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- Peak Menhaden
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- Why towns have a hard time adding EV, solar, heat pumps
- Building a national super grid in America
- The Mayflower from the book The Barbarous Years
- Deep Sea Oil
- Book review of “Livewired. The inside story of the ever-changing brain”
- The conveyor belt may be slowing down — Yikes!
- Battery Energy storage batteries (BESS) too complex to ever be commercial
- New war and energy alliances over next resource wars
- Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”
- Why do people vote for Trump?
- Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”
- The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism
- Why some people are conservative and others liberal
Category Archives: GOVERNMENT
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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U.S. House 2013 “Exports and the Changing global energy landscape”
[ My excerpts from the house hearing below is another “let’s export Natural Gas to our allies now that we’re energy independent”. The driving force is not making even better friends with Europe and keeping bully Russia away (though that’s … Continue reading
Posted in Military, U.S. Congress Energy Independence
Tagged energy independence, export, natural gas
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Not only are telecom companies screwing us on net neutrality, they refuse to get rid of robocalls
Preface. It’s four years after the 2013 Senate hearing below and the telecomm industry has still refused and congress and/or the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) have not demanded robocalls be blocked despite over 10 years of complaints. In fact, unwanted … Continue reading
Posted in Congressional Record U.S., Scams
Tagged robocall, telecommunications
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U.S. Senate 2014 Freight rail service: improving the performance of America’s rail system
Preface. This Senate hearing is mainly full of oil and grain industry leaders bashing the rail industry and asking Senators to do something about it. But the railroad industry is four times more energy efficient than trucks, and not guilty … 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
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
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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
House hearing on Venezuela’s collapse March 2017
“The economy of Venezuela is largely based on the petroleum sector and manufacturing. Revenue from petroleum exports accounts for more than 50% of the country’s GDP and roughly 95% of total exports” (wiki). Preface. Venezuela supposedly has 18.2% of the … Continue reading
Posted in Mass migrations, U.S. Congress Energy Dependence, Venezuela
Tagged collapse, house hearing, refugees, Venezuela
4 Comments
House hearing: no solutions for North Korea in sight
[ This is a summary of the March 2017 house hearing titled “Pressuring North Korea–evaluating options”. First are some of the reasons why nothing is going to change –in my own wording–followed by congressional testimony. Then Chairman Yoho gives a … Continue reading
Posted in North Korea, Oil shock collapse, U.S. Congress Energy Policy
Tagged collapse, North Korea
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Pentagon video warns of unavoidable dystopian future for world’s biggest cities
Preface. A few excerpts: Megacities are, by definition, urban areas with a population of 10 million or more, and they have been a recent source of worry and research for the U.S. military. A 2014 Army report, titled “Megacities and … Continue reading