Tag Archive for: fossil fuel

The Case for an Inclusive Energy Strategy

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The justification for rapidly transitioning the global energy economy to renewables is to avert a catastrophic environmental crisis. It is based on the premise that anthropogenic greenhouse gas emissions, primarily from the combustion of coal, natural gas, and oil, are altering our atmosphere, which in turn is leading to a host of negative consequences too numerous to mention.

It is possible nowadays to find almost anything, from crime and disease and mental health to species extinctions, deforestation and disappearing coral reefs, being attributed to climate change. And if you research almost anything involving the design of civilization, not just the production and consumption of energy but housing, mining, ranching, farming, shipping, transportation, waste management, water treatment, etc., the data most prominently reported are always carbon and CO2. The actual units of energy or water, or tonnage of product, or any other practical data necessary to inform management and logistics, has now become secondary. It’s all about carbon.

This may or may not be a compelling and appropriate redirection of our intellectual resources, but it is a distraction from what remains necessary, which is cutting through the avalanche of carbon data to get at how much energy we use and how much energy we need. And while some revanchist holdouts actually still believe atmospheric CO2 is not an existential threat, but in fact is an existential necessity, and are still willing to engage in debate over what they still view as an open question, there is no debate, anywhere, over the fact that we need adequate energy supplies if we are to continue to have a civilization. The only debate in that regard is how much energy do we need.

To that end, there are two encouraging avenues towards a consensus on energy strategy. The first is to agree on energy solutions that adequately address climate change concerns but make economic sense anyway. The second, which follows from the first, is to identify emerging technologies that will maximize energy efficiency. Anytime there is a cost-effective way to get the same energy service from less raw fuel input, the more efficient solution has an economic advantage. And this is where there are compelling arguments for electrification.

The Case for Electrification

The best way to illustrate why using electricity wherever possible can be a universally preferable energy solution is based on how much energy is lost using combustion-based solutions. In the United States, based on statistics from the Energy Information Administration, when using coal, oil and natural gas, 2/3rds of the raw energy input is lost to heat, friction, and exhaust. Examples of this are found in the most widely relied-upon applications. A coal or natural gas fired power plant still only averages 33 percent efficiency. A gasoline fueled vehicle typically only converts about 25 percent of the energy embodied in a gallon of gas into traction to move it down the road.

With electricity, these ratios are often flipped. Electricity generated by solar or wind energy goes directly into the transmission lines, where, just as with any electricity generator, about 5 percent is lost between the the source and the end user. Unlike coal and natural gas, solar and wind power is intermittent and requires battery storage, but in that round-trip cycle of charging and discharging, the electricity going back out still retains 80 percent of the electricity that went in.

These are clear advantages. They suggest that by electrifying major sectors of the economy, including most transportation and residential applications of energy, it would be possible to enjoy the same level of energy services while only expending half as much raw energy input. But there are also big challenges to electrification.

With respect to producing electricity, there is the need to occupy massive amounts of space for wind and solar farms. In the case of solar farms, they have to be overbuilt in order to still deliver adequate power during the short days of winter. Wind turbines, which require even more space than solar, would have to sprawl over thousands of miles, including offshore areas. They are decentralized sources of power, which means they require huge investments in distribution systems. They deliver intermittent power and require battery storage facilities.

There are also not-so-obvious problems with electrification—specifically, the so-called embodied energy in these solar panels, wind turbines, and batteries. It takes a tremendous amount of energy to make them, transport them, and install them, and yet they only have a useful life of 20-30 years. This energy debt has to be paid back before these technologies can be counted as renewable. They also consume far more resources in their manufacture than conventional energy generators, and they are expensive to recycle.

These concerns, however, are not an argument against electrification; they are only about how to generate electricity. For example, if nuclear power were supplying more electricity to the grid, there would be no need for excessive new transmission lines or battery farms, and nuclear power plants can last 60 years or longer.

On the end-user side, there are also problems with electrification. EV batteries are expensive and use a lot of resources. They are so heavy that EVs are causing unanticipated wear on roadways and far more pollution from tire fragments. And, of course, they take too long to charge. When it comes to residential electrification, heat pumps are an efficient solution in warmer climates, but they won’t work in a Minnesota winter. Heat pumps operate by extracting heat from one place—outdoors—then concentrating it, because it may be cold outside, to transfer it into your home. That’s fine in California in January, when it’s a bitter 48 degrees outside. But there simply isn’t enough heat in the air when it’s 20 below zero outside. The colder it gets outdoors, the more a heat pump has to work.

