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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
Kurt Cobb: Can Democracy survive without Fossil Fuels?
June 29, 2005 Can Democracy Survive Without Fossil Fuels? By Kurt Cobb http://resourceinsights.blogspot.com/2005/06/can-democracy-survive-without-fossil.html Is it an accident that the great modern revolutions, both American and French, occurred shortly after James Watt vastly increased the efficiency of the steam engine? Recall … Continue reading
Posted in Kurt Cobb
Tagged democracy, fossil fuels
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Review of Schneider-Mayerson “Peak Oil Apocalyptic Environmentalism and Libertarian Political Culture”
I just finished a great book about life in Russia called “Nothing is true and everything is possible, the surreal heart of the new Russia” by Peter Pomerantsev. He reveals how Soviet propaganda is propagated through TV shows whose goal … Continue reading
Reduce vehicle fuel consumption to increase energy security
[This is a really interesting House session that discusses U.S. energy policy, the need for consumers to be educated about why they should buy more fuel efficient cars, and push-back from the auto industry (see the full 140 pages for … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Congressional Record U.S., Transportation What To Do
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David L. Greene, ORNL: Raise cafe standards and gas tax
Excerpt from: U.S. House. February 9, 2005. Improving the nation’s energy security: can cars and trucks be made more fuel efficient? Committee on science, House of Representatives, Serial No. 109-3. 140 pages. DAVID L. GREENE, OAK RIDGE NATIONAL LABORATORY, CENTER … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Congressional Record U.S., Conserve Energy, Transportation What To Do
Tagged cafe standard, energy security, gas tax
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CAFE standards: 54.5 mpg cars exist, but public prefers gas-guzzling SUVs and trucks
[Passenger vehicles sold in 2025 in the United States are supposed to get 54.5 miles per gallon on average. But they won’t. It will be closer to 35.4 miles per gallon, as the Union of Concerned Scientists explains in Translating … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles
Tagged cafe standards, china, Europe, japan, korea, mexico
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Tilting at Windmills, Spain’s disastrous attempt to replace fossil fuels with Solar PV, Part 1
Book review by Alice Friedemann at energyskeptic of “Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution. The Energy Return on Investment”, by Pedro Prieto and Charles A.S. Hall. 2013. Springer. Conclusion: the EROI of solar photovoltaic is only 2.45, very low despite Spain’s ideal sunny … Continue reading
The Great Game and future wars over oil: Will China and the U.S. collide?
[ I don’t think we will go to war with China because it would be over before we started it — they’d start a cyberwar and take down our electric grid, and we can’t retaliate because their grid is run … Continue reading
Posted in China and War, War & Violence
Tagged china, japan, military, peak oil, resource war, USA, war
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Some of my favorite passages from H Is for Hawk by Helen Macdonald
When walking the forest you come across all sorts of things you don’t expect. Great tracts of reindeer moss, for example: tiny stars and florets and inklings of an ancient flora growing on exhausted land. Crisp underfoot in summer, the … Continue reading
Posted in Natural History
Tagged birds, hawk, macdonald
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Book Review of Kleveman’s 2003 “The New Great Game: Blood and Oil in Central Asia”
[I posted this book review at yahoo group energyresources back in 2004 when the average American still thought the Iraq war was about weapons of mass destruction. It is still relevant today. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com ] Lutz Kleveman. 2003. “The … Continue reading
Posted in War Books
Tagged book review, oil, war
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Rise of high-tech civilization helped by moderately cold climate, rainfall all year, navigable water ways
What follows is a review by Rembrandt Koppelaar of Christian Welzel’s 2013 book: “Freedom Rising Human Empowerment and the Quest for Emancipation” on a private forum, followed by some comments of members of this group. The basic paradigm of the … Continue reading
Posted in Collapse of Civilizations
Tagged rise of civilization, slavery
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