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Recent Posts
- 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
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
Category Archives: Energy
U.S. House meeting on terrorist threats to energy security
[ Even though this hearing was over a decade ago, the issues are still the same. Nothing has changed. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com author of “When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation, 2015, Springer] House 109-70. July 27, … Continue reading
Posted in Caused by Scarce Resources, Chokepoints, Middle East, Oil Shocks, Transportation
Tagged oil dependence, oil shock, Ras Tanura, saudi arabia, SPR, strategic petroleum reserve, terrorism
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The dangers and costs of importing Liquefied natural gas (LNG). U.S. Senate Hearing 2005.
[ Before fracked (tight) natural gas came along, natural gas prices spiked sky-high and the U.S. Congress began looking at how new LNG import terminal construction could be expedited, … Continue reading
Posted in LNG Liquified Natural Gas, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged import, LNG, natural gas
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House hearing on Canadian oil sands
House 112-128. March 20, 2012. The American Energy Initiative Part 17: A focus on the future of energy technology with an emphasis on Canadian oil sands. U.S. House of Representatives. [ Excerpts from the 203 page transcript ] President Obama … Continue reading
Posted in Tar Sands (Oil Sands), U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged Canada, oil sands, tar sands
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How burning biomass made us human
[ This is a book review of Wrangham’s “Catching Fire: How cooking made us human”. Fire enabled us to have larger brains from the increased calories in cooked food, held carnivores at bay, killed bacteria, and gave us many other … Continue reading
Germany’s “Energiewende” may need to be rescued with nonrenewable coal power
[ Below is my summary of The Energiewende is Running Up Against Its Limits (October 24, 2016) by Jeffrey Michel at the Energy Collective. Wealthy, well-educated Germany has tried harder and longer than most nations to make a transition to renewables. … Continue reading
Posted in National Super Grid, Renewable Integration
Tagged coal, electric grid, Energiewende, germany, transmission
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Are biofuels a sustainable and viable energy strategy?
Preface. In 2000, Melanie Kenderine at the U.S. Department of energy stated that: “This nation has abundant biomass resources (grasses, trees, agricultural wastes) that have the potential to provide power, fuels, chemicals and other bio-based products” (136). That’s a good … Continue reading
Posted in Biofuels, EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested
Tagged biofuel, EROEI, EROI, net energy, subsidies
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Department of Energy algal biofuels roadmap: A summary
Preface. If you really want to get into the weeds about the details of why algal fuels have failed to produce biofuels, read this 140 page paper. Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Women in ecology author of 2021 Life After Fossil Fuels: … Continue reading
Effects of biodiesel on diesel engines: John Deere
[ Since petroleum is finite, the most important focus of U.S. energy research ought to be keeping trucks operating, since civilization ends when trucks stop running. Ideally this would be done with a “drop-in” fuel that can be burned in … Continue reading
Posted in Biodiesel, Trucks
Tagged biodiesel, diesel engine, John Deere
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A U.S. Senate hearing on T. Boone Pickens plans for natural gas and wind to reduce oil dependence
[ This session is unusual in that the words “peak oil” are spoken several times, and M. King Hubbert, James Howard Kunstler, and Matt Simmons are lauded. Gal Luft points out that “10 years ago, Osama bin Laden predicted that … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas Vehicles, U.S. Congress Energy Dependence
Tagged natural gas, peak oil, pickens, wind
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Natural gas is a stupid transportation fuel
[ My comment: The only reason natural gas has come up as a transportation fuel at all is the false belief that there is 100 years of natural gas (even this article does, but natural gas may last far less … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Natural Gas Vehicles, Transportation
Tagged cars, natural gas, transportation
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