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- The Green New Deal is not a solution for the real problem: Overshoot
- 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
Category Archives: Natural Gas
Shale gas is only good for plastics, not transportation fuels
Preface. The oil industry is making more plastic because electric cars have cut gasoline use, but because shale “fracked” gas is so light plastic is about the only use. It is not a transportation fuel that can save us from … Continue reading
Vaclav Smil on natural gas (ethane) and plastics
Preface. Vaclav Smil doesn’t mention using plastic for heat, but in a letter to The Guardian, David Reed suggests: “The effort of collecting, transporting and cleaning plastics for possible recycling has largely failed, created much more pollution and contributed massively … Continue reading
Why “fracked” shale oil and gas will not save us
Preface. As early as 2011 experts were questioning how large fracked natural gas reserves were. The latest IEA 2018 report predicts shale oil/gas could start to decline by 2025, and all global oil as soon as 2023. Shale oil and … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas, Oil & Gas Fracked, Peak Natural Gas, Peak Oil
Tagged fracked gas, peak natural gas, shale gas, shale oil, will not save us
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Peak Oil, Coal and Natural gas in China
Preface. Below are excerpts from 2 articles. You may want to read Tverberg’s article here since I left out the charts and included just a few excerpts. Some key points: The world needs growing energy supply to support the world … Continue reading
Posted in EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Peak Coal, Peak Natural Gas, Peak Oil
Tagged china, EROEI, EROI, peak coal, peak natural gas, peak oil
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Power density of biomass, wind, & solar take too much land to replace fossil fuels
Volumetric versus specific energy density for selected energy carriers. Source: Palmer, G. 2020. Energy storage & civilization: a systems approach. Springer. Preface. Vaclav Smil writes “The fact that wind, solar, and biomass have incredibly low energy density per square meter … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Coal, Hydropower, Natural Gas, Oil
Tagged alternative energy, biodiesel, biomass, coal, ethanol, natural gas, oil, renewable energy
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China is securing energy resources. A potential threat to Europe and U.S. interests.
Preface. China is vastly expanding its fleet of natural gas heavy-duty trucks to 700,000 in 2018 and similar or more amounts after that. They are building pipelines to Russia and other Central Asian countries to keep the gas coming. I … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas, U.S. Congress Energy Dependence, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged china, energy security
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Is Peak Oil dead? Not by a long shot! Remember Ladyfern?
Preface. Oil is finite. Period. Don’t be fooled by news stories that peak oil is dead, or we have reached peak demand. They’re all nonsense. Gail Tverberg at ourfiniteworld.com is especially good at explaining this. Worse yet, what we have … Continue reading
Posted in Oil & Gas Fracked, Peak Natural Gas
Tagged fracked gas, ladyfern, shale gas, tragedy of the commons
1 Comment
Richard Heinberg: Will the US really be a major energy exporter?
[ I read this the day it was published (January 16, 2017) at resilience.org here, but thought it would be interesting to post in the future to see if the EIA predictions were as optimistic as Heinberg and Hughes thought … Continue reading
Posted in How Much Left, Natural Gas, Oil & Gas Fracked, Richard Heinberg
Tagged fracked, heinberg, natural gas, oil
3 Comments
Wind and solar need natural gas to balance intermittent, variable, and seasonal power
Preface. The highest wind states are getting more and more dependent on natural gas to balance wind and solar as they live and die. Yet conventional natural gas in the U.S. has peaked (half of our national gas, and declining … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas, Solar, Wind
Tagged energy storage, intermittent, natural gas, solar, wind
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California hits the solar wall
[ What is a solar wall? Read part 1: California could hit the solar wall and then excerpts from the following article in the financial times, Britain’s Wall street journal. I’ve also reworded some of it. Renewables are rendering existing … Continue reading