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- 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
Wind and solar need natural gas to balance intermittent, variable, and seasonal power
Preface. The highest wind states are getting more and more dependent on natural gas to balance wind and solar as they live and die. Yet conventional natural gas in the U.S. has peaked (half of our national gas, and declining … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas, Solar, Wind
Tagged energy storage, intermittent, natural gas, solar, wind
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The effects of Middle East events on U.S. Energy markets
[ Of note from this U.S. House 2011 hearing: John Hofmeister, former President of Shell Oil. Matt Simmons, who passed away this past summer, used to speak of the Straits of Hormuz as, we live one day away from an … Continue reading
Posted in Chokepoints, Threats to oil supply, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged oil chokepoint
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Minerals: Natural gas from Ugo Bardi’s “Extracted”
Preface. This is just a small sampling of what Bardi thinks might happen post fossil fuels, mostly shortened and reworded. Here are 7 other posts from this great book: Mining: Waste, Pollution, Destruction Ugo Bardi predictions of the future Minerals … Continue reading
Posted in EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Oil & Gas Fracked
Tagged EROEI, EROI, fracked gas, shale gas, shale oil, tight gas, tight oil
1 Comment
21 scientists explain why Jacobson’s renewable schemes are a delusional fantasy
Preface. Seldom have I seen such a vitriolic fight among scientists. Though I think Clack and the other 20 scientists (2017) miss the main problems with trying to create a 100% renewable energy system(Friedemann 2015c). Many authors have been writing … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy
Tagged 100 percent renewables, Delucchi, Jacobson, PNAS criticism
5 Comments
Anyone who whines about airplanes should have to take the Oregon Trail
Source: Book cover of “Oregon Or Bust: True Short Stories from the Descendants of Oregon Trail Pioneers, Prospectors, Trappers, and Settlers in the Great Northwest Hardcover” by Gentry Ward Cutsforth (2012), XLibris. Preface. Also listen to the Louis CK rant … Continue reading
Posted in Airplanes, Lithium-ion, Transportation What To Do
Tagged airplane, battery, oregon trail, transportation
3 Comments
California hits the solar wall
[ What is a solar wall? Read part 1: California could hit the solar wall and then excerpts from the following article in the financial times, Britain’s Wall street journal. I’ve also reworded some of it. Renewables are rendering existing … Continue reading
Electromagnetic Pulse weapons & cyberattacks can bring down the electric grid
Preface. At some point of energy decline the electric grid will fail, and civilization will take a giant step downward (financial systems gone, knowledge stored gone, computers / phones inoperable) and so on. Vaclav Smil (2015) in his book Energy … Continue reading