Category Archives: 3) Fast Crash

The case for a fast, rather than a slow one. Most societies crashed in 20 years or less. There has never been or will be again a crash like ours, where the world of 7 billion people became utterly dependent on a non-renewable source of energy — fossil fuels.

Why the world can’t run on biodiesel from algae

Preface. This is an article I published in a peer-reviewed journal, and it’s also similar to “Chapter 25 Biodiesel from Algae” in my book Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy. And within this post is a … Continue reading

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Jellyfish in the news

Preface.  As we overfish, eutrophy and acidify the ocean with fertilizer and pesticides we risk a tipping point where jellyfish dominate the oceans and fish are scarce. Related: Why and how Jellyfish are taking over the world Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  … Continue reading

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Why EV Batteries aren’t being recycled

Preface.  Talk to your typical capitalist / environmentalist and they will both agree that we will never run out of anything because we can recycle.  But we aren’t.  Especially since it’s cheaper to buy newly mined metals than to recycle … Continue reading

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Is there a long emergency plan for peak oil?

  Source: A year on the midieval farm https://www.medievalists.net/2014/06/year-medieval-farm/ Ever since I learned about peak oil in 2000 after reading my grandfather Pettijohn’s memoir (Pettijohn 1984), I’ve wondered what The Plan To Cope with Oil Decline and eventual disappearance was. … Continue reading

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Climate change will damage energy infrastructure, costing trillions

Preface. Climate change and extreme weather will harm oil and gas exploration and production, electric power generation and increase energy demand due to sea level rise, heat, drought, floods, more storms, and blackouts.  Extreme heat and drought will force electric … Continue reading

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USGS Groundwater Depletion study of aquifer decline in the U.S.

Preface. I summarize two major research papers on the state of the Ogallal below.  It and many other aquifers are depleting rapidly, and polluted from pesticides, feedlot waste, intruding salts, and other pollution. Rainfall isn’t replenishing the Ogallala. Many won’t … Continue reading

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Toxic chemicals threaten health, reproduction, cause cancer, diabetes

Preface.  This post could have thousands more entries, but devoting energyskeptic to the tens of thousands of chemicals that are legally polluting our environment would be a full-time job. However scary the transition from fossils back to wood world may … Continue reading

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Your life and the economy depend on biodiversity

Preface. We are trained in school, newspapers, and TV to view the world politically and economically. Not ecologically.  The World Economic Forum article below is an excellent summary of why biodiversity is so important, as much as climate change, which … Continue reading

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Freshwater fish under threat of extinction

Preface. A third of freshwater fish are under threat from pollution, over fishing, dams, non-native species, climate change, disruption of river ecology and more.  Alice Friedemann  www.energyskeptic.com  Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When … Continue reading

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Will Artificial Intelligence destroy us?

Preface. When it comes to artificial intelligence, most articles assume it will happen, so discussions range around when and how it will happen. Often speculation that a general AI may use its ability to find patterns in data will allow … Continue reading

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