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Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018
Peak Oil is Officially Here! World oil production peaked November of 2018 Preface. When I first published this post in February of 2022, I said that peak world oil production might have arrived, but it takes 5 years in the rear-view mirror to call it. Now peak “crude oil including lease condensate oil” is officially here! […]
Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel
Off-Road vehicles & equipment need diesel fuel Preface. Move over semi-trucks. You are not the most important truck in the world, even though I gave you the starring role in “When Trucks Stop Running”. What really matters are the trucks that grow our fuel: Food. And mining trucks to get materials to make trucks, logging for fuel and infrastructure, […]
Opposition to mining will prevent a green transition to renewables
Opposition to mining will prevent a green transition to renewables Source: Bare (2012) Environmentalists win review of two more plants near Rosemont copper mine. Arizona Capitol times. I could overwhelm you with world-wide trillions of tons of mining waste and how China has rendered 20% of its farmland too toxic to grow crops (BBC 2014), but […]
The Rising Chorus of Renewable Energy Skeptics
The Rising Chorus of Renewable Energy Skeptics The green techno-dream is so vastly destructive, they say, ‘we have to come up with a different plan.’ Cobalt mining in Congo, says journalist Siddharth Kara, ‘drags humanity back to a time when the people of Africa were valued only their replacement cost.’ Photo via Harvard Kennedy School. “Sometime during […]
China is destroying itself
China is destroying itself Preface. China has been destroying itself for many decades now. In Mao’s “great leap forward” about 35 to 50 million are estimated to have died from starvation from 1958 on, as you’ll read in my book review of” Shapiro J (2001) Mao’s War Against Nature: Politics and the Environment in Revolutionary […]
Nuclear Waste Disposal and Peak Oil
Nuclear Waste Disposal and Peak Oil Preface. One the greatest tragedies of energy decline will be the nuclear waste left to harm thousands of future generation for hundreds of thousands of years. We owe it to them to clean up our mess while we still have the fossil fuels to do it. If we do […]
Dust Bowl 2.0 – they’re coming back!
Dust Bowl 2.0 – they’re coming back! Preface. Two forms of soil erosion may bring back the Great Depression Dustbowls. The first is that Great Plains grasslands have been replaced with corn crops to grow ethanol, which have increased the amount of dust 100% over the past 20 years. The second is the destruction of biocrusts […]
Peak oil, food & the “King of Chemicals” sulfuric acid
Peak oil, food & the “King of Chemicals” sulfuric acid Preface. I first learned of sulfur’s existence when my grandmother told me how she loved going to tent revivals on the edge of town where it was common for preachers to get converts by burning sulfur to make the fire and brimstone damnation of Hell […]
Most plastic isn’t recycled, burns in fires at recycling centers
Most plastic isn’t recycled, burns in fires at recycling centers Preface. Plastics are just one of 500,000 products made out of oil and gas, but very important to just about every aspect of society, from making vehicles lighter so go further using less energy, to clothes, food storage, bags, toothbrushes, buckets, garbage bins, toys, carpets, […]
Hydrogen hopium: Storage
Hydrogen hopium: Storage Source: Russel Rhodes (2011) Explosive Lessons in Hydrogen Safety. https://appel.nasa.gov/2011/02/02/explosive-lessons-in-hydrogen-safety/ Preface. Preface. What is hopium? Irrational or unwarranted optimism. An addiction to false hopes. A metaphorical substance that causes people to believe in a false hope (H + opium). And Hopium makes fuel cell hydrogen cars! What could be more suitable for today’s post. […]
Look Before you Eat
Look Before you Eat Preface. This post is a book review of Be Wilson’s Swindled. From Poison Sweets to Counterfeit Coffee – The Dark History of the Food Cheats. With likely world peak oil production in 2018, the price of food will rise relentlessly, since fossil fuels are used to fertilize, plant, harvest, distribute, package, cook, and refrigerate […]
Will global warming drive us extinct? A review of Peter Ward’s “Under a Green Sky”
Will global warming drive us extinct? A review of Peter Ward’s “Under a Green Sky” Preface. Thank goodness for world peak oil production in 2018. And peak coal in 2013. Since oil is that master resource that makes every product and activity possible, including oil itself and coal and natural gas, peak oil means peak everything. […]
Hydrogen hopium: green hydrogen from water
Hydrogen hopium: green hydrogen from water Additional steps not shown in above figure: getting water to the electrolyzer, compress or liquefy to -423 F before storage, the trucks to deliver H to stations costing $75 million each, since pipelines are super expensive and may leak, corrode, and explode (Zhao 2018) Preface. For all the reasons why […]
How the grid works, why a distributed grid won’t work
How the grid works, why a distributed grid won’t work Preface. This book is a good primer on how the grid works, worth the price to me just to understand Volt-Ampere Reactives (VARs). Renewables don’t provide them, but they’re essential for keeping the grid stable and not coming down. Angwin describes VARs as a bit […]
The French Energy Sobriety Plan
The French Energy Sobriety Plan Preface. Below is the announcement of the French Energy Sobriety Plan by Prime Minister Borne. The energy crisis is coming to all nations, and we should all be implementing their action plan (and family planning, birth control, abortion, limited immigration). It’s hard for me to imagine a U.S. politician delivering […]
