Fossil fuels do much, much more than just produce harmful CO2

November 1, 2022

While President Joe Biden and those in the green movement are working hard to rid the world of fossil fuels because of the CO2 they produce, a broader understanding of all the things fossil fuels do might help our perspective.

Oil, natural gas, and coal, are fossil fuels that we use for heat, electricity and to power vehicles. However, they are also a source of raw materials that are used in the manufacturing of many products. Among these is plastic. “Most of the plastics we use are of synthetic origin from petroleum,” according to Global Recycle. “They are simple to manufacture, and the processes are low cost.”

Yes, it is true that too much plastic in many ways causes some problems. But in other ways plastic is a very useful material. Think of all the ways plastic is used today, and all of the products that we would not have without it. 

The most common use of fossil fuels is to power vehicles and planes with gasoline, diesel fuel and jet fuel. But of the 42.6 gallons of oil in a barrel, only about 35 gallons are used for these fuels. The rest of the crude oil is used to manufacture other useful products.

Some of the other materials are petroleum jelly, asphalt, synthetic rubber, paraffin wax, fertilizers, pesticides, detergents, paints, upholstery, carpets, floor wax, insecticides, tires, nail polish, dresses, basketballs, soap, anesthetics, body lotions, deodorants, toothpaste, and even our food is preserved with a little help from fossil fuels.

During the campaign in New Castle, New Hampshire back in 2019, Biden said: “I want you to look at my eyes. I guarantee you, I guarantee you we’re going to end fossil fuels.” But that wasn’t all. He added, “No more subsidies for the fossil fuel industry. No more drilling, including offshore. No ability for the oil industry to continue to drill, period,” he said of his energy policies if he won the election. “It ends.”

If he succeeds, there will be a hefty price to be paid by the people he was elected to serve, replacing thousands of jobs and the long list of products that we buy and use today that we get from fossil fuels. Biden has engaged in fulfilling his promise, cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline on January 20, 2021, and other actions that followed.

The idea that fossil fuels actually have beneficial qualities may shock some people. But it is the truth. Even some, or maybe many, of those who don’t buy into the catastrophic theme surrounding the use of oil, natural gas and coal may not realize the broad range of things that fossil fuels give us.

The negatives seem to be the controlling theme. Fossil fuels are bad because they produce CO2, which is dangerous to the environment, and to our existence. Nuclear energy and hydro energy produce no CO2, which is good. But many people also oppose these two alternatives.

Wind and solar power, on the other hand, are championed by the anti-fossil fuel group as the saviors of our planet. And if we don’t replace fossil fuels with them in a fairly short time, we are doomed, they tell us.

Yet, these same people oppose the processes involved in producing windmills and solar panels, like mining and great amounts of industrialization.

The author of The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, Alex Epstein, has a new book out. Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas — Not Less.

In chapter 10, he wrote that “Since 1980, the percentage of humanity living on less than $2 a day has gone from 42 percent to under 10 percent today.” This is attributed to “increasing productivity, which is driven by the increasing and expanding use of fossil fueled machine labor and the enormous amounts of mental labor it frees up.”

Making life easier and less expensive for millions of people across the globe, including the poorest of us, is certainly a positive development. And continuing improvement in pollution-control technology will make it possible for even more of the poorest on Earth to use fossil fuels “to lift themselves out of poverty with less and less pollution,” Epstein wrote.

“All of this means more first light bulbs, more first refrigerators, more first rewarding jobs, more first years with a consistently full stomach, more first years drinking consistently clean water, more first years being comfortable no matter what the weather,” he wrote.

He explains how much more there is to the story of fossil fuels than the CO2 they produce. And as technology advances, cleaner burning fossil fuels result. America produces the cleanest crude oil in the world. And we should also remember that CO2 is fertilizer for trees and other plant life that then produce and release oxygen into the air. 

Billions of people rely on inexpensive fossil fuels for energy, and that number continues to grow. But the more expensive “renewable” energy sources are beyond their financial means.

So, while technology works to clean up fossil fuels, and to make the cleaner renewable sources more functional and affordable, we need to utilize all the benefits that fossil fuels provide.

