The Truth About Fossil Fuels and Renewable Energy

There beats not a heart among us that wouldn’t rather see our electricity generated, and our transportation, manufacturing and recreation powered, by renewable sources of sparkling clean energy like solar radiation and wind power.

Of course, just by using the term “radiation” in context with “solar” I’ve made some greens distinctly uneasy. But that’s what it is, of course. Those of us who are farmers or gardeners have seen the precious results of this irradiation to bring forth new growth and new life. Certainly we cannot be squeamish about the word when all life on earth depends upon it. Yet what we call a thing defines it not equally among all listeners, but creates battle lines that, for some, are intractable.

For instance, many younger Americans have been raised to believe that we left Eden and descended into the 7th Level of Fossil Fuel and Nuclear Radiation Hell under the Greatest Generation and Boomer stewardship, from which it must be their mission to deliver us and Save the Planet.

Blind obeisance to climate change may disappoint, however. It presumes that Man is so much more powerful than Nature that we can safely presume we alone in this universe created global warming (a now discredited term still lurking under the new name of “climate change”) and we alone can solve it. Other bulbs in this cosmic chandelier accept that we are at least partially responsible and therefore must do all we can to reduce our own footprint.

I count myself among the latter. I believe climate change (which is, in itself, something of an arrogance that really implies “climate control” and “climate manipulation”) might be a laudable goal but I must also ask the harder questions. Will the cost justify the results? What might we have done with those billions or trillions that would have done gone far to ease pain and suffering, reforest the world’s deserts, restock the world’s oceans, feed the hungry, cure cancer and Alzheimer’s, and so on?

If you agree these sorts of hard questions should be asked and hard decisions made, prepare to be excommunicated from the current body politic. Nothing less than social and natural-world engineering are the primary goals of the current political thinking. In social engineering, our President has stated, "When you spread the wealth around, it's good for everybody." Or as another similarly-inclined thinker on economic issues decreed, “From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs…”

An example of this social engineering gone awry: Cash for Clunkers, which makes sense for people with a 10 or 15-year old car they were on the fence about trading in. But it also has created abuses like this one:

Citizen A, let's call him the Ant, saves his money, buys smart, and owns a car that already gets more than 18 mpg. Thanks to his foresight and frugality, it's held its value rather well. Citizen B, let's call him the Grasshopper, ran out and bought a Hummer when they first came out 'cause it made him look cool. Its value fell like a rock. Today, Ant gets no tax incentive / free handout from his fellow taxpayers because he bought intelligently. Grasshopper gets to take money out of Ant's pocket to dump his early-model 12 MPG Hummer and to subsidize his latest folly (as long as it gets 18.1 MPG.)

Ah, but in this case, there is also a higher goal, that none may dare challenge: we are using less fossil fuels this way, which “everyone knows” is the cause of global warming, so we get to accomplish social and natural-world engineering. How arrogant have we become? Do we actually presume that we know enough to make life-and-death decisions that will affect the health and well-being of countless generations to follow? Are our leaders leading or following the votes of the next generation of voters? Who’s following who?

This sort of thinking also ignores or defies countless eons of history as well as more recent experience with the subsidized ethanol fiasco. Some may look back to pre-fossil fuel days as idyllic. They weren’t. When wood was the primary fuel, forests were routinely destroyed, the deforested land took up less carbon from the atmosphere, and the air reeked of carbon by-products. When whale-oil lamps were added to the mix, we not only nearly destroyed these leviathans, but our interior air was dangerous in the short term and deadly in the long term.

Today, the articles we read are about renewables, so it’s easy to believe they constitute a rather large proportion of the fuels that cool and heat our homes and light our highways on a cold winter night. If you are a vehement believer in that catechism, you might want to avoid viewing the table I’ve created below. I computed the percentages from the raw numbers of quadrillions of BTUs reported by the Department of Energy’s Energy Information Administration.

For all our wishing, and all our government’s use of taxpayer funds diverted from somewhere else to create massive subsidies for something some bureaucrat -- but not necessarily the marketplace -- thinks is desirable, there has been little change in the energy mix. Why is this?

Mostly because most people, and certainly those who provide the electricity for our homes and the fuel for our transportation, realize that the money would be better spent on making the current fuel mix less dirty, than on conflict-of-interest ethanol, heavily-subsidized wind, and currently pie-in-the-sky (but way cool “Popular Mechanics”-type) stuff like using the tides for power.

Basically what the chart above (click to enlarge) tells us is that from 1989, which I selected because it was the first year solar power ever registered in greater than one one-thousands of a per cent, to 2000, the end of the Clinton years, to 2008, the end of the Bush Jr. presidency and the most current full year, the marketplace and the citizenry haven’t changed usage much.

Fossil fuels as a group declined about 4%, with oil tumbling and coal and natural gas filling the void. Nuclear has quietly risen about 3 1/2%, and alternative fuels in the aggregate, after all those solar, wind, hybrid automobile, and ethanol subsidies, is just under a per cent higher than it was 20 years ago -- and there's nothing "new" about 80% of the re"new"ables category -- it's mostly still burning wood and damming rivers, just like it was in 1989 (and for a half-century before that.)

We’re still burning about the same amount of wood, though we now toss a lot of edible corn into the most expensive way our government could possible find to produce a fuel additive for gasoline. You’d think with all the hot + air that Congress and environmentalists wagging their finger at us have expended, that solar + wind would amount to more than just under 2% by now. God knows we have paid for it.

The largest renewable sub-sector after wood and other biomass is the same one we have been using for more than a century and the one renewable energy source that is currently cost-effective without subsidies. Regrettably, hydroelectric carries its own environmental disadvantages. Unlike say, Norway, which derives 97% of its electricity from hydro, we don’t have a 1000-foot granite-pooled waterfall every few hundred feet. So we resort to dams, which prevent fish from spawning and change the vegetation and erosion characteristics downstream. Go ahead – just try to build an energy-efficient renewable resource dam-and-turbine in this country. The same greens who lambast oil, gas and coal will prevent you from building that dam.

