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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: Infrastructure
Reducing fuel consumption of medium & heavy-duty vehicles 2014 National Research Council
Look at the enormous waste of fuel when JIT supply chain trucks ramped up in the late 70s (page 63). Excerpts from the 117 page: NRC. 2014. Reducing the Fuel Consumption and Greenhouse Gas Emissions of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles, … Continue reading
Posted in Efficiency
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Peak fossil fuels limits climate change to low-to-medium outcomes in IPCC report
Excerpts from 24 page: Höök, M., Tang, X. 2013. Depletion of fossil fuels and anthropogenic climate change: a review. Energy Policy, 52: 797-809 Conclusion of paper: Fossil fuel constraints will limit anthropogenic climate impact towards the low-medium outcomes presented by … Continue reading
Posted in ! PEAK EVERYTHING, But not from climate change: Peak Fossil Fuels, Climate Change, Supply Chains, Transportation
Tagged climate change, peak coal, peak natural gas, peak oil
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Peak soil, peak phosphate, peak fertilizer means Peak Food
Amundson, R., et al. May 7, 2015. Soil and human security in the 21st century. Science 348. A group of leading soil scientists has summarized the precarious state of the world’s soil resources and the possible ramifications for human security … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture
Tagged peak fertilizer, peak food, peak phosphate, peak soil
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Better truck fuel efficiency to delay the end of the oil age
NAS. 2010. Technologies and Approaches to Reducing the Fuel Consumption of Medium- and Heavy-Duty Vehicles (National Academy of Sciences Study) This free, 251 page document is one of the best I’ve seen on the myriad ways trucks could double their … Continue reading
Posted in Transportation What To Do, Trucks
Tagged aerodynamic, fuel efficiency, hybrid, lightweighting, mpg, peak oil, ton miles, truck
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All Electric Trucks. Probably not going to happen. Ever. Why not?
There are “forms of transport that cannot be electrified — heavy-duty trucks and planes… Even if the electricity problem can be solved, it won’t address the needs of planes, trucks, ships and some industrial heating that cannot be electrified” (Long). … Continue reading
Posted in Batteries, Lithium-ion, Trucks
Tagged A123, all electric, battery, e-truck, electric truck, fuel cell, Smith Electric, subsidy
5 Comments
GAO on why ethanol, and other non-drop in fuels, face pipeline & installation at service station challenges
[The challenges that ethanol faces in being put into new or modified pipelines and added to gas stations are issues faced by all alternative fuels (methanol, CNG, LNG, DME, diesohol, CTL, hydrogen, and so on) in a transition from gasoline … Continue reading
Posted in Automobiles, Biofuels, Fuel Distribution, Pipeline
Tagged biofuel, E85, ethanol, non drop-in fuel, pipeline, service station
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A third of Nuclear Reactors are going to die of old age in the next 10-20 years
70% of reactors are over 25 years old, 23% are over 35 years old, so within 10 to 20 years about a third will have to be decommissioned, far more than the 63 under construction. Some are bound to fail … Continue reading
Wind turbines hit limits to growth before 50% wind power penetration
Material requirements of 50% wind power in the USA hit limits to growth Also see: Davidsson, S., et al. 2014. Growth curves and sustained commissioning modelling of renewable energy Investigating resource constraints for wind energy. Energy Policy. Fizaine, F., et … Continue reading
Posted in Electrification, Limits To Growth, Renewable Integration, Wind
Tagged cement, concrete, copper, dysprosium, expoxy, fiberglass, iron, limits to growth, neodymium, steel, turbines, wind
2 Comments
Wind’s dirty secret: it goes on vacation in the summer and year-round in the South East
Figure 1. Summer wind across the USA is barely to not economically viable Class 3 (light blue), or not at all economically viable Class 2 (orange) and class 1 (blank) (NREL), with very limited darker blue (class 4) and … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid & EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Electrification, Seasonal, Wind
Tagged monthly, seasonal, wind resource maps, wind speed
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