Author Archives: energyskeptic

Nuclear power in the U.S. is dead, reactors shutting down – not built

Posted on August 6, 2017 by

Preface. This article focuses on reactors being shut down, other posts discuss why they’re not being constructed, despite the intense and well funded efforts of the nuclear lobby.  Since this article was published in 2013, 12 of the 37 at … Continue reading →

Posted in Nuclear Power Energy | Tagged , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

Nuclear Regulatory Commission accused of putting millions of lives and trillions of dollars at risk

Posted on August 2, 2017 by

[ Edwin Lyman and his co-authors in Science magazine have accused the Nuclear Regulatory Commission (NRC) of putting millions of American lives at risk, due to “pressure from the nuclear utilities and a Congress sympathetic to the utilities’ complaints of … Continue reading →

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Theo Henckens: do we need mining quotas to prevent mineral depletion?

Posted on August 1, 2017 by

Preface: Ugo Bardi writes: “Currently, the problem of resource depletion is completely missing from the political debate. There has to be some reason why some problems tend to disappear from the public’s radar as they become worse. Unfortunately, the depletion … Continue reading →

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How reasonable are oil production scenarios from public agencies?

Posted on July 31, 2017 by

So far both the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) and International Energy Agency (IEA) are on target in their predictions. In 2014 (the last year for which there is data), world production of crude oil and lease condensate was 77.833 … Continue reading →

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Why did the environmental movement drop the issue of overpopulation?

Posted on July 30, 2017 by

[ This is most of the 27 page report. Beck and Kolankiewicz wrote this to explain why the environmental movement abandoned the goal of keeping population within the carrying capacity of U.S. resources. Systems ecologists such as Paul Erlich, David … Continue reading →

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70 million people may need emergency food in 2017

Posted on July 28, 2017 by

Emergency food assistance needs unprecedented as Famine threatens four countries. January 25, 2017. Famine Early Warnings systems network (fews.net) The Famine Early Warning Systems Network is a leading provider of early warning and analysis on food insecurity. Created by USAID … Continue reading →

Posted in Peak Food | Tagged , | 6 Comments

No, we’re not going to make ethanol out of CO2 and stop global warming

Posted on July 26, 2017 by

Preface.  In the article below Robert Rapier debunks the research paper proposing to convert CO2 into ethanol.  The researchers were honest and said “that the process is unlikely to be economically viable.” But the press spun it into a major … Continue reading →

Posted in Biofuels, Biomass EROI, Critical Thinking, Far Out, Other Experts | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Richard Heinberg: Will the US really be a major energy exporter?

Posted on July 23, 2017 by

[ I read this the day it was published (January 16, 2017) at resilience.org here, but thought it would be interesting to post in the future to see if the EIA predictions were as optimistic as Heinberg and Hughes thought … Continue reading →

Posted in How Much Left, Natural Gas, Oil & Gas Fracked, Richard Heinberg | Tagged , , , | 3 Comments

Oil shortages and climate change may lead to refugee camps even in the U.S. and Europe

Posted on July 20, 2017 by

[ Will refugee camps be the cities of tomorrow in the U.S. and other developed nations? As oil shortages disrupt supply chains; food shortages grow larger every year from climate change, topsoil erosion, and shortages of natural-gas fertilizer; and rising … Continue reading →

Posted in Refugee Camps | Tagged , , | 9 Comments

Why vultures are so important — and dying off

Posted on July 13, 2017 by

University of Utah. May 5, 2016. Why vultures matter—and what we lose if they’re gone. Original paper: Evan R. Buechley et al, The avian scavenger crisis: Looming extinctions, trophic cascades, and loss of critical ecosystem functions, Biological Conservation (2016).Vultures in … Continue reading →

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