The Shocking Ignorance of Anti-Fossil Fuel Protesters
Every now again we go on a rant about the hypocrisy, indeed the stupidity, of those who claim we can just stop using fossil fuels altogether–now–and switch to so-called renewables. If we only had the political will. According to the fantasizers, solar and wind and hydro and other non-fossil fuel sources could eliminate the need for fossil fuels. But what they fail to understand or grasp or admit (or perhaps all three), is that without fossil fuels they would not have clothes, houses, cell phones, vehicles for transportation and a host of other modern conveniences. Frankly, without fossil fuel extraction, we would immediately be plunged back into the Stone Ages–with cruel, very short, lifespans. Antis fail to recognize the key role fossil fuels play in our everyday lives. Our ongoing prediction, which will be proved long after we’ve exited this world, is that fossil fuels are here for at least the next 100 years. We spotted a local letter to the editor from a numskull spouting this “fossil fuels will kill us all” meme, and on the same day, an article by the always-excellent David Blackmon, writing for Forbes, which outlines many of the ways life would change without fossil fuels. Together these two pieces show the stark contrast between those who think, and those who don’t…
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Mark Zuckerberg is the very wealthy and quite young founder and CEO of Facebook. As is typical of his generation and in the tech world, Zuckerberg is a flaming liberal. But you have have to give the guy credit. He not only founded Facebook, he grew it–to one of the biggest companies (value-wise) in the world. And he hasn’t screwed it all up. So he’s learned something. He’s teachable. Apparently Zuckerberg thinks if someone like Donald Trump can win the presidency, he might be able to himself. So Zuck has been traveling across the county, visiting various companies/factories/etc. Last week the Zuck was in North Dakota, visiting the Bakken Shale. Which may seem unusual. Zuckerberg is a big renewables guy. However, Zuckerberg wanted to see fracking, its workers and the communities around it, first-hand. He cautioned against the dangers of “demonizing” people who work in the fossil fuel industry. You know, our opinion of Zuck just went up a few notches. Maybe this kid can learn. He’s keeping an open mind. But of course some of his biggest fans, anti-drilling snowflakes, had a meltdown and took to social media to castigate their former hero…
At the G20 summit of industrialized nations in Germany last week, something pretty incredible happened. All of the European nations part of the G20 are attempting to bully the United States into dumping fossil fuels. Donald Trump stood up to them last week and got them to add language to the official communique that Washington will “work closely with other countries to help them access and use fossil fuels more cleanly and efficiently.” Folks, this is major! Europe backed down. Trump stood firm and he stood tall. Europe has been in this fugue of denial, claiming the world will just be able to flip and switch and convert to so-called renewable energy–any year now. Trump got them to admit that false pretense is not reality. He got them to admit that fossil fuels are and will be a part of the world’s energy mix for the foreseeable future (generations, with an “s”). No doubt the Europeans didn’t like being shamed into admitting the renewable emperor has no clothes. Here’s an even bigger surprise. The lib editors at the Detroit News think Trump did the right thing–and say fossil fuels are here to stay for a long time…
Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, has done us all a huge favor. Yesterday we brought you a post by EIA’s Today in Energy that points out in 2016 some 81% of all the energy we used in the US of A came from fossil fuels (see 
The Independent Oil & Gas Association of New York (IOGANY), sent an email last Friday to members alerting them to the profound bias evident for all to see on the state Dept. of Environmental Conservation (DEC) website with respect to renewable vs. fossil fuel energy. It seems the DEC has been politicized by Gov. Andrew Cuomo and now reflects his energy bias in promoting so-called renewable energy sources over fossil fuel energy sources. As IOGANY points out in their email (and as we’ve stated many times), nobody is against renewable sources of energy. They (and we) are, however, against the state choosing sides and promoting some sources over others, when it doesn’t make sense environmentally nor economically. IOGANY’s observations are compelling–showing just how biased agencies like the DEC have become…
