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Recent Posts
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
- Homes & Buildings
- Book Review “The Outlawed Ocean” by Ian Urbina
- Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
- Motherboards: too complicated to make after oil
- “More and More and More” one of the best books on energy ever written
- The staggering destruction of knowledge by Christians in the Roman Empire
- The staggering cost of Net Zero in Britain
- Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
- Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?
- What would happen if trucks stopped running?
- How to survive a nuclear winter
Author Archives: energyskeptic
A U.S. Senate hearing on T. Boone Pickens plans for natural gas and wind to reduce oil dependence
[ This session is unusual in that the words “peak oil” are spoken several times, and M. King Hubbert, James Howard Kunstler, and Matt Simmons are lauded. Gal Luft points out that “10 years ago, Osama bin Laden predicted that … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas Vehicles, U.S. Congress Energy Dependence
Tagged natural gas, peak oil, pickens, wind
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Natural gas is a stupid transportation fuel
[ My comment: The only reason natural gas has come up as a transportation fuel at all is the false belief that there is 100 years of natural gas (even this article does, but natural gas may last far less … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Natural Gas Vehicles, Transportation
Tagged cars, natural gas, transportation
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California could hit the solar wall
[ According to a Stanford University article below this introduction (followed by excerpts from two California Energy Commission reports), if California uses mainly solar power to meet a 50% Renewable Portfolio Standard (RPS), on sunny days, for most of the … Continue reading
Posted in Photovoltaic Solar, Renewable Integration
Tagged alternative energy, renewable integration, solar, solar wall
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Scientific American: Peak oil and coal may keep catastrophic climate change in check
[ Since conventional oil, 90% of supply, peaked in 2005-6 we’ve been on a plateau. Since the rate of conventional oil decline exponentially decreasing, and population is still exponentially increasing, it is unlikely unconventional oil like shale “fracked” oil, tar … Continue reading
Posted in But not from climate change: Peak Fossil Fuels, Peak Coal, Peak Oil
Tagged climate change, IPCC, peak coal, peak oil
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Ecological cost of new roads in Africa
[ What follows are excerpts from the January 8 2014 issue of Newscientist’s “Africa’s road-building frenzy will transform continent” by Andy Coghlan. ] China is funding most of the new roads to get the minerals they’ve mined, and transport food … Continue reading
Posted in Roads, Transportation Infrastructure
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Why the world is headed the way of Easter island
Petros Sekeris. 19 November 2014. Violence ahead as tragedies of the commons spread. NewScientist. The world risks heading the way of Easter Island – a spiral into conflict as depleted natural resources are plundered. There is a growing feeling that … Continue reading
Ted Trainer criticizes Hatfield-Dodds CSIRO study in Nature that denies “Limits to Growth”
[This study denies “Limits To Growth”, and I’ve posted Ted Trainer’s objections below. It is alarming Nature would publish such claptrap. Has Rupert Murdoch secretly purchased them? Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com] Ted Trainer. November 2015. A brief critical response to the … Continue reading
Posted in Limits To Growth, Other Experts
Tagged Hatfield-Dodds CSIRO, limits to growth, Trainer
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M. G. Salameh on oil wars in the past and future
[ Salameh explains why we will inevitably have oil wars in the future, perhaps wars over Iran’s nuclear program, between the U.S. and china, Iraq and Kurdistan, the UK and Argentina over the Falkland islands oil reserves, and/or over the … Continue reading
Posted in Caused by Scarce Resources, Other Experts
Tagged military, oil, war
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Taxpayers are paying for a concentrated solar project — Ivanpah– that doesn’t work
Ivanpah in the news: Dvorsky, G. May 21, 2016. The World’s Largest Solar Plant Just Torched Itself. Gizmodo (Australia). Misaligned mirrors are being blamed for a fire that broke out yesterday at the world’s largest solar power plant, leaving the … Continue reading
Posted in Concentrated Solar Power, Corporate Welfare
Tagged concentrated solar power, CSP, ivanpah, solar thermal
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Booklist: Limits to Growth, Overpopulation, Collapse, War, Extinction
More booklists Limits to Growth Donella Meadows. 2004. The Limits to Growth: The 30 year update V Smil. Enriching the Earth: Fritz Haber, Carl Bosch, and the Transformation of World Food Production. K Gever. Beyond Oil: The threat to food … Continue reading
Posted in Book List
Tagged collapse, extinction, limits to growth, overpopulation, war
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