Notes on Our Fossil-Fuel-Based Energy Policy

A reader asked for my comments on the following:

I have just been reading about the various ways CO2 is captured from power plants and then transported and stored — underground and underwater.  I don’t get it…we applaud companies for reducing their carbon emissions to solve one problem only to create another by having to find a place to store it, which is surely just as bad as emitting CO2 into the atmosphere in the first place.

Your comment?

Looks to me like another good reason to abandon hydrocarbons altogether.

I can’t believe it.  We have spent the last 100 years digging up the ground for fossil fuels, ruining the environment, making most of our products from them, and creating a dependency on them to the point where we are willing to destroy other countries just to get more…of a diminishing resource.

A large chemical company says 1) 96% of all manufactured products are made from hydrocarbons and 2)  renewable energy sources like solar and wind do not have the base load to power the manufacturing facilities.  It illustrates our unbelievable dependence on hydrocarbons.

Thanks for your very interesting set of observations and questions.  There is no question that our human civilization is on an unsustainable path, and certainly carbon is a big factor in all this.  The developed world is addicted to cheap energy.  The average American adult consumes about 2000 calories in chemical energy per day, and thus, performs that much work.  But he uses a total, on average, 115 times that amount, 230,000 calories per day in lighting, heating, cooling, transportation, electronics, etc.  And yes, most of this has a carbon footprint that is destroying our environment.

Exactly where all this is going, I have no idea.  There is no doubt in my mind that a growing population of increasingly urbanized consumers, all clamoring for more energy, will eventually hit the wall in a few decades in terms of climate change, ocean acidification, water and food shortages, etc.  Will our society somehow come together and put into place restrictions to avert this?  I can’t imagine how that’s possible.

Re: your question about carbon capture and sequestration, it’s not impossible, it’s just expensive.

It’s certainly not feasible to abandon hydrocarbons altogether, nor is that necessary.  Note that humankind began to control the use of burning hydrocarbons 400,000 years ago (see pretty-boy Homo erectus, pictured above).  The issue isn’t the use of hydrocarbons; it’s the unsustainable use of hydrocarbons.  We don’t want people to stop cutting trees to build houses; we don’t want people living in caves.  We just want sustainable forestry (and farming, fishing, transportation, etc.)

Fortunately, there is some good news here that mitigates the doom and gloom.  Efficiency and conservation are starting to make a significant difference.  And fortunately, there is more good news in the form of renewable energy.  The cost of all this is coming down so rapidly that it’s becoming more competitive with fossil fuels every day.

Currently, it’s true that solar and wind, which are variable resources, cannot function as baseload.  But that won’t be true forever.  As more wind is installed in different regions and tied together on the grid, it functions more and more like baseload, as the probability increases that the wind is blowing somewhere in that region.  There are also several technologies that store energy and deliver it back to the grid when needed.

Will all this come about in time to avert disaster?  I don’t know.  It’s too early to tell.  It’s really a function of what people like you and I do, right now, to cause change in our deplorably stupid and selfish energy policy.

Thanks for writing.