You’ll Miss Fossil Fuels When They’re Gone
By Paul Homewood
The following article appeared in the Wall Street Journal:
Progressives may loathe oil and gas, but modern life doesn’t work without them.
What would a world without oil and gas look like? We’re getting a preview: surging prices for food and other everyday goods. Oil and natural gas aren’t needed to only generate energy. They’re also critical for an array of products including face masks, diapers and vegan leather.
Consider fertilizer, which is produced using hydrogen from natural gas (the molecule CH4). Natural gas accounts for about 75% to 90% of fertilizer production costs. Russia and Belarus are large producers, and uncertainty about sanctions has reduced their exports. But skyrocketing natural-gas prices in Europe have also pushed fertilizer producers such as Norway’s Yara and Hungary’s Nitrogenmuvek to curtail production. Some suspended operations last fall when Russia slowed natural-gas deliveries.
As a result, fertilizer prices last month hit a record. Many farmers are scaling back land in cultivation. Some say they plan to use less fertilizer, which could reduce crop yields. Others are switching from planting corn and wheat to soybeans, which require less fertilizer.
The fertilizer shortage couldn’t have come at a worse time. The war is disrupting grain shipments from Russia and Ukraine, which account for a quarter of global wheat exports. Wheat prices last month hit a record. While Americans will have to pay more for cereal and pasta, Africans could experience severe food shortages.
At the same time, food manufacturers report that the cost of plastics for containers and packaging is soaring. Plastics are made from oil and natural gas, which are in short supply globally.
Hydrocarbons known as natural-gas liquids are used as feedstock for petrochemical plants. Ethane (C2H6) is isolated from natural gas and then processed into ethylene, which is converted through a chain of chemical reactions into polyethylene—the most common plastic in use today, found in shopping bags, water bottles, catheters and even bulletproof vests.
U.S. shale fracking produced a gusher of natural-gas liquids including ethane. As a result the cost of plastic feedstock plunged and petrochemical investment exploded. Ethane prices today are about half of what they were in 2011, though they crept up this past year as demand increased. In 2018 the American Chemistry Council estimated that 333 chemical-industry projects valued at more than $200 billion had been announced since 2010.
With so much gas from shale fields, the U.S. in 2015 became the world’s top exporter of ethane, surpassing Norway. Ethane exports have increased to 508,000 barrels a day from nothing in 2013 and have become a major feedstock for petrochemical plants in Canada, China, Europe and India.
One little-appreciated fact is that some cheap plastic products imported from China are made from ethane fracked in the U.S. Overseas petrochemical plants also use the petroleum-based hydrocarbon naphtha as a feedstock. Russia is a major exporter of naphtha, but fracking has made low-cost American ethane more globally competitive.
Another common byproduct of natural-gas processing and oil refining is polypropylene. There’s a good chance you’re wearing something with polypropylene. It’s in iPhone cases, fitness apparel and female sanitary products. Early in the pandemic, Exxon Mobil tapped its petrochemical supply chain to ramp up polypropylene production for face masks.
Polypropylene is also often used in appliances, medical sutures, food containers, furniture and plastic drinking straws. Progressives in places like Seattle and San Francisco have banned single-serve plastic straws. Yet they mandated face masks, which are made from the same raw material. Surgical masks are now among the most common kinds of litter in California, especially near schools.
The inconvenient truth for progressives is that petrochemicals are ubiquitous and indispensable. Replacing oil and gas as an energy source poses enormous technological challenges. Replacing them as a product feedstock would be next to impossible. As much as progressives loathe fossil fuels, they can’t live without them. Drive an electric car or ride a bike? Streets are paved with asphalt, which is made from petroleum bitumen. The cost of asphalt, by the way, is also soaring in tandem with oil prices.
Russia’s invasion of Ukraine has highlighted how even a modest decline in the supply of oil and gas can send prices for energy and raw materials soaring. Government policies that restrict oil and gas production won’t only increase energy prices. They will raise prices and lead to shortages across the economy. Welcome to the wonderful world without oil and gas.
