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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
Energy Watch Group. Peak Uranium 2020-2035
Energy Watch Group. March 2013. Fossil and Nuclear Fuels – the Supply Outlook (172 pages) Uranium production peaks for the same reasons as oil, coal, and natural gas: the depletion of easy and cheap to develop mines. EWG’s guess is … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Power Energy, Peak Uranium
Tagged nuclear power, peak uranium
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Feedback Loops
1) Feedback loops that lead to oil prices drop below the cost of production Oil price rises or spikes from blockage of straits of hormuz, exports decline (ELM), Saudi Arabia and/or Middle Eastern high decline rates, China and India … Continue reading
Posted in Infrastructure, Oil Shocks
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Technology Won’t Save Us
Too many science fiction books, movies, comic books, Landing on the Moon, the Manhattan Project, and Happy Endings have created an unspoken certainty that a hero will arrive before aliens can destroy the Earth and that alternative energy will allow … Continue reading
Posted in Infrastructure
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Electric Grid Overview
[ Our energy, transportation, electric, water and other infrastructures are all heavily dependent on each other, making the U.S. one of the most vulnerable nations on earth. Although transportation is the most essential of all, especially trucks, which make the … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid, Electric Grid & EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Energy
Tagged alternative energy, blackout, cyber attack, electric grid, overview, stability
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Energy in the Food System uses 19% of all energy consumed in the USA. Pimentel 2008
Preface. There are many ways to calculate how much energy is used in the food system This first paper estimates 19%, the paper below 14%. It all depends on how much you include, and whether it is just the farm … Continue reading
Posted in Agriculture
Tagged energy, food
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How the sun could end Nuclear Power
Flare-up: How the Sun Could Put an End to Nuclear Power Gar Smith. Spring 2012. Earth Island Journal. According to NASA, the planet will soon face an outbreak of powerful solar flares capable of collapsing global power grids. Were this … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Grid & EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Nuclear Power Energy
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Writing on the wall for prime farmland. Years of irrigation have taken toll on San Joaquin Valley.
Carolyn Lochhead. March 24, 2014. Writing on the wall for prime farmland. Years of irrigation have taken toll on San Joaquin Valley. San Francisco Chronicle. Decades of irrigation have leached salts and toxic minerals from the soil [in the San … Continue reading
Posted in Peak Topsoil
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On the cusp of collapse: complexity, energy, and the globalised economy
On the cusp of collapse: complexity, energy, and the globalised economy by David Koriwicz, 2011. Fleeing Vesuvius The systems on which we rely for our financial transactions, food, fuel and livelihoods are so inter-dependent that they are better regarded as … Continue reading
Posted in Cascading Failure
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Inside North Korea’s environmental collapse
The reddish hue of this soil in North Korea comes from lack of organic matter, vital for farming. Related Posts: North Korea collapse posts How different nations have coped with oil shortages Dmitry Orlov: How Russians survived the collapse of … Continue reading
Posted in Deforestation, North Korea, Oil shock collapse, Peak Topsoil
Tagged collapse, erosion, North Korea, topsoil
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Groundwater depletion consequences
Robert. Glennon. 9 Oct 2002. The Perils of Groundwater Pumping. The excessive “mining” of our aquifers is causing environmental degradation on a potentially enormous scale. Issues in Science and Technology. National Academy of Sciences. Groundwater is more than 25 percent … Continue reading
Posted in Groundwater, Peak Water
Tagged aquifer, groundwater, peak water
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