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- 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
Expanding rail infrastructure to accommodate growth in agriculture and other sectors
Excerpts from 103 page: Keith, K. Jan 2013. Maintaining a track record of success. Expanding rail infrastructure to accommodate growth in agriculture and other sectors. TRC Consulting. [I’m working on a book about the distribution of food when declining oil … Continue reading
Posted in Railroads
Tagged agriculture, food, rail
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Reducing fuel consumption of medium & heavy-duty vehicles 2014 National Research Council
Look at the enormous waste of fuel when JIT supply chain trucks ramped up in the late 70s (page 63). Excerpts from the 117 page: NRC. 2014. Reducing the Fuel Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles, … Continue reading
Posted in Efficiency
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Commercial scale cellulosic ethanol still not happening in 2016 – why?
Here’s Rapier’s latest column on cellulosic ethanol explaining why it still isn’t commercial yet, despite attempts since the 1900’s. He points out that we have been able to create cellulosic ethanol since 1900, but not economically. February 13, 2016. Cellulosic … Continue reading
Posted in Biofuels
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Wind, solar, and storage impact on the California grid
California Energy commission. June 2010. Research evaluation of wind generation, solar generation, and storage impact on the California Grid. 131 pages. Excerpts: This report analyzes the effect of increasing renewable energy generation on California’s electricity system and assesses and quantifies … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Storage, Renewable Integration
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Sacramento SMUD AB 2514 Energy storage report
[The state of California has realized that it’s unlikely a larger or national transmission grid will be built to share and balance variable renewable power, and is going to Plan B, energy storage. The problem is, all of the utilities … Continue reading
Posted in Battery - Utility Scale
Tagged AB2514, SMUD
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Wind and Solar diurnal and seasonal variations require energy storage
Preface. Currently energy storage is accomplished with the 67% of fossil fuels (natural gas and coal) used to generate electricity, especially natural gas which can kick in within microseconds to make up for failing wind, or run all the time … Continue reading
Posted in Seasonal, Seasonal Variation
Tagged seasonal, solar
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Eastern Wind Integration & Transmission study 2011 National Renewable Energy Laboratory
Excerpts from the 242 page Eastern Wind Integration & Transmission study, 2011, EnerNex corporation for National Renewable Energy Laboratory. Key Findings Building transmission capacity takes much longer than installing wind plants. It is already starting to limit wind growth in … Continue reading
Posted in Renewable Integration, Wind
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Peak fossil fuels limits climate change to low-to-medium outcomes in IPCC report
Excerpts from 24 page: Höök, M., Tang, X. 2013. Depletion of fossil fuels and anthropogenic climate change: a review. Energy Policy, 52: 797-809 Conclusion of paper: Fossil fuel constraints will limit anthropogenic climate impact towards the low-medium outcomes presented by … Continue reading
Posted in ! PEAK EVERYTHING, But not from climate change: Peak Fossil Fuels, Climate Change, Supply Chains, Transportation
Tagged climate change, peak coal, peak natural gas, peak oil
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Can wind power be scaled up to 24 TW by 2050?
[Below are excerpts from this 22 page paper. Alice Friedemann] Davidsson, S., et al. (2014) Growth curves and sustained commissioning modelling of renewable energy: Investigating resource constraints for wind energy. Energy Policy. Although the wind itself is a type of … Continue reading
Posted in Wind
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Demand reduction of electricity to balance the electric grid
Demand reduction of electricity to balance the electric grid by Alice Friedemann By the time a smart grid is integrated into all the existing computer systems, wasting electricity with each round-trip of information, (rolling) blackouts are likely to be occurring … Continue reading
Posted in Demand Reduction
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