The Case for Fossil Fuels

There is an immutable reality confronting proponents of renewables, which is that fossil fuel still provide 80 percent of global energy. This reality is compounded by two additional facts. First, the most favored renewables, wind and solar, only account for 7 percent of global energy production; the rest, in roughly equal proportions, are big hydroelectric turbines and nuclear power stations. Second, for everyone on earth to consume just half as much energy as Americans do, global energy production would have to double.

To reference units that energy economists rely on, according to the Energy Institute’s Statistical Review of Global Energy, in 2022 total raw energy inputs worldwide were just over 600 exajoules. Taking into account a projected global population of 10 billion people by 2050 and a per capita energy input of 100 gigajoules (about one-third of the current U.S. per capita energy input), global energy production must rise to 1,000 exajoules in just 28 years. To do that purely with wind and solar sources of energy would require a 25X increase from the amount of installed base today. Even if there were space enough to do this, the resource consumption would make today’s global mining impact trivial by comparison. And based on a 20-30 year service life for wind and solar installations, by the time it was completed, you would have to start all over again.

Adding to these cautionary facts is the rising awareness, alluded to already, that renewables aren’t always renewable. The most egregious example of this may be biofuel plantations around the world, which already consume approximately 500,000 square miles in exchange for only displacing 2 percent of oil production. For all practical purposes, biofuel is fully built out. And as previously noted, there is significant negative environmental impact from most renewables, certainly including current biofuel, battery, solar, and wind technology.

The good news is there is enough fossil fuel to supply, just based on proven reserves, 500 exajoules of power per year for another 100 years. Taking into account estimated undiscovered reserves (including Abiotic oil) in the United States onshore and offshore and in the rest of the world is likely to double that estimate. That allows plenty of time to research and develop alternative sources of energy, but without fossil fuel providing at least half of our energy, delivering adequate energy to everyone on earth, i.e., achieving a minimum worldwide total of 1,000 exajoules of energy per year, is probably impossible.

As we pursue breakthrough energy technologies such as advanced fission power and fusion, our ability to more efficiently harness fossil fuel continues to progress. Combined cycle natural gas power plants now achieve over 60 percent conversion efficiencies, and the latest designs (that use a heat exchanger that can harvest higher temperatures from the first turbine’s exhaust) promise to deliver even higher conversion efficiencies. Similarly, the latest hybrid automotive designs, using high-compression engines, regenerative braking, and innovative transmissions, have gasoline-to-traction conversion efficiencies approaching 50 percent.

Our Magnificent Future

This is just the beginning. An all-of-the-above energy development strategy means that no promising leads are excluded, and no technologies need be deployed before they’re ready. There are technologies emerging that can convert raw coal into clean burning natural gas or zero emission hydrogen. There are stationary battery solutions that use abundant and inexpensive iron, sulfur, and water and last longer than lithium-ion batteries. There are solid state batteries being developed for EVs and hybrids that have higher energy density, can tolerate more cycles before degrading, and can be charged in minutes.

Looking further into the future reveals wondrous innovations that we can already imagine attaining feasibility. With abundant energy, we no longer have to be concerned about how much power is necessary to run desalination plants to turn millions of acre feet of ocean water into fresh water. With abundant energy, we can electrolyze hydrogen from water, extract CO2 from the atmosphere, and blend them into a liquid hydrocarbon fuel.

Most significant of all, of course, is the impact abundant energy will have on the quality of life for everyone on earth. Abundant energy is, by definition, almost always affordable energy. And a global energy grid that offers an inclusive assortment of energy options—renewables, nuclear, and fossil fuels—is also a resilient grid, able to withstand disruptions because multiple alternative sources of energy are always present.

By adopting an inclusive, all-of-the-above energy strategy, sustainable abundance in all things is possible because energy is the foundation of general economic growth. Hence, delivering affordable energy translates into everything becoming more affordable, and that, ultimately, is the prerequisite for global equity among peoples and nations. By encouraging energy development on all fronts simultaneously, humanity can eliminate energy poverty, which is one of the most problematic obstacles to peace and prosperity. In so doing, we shall make all other challenges, daunting though they may be, a little bit easier to overcome.

