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Recent Posts
- 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
- 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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
How United Nations scientists are preparing for the end of capitalism
Preface. The article below was written by Nafeez Ahmed, who wrote one of my favorite books “Failing States, Collapsing Systems: BioPhysical Triggers of Political Violence“. Ahmed writes: “Most observers have no idea of the current biophysical realities – that the driving … Continue reading
Posted in Crash Coming Soon, Organizations
Tagged biophysical economics, captialism, collapse, EROI, Nafeez Ahmed, United Nations
3 Comments
Pedro Prieto: many solar panels won’t last 25-30 years, EROI may be negative
Preface. Pedro Prieto and Charles Hall wrote the definitive book on the EROI of solar power, “Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution. The Energy Return on Investment” and has built many commercial facilities himself and witnessed the failure of solar panels long before … Continue reading
Richard Heinberg: Our bonus decade
Preface. Because of the bonus oil and gas fracking brought us starting in 2005, Heinberg says “I’ve titled this essay “Our Bonus Decade” because the past ten years were an unexpected (by us peakists, anyway) extra—like a bonus added to … Continue reading
Saving fuel: making combat vehicles lighter
Preface. The military would like to lightweight equipment to save on fuel. Although Peak Oil isn’t mentioned, no other department of the U.S. government is more aware of future energy shortages, and the implications that has for their ability to … Continue reading
Posted in Military, Transportation
Tagged army, fuel, lightweight, tank
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Book review of Underbug: an obsessive tale of termites and technology
Preface. I read this book mainly to find out where “grassoline” stood. Scientists thought 10 years ago that we could recreate the termite biota system of digesting biomass to create biofuels. But this appears to be far in the future … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Wood
Tagged ethanol, grassoline, superorganism, termite
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Booklist: Natural history & Science, Evolution, Critical thinking, Health, Resource allocation, Climate change, Fire
Preface. My goal since college has been to read as much as I could across as many fields as possible for a Big Picture View and understand the world as it really is rather than how I’d like it to … Continue reading
Can Zinc batteries save the electric grid?
Preface: Right now, and as long as natural gas lasts, the electric grid will stay up since it is the main storage and way to balance unreliable wind and solar power. Hydropower can also play a major role in the … Continue reading
Posted in Batteries, Energy Storage, Lithium-ion
Tagged air, battery, lithium, reserves, zinc
1 Comment
Earthquakes in California could cost over $200 billion dollars
Preface. The figures below don’t do justice to the harm an earthquake would do. There is $1.9 trillion dollars of property at risk from earthquakes in the San Francisco Bay Area, where a catastrophic earthquake on the Hayward Fault would … Continue reading
Posted in Earthquakes, U.S. Congress Infrastructure
Tagged california, cost, earthquake, map
4 Comments
The U.S. Military on Peak Oil and Climate Change
Preface. Of all the branches of government, the military is the most realistic about the implications of Peak Oil and Climate Change. The Department of Defense is also the largest consumer of energy in the federal government, spending about $20 … Continue reading
From Horsepower to Horse Power. When Trucks stop, Horses start.
Preface. Before the industrial revolution there were only four sources of mechanical power of any economic significance. They were human labor, animal labor, water power (near flowing streams) and wind power. Work done by animals, especially on farms, was still … Continue reading