My interest in pointing all this out is two-fold:

(1) To suggest where the most cost-effective and attractive solutions lie right now, today, as we continue to make strides in alternative energies in order to reach the point where the marketplace adopts them both because they are environmentally more desirable as well as at least being closer to competitive with fossil fuels, and

(2) to suggest which investment sectors are likely dead ends and which are likely to offer steady gains. An ancillary benefit may be that we will know the next time some advocacy group is trying to pull the wool over our eyes. I read recently, for instance, that “wind has expanded by 44.7 percent” in just one year. Well, yes, that’s true, but that means it went from 0.4% to 0.7%. That’s great, and I’m delighted to see it. But since I believe people have come to depend upon steady reliable power, I wouldn’t short my Exxon (XOM), Encana (ECA), Imperial (IMO) or Chesapeake (CHK) just yet!

When I began my career in the brokerage business in 1972, our firm’s analysts put out a report about the world running out of oil. This was the first time I remember reading about peak oil. Since then, we have more than doubled our estimates of the oil, gas and coal remaining under the earth’s crust and have barely begun to explore in parts of Africa and under the world’s seas.

A few weeks later, these same analysts also sent out buy recommendations based upon the “certainty,” then all the rage among leading scientists (but not necessarily climatologists) that, because of our addiction to fossil fuels, the planet was rapidly cooling and we were all going to freeze to death unless we developed alternatives to oil.

Since such an undertaking was far too important to be left to markets, government bureaucrats with degrees in public affairs, management, and human resources (but not climatology) declared themselves experts and intervened with monstrous taxpayer-financed subsidies for uneconomic forms of energy. Anyone remember the 1977 National Energy Plan? The promises of all-solar electricity generation by 2000? Stalin would have been proud of these bureaucrats.

It seems our current administration shares this fascination with all things grand, visionary, centralized and controlled by wise elites -- all with degrees and life experience in public affairs, community advocacy, diversity training, management, and human resources, rather than climatology, finance, or manufacturing.

Their call to action today, however, is that the earth is getting hotter, not cooler; that humans, especially Americans, are the cause of it all; and that we’re all going to be engulfed by rising seawater unless we dump oil, gas and coal. Sorry to remain a skeptic but I’ve heard it all before and witnessed firsthand the tragic waste of taxpayer money that could have funded health care, inmmigration reform, and dozens of other pressing programs. Most climatologists seem to share that same empirical skepticism -- not disbelief or disagreement, just rational skepticism -- with many believing that the 20-year mini warming trend that began in 1978 peaked in 1998 and may in fact actually now be reverting to the mean.

It’s not my intent to foster a debate in these pages about global warming. I don’t say it isn’t so, merely that claims of a consensus among those who know the most about this subject (climatologists and meteorologists, not bureaucrats, journalists, biologists, physicists and well-intentioned college students) are overstated. There is no consensus. About all we really know for sure is that excessive carbon in a closed environment can allow more sunlight through than it releases back to the atmosphere and excessive aerosols in a closed environment reflect the sunlight before it reaches the earth.

I don't advocate ignoring this problem. My point is simply that we need to face the current reality as revealed in the chart above. Unless we are willing to scrap all modes of transport that require fuel and ride our bicycles through the snow; turn our thermostats down to 50 degrees in the winter and up to 95 degrees in the summer; and do not travel, anywhere, ever, we are going to use Nature’s Ready-Made Batteries – fossil fuels that Nature has been pounding into usable form for millions of years.

I wish that weren’t true, but wishing is a far cry from research, experimentation and implementation. What concerns me is that politicians with no scientific knowledge have concluded, as a policy-making tool, that the solution to “global warming” is the same as the solution to balancing the national budget. How convenient. After giving hundreds of billions to Wall Street bankers, the government needs to tax somebody big time -- “cap and trade” would fill the bill. So while real experts can’t agree about the climate science, the political science is clear: fear equals acquiescence. The world will end unless we do x or y or z.

In Part II, I’ll discuss some of the biggest players in both fossil fuels and renewables and propose a solution to reducing our carbon footprint that is based upon science and infrastructure well-known, well-documented, and readily available, and which can be implemented today, not tomorrow or next year...

Full Disclosure: We and many of our clients are long ECA, IMO, CHK and a couple other energy producers, transporters, and refiners I'll discuss in Part II.

The Fine Print: As Registered Investment Advisors, we see it as our responsibility to advise the following: We do not know your personal financial situation, so the information contained in this communiqué represents the opinions of the staff of Stanford Wealth Management, and should not be construed as personalized investment advice.

Also, past performance is no guarantee of future results, rather an obvious statement if you review the records of many alleged gurus, but important nonetheless – especially so you are not over-impressed by the fact that our Investors Edge ® Growth and Value Portfolio has beaten the S&P 500 for 10 years running. What if this is the year we under-perform it?

It should not be assumed that investing in any securities we are investing in will always be profitable. We take our research seriously, we do our best to get it right, and we “eat our own cooking,” but we could be wrong, hence our full disclosure as to whether we own or are buying the investments we write about.

Comments

[John Petersen:]

From a political perspective the great thing about long-term plans is you're never held accountable if the plans don't work. Instead the blame will fall on your successor, or, if you're a good enough planner, your successor's successor.

One of my favorite themes is that there are 6 billion people on this planet that want to earn a small piece of the lifestyle 500 million of us enjoy and for the first time in history, most of them know there is more to life than bare subsistence. That puts us in a position where the greatest challenge we face as a species is overcoming chronic shortages of water, food, energy and every commodity you can imagine. Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste and increase efficiency are ethically good. Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste of one resource but increase waste of another by a like amount are ethically neutral. Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste of one resources but increase waste of another by a greater amount are ethically wrong.

In the final analysis, several billion poor Asians don't care if we burn less fossil fuels because it makes their supply problems less vexing. We really need to focus on sustainable action to minimize waste in all it's pernicious forms; even if it's not as much fun for the political class.

It's always nice to read an article from another heretic.

Aug 07 07:44 AM

[John Bowman:]

Great article and good conclusions!

The technologically and economically clueless are running the show today. And too many of the same type of Americans are buying their nonsense.

Aug 07 07:59 AM

[A Barrel Full:]

My thoughts nicely summed up. If climate change were seen as a reason to improve our efficiency, then fair enough. But instead it has become a lobbyists dream. Billions given to interest groups for projects that may or may not be of any social good.

I just posted on my instablog about wind seekingalpha.com/insta...

On Aug 07 07:44 AM John Petersen wrote:


Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste and increase efficiency are ethically good.
Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste of one resource but increase waste of another by a like amount are ethically neutral. Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste of one resources but increase waste of another by a greater amount are ethically wrong.

Aug 07 08:19 AM

[c300man:]

Thanks Mr. Shaefer, for a very good and thorough article.