This article originally appeared in American Greatness.

The Delusions of Davos and Dubai – Part Two: Can Wind & Solar Expand 50-100 Times?

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In the most recent “Conference of the Parties,” otherwise known as the United Nations extravaganza that convenes every few years for world leaders to discuss the climate crisis, several goals were publicly proclaimed. Notable were the goals to triple production of renewable energy by 2030 and triple production of nuclear energy by 2050. Against the backdrop of current global energy production by fuel type, and as quantified in Part One, against a goal of increasing total energy production from 600 exajoules in 2022 to at least 1,000 exajoules by 2050, where does COP 28’s goals put the world’s energy economy? How much will production of renewable energy have to increase?

To answer this question, it is necessary to recognize and account for the fact that most renewable energy takes the form of electricity, generated through wind, solar, or geothermal sources. And when measuring how much the base of renewables installed so far will contribute to the target of 1,000 exajoules of energy production per year in order to realize—best-case scenario—800 exajoules of energy services, the data reported in the Statistical Review of Global Energy is profoundly misleading.

Without understanding how current renewables data as reported in summary charts can mislead an analyst into overstating its current contribution to global energy, it is impossible to accurately assess the true magnitude of the expansion in renewables needed to achieve a goal of 1,000 exajoules of global energy production per year. How the summary charts mislead is buried in the Appendix.

As the authors disclose (ref. page 56, “Methodology”) in the Appendix: “in the Statistical Review of World Energy, the primary energy of non-fossil based electricity (nuclear, hydro, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass in power and other renewables sources) has been calculated on an ‘input-equivalent’ basis – i.e. based on the equivalent amount of fossil fuel input required to generate that amount of electricity in a standard thermal power plant.”

It is difficult to overstate how important it is to not overlook this seemingly innocuous footnote.

In plain English, what they are saying is when they report (ref. page 9 “Primary Energy: Consumption by fuel”) the share of global energy contributed by all non-thermal sources—hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar—they gross up the lower, actual production number and report on the chart an imputed and much larger amount, calculated as if these four sources of energy were operating at the efficiency of thermal power inputs, i.e., at 40 percent efficiency.

Why? We may presume that the energy analysts preparing these charts gross up the contribution of non-thermal energy (Lawrence Livermore also does this, by the way, on their energy flowchart) in order to demonstrate how much fossil fuel production is being offset by using non-thermal sources. That seems innocent enough. But it’s misleading.

If we’re setting a goal of 1,000 exajoules of ultimate world energy production and assuming 80 percent of that 1,000 exajoules of energy input shall be realized as end-user energy services, then we have to examine how much usable energy wind, solar, hydro, and nuclear are actually being generated today. That means we need to know how much electricity they actually generate and send into the grid. An imputed, grossed-up number is not helpful.

Getting to 1,000 Exajoules per Year without Coal, Oil, and Gas

Fortunately, the actual amount of power currently generated by hydro, nuclear, wind, and solar can be found in the inner chapters of the Statistical Review. But it is important to recognize that if energy production shifts from thermal sources to electricity, it will still take at least 1,000 exajoules of power generation to produce 800 exajoules of energy services.

It must be again emphasized that it is an extraordinary assumption to project an 80 percent retention of energy from input into the grid to actual end use. For example, we might assume that from the generating plant, 5 percent was lost in transmission, another 5 percent lost from charging and subsequently discharging the electricity to and from utility-scale storage batteries, another 5 percent in the charge/discharge cycle through an onboard battery in an EV, and another 5 percent converting that electricity into traction from the electric motor. Those are extraordinarily optimistic numbers, using a best-case example. Is a heat pump that efficient, or an air conditioner, or a cooktop, or any number of appliances, farm machinery, industrial equipment, and other vital infrastructure? Definitely not yet, and quite possibly never.

The point here is 1,000 exajoules represents the absolute minimum to which global energy production must grow in the next 25 years if every person on earth is to have access to enough energy to enable prosperity and security. How do we get there? Let’s take the experts at their word and assume that use of coal, oil, and gas will be completely eliminated by 2050.