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NOT A LOT OF PEOPLE KNOW THAT 
The can has been getting kicked down the road for decades by our politicians, but the cold choices are now upon us. I can see real trouble ahead.
The can has been getting kicked down the road for decades by our politicians, but the cold choices are now upon us. I can see real trouble ahead.
Furthermore, how will we produce steel or aluminum or glass? How will we raise temperatures to 1,400 degrees to make silicone chips? How will we heat the ovens at bakeries to make our bread?
The poster child of Environmentalism is CO2 . . . while the Monster in our midst is EVERYTHING attached thereto . . . We have had the technology to clean-up the effluent from burning Fossil Fuels for over 50 years . . . it rarely gets built . . . Environmentalists DO NOT want you to know . . . That would mean crawling into bed with the enemy . . . advocating the use of Scrubbers, Electrostatic Precipitators and Nitrogen Oxide Burners would be acquiescing in the face of the enemy . . . The Fossil Fuel Industry . . . So the real solutions to global pollution do NOT get built . . . For this Environmentalists are to blame . . .
The by-products from burning fossil fuels:
1. Sulfur dioxide (SO2), which contributes to acid rain and respiratory illnesses
2. Nitrogen oxides (NOx), which contribute to smog and respiratory illnesses
3. Particulates, which contribute to smog, haze, and respiratory illnesses and lung disease
4. Mercury and other heavy metals linked to both neurological and developmental damage
5. Fly ash and bottom ash, that are residues created when power plants burn coal
All are significantly reduced when we invest $800,000 million. As we see above!
Let’s work smarter, Not Harder . . . Be Visionaries, with a Goal – Clean-up Now!
https://www.academia.edu/51184433/Climate_Change_For_the_21_st_Century
Pages 7 & 8 . . . https://www.academia.edu/45570971/The_Environmentalist_and_The_Neanderthal
One side effect of the reduction in sulphur emissions over the past 50 years has been that farmers now have to have sulphur added to their fertiliser.
Sulphur leaches from soil almost as fast as nitrogen.
I have a vision of the Stop Oil crowd being taken off to live on Lundy Island with none of the benefits of their hated oil.
Sometimes, you just have to call their bluff (because a no-oil world is not really what they want).
I don’t think Lundy deserves being infested with that sort of scum. Somewhere far north of Scotland sounds far more suitable.
Hey, we have enough problems up here with Nicola Chatesque (I don’t bother with spelling!) We don’t want any more idiots.
More than 6,000 products are made from Oil and Natural Gas. Without them, your life would be much the worse. Have a look at what might well disappear without petroleum and methane:
Click to access Products%20Made%20From%20Oil%20and%20Natural%20Gas%20Infographic.pdf
Those who would banish fossil fuels are naive to the roll they play in the modern world.
I think the word is ‘ignorant’ not ‘naive’.
The eco-terrorists seem to deliberately ignore the fact that transport fuels are a small part of what oil and gas are used for.
The current world has been built on the intelligence, inventiveness and common sense of the engineers of the past. They invented machines and used forms of motive power that were available and which worked effectively, if not always efficiently. Most of us have grown up in that world.
Now we have idealists who want to create their vision of Utopia, yet who have little knowledge or vision of how to change and have a functioning future. Least of all, they have no skill nor engineering capacity to enable the world to continue after fossil fuels run out. So, when they do, we are in the sh*t.
Obviously, we cannot afford, at present, to ditch fossil fuels. But equally, we need to breed intelligent, far-sighted, capable engineers in order to develop viable replacements for today’s industrial and power needs, not play totalitarian idealistic silly buggers like Schwab and the WEF.
Interesting comment re: sulphur. I have experimented using powdered sulphur during seed bed preparation for the last 4 years on a light free draining sandy loam; so far visible improvement in yield for certain vegetables.