Op/Ed: The So-Called ‘Green Movement’ Increases the World’s Demand for Crude Oil

Shockingly, environmentalists, energy policymakers, parents, teachers, students, and those in the media have no clue or understanding about the basis of the products in our daily lives from crude oil! Energy literacy is at its worst.

Energy policymakers, armed with their lack of energy literacy, continue their pursuit to eliminate the only known sources of the products and transportation fuels that support modern lifestyles and economies around the world. Over the last 200 years, the utilization of the products and transportation fuels that could be manufactured from crude oil, the world’s population has grown from 1 to 8 billion. It was the ‘products’ from oil that supported this tremendous growth in population.

Our energy “leaders” are oblivious that everything that NEEDS electricity is made with petrochemicals manufactured from crude oil, coal, or natural gas, from the light bulb to the iPhone, defibrillator, computers, telecommunications, spacecraft, and medications. Without the products made from fossil fuels there would be nothing that needs electricity.

Electricity CANNOT exist without crude oil. All the parts and components for wind turbines, solar panels, nuclear, hydro, and the mining equipment used to extract the metals and minerals to build clean “electricity” are made with oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil!

Our so-called “energy leaders” do not comprehend that electricity was developed AFTER the discovery of crude oil. Without the parts and components to be able to generate electricity such as insulation, copper wiring, computers, control panels, and air conditioning, there would be no electricity from any of the six methods used to generate electricity such as coal, natural gas, nuclear, hydro, wind, and solar.

Environmentalists, political bureaucrats, and policymakers seem to be oblivious that electricity and transportation cannot exist without products made from fossil fuels, as they are ignorant of these basic facts:

(1)  Before the 1800s and before the discovery of oil, we had no crude oil, no products, no electricity, and obviously, no vehicles or Teslas.

(2)  No one uses crude oil in its raw form. ‘Big Oil’ only exists because of humanity’s addiction to the more than 6,000 products that did not exist 200 years ago, that are now the basis for virtually all the products used for the health and well-being of humanity that support Hospitals, Medical equipment, Appliances, Electronics, Telecommunications, Heating and Ventilating, and Communications systems.

(3)  Renewables, like wind and solar only exist to generate occasional electricity, as they CANNOT manufacture any of the more than 6,000 products and various transportation fuels made from fossil fuels, that are demanded by the various infrastructures of today, the same infrastructures that did not exist 200 years ago.

(4)  So-called “earth-friendly” electricity generation from wind and solar in the few healthy and wealthy countries of Germany, Australia, USA, Great Britain, New Zealand, Canada, Japan, and all of the EU, representing about 12% of the eight billion of the world’s population, only generate occasional electricity from breezes and sunshine. Again, those “renewables” CANNOT make any products or transportation fuels demanded by modern civilizations.

The elephant in the room that the energy policymakers refuse to discuss is that crude oil is the foundation of our materialistic society, as it is the basis of all products and fuels demanded by the 8 billion now on this planet.

Ridding the world of raw crude oil before we have a replacement to produce the oil derivatives currently manufactured from crude oil, we’re back to the 1800s. Without fossil fuels, the greatest threat to the world’s population could be the future to exist and prosper without those oil derivatives that are currently supporting more than 6,000 products for the 8 billion on this planet.

Looking back at the history of the petroleum industry, it illustrates that the black, cruddy-looking crude oil was virtually useless unless it could be manufactured (refining) into oil derivatives, which are now the basis of chemical products, such as plastics, solvents and medications, that are essential for supporting modern lifestyles.

Energy policymakers should know that there is no need to over-regulate the ‘suppliers of fossil fuels when there is no replacement to meet the supply chain of product ‘demands’ of our materialistic world. It’s obvious that energy policies are the real existential threat to billions across our planet.

Today, we have more than 50,000 merchant ships, more than 20,000 commercial aircraft, and more than 50,000 military aircraft that use fuel manufactured from crude oil. The fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of jets moving people and products, the merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military and space programs are also dependent on what can be manufactured from crude oil.

In California, the fourth-largest economy in the world, energy policymakers are proud that California has increased imports of crude oil from 5 percent in 1992 to almost 60 percent of total consumption today. Today, California’s 9 International airports, 41 military airports, and 3 of the largest shipping ports in the world are all controlled by foreign oil.

If the United States energy policymakers follow California’s ‘so-called successes’ in continuing to reduce crude oil production, the country will have to continue increasing its reliance on foreign countries to meet America’s economic demands for products and transportation fuels!

Our so-called “energy leaders” are oblivious to the fact that China is coming to the rescue with Asia’s 88 new refineries for manufactured oil derivatives that are the basis of most every product being used by mankind,  as well as the manufactured fuels used by every transportation infrastructure, and the military.

When government mandates and financial subsidies pick winners and losers, citizens start to suffer. Since subsidies come from all of us, maybe we should be careful how we use them. It turns out that most of the subsidies go to foreign businesses, many of which support the exploitation of slave labor to mine for the “green” minerals and metals to produce windmills, solar panels, and EV batteries, as well as the infliction of environmental degradation to “their” landscapes just to reinforce mandated EV’s, wind turbines, and solar panels in “our backyards.”

In the meantime, the so-called “green movement” continues to increase the world’s demands for crude oil and all the products and fuels manufactured from crude oil that renewables are unable to manufacture.

Ronald Stein P.E. is an Ambassador for Energy & Infrastructure, Co-author of the Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations”, policy advisor on energy literacy for The Heartland Institute, and The Committee for a Constructive Tomorrow, and National TV Commentator- Energy & Infrastructure with Rick Amato.

Ronald Stein, P.E. is an engineer, energy consultant, speaker, author of books and articles on energy, environmental policy, and human rights, and Founder of PTS Advance, a California based company.

Ron advocates that energy literacy starts with the knowledge that renewable energy is only intermittent electricity generated from unreliable breezes and sunshine, as wind turbines and solar panels cannot manufacture anything for the 8 billion on this planet.