When will Part II be out?

I can only hope our congress and administration will read and start to digest the sort of information you have presented.

Aug 07 08:29 AM

[Jimbo:]

A killer essay! I nominate Mr. Shaefer for Secretary of Energy.

Aug 07 09:02 AM

[John Bowman:]

Nah...reality is politically incorrect to those kind of people. They prefer fairy tales.


On Aug 07 08:29 AM c300man wrote:

> Thanks Mr. Shaefer, for a very good and thorough article.
>
> When will Part II be out?
>
> I can only hope our congress and administration will read and start
> to digest the sort of information you have presented.

Aug 07 09:12 AM

[Tony Petroski:]

An interesting stroll down memory lane.

The author: "Most climatologists seem to share that same empirical skepticism -- not disbelief or disagreement, just rational skepticism -- with many believing that the 20-year mini warming trend that began in 1978 peaked in 1998 and may in fact actually now be reverting to the mean."

When you began your brokerage career, there were no "climatologists." Is this a great country or what?

The planet cools and the planet heats up. We have a part in this. Our part is as big as when a boy spits in the ocean.

Wind power, thank you T. Boone, is older than Columbus.

Aug 07 09:13 AM

[Black Bear:]

Obviously the problem is the overpopulation of the world! 6 billion people and a pleasant living for all is inconsistant.

Aug 07 09:29 AM

[MichaelJ007:]

I always knew corruption and stupidity existed, I just never thought it would be so abundant. I'm all for clean and renewable energy, but can we wait for it to be slightly more economically feasible before we bust our budget for it?

Thanks for the insight Mr. Shaefer. Your "Sorry Greens, Fossil Fuels...." article from last year compliments this article rather well.

Aug 07 09:30 AM

[Ferdinand E...:]

I don't think that many members of the TV audience are going to face the reality in your excellent article, author. That's why the decision makers haven't presented the comprehensive energy policy that is needed to make some energy sense.

And of course Black Bear is right. 6 billion people and a bourgeoise standared of living for everyone is "inconsistent", but just wait until that 6 becomes 9.

Aug 07 09:41 AM

[chap08:]

I don't mean to pick on Tony but I highlight his words below as probably typical of the majority view on SA. Good for getting the thumbs up on SA, not so good for actually learning anything.

I'm guessing that Tony doesn't really know what our part in global warming is. The reason I'm guessing that is because nobody really knows the answer. There's plenty of evidence on both sides. Have you read it?

In investment, it always pays to find out what the other side are thinking. If you're a bear, what are the bulls thinking? The same is true in life. What you often decide is that both sides could be right. So, what do you do? Well, in investment, whatever side you take, if you want to survive, you manage your risks on the other side. In life, we should do the same.


On Aug 07 09:13 AM Tony Petroski wrote:

>
> The planet cools and the planet heats up. We have a part in this.
> Our part is as big as when a boy spits in the ocean.
>

Aug 07 09:55 AM

[auto44:]

Unfortunately the folks who need to read this would stop reading after the first sign of the thesis disagreeing with their position. Most people today seem to act like they are rooting for their home baseball team instead of using logic to take a position on important issues. The few of us left really do appreciate your help in clearing muddy waters. Don't stop trying some if it will stick where it needs to. Thanks. Bob

Aug 07 10:02 AM

[Scrapette:]

Thanks Mr. Shaefer, for laying this out. Even though it would seem that people could add 2 and 2, they can't. They seem to completely believe this transition to renewables will be like turning on a light switch! Just looking at everything the petrochemical industry packages, bottles, insulates, lubricates, decorates, and mixes into will boggle the mind when factoring in retooling for alternative ingredients or forms. People have no idea how much it will impact us and like you ask, is it worth it and will it really result in any material NET good?

Aug 07 10:03 AM

[romorris:]

Since you couldn't manage to state your freaking point in the first thousand words or so ... I lost interest.

Aug 07 10:07 AM

[john s. gordon:]

wood - interesting subject.
in 1900 in westchester county NY houses were heated with wood & you needed a 5 acre woodlot to support one house over one winter (houses were built drafty in those days).
you also needed 3 strong sons to being in the fuel.
today the condominiums & townhouses are heated by NG from OK or wherever.
in 1776 and subsequent years george washington's army was able to fight the redcoats using cast-iron artillery made in the forests of northern new jersey using charcoal. some of the old stone cupolas they used are still standing. the iron mines of morris county produced some of the highest-grade magnetite ore ever found on this planet. of course the NJ forests were in danger of being denuded. later pennsylvania coke came to the rescue & the forests grew back.
here in fairfax county VA, tree removal is one of our biggest industries (household & office trash removal is the other). they don't save the beautiful red-oak logs for fuel, they just chip everything. i always try to grab a few straight-grain pieces & split & stack them for next winter.
waste not - want not, but there is an awful lot of waste.
> jack

Aug 07 10:13 AM

[The Greates...:]

There are so many different ways for renewable energy sources that could alleviate the current energy situation. But, alas, we have to remove greed from the equation first, there in lies the real problem. Oh, and biofuel such as fuel from food sources are not one of the answers, those 6 Billion people are going to have to eat. The oil industry and their lobbyist (API) are working hard in your government today telling your representatives how much we need them, can not live without them and how expensive it would be to change to renewable energy sources. Which is to be expected since that would take away from the large net profit they have enjoyed for the last seven years. Weaning the world off oil, even in the America is going to be hard because there is so much money to make in this industry. You can check out just how much at this web site to see how your representatives is doing in relation to oil lobbyists funding. And I suspect that the people in China, India and other less developed nations really don’t worry about the carbon footprint as long as they are riding in a car rather then walking down the road.
www.opensecrets.org/

Aug 07 10:32 AM

[Steve in Gr...:]

Thanks, Mr. Shaefer, for the calm, thoughtful article.

"...In Part II, I’ll ...propose a solution to reducing our carbon footprint that is ...can be implemented today, not tomorrow or next year..."

I look forward to your Part II, but nuclear is the answer both to "reducing our carbon footprint" (besides taking away Nancy Pelosi's Gulfstream) and reducing the cost of energy.

I would also suggest that you reconsider your categories. As you point out, hydroelectric power is not environmentally friendly. And I think most biomass is methane from landfills which is not green either. If you define green power as wind, geothermal and solar, green power has gone from 0.6% to 1.3% despite 20 years of government subsidy.

