Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas--Not Less
by Alex Epstein

Edwin A. Locke 5.0 out of 5 stars

The best book on environmentalism I have ever read

Reviewed in the United States on May 24, 2022
Verified Purchase

I am a scientist (psychology), so I know how science works even though I am not a climatologist. But for many decades I have read widely in many fields including the physical sciences. I have read about twenty books and scores of articles on climate issues. For many years I suspected that something seemed wrong. There were so many contradictions. Everyone seemed to report findings, using selected data, which supported their side but not findings that contradicted it. It seemed that a political agenda was constantly mixed in with a science agenda. Soon one view became dominant: that fossil fuels were destroying the earth, maybe even in the next ten years, and needed to be abandoned to prevent a world-wide catastrophe. People who disagreed with this could be harassed, mocked, and even risked job loss. Scientific findings could only be published in some journals if they came out with the “right” results. Organizations were pressured to sell their oil stocks. Reporters for many leading newspapers learned quickly that only certain types of articles were acceptable. Opposing oil became a moral crusade, a virtual dogma. Eminent catastrophizers included: Paul Erlich, Al Gore, James Hansen, Paul Krugman, Bill McKibben, and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. There have been many distortions of scientific data. But since our Constitution says we have a right to freedom of speech, all critics of the anti-oil crusade could not be silenced. Some catastrophizers openly advocate being dishonest in order to further their agenda. Epstein refutes all the crtics. He presents a list of recommendation for evaluating climate claims

Epstein’s book is a brilliant antidote to the assault on fossil fuels. Its theme is that fossil fuels are one of the greatest benefits to human civilization ever and that there is, for now, no viable substitute. Epstein covers all the relevant issues from every angle, so I will only give a brief summary here.

1. The earth, absent the benefits of machines powered by fossil fuels and electrical energy created by fossil fuels is a very dangerous place, characterized by mass poverty, recurring starvation, death from the cold, poor medical care, poor sanitation, exhausting manual labor, bad water, inadequate shelter, devastating natural disasters, and low life expectancy.
2. The nations that suffer the most today are those that lack such technology. Without fossil fuels, people who lack them will keep suffering because they will stay poor.
3. Coal, oil, and gas are responsible for almost all the energy created today-- about 80%. Solar and wind provide only about 3%. Fossil fuels have allowed humanity, insofar it has advocated reason, to master nature (following the laws of nature and science) thus enabling the human race to multiply and thrive.
4. Fossils fuels are abundant in nature: plentiful, cheap, and reliable when production and transportation are not opposed by government regulations. They supply on demand electricity.
5. The championed substitutes for fossil fuels are: wind, solar and batteries. Epstein notes, as have others, the many problems with these sources. Windmills do not work without wind. Solar panels do not work without sunlight. Batteries are nowhere near cost-effective enough or efficient enough to store and provide sufficient energy when the wind isn’t blowing enough and the sun isn’t shining enough. So in practice, solar, wind, and batteries are not replacements for fossil-fueled grids, they are inefficient, cost-adding add-ons to fossil-fueled grids.
6. Epstein calls the idea that all power would be created by wind, solar, and batteries to be divorced from reality, just from the aspect of cost alone.
7. What about pollution? Epstein shows that it has been decreasing for decades thanks to technology. Further, he identifies the ways that side effects can be mitigated.
8. What other alternatives are there for power? Epstein favors two: waterpower from dams and nuclear. Both are safe, dependable, non-polluting and do not take up much land or harm birds and animals. Unfortunately, both are roundly opposed by the public. He shows that biomass and geothermal are at least decades away from becoming even significant supplements to fossil fuels, let alone replacements.
9. There is a long section on dealing with climate side effects including evidence that fossil fuels lead to fewer storm-related deaths, e.g., floods. Sea level rise today is radically less than in previous history (and can be coped with) and the danger has been greatly exaggerated as with the case of ocean acidification.
10. The book ends with a call for freedom of production and a critique of companies, including oil companies, which have conceded the anti-fossil agenda.

I consider this book to be, by far, the best—most honest, most accurate-- statement of the fossil fuel issue written so far. But each reader will have to decide what to believe by using their own rational judgment.

