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- Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”
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- The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism
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- Book review: Bring the War Home: The white power movement & paramilitary America
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- Book Review “Conservatives without Conscience” by John Dean
- Book review of “The Power Worshippers. Inside the dangerous rise of religious nationalism”
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Category Archives: Energy
Energy from cow flatulence
[ Other “energy alternatives” in the Far Out category of menu item Energy include escaping to Mars, liposuction fat, whirlwinds, playground power, garbage, tornadoes, and turning seawater into fuel. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy … Continue reading
Posted in Far Out
Tagged brown waste, cow, cow fart power, fart, flatulence, methane digester
5 Comments
Challenges & opportunities for alternative transportation fuels and vehicles. U.S. House hearing, 2011
Preface. Congress is aware that an energy crisis looms, though they seldom acknowledge or deal with it. Here are a few excerpts from this U.S. House hearing (2011) The American energy initiative part 6: Challenges & opportunities for alternative transportation … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, U.S. Congress Energy Policy, U.S. Congress Transportation
Tagged biodiesel, biofuel, cellulose, energy crisis, energy dependence, natural gas
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Royal Society on peak oil and how much oil is left
[ This is a great introduction to the whole topic of oil, reserves, resources, and so on. It’s very long so I’ve only excerpted bits of it and reworded some of it. I can’t say there’s anything new in here … Continue reading
Posted in How Much Left
Tagged conventional, oil, peak oil, unconventional
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BBC: Fusion energy pushed back beyond 2050
Cartlidge, E. July 11, 2017. Fusion energy pushed back beyond 2050. BBC. We will have to wait until the second half of the century for fusion reactors to start generating electricity, experts have announced. A new version of a European … Continue reading
One of the biggest risks to the world’s financial system is the $3 trillion of debt owed by oil and gas firms
[ Yet another “crash coming soon” post, if it hasn’t happened already (I scheduled this article and others to appear a year or more later, since crashes always take longer to happen than you expect. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of … Continue reading
Posted in Bond Market, Crash Coming Soon, Debt, Oil & Gas Fracked
Tagged crash coming soon, debt, oil and gas
1 Comment
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
1 Comment
World’s first multi-million dollar carbon-capture plant does work of just $17,640 worth of trees
Preface. This is a shortened and reworded version of the original article. Obviously, since we’re at the peak of global fossil fuel production, when the plateau ends sometime between now and 2025 and production declines exponentially, greenhouse gas emissions will … Continue reading
Posted in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), Climate Change
Tagged carbon capture, climate change, what to do
1 Comment
Can the lights be kept on with distributed generation? 2015 U.S. House hearing on a reliable electric system
Preface. Corporate speakers testify mainly, rather than less biased researchers from universities or national laboratories. Corporations are selling a product, and likely to exaggerate what their product can do. The most interesting testimony is from Dean Kamen, who is “selling” … Continue reading
Posted in Congressional Record U.S., Distributed Generation, Grid instability
Tagged distributed energy, generators, house of representatives
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Blackouts in the news
Preface. Richard C Duncan proposed an “Olduvai Theory” that the current industrial civilization would have a maximum duration of 100 years from 1930 to 2030. A key indicator the End Was Near would be when partial and total blackouts began … Continue reading
Posted in Blackouts, Blackouts Electric Grid
Tagged blackout, Duncan, electric grid, middle east, Olduvai gorge, right wing, terrorism
1 Comment
Why it is futile to think that Wind could ever make a significant contribution to energy supplies
Matt Ridley. May 15, 2017. Wind turbines are neither clean nor green and they provide zero global energy. Even after 30 years of huge subsidies, it provides about zero energy. The Spectator. The Global Wind Energy Council recently released its … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Wind
Tagged alternative energy, energy, wind
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