The waste of money on green power is staggering, and the current administration continues to pour money into it.

Aug 07 10:52 AM

[jerrydd:]

I can't wait till next yr when gas is $4/gal again!! The $5/gal in 2011 if it doesn't throw us back into recession.

Yet this piece didn't even touch on the real reasons oil, coal are much more used than RE. The facts they are massively subsidized directly, indirectly.

Oil's tax breaks, depletion allowances, sweetheart royalty deals, Persian gulf military, oil wars, balance of payments, etc costs.

And what about giving Iran, Russia, oil dictators and terrorist $500B/yr for oil? Wouldn't that easily pay for RE? All together these cost us $T/yr that is in our income taxes instead of in an oil tax where they should be, making oil pay it's real cost.

On coal it has so poisoned the ground, water we can only eat fish 1/wk or have too much mercury in us. Add to that the land, water supply, air destruction building,bridge, other damage plus extra health care costs, all of which we pay, not those who use coal who should pay them.

Once these subsidies are in them, we get a tax cut and help switching over to cleaner, lower cost tech then RE will take it's rightful place in an actual free market, not a heavily subsidized fossil fuel one.

So for national, economic reason we need to switch now or shortly we will be owned lock, stick and barrel by OPEC, Russia.

The good thing is we already have all the tech needed and solutions at a cost little more than we pay now.

Once in real mass production, wind, solar CSP, river/tidal without dams, biomass to fuels will drop in cost as fossil rise. With the present US oil, NG, and the biggest energy source, eff/conservation, we can be energy independent in 10 yrs without coal or imported oil

Or we go broke and make our enemies rich. One is patriotic, the other is treasonous, No?.

Aug 07 11:00 AM

[31October:]

Re:
On Aug 07 09:55 AM chap08 wrote:
I don't mean to pick on Tony but I highlight his words below .<snip>.. I'm guessing that Tony doesn't really know what our part in global warming is. The reason I'm guessing that is because nobody really knows the answer. There's plenty of evidence on both sides. Have you read it?

I'm guessing he has.
Ice & rock testing shows that many times in Earth's history, there was far more CO2 than now, but foliage could could swing it back. There has indeed been an increase in CO2 from fossil fuels, but this increase also comes from breaking the gas exchance cycle through forest destruction. Breathing & cow farts have almost as much effect as our cars on greenhouse gases.

In addition to reduced foliage, there is solar activity warming everything out to Jupiter, whose red spot is shrinking from "climate change." The [insert political party not-of-your-choosing] are probably responsible, and Europa is threatening sanctions against USA exports.

Comprehensive alternative energy policy is needed for future energy supply, national security, tech jobs, etc. But if every car on Earth vanished, would the planet cool down? Nope. That paranoid psychosis has been disputed all over the place. We should be exploring reforestation, battery technology, high-power macro-grids, and preparing for expensive crude.

(Tony's comment was correct, but it does not mean that we should not change our behavoir anyway.)

Aug 07 11:20 AM

[perremon:]

Thank you! I thought this to be fairly succinct comments considering others wrote entire books without making the point so clearly. Tragic to spend phenominal sums to create infinitesimal improvements in a situation that is more likely created by Sun cycles and Earths own climate cycles. All the while millions die (critters, forests, and humans) for lack of resources that would cost us far less. Either a very sad and despirate misdirection or perhaps brilliantly contrived plot to further hog tie third world countries who are gaining too rapidly for our own comfort. The larger wars are not being fought on the ground any longer. Leading the gullible public around by their eco-sensitive noses is far more effective than bombs. Look at the world wide damage the ethanol fiasco has done. Only one such example. Don't people read history any more?

Aug 07 11:21 AM

[deafpanda:]

I am less qualified to speculate on the effects of increasing concentrations of atmospheric carbon dioxide than every scientific body of international standing (en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...). You probably are too. The current trend of warming, according to the IPCC, cannot be explained by the increase in solar activity that we have seen recently.

The difference in cost between Wind and Nuclear depends on the discount rate you apply. The difference between either of these energy sources and fossil fuels depends on this and, obviously, the cost of fuel. Here is a good chart. www.claverton-energy.c....

Energy prices at July 2008 levels make renewable energy look like a very sensible investment

Aug 07 12:20 PM

[rrbatch:]

Thanks Joe for a well-reasoned and non-ideological post. I look forward to Part II.

Several comments endorse a "comprehensive energy policy". I take the heretical position that, given the tragic history of past efforts to craft a useful policy, the best outcome would be NO energy policy. Our politicians and the technologists who populate the energy bureaucracies have proven that they are not competent to create a beneficial policy. Let the markets work!

This week the President let fly $2 billion in new subsidies for advanced battery production. Members of my family in recent weeks have benefited from $9000 in subsidies to trade clunkers for new cars that they would have bought anyway. I will benefit from a $1500 tax credit to replace a HVAC system this spring that had to be replaced anyway. I traded in a hybrid Ford Escape this year, purchased three years ago with a $2000 tax credit, because for our transportation requirements it didn't really offer a significant benefit in mileage compared to the 4-cylinder Escape we received in trade (with a $50 per month reduction in amortization cost). Before I retired, I worked on a project to build an enormous superconducting magnet for energy storage, funded with a $25 million grant from DOE, that was delivered to a scrap yard in Florida.

You get the point: subsidies granted by our politicians have been an unmitigated waste. Any policy that attempts to drive the market in a direction that is not economically justified will fail, and if an approach has economic justification, it doesn't need a policy push.

Aug 07 12:35 PM

[Heyya:]

Excellent article. I enjoy all of Mr. Shaefer's articles. They are a bit wordy, but informative, very interesting, and very intelligent. Also interesting comments above, and I highly agree with jerrydd.

The issue of overpopulation came up a few times above, and this is certainly a significant issue that is largely ignored. Perhaps, instead of or in addition to spending the big bucks on climate change programs, we should increase funding for population control in unsustainable growth countries?

Aug 07 12:47 PM

[Craig Cooper:]

Do you honestly believe that "nuclear is the answer"? C'mon. There are as many, if not more, issues associated with a significant gearing up of a nuclear energy infrastructure as there are with those associated with fossil fuels. In order for nuclear to have a realistic chance of playing a beneficial role there would have to be global cooperation, no terrorism or threats of nuclear weapons (what are the odds?) and we'd have to come up with a safe & reasonable way to handle the generated nuclear waste. I don't see that happening anytime soon.