On the chart below, the assumptions governing the future mix of fuels worldwide adhere to the resolutions just made at the recent Conference of the Parties. That is, nuclear energy will be tripled, and use of oil, natural gas, and coal will be eliminated. To take some of the pressure off of the required expansion of solar and wind energy, for this analysis, the sacrilegious assumption is made to double hydroelectric capacity, double geothermal production, and double biofuel production. It won’t matter much. Here goes:

There’s a lot to chew on in this data, but it’s worth the effort. Because the facts they present are immutable and carry with them significant implications for global energy policy. The first column of data shows how much fuel was burned or generated worldwide in 2022—the raw fuel inputs, which total 604 exajoules.

The second column of data shows the number of energy services that reached end-users in 2022 in the form of heating, cooling, traction, light, communications, etc. It is clear that for thermal sources of energy, the lower numbers reflect the currently estimated degree of conversion efficiency worldwide, about 40 percent. But for non-thermal sources of energy (appended to the right with “gen,” signifying generated energy), these numbers are based on terawatt-hour reports featured in individual sections of the Statistical Review dedicated to those sources of energy. Converted from terawatt-hours to exajoules, these are the actual amounts of electricity that went into transmission lines around the world to be consumed by end users.

The third column of data calculates a hypothetical 2050 global fuel mix based on the agreed COP 28 targets. As seen in column 4 “multiple,” nuclear energy is tripled in accordance with COP 28. Also, in accordance with COP 28, use of coal, oil, and gas is eliminated. Not agreed to at COP 28, but to help reach the 1,000 exajoule target, production of geothermal and biofuel energy are both doubled. That leaves the remainder of the needed power to be provided (in this example) equally by wind and solar. It is reasonable to assume, based on everything they’re saying in Dubai and Davos, that this is the model. This is the logical realization of what they’re calling for.

These calculations yield an overwhelming reality check. Yet what assumption is incorrect? The target of 1,000 exajoules is almost certainly too low. Nuclear power is tripled, and hydropower and biofuel are both doubled. None of that is easy; in the case of biofuel, it could be an environmental catastrophe. But even if those other non-thermal sources of energy were to increase two to three times, without coal, oil, and gas, a stupefying expansion of wind and solar would be required.  “Tripling” these renewables doesn’t even get us into the ballpark.

To deliver 1,000 exajoules of power to the world by 2050, for every wind turbine we have today, expect to see more than 60 of them. For every field of photovoltaics we have today, expect to see nearly 100 more of them. Is this feasible? Because from Dubai to Davos, this is what they’re claiming we’re going to do.

Confronted with these facts, even the most enthusiastic proponents of wind and solar energy may hesitate when considering the magnitude of the task. Eliminating production of fossil fuel entirely by 2050 ought to be seen, for all practical purposes, as impossible. The uptick in mining, the land consumed, the expansion of transmission lines, the necessity for a staggering quantity of electricity storage assets to balance these intermittent sources, the vulnerability of wind and solar farms to weather events including deep freezes, tornadoes, and hail, and the stupefying task of doing it all over again every 20-30 years as the wind turbines, photovoltaic panels, and storage batteries reach the end of their useful lives—all of this suggests procuring 90+ percent of global energy from wind and solar energy is a fool’s errand.

If coal, oil, and gas are phased out and it is unrealistic to expect nearly 1,000 exajoules of power to be delivered by wind and solar-generated electricity, what’s left? Part three of this series will examine the potential of the remaining energy alternatives—nuclear, hydroelectric, biofuel, geothermal—along with possible innovations that someday may change the rules.

This article originally appeared in American Greatness.

Examining the Future of Fossil Fuel

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Here’s a question for every oil and gas producer in California. It is especially directed to the five “bad guys” — Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP — that were recently sued by California’s grandstanding attorney general, Rob Bonta: When are you going to quit playing defense? As Alex Epstein has tirelessly expounded both in his book, Fossil Future, and in his ubiquitous (and suppressed) musings online, energy from oil and gas powers civilization. It is the primary reason a middle class lifestyle is affordable for billions of people.

Not only are oil and gas, and even coal, cheap and nearly inexhaustible sources of affordable fuel, still powering 80 percent of ALL energy used in California (barely better than the world average of 82 percent), but because it is so cheap, it remains affordable even if included in its price are funds to eliminate from emissions any unhealthy pollutants. And there is growing evidence that fossil fuels also have a much smaller environmental footprint than all other sources of energy with the possible exception of nuclear.

