CEO dictators & Republicans
- Why the kerogen in oil shale will never fill up your tank
- ‘The oil we eat’. Following the food chain back to iraq
- Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America
- Admiral Rickover 1957: Energy Resources & Our Future
- The Green New Deal is not a solution for the real problem: Overshoot
- A transition from fossil fuels to renewables could take a century – if it ever happens
- Electrifying freight trains in the U.S. is a bad idea
- Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels
- 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”
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Kurt Cobb Cheap oil, complexity and counter-intuitive conclusions
Kurt Cobb. March 22, 2015. Cheap oil, complexity and counterintuitive conclusions. Resource Insights. It is a staple of oil industry apologists to say that the recent swift decline in the price of oil is indicative of long-term abundance. This … Continue reading
Posted in Inflation or Deflation, Kurt Cobb
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All About Coal
Preface. Below are my notes, statistics, and so on about coal from many publications. Way more fun to look at and understand the coal used to make steel (a different kind is used to generate electricity) is this site: 2022 … Continue reading
Posted in Coal
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Richard Heinberg: Only less will do
Richard Heinberg. March 16, 2015. Only Less Will Do. Post Carbon Institute. [portions of this article were cut, reworded, and rearranged] Almost nobody likes to hear about the role of scale in our global environmental crisis, because if growth is … Continue reading
Hydropower has a very low energy density
To store the energy contained in 1 gallon of gasoline requires over 55,000 gallons to be pumped up 726 feet (CCST 2012). As a thought experiment look at what it would take generate all of America’s 4,058 TWh electricity, where … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Storage, Hydropower, Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS)
Tagged electric, energy density, hydropower, PHS, pumped hydro
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Gail Tverberg The oil glut and low prices reflect an affordability problem
Tverberg, G. March 9, 2015. The oil glut and low prices reflect an affordability problem. ourfiniteworld.com For a long time, there has been a belief that the decline in oil supply will come by way of high oil prices. Demand … Continue reading
Posted in By People, Debt, Gail Tverberg, Inflation or Deflation
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Jared Diamond Why Societies Collapse
[ Whoops, Diamond left out peak oil: Book review of “In order to live: A North Korean girl’s journey to freedom” by Yeonmi Park Inside North Korea’s Environmental Collapse Who Lives, Who dies in a never-ending energy crisis. Book review … Continue reading
Posted in Collapsed & collapsing nations, Other Experts
Tagged collapse, Jared Diamond, why
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The Empire of the United States, Roman Empire, War, etc.
[Several articles and comments from energy groups follow] Steven Strauss. December 31, 2012. 8 Striking Parallels Between the U.S. and the Roman Empire. Is our republic coming to an unceremonious end? History may not be on America’s side. Lawrence Lessig’s … Continue reading
Posted in Roman Empire
Tagged collapse, roman empire, united states
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CSP Barriers and Obstacles
Location must be in the desert Southwest Unlike solar PV, CSP can’t cope with humidity or cloud cover, so it is limited to the southwest were the solar irradiation is high and there is no dust, haze, or smog. Solar … Continue reading
Posted in CSP with thermal energy storage
Tagged concentrated solar power, cost, CSP, land, location, water
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Concentrated Solar Power: Water Constraints
“Concentrating solar power plants that use wet cooling could significantly increase water demand, consuming up to twice as much water per unit of electricity produced as traditional fossil fuel power plants. Concerns with concentrating solar power plants are particularly acute … Continue reading
Posted in Concentrated Solar Power
Tagged CSP, thermal storage, water use
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Concentrated Solar Power: location, location, location
Location, Location, Location: What follows is from: SBC. June 2013. Concentrating Solar Power. SBC Energy Institute. The best sites are between 10° and 40°, South or North. As you can see in the chart below, this makes a huge difference, … Continue reading
Posted in Concentrated Solar Power
Tagged concentrated solar power, CSP, DNI, irradience, solar thermal
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