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Category Archives: Energy
How the World Really Works
Global climate change is an unprecedented challenge for the world. To meet the challenge, we need to make unprecedented changes in the ways we live, work, produce, and consume. In a new book called How the World Really Works: … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Energy, Environment, Science and technology
Tagged book review, climate change, nonfiction, vaclav smil
5 Comments
The Big Switch
I’m only halfway through the book I’m reading, so this week I’m writing about a podcast instead. The Big Switch is a terrific podcast about how we switch to a net zero carbon economy to help slow down climate change. … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment
Tagged carbon emissions, clean energy, climate change, electricity, grid, podcast, sustainability
1 Comment
How to Avoid a Climate Disaster
Around the world we humans are adding an average of fifty-one billion (51,000,000,000) tons of greenhouse gasses to Earth’s atmosphere every year. To avoid a climate disaster, we need to get to zero. 51 billion to zero. That’s how Microsoft … Continue reading
All Hell Breaking Loose: The Pentagon’s Perspective on Climate Change
Those tree-hugging liberals over at the Pentagon just don’t get it. They don’t understand that climate change is a hoax and the Trump White House doesn’t want to hear about it. They keep working away, defying Presidential directives, studying and … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Energy, Environment
Tagged All Hell Breaking Loose, book review, climate change, Klare, nonfiction, Pentagon
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Solar power is becoming insanely cheap
The cost of solar power has fallen by a factor of 5 since 2010, and it will keep falling for decades to come. That’s the gist of a May 14, 2020 blog post titled Solar’s Future Is Insanely Cheap (2020) … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment
Tagged decarbomization, fossil fuel, lcoe, ramez naam, solar, solar energy, solar power
2 Comments
Dematerialization in The Cloud
Whenever you log on to Facebook or YouTube or your bank or your favorite online game, you’re connecting to computers in some data center somewhere on the planet. All those servers and all those data centers consume a huge amount … Continue reading
Posted in Computers and Internet, Energy, Environment
Tagged dematerialization, sustainability
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Peak Stuff
I’m going to try something different in this post. Instead of reviewing a book, I’m going to look at a research paper called “Peak Stuff — did the UK reach a peak in material consumption in about 2001-3?” Sounds pretty … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment
Tagged chris goodall, decoupling, dematerialization, growth, peak stuff, sustainability
1 Comment
More From Less
More From Less is a book about dematerialization Demawhat? No, it’s not some sort of Star Trek transporter technology. Dematerialization is the phenomenon of producing the same goods from less material and energy. It’s real, it’s important, and Andrew McAfee … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Energy, Environment, Science and technology
Tagged andrew mcafee, book review, capitalism, climate change, dematerialization, more from less, nonfiction
5 Comments
Growth
People used to think growth was a good thing. Politicians, economists and business leaders brag about healthy or robust growth in jobs, GDP, and profits. But that’s changing. These days, growth is often described as excessive, uncontrollable, and unsustainable. In … Continue reading
Posted in Books, Energy, Environment, History, Science and technology
Tagged biosphere, book review, climate change, growth, nonfiction, population, sustainability, vaclav smil
8 Comments
Video: What the Future of Energy Means for Canada
A link to this panel discussion cane across my FB feed and I wanted to share it here in a brief post. http://singularityucanadasummit.org/event/debate-future-energy-means-canada/ The context is Canadian but the perspective is definitely global. Really intelligent, though-provoking discussion about the energy … Continue reading
Posted in Energy, Environment, Politics
Tagged Canada, climate change, decarbomization, Energy, Environment, fossil fuel, transportation
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