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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, […]
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. […]
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. […]
Peak lithium makes transportation & electricity storage pointless
Peak lithium makes transportation & electricity storage pointless Preface. The lithium batteries in cars need electricity to recharge, but the electric grid can’t stay up with just wind and solar, that’s why natural gas is the energy storage today. Nor do pumped hydro or compressed air energy storage scale up. And battery storage doesn’t either. Barnhart […]
Dawn of Everything Conclusion
Dawn of Everything Conclusion Preface. Clearly for their conclusion to make sense you’ll need to read the book and see the evidence for yourself. Since they challenge just about all of the ideas currently in fashion, you can find some pretty damning reviews of their book, but do not believe them, the several I’ve read […]
Corn for ethanol & soy for biodiesel tremendously destructive
Corn for ethanol & soy for biodiesel tremendously destructive The Green Gold Rush to make biodiesel has begun in earnest in California. It would not be profitable without subsidies from LCFS credits, federal RIN D5 credits, and Blenders Tax Credits at $3.32 a gallon, which is enough to cover production costs, according to Van der […]
Implications of Refinery closures for Homeland Security & critical infrastructure safety
Implications of Refinery closures for Homeland Security & critical infrastructure safety Preface. The talk of electric vehicles saving the world from greenhouse gases is nonsense, a red herring to distract everyone from what’s really at stake, and from the material requirements to build them with rare earth and other scarce minerals, and the immense amount […]
Food shortages as the energy crisis grows and supply chains break?
Food shortages as the energy crisis grows and supply chains break? Preface. This is a long preface followed by two articles about how supply chains and complex tractors may be affected by energy shortages and consequent supply chain failures in the future.Which we’re already seeing as massive numbers of ships sit offshore waiting to be […]
Limits to Growth: Natural gas fertilizer that feeds 4 billion of us
Limits to Growth: Natural gas fertilizer that feeds 4 billion of us Preface. In chapter 4 of my book “Life After Fossil Fuels: A Reality Check on Alternative Energy“, I explain how it came to be that fertilizer is made out of natural gas, using the energy of natural gas, and why it allows at least […]
