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Recent Posts
- 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?
- What would happen if trucks stopped running?
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Book review of “Democracy in Chains”, the history of how extremist Republicans stealthily stole our Democracy
Preface. I can’t do justice to this book in a book review (so buy it), especially the history of how the right-wing libertarians came to be so powerful, their huge influence on congress, the judiciary, and laws enacted, and how … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Tagged democracy, koch brothers, libertarian, Republican
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Net Energy Cliff & the Collapse of Civilization
figure 1. The remaining oil is poor quality, and the energy to get this often remote oil so great that more and more energy (blue) goes into oil production itself, leaving far less — the grey area — available to … Continue reading
Giant oil field decline rates, peak oil, & reserves
Preface. Of the roughly 47,500 oil fields in the world, 507 of them, about 1%, are giant oil fields holding nearly two-thirds of all the oil that has ever been, or ever will be produced, with the largest 100 giants, … Continue reading
Posted in Flow Rate, How Much Left, Peak Oil
Tagged deline rates, depletion, giant oil fields, land, non-opec, offshore, OPEC, peak oil
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Book review of “Surveillance State”
Preface. China hopes to nip rebellion in the bud before a revolution takes place by excessive monitoring and then respond quickly with improvements to prevent one. And show the world their system is better than democracy. But then there is … Continue reading
How Christians were manipulated by Pat Robertson into becoming right-wing Republicans
This is a book review is of “The Gospel of self: How Jesus Joined the GOP.” It was written by an evangelical Christian for evangelical Christians to show them how he, as the senior producer of Pat Robertson’s “The 700 … Continue reading
Why large projects fail. Especially Renewable Energy
Megaprojects over $1 billion in order of likelihood to go over budget and timeline Preface. This is a book review of Flyvbjerg et al “How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from … Continue reading
Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Infrastructure Books, Interdependencies, Supply Chains
Tagged california electric rail, hydropower, infrastructure, nuclear, project failure
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Menhaden: the fish at the bottom of the ocean food web
Preface. Oil has allowed us to extract 90% of the fish in the ocean by being able to go to the ends of the earth using sonar and spotting planes to find the last schools. Menhaden have been overfished for … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiversity Loss, Fisheries, Jobs and Skills, Starvation
Tagged extinction, fisheries, menhaden, radioactive shellfish, starvation
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69 Reasons why wind turbines cannot replace fossil fuels
Source: Leonard, T. 2012. Broken down and rusting, is this the future of Britain’s ‘wind rush’? Preface Last updated 2025-5-13 The most important problem to be solved is electrifying transportation, otherwise how can you deliver the 30,000 parts of a … Continue reading
Colonization of Mars & The Moon: a book review of “A City On Mars”
Preface. There are so many difficulties to overcome to colonize Mars. If the astronauts can even survive the bombardment of radiation on the way there. Where would the energy come from? There is no flowing water for hydropower. Wind and … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Hopium, Human Nature, Planetary Boundaries, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged asteroids, astronauts, colonization, hopium, Mars, Moon, space
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