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- How concrete damages the planet by TC Fishman
- The history of rope making
- What will future societies be like after fossil fuels are gone?
- Phosphate: All hopes for food and LFP batteries rest on Morocco with up to 85% of remaining reserves
- Floating Solar Farms add plastic, metal, PFAS & cut off light and oxygen to life below
- Peak Lithium
- 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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
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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Short-circuiting a solar boom in Japan
Spain is still feeling the painful effects of the costs of overbuilt solar PV, and now Japan is finding itself in the same position. This article does a lousy job of explaining that the grid must be in exact supply … Continue reading
Posted in Distributed Generation, Grid instability, Photovoltaic Solar, Renewable Integration
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Tuberculosis
The fear is that a fast-spreading, anti-biotic resistant strain will spread via mutation or bioterrorism. The World Health Organization (WHO) estimates that two billion people — one third of the world’s population — are infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis. 25 January … Continue reading
Posted in Pandemics
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Syrian conflict due to climate change drought
Fountain, H. March 2, 2015. Researchers Link Syrian Conflict to a Drought Made Worse by Climate Change. New York Times. Drawing one of the strongest links yet between global warming and human conflict, researchers said Monday that an extreme drought … Continue reading
Posted in Drought, Drought & Collapse, Syria
Tagged Africa, climate change, collapse, drought, Syria
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Charles A. S. Hall Conventional oil peak was 2005
The global production of conventional oil began to decline in 2005, and has followed a path over the last 11 years very close to our scenarios assuming low estimates of extractable ultimate resource (1.9 Gbbl) John L. Hallock Jr., Wei … Continue reading
Posted in Charles A. S. Hall, Peak Oil
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Charles A. S. Hall “EROI of different fuels and the implications for society”
Charles A.S. Hall, Jessica G. Lambert, Stephen B. Balogh. 2014. EROI of different fuels and the implications for society. Energy Policy 64: 141-152. Highlights: For nations examined, the EROI for oil and gas has declined during recent decades. Lower EROI … Continue reading
Posted in Charles A. S. Hall
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Wind turbines hit limits to growth before 50% wind power penetration
Material requirements of 50% wind power in the USA hit limits to growth Also see: Davidsson, S., et al. 2014. Growth curves and sustained commissioning modelling of renewable energy Investigating resource constraints for wind energy. Energy Policy. Fizaine, F., et … Continue reading
Posted in Electrification, Limits To Growth, Renewable Integration, Wind
Tagged cement, concrete, copper, dysprosium, expoxy, fiberglass, iron, limits to growth, neodymium, steel, turbines, wind
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Wind’s dirty secret: it goes on vacation in the summer and year-round in the South East
Figure 1. Summer wind across the USA is barely to not economically viable Class 3 (light blue), or not at all economically viable Class 2 (orange) and class 1 (blank) (NREL), with very limited darker blue (class 4) and … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid & EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Electrification, Seasonal, Wind
Tagged monthly, seasonal, wind resource maps, wind speed
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Wind power capacity value — effective load carrying capability (ELCC)
NREL. 2008. Determining the Capacity Value of Wind: An Updated Survey of Methods and Implementation. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Electric systems must have sufficient reserves so that resources are adequate to meet customer demand. Because electricity demand cannot be known … Continue reading