Fossil fuels are pretty darn handy. There’s awful lot of energy in a cup of gasoline. Even the best electric batteries are nowhere close. That’s why electric cars are so aerodynamic: they have to squeeze every bit of performance from those batteries.
The problem with fossil fuels is that they are limited. The fossil fuel age has been extended with better technology and extraction techniques. That gave our civilization a breather. In recent years alternative energy systems have improved a lot. We are about to see how far they can go.
Keep an eye on Germany. They are in for a tough year. Currently the direct Russian gas pipeline is shut down. Who knows if it will ever open again? Germany had hoped to top off their storage facilities before winter. It didn’t happen. In the near term Germany will do a lot of stop gap measures in an attempt to keep the lights on. They are even reopening old coal plants, which is bad news for air quality.
What you won’t see are massive build outs of infrastructure to allow them to accept liquefied natural gas imports. Some floating LNG plants will operate in German waters, but that’s about it. Nobody wants to plow money into dying technology. Instead they are doubling down on alternative energy. Of course, had they done that from the get go they probably wouldn’t be facing a cold dark winter. Part of the reason for using Russian gas was political. They thought Russia would not invade its neighbors if they were financially tied to the west. Oops. Bad plan.
The US is in a much better energy situation than Germany. We produce a lot of fossil fuels domestically. The problem is that eventually those sources will also run low. It’s inevitable; we just don’t know the exact timing. Politicians that favor fossil fuels over renewables are doing the country a disservice. As we’ve seen from Germany the worse time to switch to renewables is when you have no other choice.
That’s all on an International and National level. What does your personal energy situation look like? Do you “import” all your energy or do you produce some of your own. When my budget is tight it is good to have solar electric that a power company can’t shut off. I’ve also kept my house warm by walking out my door with an ax and a crosscut saw. It’s good live in the woods. Still, even an apartment dweller can put a solar panel in a south facing window and make some power.
-Sixbears
It doesn't appear if ANY domesitic fossil fuel companies will be given the opportunity to contribute efforts to building back better. From what I'm reading, soaring food costs on the horizon due to lack of fertilizer and cattle feed, which is causing ranchers and farmers to cut back on future crops. It appears food shortages will occur by this coming Winter, if not Fall. I hope its not true but the way I see it, stocking up now on something I will NEED is not wasted effort. Better than insurance you spend on because you might need just in case.
ReplyDeleteRefineries in the US are pretty maxed out already. Nobody will be building more. The fossil fuel age is slowly winding down and the oil companies know it. With that in mind they are trying to squeeze every dollar out of us. A good chunk of their price increase has shown up as record profits.
DeleteGermany failed to build LNG terminals as it thought the Russians would kowtow to the US, EU and NATO forever. History should of warned them otherwise.
ReplyDeleteIt is pointless to build them now simply as there isn't any spare LNG tanker capacity anywhere near what they need. The world fleet is roughly 680 and a quarter of those are owned by China and Russian companies. All of them are already under long term contract. New tankers will take at a minimum 3 years to be built. You'd need another 100 running constantly to just fill Germanys requirements and LNG is roughly 5 times more expensive than gas from Nordstream1.
Germany made some bad decisions. I'm curious to see how they sort in a couple of years.
DeleteWhat they'll do is tell Ukraine and Zelensky to GFT and buy from Russia again.
DeleteAll indicatons are that Poland will soon move into western UK as a "temporary protection measure". The bulk of it was Polish before anyway just as the east was Russian.
Anyone who thinks Germany will cripple itself to curry favor with the USA isn't dealing from a full deck.