Category Archives: What to do

Neighborhood councils to cope with energy decline

I’m reading “The Dawn of Everything: A New History of Humanity” which is one of the best books I’ve read in years, and a very hopeful one – this 700 page book is full of evidence that agriculture, capitalism, slavery, … Continue reading

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Can we eat enough fried food for biodiesel to keep trucks running?

Fatberg from London sewer If the U.S. can’t make enough biodiesel from plants, then the question becomes: Can we step up our fast-food game? Can we eat more French fries?  Biodiesel is already made from used cooking oil (11.5% of … Continue reading

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Energy certificates as currency when oil shocks strike?

Since world oil peaked in 2018, clearly there will be a time when there are oil shortages. The price may be high at first, but that often brings on a financial crash (Hamilton 2013), unemployment rises as business shut down, … Continue reading

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Far out #7: Ammonia power & recycle wind turbines by eating them

Preface. This optimistic article is honest enough to say that the new process of not emitting NOx when using ammonia for energy is a long way from commercial viability, and has myriad hurdles.  This is not the most promising way … Continue reading

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So you don’t want to be a farmer postcarbon? City jobs of the future

Preface. This book summarizes the work of Henry Mayhew from 1849 to 1852. He wrote about the people and goods  being sold on the streets of London, interviewing hundreds of street vendors. He estimated there were about 30,000 of them … Continue reading

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The Good News About Peak Oil

As oil declines, the threat of a greenhouse earth & extinction from climate change decline Carbon sequestration, wind, solar, geo-engineering, and other remedies are trivial compared to the effect declining fossil fuels will have on reducing greenhouse gas emissions. The … Continue reading

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Lithium-ion battery recycling, environmental impact, energy used

Preface. The future of both electric vehicles and utility-scale energy storage are depending on lithium-ion batteries because of their high energy-density, and even though lithium is limited, it’s about the only kind of battery being made for transport (because it … Continue reading

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Why EV Batteries aren’t being recycled

Preface.  Talk to your typical capitalist / environmentalist and they will both agree that we will never run out of anything because we can recycle.  But we aren’t.  Especially since it’s cheaper to buy newly mined metals than to recycle … Continue reading

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Is there a long emergency plan for peak oil?

  Source: A year on the midieval farm https://www.medievalists.net/2014/06/year-medieval-farm/ Ever since I learned about peak oil in 2000 after reading my grandfather Pettijohn’s memoir (Pettijohn 1984), I’ve wondered what The Plan To Cope with Oil Decline and eventual disappearance was. … Continue reading

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How to fix our inland waterway system

Preface.  As you can see in Table 1 below, water transport is far more energy efficient than land transport, especially once we’re back to muscle power after fossil fuels are gone. Kilojoules of energy used to carry one ton of … Continue reading

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