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Tag Archives: Alice Friedemann
Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth?
Escape to Mars after we’ve trashed the Earth? The idea that we can go to Mars is touted by NASA, Elon Musk, and so many others that this dream seems just around the corner. If we destroy our planet with climate change, pollution, biodiversity loss, soil erosion, aquifer depletion and more, no problem! We can […]
Heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks a waste of energy and money
Heavy-duty hydrogen fuel cell trucks a waste of energy and money Preface. Hydrogen fuel cell trucks are incredibly inefficient. Turning hydrogen back into electricity with a fuel cell is only 24.7 % efficient (.84 * .67 * .54 * .84 * .97) as shown in figure 1. There are multiple stages where energy is lost due to […]
Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves
Phosphate: All hopes rest on Morocco with 75% of remaining reserves Source: The world’s longest conveyor belt system. This record setting conveyor belt system can even be seen from space. atlasobscura.com. A winding system of interlinked belts, the extra-long conveyance system transports phosphate ore from a mining operation 61 miles to the sea. Preface. Phosphate […]
Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks
Nuclear powered airplanes, cars, and tanks Preface. After all the research I’ve done on rebuildable, not renewable wind and solar, hydrogen, batteries, and other Green dreams of an endless future of growth based on them, I’ve come to see them as just as likely as nuclear airplanes and cars. Not going to happen. *** Nuclear […]
The U.S. May Soon Have the World’s Oldest Nuclear Power Plants
The U.S. May Soon Have the World’s Oldest Nuclear Power Plants Preface. This is nuts. Sea level rise threatens many nuclear power plants and drought has shut plants down since they need cooling to operate. As nuclear reactor age, they require more intensive monitoring and preventive maintenance to operate safely. But reactor owners have not […]
High-level nuclear waste storage degrades faster than thought
High-level nuclear waste storage degrades faster than thought Preface. Burying nuclear waste ought to be a top priority, now that it appears peak oil may have happened in November of 2018 (Patterson 2019) and perhaps even sooner if covid-19 crashes the world economy (Tverberg 2020). It won’t happen after oil production peaks, when it is rationed […]
Building a national super grid in America
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 of having to curtail power so the grid […]
Human over-consumption causes far more biodiversity loss than climate change
Human over-consumption causes far more biodiversity loss than climate change Preface. Human ancestors began reducing biodiversity 4 million years ago, when large carnivores in Africa began disappearing, probably due to our ancestors stealing food predators had caught, starving them to death and eventually driving some of them extinct (Faurby, S., et al. 2020. Brain expansion […]
Nuclear waste will last a lot longer than climate change
Nuclear waste will last a lot longer than climate change Preface. One of the most tragic aspects of peak oil is that it is very unlikely once energy descent begins that oil will be expended to clean up our nuclear mess. Or before descent either. Anyone who survives peak fossil fuels and after that, rising […]
Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change
Abrupt Impacts of Climate Change Preface. This is a summary of the National Research Council 2013 study of abrupt changes of climate change. Related: 2019-12-6. Research reveals past rapid Antarctic ice loss due to ocean warming. “…the sensitive West Antarctic Ice Sheet collapsed during a warming period just over a million years ago when atmospheric carbon […]
Were other humans the first victims of the 6th mass extinction?
Were other humans the first victims of the 6th mass extinction? Preface. This article makes a good case that we did indeed wipe out other hominids. “…Yet the extinction of Neanderthals, at least, took a long time—thousands of years. While Neanderthals lost the war, to hold on so long they must have fought and won […]
Movie review of Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans”
Movie review of Michael Moore’s “Planet of the Humans” Preface. This documentary was made by Jeff Gibbs, a writer and environmentalist, with Michael Moore as the executive producer. I watched the movie and then read 20 criticisms of it. None were any good, it is as if the reviewers had watched an entirely different movie. […]
How sand transformed civilization
How sand transformed civilization Preface. No wonder we’re reaching peak sand. We use more of this natural resource than of any other except water. Civilization consumes nearly 50 billion tons of sand & gravel a year, enough to build a concrete wall 88 feet (27 m) high and 88 feet wide right around the equator. […]
Far out power 1: human fat, playgrounds, solar wind towers, perpetual motion, thermal depolymerization
Far out power 1: human fat, playgrounds, solar wind towers, perpetual motion, thermal depolymerization Preface. Plans for power to gas, hydrogen, wind, solar, wave and all other alternative energies are equally silly as the ideas below, because they depend on fossil fuels for every single step in their life cycle, yet these schemes with negative […]
How a pandemic could bring down civilization
How a pandemic could bring down civilization Preface. Some excerpts from the article below: “The fact is that the best way for people to avoid the virus will be to stay home. But if everyone does this – or if too many people try to stockpile supplies after a crisis begins – the impact of […]
