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Recent Posts
- How concrete damages the planet by TC Fishman
- 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
Author Archives: energyskeptic
Gail Tverberg: Why peak coal, oil, and natural gas will all happen at the same time
China: Is peak coal part of its problem? by Gail Tverberg, OurFiniteWorld.com | Jun 20, 2016 The world’s coal resources are clearly huge. How could China, or the world in total, reach peak coal in a timeframe that makes a … Continue reading
Posted in China, Gail Tverberg, Peak Coal, Peak Natural Gas, Peak Oil
Tagged peak coal, peak natural gas, peak oil
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Why studies come up with different Energy Returned on Invest (EROI) results: can it be fixed?
[ There are many issues with biofuels beyond their trivial to negative energy return on investment (EROI). In Peak Soil I point out that current industrial farming techniques are destroying topsoil about 15 times faster than pre-fossil fuel economies — … Continue reading
Posted in Biofuels, Biomass EROI, Charles A. S. Hall
Tagged biomass, EROEI, EROI, ethanol
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Murphy & Hall 2011 Adjusting the economy to the new energy realities of the second half of the age of oil
[ Below are excerpts from this 5 page paper, slightly rearranged, go here to see all of the text, figures, and tables. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation, 2015, Springer] Murphy, … Continue reading
U.S. House hearing on how to get Central Asian oil before Russia and China do, 2006
[ Make no mistake: one of the main focuses of the U.S. government is to keep crude oil flowing, because without oil, civilization as we know it collapses. This is because the transportation that matters most – heavy-duty diesel-engine trucks … Continue reading
Posted in U.S. Congress Energy Dependence, U.S. Congress Energy Independence, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged energy dependence, energy independence
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The electromagnetic pulse EMP Threat: House of Representatives hearing 2005
[ Related articles: Russian hackers suspected in attack that blacked out parts of Ukraine How the weapon works (pdf): CRASHOVERRIDE Analyzing the Threat to Electric Grid Operations The EMP Commission estimates a nationwide blackout lasting one year could kill up … Continue reading
The Devil’s Scenario – near miss at Fukushima is a warning for U.S.
[ The most likely event to trigger a loss of power long enough to cause a spent fuel pool zirconium fire meltdown and release of radioactive particles into the atmosphere is a nuclear or natural geomagnetic storm electromagnetic pulse (see … Continue reading
After collapse: plunder or feudalism?
IWW poster “Pyramid of Capitalist System” (c. 1911), depicting an anti-capitalist perspective on statist/capitalist social structures Preface. In this post an anonymous author looks at what will happen if society collapses and we have to suddenly go back to … Continue reading
Posted in Peak Food
Tagged agriculture, billionaires, collapse, farming, feudalism, greenhouse
6 Comments
Why railroads are against running locomotives on natural gas
Since oil is finite, natural gas was seen as a fuel that could extend how long oil lasted by being a “bridge” fuel. Since natural gas is finite also, and would lead to dependence on unstable foreign nations, the plan … Continue reading
Posted in LNG Liquified Natural Gas, Natural Gas Vehicles, Railroads
Tagged CNG, LNG, natural gas, railroad
2 Comments
EROI explained and defended by Charles Hall, Pedro Prieto, and others
[ If you found this post interesting, the following posts are even better (more detailed and in-depth): Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar PV, Part 1 Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace … Continue reading
Posted in Charles A. S. Hall, EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Pedro Prieto
Tagged Charles Hall, EROEI, EROI, Pedro Prieto
3 Comments
Coal power plants depend on railroads to deliver coal
[ The extract of a Senate hearing below is mostly spent on testimony by utilities bashing the railroads for not delivering enough coal due to a disaster in the Powder River Basin, Wyoming area, where coal dust infiltrated the stone … Continue reading
Posted in Blackouts, Coal, Interdependencies, Railroads, Transportation Infrastructure
Tagged climate change, coal, CTL, electric grid, interdependency, railroad, transportation
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