Two years ago industrial ecology guru Roland Geyer, writing in The Guardian, made his case for an immediate ban on fossil fuels. His reason? “Time is running out to meet the goals of the Paris Agreement and avoid catastrophic climate change.”
Geyer assesses pollution prevention strategies based on reuse, recycling, and material and technology substitution plastics, photovoltaics, metals, and automotives. He is convinced that industrial society can continue without any further use of fossil fuels. But is he right, or is he just a goofball who believes his own press releases?
New York state senator George Borrello (a Republican) decided recently to take Geyer and his fellow anti-fossil-fuel activists at their word. Last month he introduced a bill that would require that the manufacture and distribution of electric vehicles, wind turbines, solar collectors, and infrastructure to upgrade the power grid be conducted using only wind and solar energy – no fossil fuels, not even nuclear energy, not in New York State.
Borrello explained, “We are being told that we must make an immediate change to wind and solar as we are polluting our state and planet. If that is true, there should be no fossil fuel energy used to create wind and solar technology.” After all, he said, “the [ongoing, extensive] environmental toll from coal-fired power, diesel fuel, and the mining of rare-earth metals … exists at cross-purposes with the stated goals of those advancing the climate agenda.”
Yet, noted Borrello, “today, coal is burned to forge steel for the foundations, towers, and blades of wind turbines. Diesel-powered heavy equipment transports components, clears sites, digs foundations, and assembles the structure. Solar panels require the extraction of rare-earth minerals and depend on coal as the primary energy source for the manufacturing process.”
Surely, Borrello said, “If [Geyer and his fellow climate catastrophists] truly believe that fossil fuels must be eliminated then [New York] should not be financing the proliferation of structures whose manufacture, transport, and installation produces significant emissions.” Yet, like California, most of New England, and other virtue-signaling jurisdictions that have banned fracking, pipelines, and even gas appliances, New York imports fossil fuel energy from nearby states to meet its own energy needs.
If enacted, the Borrello ban could extend to the 6,000-plus byproducts of fossil fuel extraction and refining – products that range from eyeglasses to credit cards, water pipes, nail polish, life jackets, and toilet seats. The typical automobile today is made with about 260 pounds of plastics – all made from fossil fuels. But even a ban on fossil fuels that did not exclude its byproducts would greatly increase the cost (and the waste generated) for every one of these byproducts.
Geyer boasts that because society survived banning leaded gasoline and chlorofluorocarbons, a ban on fossil fuels is quite feasible. All we need is substitutes – and not only do they exist, but they are cost-competitive via utility-scale solar and wind power. Heat pumps, he assures us, frequently reduce the cost of heating. To zealots like Geyer, cost and materials availability do not matter. Pass the Kool-Aid, please.
Attending the multitude of net zero fossil fuel rallies is so exhilarating. Speaker after speaker reassures us that by spending tens of trillions of dollars (or euros or yen) over the next seven years, we can achieve total freedom from fossil fuels by 2030! Or at least by 2045 (if the planet does not catch on fire because we procrastinated too long).
Throwing cold water on such euphoria seems almost evil, but then again, economics has long been called the “dismal” science. Replacing fossil fuels just for transportation will require that every piece of mining, farming, construction, and other heavy equipment be electrified in the next decade or two. But is that even technologically feasible – and can society afford the price?
Modern agriculture, which feeds most of the world, depends on fleets of heavy-duty vehicles and machinery – from pickup trucks to massive tractors and combines weighing up to 15 tons. The workday for these vehicles is dawn-to-dusk, often at multiple worksites. It would take massive batteries with ultra-fast recharging [often in the field kilometers from electric outlets] for an electric combine or tractor to match the performance of today’s diesel-powered equipment.
Despite the challenges, British analysts Peter Harrop and Michael Dent believe the market for electric vehicles in the construction, agriculture, and mining industries could grow to $100 billion annually. Kubota and John Deere have created concept model electric tractors that would allow autonomous operation, and several companies have built 30- and 40-horsepower tractors and farm utility vehicles.
But it’s a big step to go from prototype and limited applications to widespread manufacture and adoption by the cost-conscious farming community. Many farmers’ fields are not contiguous. Combines used only a few weeks a year must run nonstop for the days they operate without returning to the charging station (likely at the barn).
John Deere has announced plans to introduce an electric option in each Turf and Compact Utility Tractor category by 2026 but has no plans to offer battery-electric combines or large tractors. “It simply isn’t feasible,” explained Jennifer Hartmann, Deere’s director of public relations. What is feasible to meet the challenges agriculture faces to balance the capabilities of electric power and the need for power at scale and size, she added, is “a blend of electric and combustion power, including clean biofuels.”
In the construction zone, the British company HS2, in 2022, introduced that nation’s first electric crawler cranes. At the time, only five of these giant Liebherr cranes had been built worldwide, but HS2 intends to achieve diesel-free construction sites by 2029. But how long will it take to replace the world’s 200,000 giant construction cranes (most of which are in Asian countries) with their electric counterparts? And at what cost (given that cranes cost up to $5 million apiece)?
Emissions from mining operations include diesel emissions from mobile equipment, electric power generation (and usage), and supply chain and transport. Total emissions vary widely depending on the type of ore being mined. Switching from diesel to “sustainable” fuels (biofuels or synfuels) would increase costs by up to 15 percent while reducing carbon dioxide emissions by 70 percent. Switching to either hydrogen fuel cells or full battery-electric will require significant capital investments, as giant mining dump trucks also cost up to $5 million apiece.
Today, there is only one fully electric mine worldwide, but several large-scale initiatives are underway to shift mines toward fully renewable electricity. Green supply chains are as yet nonexistent, but there are efforts in the pilot stage to decarbonize giant haulage trucks. Such vehicles, too, will have much higher upfront vehicle and infrastructure costs, and there are no accurate projections regarding net cost differences over vehicle life cycles.
None of the glowing cost-benefit projections for replacing fossil fuels with “renewables” takes into account the replacement cost for products made with petroleum byproducts, nor do they factor in the cost of interest on monies borrowed to jumpstart the renewable revolution.
None of the zealots has calculated the amount, let alone the environmental cost, of providing the raw materials and infrastructure needed to build out an all-electric vehicle fleet to replace the billion or so vehicles on and off roads today powered by diesel or gasoline.
What we have in reality is a tiny percentage of consumer vehicles and even smaller or nonexistent (except in concept) agricultural and industrial vehicles – and all of these vehicles rely on fossil fuel energy for most, if not all, of their parts in one way or another.
Given the absurdity of the timetable (at the very least) these climate zealots have set for “the transition,” one has to wonder whether they are grandstanders seeking attention or goofballs whose utopian ideas do not fit with real-world economics or logistics.
Borrello believes that “Those who blindly call for New York to transition to renewable energy rapidly are perpetrating a shell game for political purposes, at great cost to our environment.” His legislation would halt further damage as we wait for renewable technologies that can be produced sustainably, ethically, and in cooperation with the goal of truly protecting our environment.”
Of course, a snowball has a greater chance of lasting in hell than sensible legislation does in New York State. But it would be fun to watch a real legislative debate with the poseurs forced either to argue for the bill or for the continued use of fossil fuels.
This article originally appeared at Real Clear Energy