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Category Archives: Books
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
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
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Livestock diseases, Science Mag Review of “Arresting Contagion”
Science 17 April 2015: Vol. 348 no. 6232 p. 294 DOI: 10.1126/science.aaa7672 The fever on the farm Arresting Contagion Science, Policy, and Conflicts over Animal Disease Control Alan L. Olmstead and Paul W. Rhode Harvard University Press, 2015. 477 pp. … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Disease
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1177 B.C. The year civilization collapsed
[ These are my notes that are disjointed but can give you an idea of how fast our fossil-fueled civilization could collapse. We are far more interdependent on much longer global supply chains (a wind turbine has 8,000 parts). We … Continue reading
Posted in Cascading Failure, Collapse of Civilizations, Collapsed & collapsing nations, Drought & Collapse, Interdependencies, Supply Chains
Tagged 1177, collapse, complexity, interdependence, supply chains
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Looking for a good book to read?
Here are eight book lists with recommendations from 45 years of non-fiction reading Booklist: Natural history & Science, Evolution, Critical thinking, Health, Resource allocation, Climate change, Fire Booklist: Travel, Psychology, World history, Food, Anthropology, (Auto)biography, Religion Booklist: American History, Politics, … Continue reading
Become a Bison rancher
Far more buffalo can be grazed per acre than cattle. It’s likely wild bison will return to the Great Plains in the future. Already there are fewer people in areas where the Ogalla aquifer has been depleted than when Native … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture, Farming and Ranching
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Biggest Waste of Wealth in All of history: America’s Interstate Highway system
A book review by Alice Friedemann of: Swift, Earl. 2012. The Big Roads: The Untold Story of the Engineers, Visionaries, and Trailblazers Who Created the American Superhighways. Related articles $46 Trillion Infrastructure in USA, $6 Trillion is Transportation Expressways & … Continue reading
Posted in Concrete, Infrastructure Books, Roads, Transportation, Transportation Infrastructure, Trucks
Tagged damage, highway, interstate, truck
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