Which brings us to the boogeyman of this age, CO2. Are these oil companies willing to aggressively defend themselves even if that might generate bad PR? CO2 is life. After all, without CO2, every plant on earth would die. What if the overall health of our planetary ecosystems, on balance, would be better off with more CO2 in the atmosphere, not less?

With apologies, we are obligated to share this heresy, because it is our conclusion, based on overwhelming evidence (don’t try to find it on Google), that the menace of anthropogenic CO2 is not “settled science.” If you find this horrifying and offensive, consider the possibility that you simply have not been exposed to contrarian data and analysis, except maybe in the context of biased reports discrediting it. So this week, let’s dive deep into the scary, forbidden territory of climate crisis denial.

Mark Twain famously said, “It ain’t what you don’t know that gets you into trouble. It’s what you know for sure that just ain’t so.” So it is with climate alarm. We are expected to accept without question not only the crisis narrative, but literally anything proposed to supposedly save us from the alleged catastrophe. But as the distinguished climatologist Dr. John Christy explained at a meeting of water executives last October in Orange County, using unfiltered data from the National Oceanographic and Atmospheric Administration, there is no evidence that California is experiencing rapid or dangerous climate change.

Here are four books that are must-reads for anyone willing to engage in activism — or pass legislation — on the issues of climate and energy: False Alarm by Bjorn Lomborg, Apocalypse Never by Michael Shellenberger, Unsettled by Steven Koonin, and Fossil Future by Alex Epstein. Along with providing useful summaries of the data and arguments in these books, the reviewer acknowledges Epstein’s unique contribution to the discussion over climate and energy, that extreme environmentalism has brought us to the point where “eliminating human impact, not advancing human flourishing, is the primary moral goal driving our knowledge system in the realm of energy.”

If you’re looking for nuance, which is sorely missing from mainstream policy discussions over climate, read Judith Curry’s website. Until a few years ago the Chair of the School of Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the Georgia Institute of Technology, Curry has a Ph.D in geophysical sciences, which makes her as qualified as anyone to opine on the multidisciplinary field of climate science. Curry has been dubbed a “lukewarmer” based on her acknowledgement – along with Christy and many others – that the planet is experiencing a moderate warming trend, but not an alarming one. Why isn’t Curry testifying before a legislative committee in Sacramento? When California’s state government prepares – to cite just one example of their irrational exuberance – to spend billions to subsidize hundreds of floating offshore wind turbines that are each longer (vertically) than a modern US Navy supercarrier, a dose of sanity is urgently required.

Also offering sanity is the CO2 Coalition. Behind their innocuous mission statement, “we seek to strengthen the understanding of the role of science and the scientific process in addressing complex public policy issues like climate change,” is an organization with a clear message that might be distilled to this: Atmospheric CO2 is too low, not too high, and the warming effect of each molecule of CO2 declines as its concentration increases. Those who are skeptical about these skeptics should review the group’s About page, where 132 coalition members are listed, along with their biographies. These are credentialed scientists willing to stand behind the claims made by the CO2 coalition. Earlier this year, the CO2 Coalition had its LinkedIn account cancelled for “misinformation.” Can that be justified? Read their material and make up your own mind.

While it is healthy to have contrarians among us, that doesn’t justify holding contrarian viewpoints merely for the sake of being contrary. But when a premise becomes so huge and so unquestionable that it becomes the bludgeon to enforce policies that might otherwise be considered insane and punitive, contrarian analysis is our only hope. So it is with the climate “crisis.” The most powerful and destructive perception in the world today is that using fossil fuels will cause catastrophic climate change. This belief, marketed by every major government and corporate institution in the Western world, is the foundational premise underlying a policy agenda of stunning indifference to the aspirations of ordinary people.

The war on fossil fuel is a war on freedom, prosperity, pluralism, independence, national sovereignty, world peace, domestic tranquility, and, most ironically, the environment itself. It is a war of rich against poor, the privileged against the disadvantaged, corporate monopolies against competitive upstarts, Malthusians against optimists, regulators against innovators, and authoritarians against freedom-loving people everywhere.

But this war cannot be won unless the perception is maintained. If fossil fuel is allowed to compete against other energy alternatives for customers as a vital and growing part of an all-of-the-above energy strategy, this authoritarian political agenda falls apart.

