Category Archives: Energy

Wind Power’s Limits to Growth

Posted on 19 May, 2018 by

Every technology contains an innate “economy of scale” for the system within which it operates. As seen in the graph below, grid-scale wind energy is beginning to run into inherent limits of applicability in US power grids: The amount of … Continue reading →

Posted in Electrical Power Grid, Energy | Tagged | Leave a comment

US Nuclear Power Industry Starts Waking Up

Posted on 1 May, 2018 by

NuScale Power’s small modular fission reactor for producing both electricity and industrial process heat has completed an extensive and rigorous review by the US Nuclear Regulatory Commission. The process required 115,000 hours of scrupulous review, and was carried out quite … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Nuclear Power | Tagged | 5 Comments

Unrepentant Failed Doomer Paul Ehrlich After 50 Years: Still Predicting Total Collapse of Civilisation “Any Day Now”

Posted on 25 April, 2018 by

Stanford biologist Paul R. Ehrlich published the book of doom “The Population Bomb” 50 years ago, with his wife. According to Ehrlich, catastrophic global collapse was inevitable by the 1970s — or the 1980s at the latest. Ehrlich has managed … Continue reading →

Posted in Doom, Electrical Power Grid, Energy, Environment, Everything You Think You Know Just Ain't So, Green Quagmire | Tagged | 3 Comments

Where Would We Be Without Renewable Energy?

Posted on 6 February, 2018 by

Big wind and solar were supposed to replace coal, natural gas, and nuclear power plants . . . any time now. And yet, something is happening to global investment in big wind and solar that calls the entire “renewables revolution” … Continue reading →

Posted in Electrical Power Grid, Energy, Green Quagmire | Tagged | 1 Comment

Did Obama Knock General Electric Off the Dow Jones?

Posted on 31 January, 2018 by

During the Obama years, General Electric rode the federally subsidised green energy steamroller to the limit. GE assumed that Hillary Clinton would be the next US president, and that the green scam would continue endlessly into the future. But with … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Green Quagmire, Wind | Tagged ,

Europe: Cold, Dark, and Growing Poorer

Posted on 26 January, 2018 by

While the US is pumping record amounts of oil and is producing unbelievable levels of natural gas, Europe has chosen the intermittent and unreliable energy path. And the continent will pay dearly for its mistake. Europe’s energy policies are worse … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Green Quagmire | Tagged ,

Technology Enabling $20 a Barrel Oil Costs

Posted on 23 January, 2018 by

“Really, it’s quite easy” to be profitable at $20, “when you sit down and add up all the ways there are to save money in our industry, and how much waste there is,” added Blake Burnette, CEO of IoT-eq (pronounced … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Fiscal Breakeven Oil Price, Peak Oil | Tagged | 4 Comments

Clever New Nuclear Fission Reactor Prototype Opens Doors

Posted on 19 January, 2018 by

Nuclear energy provides energy densities not available from any other readily available source of power and heat. Nothing else even comes close. And nuclear fuels such as uranium and thorium are relatively cheap and readily available. If used wisely, Earth’s … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Nuclear Power | Tagged | 1 Comment

US Petroleum Output Rocks Global Economic Calculus

Posted on 17 January, 2018 by

Unleashing U.S. energy exports has the potential to upset longstanding geopolitical and economic arrangements across the world. __ US Poised to Shatter Production Records This Wasn’t Supposed to Happen According to the conventional wisdom of energy economists, US petroleum production … Continue reading →

Posted in Donald Trump, Energy, Oil Prices, Shale Oil & Gas Revolution | Tagged , | 3 Comments

A Safer, More Abundant World

Posted on 8 December, 2017 by

Safer Forms of Reliable Power For advanced human societies, reliable and affordable power & heat is a life or death issue. It would be wisest for such societies to pursue the safest forms of reliable/affordable power available. But who ever … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Nuclear Power, Optimism | Tagged | 6 Comments

Fossil Fuels Beat Greens Into Submission

Posted on 6 December, 2017 by

Continue to Supply Over 80% of World’s Energy Needs Every year since 1971, more than 80% of all our energy has come from fossil fuels. That’s still true today, which is surprising for two reasons. Most nuclear power plants came … Continue reading →

Posted in Electrical Power Grid, Energy, Germany, Green Quagmire, Nuclear Power | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Renewable Energy Skyrockets, and Other Little Heard News

Posted on 28 November, 2017 by

Unfortunately for Renewables, The Rocket Was Heading Down! We have spent the last two centuries getting off renewables because they were mostly weak, costly and unreliable. __ Limits to Artificial Energy For over 200 years, humans have been trying to … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Green Quagmire, Russia | Tagged ,

The Lithium Calamity: Poison Mountain, Green Idiocracy

Posted on 29 September, 2017 by

Who Wants to Follow China’s Long Toxic Walk? China has long been famous for its poisoned air, toxic rivers, and deadly soil. Now the aging dragon faces a new toxic calamity: a looming mountain of poisoned and unusable lithium batteries … Continue reading →

Posted in China, Energy, Environment, Green Quagmire, Groupthink, Poison | Tagged , | 10 Comments

100% Intermittent Energy: Can it Work?

