Categories
-
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
- The staggering cost of Net Zero in Britain
- Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
Category Archives: A Fast Crash
Why large projects fail. Especially Renewable Energy
Megaprojects over $1 billion in order of likelihood to go over budget and timeline Preface. This is a book review of Flyvbjerg et al “How Big Things Get Done: The Surprising Factors That Determine the Fate of Every Project, from … Continue reading
Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Infrastructure Books, Interdependencies, Supply Chains
Tagged california electric rail, hydropower, infrastructure, nuclear, project failure
Comments Off on Why large projects fail. Especially Renewable Energy
Fill ‘er up with kelp?
Preface. Here are just a few of the dozens of reasons why seaweed can’t make a dent in energy supplies: A negative return on investment like corn ethanol No commercial biofuels are being made from it. Kelp is mainly used … Continue reading
Posted in Biomass, Energy, Peak Biofuels, Seaweed
Tagged EROEI, ethanol, kelp, macro-algae, macroalgae, nuclear war, peak biofuels, seaweed
Comments Off on Fill ‘er up with kelp?
Peak Potassium threatens crops
Potassium is one of the Big 3 essential plant nutrients that has allowed human population to soar to 8 billion people,as well as phosphorus and nitrogen. Potassium is a vital nutrient for plant growth that helps with photosynthesis and respiration, … Continue reading
Posted in Peak Fertilizer, Peak Food
Tagged agriculture, peak food, peak potassium, potash
Comments Off on Peak Potassium threatens crops
Permafrost & lack of gravel will limit arctic natural gas, oil, and coal extraction
Preface. For many people, it’s comforting to know that about 25% of remaining oil and gas reserves (we have the know-how and economics to get it) and resources (beyond our technical and/or monetary capability) are in the arctic. They assume … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, EROEI remaining oil too low, How Much Left, Peak Natural Gas, Peak Oil, Reserves Lower than stated, Roads, Transportation Infrastructure
Tagged coal, natural gas, oil, permafrost, reserves
Comments Off on Permafrost & lack of gravel will limit arctic natural gas, oil, and coal extraction
The pillaging of Native American coal, water, uranium and more
Preface. This is a book review of: “Unreal City: Las Vegas, Black Mesa, and the Fate of the West” by Judith Nies. This book is about how stealing the resources of native Americans lands was made legal, despite enormous Native … Continue reading
Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Biodiversity, Coal, Energy Books, Energy Infrastructure, Global Warming, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Mass migrations, Peak Resources, Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS), U.S. Congress Energy Policy, Water Pollution
Tagged aquifer, Black Mesa, coal, electricity, Hopi, Las Vegas, Native Americans, Navajo
Comments Off on The pillaging of Native American coal, water, uranium and more
Lab-grown meat is energy intensive – and up to 25 times worse for the climate than beef
Preface. Meat production from animals uses a great deal of energy to produce, distribute, and refrigerate. Crops must be grown that erode soil and drain aquifers. Unfortunately, lab grown meat uses even more energy and also requires crops to extract … Continue reading
Posted in CO2 and Methane, Food production, Peak Food
Tagged agriculture, climate change, food, lab-grown meat
Comments Off on Lab-grown meat is energy intensive – and up to 25 times worse for the climate than beef
Oil choke points vulnerable to war, chaos, terrorism, accidents, & piracy
Source: Ballout, D. 2013. Choke Points: Our energy access points. Oil Change. Preface. Below are several articles I’ve collected since 2005 on oil chokepoints. If oil tanker traffic were stopped on one or more, much of the world would plunge … Continue reading
Posted in Chokepoints, Oil & Gas, Oil Shocks, Threats to oil supply
Tagged abqaiq, chokepoint, Ras Tanura, strait
6 Comments
Fusion is already running out of fuel
Source: Khan A (2021) Nuclear fusion: building a star on Earth is hard, which is why we need better materials. The Conversation. Preface. Of all the hundreds of obstacles fusion has yet to overcome, its death knell could be as … Continue reading
The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital economy
One minute on the internet around the world. Source Infographic by @LoriLewas and @officiallyChad, 2020. Preface. This is a book review of Pitron’s “The Dark Cloud”. Of note is the huge amount of electricity and rare earth and other critical … Continue reading
Posted in Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Microchips and computers, Mining, Peak Critical Elements
Tagged computer chips, data center, electric grid, electricity, internet
Comments Off on The tremendous material and energy toll of the digital economy