Renewable energy to replace fossil fuels? Will that be much better?

We have been told for years about the damage to the environment of burning fossil fuels, and the marvelous benefits of renewable energy sources like wind and solar. Steps have been taken and more are being put forth to reduce the amount of CO2 we produce, on concerns of “climate change.” America, incidentally, has led most, if not all, of the world in reducing CO2 in recent years.

And, regardless of whether humankind is really harming the environment to a serious level, we can agree that wind and solar energy are far less polluting when they are in use than machines that burn oil, gasoline, diesel fuel and natural gas.

But when you look at what happens in the process of turning these sources into useful products, and what happens to them after their useful life is over, a very different story emerges.

The details of these processes and products were explained in a Prager University video featuring Mark Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute, who discussed the environmental costs of using these energy sources.

First, windmills and solar panels, and the batteries to store the electricity they produce, are made from non-recyclable materials, Mills said. And after some 20 years since the wind and solar energy technologies were born, and after billions of dollars of subsidies, those two sources provide less than three percent of the nation’s power. 

Mills explained that the maximum rate that wind can be turned into electrons is about 60 percent, and the maximum for sunlight is about 33 percent. As of now, we can convert 45 percent of blowing wind and 26 percent of shining sun. Technology is now able to get a little more than half the possible electrons from the wind and the sun. That will likely increase as technology advances.

Since the wind does not blow and the sun does not shine all the time, excess electricity must be stored in batteries. Mills put that into perspective: The world’s largest battery plant, created by Tesla in Nevada for its electric vehicles, would need 500 years to make enough of the batteries it makes today to store enough electricity for just one day of current U.S. demand.

Of course, more battery plants will gradually be built, and perhaps the capacity and efficiency of batteries will also increase. But this presents a tremendous challenge if the U.S. is to end using fossil fuels, as we are told we must, in favor of renewables.

The processes to enable wind and solar energy to produce electricity, he said, are quite expensive, in environmental terms.

One electric car battery weighs half a ton. But to acquire the materials to produce it, 250 tons of earth from somewhere must be mined and processed.

One 75 mega-watt wind farm powers 75,000 homes, and requires 30,000 tons of iron ore, 50,000 tons of concrete, and 900 tons of non-recyclable plastic. And a 75 mega-watt solar farm requires 150 percent more materials — concrete, steel and glass — than a wind farm.

The rare earth and other metals needed — lithium, cobalt, copper, iridium and dysprosium — will require a massive increase in mining activity: from 200 to 2,000 percent of the mining now occurring.  Rare earth materials are mostly not available in the U.S., but must be acquired from other countries Some of them, like China, are hostile to us. In 2019, China was responsible for 80 percent of rare-earth materials.

And, the equipment and processes used in acquiring and refining the materials, and constructing and installing the windmills, solar panels and batteries are powered by fossil fuels.

After about 20 years of production, these windmills and solar panels will have exhausted themselves, leaving millions of tons of non-recyclable waste behind that must be put somewhere.

Mills also said that the plastic waste from these sources will total more than twice the amount of all existing plastic waste.

Using the sun and the wind to our benefit makes perfect sense. The more seasoned readers may remember fondly your grandmother or mother hanging freshly washed clothes on the line in the back yard to dry in the sun and breeze. And then electric dryers came along.

The idea that transitioning from burning fossil fuels to wind and solar energy to produce electricity will be cleaner is false. We will trade polluting the air for producing tons of solid waste.

Too much of anything can be harmful: too much vitamin C, too much water, too much sun, too much oxygen, and too much CO2. But the environmental cost to replace fossil fuels with wind and solar power might be as expensive, or more expensive, than the cost of burning fossil fuels, in terms of the waste that is produced.

Geologist and earth scientist Professor Ian Plimer, who is called a “climate change denier” by some, said our “climate is cyclical,” and that Earth is heading to an ice age.

“We are getting towards the end of the warm period, the peak of the warmth was about 5,000 years ago and we are heading for the next inevitable ice age,” he told Sky News.

If so, someday we may want and need more CO2, not less.