Posted on 22 September, 2017 by

The extensively documented article below is excerpted from an article originally published in Low Tech Magazine How (Not) to Run a Modern Society on Solar and Wind Power Alone … [A] renewable power grid needs an oversized power generation and … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Green Quagmire | Tagged | 3 Comments

As Much as 2 Trillion Barrels of Recoverable Oil in Texas, N.M.

Posted on 18 August, 2017 by

In the Permian Basin alone, the southwestern US may eventually be found to contain as much as 2 trillion barrels of economically recoverable oil. “The research we’ve done indicates that we have at least half a trillion barrels in the … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Nuclear Power, Shale Oil & Gas Revolution | Tagged | 6 Comments

Solar Panels: 300X More Toxic Waste Than Nuclear

Posted on 29 June, 2017 by

Governments of Europe and California are willing to lay waste to their economies in pursuit of unreliable and destructive forms of energy — big solar and big wind. We already knew that these untrustworthy forms of energy bring instability to … Continue reading →

Posted in Electrical Power Grid, Energy | Tagged

This’ll Kill Ya: They’re Coming For Your Electric Power

Posted on 22 June, 2017 by

Up to 90% of the inhabitants of advanced nations would die within one year, if all electrical power were lost. No, I Am Not Talking About Electromagnetic Pulse Although both North Korea and Iran are steadily working to build the … Continue reading →

Posted in Electrical Power Grid, Energy, Green Quagmire | Tagged ,

Even in Gas-Rich USA, Nuclear Energy is the Future

Posted on 17 June, 2017 by

Nuclear demand is high where air pollution is at its worst and where economic activity is fast and furious — in Asia generally, and in China and India in particular… China and India are building half of the 60 new … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Nuclear Power | Tagged | 11 Comments

Climate Change Hurrah! CO2 and the Greening Earth

Posted on 17 May, 2017 by

More CO2 Leads to More Forests! Greenhouse operators have long known that enhancing CO2 levels enhances plant growth. Research scientists are discovering that higher atmospheric CO2 levels boost biological growth on land (and sea). We show a persistent and widespread … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, Energy, Green Quagmire, Groupthink | Tagged , | 2 Comments

Making Your Home Self Sufficient in Power and Heat

Posted on 20 April, 2017 by

Making Your Own Heat and Electricity In Any Climate or Location Suddenly it is becoming possible to make all the electricity and heat for your home that you could need — no matter your latitude or weather conditions. Using “micro … Continue reading →

Posted in Electrical Power Grid, Energy, Survival Prepping, Technology | Tagged ,

There Is No Future Without Power

Posted on 7 April, 2017 by

What Does Energy Suicide Look Like? With the best of stated intentions, Germany is cutting its own throat. The unfolding disaster called Energiewende is slowly but surely destroying the foundations of Deutschland’s industrial base, thus destroying Germany’s economy in a … Continue reading →

Posted in coal, Electrical Power Grid, Energy, Future, Germany, Green Quagmire, Groupthink | Tagged , | 6 Comments

Gods of the Apocalypse Fade, as True Believers Slip Away

Posted on 29 March, 2017 by

The late 20th century was a mother lode for prophets of the apocalypse. Of all the apocalyptic faiths of the 1980s and 1990s, none was more strongly held than the one true faith in Peak Oil Armageddon. And why not? … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Peak Oil | Tagged , | 3 Comments

Green Energy is an Unimitigated Disaster

Posted on 13 March, 2017 by

Germany, Australia, and Ontario — among other jurisdictions — made catastrophic errors in judgment when they committed their constituents to a dependency on unreliable, unaffordable, poor quality wind and solar energy. Now, these governments are beginning to pay the price … Continue reading →

Posted in Electrical Power Grid, Energy, Europe, Germany, Green Quagmire | Tagged | 3 Comments

Elusive Fusion Power: Our Greatest Challenge? It Will Not Invent Itself

Posted on 2 March, 2017 by

We seek him here, we seek him there, Those Frenchies seek him everywhere. Is he in heaven? — Is he in hell? That damned, elusive Pimpernel __ The Scarlet Pimpernel Controlled nuclear fusion is like the Scarlet Pimpernel: damned elusive, … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Nuclear Fusion, Nuclear Power | Tagged , | 12 Comments

Why the World is Turning to Coal: It Works!

Posted on 20 February, 2017 by

Per a report from the World Coal Association, there [are] currently 861 billion tons of proven coal reserves worldwide, implying that there is enough coal to last nearly 112 years at current rates of production. In comparison with this, proven … Continue reading →

Posted in coal, Electrical Power Grid, Energy | Tagged , | 3 Comments