It is reasonable to question the assertion that eliminating fossil fuels will inevitably result in an impoverished society subject to punitive restrictions on individual behavior. But the numbers are compelling and can be distilled to two indisputable facts: First, as noted, fossil fuel continues to provide over 80 percent of all energy consumed worldwide. Second, if every person living on planet Earth were to consume half as much energy per year as the average American currently consumes, global energy production would need to double. Recognizing these two immutable facts should make it clear that nothing is going to stop the Chinese, Indians, Indonesians, Pakistanis, Brazilians, Nigerians, or Bangladeshis from developing every source of energy they possibly can. Just those seven nations account for half the world’s population. Will they stop developing energy until they at least achieve half the per capita energy consumption that Americans currently enjoy? Not a chance.

Regardless of what we conclude regarding climate science, an all-of-the-above energy strategy is the nonnegotiable destiny of the world. We must adapt, and set an example of clean and ultra-efficient gas and oil technologies that the world is willing to follow.

That is the message that Exxon Mobil, Shell, Chevron, ConocoPhillips, and BP should be conveying to California and the world.

This article originally appeared in the California Globe.

Fossil Fuel Reality

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Over the weekend, the traditional Harvard versus Yale football game was interrupted during halftime by about 150 student activists, spontaneously joined by hundreds of fans, to protest climate change. Occupying the area around the 500-yard line, the protesters chanted “Hey, hey! Ho, ho! Fossil fuel has got to go!” The game resumed after about 30 students were arrested and the rest left.

It would be reasonable to suppose that people who manage to gain admission to Harvard and Yale are among the most gifted students in America. But when it comes to swiftly eliminating the usage of fossil fuel, have they done their homework?

Around the world, billions of people are now convinced that catastrophic climate change is inevitable if humanity continues to rely on fossil fuel. Most developed Western nations, along with the United Nations and other supranational organizations, are promoting aggressive policies to replace fossil fuel with renewable energy. While a scientific debate remains, especially with respect to the severity of the predicted climate change, it is the economic challenges relating to rapid elimination of fossil fuel that require urgent examination.

The reason for this is simple: At this time, there is no feasible economic scenario whereby worldwide fossil fuel use does not increase steadily for the next several decades. To dispute this assertion, several indisputable facts would have to be ignored. For starters, shown below is a chart illustrating just how large a percentage of global energy remained dependent on fossil fuel over the past ten years. Using data provided by the BP Statistical Review of World Energy, which is the most authoritative source available, on this chart, the total energy consumed in all of its forms – oil, gas, coal, nuclear, hydro, and renewables – are expressed as million metric tons of crude oil (MMTO).

By converting quantities of energy from various sources into a single normalized unit – the petroleum industry uses units of crude oil, economists use BTUs, scientists use joules – it is easy to see how much each type of fuel contributed to total global energy consumption over the past decade. As shown, renewables – solar, wind, geothermal, and biomass/biofuel – only comprised 4 percent of total energy consumed in 2018.

There has been strong growth in renewable energy. But absolute values also matter. Ten years ago, in 2009, renewables only contributed 1.2 percent of global energy consumed. Between 2009 and 2018, total worldwide energy consumed rose by 22 percent, or 2,502 MMTOs. Annual consumption of renewables, on the other hand, only rose by 424 MMTOs. Renewable energy only represented 17 percent of the increase in energy consumption between 2009 and 2018.

To get a better idea of exactly what type of renewables were part of the global energy mix in 2018, the next chart provides details. As can be seen, the top producer was wind at 1.7 percent, followed by solar electricity at 0.8 percent, biofuel at 0.7 percent, and all other, mostly geothermal, at 0.8 percent.

But there are serious problems with biofuel. According to the World Bioenergy Association, biofuel crops are already consuming an astonishing 550,000 square miles of land. This already represents 5 percent of all arable land area on earth – to produce less than one percent of global energy.

Solar and wind energy, while also being huge consumers of land for the amount of energy they produce, have an additional problem; there is still no cost effective way to store the energy they produce. Not only are solar and wind energy dependent on daily fluctuations of wind and sunlight, but there are seasonal fluctuations that create even greater challenges.