The following is from an interview with GB News, which Epstein posted on Facebook, he argued “why COP 26 is not a progressive scientific conference but an anti-human, primitive-religious attempt to commit mass genocide,” according to his video description.16
“If you don’t admit that today’s world is amazing because of fossil fuels, you are totally unqualified to make any predictions about the future because either you are anti-human or ignorant.”

Epstein added:

“The fact that we have an impact doesn’t even mean that it’s net negative. I think the jury is out because there’s a lot of beneficial warming and then greening is good.” //

“I am actually an outspoken global warming affirmer. The real point of contention is not whether there is some global warming and whether human beings have some climate impact, but a) whether warming is a problem and b) whether fossil fuel energy should be restricted.

“When catastrophists label me and others ‘climate deniers,’ they aren’t trying to accurately characterize our views–they’re trying eliminate opposition to their political policies.”

April 2016

“If we look at what has been scientifically demonstrated vs. what has been speculated, the climate impact of CO2 is real — but mild and manageable.”

[…] while fossil-fuel use has only a mild warming impact, it has an enormous protecting impact. Nature doesn’t give us a stable, safe climate that we make dangerous. It gives us an ever-changing, dangerous climate that we need to make safe. And the driver behind sturdy buildings, affordable heating and air-conditioning, drought relief and everything else that keeps us safe from climate is cheap, plentiful, reliable energy, overwhelmingly from fossil fuels.”19

Environment
Climate change scepticism
Climate sceptics – who gets paid what?
Leaked documents show US thinktank the Heartland Institute has been making payments to experts and scientists to cast doubt on climate science. Here, we profile some of the figures

They especially wanted my input. I said I’d consider it, but was a bit hesitant given the Guardian’s reporting history. But, after some discussion with one of the reporters, it seemed like a genuine attempt at outreach. I suggested that if they really wanted to make a gesture that would make people take notice, they should consider banning the use of the word “denier” from climate discourse in their newspaper. Nobody I know of in the sceptic community denies that the earth has gotten warmer in the past century. I surely don’t. But we do question the measured magnitude, the cause, and the scientific methods. //

The claims made that skeptics are connected to tobacco companies is ludicrous. It is especially ludicrous in my case.

So here’s my challenge to Professor Sachs. Give me ten minutes in a room with you. That’s all I need. I’ll tell you about my story related to tobacco. I’ll tell you how secondhand smoke most likely contributed to my profound hearing loss through a series of badly treated ear infections as a child, I’ll tell you about my efforts to get my parents to stop smoking , and then, I’ll tell you how I watched both of my parents die of tobacco related disease. I’ll tell you what I think of tobacco products and companies. I’ll tell you to your face. I promise you it won’t be pretty, I promise you that you’ll feel my pain caused by tobacco.

Stance on Climate Change
June 28, 2020

The following is from an article Shellenberger originally published at Forbes, \32 which was later retracted (in Shellenberger’s words, “Censored”). He later republished the article at Environmental Progress33 and elsewhere. He wrote:34
“On behalf of environmentalists everywhere, I would like to formally apologize for the climate scare we created over the last 30 years. Climate change is happening. It’s just not the end of the world. It’s not even our most serious environmental problem.”

He went on to list “some facts few people know”:

“Humans are not causing a ‘sixth mass extinction’”
“The Amazon is not ‘the lungs of the world’”
“Climate change is not making natural disasters worse”
“Fires have declined 25% around the world since 2003”
“The amount of land we use for meat — humankind’s biggest use of land — has declined by an area nearly as large as Alaska
“The build-up of wood fuel and more houses near forests, not climate change, explain why there are more, and more dangerous, fires in Australia and California”
“Carbon emissions have been declining in rich nations for decades and peaked in Britain, Germany and France in the mid-seventies”
“Adapting to life below sea level made the Netherlands rich not poor”
“We produce 25% more food than we need and food surpluses will continue to rise as the world gets hotter”
“Habitat loss and the direct killing of wild animals are bigger threats to species than climate change”
“Wood fuel is far worse for people and wildlife than fossil fuels”
“Preventing future pandemics requires more not less ‘industrial’ agriculture”
Shellenberger added, “I know that the above facts will sound like ‘climate denialism’ to many people. But that just shows the power of climate alarmism.”