On Aug 07 10:52 AM Steve in Greensboro wrote:

> Thanks, Mr. Shaefer, for the calm, thoughtful article.
>
> "...In Part II, I’ll ...propose a solution to reducing our carbon
> footprint that is ...can be implemented today, not tomorrow or next
> year..."
>
> I look forward to your Part II, but nuclear is the answer both to
> "reducing our carbon footprint" (besides taking away Nancy Pelosi's
> Gulfstream) and reducing the cost of energy.
>
> I would also suggest that you reconsider your categories. As you
> point out, hydroelectric power is not environmentally friendly.
> And I think most biomass is methane from landfills which is not green
> either. If you define green power as wind, geothermal and solar,
> green power has gone from 0.6% to 1.3% despite 20 years of government
> subsidy.
>
> The waste of money on green power is staggering, and the current
> administration continues to pour money into it.

Aug 07 12:53 PM

[Alan von Al...:]

Whether we like it or not, America's energy future is 50% coal.

Aug 07 01:13 PM

[Alan von Al...:]

The notion that 'waste is unethical' is absurd. Peterson invites govt to abolish civil liberty.

On Aug 07 07:44 AM John Petersen wrote:
> Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste and increase efficiency
> are ethically good. Alternative energy technologies that reduce waste
> of one resource but increase waste of another by a like amount are
> ethically neutral.

Aug 07 01:27 PM

[Will Deliver:]

I also completely agree with jerrydd. I disagree with Steve in Greensboro.
Big Oil has been subsidised for years. If Renewable energy had been subsidised more, or if there had been more purchases of solar systems, we would have had lower prices for those systems sooner. The RE market is just starting! Big Oil has had it's day.
There is still money to be made in oil stocks, but I'd rather put my investment money toward the common good. Not toward Petro Terrorists.
Will.

Aug 07 01:36 PM

[realityrese...:]

Joseph, read your article with interest; notice that you included Geothermal in your chart but did not mention it in the text.
I have created a network of professionals (including scientists and engineers) that are promoting and seeking funding to develop geopower in Texas, using existing abandoned O&G wells (approximately 600,000 wells have been drilled in Texas). At one time Texas had a fully functioning Geo Power Plant under a DOE test program, so we know it can be done here. Consider the following: wind power - 30 to 40% efficiency, Solar 60% max, Geothermal 90% plus. What part of this do the bureaucrats holding the purse strings not understand?

Aug 07 02:04 PM

[rrtzmd:]

...hey, Joe -- are you still short CNW and SAIA?....aw, man, Joe, I listened to you back on June 16 and shorted both of'em that very day...I shorted SAIA at 17 and a week later it was trading at $19.40 and I just had to cover!...I shorted CNW at $30 and held on and today it's trading at $47!!...heck, Joe, I ain't never goin' to get rich at this rate!!!

Aug 07 02:44 PM

[Canadian Re...:]

I like realityrese's geothermal idea, especially the one using existing oil and gas wells. I can see one problem with using oil and gas wells in geothermal schemes. They are generally very well spaced geographically and located generally far away from end users. This may make capturing this energy and delivering them to end users a costly undertaking.

I think why this idea is not pursued by the government. They are too simple and not sexy. Furthermore, the oil and gas wells are owned by big, bad oil companies. We cannot do anything that will benefit these bad guys. By the way, I work for one of the big, bad oil companies.

Aug 07 02:58 PM

[deafpanda:]

realityresearcher,

The efficiency of any renewable technology doesn't really matter. The efficiency of fossil fuel technologies matters because the resource is finite and has a cost associated with it. The important factor in renewable energy is how cost-effective something is, not how efficiently it utilises inexhaustible resources.

Aug 07 03:00 PM

[cam addis:]

Exactly. To say nothing of the 2005 Energy Act. Where were all of you who oppose tax-payer subsidies and energy lobbyists then?


On Aug 07 11:00 AM jerrydd wrote:

>
> I can't wait till next yr when gas is $4/gal again!! The $5/gal in
> 2011 if it doesn't throw us back into recession.
>
> Yet this piece didn't even touch on the real reasons oil, coal are
> much more used than RE. The facts they are massively subsidized directly,
> indirectly.
>
> Oil's tax breaks, depletion allowances, sweetheart royalty deals,
> Persian gulf military, oil wars, balance of payments, etc costs.
>
>
> And what about giving Iran, Russia, oil dictators and terrorist $500B/yr
> for oil? Wouldn't that easily pay for RE? All together these cost
> us $T/yr that is in our income taxes instead of in an oil tax where
> they should be, making oil pay it's real cost.
>
> On coal it has so poisoned the ground, water we can only eat fish
> 1/wk or have too much mercury in us. Add to that the land, water
> supply, air destruction building,bridge, other damage plus extra
> health care costs, all of which we pay, not those who use coal who
> should pay them.
>
> Once these subsidies are in them, we get a tax cut and help switching
> over to cleaner, lower cost tech then RE will take it's rightful
> place in an actual free market, not a heavily subsidized fossil fuel
> one.
>
> So for national, economic reason we need to switch now or shortly
> we will be owned lock, stick and barrel by OPEC, Russia.
>
> The good thing is we already have all the tech needed and solutions
> at a cost little more than we pay now.
>
> Once in real mass production, wind, solar CSP, river/tidal without
> dams, biomass to fuels will drop in cost as fossil rise. With the
> present US oil, NG, and the biggest energy source, eff/conservation,
> we can be energy independent in 10 yrs without coal or imported oil
>
>
> Or we go broke and make our enemies rich. One is patriotic, the other
> is treasonous, No?.

Aug 07 03:09 PM

[stonebluff:]

I fear that the true moral duty of the votaries of man caused global warming, wracked with guilt as they spew CO2 from one end and methane from the other, will be suicide or hopeless depression. I take comfort from the fact that men were farming and ranching on Greenland 1000 years ago. That calamity even the polar bears survived. However, as the cost of conventional fuels rises, we will conserve, and we should look for, and are developing, alternatives. stonebluff34

Aug 07 05:18 PM

[starkoski:]

You have absolutely no idea what peak oil means. Amazing because you know nothing if you don't understand that. I own some of the oil and gas stocks that you mentioned and I support more drilling everywhere but fossil fuels are not renewable and are running down in the world. The USA peaked in oil production in 1970 and has never reversed it. Most of the world's oil fields are in massive decline and the others are close. Why don't you know that - I give lectures to highschool kids, colleges & town halls about this and they understand this concept but yet you worked in the industry since 1972 and you don't understand that. Wow. Go read Matt Simmons material and get an education and stop being so smug & illiterate on the subject of peak oil.

