the definition of energy

I wish that US politicians and the media would stop using the word energy as shorthand for fossil fuels. The United States is banning the import of Russian oil, gas, and coal, which, while they can be burned to release energy, are not themselves energy.

Equating the word energy with fossil fuels only distorts our perception of the problems and possible solutions. Politicians and pundits panic and look for more oil and gas to replace the Russian supply, even though drilling for additional petroleum and building LNG facilities are time-consuming processes which we must not expand but scale back quickly and dramatically if we are to keep global warming under 1.5 degrees Celsius, as the recent IPCC report alarmingly illustrates.

Rather, if we consider energy more broadly, we can see other ways forward that are cheaper, quicker, and better for the environment. A couple of weeks ago, Bill McKibben published a piece outlining how President Biden could invoke the Defense Production Act to churn out heat pumps to send to Europe so that they can break away from dependency on Russian methane for heating. Bonus: this would create jobs in the US and help our country in its own transition away from fossil fuels after the immediate crisis in Europe has passed. Amazingly, McKibben’s eminently practical and sustainable idea is gaining traction and is being studied by the Biden administration.

It’s also wise and practical to take energy efficiency seriously. It’s been said that the cheapest kilowatt/therm is the one that you don’t have to use. It’s helpful to weatherize and retrofit existing buildings so that their heating, cooling, and lighting needs are lessened, making it easier to run them with available and developing renewable energy resources.

At this point, some of the electricity needed will be generated from fossil fuels and nuclear plants but it is shortsighted to expand these rather than phase them out. Developing new drilling and mining sites is a long, expensive process, as is building new plants, which come with decades of environmental and public health consequences. It is quicker, cheaper, and healthier to move to renewable energy.

The same argument goes for the electrification of transportation. Many countries are already moving toward this goal, which helps in both the environmental and political realms.

While Russia is uppermost in everyone’s minds right now, the truth is that fossil fuels have been used as a political weapon by autocrats and oligarchs around the world. (Rachel Maddow’s book Blowout tells this history in fascinating detail.) Their power will be greatly reduced by a rapid phaseout of these fuel sources in favor of wind, sun, water, and geothermal sources.

These gifts of the earth are a common inheritance.

No one owns the sun or wind.

Hate to say they told you so, but…

So the US stock market – and most of the other major world stock indices – have been tanking lately. Part of the reason given is the low price of crude oil, at a time of oversupply  and the added stress of Iranian oil entering the market.

Middle Eastern oil is cheap to produce and can still make money at $27/barrel.

US oil, especially shale oil, can not. Production costs can be double that amount, so, as one would expect, there has been a huge drop in the number of new wells being drilled.

To make matters worse, the companies were borrowing the money to drill wells, betting they could make enough profit to pay make loan payments and keep drilling.

Some economists and fossil fuel sector experts, such as Art Berman and Deborah Lawrence, had warned of a “shale bubble” which could burst, causing a wave of bankruptcies in the drilling sector and massive troubles for the banks loaning to them.

Their predictions are coming true.

We can’t say we weren’t warned.
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Shell No!

Today, we received the happy news that Shell Oil is pulling out of drilling for oil under the Chukchi Sea in the Arctic Ocean off the coast of Alaska.

Too bad that they didn’t spend the $7 billion they just wasted on Arctic drilling on diversifying into renewable energy options such as wind, solar, or tidal.

The fossil fuel companies remind me of the last whaling ships, desperately clinging to producing an energy sources whose heyday is rightfully over.

They need to adapt and re-make their companies to meet the clean energy needs of the present and future or they will become fossils themselves.