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Recent Posts
- 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”
- 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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Prime movers of human evolution
Preface. The human brain and culture evolved at an astonishing rate, making scientists wonder what conditions and ecological pressures drove it, why we became homo sapiens so quickly. This is a post that will grow over time as I find … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Evolution, Human Nature
Tagged agriculture, ashkenazi jews, bipedal, brain size, evolution, homo sapiens, human, neanderthal, prime mover
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Review of Lights out: the electricity crisis, the global economy, and what it means to you
Preface. My books and energyskeptic.com explain why the electric grid can’t stay up. This is a book review of Makansi’s “Lights out: the electricity crisis, the global economy, and what it means to you”. He explains why the grid is … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid, Energy Books
Tagged blackouts, electric grid, electricity, how it works, stability
1 Comment
Delay, Deny, Defend: Why insurance companies don’t pay claims
This is a post about disaster insurance, and our own nightmare experience in dealing with the insurance company after our house burned down in the 1991 Oakland California firestorm. Plus a book review of Feinman’s 2010 book “Delay, Deny, Defend: … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Insurance What to do
Tagged arkstorm, earthquake, hurricane, ina delong, insurance, united policyholders
1 Comment
California Governor Newsom goes furthest to soften collapse of any U.S. state
Preface. In September 2022, Governor Gavin Newsom passed 12 bills making abortion easier to obtain, and invites women from states where abortion is forbidden to come here.
Posted in Biodiversity, Overpopulation, Population
Tagged abortion, feminism, overpopulation, overshoot, women, women's rights
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Deforestation in the news
Preface. I wrote in “Life after fossil fuels” that as energy declined, it would be hard to cut down distant forests with limited oil supplies. I thought this because even in Britain, so denuded of trees people turned to filthy … Continue reading
Posted in Deforestation, Pollution, Wood
Tagged climate change, collapse, deforestion, global warming, mercury, wildfire, wood
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Review of “Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads”
Preface. This is a book review of Rundell’s “Vision or Mirage: Saudi Arabia at the Crossroads”. If this book is right, things have gotten a lot better in Saudi Arabia than when my other review on Saudi Arabia was written … Continue reading
Posted in Middle East, Peak Oil, Peak Resources, Threats to oil supply
Tagged Export Land Model, oil, saudi arabia, stability
1 Comment
Human sprawl and wildlife destruction: a book review of “Nature Wars”
Preface. This is a book review of Sterba’s “Nature Wars” and our interaction with wildlife as our insanely huge population growth wipes out nature.
Posted in Biodiversity, Natural History, Overpopulation
Tagged nature, overpopulation, sprawl, wildlife
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Can we grow enough food postcarbon? Irrigation needs water & electricity
Preface. Irrigated agriculture over 58 million acres consumes the largest share of U.S. water. And it’s shrinking as aquifers are drained, reservoirs evaporate, and drought reduces snowpack and rainfall at the same time population and the economy are growing. My … Continue reading
Posted in Interdependencies, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged agriculture, aquifer, electricity, irrigation
1 Comment
The myriad ways females play a role in evolution
Preface. This is a review of Cooke’s book “Bitch: On the female of the species”. I’ve been reading about evolution for a long time, but there was a great deal of new research on the role females play in evolution … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Feminism
Tagged anthropology, evolution, female, feminism, primatology
2 Comments