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Recent Posts
- 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”
- 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
- 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
Category Archives: Infrastructure
Given the laws of physics, can the Tesla Semi really go 500 miles, and what will the price be?
Preface: Most people think that electric truck makers need to tell us the specs — the battery kWh, price, performance, and so on — before we can possibly know anything about their truck. But that’s simply not true. We know … Continue reading
We’re killing our food supply and technology can’t save us
Farrell, Paul B. Feb 11, 2015. Opinion: We’re killing our food supply and technology can’t save us. Big Ag can’t feed 10 billion and magical technologies won’t appear. MarketWatch. We’re maxing-out on Peak Food. Billions go hungry. We’re poisoning our … Continue reading
Underground pumped hydro storage is the only technology capable of massive storage for renewable electricity
[ Picard concludes that “None of the candidate technologies for massive-scale renewable and sustainable generation of ‘‘green’’ electricity deliver it in a form suitable for high-efficiency storage. None of the prospectively-massive storage modes for transformed electricity is at present well … Continue reading
Peak soil: Industrial agriculture destroys ecosystems and civilizations: Biofuels make it worse
Preface. In 2018 I thought it was time to reorganize this post, as it grew more and more bloated and disorganized with new information. Eventually it turned into my 2021 book Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Biofuels, Biomass, Energy, Peak Biofuels, Peak Topsoil, Soil
Tagged aquifer depletion, biodiesel, biofuel, climate change, EROEI, EROI, erosion, ethanol, fertilizer, hunger, peak soil, pollution, topsoil
2 Comments
Transportation: How long can we adapt before we fall off the Net Energy Cliff?
Preface. There are too many factors besides geological depletion to predict a future timeline of collapse. Plus each region will be more or less affected by each factor, sooner or later as well. This is a unique crash – there … Continue reading
Pigeon towers to cope with peak phosphate and natural gas fertilizer?
[ Natural gas based fertilizers intensified crop production per acre up to 5-fold, yet natural gas, like phosphate, is finite. We are going to be forced to reinvent our fossil-based agriculture, why not start with pigeon towers? Beats going to … Continue reading
Posted in Farming & Ranching, Peak Phosphorus
Tagged agriculture, phosphate, pigeon towers, what to do
3 Comments
Water resources infrastructure deteriorating
[ Water infrastructure has inter-dependencies with other essential infrastructure, if dams or levees fail, agriculture and electric power suffer, towns and homes flooded. If ports along the ocean and inland water ways aren’t maintained and waterways dredged, the by far … Continue reading
Posted in Dams, Interdependencies, Water Infrastructure
Tagged dams, hydropower, infrastructure, levees
Comments Off on Water resources infrastructure deteriorating