Another version of his article, titled “Sorry for misleading you, but I cried wolf on the global dangers of climate change,” was published at The Australian on June 30.35

In a blog post on climate science denier Anthony Watts’ website Watts Up With That, Monckton wrote: [138]

“If there is going to be little more than 1 K anthropogenic warming over the next century or so, there is absolutely no need to do anything to prevent it. The flight of major manufacturing industries to China, which profiteers mightily from the climate scam sedulously promoted in the West by the fawning front groups that it subsidizes, can and should be reversed.”

Stance on Climate Change
“My study is NOT as a climatologist, but from a completely different perspective in which I am an expert … For decades, as a professional experimental test engineer, I have analyzed experimental data and watched others massage and present data. I became a cynic; My conclusion – ‘if someone is aggressively selling a technical product who’s merits are dependent on complex experimental data, he is likely lying’. That is true whether the product is an airplane or a Carbon Credit.” [2]

In an interview by “Conversations that Matter,” Dyson argued that CO2 is beneficial due to “greening” vegetation and that continuing to burn fossil fuels will probably “do us good”: [13]

“The fact is, carbon dioxide will increase. We will continue to burn oil and coal, and probably it does us good. The Earth will get greener as a result.”

“CO2 is so beneficial […] it would be crazy to try to reduce it,” Dyson said. “Man-made climate change is, on the whole, good.”

Anthony Watts is a former television weatherman best known as the founder and editor of the blog Watts Up With That (WUWT), which primarily publishes articles critical of mainstream climate change science. Watts joined the Heartland Institute, a think tank proudly at the forefront of promoting doubt about climate change, as a Senior Fellow in 2019. [1], [121]

Watts is the director and president of IntelliWeather Inc., a weather graphics company alternatively known as Innovative Tech Works (ITWorks), and Weathershop. Watts also founded Surfacestations.org, a project with the stated purpose of documenting the siting quality of weather stations in the United States

Klaus Schwab and a growing list of powerful global economic and political elites, including BlackRock CEO Larry Fink[1] and President Joe Biden,[2] have recently committed to a global “reset” of the prevailing school of economic thought. They seek to supplant the entrenched “shareholder doctrine” of capitalism, which—as Milton Friedman famously espoused over 50 years ago—holds that the only purpose of a corporate executive is to maximize profits on behalf of company shareholders.[3]

To replace shareholder capitalism, Schwab, Fink, Biden, and a legion of their peers have promulgated a nouveau “stakeholder doctrine,” commonly referred to as “stakeholder capitalism.” This approach, which aims to harness the growing clamor for more socially conscious corporate decision-making, authorizes, incentivizes, and even coerces corporate executives and directors to work on behalf of social objectives deemed by elites to be desirable for all corporate stakeholders—including communities, workers, executives, and suppliers.[4]
Environmental, social, and governance (ESG) scores—a social credit framework for sustainability reporting—are being used as the primary mechanism to achieve the shift to a stakeholder model. They measure both financial and non-financial impacts of investments and companies and serve to formally institutionalize corporate social responsibility in global economic infrastructure.[5]

Environment, social, and governance scores are theoretically supposed to incentivize “responsible investing” by “screening out” companies that do not possess high ESG scores while favorably rating those companies and funds that make positive contributions to ESG’s three overarching categories. A company’s ESG score has become a primary component of its risk profile.[6]

limate at a Glance for Teachers and Students: Facts on 30 Prominent Climate Topics Paperback – April 19, 2022

Over the past half-century, politicians, pundits, and academics have been making wildly incorrect claims about the causes and consequences of climate change, confusing and misleading millions of people around the world. Students and their teachers are not immune to these problems. In fact, in many ways, they've been the biggest victims of climate change misinformation. In Climate at a Glance for Teachers and Students: Facts on 30 Prominent Climate Topics, authors Anthony Watts and James Taylor use cold, hard facts and well-established data to debunk some of the most prominent climate myths. This easy-to-read book is perfect for teachers and students interested in learning the truth about climate change and its impacts.

PDF Version: http://heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/Books/CaaG-2022.pdf

"Slide deck" summarizing the primary data: http://heartland.org/_template-assets/documents/Books/CAAG-SlideDeck-2022.pdf

intrepid defenders of the faith are unceasing in their efforts, demanding who do you believe: them, or your lying eyes and ears. The latest foray involves recently circulated photos of Sydney Harbor taken some 140 years apart. //

The photographs may reflect “different tidal stages,” Gary Griggs, Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz, told Reuters.

An absolute global rate of sea-level rise has been recorded since 1993 by orbiting satellites, Prof Griggs said.

“This rate has averaged 3.42 mm/yr. but over the past decade or so has increased to 4.77mm/yr. over the past 10 years,” he said. //

“Local rates, whether Sydney or San Diego, provide sea level changes relative to land. Where the land is rising or sinking will produce different local rates. So, in Sydney, the land has been rising over the period of tide gauge measurements producing lower than global sea level rise rates,” he (Gary Griggs, Distinguished Professor of Earth and Planetary Sciences, University of California, Santa Cruz) added. //

Beemer4
6 hours ago
The Spanish built a fort in Saint Augustine in the late 1600's. It included a moat which was filled by the ocean. The Atlantic will have to rise many feet to get back to the point water will start filling the moat. Looking at that fort and the one in Key West makes it obvious the oceans are much lower than 200 to 300 years ago. It is almost as if this is a normal cycle. //

Red in Illinois
6 hours ago
“Unsettled” by Steven Koonin is one of the most straight down the middle books on Climate change I’ve read. Even though he was the Under Secretary of Energy during Obama, he is a straight shooter on climate hysteria.

He gives tons of facts with context (usually what alarmists leave out).

Ina nutshell, yes the climate is changing, humans are likely a small contributing factor, natural forces are mostly responsible (as always throughout earths history). Most green energy proposals won’t make much difference except enrich many progressives. //

UpLateAgain Red in Illinois
6 hours ago edited
Yep. Watched climatologist Joe Bastardi the other day talking about storm frequency and severity as influenced by Global Warming. He's really a climate historian as much as a meteorologist and climatologist, and according to him the storm cycles in the US in the early 30s were roughly 28 times more frequent and intense than last year. He doesn't deny mankind is having an influence on climate, but essentially says it is so minuscule as to not really warrant consideration.

What the greenies don’t understand, or can’t understand, or refuse to understand, or perhaps understand but pretend they don’t, or can’t, is that with fossil fuels, we can make an inhospitable climate more hospitable. The greens instead insist that fossil fuels have made and continue making an already hospitable climate inhospitable. But of course, any sentient human being knows this is violently foolish.

To prove how foolish this is, ask the people wiped out in Pompeii how hospitable the climate was on that day.

Or perhaps we might ask the 300,000 who died in 1839 during the deadly Cyclone how nice Mother Nature was on that lovely morning in India.

Or maybe the 1,000,000 who died in Bhola, Bangladesh, in 1970 from that weather event might have a different opinion.

Or we could ask the 2,000,000 dead Chinese who perished in 1887 during the Yellow River Flood. If not them, how about the 4,000,000 Chinese who perished 50 years later in yet another Yellow River Flood, this one occurring in 1931?

The 230,000 Chinese who died in 1975 during Typhoon Nina probably weren’t huge fans of the weather. Nor the 8,000 who died in the San Zenón hurricane in the Dominican Republic in 1935. And then there’s the 3,100 who died during the Cuba hurricane in the Cayman Islands in 1932…

Out of curiosity, how much C02 was in the atmosphere in 1887? Or in 1931? How about 1975?

Yeah, folks, don’t let the alarmists fool you today. Sure it’s hot. Of course, it’s hot. It might even be record-breaking hot. Records are made to be broken. It is July. We are in the peak of Summer.

The strategy from a public policy standpoint should be energy abundance and energy reliability so that as many people throughout the country, indeed throughout the world, have access to air conditioning during heatwaves and heaters powered by natural gas during winter freezes, as much of both as we can make possible through technological innovation, human ingenuity, sound market principles, and minimal government interference.

In other words, memo to politicians: Shut up and get out of the way. Allow the private sector to provide energy resources to those most in need of them, especially when they are most in need of them. In other words, don’t just do something; sit there.

Because even though the weather outside is frightful, the AC is so delightful. And since we’ve no place to go, let it blow, let it blow, let it blow…

With the president fleeing, prices tripling, and the country out of power, Sri Lanka is in crisis after it banned fertilizer. //

The fuel has run out in Sri Lanka, with tuk-tuk drivers being forced to wait for days just to fill their eight-liter tanks. Power blackouts are a daily occurrence. The inflation rate in Sri Lanka reached a whopping 54.6 percent in June, and the growing cost of food, clothing, transportation, and electricity — some of which are three times the normal price — has tanked the value of the rupee. Being an island country, catching fresh fish instead of buying food would be a relief, but there’s no diesel to go out to sea to fish for them. //

The 2021 inflation surge that has grown into a full economic crisis is in no small part thanks to climate radicalism. Suckered by European Green Deal propaganda, the Sri Lankan government implemented a ban in April 2021 on the main thing propelling its agriculture-based economy: chemical fertilizer. On an island where 15 million out of its 22 million people rely on farming, over 90 percent of them had used chemical fertilizer prior to the ban, which went into effect immediately with no time for contingency planning. By the time the government realized its mistake, it was too late.

One-third of the farmlands lay dormant in 2021, and 85 percent of farmers faced crop losses. Small farmers bore the brunt of the burden and reported a 50 to 60 percent decrease in yield. Carrot and tomato prices increased by five times their original price. Sri Lanka’s rice production fell by 20 percent and prices jumped 50 percent in a span of six months. Formerly self-sufficient in rice, shortages forced Sri Lanka to import $450 million’s worth of the grain.

Worst yet, the fertilizer ban hit the tea industry, its second-highest export. Sri Lanka exported $1.24 billion worth of tea in 2019. These exports paid for 71 percent of the country’s food imports up until 2021. After the April ban, the tea industry crashed, with production and exports down 18 percent from November 2021 to February 2022 for a 23-year low.

Rajapaksa gave up his goal to be the first nation to fully embrace organic farming and rescinded the ban in November of 2021, but the damage was already done. Sri Lanka’s stellar ESG score (a United Nations metric of investments made following supposedly better environmental, social, and governance standards) isn’t doing its people much good.

Two recent studies have shown that electric vehicles have more quality issues than gas-powered ones and are not better for the environment. //

J.D. Power has produced the annual U.S. Initial Quality Study for 36 years, which measures the quality of new vehicles based on feedback from owners. The most recent study, which included Tesla in its industry calculation for the first time, found that battery-electric vehicles (EVs) and plug-in hybrid vehicles have more quality issues than gas-powered ones. //

According to J.D. Power, owners of electric or hybrid vehicles cite more problems than do owners of gas-powered vehicles. The latter vehicles average 175 problems per 100 vehicles (PP100), hybrids average 239 PP100, and battery-powered cars — excluding Tesla models — average 240 PP100. Tesla models average 226 PP100. Given the average cost of an electric car is roughly $60,000, about $20,000 more than the cost of a gas-powered car, it seems owners of EVs didn’t get the value they deserve. //

But the same supply-chain disruption affected makers of gas-powered vehicles. Yet the three highest-ranking brands, measured by overall initial quality, are all makers of gas-powered vehicles: Buick (139 PP100), Dodge (143 PP100), and Chevrolet (147 PP100). //

Besides quality issues, a new study published by the National Bureau of Economic Research found that electric vehicles are worse for the environment than gas-powered ones. By quantifying the externalities (both greenhouse gases and local air pollution) generated by driving these vehicles, the government subsidies on the purchase of EVs, and taxes on electric and/or gasoline miles, researchers found that “electric vehicles generate a negative environmental benefit of about -0.5 cents per mile relative to comparable gasoline vehicles (-1.5 cents per mile for vehicles driven outside metropolitan areas).” //

“The comparison between a gasoline vehicle and an electric one is really a comparison between burning gasoline or a mix of coal and natural gas to move the vehicle,” according to The American Economic Review. //

most of today’s EVs are powered by lithium-ion batteries. Due to heavy government subsidies, China dominates the global production of lithium-ion batteries and their precursor materials, especially graphite. China’s graphite production has notoriously contributed to significant pollution in the country. //

A typical electric car needs 110 pounds of graphite, and a hybrid vehicle needs around 22 pounds. Ironically, the U.S. government’s EV subsidies end up subsidizing China’s highly polluted production. So if you think you are doing your part of saving the planet by driving an EV, think twice. We also know from past experiences that pollution in China ends up harming the rest of the world.

