A World without Fossil Fuels
Environmentalists advocate for a world without fossil fuels. But what would the real-life consequences be? Would it even be a world you would want to live in?
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Script:
The Los Angeles Times predicts doomsday unless we pursue “a world without fossil fuels.” The Secretary General of the United Nations agrees. So do many politicians and environmentalists.
This raises two questions: is such a world possible? And, is it desirable?
Let’s try to answer both.
It’s a fact of modern life that virtually everything we depend on depends on fossil fuels–oil, coal, and natural gas–not only because they provide 80% of the world’s energy, but because so many of the products we use and even consume are made from them.
I’m talking about petrochemicals; that is, chemical products derived from fossil fuels. “Petro,” as in “petroleum.”
Let’s start with something everyone encounters every day: asphalt. The US alone produces over 420 million tons of asphalt per year. The key ingredient of asphalt is crude oil, which binds all the materials in asphalt together. No oil, no asphalt; no asphalt, no paved roads.
But I’m only getting started. The paint on the walls, the flooring beneath your feet, the blinds over the windows – these are also derived from petroleum. The tube that holds your toothpaste, the detergent you use to wash your clothes, the containers you store your food in, the bottles that hold your medicine and your vitamins. They’re all made from petroleum.
Your computer screen, your cell phone, your keyboard, your mouse, your mouse pad, the coating around the cords that charge your phone; the casing for your car battery, the buttons on your shirt…
Yep: fossil fuels. Specifically, plastic–another fossil fuel derivative.
But that’s still only a fraction of a fraction of the full portrait.
The raw materials from which these products are made have to be transported to factories by vehicles mostly powered by fossil fuels. The machines in the factories are also largely and sometimes completely powered by… fossil fuels. Then, these products have to be shipped from the factory to retailers and consumers. Fossil fuels again.
And we haven’t even talked about food production.
In 1950, more than 60% of the world’s population was undernourished. By 2019, it was down to less than 9%, despite the fact that there are now three times as many people.
What has changed? The answer is, the introduction of modern herbicides, insecticides, fungicides and fertilizer–all of which depend on petroleum products, specifically natural gas.
Let’s just look at fertilizers. Before the 20th century, your fertilizer options were limited to waste products like animal dung. Thanks to the invention of the Haber-Bosch process–one of the great breakthroughs in modern chemistry–natural gas could be used to produce ammonia, a critical catalyst in plant growth.
To see how dramatically this changed crop yields, consider this: in America in the 1920s, a farmer produced less than two tons of corn per hectare; today that same plot of land produces eleven tons.
Combine that with improvements in farm equipment—powered once again by fossil fuels—and the results are astonishing. The human labor required to harvest a kilogram of American wheat has declined over the past two centuries from 10 minutes to two seconds.
Without fossil fuels much of the world’s population would starve to death in a year.
Even renewable energy, the presumed antidote to fossil fuels—at least in the power and transportation realm—is completely dependent on… fossil fuels. What do you think those wind turbines and solar panels are made of? Fiberglass and myriad other materials derived from petroleum. Like so many other industries, there’s no renewable energy without fossil fuel energy.
But the dependency is even more than you think. Since wind and solar are inherently intermittent–it’s not always sunny and it’s not always windy – there has to be a source of fossil fuel energy as a backup nearby—unless of course you’re lucky enough to still have a nuclear power plant in your neighborhood.
Let’s put it this way: if you’re having surgery, you want the hospital to have reliable power.
You should be getting the idea by now. Fossil fuels are not just about driving your car and heating your home. Fossil fuels are everywhere and in everything.
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