Aug 07 06:01 PM

[starkoski:]

Mr. Harvard - you may be right but when you go to sell your stocks the dollars will be worth much less - maybe not much at all (hyperinflation). Sell 1 oz. of silver - wow it will be worth very very much.

Aug 07 08:42 PM

[perceptions...:]

The point was, not to make a point, but to get a bit of PR!

So, let's make a couple of points -
1) Peak Oil effectively became history in 2005, production of Oil has not reduced since then.
2) There is currently no effective replacement for Oil & other Fossil commodities, in their many uses, mainly because governments lack the will.
3) The Fossil Commodities industry, have an enormous amount of Political clout, across all Political Party's, in every nation on earth.

The $64 Trillion question is, where & when will the circuit breakers come?

On Aug 07 10:07 AM romorris wrote:

> Since you couldn't manage to state your freaking point in the first
> thousand words or so ... I lost interest.

Aug 08 12:03 AM

[Danny Newton:]

Capitalism and raw property rights have made people statistically less fertile without government mandates of the Chinese or Indian variety. If someone really was afraid of the planet being over populated, they would embrace government protected individual property rights first and then Capitalism.

Aug 08 12:47 AM

[realold:]

Great article and I applaud your guts in publishing it. The real truth behind the greens, I believe, is that they just don't want people around (other than themselves, of course). They want to turn back the clock to, maybe, just after the bubonic plague.

If they are allowed to rule the country (they will never rule the world), they are not helping future generations as they claim. They are eliminating them, as they plan. Who wants to or can live in a world where the only way to get ahead is to take another's. Where everything is done only with the permission of the head of the Sierra Club?

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness appears to be politically incorrect.

p.s. The earth will eventually freeze as internal radiation declines, the orbit expands and the rotation decreases. Want to think long term - eat that

Aug 08 01:16 AM

[realold:]

It figures. Enjoy the current Kool-Aid that you are obviously drinking.


On Aug 07 10:07 AM romorris wrote:

> Since you couldn't manage to state your freaking point in the first
> thousand words or so ... I lost interest.

Aug 08 01:24 AM

[realold:]

Yes, but your buddies don't like natural gas because it has carbon in it. Without it, none of what you say will transpire. I wish it were so, but the curent green movement is so extreme that it will result only in poverty here, prosperity abroad.


On Aug 07 03:09 PM cam addis wrote:

> Exactly. To say nothing of the 2005 Energy Act. Where were all of
> you who oppose tax-payer subsidies and energy lobbyists then?

Aug 08 01:30 AM

[realold:]

Bravo!

I would add that spending money to adjust to global warming might be more cost effective than trying to influence it in a piecemeal fashion. Can we influence it? I doubt it. Can we adjust, such as not rebuilding New Orleans? I think so. All the predictions are for dire consequences in order to put us in lock step. Are there no positive effects? To me, as with the current economic crisis, thinking is political and does not permit argument, deviation from " the plan" or even discussion. You are with it and Pelosi/Obama/Greenies or you are a "Nazi". No discussion.


On Aug 07 11:21 AM perremon wrote:

> Thank you! I thought this to be fairly succinct comments considering
> others wrote entire books without making the point so clearly. Tragic
> to spend phenominal sums to create infinitesimal improvements in
> a situation that is more likely created by Sun cycles and Earths
> own climate cycles. All the while millions die (critters, forests,
> and humans) for lack of resources that would cost us far less. Either
> a very sad and despirate misdirection or perhaps brilliantly contrived
> plot to further hog tie third world countries who are gaining too
> rapidly for our own comfort. The larger wars are not being fought
> on the ground any longer. Leading the gullible public around by their
> eco-sensitive noses is far more effective than bombs. Look at the
> world wide damage the ethanol fiasco has done. Only one such example.
> Don't people read history any more?

Aug 08 03:01 AM

[Responsibility:]

Regardless of many disgreements in the original article, reduction of wastes in energy usage is in agreement. The consideration of "wastes" is one of the main points. The average American uses much more energy (and other commodities) than the average world citizen. The rich uses much more than the less rich. But the side effects from wastes are suffered more by the less priviledged.

The people who have aspirations to bring in renewable energy sources

Aug 08 08:41 AM

[Responsibility:]

(wrong click before completing)

The people who have the aspirations to develop renewable and other alternative energy sources should be encouraged and supported, although we should also limit the "wastes" in such efforts.

Very good people have worked hard in such efforts and have made some progresses. Their results are still far from goals; but on the other hand, the statistics that show no significant % increases from their contributions should be viewed with the understanding the fact that people have increased usage AND WASTEFUL USAGE, of fossil fuels by too much during these years.

Aug 08 08:54 AM

[anarchist:]

like the U.S.?


On Aug 07 12:47 PM Heyya wrote:

> Excellent article. I enjoy all of Mr. Shaefer's articles. They
> are a bit wordy, but informative, very interesting, and very intelligent.
> Also interesting comments above, and I highly agree with jerrydd.
>
>
> The issue of overpopulation came up a few times above, and this is
> certainly a significant issue that is largely ignored. Perhaps,
> instead of or in addition to spending the big bucks on climate change
> programs, we should increase funding for population control in unsustainable
> growth countries?

Aug 08 10:20 AM

[sethmcs:]

I have a good idea what peak oil means. I remember learning about it in school in 1973 - 1974. Arab fuel embargo rationing. Anyone remember odd - even license plates to get gas? What happen was in a few years peak oil turned out to be nonsense and oil prices plunged. Peak oil is code for too few controlling too much oil. In other words a price bubble. It is a fact that there is more oil underground then ever has been burned as well as coal. Oil can even be synthetically created through algee. If there was truely a shortage where is the rationing? What needs to be done is break up the oil majors and change the pricing mechanism. There should be Russian oil futures, Saudi oil futures, Iraq oil futures, Canadian oil futures, and every other supplier has its own futures to give choices to customers. On the demand side break up the oil majors so that they compete with each other. Let the suppliers and the refiners compete with each other and supply and demand will take care of the rest. Oh and cut out the middle man GS, JPM, C. The problem here is lack of competition. Alternative energy is worthwhile if it can compete with Coal and Oil but lets make coal and oil markets more competitve first.

