Author Archives: energyskeptic

Battery Energy storage batteries (BESS) too complex to ever be commercial

Posted on November 5, 2024 by

Source: RWE connects its first utility-scale battery storage project to the California grid Preface.  In 2024 if all of the BESS battery storage time were added up, they could store 8 of the 8,760 hours of annual electricity generated in … Continue reading →

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New war and energy alliances over next resource wars

Posted on October 29, 2024 by

Preface. My greatest fear is nuclear war over the remaining resources on earth, since that has the potential of driving us extinct.  I don’t believe there are enough fossil fuels left to do that via climate change because world conventional … Continue reading →

Posted in Middle East, Over Oil | Tagged , , , | 6 Comments

Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”

Posted on October 25, 2024 by

Preface.  Wolff’s book continues the mordant humor of Fire & Fury.  His books are the best, by far, of the dozens I’ve read about the Trump Administration.  There will never be any books as insightful because Wolff was given unprecedented … Continue reading →

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Why do people vote for Trump?

Posted on October 18, 2024 by

Preface. Before the election, it was widely known that Trump was a gangster who bragged about grabbing women’s asses, lied over 30,000 times during his term, went bankrupt 4 times, and much more. So how could people have voted for … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Thinking, Politics | Tagged , , | 5 Comments

Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”

Posted on October 15, 2024 by

Preface.  This is a book review of “Pandemic Politics” about the myriad ways Trump mishandled the covid-19 pandemic. With the 2024 election coming up, it is a good time to remember how spectacularly Trump failed in managing covid-19. In 2016 … Continue reading →

Posted in Pandemics, Political Books, Politics | Tagged , , , , | 2 Comments

The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism

Posted on October 12, 2024 by

Preface (long). Over time the planks grew more and more religious, stopped mentioning voting rights in 1980 as well as a war on regulations, stopped supporting the equal rights for women, could care less about abortion to being against it … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Thinking and Scientific Literacy, Politics, Religion | Tagged , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Why some people are conservative and others liberal

Posted on October 10, 2024 by

Preface. A book review of: Garcia, H. 2019. Sex, Power, and Partisanship. How evolutionary science makes sense of our political divide. Although Chris Mooney’s book “The Republican Brain” was brilliant, it didn’t address that politics must surely go back to … Continue reading →

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Book review: Bring the War Home: The white power movement & paramilitary America

Posted on October 7, 2024 by

Preface.  This is a book review of Belew’s “Bring the war home: The white power movement and paramilitary America”. In hard times in the future, racist white republican groups, many who were or are in the military, could make regions … Continue reading →

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Book review: How Democracies Die

Posted on October 4, 2024 by

Preface.  This is a book review with excerpts from the first half of “How Democracies Die” by Steven Levitsky and Daniel Ziblatt. A few main points: We tend to think of democracies dying at the hands of men with guns. … Continue reading →

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Book Review “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean

Posted on September 29, 2024 by

Preface. This is a book review of “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean. It is the best book I’ve read in explaining the history of conservatism and leaders like Newt Gingrich on the increasing authoritarianism of Republicans, It also explains … Continue reading →

Posted in Critical Thinking, Human Nature, Pat Robertson, Political Books, Politics | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment