EDITORIAL: Eliminating fossil fuels would risk a descent into darkness

washingtontimes.com ^ | 6/10/2019 | editors

[bakkentom]

Fossil fuels generates large employment and incomes in flyover country.

https://www.energy.gov/downloads/us-energy-and-employment-report

The market for petroleum products is huge. Starting in 2020 US will be a net exporter of energy. Steel for new plants, pipelines, wells, and ships for exporting. Wall Street big holder of Energy equities.

https://www.eia.gov/dnav/pet/PET_SUM_SND_D_NUS_MBBLPD_M_CUR.htm

Please make this an issue in 2020 campaign, I beg the left, please!!!!!

[SaveFerris]

[people literally freezing to death in their homes as “green” electric heat would fail]

Obama’s $535-million-dollar Solyndra to the rescue!!

Oh, wait....

[plain talk]

Eliminating fossil fuels would not risk a descent into darkness ... it would absolutely create a descent into darkness.

[palmer]

Wind was down at times last month: http://gridwatch.co.uk but ok lately.

[lizma2]

North Korea??

[metmom]

As the reliability of the electric grid drops people will install local power sources. In the 1980s I didn't know anyone who had a whole house generator. Now they are common in New Hampshire, and a wanted feature in homes.

We have been house hunting there and easily half the houses you see on the realty pages, when they show the basement, shows the electrical panel and right next to is is a full house generator hook up.

I also see the nor'easters playing a role in it.

We went to visit my son for Thanksgiving a few years ago and a nor'easter hit on the Tues/Wed before. Knocked the power out for almost a week where he was. And when we went outside to look around, the sound of generators running was everywhere.

[metmom]

They want population control.

What better way to get it than to kill people off somehow?

[libertylover]

Michael Bloomberg, the billionaire former mayor of New York City, pledges to donate $500 million to a campaign to shutter the nation’s remaining coal-fired power plants

If someone openly set out destroy the United Mine Workers, would that be some sort of violation of law?

[roadcat]

How many years of electricity produced by windmills is needed to cover the cost of mining iron ore and metallurgical coke, transport to steel mills, energy expended to produce steel within the mills, transport of huge heavy steel blades, etc.

You've got the correct response to the folly of wind and solar replacing oil and coal; they won't.

This goes beyond mining and creating steel. Electrical, from wind and solar, will not do the heavy lifting of refining ore, transport of heavy materials, and production of modern materials. And the big elephant in the room that the greenies won't discuss, are the more than 6500 modern materials made from oil that are necessary to make life possible today. Materials like asphalt for roads, roofing materials for millions of buildings and homes, solvents for machinery, paints for protecting all materials, chemicals for all sorts of things like medical goods and medicine, textiles, glues, fertilizers and the list is extensive.

Solar and wind cannot replace fossil fuels; fossil fuel use will never be eliminated, or we return to the dark ages without not just modern conveniences, but to an age of mass starvation, poverty and death.

[freeandfreezing]

You are correct. The real reason is that storms involving wind and particularly ice cause our growing number of trees to bring down power lines. I suspect part of the cause is reduced right of way cutting by the power companies - they do the absolute minimum and then wonder why the trees drop branches on their lines.

For lots of reasons the frequency of power outages has increased over time, and in response people have started buying their own temporary generators.

People and the free market are a lot smarter collectively than guys like Bloomberg. We may well end up with a lot of renewable energy supplies, with intermittent outages. No problem, we will all just run our generators, obliterating any supposed pollution reducing effects of the renewable energy sources.

[metmom]

Or burning wood from the trees sitting on our own property.

[Lurker]

“The elderly and young children will die in the heat.”

They sure would: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/1995_Chicago_heat_wave

L

[Rapscallion]

Something akin to the Dark Ages...

[freeandfreezing]

Actually burning wood is good. It is one of the few energy sources that is cost effective, and carbon neutral. The process of growing trees captures carbon from the atmosphere which is then recycled to keep us warm in the winter.

As a wonderful side effect we, and our animal friends, get to enjoy the forests as they grow to provide us wood, warmth, and a beautiful environment.

[SkyDancer]

[jmacusa]

I work in a hospital. Without electricity a hospital doesn't function. Every life saving piece of equipment in a health care facility needs electricity. Imagine what it would be like without it. These Leftists need to be ended, with extreme prejudice if need be. They've gone past the point of being tolerable. They mean to enslave us to the global elites. They mean to kill as many of us off as possible.

[_Jim]

Hydrino.

Look to the Hydrino as an alternate to what we have now ...

[marktwain]

The measure of a civilizations advance is how cheap the energy is.

An easy measure is how many hours of labor does it take to buy a kilowatthour (kwh)?

In the U.S.A., it is about ($50K average income, or $25/hour, about $.12/kwh, or about .29 minutes of labor.

In Australia, about the same income, $.30/kwh or about .72 minutes of labor.

[marktwain]

The measure of a civilizations advance is how cheap the energy is.

An easy measure is how many hours of labor does it take to buy a kilowatthour (kwh)?

In the U.S.A., it is about ($50K average income, or $25/hour, about $.12/kwh, or about .29 minutes of labor.

In Australia, about the same income, $.30/kwh or about .72 minutes of labor.

[joe fonebone]

no such thing as a fossil fuel. Oil is a naturally recurring resource.