Author Archives: energyskeptic

Would Tesla, SolarCity or SpaceX exist without $4.9 billion in government subsidies?

[ Tesla has made no new battery breakthroughs. Batteries aren’t much better today than they were 200 years ago.  All Tesla did was build a better battery management system (BMS) by stringing tiny batteries together — thousands of them.  But … Continue reading →

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How different nations have coped with oil shortages

Preface. In this article, Friedrichs shows how differently Cuba, North Korea, and Japan coped after a sudden loss of most of their oil.  I first became aware of how essential oil was for nations when I read Daniel Yergin’s 1991 … Continue reading →

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Hydrocarbon liquids, drop-in fuels, oil refining, oil distribution, GTL, CTL

Notes from 41 page: National Petroleum Council. 2012. Chapter 11: Hydrocarbon Liquids.                        Hydrocarbon liquids have properties that make them high-quality transportation fuels and allow the supply chain to operate … Continue reading →

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Turlock AB 2514 California Energy Storage

Notes from 29 page: Turlock Irrigation district Energy Storage Study. 2014. Willie G. Manuel 9/17/2014 Recommendation. The analysis performed shows that the benefits of deploying various types of storage systems fall short of the capital cost of such systems. Furthermore, … Continue reading →

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Carbon capture and storage (CCS) technology roadmap 2013 IEA

Notes from 63 page: IEA. 2013. Technology Roadmap Carbon capture and storage (CCS). International Energy Agency. A total cumulative mass of approximately 120 Gt CO2 would need to be captured and stored between 2015 and 2050, across all regions of … Continue reading →

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Climate-water impacts on electricity sector capacity expansion NREL 2014

NREL. 2014. Modeling climate-water impacts on electricity sector capacity expansion. To be presented at the ASME 2014 Power Conference Baltimore, Maryland July 28–31, 2014. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. 12 pages. Excerpts follow: ABSTRACT Climate change has the potential to exacerbate … Continue reading →

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Capacity value of solar is low as penetration increases which could suppress investment

Notes from 33 page: NREL. 2014. Representation of Solar Capacity Value in the ReEDS Capacity Expansion. National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Technical Report NREL/TP-6A20-61182 March 2014 Comparison of Capacity Value at High Penetration. Several researchers have conducted modeling efforts to quantify … Continue reading →

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The potential role of concentrating solar power

Preface. The word “water” appears nowhere in this document, even though that’s a major limiting factor for CSP with thermal storage. Dry cooling is possible, but it lowers the EROI and raises the already way-too-high capital cost. An electric grid … Continue reading →

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Vernon VG&E AB 2514 Energy storage report

STAFF REPORT: VERNON GAS & ELECTRIC DEPARTMENT   September 2, 2014 [some of the 25-page report is shown below as I attempted to get up to speed on energy storage. Since California is the first state to mandate this, and … Continue reading →

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Stop wasting food

[Clearly at the point when food rationing begins due to limited amounts of transportation oil, not wasting food will be important, and composting can expected to be the main way of disposal since garbage trucks will run less frequently. Below … Continue reading →

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