On Aug 07 06:01 PM starkoski wrote:

> You have absolutely no idea what peak oil means. Amazing because
> you know nothing if you don't understand that. I own some of the
> oil and gas stocks that you mentioned and I support more drilling
> everywhere but fossil fuels are not renewable and are running down
> in the world. The USA peaked in oil production in 1970 and has never
> reversed it. Most of the world's oil fields are in massive decline
> and the others are close. Why don't you know that - I give lectures
> to highschool kids, colleges &amp; town halls about this and they
> understand this concept but yet you worked in the industry since
> 1972 and you don't understand that. Wow. Go read Matt Simmons material
> and get an education and stop being so smug &amp; illiterate on the
> subject of peak oil.

Aug 08 10:29 AM

[lance sjogren:]

sethmcs:

Hubbert predicted peak oil for the US, and his prediction, universally considered the rantings of a lunatic at the time, proved to be dead on accurate.

By using the same methodology, peak oil has been predicted on a global level, but of course the precise date is subject to some dispute, some say it occurred in 2005 while others contend it has yet to occur; extreme optimistst predict it will be 10-20 years before it occurs.

Real bell curves don't tend to be perfectly smooth mathematical functions so the actual date of peak oil could vary by a few years depending on glitches in the oil supply curve.

Anyone like you who does not believe in peak oil is today's version of a flat earther.

Aug 08 02:41 PM

[Vidal Pinec...:]

Mr. Shaefer,
You are a fine writer but miss the critical points. To respond to this portion of your thesis:

"Other bulbs in this cosmic chandelier accept that we are at least partially responsible and therefore must do all we can to reduce our own footprint."

"I count myself among the latter. I believe climate change (which is, in itself, something of an arrogance that really implies “climate control” and “climate manipulation”) might be a laudable goal but I must also ask the harder questions. Will the cost justify the results?"

You then go on to show the Stanford Wealth Management overview of the lack of renewable energy in the current (and by extension, future) energy mix.

Two considerations:

1. The chart shows what happens when the supply of electricity is left to heavily subsidized monopolies who have a vested interest in maximizing throughputs of their cost-plus monopoly carbon infrastructure. McKinsey just came out with a study in July showing that America could save $500B on energy conservation - but do you think that is anyone's vested interest at those monopolies supplying us with one-way electricity?

2. If you are wrong, and we are removing our ice caps with our carbon output as most scientists believe including NASA, and we do reach an irreversible tipping point, how do you propose to hedge the catastrophic results? What if the "yahoos" on the Left are actually right?

Tell me more about my children's world when they are looking into the eyes of their grandchildren.

Aug 08 04:10 PM

[Howard_T:]

Mr. Shaefer, you rightly pointed out that hydroelectric power generation is not more prevalent due to its associated environmental problems. The same must be said for solar power. First of all, not all areas of the US are blessed with a high percentage of sunny days. Even some of those that are do not have the large expanses of open and relatively flat space needed to accommodate an economically viable solar array. This leaves the deserts of America to host the arrays. I have seen the figures of 100 X 100 miles that would be required. Just wait until the Sierra Club types discover how many fragile species of plant and animal life could be seriously threatened, endangered, and destroyed. If you think a medium size dam represents an environmental problem, just look closely at a large solar array. This just isn't going to work out. For my money, those who currently advocate for solar energy should just take their plans and "stick 'em where the sun don't shine".

Aug 08 05:30 PM

[happyshorter:]

Really? So how many billion people would you eradicate?
And which ones?
When the see level gets high enough, millions if not billions will disappear, and you know what? No only in the low islands in the middle of the oceans, where poor people live a life that they do appreciate, but many American cities will also drown under see level.
Lots of Americans will have to migrate and forget about their nice cities like Boston or New-York.
A few Americans less on the surface of the planet might be the best that could result in climate change or global warming, however you like to call it.
I love most Americans.
Unfortunately, the high sea levels won't discriminate between the ones I admire and the ones that are so arrogant and are unable make the difference between being rich, buying a lot of hamburgers and having a modest but still pleasant life.


On Aug 07 09:29 AM Black Bear wrote:

> Obviously the problem is the overpopulation of the world! 6 billion
> people and a pleasant living for all is inconsistant.

Aug 08 05:49 PM

[happyshorter:]

Very long biased article.
First, I'll comment on just one part of your text.
"Unless we are willing to scrap all modes of transport that require fuel and ride our bicycles through the snow;"
Like most Americans, it seems that you never thought about other efficient ways to travel: high speed trains between cities, trams and busses in the cities, time shared cars when you really need one, and... the 2 legs nature gave us to be able to move.
All those work as well in summer as in winter, and yes lots of people do use their bicycles in the snow too! I know because I live in a city where we have a lot of snow!

Fossil fuels used in cars and planes (and space ship travels) are not the only causes of global warming!
The millions of cows that end up in Bar-B-Qs and hamburgers produce methane that is at least as pollutant as fossil fuels.

Now that the Chinese have discovered this terribly pollutant way of eating, the US will produce still more beef, and contribute still more to the global warming.

Aug 08 06:52 PM

[sethmcs:]

Oh I believe in peak oil just not in my lifetime which according to actuaries is about 34 years.


On Aug 08 02:41 PM lance sjogren wrote:

> Anyone like you who does not believe in peak oil is today's version
> of a flat earther.

Aug 08 11:20 PM

[Steve Russell:]

The issue about reaching peak oil is not if but when and the when is tied to cost. There is plenty more oil in the short term if we are willing to pay for it, which means that I agree shorting oil is silly.

Also, there is a lot of use for oil and gas that does not involve transportation or electricity. However, if we de-petroled those uses, we could get by with our domestic oil and gas production rather than give money to repressive regimes that don't like us.

What can we do about climate change when there are massive numbers of Asians seeking our lifestyle?

Well, consider the politics of this: India and China are going to get whacked by climate change a lot harder than we will. The rise in sea levels that is already under way will threaten some high dollar real estate in America but the Asian populations living in the river deltas that will within two generations be salty is huge.

Our agriculture will be affected but not always in a bad way. For some of our most fertile lands, the growing season will be longer. Our farmers will have to change crops and some methods but they will feed us with little problem. We can't say that about Asia. They are looking at, simultaneously, a huge "climate refugee" problem, food shortages from salt incursions up the rivers, and a diminished supply of fresh water from the Himalayan glaciers (which are also going away as we speak and not in the far future).

