Categories
-
Recent Posts
- 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”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
- Why did everyone stop talking about Population & Immigration?
Category Archives: 2) Overshoot
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
The Biblical Revelations, critical thinking, and how this affects us today
Preface. This is a book review of Ehrman’s 2023 Armageddon: What the Bible Really Says about the End. Ehrman is a very devout biblical scholar who explains brilliantly what Revelations and other verses in the bible mean within their … Continue reading
Posted in Critical Thinking, Religion
Tagged bible, critical thinking. religion, Rapture, Revelations
Comments Off on The Biblical Revelations, critical thinking, and how this affects us today
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
Rare Earth updates: recent research on why complex & intelligent life are rare in the Universe
Preface. These are updates to Ward & Brownlee’s book “Rare Earth: Why Complex life is Uncommon in the Universe”. If we are one of the few planets with intelligent life, what a shame it would be if we destroyed ourselves … Continue reading
Posted in Evolution, Human Nature, Planetary Boundaries, Wood
Tagged combustion, complex life, evolution, fermi paradox, intelligent life, photosynthesis, rare earth, Theia, venus, water
1 Comment
Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
A map showing modelling by Princeton University’s Program on Science and Global Security showing the worst-case scenario effects of a strike on America’s nuclear missile silos. Researchers found as many as 300 million people would be at risk of a … Continue reading
Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Biodiversity Loss, Nuclear War, War & Violence
Tagged nuclear war, nuclear weapons, war
Comments Off on Nuclear attack on U.S. could kill 90% of Americans
What percent of Americans are rational?
Preface. Why does rationality matter — what’s the harm in believing there’s a fat “Santa Claus” God in the sky noting down every time any intelligent creature in the entire universe is naughty or nice on the trillions of inhabited … Continue reading
Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
Preface. Move over semi-trucks. You are not the most important truck in the world, even though I gave you the starring role in “When Trucks Stop Running”. What really matters are the trucks that grow our fuel: Food. And mining … Continue reading
Book review of “Prime Movers of Globalization: the History & Impact of Diesel Engines & Gas Turbines”
Preface. This is my book review of Vaclav Smil’s “Prime Movers of Globalization”. A topic near and dear to my heart after working for the 5th largest shipping company, American President Lines (now Neptune Orient Lines), for 22 years and … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Books, Peak Resources, Rail, Roads, Transportation, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged diesel engines, microprocessor, ships, trucks
1 Comment
Mental Health. Coping with the future: notes from Jackson & Jensen’s “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”
Preface. Because I’d been reading non-fiction since college across every section in bookstores for decades before I stumbled on Peak oil in 2000 (full story in about), I understood the horror and tragedy of energy decline and was depressed for … Continue reading
Posted in Critical Thinking, Health What to do
Tagged denial, ecology, hope, jackson, jensen, optimism, population, rees
Comments Off on Mental Health. Coping with the future: notes from Jackson & Jensen’s “An Inconvenient Apocalypse”