Category Archives: Energy

the posts in this category used to be in “Energy in A Nutshell” at my former web site.

Far out #5 (satire): Biofuels made from the victims of climate change, potato power, founding fathers spinning in graves

Posted on July 15, 2020 by

Preface. The “breakthroughs” you read about in batteries, hydrogen, and other so-called renewables are just as unlikely to happen Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and … Continue reading →

Posted in Far Out | Tagged , , | 2 Comments

Far out power #2: Soap, Raindrops, Hyperloops, and Fitness Centers

Posted on July 12, 2020 by

Preface. Anything goes at a time when the energy crisis hasn’t even hit. Alice Friedemann   www.energyskeptic.com  author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation”, 2015, Springer, Barriers to Making Algal Biofuels, and “Crunch! Whole Grain Artisan … Continue reading →

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Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks

Posted on July 3, 2020 by

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 , , | 4 Comments

Distribution – why it is so hard to add E15 or E85 at a gas station

Posted on June 30, 2020 by

Preface. One of the huge hurdles to shifting from oil to “something else” is the chicken-or-egg problem of no one buying a new-fuel vehicle with few places to get it, so few are made, so service stations don’t add the … Continue reading →

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Global oil discovered 7.7 times less than consumption in 2019

Posted on June 24, 2020 by

Source: Rystad Energy (2020) in “Global oil and gas discoveries reach four-year high in 2019, boosted by ExxonMobil’s Guyana success“. Preface.  The global conventional discovery chart above lists natural gas and oil discoveries since 2013.  The fossil fuel that really … Continue reading →

Posted in How Much Left, Peak Oil | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Concentrated Solar Power is dying out in the U.S.

Posted on June 12, 2020 by

Preface.  Concentrated Solar Power (CSP) contributes only 0.06 % of U.S. electricity, mainly in California (64 %) and Arizona (24 %) because extremely dry areas with no humidity, haze, or pollutants are required. Of the 1861 MW power they can … Continue reading →

Posted in Concentrated Solar Power, CSP with thermal energy storage, Grid instability, Seasonal Variation | Tagged , , , , , | 1 Comment

Half of U.S. Coal runs out in 30 years, not 250

Posted on May 13, 2020 by

Preface. The USGS did a survey of coal in the U.S. in 1974 and announced that America had 250 years of coal left.  In 2007, the National Research Council wrote a report suggesting 100 years was more likely due to … Continue reading →

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Movie review of Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”

Posted on May 1, 2020 by

Preface. This documentary was made by Jeff Gibbs, a writer and environmentalist, with Michael Moore as the executive producer. This movie is worth watching, and an entertaining and quick way to understand why rebuildable “renewables” are neither green or a … Continue reading →

Posted in Alternative Energy, Biomass, Coal, Natural Gas, Solar, Wind | Tagged , , , , , | 15 Comments

Far out power #1: human fat, playgrounds, solar wind towers, perpetual motion, thermal depolymerization

Posted on April 26, 2020 by

Preface. Plans for hydrogen, wind, solar, wave and all the other re-buildable contraptions that use fossil fuels in every single step of their short 15-25 year life cycle and hence are non-renewable, are just as silly as the ideas below,  … Continue reading →

Posted in Far Out | Tagged , , , , | 4 Comments

A 1-year blackout could kill 90% of Americans

Posted on April 11, 2020 by

Preface. What follows is the 30-page testimony of Dr. Pry at a 2015 U.S. House of Representatives session that I’ve summarized. One of the ways that an electromagnetic pulse (EMP) could be generated is by a solar flare. During the … Continue reading →

Posted in Electric Grid | Tagged , , , , , | 4 Comments