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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
Climate change risks could cause an American “Fukushima”
Preface. Nuclear power plants need a constant supply of electric power to pump cool water into a reactor’s core. Ninety percent of them, 54 plants, have at least one flood risk exceeding their design. If flooding stops the power supply … Continue reading
Posted in Climate Change, Nuclear Waste
Tagged climate change, Fukushima, meltdown, nuclear waste
2 Comments
Germany’s renewable energy program, Energiewende, is a big, expensive failure
Preface. After reading this post, or better yet the original 44-page document, you’ll understand why the Green New Deal isn’t working out despite being crazy expensive. The goal of Energiewende was to make Germany independent of fossil fuels. But it … Continue reading
Decommissioning a nuclear reactor
Preface. Below are excerpts of articles about the costs and challenges of dismantling nuclear power plants. This is at the top of my “Energy Descent To Do List” given the consequences for future generations for up to a million years, … Continue reading
Posted in Nuclear Waste
Tagged decommission, nuclear
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Climate change effects on hydropower in California
Preface. Climate change will impact California agriculture without the snow melt that allows for up to three crops to be grown a year, perhaps just one crop in the future. Not to mention the impact on the 40 million people … Continue reading
Posted in Energy Climate Change, Hydropower
Tagged california, climate change, hydropower
2 Comments
Hydropower can’t help with the energy crisis
Preface. When fossil fuels are gone, there aren’t many ways to balance the unreliable, intermittent, and often absent for weeks at a time power from wind and solar. Biofuels and burning biomass is one solution, it’s dispatchable and can kick … Continue reading
Book review of Jaczko’s “Confessions of a rogue nuclear regulator”
Preface. After presenting a lot of evidence for why nuclear power plants are inherently unsafe, Jaczko concludes: “There is only one logical answer: we must stop generating nuclear waste, and that means we must stop using nuclear power. You would … Continue reading
Hydropower dams and the ways they destroy the environment
Preface. Hydropower comprises 71% of renewable energy worldwide. Nations like the U.S. and Europe have dams that have reached the end of their lifespan — more are being torn down than built. In the U.S. 546 dams were removed between … Continue reading
Posted in CO2 and Methane, Dams, Hydropower
Tagged biodiversity, china, environment, hydropower, Three Gorges dam
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Pedro Prieto: many solar panels won’t last 25-30 years, EROI may be negative
Preface. Pedro Prieto and Charles Hall wrote the definitive book on the EROI of solar power, “Spain’s Photovoltaic Revolution. The Energy Return on Investment” and has built many commercial facilities himself and witnessed the failure of solar panels long before … Continue reading
Can Zinc batteries save the electric grid?
Preface: Right now, and as long as natural gas lasts, the electric grid will stay up since it is the main storage and way to balance unreliable wind and solar power. Hydropower can also play a major role in the … Continue reading
Posted in Batteries, Energy Storage, Lithium-ion
Tagged air, battery, lithium, reserves, zinc
1 Comment