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Tag Archives: Alice Friedemann
How to fix our inland waterway system
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 cargo one kilometer Transportation mode 50 Oil tankers […]
Insect & other BioInvasions
Insect & other BioInvasions Preface. Invasive insects that have no predators in the U.S. can only be somewhat reduced with pesticides, which are made out of oil, and sprayed by diesel machinery and transportation. To prepare for oil decline, more research needs to be done to study native predators as pest control, which takes time […]
Life After Fossil Fuels | Alice Friedemann
Life After Fossil Fuels | Alice Friedemann And why the climate change conversation isn’t helping A post-carbon world could be our opportunity to so better—and make the difficult transition much harder to swallow. That’s the message of Alice Friedemann on this week’s episode, author of When Trucks Stop Running: Energy and the Future of Transportation. The […]
Peak Gold
Peak Gold Preface. Both articles below offer the usual techno-optimism of more gold supplies from Man’s Cleverness: robots, AI, and Big and Smart Data Mining. But both are energy blind. Ores are decreasing in gold concentrations, and found in deeper and more remote places, requiring more energy to process. Where will this energy come from? […]
The latest monster ships could be a disaster
The latest monster ships could be a disaster Preface. The article below makes the case for the hazards of one of these enormous ships running aground or sinking, blocking a major shipping line, leaking oil, and possibly impossible to salvage. In 2020, the largest container ship is the HMM Algeciras at 1,312 feet (400 m) […]
Material and other limits to scaling wind up to 24 GW by 2050
Material and other limits to scaling wind up to 24 GW by 2050 Preface. Here are just a few of the many important points made in this excellent paper: Research showing no constraints on the materials needed to build wind turbines “dismiss potential physical constraints and issues with natural resource supply, and do not consider […]
How will 500,000 products made with fossils as feedstock & process energy be created post fossil fuels?
How will 500,000 products made with fossils as feedstock & process energy be created post fossil fuels? Preface. It is quite likely that after fossils are gone, plastics will no longer be made, since they are incredibly complex – PhDs in numerous fields make them possible – and most kinds have been around for only […]
Rex Weyler: Why is the political process so slow to respond to our ecological crisis?
Rex Weyler: Why is the political process so slow to respond to our ecological crisis? Preface. Rex Weyler is one of the co-founders of Greenpeace in Canada, a brilliant ecologist and journalist, and more. His blog is here: https://www.rexweyler.ca/greenpeace *** Rex Wyler. September 2021. Ecological crisis: Might as well speak the truth Why is the political process […]
Over 250 Cognitive biases, fallacies, and errors
Over 250 Cognitive biases, fallacies, and errors Preface. All of us, no matter how much we’ve read about critical thinking, or have a PhD in science, and are even on the lookout for our biases and fallacies can still fall prey to them, after all, we’re only human. But false belief systems get dangerous when […]
Soil salinity and erosion
Soil salinity and erosion Preface. Civilizations fail when their soils are ruined or eroded. One way conquerors made sure that those they enslaved during wars was to salt their land and burn their homes so they had nowhere to escape to. Erosion is an even larger nation killer, since not all soils are prone to […]
Not enough fossil fuels left to trigger another mass extinction
Not enough fossil fuels left to trigger another mass extinction Preface. Since both conventional and unconventional oil peaked in 2018, we clearly won’t be burning fossils at exponentially increasing rates until 2400 as the IPCC expected. Quite the opposite, currently the decline rate of oil is 8% a year, which can be reduced to 4% […]
The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive
The Nitrogen Bomb: fossil-fueled fertilizers keep billions of us alive Preface. There are two articles below that explain why natural gas fertilizers are keeping at least 4 billion of us alive today. If you’re interested in this topic, here are a few more to read: Erisman JW, Sutton MA, Galloway J, et al (2008) How […]
Can democracy survive peak oil?
Can democracy survive peak oil? Preface. This is a book review of Howard Bucknell’s Energy and the National Defense. University of Kentucky Press. Bucknell was amazingly prescient as you’ll see in this review, especially about why democracy might not survive the energy crisis. Though it turns out the U.S. may not need an energy crisis to […]
Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future
Underestimating the Challenges of Avoiding a Ghastly Future Preface. This is another “Scientists Warnings to Humanity” by many famous scientists, including Paul & Anne Erlich, John Harte, Peter Raven, and Mathis Wackernagel. Some of the challenges they point to are loss of biodiversity and consequent 6th mass extinction, human population growth which has led to […]
Was the fall of the Roman Empire due to plagues & climate change?
Was the fall of the Roman Empire due to plagues & climate change? Preface. Harper (2017) shows the brutal effects of plagues and climate change on the Roman Empire. McConnell (2020) proposes that a huge volcanic eruption in Alaska was a factor in bringing the Roman Empire and Cleopatra’s Egypt down. In addition, there are other […]
