The world is poised to pivot to alternatives in a big way because its energy needs cannot be held hostage to the whims of a rogue president and a murderous regime
This article posits a future that is technically not possible. Fossil fuels today make up 80% of the global total energy supply.
Uses not electrifiable in the foreseeable future (steel, concrete, ammonia, mining, heavy transportation, non-energy such as asphalt) total ~40% of the global energy supply and thus 50% of the fossil fuel supply.
Most of these require extreme heat. Energy-dense, combustible fuels are the only thermodynamically practical source of such heat.
All one can accomplish by driving down fossil fuel use in one country is de-industrialization, as we are seeing across Europe. But what this does is to push fossil-fuel use for the above purposes into countries that care much less about consequences.
To find more details, search on “statistical distribution of uses of energy globally” citations to Our World in Data and the IEA. To get full context, read “The Way the World Really Works” by Vaclav Smil.
To see why what will actually happen will be decades of increasing oil use, read the Substack by Arjun Murphy.
There is a great deal in this article that is factually wrong. I am disappointed in the Unpopulist for publishing it.
Electricity represents only about a quarter of total global energy consumption. The rest is heat, transport, and industrial processes that are harder to decarbonize. However, electricity is the platform on which all other sectors electrify. A grid that runs on clean energy for twelve hours a day makes every electric vehicle charged in those hours a zero-emissions vehicle, every heat pump running in those hours a zero-emissions heating system, every industrial process electrified in those hours a step away from fossil fuels.
"The war has shown just how much of the world’s economy now turns on the unchecked decisions of individual men."
This is the inevitable result of big government concentrating total power in the hands of central planners. This is precisely the dystopian reality that left-wing political ideas have engineered.
"An American president who could start the war without asking Congress, and a Tehran regime that could respond by putting a fifth of the world’s oil beyond anyone’s reach."
The American President didn't start this war. Iran initiated this conflict back in 1979, and the inability of the US to secure a decisive victory is just another glaring symptom of the true crisis facing the West: a complete lack of competent political professionals.
"The largest oil and gas supply disruption in history is far from over, but its strongest legacy might well end the dominance of fossil fuels."
As any functional adult should be able to tell you, eliminating fossil fuels would cause the death of billions of people. Demanding an end to fossil fuels is MAGA-level delusion.
Describing the highly subsidized, unreliable products of solar and wind as "clean"—while celebrating the authoritarian policies forcing these waste products on us as "market forces"—is a spectacularly broken take.
In short, you cannot complain about a global economy turning on the unchecked decisions of individual men while actively advocating for exactly that type of central planning.
It is baffling how such a confused, pro-authoritarian piece got published on a platform that claims to be "liberal."
I'll add to it and say that the reason the American economy is faltering is because for decades people thought it was a good idea to farm out ALL production to enemy countries and to rely on energy from enemy countries.
Even a grade school student could see the problem with these decisions and how it would eventually backfire.
Now that the US has secured oil from Venezuela, the single largest supply on earth, they can decouple from the 'Wild West' that is the Middle East.
Now if only Canada would play nice, but Canada is a fallen country as far as I'm concerned. Like a scorned partner, they are chumming up with China of all countries. Unreal.
“The United States did not become a net oil and gas exporter until 2019. When independence finally arrived, it came not from a plan out of Washington but from a price-driven shale boom no bureaucrat ordered up.…”
The US is not and has never been crude oil independent.
Current US crude oil production is about 13.4 million barrels per day.
Current US refinery capacity and refined product consumption is 18.5 million barrels.
Refined transportation fuels derived from that refining are approximately 13.6 million barrels per day. (The total refining capacity is required to produce this amount of those fuels). The majority consumed in the US.
Hydraulic fracturing and shale made the US natural gas independent but even that has presented export limitations due to energy intensive compression and transport considerations in the supply chain. It is one reason that US production of intermediates, derived from natural gas, like ethylene, ammonia, methanol, and hydrogen have increased.
The crude import export markets exist not only for the purposes of refining optimization but also for profit taking.
You forget that there are now many many interested parties to make sure this never happens again. Remember the enemy has a say. The enemies of the Iranian and American governments will have a say.
