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- Why towns have a hard time adding EV, solar, heat pumps
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- The Mayflower from the book The Barbarous Years
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- Book review of “Livewired. The inside story of the ever-changing brain”
- The conveyor belt may be slowing down — Yikes!
- Battery Energy storage batteries (BESS) too complex to ever be commercial
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- Book review of “Siege: Trump Under fire”
- Why do people vote for Trump?
- Book review of “Pandemic Politics: The Deadly Toll of Partisanship in the Age of COVID”
- The evolution of the Republican party from 1960 to 2024: from moderate democracy to extreme authoritarianism
- Why some people are conservative and others liberal
- Book review: Bring the War Home: The white power movement & paramilitary America
Tag Archives: power
Why fusion power is Forever Away
Preface. When my husband Jeffery Kahn was a science writer at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, we became friends with several astrophysicists who used to joke about how fusion was 30 years away and always would be. If world peak oil … Continue reading
Posted in Alternative Energy, Energy, Fusion
Tagged corrosion, electricity, fusion, ITER, plasma, power
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Offshore wind turbines: Expensive, risky, and last just 15 years
Preface: The Department of Energy high wind penetration plans require a lot of offshore wind. But is it possible, affordable, or wise to do this? Corrosion leads to a short lifespan of just 15 years. To reduce maintenance, offshore windmills … Continue reading
Far out #5 (satire): Biofuels made from the victims of climate change, potato power, founding fathers spinning in graves
Preface. The “breakthroughs” you read about in batteries, hydrogen, and other so-called renewables are just as unlikely to happen Alice Friedemann www.energyskeptic.com Author of Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy; When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and … Continue reading
From Horsepower to Horse Power. When Trucks stop, Horses start.
Preface. Before the industrial revolution there were only four sources of mechanical power of any economic significance. They were human labor, animal labor, water power (near flowing streams) and wind power. Work done by animals, especially on farms, was still … Continue reading
Why is nearly all solar power built where subsidies are the highest?
If solar net energy return is as high as some solar advocates claim, why does solar need any subsidies? And not just U.S. subsidies, it’s subsidies on top of subsidies when you add in that we’re buying Chinese government subsidized … Continue reading
Coal plants are causing water shortages in China
Wong, E. March 22, 2016. Report Ties Coal Plants to Water Shortage in Northern China. New York Times. China’s consumption of coal, a major contributor to climate change and the country’s horrific air pollution, is worsening a severe water shortage … Continue reading
Posted in China, Energy Production, Peak Water
Tagged china, coal, power, water
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Extreme Events. CEC 2011. Variable distributed generation from solar and wind increase the chance of large blackouts
Morgan, M., et al. (Pacific Northwest National Laboratory, University of Wisconsin-Madison, Electric Power Research Institute, BACV Solutions, Southern Company, CIEE, University of Alaska – Fairbanks, and KEMA). 2011. Extreme Events. California Energy Commission. Publication number: CEC-500- 2013-031. Figure 18: BLACKOUT … Continue reading
Posted in Distributed Generation, Grid instability
Tagged blackout, branching process, cascading failure, contingency, critical, critical corridors, earthquake, electric, extreme events, grid, heavy tail, outages, power, risk, WECC
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