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Recent Posts
- A transition from fossil fuels to renewables could take a century – if it ever happens
- 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”
Category Archives: Society
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
The Great Game and future wars over oil: Will China and the U.S. collide?
[ I don’t think we will go to war with China because it would be over before we started it — they’d start a cyberwar and take down our electric grid, and we can’t retaliate because their grid is run … Continue reading
Posted in China and War, War & Violence
Tagged china, japan, military, peak oil, resource war, USA, war
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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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The electric grid, critical interdependencies, vulnerabilities: U.S. House hearing 2003
Preface. Of course, this website explains why the grid can’t stay up without fossil fuels, so by 2050 the grid will only be up in a few places, perhaps China, the Middle East, and Russia if war hasn’t brought on … Continue reading
Posted in Blackouts, Cascading Failure, Congressional Record U.S., CyberAttacks, Interdependencies
Tagged blackout, electric grid, electromagnetic pulse, EMP, interdependency, terrorism
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Oil Infrastructure – pipelines, refineries, terminals
Sider, A. and Friedman, N. November 2, 2016. More than half of U.S. Pipelines are at least 46 years old. Building new systems has become harder amid opposition from landowners and environmental groups. Wall Street Journal. More than 60% of … Continue reading
Posted in Oil, Oil & Gas, Pipeline
Tagged crude oil, miles of pipeline, pipeline, refined product, service station
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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
Posted in Debt, Lithium-ion, Photovoltaic Solar, Subsidies
Tagged altnerative energy, debt, renewables, subsidies, tesla
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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
Posted in Cuba, North Korea, Oil shock collapse, Peak Oil
Tagged china, collapse, cuba, Europe, North Korea, oil crisis, oil shortage, peak oil, united states
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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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Global oil risks in the early 21st century, Energy Policy 2011
[This is a large excerpt from an excellent 18-page paper I think predicts how the future will unfold as well as a good overview of our predicament. Alice Friedemann] Fantazzini, Dean; Höök, Mikael; Angelantoni, André. 2011. Global oil risks in … Continue reading
Posted in Other Experts, Peak Oil, Scientists, Scientists Warnings to Humanity
Tagged contracting economy, debt, Export Land Model, food and fuel riots, peak oil, pensions, social welfare programs, supply chains
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The Banking system is a House of Cards
Lynn Parramore. April 21, 2015. Our Banking System is a Giant House of Cards. Money & Banking. It Could Fall On You. Anat Admati teaches finance and economics at the Stanford Graduate School of Business and is co-author of The … Continue reading
Posted in Banking
Tagged banks, corruption, risk
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