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Recent Posts
- 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
- “More and More and More” one of the best books on energy ever written
- The staggering destruction of knowledge by Christians in the Roman Empire
- Why the R/P Reserves to Production ratio does not show when oil will run out
- Catton on Collapse “Bottleneck: Humanity’s Impending Impasse”
- Book Review of Grain Brain: Extraordinary claim not backed up by evidence
Category Archives: Renewables
Why Nuclear Power can’t replace fossil fuels
Preface. Economic reasons are the main hurdle to new nuclear plants now, with capital costs so high it’s almost impossible to get a loan, especially when natural gas is so much cheaper and less risky. But there are other reasons … Continue reading
Why fusion power is Forever Away
Preface. When my husband Jeffery Kahn was a science writer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, astrophysicists told him fusion was 30 years away and always would be. ITER was supposed to be ready in 2016, but the completion date for … Continue reading
Environmental effects of nuclear winter
Preface. This post is a summary of what I thought interesting and important from this 2025 National Academy of Sciences report “Potential environmental effects of nuclear war.” Unlike other nuclear winter papers reviewed in energyskeptic, the National Academy does not … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear Winter, War Books
Tagged existential threat, HALEU, nuclear waste, nuclear weapons, nuclear winter, polycrisis
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Natural Gas & Coal essential for energy storage
Preface. The U.S. Department of energy has stated a renewable grid is not possible without long-duration energy storage (Colthorpe 2022). Another report explains why around-the-clock renewables and decarbonization will not be possible without it (McKinsey 2022). This post explains why … Continue reading
Why carbon capture contraptions are absurd
Preface. At the first USA peak oil conference in Denver (ASPO 2005), many of the attendees speculated renewable energy would be the last chance for Wall Street to make money from government subsidies and “dumb money” investors before limits to … Continue reading
Posted in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), CO2 and Methane
Tagged capture, Carbon, CCS, CCUS, CO2, DAC, Direct Air Capture, Sekera, sequestration
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Summary of Greenpeace “Nuclear Reactor Hazards”
Source: Nuclear power is dirty, dangerous and expensive. Say no to new nukes. Preface. This is a summary of: Hirsch H (2005) Nuclear Reactor Hazards Ongoing Dangers of Operating Nuclear Technology in the 21st Century. Greenpeace International. The revival of … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Nuclear Books, Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear spent fuel fire
Tagged accident, aging, hazard, nuclear
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Nuclear power is not the solution
Preface. This is a book review of Ramana’s “Nuclear is not the Solution: The Folly of Atomic Power in the Age of Climate Change.” A great overview that covers many topics, one of the best out there, and most recent. … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Books, Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear War
Tagged nuclear, power, storage, war, waste, weapons
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CCS plants leak, catch on fire, explode, corrode, and contaminate water
Source: Center for Progressive reform (2024) Carbon Dioxide Leak in Decatur, IL, Demonstrates Dangerous Failure of Carbon Capture Storage and Sequestration Preface. Clearly it is not worth spending billions of dollars to sequester CO2 “permanently” if it may leak. It’s … Continue reading
Posted in Carbon Capture & Storage (CCS), Commodity Scams
Tagged carbon capture, CCS, leaks
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Can Geothermal power replace declining fossil fuels?
Preface. Today the electric grid stays up because of months of backup power from natural gas, coal, and uranium. Most of all natural gas because it can quickly balance wind and solar as they suddenly appear or die out. Natural … Continue reading
Posted in Geothermal
Tagged EGS, electricity, Enhanced Geothermal, geothermal, heat, renewable
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Thorium nuclear bombs and reactors have too many challenges
Preface. The energyskeptic website and my books explain why we can’t run transportation, mining, agriculture, concrete, blast furnace steel and other essential sectors that are highly dependent on fossil fuels with electricity, biofuels, hydrogen, coal-to-liquids or anything else. So a … Continue reading
Posted in Thorium
Tagged nuclear war, nuclear winter, Ramana, thorium reactors
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