The problem in Sri Lanka comes from two separate issues that, together, absolutely devastated their ability to be largely self-sufficient. The first was the push to ban chemical fertilizers. //

This is coupled with a reluctance on the part of the island nation to introduce GMOs to their farming practices. As a result, the all-organic farming experiment in Sri Lanka has failed. //

But it’s the push of a foolish western religion – the issue of climate change – that is at most to blame here. The country was largely self-sufficient in rice production until the fertilizer ban and its top export, tea, was also crippled by the ban. Rice production fell by 20 percent in less than a year. Tea farming, which is the country’s biggest source of jobs, and its collapse has had a major impact on the nation’s citizens, leading to the civil unrest we’re seeing today.

Wayne Moore
10 days ago edited
Let’s get back to the original point of the article shall we? I say that despite all the hysteria about climate change, none of the proposals of the proponents of that are willing to discuss how we will replace fossil fuels as the main source of energy in the near future in a rational way. I also hold the position that those other forms of power generation while useful, are not capable of replacing fossil fuels in any measurable way. Furthermore, they pollute and the production of them requires energy from…wait for it…..energy from fossil fuel generation!! I also can state without a doubt that fossil fuel electric general can be produced with negligible pollution to the atmosphere. I’ve built those systems. I am all for a clean environment. But before we cripple our reliable sources of energy and cause the attendant human misery we must answer those perplexing questions and get nations like China, India and North Korea to agree. All the rosy projections about “green energy” are meaningless until that occurs. We have an abundance of coal and natural gas. We have untapped oil under our feet. If we can use these natural resources for another 100 years while we improve the technology to a point where it can replace those things, count me in. Until then, nah.

The nuclear power industry has been pushing the fantasy of yet another “renaissance” of nuclear power, based on the absurd idea that atomic reactors — which operate at 571 degrees Fahrenheit, produce substantial greenhouse gas emissions and, periodically, explosions — can somehow cool the planet. //

As a green power advocate since 1973, I’ve visited dozens of reactor sites throughout the U.S. and Japan. The industry’s backers portray them as high-tech black boxes that are uniformly safe, efficient and reliable, ready to hum for decades without melt-downs, blow-ups or the constant emissions of heat, radiation, chemical pollution and eco-devastation that plague us all.

In reality, the global reactor fleet is riddled with widely varied and increasingly dangerous defects. These range from inherent design flaws to original construction errors, faulty components, fake replacement parts, stress-damaged (“embrittled”) pressure vessels, cracked piping, inoperable safety systems, crumbling concrete, lethal vulnerabilities to floods, storms and earthquakes, corporate greed and unmanageable radioactive emissions and wastes — to name a few.

Heat, radiation and steam have pounded every reactor’s internal components. They are cracked, warped, morphed and transmuted into rickety fossils virtually certain to shatter in the next meltdown. //

Today, the utility’s two uninsured Diablo Canyon reactors threaten more than ten million people living downwind with potential catastrophes made possible by any of a dozen nearby earthquake faults (including the San Andreas). [All nuclear power plants are insured by the federal government] //

Desperate atomic cultists including Bill Gates are now touting small modular reactors. But they’re unproven, can’t deploy for years to come, can’t be guarded against terrorists and can’t beat renewables in safety, speed to build, climate impacts, price or job creation.

Our energy future should consist of modern solar, wind, battery and LED/efficiency technologies, not nuclear reactors. Let’s work to guarantee that none of them explode before we get there. //

Uneducated article.
The entire preface of the article is predicated around fear, uncertainty, and doubt; evidently motivated by emotions instead of factual information.

Not a single compelling argument against nuclear has been made here - move along.

