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.

America’s energy picture is very good, and getting even bette

In 2019, for the first time since 1957, America’s energy production exceeded its energy consumption, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) reports. And energy exports exceeded imports for the first time since 1952.

Fossil fuels — coal, natural gas and petroleum — accounted for 93 percent of U.S. energy production in 1966, and despite the arrival of new fuels for energy production, fossil fuels still accounted for 80 percent of our energy production last year.

Over the last decade coal has been replaced as the leading fuel for energy production, due to both natural and unnatural causes, by natural gas, which has seen a dramatic increase over that same period. Hydraulic fracturing — fracking — has spawned great increases in both oil and natural gas production, making natural gas more affordable, thus favored for electricity production.

Renewable sources — primarily wind and solar — have seen production increases over the last two decades, but are currently responsible for only about 12 percent of electricity production.

The U.S. has maintained the title of number one producer of natural gas since surpassing Russia in 2011, and it became the number two producer of oil, surpassing Saudi Arabia, in the last couple of years. Further, the U.S. now exports more oil than most OPEC countries, and exports liquified natural gas to 38 countries.

One definition of energy independence is when a country produces more energy than it consumes. By this definition, the U.S. is energy independent. However, things are frequently less simple than they seem. Even though the U.S. exports excess energy, it still imports energy, and is therefore is not purely energy independent. Some experts contend that it is important that we continue to do business with other producers, and buying from them as well as selling to them is smart, they say.

There are currently 3 million workers in good-paying U.S. jobs in the natural gas and oil workforce, many of whom work in skilled trades and science, technology, engineering and mathematics fields, according to the American Petroleum Institute (API). Among those jobs are construction workers, operating engineers, pipefitters, plumbers and boilermakers, as well as data analysts and computer scientists. Another 5.86 million jobs are in the supply chain for the oil and gas industry.

The API further notes that average annual pay in the industry is near $100,000, and that is almost $50,000 higher than the national average. And, there is the projection of 1.9 million additional jobs by 2035. API also reported that “the energy industry is poised to provide stable livelihoods to an expanding workforce – one increasingly comprised of veterans, women and minorities.”

Globally, NS Energy ranks oil as the most utilized fuel at 39 percent of all fuels; followed by coal at 28 percent; natural gas at 22 percent; hydroelectricity at 6 percent; nuclear at 4.4 percent; geothermal, biomass and waste at 0.4 percent; and solar at 0.03 percent.

Clearly, there is a world-wide need for the fuels America produces, and combined with the country’s needs, the energy sector is a provider of a lot of good-paying jobs. 

Enter, stage left, Joe Biden, Democrat nominee for President of the United States. In the Democrat primary debate, Sen. Bernie Sanders, I-Vt., said: "I'm talking about stopping fracking as soon as we possibly can. I'm talking about telling the fossil fuel industry that they are going to stop destroying this planet — no ifs, buts and maybes about it." To which opponent and former Vice President Joe Biden said, “So am I.”

Not long after agreeing with Sanders, his campaign issued a retraction. And more recently, Biden told union workers, "I am not banning fracking. Let me say that again. I am not banning fracking.”

He told his Democrat comrades one thing, and wooed his union voters with an opposite message. Which one should we believe? Maybe Biden himself isn’t sure.

A Biden-Harris administration — or a Harris-Biden administration, whichever it is — can only do great harm to the burgeoning oil, gas, and coal industry that has such a bright future providing needed fuels to the world, and jobs to the U.S.

Biden has pledged to the climate change faction that fossil fuel use in the country will end by 2035. Bye-bye 5 to 10 million industry jobs. Including fracking. That should make the folks in fracking states like Ohio, Pennsylvania, Colorado and Texas very unhappy.

But replacing fossil fuels with renewables is not as easy as we are led to believe. Those technologies are not currently up to the job, and producing solar panels and wind turbines is a huge, and not environmentally friendly, challenge.

Producing elemental silicon pure enough for solar PV cells requires an enormous amount of electricity, and turning raw silicon into finished wafers pure enough for solar cells involves several toxic and corrosive materials. 

Windmills kill thousands of flying creatures annually, and require enormous amounts of concrete. Both solar and wind utilize large amounts of land dedicated to the production of electricity. And worn out enormous turbine blades are not recyclable, meaning they will forever clog up landfills.

Biden and others supporting renewable energy as an easy and non-problematic solution to supposed climate change are deceiving the public.

