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Recent Posts
- 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
- 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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe
Preface. These are updates to Ward & Brownlee’s book “Rare Earth: Why Complex life is Uncommon in the Universe”. If we are one of the few planets with intelligent life, what a shame it would be if we destroyed ourselves … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Human Nature, Planetary Boundaries, Wood
Tagged combustion, complex life, evolution, fermi paradox, intelligent life, photosynthesis, rare earth, Theia, venus, water
1 Comment
Book review of “Chip War” and the Fragility of microchips
Major semiconductor producing countries rely on each other for different types of chips. Top semiconductor producers’ 2021 export values by source and destination, billions USD. Source: PIIE 2022 https://www.piie.com/research/piie-charts/major-semiconductor-producing-countries-rely-each-other-different-types-chips Preface. We have become insanely dependent on technology that can’t possibly … Continue reading
Posted in Microchips and computers
Tagged china, computer chip, microchip, semiconductor, Taiwan
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The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital infrastructure
One minute on the internet around the world. Source Infographic by @LoriLewas and @officiallyChad, 2020. Preface. This is a book review of Pitron’s “The Dark Cloud”. Of note is the huge amount of electricity and rare earth and other critical … Continue reading
Posted in Microchips and computers, Mining
Tagged computer chips, data center, electric grid, electricity, internet
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Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
A map showing modelling by Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security showing the worst-case scenario effects of a strike on America’s nuclear missile silos. Researchers found as many as 300 million people would be at risk of a … Continue reading
Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Biodiversity, Nuclear War, War & Violence
Tagged nuclear war, nuclear weapons, war
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What percent of Americans are rational?
Preface. Why does rationality matter — what’s the harm in believing there’s a fat “Santa Claus” God in the sky noting down every time any intelligent creature in the entire universe is naughty or nice on the trillions of inhabited … Continue reading
Book review: Lights Out. A cyberattack. A nation unprepared. Surviving the aftermath
Preface. This is one of three posts based on Ted Koppel’s book Lights out: A Cyberattack, A Nation Unprepared, Surviving the Aftermath. There are three posts on Ted Koppel’s book “Lights out”: Book review of Lights Out. A Cyberattack. A … Continue reading
Posted in Cyber, Electric Grid & EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Energy Books
Tagged cyberattack, electric grid, EMP, Koppel, lights out, preparation
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Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
Preface. Move over semi-trucks. You are not the most important truck in the world, even though I gave you the starring role in “When Trucks Stop Running”. What really matters are the trucks that grow our fuel: Food. And mining … Continue reading
Book review of “Prime Movers of Globalization: the History & Impact of Diesel Engines & Gas Turbines”
Preface. This is my book review of Vaclav Smil’s “Prime Movers of Globalization”. A topic near and dear to my heart after working for the 5th largest shipping company, American President Lines (now Neptune Orient Lines), for 22 years and … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Books, Peak Resources, Rail, Roads, Transportation, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged diesel engines, microprocessor, ships, trucks
1 Comment
Mental Health. Coping with the future: notes from Jackson & Jensen’s “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”
Preface. Because I’d been reading non-fiction since college across every section in bookstores for decades before I stumbled on Peak oil in 2000 (full story in about), I understood the horror and tragedy of energy decline and was depressed for … Continue reading
Posted in Critical Thinking, Health What to do
Tagged denial, ecology, hope, jackson, jensen, optimism, population, rees
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Tesla Semi trucks hauling corn chips
Preface. Many dismiss my writing about why heavy-duty class 8 battery electric trucks can’t replace diesel trucks because there are class 8 electric trucks. Most famously the Tesla semi trucks, which are under a trial at the PepsiCo Frito-lay plant … Continue reading
Posted in Electric & Hydrogen trucks impossible, Trucks: Electric
Tagged electric trucks, frito lay, pepsi, SuperTruck, Tesla Semi, trucks
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