Anti-frackers like Josh Fox (maker of the propaganda film Gasland) have long relied on a single, flawed research “study” that purported to make the case that the entire country could, if it wanted to, switch over to using 100% renewable energy sources by 2050. The study, titled “100% clean and renewable wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) all-sector energy roadmaps for the 50 United States” (full copy below), presents “roadmaps for each of the 50 United States to convert their all-purpose energy systems (for electricity, transportation, heating/cooling, and industry) to ones powered entirely by wind, water, and sunlight (WWS).” This week a group of 21 independent experts, including the former associate director at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and a NOAA researcher who specializes in renewables, issued a devastating rebuttal of the earlier “renewable roadmap” study–saying it has “significant shortcomings,” using “invalid modeling tools” with “modeling errors” and makes “implausible and inadequately supported assumptions.” In the rebuttal study, titled “Evaluation of a proposal for reliable low-cost grid power with 100% wind, water, and solar” (full copy below), the authors rip the earlier “renewable roadmap” study to shreds, exposing the lie that fossil fuels can be phased out within our lifetimes. It’s simply not possible. And it’s time that lie is debunked in the public square. But don’t look for mainstream media to give one drop of ink to this study. It doesn’t fit their renewables-are-nirvana-and-fossil-fuels-are-evil narrative…
Generally speaking, the western side of Ohio is seeing a lot of activity with new solar and wind installations. And the eastern side of the state is seeing a lot of activity with shale drilling and natural gas pipelines. But there is one county, Seneca County (slightly left of center, in the northern part of the state) where both renewable projects like solar and wind, and fossil fuel projects like pipelines, are both active. And that means landowners in Seneca County are being bombarded with offers from solar, wind, pipelines and electric lines. Some sage advice from the Ohio Farm Bureau Federation for landowners: hire a lawyer before you sign anything…
Regina Mayor is leader of energy and natural resources for the consulting firm KPMG. She’s located in Houston. However, she recently made a trip to California to speak at the Stanford University Precourt Institute for Energy. Her topic? “How Energy CEOs are Adapting in the Downturn.” We have a video of her full talk below. It’s compelling. Mayor recounts how oil and gas companies had to figure out how to make money in a low price environment. She also observes that all sectors of the energy industry are pumped on Trump: “Everyone in the industry seems to think that they’re going to be a winner under this administration. The wind and solar guys and gals, the coal folks, the gas, the upstream, the downstream, everyone believes that they’re going to win…where I come from, you always know that that can’t be the case. Logic tells you that can’t be the case. But I do find the level of optimism quite fascinating.” Below is a summary of her talk, and the video…
Several southwest Pennsylvania Republican lawmakers (and a Democrat lawmaker) addressed the League of [Liberal Democrat] Women Voters at the group’s annual question-and-answer session with area legislators in Washington, PA on Friday. The Lib Dems attending likely got more than what they bargained for, as the legislators who addressed them stuck up for fossil fuels. The moderator asked a question about so-called clean energy jobs and investing, and promptly got schooled about REAL clean energy–i.e., fossil fuels!…
You hear a lot about wind these days, not so much about solar, as an alternative to nasty fossil fuels like natural gas. But is wind really “all that?” We spotted an Associated Press story bragging about “the nation’s first offshore wind farm” opening off the coast of Rhode Island. Deepwater Wind built five turbines producing 30 megawatts of electricity (enough electricity to power 17,000 homes) 3 miles off Block Island–at a cost of $300 million. That’s about $10 million per megawatt to construct the facility. Let’s compare that to building a natural gas-fired electric plant. Natgas plants cost about $1 million per megawatt (10x less). This past year the very first built-from-scratch natgas plant built to use Marcellus Shale gas, called Panda Liberty, went live (see 
As you may have noticed, in today’s lineup of stories MDN covered news about two different natural gas-fired electric plant companies and the plants they are building in the northeast. Gas-fired plants are not only springing up everywhere in the northeast, but across the country. Why? Because a) Obama’s war on coal has forced many coal generating plants to close, and b) shale gas has made clean-burning natural gas as cheap as, sometimes cheaper than, burning coal to produce electricity. But coal and natgas aren’t the only sources that produce electricity. Solar, wind, biomass and others are also used to produce electricity. Radical environmentalists, who frankly don’t think for themselves and live in a false bubble, pretend that solar and wind could, “if we only had the will,” take over all electric production in this country. What a lark. There’s a reason natural gas is becoming the dominant fuel to produce electricity in this country–it costs less. Our favorite government agency, the U.S. Energy Information Administration, is fresh out with an analysis of how much it costs to build new electric plants. Guess which source is the cheapest? Yep–natural gas. And guess which sources cost two-to-four times as much to build as natgas? Yep–wind and solar. Which is why the radicals want to force natural gas into oblivion. Their preferred sources just can’t compete economically…