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Recent Posts
- 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
- “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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Nuclear waste will last a lot longer than climate change
Preface. One of the most tragic aspects of peak oil is that it is very unlikely once energy descent begins that oil will be expended to clean up our nuclear mess. No one wants the spent fuel! New Mexico is … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Waste, Planetary Boundaries
Tagged climate change, decommissioning, nuclear waste
3 Comments
Half of U.S. Coal runs out in 30 years, not 250
Preface. The USGS did a survey of coal in the U.S. in 1974 and announced that America had 250 years of coal left. In 2007, the National Research Council wrote a report suggesting 100 years was more likely due to … Continue reading
Were other humans the first victims of the 6th mass extinction?
Preface. This article makes a good case that we did indeed wipe out other hominids. “…Yet the extinction of Neanderthals, at least, took a long time—thousands of years. While Neanderthals lost the war, to hold on so long they must … Continue reading
Posted in Human Nature
Tagged extinction, human nature
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Movie review of Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”
Preface. This documentary was made by Jeff Gibbs, a writer and environmentalist, with Michael Moore as the executive producer. This movie is worth watching, and an entertaining and quick way to understand why rebuildable “renewables” are neither green or a … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Coal, Natural Gas, Solar, Wind
Tagged green power, Michael Moore, Planet of the Humans, renewables, solar, wind
15 Comments
How sand transformed civilization
Preface. No wonder we’re reaching peak sand. We use more of this natural resource than of any other except water. Civilization consumes nearly 50 billion tons of sand & gravel a year, enough to build a concrete wall 88 feet … Continue reading
Posted in Concrete, Peak Sand
Tagged civilization, peak sand, sand
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Far out power #1: human fat, playgrounds, solar wind towers, perpetual motion, thermal depolymerization
Preface. Plans for hydrogen, wind, solar, wave and all the other re-buildable contraptions that use fossil fuels in every single step of their short 15-25 year life cycle and hence are non-renewable, are just as silly as the ideas below, … Continue reading
How a pandemic or bioweapon could take civilization down
Preface. I just listened to a 3.5 hour podcast on pandemics and bioweapons with the best up-to-date coverage I know of, and more interesting to listen to than reading a book or article. Just one of many scary problems: synthetic … Continue reading
Posted in Biowarfare, Infrastructure, Interdependencies, Pandemic
Tagged biowarfare, bioweapon, collapse, CRISPR, interdependency, pandemic, synthetic biology
3 Comments
Fall of Indus valley & Akkadian civilizations from climate change
Preface. Any civilization or region that survives energy decline must then survive climate change for many centuries. As far as the wind systems that collapsed the Akkadian empire, it’s already happening: “Greenhouse gases are increasingly disrupting the jet stream, a … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Collapsed & collapsing nations
Tagged climate change, collapse
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Nuclear Power problems
Preface. There are half a dozen articles below. Although safety and disposal of nuclear waste ought to be the main reasons why no more plants should be built, what actually stops them today are the high costs: it can take … Continue reading
Fossil-fueled industrial heat hard to impossible to replace with renewables
Preface. Cement, steel, glass, bricks, ceramics, chemicals, and much more depend on fossil-fueled high heat (up to 3200 F) to make. Except for the electric-arc furnace to recycle existing steel, there aren’t any renewable ways to make cement, other metals, … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat
Tagged electricity, heat, hydrogen, manufacturing
2 Comments