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Recent Posts
- 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?
- How to survive a nuclear winter
- The insect apocalypse will kill billions more people than climate change
- The war on drugs. A book review of “Chasing the scream”
- Peak crude oil did not happen in 2018. But we are running out of time
- Sheriffs have too much power
- Book review “They poisoned the world: Life & death in the age of Forever Chemicals”
- John Howe on one child per woman: still too high to stay under limits to growth curves
- Ted Trainer: The radical implications of a zero growth economy
- Part 5 Raven Rock. Hidey holes for government and military officials to carry on democracy after nuclear war destroys the planet
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Clean up nuclear waste for the sake of the next 30,000 generations
Preface. One the greatest tragedies of energy decline will be the nuclear waste left to harm 30,000 future generations so 3 generations could keep the lights on. We owe it to the future to clean up waste while we still … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Waste
Tagged borehole, Britain, disposal, Finland, nuclear, underground, waste
17 Comments
Dust Bowl 2.0 – they’re coming back!
Preface. Two forms of soil erosion may bring back the Great Depression Dustbowls. The first is that Great Plains grasslands have been replaced with corn crops to grow ethanol, which have increased the amount of dust 100% over the past … Continue reading
Posted in Soil
Tagged biocrust, climate change, corn, cryptobiotic soil, dust, dustbowl, ethanol, water
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Dennis Meadows of Limits to Growth: Collapse inevitable
Preface. Dennis Meadows is a co-author of The Limits to Growth. In 1972, the team of 66 scientists he assembled for the original Limits to Growth study concluded the most probable result will be a rather sudden and uncontrollable decline … Continue reading
Posted in Limits To Growth, Peak Oil History
Tagged aspo, dennis meadows, limits to growth, peak oil history
18 Comments
Peak oil, food & the “King of Chemicals” sulfuric acid
Preface. I first learned of sulfur’s existence when my grandmother told me how she loved going to tent revivals on the edge of town where it was common for preachers to get converts by burning sulfur to make the fire … Continue reading
Posted in Mining, Peak Fertilizer, Peak Food, Peak Oil, Peak Phosphorus, Starvation
Tagged peak food, peak oil, refineries, sulfur, sulfuric acid
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Hibernating freeze-thaw molten salt batteries for seasonal energy storage
Preface. A 100% renewable grid can’t happen without long-term energy storage. Today that’s done with natural gas (with a little help from hydropower in the 10 states that have most of it). Meanwhile nuclear and coal chug along at a … Continue reading
Most plastic isn’t recycled, burns in fires at recycling centers
Preface. Plastics are just one of 500,000 products made out of oil and gas, but very important to just about every aspect of society, from making vehicles lighter so go further using less energy, to clothes, food storage, bags, toothbrushes, … Continue reading
PFAS and other forever chemicals are an existential threat
Source: Byrd J (2022) What is PFAs in Drinking Water? Water filter Guru. Preface. PFAS are a class of about 15,000 chemicals often used to make products resistant to water, stains and heat. The compounds are ubiquitous, and linked at … Continue reading
Posted in 1) Decline, Chemical Pollution, Chemicals
Tagged Arlene Blum, BPA, flame retardant, forever chemicals, overshoot, PFA, PFAS
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The nine boundaries we must not cross or we may go extinct
Preface. This post has excerpts from the famous paper by Rockström et al (2009) as well as a more recent proposal by Running (2012) on an easier measure of how close we’re coming to rendering the planet uninhabitable. We have … Continue reading
Posted in Acidification, Biodiversity Loss, Chemical Pollution, Climate Change, Extinction, Planetary Boundaries, Pollution, Sea Level Rise, Water, World's Best Scientists
Tagged atmospheric aerosol loading, biogeochemical nitrogen cycle, biological diversity, boundaries, chemical pollution, climate change, Earth, extinction, global freshwater use, global warming, IPCC, land system change, ocean acidification, ozone hole, peak oil, phosphorus cycle, stratospheric ozone, sustainability
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Track congress: the bills and congressional members
Now that the right-wing authoritarians are getting dangerously powerful and in general the military, political, and economic systems are increasingly corrupt, govtrack.us is one way to see what Congress is up to, help you how to decide to vote in … Continue reading
Heinberg on how to avoid an energy crisis
Visualcapitalist (2022) Europe’s Energy Crisis. European gas prices have skyrocketed 8x higher than their 10-year average, throwing the continent into crisis. Preface. I sure hope that government leaders are reading Heinberg’s columns, since action needs to take place at a … Continue reading
Posted in Expert Advice, Government on what to do, Richard Heinberg
Tagged diesel, energy crisis, government, heinberg
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