If you are an Indian or Chinese politician, and you are not crazy, you have every reason in the world to be scouring the developed world for technology that will help you deal with climate change without destroying the aspirations of your people.

There is a lot of investable space in that scenario, but what it tells us is that if we are to be the source of that technology then the numbers the learned gentleman has put up in this article should be cause for major alarm. Who has the wind tech? Vestas, Siemans, Gamesa...oh yes, and GE. Where is the solar tech going? Where it was subsidized up to grid parity, subsidies that can now be withdrawn in part of Europe...having not yet been enacted here anywhere near grid parity.

Asia will come around because it has to. China and India are already hungry maws for clean tech that will devour anything we can send them. China builds on coal because they must but if "clean coal" technology existed they would buy it from us in a heartbeat.

I don't see an economic disaster for the US here unless we fail to respond. I see a lot of economic activity in which Europe already has a head start because they got out in front of it with government leading the way. We don't "believe" government can do that.

Results trump faith every day.

Aug 09 06:17 AM

[Old Rick:]

Regarding peak oil, I first heard the "peak oil" thesis in college in he late 60s, then again during the first oil crisis (74-75). If oil prices could get long term stabilized at $75-90 a barrel, we would have oil out our ears. Oil from the Alberta tar sands and the Bakken can be profitably extracted at around $60. Drilling in the (phony and deceptively created) ANWR would do a lot. Coastal drilling off of Florida and California would add a bunch of supply. We don't have a lack of oil, we have a (intentional) lack of will. With these moves, we could cut 10% or more of our foreign dependence.

Aug 09 03:56 PM

[User 458293:]

While I think you are way too optimistic at 10% as well as many years in the future even if everything you advocate were to be done, still, that does not solve the problem of sending money to regimes that--to put it kindly--do not have our best interests in their hearts. Oh, and borrowing from our dear friend China to do it. Problem is, you are talking about 10% if a very large number as well as assuming that number won't rise.

The alternative is that we borrow short term for R & D and subsidize to grid parity and within a generation our enemies are buying technology from us.


On Aug 09 03:56 PM Old Rick wrote:

> Regarding peak oil, I first heard the "peak oil" thesis in college
> in he late 60s, then again during the first oil crisis (74-75). If
> oil prices could get long term stabilized at $75-90 a barrel, we
> would have oil out our ears. Oil from the Alberta tar sands and the
> Bakken can be profitably extracted at around $60. Drilling in the
> (phony and deceptively created) ANWR would do a lot. Coastal drilling
> off of Florida and California would add a bunch of supply. We don't
> have a lack of oil, we have a (intentional) lack of will. With these
> moves, we could cut 10% or more of our foreign dependence.

Aug 09 04:51 PM

[WayneS:]

"We don't have a lack of oil, we have a (intentional) lack of will." says it all. We have many ways to reduce oil use now that cost nothing. Stop speeding & tailgating. Stop rapid acceleration & deceleration. Air up your tires. A big one is carpool or ride a bus.
We need a return to $4+ gasoline to temper this lack of will. This would cut 10% or more of our foreign dependence. It would save 1000s of lives on the highways and billions in healthcare.

Aug 10 05:57 PM

[31October:]

On Aug 07 12:47 PM Heyya wrote:

> Excellent article. I enjoy all of Mr. Shaefer's articles. They are
> a bit wordy, but informative, very interesting, and very intelligent.
> Also interesting comments above, and I highly agree with jerrydd.
>
>
> The issue of overpopulation came up a few times above, and this is
> certainly a significant issue that is largely ignored. Perhaps, instead
> of or in addition to spending the big bucks on climate change programs,
> we should increase funding for population control in unsustainable
> growth countries?

We are on the way:
China already has soldier-enforced abortions, the USA uses wars, Congress is modifying wording on rationed health care, and the president attempted to reinstate American money for foreign abortions.
Maybe all those things are moral and correct to somebody, somebody other than the payers & recipients. I prefer to forecast and prepare for a planet of twelve billion. And with that many people, fossil fuels become a dot on the timeline of history.
The poster above has an excellent point about government waste and idiocy. The future needs a diverse energy plan, but one not managed by politicians in DC [Dungpile City.]

Aug 24 08:35 AM

[vince:]

Read only a part of the article and was enouth to say the outhor is dead wrong. What a way of thinking?! - "is it worth the costs?". - No!, keep the money and die intoxicated.

Aug 28 04:15 PM

[MarkitWacha:]

We should rename Peak Oil to Peak Easily-Recoverable Oil.

Even if the author is right about more oil discovered in Ghana, it may cost too much to extract. The easily recovered oil reserves are tapped out, and the sipping straw gets longer with each find.


On Aug 08 02:41 PM lance sjogren wrote:

> sethmcs:
>
> Hubbert predicted peak oil for the US, and his prediction, universally
> considered the rantings of a lunatic at the time, proved to be dead
> on accurate.
>
> By using the same methodology, peak oil has been predicted on a global
> level, but of course the precise date is subject to some dispute,
> some say it occurred in 2005 while others contend it has yet to occur;
> extreme optimistst predict it will be 10-20 years before it occurs.
>
>
> Real bell curves don't tend to be perfectly smooth mathematical functions
> so the actual date of peak oil could vary by a few years depending
> on glitches in the oil supply curve.
>
> Anyone like you who does not believe in peak oil is today's version
> of a flat earther.

Sep 07 09:29 AM

[User 491742:]

What's the matter, Joe? Didn't your Daddy give you enough attention? Seriously, your screed would be infinitely more readable w/o all the left bashing. You make some good observations, but couching them in the paranoid rhetoric of Glen(n?) Beck obscures your point (or is paranoid rhetoric your ultimate point?). I'm long nat gas producers and processors/transporters, but not for the reasons I think you enumerate. I and my grandson have chronic lung disease (asthma). This condition is due to inhaled particulate matter-- produced by the burning of all fossil fuels. Nat gas though emits not only significantly fewer particulates, but less CO2 than other hydrocarbons. Hence my support and belief that it is a near to medium term winner,
You ridicule the concept of peak oil. Any 10 year old knows that, given a finite resource (candy?) and increasing usage by an growing population (more babies becoming candy consumers), peak production is coming if not already here.

Sep 25 01:51 PM