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Recent Posts
- ‘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
- 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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
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 Agriculture, Mining
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 is not recycled
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 Chemical Pollution, Chemicals, Polycrisis
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, 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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Hydrogen hopium: Storage
Source: Russel Rhodes (2011) Explosive Lessons in Hydrogen Safety. https://appel.nasa.gov/2011/02/02/explosive-lessons-in-hydrogen-safety/ Preface. What is hopium? Irrational or unwarranted optimism. An addiction to false hopes. A metaphorical substance that causes people to believe in a false hope (H + opium). And Hopium … Continue reading
Posted in CAES Compressed Air, Drought & Collapse, Electric & Hydrogen trucks impossible, Hopium, Hydrogen, Trucks
Tagged CAES, drought, embrittlement, explosive, hopium, hydrogen, salt dome, storage
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Hydrogen hopium: green hydrogen from water
Additional energy consuming steps not shown: pumping water to the electrolyzer, purifying the water, compressing or liquefying to -423 F, pumping into storage container, the trucks to deliver H to stations costing $75 million each, since pipelines are super expensive … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Production, Hopium, Hydrogen, Peak Water
Tagged electrolyzer, energy storage, hopium, hydrogen, utah, water
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The French Energy Sobriety Plan
Preface. Below is the announcement of the French Energy Sobriety Plan by Prime Minister Borne. The energy crisis is coming to all nations, and we should all be implementing their action plan (and family planning, birth control, abortion, limited immigration). … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Policy & Politicians, Government on what to do, Oil Shocks
Tagged energy conservation, energy sobriety plan, France, Russia, Ukraine, what to do
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