Categories
-
Recent Posts
- NIMBY Hydrogen production
- Can Geothermal power replace declining fossil fuels?
- Telling others about peak oil and limits to growth
- Why coal was only created once
- Failed Nations
- We already have a date for the zenith of civilization: 2025-2026
- Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth?
- Spermageddon: Sperm is declining around the world
- Thorium nuclear bombs and reactors have too many challenges
- Who Killed the Electric Car & more importantly, the Electric Truck?
- President Carter’s energy solutions 1977
- Peak Menhaden
- Hemp for paper, textiles, the war on drugs, and more
- Why towns have a hard time adding EV, solar, heat pumps
- Building a national super grid in America
Category Archives: Energy
Vaclav Smil on wood
[ I’ve extracted bits about wood from Smil’s book about materials below, read the book for the larger context. Enormous amounts of wood were used in former civilizations with much smaller populations than today, so it’s clear we can’t go … Continue reading
China is securing energy resources. A potential threat to Europe and U.S. interests.
Preface. China is vastly expanding its fleet of natural gas heavy-duty trucks to 700,000 in 2018 and similar or more amounts after that. They are building pipelines to Russia and other Central Asian countries to keep the gas coming. I … Continue reading
Posted in Natural Gas, U.S. Congress Energy Dependence, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged china, energy security
1 Comment
Is Peak Oil dead? Not by a long shot! Remember Ladyfern?
Preface. Oil is finite. Period. Don’t be fooled by news stories that peak oil is dead, or we have reached peak demand. They’re all nonsense. Gail Tverberg at ourfiniteworld.com is especially good at explaining this. Worse yet, what we have … Continue reading
Posted in Oil & Gas Fracked, Peak Natural Gas
Tagged fracked gas, ladyfern, shale gas, tragedy of the commons
1 Comment
Given the laws of physics, can the Tesla Semi really go 500 miles, and what will the price be?
Preface: Most people think that electric truck makers need to tell us the specs — the battery kWh, price, performance, and so on — before we can possibly know anything about their truck. But that’s simply not true. We know … Continue reading
Overview of the renewable fuel standard, U.S. House hearing 2013
House 113-61. June 26, 2013. Overview of the renewable fuel standard: Government perspectives. House of Representatives. [Excerpts from the 104 page transcript follow] Key points: The implicit premise that cellulosic and other advanced biofuels would be available in significant quantities … Continue reading
Posted in Renewable fuel standard RFS, U.S. Congress Transportation
Comments Off on Overview of the renewable fuel standard, U.S. House hearing 2013
Why is nearly all solar power built where subsidies are the highest?
If solar net energy return is as high as some solar advocates claim, why does solar need any subsidies? And not just U.S. subsidies, it’s subsidies on top of subsidies when you add in that we’re buying Chinese government subsidized … Continue reading
What would happen if trucks stopped running?
Preface. In “Why You Should Love Trucks” I showed that essential supply chains depend on trucks nearly completely. Because of little inventory and dependence on just-in-time deliveries, our civilization would almost immediately feel the repercussions of trucks stopping. In fact, … Continue reading
Posted in Cascading Failure, Dependence on Oil, Electric & Hydrogen trucks impossible, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Oil Shocks, Transportation Infrastructure, Transportation Supply chain, Trucks, When Trucks Stop Running
Tagged civilization, electric trucks, life without lorries, trucks, trucks stop running
Comments Off on What would happen if trucks stopped running?
How long will the marriage of fracked oil and tar sands last?
[ Below is a post by Art Berman which I found interesting because I’m concerned about whether enough diesel can be made in the future to keep trucks running. Light tight “fracked” oil is better at making plastics and gasoline … Continue reading
Posted in Oil & Gas Fracked, Tar Sands (Oil Sands)
Tagged fracked oil, light tight oil, oil sands, tar sands
4 Comments
Underground pumped hydro storage is the only technology capable of massive storage for renewable electricity
[ Picard concludes that “None of the candidate technologies for massive-scale renewable and sustainable generation of ‘‘green’’ electricity deliver it in a form suitable for high-efficiency storage. None of the prospectively-massive storage modes for transformed electricity is at present well … Continue reading