To account for this, either solar and wind installations must be oversized sufficiently to generate adequate daily power during the times of the year when the hours of daylight are the shortest and wind is the least reliable, or batteries and other electricity storage solutions must be deployed. These electricity storage farms would have to be capable of storing enough energy to supply large cities for literally months at a time.

According to former Energy Secretary Ernest Moniz, who served during the Obama Administration, California’s 2050 “decarbonizing” targets “can be met only with breakthroughs in a portfolio of affordable technologies.” Meanwhile, in California and around the world, hundreds of billions are being invested each year on technologies, such as gargantuan land based and offshore wind farms, that are extremely disruptive to ecosystems. These investments only yield adequate returns when the costs to provide grid connections and upgrades, as well as backup capacity including quick start natural gas power plants are socialized onto taxpayers and ratepayers.

Despite the incredible cost, and the likelyhood that many solutions being implemented today will be obsolete within a few decades, if not a few years, political support for decarbonization remains strong. But even if tens of trillions were spent, can it be done? Here is where the algebra of energy consumption presents challenges to the decarbonizers that may be unsolvable.

The next chart shows the average amount of energy an American consumed in 2018, compared to their counterparts in China and India. A few things immediately jump out. First, it is clear that in the past ten years, Americans did not lower their per capita energy consumption, despite driving more fuel efficient cars, deployment of mass transit options and urban densification, regardless of more efficient laptop and cell phone batteries, “smart” utility meters, “connected” appliances, etc. Can Americans significantly reduce their per capita energy consumption? The most recent data does not yet show that they can.

Turning to China and India, however, highlights just how far behind the rest of the world is in terms of average energy consumption. As shown, the average person in China consumed 539 units of energy (expressed as gallons of crude oil equivalents) in 2009, and increased that to 723 units of energy by 2018. They did this at the same time as their population increased by 62 million. India logged similar progress, going from a per capita consumption of 130 units in 2009 to 184 units in 2018, at the same time as their population grew by 135 million.Based on these facts, the global energy algebra comes down to this: In the future, how much per capita energy is it reasonable for people to expect, in order for them to fulfill their aspirations to become educated, engage in productive work, afford entertaining diversions in their spare time, and raise their families in a nation where the infrastructure – all of it, from hospitals and universities, to roads and rail, airports and seaports, to a resilient water and power grid – is robust enough to support their towns and cities?

To answer this, imagine that everyone on earth used only half as much energy as Americans use. And suppose, quite optimistically, that global population stabilizes at 8 billion. To accomplish this would require worldwide consumption of energy to grow from 13,865 MMTOs in 2019 to a staggering 34,621 MMTOs. That is, for everyone on earth, including Americans, to consume half as much energy as American’s currently consume, global energy production would have to increase to 2.5 times its current output. And would that be enough? Americans, with all the emphasis and investment in energy conservation over the past ten years, have not reduced their per capita energy consumption. Shall global energy production then quintuple, so everyone on earth can use as much energy as Americans do?

Facing this enormous challenge, investments in renewables might focus on research into leapfrog technologies. The return on that investment may enable decarbonized sources of energy to arrive sooner than anyone expects, not because they were mandated, but because they truly cost less than fossil fuel. Instead, R&D focuses too much on preposterous schemes such as “sequestering” CO2 in underground caverns, or mechanically removing CO2 from the atmosphere.

Perhaps not algebraic, but arguably axiomatic, is the following equation: Affordable energy equals prosperity equals literacy equals female emancipation equals voluntary family size reduction equals ZPG sooner rather than later. In the continent of Africa, where the population is currently projected to rise from 1.3 billion today to 2.5 billion within the next thirty years, either there will be cheap and affordable energy, or there will be a Malthusian event on that continent that will rival any similar such paroxysm in human history.

Looking forward, this is the moral case for fossil fuel. The fact that there is no choice. Humanity needs to develop every single type of energy it possibly can as quickly as it possibly can, because that is how everyone on earth will readily have the opportunity to enjoy first world lifestyles. Only then can people make first world choices to limit the size of their families and only then can they participate enthusiastically and effectively in efforts to preserve the environment around them. Only then will the allure of comfort and security outweigh the desperate imperatives of war. And soon enough, commercially competitive renewable energy – perhaps in forms we haven’t yet imagined – will supplant fossil fuel.

People who demand rapid elimination of fossil fuel need to either face the algebraic impossibility of doing that, or be honest and disclose their true motives.

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