Category Archives: Energy

Coal is Hot! Winter is Cold! Wind is Crap! Climate is Cyclic!

Posted on 31 December, 2018 by

US Coal Power Production Beats Out Natural Gas Natural gas prices have been higher lately, giving the stage to lower-priced coal as biggest producer for now. With higher gas prices, “preliminary data suggests a pickup in both coal demand (from … Continue reading →

Posted in Climate, coal, Energy, Wind | Tagged | 1 Comment

Coal is Just Getting its “Second Wind”

Posted on 4 December, 2018 by

Coal Power Plants Expand Globally … In 2017, after two years of declines, International Energy Agency figures showed global coal demand rising to 5.357 million tonnes of coal equivalent (TCE). __ Coal is King of the World China is building … Continue reading →

Posted in coal, Doom, Electrical Power Grid, Energy | Tagged | 11 Comments

China Retreats from Green Abyss, Re-Embraces Coal Power

Posted on 29 September, 2018 by

Renewables and the high electricity rates they ushered in drove individuals into energy poverty and led industry to flee, putting the lie to the claim that wind and solar are the fuels of the future. __ FP China, Germany, Japan, … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Green Quagmire, Wind | Tagged | 2 Comments

Electric Cars Still “Toys for the Rich”

Posted on 21 August, 2018 by

Electric car deficiencies are major, including high purchase price, short driving range, small carrying capacity, lack of charging stations, long charging times, and expensive battery packs that need to be replaced during the life of the vehicle. __ Source A … Continue reading →

Posted in Energy, Technology, Transportation | Tagged , | 4 Comments

Fusion: Far and Near, Slow and Fast

Posted on 9 August, 2018 by

Politically Correct Fusion by 2060 or Later … ITER’s workers often liken themselves to stonemasons hewing blocks for a cathedral: They may not get to see the fruits of their efforts in their own lifetimes. To the researchers at fusion … Continue reading →

Posted in Disruptive Technologies, Energy, Future, innovation, Nuclear Fusion | Tagged | 4 Comments

What Does Full Employment Look Like?

Posted on 14 July, 2018 by

We can get a good picture of full employment by looking at Midland, Texas, where the unemployment rate hovers near 2%. Finding workers to do ordinary jobs as teachers, restaurant cooks, bus drivers, city workers, prison guards, etc. is getting … Continue reading →

Posted in careers, Economics, Energy, Shale Oil & Gas Revolution | Tagged

Vibranium Asteroid Disappears Over Wakanda

Posted on 6 June, 2018 by

Warning: The following is a work of plagiaristic satire. Read at your own risk! According to the mainstream narrative, the asteroid “disintegrated” over southern Africa. But our overseas correspondents report that it actually disappeared under mysterious circumstances in tightly controlled … Continue reading →

Posted in Africa, Energy, satire | Tagged

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

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 | 4 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