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Recent Posts
- ‘The oil we eat’. Following the food chain back to iraq
- Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America
- Admiral Rickover 1957: Energy Resources & Our Future
- 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
Category Archives: Oil
North Korea: what happened when the oil was cut off?
Preface. All nations will eventually run low and then out of petroleum, so it is worthwhile to see what happened to those countries where oil was scarce first to get glimpses of our own fate and perhaps try to mitigate … Continue reading
Posted in North Korea, Oil shock collapse
Tagged collapse, cuba, japan, North Korea, peak oil, Venezuela
1 Comment
Why it is hard to replace diesel with biodiesel
Biodiesel is the great hope, our main hope, the only renewable fuel of all the many options, and the closest to the diesel essential for rail, trucks, and ships to do the actual work of civilization. The U.S. produces over … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiesel, Food production, Oil, Peak Biofuels, Peak Food, Transportation, Water
Tagged biodiesel, diesel, EROI
1 Comment
Energy certificates as currency when oil shocks strike?
Since world oil peaked in 2018, clearly there will be a time when there are oil shortages. The price may be high at first, but that often brings on a financial crash (Hamilton 2013), unemployment rises as business shut down, … Continue reading
Posted in Oil Shocks, Rationing, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged blackouts, currency, ecological economics, energy crisis, Hubbert, money, oil shock, rationing
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Implications of Refinery closures for Homeland Security & critical infrastructure safety
Preface. The talk of electric vehicles saving the world from greenhouse gases is nonsense, a red herring to distract everyone from what’s really at stake, and from the material requirements to build EV with rare earth and other scarce minerals … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Oil & Gas, Peak Oil, U.S. Congress Infrastructure
Tagged diesel, electric vehicle, EV, gasoline, infrastructure, lubricants, peak oil, pipeline, refinery
1 Comment
Why liquefied coal (CTL) and natural gas (GTL) can’t replace oil
Preface. Here are just a few of the reasons why we aren’t likely to convert enough coal to diesel to matter as oil decines (see Chapter 11 Liquefied Coal: There Goes the Neighborhood, the Water, and the Air for more … Continue reading
Posted in Coal to Liquids (CTL), GTL Gas-To-Liquids, Peak Coal, Peak Oil
Tagged coal-to-liquids, CTL, flow rate, gas-to-liquids, GTL, peak coal, peak oil
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The Good News About Peak Oil
As oil declines, the threat of a greenhouse earth & extinction from climate change decline Carbon sequestration, wind, solar, geo-engineering, and other remedies are trivial compared to the effect declining fossil fuels will have on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The … Continue reading
Posted in Peak Natural Gas, Peak Oil, Pesticides, Planetary Boundaries, What to do
Tagged climate change, fertilizer, natural gas, peak oil, pesticide, rationing
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Largest oil spill on earth: Plastics
Preface. There have been thousands of articles since I published this back in 2003. Today I read a surprising study that claims glass is more harmful than plastic because it is mined from rare materials and requires more fossil fuels … Continue reading
How will 500,000 products made with fossils as feedstock & process energy be created post fossil fuels?
Preface. It is quite likely that after fossils are gone, plastics will no longer be made, since they are incredibly complex – PhDs in numerous fields make them possible – and most kinds have been around for only 50 years … Continue reading
Posted in Biomass, Manufacturing & Industrial Heat, Oil
Tagged biomass, chemical, crude oil, distillation, feedstock, petrochemical, plastic
1 Comment
Energy abundance depends entirely on the RATE of energy flow
Preface. Below are excerpts from two articles on why the FLOW RATE of oil is what matters for our fossil-fueled civilization. It’s like how, when filling up a bathtub, you want to turn the faucet on as high as it … Continue reading
Posted in Flow Rate, How Much Left, Peak Oil
Tagged oil, peak oil, petroleum, rate of flow
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Pentagon report: collapse within 20 years from climate change
Preface. The report that the article by Ahmed below is based on is: Brosig, M., et al. 2019. Implications of climate change for the U.S. Army. United States Army War College. It was written in 2019, before covid-19 and so … Continue reading
Posted in Arctic, Blackouts, Climate Change, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Military, Over Oil
Tagged climate change, collapse, military
2 Comments