Black Gold
In 2019, while campaigning in New Hampshire, Joe Biden promised to “end fossil fuel.” Not only has he failed to keep his promise, oil consumption has reached a new all-time high. For this we should all be thankful.
When a climate activist challenged him on that September day about his connections to the co-founder of a liquified natural gas company, Biden, as he has done throughout his career of “public service,” became Joe the Clown. Calling her “kiddo,” he told her to look into his eyes, then said “I guarantee you. We’re going to end fossil fuel.”
The ever-fawning-for-Democrats media called it an “intimate moment.”
But it was nothing more than a typical “Biden moment” on the campaign trail.
As noted, Biden has not ended fossil fuels nor has he set the country on a path in that direction. Domestic oil consumption hit 20.5 million barrels in 2023, according to the U.S. Energy Information Administration, after falling off in 2020, when the authoritarians demanded that we hide under our beds.
Global consumption has grown, too, reaching 99.6 million barrels a day. And it will continue to swell.
Author and journalist Robert Bryce, who has become an indispensable source on energy issues, wrote last week that “the International Energy Agency recently reported that global oil demand grew by 2.3 million barrels per day in 2023,” and expects oil use to increase by 1.2 million barrels a day this year. OPEC projections are bit higher. It anticipates oil use to increase by 2.2 million barrels a day in 2024 and by 1.8 million next year.
“Regardless of which estimate is correct, it is clear that oil demand continues to grow along with the global economy,” says Bryce.
Oil consumption is not a waste of precious resources, nor is crude a commodity that is easily replaced by expensive and unreliable renewable sources.
“Love it or hate it,” says Bryce, “if oil didn’t exist we’d have to invent it. No other fuel can match oil when it comes to energy density, cost, scale, flexibility, or ease of handling and transportation.”
Oil is more that transportation, though. It plays a crucial role in every corner of a modern economy. Thousands of items that have become essential are the products of crude oil and natural gas, often found in crude deposits. The long list includes medical equipment, cell phones, tires, asphalt, computers, heart valves, cortisone, safety glass, toothbrushes and toothpaste, detergents, insect repellent, fertilizers – it goes on an on. Fossil fuels are even used to build the turbines required for wind energy and the panels needed to produce solar power. For a partial catalog of the many goods made from oil and gas that are vital to our prosperity, see this summary.
Given these facts, it’s obvious that a world without fossil fuels would be a return to the primitive conditions, relative to our petro-age, of the 1800s.
Yes, we know the “smart” folks out there will say we could and should minimize drilling by consuming just enough oil to keep making those products while relying on renewables for transportation and electricity.
It’s sounds almost reasonable. But it’s not. Anyone who makes such a suggestion either didn’t do their homework or they are hoping to fool the public. Omnipresent plastic items and other petrochemical-based products that we use and see every day are made from naphtha, which is produced when crude oil is separated into different groups of substances, including hydrocarbon fuels, and when natural gas is processed. What, then, would happen to the fuels if they are not burned for transportation and electricity? They become waste products with limited options for their disposal.
Cost is another factor. Drilling to solely produce feedstock for oil-based products would make them unaffordable as refining expenses, which are offset by fuel sales, necessarily would be built into their costs.
So let’s be clear: Biden didn’t guarantee to only end fossil fuels, he promised to end life as we know it, and giving him another four years would move us closer to that disaster. Remember this when voting in November.
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