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- 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
- Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels
- Energy, Water, & Climate Change are interdependent
- Why fusion power is Forever Away
- Climate Change dominates news coverage at expense of other existential planetary boundaries
- Excerpt from “The Geopolitics of Resource Wars”
Author Archives: energyskeptic
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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Will we go out with a whimper instead of a bang? Cyberwar more likely than nuclear war
Preface. This is a book review of Clarke & Knake’s “Cyber War: The Next Threat to National Security and What to Do About IT”. The ransom cyber attack on the colonial pipeline forced the shutdown of a vital pipeline delivering … Continue reading
Posted in Cyber, Cyber Attack Books, CyberAttacks, War
Tagged china, cyber attack, cyber war, cyberwar, infrastructure, Russia, scenario
2 Comments
Just 16,000 catenary trucks (out of 5.6 million) would use 1% of California’s electricity generation
Preface. We must electrify trucks since fuel from oil, coal, and natural gas is finite, and biomass doesn’t scale up. Without transportation, electricity contraptions like wind turbines, solar facilities, and nuclear power plants can’t be built. A wind turbine, for … Continue reading
Posted in Electric & Hydrogen trucks impossible, Trucks: Electric
Tagged battery, BEV, catenary, CNG, drayage, electric truck, electricity, transportation, trucks
2 Comments
Pedro Prieto – what life used to be like decades ago in small Spanish villages
[I’m reading James Howard Kunstler’s excellent trilogy “A World Made By Hand” now to get an idea of what life might be like post-peak when the worst of the crisis is over. Prieto’s vivid descriptions are wonderful, I wish he’d … Continue reading
Posted in Pedro Prieto
Tagged agriculture
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Dmitry Orlov: How Russians survived the collapse of the Soviet Union
[ A great post by Dmitry Orlov about what collapse may be like, the best strategies to survive, and why the Russian way of life and culture prepared them far better for hard times than will be the case in … Continue reading
Posted in Expert Advice, Oil shock collapse, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged America, collapse, orlov, Russia, survival, what to do, where to be
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When will the Alaska pipeline turn into an 800-mile-long Popsicle?
[Below are excerpts on the Alaskan pipeline from Rust: The Longest War by Jonathan Waldman. This is a great book, yet leaves so many possible rust stories uncovered, that I hope Waldman writes Rust II (or any other topic — … Continue reading