California’s troubles are many, and some of them are manmade

 

“In the last few days, a moisture-laden heat wave has unleashed extreme weather in almost every corner of California,” the Los Angeles Times reported on August 18. “In a single day, Northern California was hit with triple-digit temperatures, as well as hundreds of lightning strikes that ignited brush fires. The mercury hit 107 degrees Sunday in Santa Cruz, known for its moderate climate, and Death Valley reached 130 degrees — one of the hottest temperatures ever recorded there.”

 

And then things got worse. High temperatures created a demand for electricity that the state’s electric utilities could not meet. Rolling blackouts turned off the lights and air conditioners of two million state residents without warning, as utilities cut power to blocks of communities in order to protect the state’s electrical grid. This heatwave has been termed the worst in generations, and the state’s power utilities simply could not produce what was needed.

 

California, perhaps the most “progressive” of our 50 states, fancies itself a leader in what’s best. And where electricity production is concerned, renewable energy sources like wind and solar are best, and fossil fuels are worst, according to politically correct wisdom.

 

California seeks to generate 60 percent of electricity via renewables by 2030, and has a long way to go. An estimated 34 percent of the state’s power came from renewables in 2018, according to the California Energy Commission.

 

In its “damn the torpedoes, full speed ahead” drive to replace natural gas production with wind and solar, the state’s very ambitious climate policy forced the retirement of 9 gigawatts of natural gas capacity over the past five years. That’s enough electricity to power 6.8 million homes.

 

This was done despite years of warnings that there would not be enough power generation during the peak period in summer, and that a potential shortfall of 4.7 gigawatts in evening hours could occur starting this year.

 

Despite these changes in electricity production, a staff attorney at Communities for a Better Environment, described as an environmental justice nonprofit, blamed the outages not on inadequate renewable energy production, but on natural gas.

 

“It was actually gas that failed,” said attorney Shana Lazerow. “We should be talking about how gas is unreliable.”

 

The basis for her statement is that gas is to blame because burning gas creates climate warming, and climate warming is why California is trying to rid itself of any and every fossil fuel. She fails to note that whatever the actual cause of the heatwave — climate change or the Earth’s periodic alternating cooling and heating phases — having more natural gas electric facilities would produce the power to make up for production levels that solar and wind cannot meet.

 

But, of course, what is actually unreliable is wind and solar energy, especially for large scale applications like an entire state’s electricity needs.

 

If you want to lower your electric bill by putting some solar panels on your roof, go for it! Once the investment is paid off, you will likely save money. Particularly if you live in a sunny place and have the panels located where the sun will shine on them as much as possible. And, if you can store the excess energy for periods when the sun doesn’t shine.

 

But you might want to have a back-up plan, like being a customer of the electric company.

 

On the state level, California should have maintained backup natural gas production facilities to even out energy production when wind and solar cannot meet demand. Or, had enough storage for ample excess power to cover low production levels.

 

“Big Batteries Needed To Make Fickle Wind And Solar Power Work” headlined a report by NPR.com discussing the need for storage of power produced by wind and solar applications to fill the gap when the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine.

 

However, the report continues, “Nobody really knows how the batteries can best smooth out the irregular power supply from wind and solar power.”

As the NPR report further noted, “That's partly because batteries aren't very efficient. Batteries waste about 25 percent of the energy in the process of being charged and discharged. These sodium-sulfur batteries need to be heated to 600 degrees Fahrenheit to work.”

In other words, California overdrove its headlights in the rush to replace dependable fossil fuels for electricity production in favor of unreliable renewables like wind and solar. Was California a student of the Obama administration’s manic efforts to do away with fossil fuels, or was it a partner?

 

This is yet more evidence of the failure of “progressive” ideals to actually deliver the results that are promised.

 

James Delingpole, writing for Climate Depot, tells us that “No successful economy has ever done [what California is trying to do]. Those that have tried — such as the state of South Australia — have had the same result as California: rocketing electricity prices; blackouts and brownouts; an exodus of businesses; misery and disruption for everyone unfortunate enough to still live there.”

 

Someday in the future, after technologies have been developed to assist wind, solar and other so-called “renewables,” the transition to non-fossil fuel energy will naturally occur. We must be smart and stop rushing the process.

