The peak oil crisis: China’s latest drought
There will be at least three major consequences of recurring drought conditions in southwestern China. First will be that millions of people and head of livestock will have to find a source of water or...
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The humble battery: 210 years later, the breakthrough we still await
The battery could be a shoo-in for the most confounding of all technologies. Invented in 1799 by Alessandro Volta, it not only has yet to be perfected, but has operated all along on essentially the...
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An Even Bigger Spill Looming?
While the nation's eyes are turned towards the oil tipped waves and tar balls washing up on the shores of the Gulf Coast, an altogether different energy disaster looms in California—one that might be...
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Is humanity inherently unsustainable?
What makes a mild-mannered biology professor call for a planned collapse of the economy? Canadian scientist Bill Rees would know. He was an inventor of the ecological footprint concept, and has been...
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Review: Thriving Beyond Sustainability by Andrés R. Edwards
Given what a sweeping category sustainability is, author and noted sustainability expert Andrés Edwards is to be commended for distilling it down into two easily digestible volumes for lay readers: The...
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Natural gas - June 21
-The Costs of Natural Gas, Including Flaming Water-Marcellus Shale gas drilling put under microscope: Moratorium weighed as towns, people wary of potential mishaps-Struggle for Central Asian energy...
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Letters from America
An agriculture student from a small North Indian village writes home to his sister about the bizarre way of life he encounters during a stay in America. (An updated "Gulliver's Travels")read more
View ArticleCreating a post-peak future you will want to live into
The future most people are living into is beginning to disappear. The financial crisis threw the first punch, but oil depletion will deliver the knockout blow. The moment people realize that the...
View ArticleHow not to fry: Keeping cool without air conditioning
The northeast is having its first heatwave of the year, and I thought it was a good time to re-run a piece I wrote about what to do in extreme heat if you don't have air conditioning. Because we all...
View ArticleEROEI of electricity generation
“Energy Return on Energy Investment (EROEI) is calculated as the ratio between energy inputs and energy outputs for an energy generating technology. A process that uses more energy than it produces is...
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