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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
Will California’s high-speed rail go off the tracks?
Preface. Way down below is the original post, a 2014 U.S. House hearing I summarized that revealed so many flaws with the California high-speed rail project I was sure funding would end. It is so bad, so flawed, that in … Continue reading
Why do leaders deny peak oil and climate change?
Preface. It’s strange that we’re on the cusp of Peak Oil, and yet the only existential threat you ever hear about is Climate Change. The New York Times has mentioned climate change over 15,000 times the past 5 years, and … Continue reading
Posted in Politics
Tagged climate change denial, limits to growth, optimism, peak oil, Republican, why denial
6 Comments
Vaclav Smil on why there will be no energy transition
Preface. This post has excerpts from energy expert Vaclav Smil‘s 2024 free paper “Halfway between Kyoto and 2050“. Smil’s book is free, here. Below is a shortened, reworded article from Scientific American in 2014 written by Smil on this topic … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy Books, Mining, Vaclav Smil
Tagged carbon capture, climate change, coal, energy transition, natural gas, oil, wind
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Republicans Brains are wired to deny science & reality
Preface. This is my book review of Chris Mooney’s 2012 “The Republican Brain. The Science of Why They Deny Science—and Reality”. This has grown from a review of this book (far below) to more recent science and writing on the … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Human Nature
Tagged bias, brain, conservative, curiosity, open to experience, Republican
7 Comments
Egads! An unfair distribution of wealth is good for the climate
Preface. Good grief!!! I never thought I would write a post with that title. I am pro Democracy, pro fair distribution of wealth! As you can see at posts here. But it has occurred to me that if if everyone … Continue reading
Posted in Distribution of Wealth, Overshoot, Poverty, Social Disorder
Tagged consumption, energy, manufacturing
5 Comments
Book review of 2024 Scheyder “The War Below”
Preface. This post has excerpts from Scheyder’s 2024 “The War Below” about the metals and minerals renewables will need – over 6 times more than fossil fueled internal combustion vehicles, natural gas and coal plants, and nuclear power (IEA 2021). … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Books, Mining
Tagged antimony, cobalt, copper, lithium, mining, rare earth, tailings dams
1 Comment
Summary of Greenpeace “Nuclear Reactor Hazards”
Source: Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive. Say no to new nukes. Preface. This is a summary of: Hirsch H (2005) Nuclear Reactor Hazards Ongoing Dangers of Operating Nuclear Technology in the 21st Century. Greenpeace International. The revival of … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Nuclear Books, Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear spent fuel fire
Tagged accident, aging, hazard, nuclear
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Richard Heinberg: Environmental-Political Collapse Accelerates
Preface. Another wise post with great insights and predictions about where we are today from Richard Heinberg, the foremost scholar of Peak oil, overshoot, ecology, and more. Some excerpts: “…A basic understanding of overshoot reveals that our modern industrial way … Continue reading
Posted in Caused by Scarce Resources, Politics, Richard Heinberg
Tagged Authoritarian, collapse, democracy, heinberg, overshoot
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Peak Helium
Preface. Attention all you capitalists who think we can grow forever on a finite planet. Stuff can run out! Helium is the only element on earth that is completely nonrenewable. A supply crisis is expected by 2060 (Hu 2025). Commercial helium … Continue reading