This article posits a future that is technically not possible. Fossil fuels today make up 80% of the global total energy supply.
Uses not electrifiable in the foreseeable future (steel, concrete, ammonia, mining, heavy transportation, non-energy such as asphalt) total ~40% of the global energy supply and thus 50% of the fossil fuel supply.
Most of these require extreme heat. Energy-dense, combustible fuels are the only thermodynamically practical source of such heat.
All one can accomplish by driving down fossil fuel use in one country is de-industrialization, as we are seeing across Europe. But what this does is to push fossil-fuel use for the above purposes into countries that care much less about consequences.
To find more details, search on “statistical distribution of uses of energy globally” citations to Our World in Data and the IEA. To get full context, read “The Way the World Really Works” by Vaclav Smil.
To see why what will actually happen will be decades of increasing oil use, read the Substack by Arjun Murphy.
There is a great deal in this article that is factually wrong. I am disappointed in the Unpopulist for publishing it.
Electricity represents only about a quarter of total global energy consumption. The rest is heat, transport, and industrial processes that are harder to decarbonize. However, electricity is the platform on which all other sectors electrify. A grid that runs on clean energy for twelve hours a day makes every electric vehicle charged in those hours a zero-emissions vehicle, every heat pump running in those hours a zero-emissions heating system, every industrial process electrified in those hours a step away from fossil fuels.
"The war has shown just how much of the world’s economy now turns on the unchecked decisions of individual men."
This is the inevitable result of big government concentrating total power in the hands of central planners. This is precisely the dystopian reality that left-wing political ideas have engineered.
"An American president who could start the war without asking Congress, and a Tehran regime that could respond by putting a fifth of the world’s oil beyond anyone’s reach."
The American President didn't start this war. Iran initiated this conflict back in 1979, and the inability of the US to secure a decisive victory is just another glaring symptom of the true crisis facing the West: a complete lack of competent political professionals.
"The largest oil and gas supply disruption in history is far from over, but its strongest legacy might well end the dominance of fossil fuels."
As any functional adult should be able to tell you, eliminating fossil fuels would cause the death of billions of people. Demanding an end to fossil fuels is MAGA-level delusion.
Describing the highly subsidized, unreliable products of solar and wind as "clean"—while celebrating the authoritarian policies forcing these waste products on us as "market forces"—is a spectacularly broken take.
In short, you cannot complain about a global economy turning on the unchecked decisions of individual men while actively advocating for exactly that type of central planning.
It is baffling how such a confused, pro-authoritarian piece got published on a platform that claims to be "liberal."
What a great post. I couldn't agree more.
I'll add to it and say that the reason the American economy is faltering is because for decades people thought it was a good idea to farm out ALL production to enemy countries and to rely on energy from enemy countries.
Even a grade school student could see the problem with these decisions and how it would eventually backfire.
Now that the US has secured oil from Venezuela, the single largest supply on earth, they can decouple from the 'Wild West' that is the Middle East.
Now if only Canada would play nice, but Canada is a fallen country as far as I'm concerned. Like a scorned partner, they are chumming up with China of all countries. Unreal.
“The United States did not become a net oil and gas exporter until 2019. When independence finally arrived, it came not from a plan out of Washington but from a price-driven shale boom no bureaucrat ordered up.…”
The US is not and has never been crude oil independent.
Current US crude oil production is about 13.4 million barrels per day.
Current US refinery capacity and refined product consumption is 18.5 million barrels.
Refined transportation fuels derived from that refining are approximately 13.6 million barrels per day. (The total refining capacity is required to produce this amount of those fuels). The majority consumed in the US.
Hydraulic fracturing and shale made the US natural gas independent but even that has presented export limitations due to energy intensive compression and transport considerations in the supply chain. It is one reason that US production of intermediates, derived from natural gas, like ethylene, ammonia, methanol, and hydrogen have increased.
The crude import export markets exist not only for the purposes of refining optimization but also for profit taking.
You forget that there are now many many interested parties to make sure this never happens again. Remember the enemy has a say. The enemies of the Iranian and American governments will have a say.