ENB Pub Note: 2 years ago I had published articles and podcasts that had preliminary data showing the more we invested in renewable, the more fossil fuels we would use. Getting articles and screenshots.
This year, in spite of so many nations and large states swearing off fossil fuels, in spite of so many treaties and so many climate agreements, the world will consume more coal than it ever has in its history. According to the International Energy Agency, the world will burn more than 8 billion tons of coal in 2022 for the first time in human history. A major reason for coal’s resurgence is the constricted supply and high price of natural gas, thanks to the war in Ukraine.
Natural gas emits only half as much carbon dioxide per unit of energy as coal does. This is why fracking was able to reduce U.S. energy sector carbon emissions by more than 23% between 2005 and 2020.
f we assume that all of the most alarmist premises of environmentalists are anywhere close to being true, then there is a very limited set of things that can decarbonize the world quickly enough to save humanity from oblivion. The only one immediately attainable with today’s technology is the widespread adoption of nuclear power. Anyone who tells you otherwise is trying to make money on a clean energy investment.
The next best bet would be to pour more money into the study of nuclear fusion, which does seem a lot closer to reality today than it was even a year ago.
On the other hand, if the alarmist premises aren’t true, the far more likely scenario, then those options are still the only ones worth considering. They don’t require the lowering of human living standards that the environmental movement seems to want even more than it wants to save the climate.
