Category Archives: Renewables

Non-fossil energy contraptions

Who Killed the Electric Car & more importantly, the Electric Truck?

Preface. Who cares about electric cars? Civilization ends when trucks stop running. Trucks can’t run on batteries because they’re too heavy, with 63 times less energy density than diesel. If all U.S. transportation were to be electrified, the existing electric … Continue reading

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Building a national super grid in America

Preface. Renewables are not evenly distributed.  Just 10 states have 80% of hydropower (Homeland Security 2011), 10 states produce 75% of wind power (EIA 2017), and 10 states produce 79% of solar power (CE 2020). With a national grid, instead … Continue reading

Posted in Electric Grid, Electric Grid & EMP Electromagnetic Pulse, Electricity Infrastructure, National Super Grid, Solar, Vaclav Smil, Wind | Tagged , , | 3 Comments

Battery Energy storage batteries (BESS) too complex to ever be commercial

Source: RWE connects its first utility-scale battery storage project to the California grid Preface.  In 2024 if all of the BESS battery storage time were added up, they could store 8 of the 8,760 hours of annual electricity generated in … Continue reading

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69 Reasons why wind turbines cannot replace fossil fuels

Source: Leonard, T. 2012. Broken down and rusting, is this the future of Britain’s ‘wind rush’? Preface   Last updated 2025-5-13 The most important problem to be solved is electrifying transportation, otherwise how can you deliver the 30,000 parts of a … Continue reading

Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Wind | Tagged , , , , , , , , , , , , | 1 Comment

The pillaging of Native American coal, water, uranium and more

Preface. This is a book review of: “Unreal City: Las Vegas, Black Mesa, and the Fate of the West” by Judith Nies.  This book is about how stealing the resources of native Americans lands was made legal, despite enormous Native … Continue reading

Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Biodiversity, Coal, Energy Books, Energy Infrastructure, Global Warming, Infrastructure & Fast Crash, Mass migrations, Peak Resources, Pumped Hydro Storage (PHS), U.S. Congress Energy Policy, Water Pollution | Tagged , , , , , , , | Comments Off on The pillaging of Native American coal, water, uranium and more

Fusion is already running out of fuel

Source: Khan A (2021) Nuclear fusion: building a star on Earth is hard, which is why we need better materials. The Conversation. Preface.  Of all the hundreds of obstacles fusion has yet to overcome, its death knell could be as … Continue reading

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Will Congress ever create a new independent agency to store nuclear waste permanently?

Preface. The lack of permanent geological storage of nuclear waste will be yet another nightmare for those living after fossils have declined and civilizations go back to biomass fuels and muscle power. They will already be dealing with heat making … Continue reading

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Nuclear waste will harm future generations for a million years without underground storage

Preface. This is a book review of “Too Hot to Touch: The Problem of High-Level Nuclear Waste” and the best book I’ve read on the topic, as well as additional research on the topic. Now that world wide production of … Continue reading

Posted in An Index of Best Energyskeptic Posts, Energy Books, Nuclear Books, Nuclear Power Energy, Nuclear Waste | Tagged , , , , , | 4 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 , , , , | 1 Comment

Sodium Sulfur Batteries

Recent research progress in sodium ion batteries: (a) cathode, (b) anode, (c) electrolyte and (d) binder. Source: Hwang J (2017) Sodium-ion batteries: present and future. Chem. Soc. Review 46: 3529-3614  DOI: 10.1039/C6CS00776G Preface. If lithium were used for both EV … Continue reading

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