JOËL LANGLOIS 23 HOURS AGO //

Saying No to Nuclear Power is what brought us the Climate Crisis
It is increasingly apparent that solar, wind, batteries & efficiency cannot provide a complete solution to decarbonise the grid. Anti-nuclear campaigners have promised this for the past 50 years but it is an unattainable goal. Such dogma has simply prolonged the use of fossil fuel, causing millions of avoidable deaths. We could, and should, have decarbonised the grid with nuclear power in the 20th century.

Even if batteries could someday work on the required scale, for the lengthy durations needed, they have a far, far higher environmental footprint than nuclear power. The recent UN report on Life Cycle Assessment of Electricity Generation Options shows (p35 ) that electricity from batteries has a carbon footprint of 175 g CO2/kWh. Whereas nuclear's footprint is only 5g. (p74). The same document shows solar emits 11-37g, and wind 12-14g. Batteries are simply not sustainable as a large-scale alternative to nuclear baseload.

The evidence shows nuclear energy has significantly lower environmental impacts than wind and solar. Lower carbon emissions, lower freshwater pollution (eutrophication), lower carcinogenic effects, lower land use, and lower consumption of metals & minerals.

When it comes to clean energy production nuclear power should really be the first choice for any environmentalist.

https://unece.org/sites/default/files/2021-10/LCA-2.pdf

COLIN GLASGOW 1 DAY AGO

E85 fuel—a mix of 85 percent ethanol and 15 percent gasoline—rapidly fell out of favor. But 98 percent of US gas stations offer E10, a blend of 10 percent ethanol and 90 percent gasoline, according to the Environmental Protection Agency. At this concentration, the ethanol oxygenates the fuel and increases its octane rating; it also stretches the country's supply of gasoline by diluting it.

As the name suggests, E15 is a mix of 15 percent ethanol and 85 percent gasoline. It's much less common in the US due to the EPA's restriction on summer sales (because of the greater evaporation during hot weather), but in 2019, former President Donald Trump approved its use year-round. In 2021, the US Court of Appeals for the DC Circuit ruled that the EPA had exceeded its authority in doing so. //

It's also bad news for anyone concerned about climate change. Although biofuel blends were supposed to save us, growing energy-intensive corn to dilute gasoline is probably worse than just burning the gas itself, as Ars' Tim de Chant covered in February. Last week, the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change published its latest report with the finding that we have to massively cut carbon emissions within the next three years if we want to have a chance at limiting warming to even just 2°C globally.

The doomsday prophets obscure the phenomenal progress of the human species to feed itself, cure its diseases, and shape its world to improve the lives of all humans.

Washington Examiner:

Deaths from hurricanes, landslides, tornadoes, earthquakes, droughts, floods, food and energy shortages, severe heat and cold, and other disruptions from Mother Earth have fallen sharply over the past century. The property damage from acts of nature as a share of our GDP continues to drop yearly.

For example, more accurate weather reporting prepares people for deadly weather events. Building technologies make mankind smarter about weather and earthquake-proofing homes, buildings, bridges, and other structures to protect against collapse and rubble. The real “green revolution” on agriculture output has dropped rates of famine and hunger to all-time lows. My mentor, the late, great economist Julian Simon, taught us that the “ultimate resource” to save us from Armageddon is the human mind.

Indeed, Simon’s 1980 wager with Paul Ehrlich, author of The Population Bomb, holds lessons for the climate change debate today.

Ehrlich wrote in 1980 that if he were a betting man, he would bet that England would not exist in the year 2000 due to a catastrophic rise in sea levels and unaffordable raw materials due to scarcity. Simon challenged Ehrlich to choose any raw material he wanted and a date sometime in the future. Simon said he would wager on the inflation-adjusted prices decreasing as opposed to increasing.

Ehrlich chose copper, chromium, nickel, tin, and tungsten, and 1990 as the payoff date. Erlich lost as all five commodities declined in price from 1980 through 1990. //

We have the supposed greatest minds in the world who have allegedly come to a solution to save the planet dramatically by hitting a “reset” button on energy by turning to some of the most inefficient sources. That’s the best they’ve got?

“A foolish consistency is the hobgoblin of little minds, adored by little statesmen and philosophers and divines,” said Ralph Waldo Emerson. And the consistently stupid “solutions” to any supposed climate crisis are advanced by little minds that don’t have the vision to see what the rest of us can see.