The “Energy Conundrum”- “Renewables” Only Generate Electricity, But Oil is the Basis of All Products

Originally published on CFact

Wind and solar can only generate intermittent electricity, while oil is the basis for all the products in society.

Summary: From the proverb “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” tells us that you can’t rid the world of crude oil and continue to enjoy the products and fuels manufactured from fossil fuels.

Two of the greatest inventions of all time are the incandescent light bulb and the telephone. 

Both the light bulb and telephone inventions came AFTER oil as all the parts of both are made with the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil.

Today the international community of the few wealthy countries are delusionally obsessed with the energy conundrum idea that electricity generated by wind turbines and solar panels can rid the world of its dependency on fossil fuels.

Today, none of the ruling class recognizes that everything that needs electricity is made from oil.

An exercise for the ruling class: Identify which parts and components of wind turbines, solar panels, and EVs are NOT made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil?

The ruling class in wealthy countries are not cognizant that the planet populated from 1 to 8 billion, over the last 200 years. During that time, we learned through human ingenuity that crude oil is virtually useless, unless it’s manufactured (refineries) into oil derivatives that are the basis of the products and fuels in our daily lives that did not exist before the 1900’s.

Electricity CAN:

• Charge your iPhone but cannot make your iPhone.
• Operate a defibrillator but cannot make the defibrillator.
• Operate your TV but cannot make the TV.

Electricity CANNOT: 

• Make wind turbine and solar panel components.
• Make tires for billions of vehicles.
• Make asphalt for the millions of miles of roadways.
• Make medications and medical equipment.
• Make water filtration systems.
• Make sanitation systems.
• Make fertilizers that come from natural gas to help feed billions.
• Make pesticides to control locusts and other pests.

From the proverb “you can’t have your cake and eat it too” tells us that you cannot rid the world of fossil fuels and continue to enjoy the products and fuels manufactured from fossil fuels.

Let us look at a few infrastructures, and products, which did not exist before the 1800’s, that now need electricity to operate. 

Exercise: Identify one thing in the following infrastructures that needs electricity that was NOT made from oil:

• Transportation 
• Hospitals
• Medical equipment
• Appliances
• Electronics
• Telecommunications
• Communications systems 
• Space programs
• Heating and ventilating
• Military

Efforts to cease the use of crude oil could be the greatest threat to civilization, not climate change, and lead the world to an era of guaranteed extreme shortages of fossil fuel products as we had in the decarbonized world in the 1800s, which may result in billions of fatalities from diseases, malnutrition and weather-related deaths trying to live without the more than 6,000 products currently benefiting society.

This pursuit of electricity generated by wind and solar, both of which cannot manufacture anything for society, can only lead us back to shorter life spans, diseases, malnutrition, and weather-related deaths resulting from the elimination of the products from fossil fuels that are now benefiting society.

Just a few hundred years ago, before oil, the world was unspoiled, decarbonized, and dominated by mother nature and the wild animal kingdom. There were no coal-fired power plants, nor natural gas power plants, and the Beverly Hillbillies had not yet discovered oil. There were fewer humans competing with the animals due to humanity’s limited ability to survive what mother nature provided. Before oil, life was hard and dirty, with many weather and disease-related deaths. 

There are now eight billion of us, with most people living much longer and more prosperous lives than the one billion people who were around when fossil fuels use took off after the mid-1800s. Moreover, the richer we are, the greener most parts of the planet become.

As a reminder, we had a net-zero emissions society in the 1800’s when there were no coal-fired power plants, no natural gas power plants, and no crude oil to be manufactured at refineries into usable products. Back then, they did not need electricity as they had no products made from oil that needed electricity.

The “energy conundrum” is:

• Wind turbines and solar panels can only generate intermittent electricity. They cannot manufacture any products for society.

• Crude Oil on the other hand is virtually useless, unless it’s manufactured (refineries) into oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products in our daily lives that did not exist before the 1900s, and the fuels to move the heavy-weight and long-range needs of more than 50,000 jets moving people and products, and more than 50,000 merchant ships for global trade flows, and the military and space program. 

In summary: renewables only generate electricity, while oil is the basis of all the products in today’s society. A short 1-minute video about the energy conundrum is educational and entertaining. The video has already been viewed by more than 800,000 people on social media!  https://www.youtube.com/shorts/stf2YrznkZU. 

The energy conundrum is that ridding the world of oil will eliminate wind turbines, solar panels, and EV’s as ALL their parts and components are made from oil!

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Ronald Stein  is an engineer, senior policy advisor on energy literacy for the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and co-author of the Pulitzer Prize-nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations.”

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