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Recent Posts
- ‘The oil we eat’. Following the food chain back to iraq
- Vanishing open spaces: population growth and sprawl in America
- Admiral Rickover 1957: Energy Resources & Our Future
- The Green New Deal is not a solution for the real problem: Overshoot
- A transition from fossil fuels to renewables could take a century – if it ever happens
- 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
Category Archives: Experts
Richard Heinberg on why low oil prices do not mean there is plenty of oil, EROI, collapse
[ Yet another wise, thoughtful, and wide-ranging essay from my favorite writer of the many facets of a civilization about to decline as it is starved of the fossil fuels that feed it. Although the topics are quite varied, Heinberg … Continue reading
Posted in Oil, Peter Turchin, Richard Heinberg, Social Disorder
Tagged 100% renewable, collapse, EROI, oil, prices, richard heinberg, social instability, violence
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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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Richard Heinberg: Paul Krugman’s Errors and Omissions
Preface. This article by Richard Heinberg at Postcarbon refutes a column by Paul Krugmen called “Errors and Emissions Could Fighting Global Warming Be Cheap and Free?” here. Most of my friends and family think I’m nuts because articles like this … Continue reading
Posted in EROEI Energy Returned on Energy Invested, Richard Heinberg, Solar, Wind
Tagged climate change, end of growth, EROEI, paul krugman, richard heinberg, solar, wind
3 Comments
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
Civil war coming?
Preface. I read Turchin’s latest book which attempts to show why his past theories about the rise and fall of agrarian nations also applies to our modern civilization. But there was not one mention of fossil fuels, natural resources, or … Continue reading
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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