Wind and solar energy have failed to perform as advertised

The bad news for what we have been told are superior energy sources keeps piling up. Even European countries, with their strong preference for things that don’t work, like socialist government, have begun pulling back from wind energy as a major energy source, and solar energy isn’t doing so well, either.

German-owned solar panel producer SolarWorld has filed for what it termed “insolvency” in a European court, saying it was “over-indebted” and did not have a “positive going concern prognosis.” Translated into the plain language of American business, SolarWorld is filing for bankruptcy.

In America bankruptcy does not necessarily mean the end for a company, so perhaps “insolvency” is only a temporary side trip, but it certainly falls well below the description of a successful company.

Here at home, that raises concerns over the company’s U.S. division, SolarWorld America, Inc., which operates a $600 million panel plant in Hillsboro, Oregon. Democrat Gov. Ted Kulongoski praised the plant as an economic development beacon “in the Silicon forest” during a ribbon-cutting ceremony, also attended by Democrats Sen. Ron Wyden and then-Rep. David Wu.

The facility was purchased in 2007 from Japan's Komatsu Group, and by 2012 had collected $57 million in Business Energy Tax Credits from the state. Reports say it now has received $100 million in tax breaks just from state and local government. It also benefitted from a $4 million grant from Barack Obama’s Department of Energy.

SolarWorld notes, however, that despite its problems in Germany, the Hillsboro plant that employs 800 people continues to operate. The question now is how long before the Oregon plant, which its previous owner wanted rid of, joins the infamous Solyndra and Solar Trust green energy fiascos, that cost U.S. taxpayers billions of dollars?

Across the country in Rhode Island a new offshore wind farm just went online last week. The five-turbine farm cost $300 million and currently powers just 2,000 homes, which works out to a bargain-basement price of only $150,000 per household. Ultimately, it is expected to power 17,000 homes, which will lower the cost per home, but progressives and environmentalists believe the price per home isn’t important. They believe that “it’s the precedent that counts,” according to Salon.com.

The Daily Caller News Foundation calculated the difference in wind and nuclear power by comparing this wind farm with a new nuclear plant, Watts Bar Unit 2, which cost $4.7 billion to build. The important difference is not the price, but the result: the nuclear facility will power 4.5 million homes at a comparatively cheap $1,044 per house.

Even with 17,000 customers, the wind farm is still 17 times more expensive than nuclear. Despite this ridiculous situation, the feds want to use offshore wind to power 23 million homes by 2050. However, Germany has finally been shocked into reality as to the inefficiency of wind power, and now plans to stop building wind facilities.

Further illustrating the calamity of the world’s environmental mania is the condition of the environment. The Danish Meteorological Institute (DMI), which because of its European connection ought to have more credibility with the environmental faction than do Americans who don’t buy into the green energy hype, made data public recently that even the most strident greenie ought to consider.

As published by the UK Telegraph, “ever since December temperatures in the Arctic have consistently been lower than minus 20 [degrees] C. In April the extent of Arctic sea ice was back to where it was in April 13 years ago. Furthermore, whereas in 2008 most of the ice was extremely thin, this year most has been at least two metres thick. The Greenland ice cap last winter increased in volume faster than at any time for years.”

The Telegraph goes on to say that “as for those record temperatures brought in 2016 by an exceptionally strong El Niño, the satellites now show that in recent months global temperatures have plummeted by more than 0.6 degrees, just as happened 17 years ago after a similarly strong El Niño had also made 1998 the ‘hottest year on record.’”

The DMI reported actual measurements of climate information, rather than the results of climate models, which are projections that are often wrong. The DMI data shows there has been no additional warming for the last 19 years, which is “an inconvenient truth,” to environmental zealots.

The shortcomings of wind and solar power and the mounting evidence that fossil fuels have not caused the environment to warm significantly cast doubt on the idea that we need expensive “green” energy. In addition to their high costs, wind and solar energy are inefficient, and not as “green” as they are advertised. Both cause environmental harm in their construction and operation.

Non-fossil fuel energy sources are not yet ready to replace coal, oil and natural gas, but they may be in the future.

As with most things the secret to better, cleaner energy is through natural processes, not government force. As technology develops, improvements in how we use fossil fuels make even the dirtiest sources of much cleaner and less objectionable. This process may also make wind and solar energy more efficient, and therefore desirable.

