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- 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
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
- Homes & Buildings
Author Archives: energyskeptic
The orbiting solar power fantasy
Preface. This 2020 article “Solar Power Beamed Down To Earth From Space Moves Forward” will leave you all warm, fuzzy, and unworried about the future. The Scientists Will Come Up With Something. But that’s because you know little to nothing … Continue reading
Population explosion to destroy 11% of remaining ecosystems and biodiversity
Preface. According to a recent paper in Nature Sustainability (Williams et al 2020), we are on the verge of destroying 11% of earth’s remaining ecosystems by 2050 to grow more food. We already are using 75% of Earth’s land. What … Continue reading
Posted in Chemicals, Deforestation, Food production, Overpopulation
Tagged agriculture, birth control, climate change
4 Comments
Negative energy return of solar PV in Northern Europe
Preface. I once yanked this paper after huge blow back, almost as bad as nuclear proponents, but in the past few years, I have no reason to doubt Ferroni and Hopkirks methods, boundaries, or conclusions, so I’m putting this post … Continue reading
Posted in Photovoltaic Solar, Solar EROI
Tagged energy return, EROEI, photovoltaic, solar
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Government plans to reduce dependency on fossil fuels won’t work
Preface. Yikes! These government plans from 2009 won’t help the energy crisis much! I do like these ideas though: Get Yucca mountain ready to take nuclear waste. We need to sequester nuclear wastes while there is still energy to do … Continue reading
Why we aren’t mining methane hydrates now — or perhaps ever
Preface. Methane hydrates are far from being commercial, and probably always will be. Scientists and companies have been trying to exploit them since the first energy crisis in 1973 to no avail. Nor are they likely to trigger a runaway … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Global Warming, Methane Hydrates
Tagged clathrate, climate change, gas hydrate, global warming, greenhouse, hothouse, methane apocalypse, methane hydrate
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Book Review of Richard Heinberg’s 2011 “The End of Growth”
Preface. This is not a book review really, it’s more a few of my kindle notes. Heinberg writes so well, so clearly, that I am sure history will remember him as the most profound and wide-ranging expert on energy and … Continue reading
Posted in Richard Heinberg
Tagged heinberg, limits to growth, peak oil
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U.S. Army new jobs: quell social unrest from climate change, help get arctic oil
Preface. Of all the branches of government, the military is the most on top of climate change, peak oil, pandemics, power grid failure, and other disasters. I guess that shouldn’t be surprising, it’s their job to defend the U.S. against … Continue reading
Posted in Military
Tagged arctic oil, army, climate change, military, pandemic
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Reforestation for the return to biomass after fossil fuels
Preface. Below are excerpts from a New York Times article about forests. My book “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy” explains why the myriad ways we use fossil fuels can’t be electrified (or hydrogenized or anything … Continue reading
Posted in Deforestation
Tagged biomass, Reforest
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The History of Drunkenness
Preface. This is a book review of “A short history of Drunkenness” by Mark Forsyth. I expect alcohol to be a big part of life postcarbon not only because most cultures have embraced alcohol, but to drown the sorrows and … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Agriculture, Human Nature
Tagged Alchohol, drunkenness, religion
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Pentagon report: collapse within 20 years from climate change
Preface. The report that the article by Ahmed below is based on is: Brosig, M., et al. 2019. Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army. United States Army War College. It was written in 2019, before covid-19 and so … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Blackouts, Climate Change, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Military, Over Oil
Tagged climate change, collapse, military
2 Comments