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Recent Posts
- The history of rope making
- What will future societies be like after fossil fuels are gone?
- Phosphate: All hopes for food and LFP batteries rest on Morocco with up to 85% of remaining reserves
- Floating Solar Farms add plastic, metal, PFAS & cut off light and oxygen to life below
- Peak Lithium
- Trump eliminates birth control abroad
- 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
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
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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