Taking a look at how green energy is working in Europe and America

As the United States grapples with conflicting ideas about whether and to what extent man causes global climate change, the zealous movement to do away with using fossil fuels like coal, oil and natural gas to produce electricity and switch to “green” sources like wind and solar energy goes forward, full speed ahead.

Far ahead of the U.S. in this campaign are some nations in Europe that some policymakers tout as having adopted smart energy policy. They think the U.S. should follow the lead of countries like Germany and Spain and more heavily subsidize renewable energies like wind, solar, biomass, etc. and tax fossil fuel users more heavily.

Now that Europe’s green energy policies have been in place for several years, a look to see how they have worked might help us decide whether this is a good plan for the U.S. to follow.

From Canadafreepress,com comes information about Germany’s energy policies. The news here is not so good; green energy policies are driving up energy prices and forcing hundreds of thousands of people into energy poverty. Specifically, a study of Germany’s experiences found:

• Residential German electricity prices are nearly three times higher than electricity prices in the U.S. 
• As many as 800,000 Germans have had their power cut off because of an inability to pay for rising energy costs. 
• Germany’s feed-in tariff scheme provides lavish subsidies to renewable energy producers. 
• On-shore wind has required feed-in tariffs that are in excess of 300 percent higher than market prices. 
• Germany’s Renewable Energy Levy, which subsidizes renewable energy production, cost German households $9.6 billion in 2013. 
• The cost to expand transmission networks to integrate renewables stands at $33.6 billion, which grid operators say accounts “for only a fraction of the cost of the energy transition.”

Information from the Institute for Energy Research produced some data on the effects of Spain’s push for green energy that began in 1994. The program involved tariffs, quotas and subsidies, and has earned kudos from international leaders, including President Barack Obama.

The Spaniards have seen increases in electricity rates from 2005 to 2011 of 92 percent for domestic users and 78 percent for industrial users, while during that same period the U.S. saw rate increases of 24 percent for domestic users and19 percent for industrial users from fossil fuel produced electricity.

Here is a comparison of Spanish and American rates per kilowatt-hour:

• Spain – Domestic $29.46 and Industrial $14.84 
• U.S. - Domestic $11.69 and Industrial $6.81.

While prices were increasing in Spain the level of carbon dioxide actually rose, rather than declining, increasing 34.5 percent from 1994 to 2011. As a result of this the Spanish government confessed in 2012 that it can’t afford to continue subsidizing green energy.

Meanwhile, the French energy and environment minister, Segolene Royal, who was appointed to the position last spring, plans to create 100,000 jobs by 2017 with her green energy growth initiative. She wants to reduce France’s 75 percent reliance on nuclear energy for electricity production to 50 percent by 2025 by investing in wind, solar, biomass and marine energy sources. She also plans to help 500,000 low-income families add insulation to their homes.

Writing on HotAir.com Erika Johnsen points out that to accomplish these high-minded goals France will have to throw “gobs and gobs of money” into the mix through subsidies, tax credits and/or consumer quotas, which inevitably end up being paid by consumers through higher prices, higher taxes, or increasing France’s national debt, which is already a serious problem. The French economy is weak, much weaker than Germany’s, and we have already seen what happened in that grand green experiment.

In apparent ignorance of these horrid experiences from our European brothers and sisters, the ideologically blinded Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) is driving the U.S. toward green energy use. The EPA does this not through the natural evolution of increased efficiency and value of green energies that gradually supplant older and dirtier fuels, but by punishing the existing producers of the major fuel sources of coal and natural gas that account for 66 percent of our electricity production.

This approach is responsible for killing jobs and harming local economies, and producing higher prices for consumers as the EPA goes merrily along, oblivious to the destruction in its wake, and to the misery the thoughtless drive for green energy has produced for Spain and Germany.

The administration’s “feel-good” emotional support for three risky green companies cost three-quarters of a billion taxpayer dollars. Solar energy companies Solyndra and Abound Solar wasted $529 million and $70 million respectively, and last December hybrid carmaker Fisker Automotive filed for bankruptcy adding another $139 million to the tab.

And now climatologist John L. Casey warns of a shift in global climate, a cold spell to last 30 years, and it has absolutely nothing to do with carbon dioxide emissions. It’s due to the sun. “All you have to do is trust natural cycles, and follow the facts; and that leads you to the inevitable conclusion that the sun controls the climate, and that a new cold era has begun," he said.

Perhaps the EPA will forsake the “green fantasy” in favor of reality.