Eliminating crude oil is like jumping out of a plane without a chute

By Ronald Stein

The world, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) are proposing banishment of fossil fuels and are focused on reducing emissions from fossil fuels at any costs, but a safety net of having a viable replacement should be in place before we jump off that cliff.

Banning oil imports, fracking, and ceasing oil production to focus on the symbolic renewable energy as the fossil fuels replacement is fooling ourselves as that “clean energy” is only electricity generated from breezes and sunshine.

Before the healthy and wealthy countries abandon all crude oil fracking and exploration that will eliminate the supply chain to refineries and put an end to that manufacturing sector, we should have a safety net to live without the crude oil fuels and derivatives that are manufactured from that energy source. Without any clones to access everything we get from crude oil; the termination of its use could be the greatest threat to civilization.

The more than 6,000 products including asphalt roofing, asphalt roads, fertilizers, and all the products in hospitals that come from the derivatives manufactured from crude oil are more important than the various fuels to the world to operate planes, trucks, militaries, construction equipment, merchant ships, cruise ships, and automobiles.

Electricity alone can recharge your iPhones and EV batteries, but wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture the derivatives that are needed to make the parts of those iPhones and Tesla’s and the components in solar panels, wind turbines, and automobiles.

Reliance on intermittent electricity from breezes and sunshine is unfathomable as electricity by itself is unable to support the prolific growth rates of the military, airlines, cruise ships, supertankers, container shipping, trucking infrastructures, and the medical industry that is already about 90 percent dependent for the products from petroleum, to meet the demands of the exploding world population.

Only healthy and wealthy countries like the USA, Germany, Australia, and the UK can subsidize electricity generation from breezes and sunshine, and then, its only intermittent electricity at best. The 80 percent of the 8 billion on earth living on less than $10 a day cannot subsidize themselves out of a paper bag.

Those poorer countries must rely on affordable and abundant coal for reliable electricity, while residents in the healthy and wealthier countries pay dearly for those subsidies with some of the highest costs for electricity in the world.

Before the healthier and wealthier countries ceases all oil production, they need to focus on an answer to what safety parachute exists to replace what we get from crude oil.

• Before the 1900’s we had NONE of the 6,000 products from oil and petroleum products By ceasing oil production and fracking, the supply chain to refineries will be severed and there will no need for those manufacturing refineries.

• Without refineries we would be terminating the manufacturing of the derivatives that make the thousands of products used in our daily lives and terminating the manufacturing of the various fuels for transportation infrastructures and the military.

• Without crude oil, the world would be in desperate need for “clones” to those oil derivatives that provide the thousands of products from petroleum that are essential to our medical industry, electronics, communications, transportation infrastructure, our electricity generation, our cooling, heating, manufacturing, and agriculture—indeed, virtually every aspect of our daily lives and lifestyles.

• The world has had more than 100 years to develop clones or generics to replace the crude oil derivatives. Without replacements for those derivatives manufactured from crude oil, there will be gigantic reductions in living standards of the population in the so-called industrial countries, and any attempt to develop the colonial countries would come to a dead stop.

• The “green” preachers have yet to promote the need for clones to the oil derivatives that are the basis of billionaire’s lifestyles and worldwide economies.

• Wind turbines and solar panels are not only incapable of manufacturing any such derivatives, but the manufacturing of the components for wind and solar are themselves 100 percent dependent on the derivatives made from crude oil, the same crude oil that the world wants to eliminate from our economies.

Energy is more than electricity from breezes and sunshine. Electricity by itself cannot provide the thousands of products from petroleum that are essential to our medical industry, transportation infrastructure, our electricity generation, our cooling, heating, manufacturing, and agriculture—indeed, virtually every aspect of our daily lives and lifestyles. Nor can electricity alone, support the military, airlines, cruise ships, supertankers, container shipping, and trucking infrastructures.

The greatest threat to civilization would be from the elimination of crude oil as that commodity is manufactured into the oil derivatives and transportation fuels that can bring the poor out of poverty and are the reasons, we have healthy and wealthy developed countries. Going cold turkey to electricity from breezes and sunshine is not the wisest move without a safety net to rely upon that can support worldwide lifestyles and economies as we now know it.

Author

Ronald Stein is an engineer who, drawing upon 25 years of project management and business development experience, launched PTS Advance in 1995. He is an author, engineer, and energy expert who writes frequently on issues of energy and economics.

From cfact.org