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Recent Posts
- 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
- 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”
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Environmental effects of nuclear winter
Preface. This post is a summary of what I thought interesting and important from this 2025 National Academy of Sciences report “Potential environmental effects of nuclear war.” Unlike other nuclear winter papers reviewed in energyskeptic, the National Academy does not … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear Winter, War Books
Tagged existential threat, HALEU, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, nuclear winter, polycrisis
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Book review “Women, armies, & warfare in early modern Europe”
Preface. Ever since I read that women were the pack mules in Alexander the Greats army, carrying all the food and camp gear while their men only carried a sword, I’ve wondered about the role of women in armies. Very little has … Continue reading
Posted in Jobs and Skills, Military, guns, War Books
Tagged Europe, plunder, war, warfare, women
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Taking the Red Pill: How right-wing meme wars are ending Democracy
Preface. Trump was elected not only by the Christian evangelicals, but also by a large number of Hate Groups, who briefly came together at a “Unite the Right” (UTR) rally. Many are one or more of racist, white nationalist, misogynist, … Continue reading
Posted in Political Books, Politics
Tagged January 6, meme wars, misogyny, nationalist, Republican, right wing, Trump
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The growth of incarceration in the U.S. Causes and consequences. National Research Council 2014
Preface. This National Research Council 465-page report may be the most comprehensive study of the U.S. prison system there is. It will make you cry. I’ve excerpted about one-sixth of it below. It is shocking that the “U.S. penal population … Continue reading
Posted in Advice, Drug wars and the prison system, Energy Policy & Politicians, Politics
Tagged jail, prisons, reform
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Eat, Poop, Die. How animals affect the world
Preface. Here are some excerpts from “Eat, Poop, Die” about how animals affect the world. Whales, salmon, hippos, bison, wildebeest, birds and more play key roles. Whales and other sea creatures play a key role in carbon capture and sequestration. … Continue reading
Natural Gas & Coal essential for energy storage
Preface. The U.S. Department of energy has stated a renewable grid is not possible without long-duration energy storage (Colthorpe 2022). Another report explains why around-the-clock renewables and decarbonization will not be possible without it (McKinsey 2022). This post explains why … Continue reading
When will gold production peak?
Figure 1. Mine production of gold worldwide from 2010 to 2024 (in metric tons). Source: USGS – Mineral Commodity Summaries 2025, page 83 Preface. Ores are decreasing in gold concentrations, and found in deeper and more remote places, requiring more … Continue reading
Posted in Mining, Peak Precious Elements
Tagged peak gold
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Palm Oil biofuels destroy rain forests
Preface. This is a book review of “Planet Palm: How Palm Oil Ended Up in Everything-and Endangered the World.” I am mainly interested in the use of palm oil for biofuels, but it also harms health, which much of the … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Biofuels, CO2 and Methane
Tagged biofuel, oil, palm, rainforests, renewable diesel
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Why carbon capture contraptions are absurd
Preface. At the first USA peak oil conference in Denver (ASPO 2005), many of the attendees speculated renewable energy would be the last chance for Wall Street to make money from government subsidies and “dumb money” investors before limits to … Continue reading
Posted in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), CO2 and Methane
Tagged capture, Carbon, CCS, CCUS, CO2, DAC, Direct Air Capture, Sekera, sequestration
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