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- 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”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
Category Archives: Nuclear Power Energy
Why no single or combination of alternative energy resources can replace fossil fuels
Preface. This 2002 paper is still true today. There simply are no renewable replacements for the fossil fuels that power our civilization. If only scientists could violate the laws of thermodynamics and physics the way capitalistic crooks cheat, like Bernie … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Fusion, Hydrogen, Nuclear Power Energy, Orbiting Solar, Peak Oil, Photovoltaic Solar, Wind
Tagged fusion, hydrogen, nuclear, peak everything, solar, wind
6 Comments
Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks
Preface. If trucks, tractors, ships, locomotives, and airplanes can’t run on electricity or the electric grid stay up without natural gas to balance wind & solar (see When Trucks Stop Running), if cement and steel and other products requiring the … Continue reading
Posted in Airplanes, Automobiles, Far Out, Nuclear Power Energy
Tagged airplane, car, nuclear
4 Comments
The U.S. May Soon Have the World’s Oldest Nuclear Power Plants
Preface. This is nuts. Sea level rise threatens many nuclear power plants and drought has shut plants down since they need cooling to operate. As nuclear reactor age, they require more intensive monitoring and preventive maintenance to operate safely. But … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Power Energy
Tagged aging, nuclear, safety
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High-level nuclear waste storage degrades faster than thought
Preface. Burying nuclear waste ought to be a top priority, now that it appears peak oil may have happened in November of 2018 (Patterson 2019) and perhaps even sooner if covid-19 crashes the world economy (Tverberg 2020). It won’t happen … Continue reading
Nuclear waste will last a lot longer than climate change
Preface. One of the most tragic aspects of peak oil is that it is very unlikely once energy descent begins that oil will be expended to clean up our nuclear mess. No one wants the spent fuel! New Mexico is … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Waste, Planetary Boundaries
Tagged climate change, decommissioning, nuclear waste
3 Comments
Nuclear Power problems
Preface. There are half a dozen articles below. Although safety and disposal of nuclear waste ought to be the main reasons why no more plants should be built, what actually stops them today are the high costs: it can take … Continue reading
Wind, solar, and natural gas are driving nuclear power out of business
Preface. I’m no fan of nuclear power because we may already be at peak uranium, there’s nowhere to store nuclear waste, and a spent nuclear pool fire could harm millions of people. But renewable wind and solar and natural gas … Continue reading
Boston Globe: the false promise of nuclear power
Last Updated August 2021. Preface. This article raises many objections to nuclear power. Theoretically it could be cheaper, but the exact opposite has happened, it keeps getting more expensive. For example the only new reactors being built in the U.S. … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Power Energy
Tagged accidents, climate change, Fukushima, nuclear power, nuclear weapons, waste
5 Comments
Climate change risks could cause an American “Fukushima”
Preface. Nuclear power plants need a constant supply of electric power to pump cool water into a reactor’s core. Ninety percent of them, 54 plants, have at least one flood risk exceeding their design. If flooding stops the power supply … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Nuclear Waste
Tagged climate change, Fukushima, meltdown, nuclear waste
2 Comments
Decommissioning a nuclear reactor
Preface. Below are excerpts of articles about the costs and challenges of dismantling nuclear power plants. This is at the top of my “Energy Descent To Do List” given the consequences for future generations for up to a million years, … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Waste
Tagged decommission, nuclear
Comments Off on Decommissioning a nuclear reactor