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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
Do you want to eat, drink, or fly?
Preface. In this post the New York Times writes about renewable airplane fuel from corn ethanol, and questions whether there is enough water and a few other problems. First I’m going to summarize their issues with this, and then follow … Continue reading
Posted in Airplanes, Biofuels, Biomass EROI, Groundwater, Peak Water
Tagged aquifer, aviation fuel, corn, EROI, ethanol
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Unpave concrete & asphalt to save energy and money
Preface. The U.S. has 4.1 million miles of roads (1.9 million paved, 2.2 million gravel). About 3 million miles of roads have less than 2,000 vehicles a day, less than 15% of all traffic. The paved portion of these low-volume … Continue reading
Posted in Concrete, Roads, Transportation, Transportation What To Do
Tagged depave, roads, unpave
2 Comments
A Nuclear spent fuel pool fire could force millions to evacuate & cost $2 trillion
Source: Stone R (2016) Near miss at Fukushima is a warning for U.S., panel says. Science Preface. Nuclear cheerleaders love to talk about how safe nuclear power is. You will never ever hear them talk about nuclear fuel pools because … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear spent fuel fire, Nuclear Waste
Tagged electric grid, electromagnetic pulse, EMP, pool, spent nuclear fuel
1 Comment
Book review: Atomic Days. The Untold Story of the Most Toxic Place in America
Preface. Plutonium for nuclear weapons was produced at the Hanford Washington site for nearly four decades. Today it is the world’s most polluted site chock-a-block with radioactive waste and toxic chemicals. Chemical pollution is one of the planetary boundaries that … Continue reading
Posted in Chemical Pollution, Disasters, Energy Books, Nuclear Waste, Pollution
Tagged accident, Bechtel, DOE, Hanford, nuclear waste, plutonium
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Want to survive Peak Everything? Become a Mormon
Source: Salt Lake Tribune. For Latter-day Saint families, preparing for emergencies is the norm Preface. Ted Koppel’s book “Lights Out” highlights the many risks to the grid from cyber and physical attacks, electromagnetic pulses from weapons or solar flares, large … Continue reading
Posted in Blackouts, Electric Grid & EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Energy Books, Where to Be or Not to Be
Tagged Black out, grid crash, LDS, Mormon, survival
1 Comment
Book Cobalt: The Making of a Mining Superpower
Preface. This book is about the history of the town of Cobalt and would make a great horror movie — the disease, filth, poverty, poor wages, racism, and destruction of the environment — the biodiversity, fresh water and more.
Posted in Energy Books, Mining
Tagged cobalt, hazardous waste, mining, pollution
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EV charging not possible when restricted or grid down
Preface. I have many posts at energyskeptic on the myriad reasons the grid will fail or disrupted in the future. Climate change is causing droughts and reservoirs too low to generate much hydropower, and nuclear plants must shut down if … Continue reading
Posted in Electric Vehicles, Electrification, Energy Climate Change
Tagged climate change, electric grid, electric vehicle, EV, heat wave
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Opposition to mining will prevent a green transition to renewables
Source: Bare (2012) Environmentalists win review of two more plants near Rosemont copper mine. Arizona Capitol times. I could overwhelm you with world-wide trillions of tons of mining waste and how China has rendered 20% of its farmland too toxic … Continue reading
Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Mining
Tagged copper, mining, renewables, supply chain
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550,000 abandoned mines, $50 billion to clean the worst ones
Preface. Below are excerpts of a US House 2010 congressional hearing on cleaning up abandoned mines. Abandoned mines can cause soil erosion, heavy metal contamination (i.e., cyanide, lead, arsenic, mercury, uranium), and acid drainage that threatens thousands of streams and … Continue reading
Uranium waste from 50+ sites contaminating groundwater
Preface. One of the top priorities of collapse from energy decline is to clean up nuclear (Superfund and other hazardous) wastes NOW, while we have the energy and technical ability to do so. Future generations will be thrown back into … Continue reading
Posted in Chemical Pollution, Hazardous Waste, Nuclear Waste, Peak Water
Tagged groundwater, nuclear waste, uranium
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