Energy: Myth vs. Reality

Many people are grossly misinformed about the most important aspect of their lives: Energy. It’s quite astonishing.

Without reliable, affordable energy our quality-of-life crashes quickly. And yet, despite this hard reality, most people are incurious about where their energy comes from and how reliable it will be in the future.

This lack of curiosity leads people to blindly accept energy delusions that are fed to them every day by politicians, activists, and members of the media who are themselves mostly incurious and misinformed.

The list of myths that people believe about energy is much longer than could be addressed in this column. However, here are five of the biggest, most obvious lies that mostly go unchallenged.

Myth #1: An Energy Transition is Happening

People commonly conflate energy with technology. They see all the amazing changes that have happened in our world due to inventions such as computers, cell phones, the Internet, etc.

The change has happened lightning fast and they assume the same can happen with energy if only we have the will.

Except, true energy resources are fundamentally different than technology which depends on those resources for their creation. We can’t use wind turbines to make other wind turbines. Only oil, natural gas, and coal can do that. Additionally, fossil fuels don’t just provide liquid fuel for transportation, and electricity.

They also are the feedstock for all modern products and there are no economically viable replacements. Consider that in 1980 oil, gas, and coal provided 91% of all energy. With all the amazing changes that have happened in the past 40 years the world’s dependence on fossil fuels has scarcely been reduced to 84%.

Myth #2: “Net Zero” Electricity by 2035

The rush to replace coal, nuclear, and natural gas generated electricity with wind turbines and solar panels has been a colossal failure, and it will get much worse before it gets better. You can find evidence of this fact across Europe, Australia, and in the United States.

Wind & solar provide unreliable electricity that must be backed up with conventional power, which drives up the cost.

The power is typically generated at great distance from where it is consumed, so there is the additional expense of building high voltage power lines. Many people believe excess power can be stored in batteries and then used when wind/solar are not generating electrons.

This won’t work because the batteries are wildly expensive and cannot store enough juice for those times when wind/solar take extended breaks.

Europe got a nasty taste of this reality in the past year as it endured “wind droughts.” In my home state of Texas, we suffered the greatest disaster in state history in February of 2021 largely because of an overreliance on wind power that disappeared during a severe winter storm. Net Zero won’t happen in 2055, let alone 2035.

Myth #3: EVs Will Replace ICEs

Every major manufacturer of cars and trucks in the world claims it is transitioning to electric vehicles. This will not happen primarily because it will be impossible to mine enough resource materials fast enough to build all the EVs these companies say they will build.

The CEO of RivianAutomotive recently told the Wall Street Journal that the world’s battery cell production represents well under what we will need in 10 years. He said, “90% to 95% of the supply chain does not exist.

” Additionally, the rare earth minerals necessary to make batteries are also used in every other form of modern electronics. To make matters even worse, China has a near monopoly on the rare earth supply chain, performing most of the mining and nearly all the processing.

Many more mines could theoretically be opened, but even if they were, it typically takes a decade or longer to get them permitted and operational in western nations.

Myth #4: A Carbon Tax toReduce CO2 Emissions

Promoters of a carbon tax assume that if it becomes more expensive to use fossil fuels that creative people will invent new ways to power our lives. But as Myths #1, #2, and #3 demonstrate, this is an impossible task.

There are enormous technical and economic challenges in attempting to get around the use of oil, natural gas, and coal. In most cases these “alternatives” rely on fossil fuels for their creation and maintenance. In many situations, viable alternatives simply don’t exist. A carbon tax might cause people to use less energy, but only by reducing living standards.

Myth #5: “Clean Energy”

EVs are not “clean.” Batteries require massive amounts of mining and processing and then the toxic batteries must be disposed of.

Wind turbines cannot be recycled,and the blades eat up enormous amounts of landfill space. Solar panels cannot be recycled either because of impurities and toxic metals lead and cadmium as well as hazardous chemicals.

Wind and solar also eat up large quantiles of precious rare earth minerals and critical metals. No energy source or technology is “clean” but EVs, wind turbines, and solar panels are the dirtiest of all, especially when a lack of reliability and versatility is factored in.

* Speaker, documentary filmmaker, video producer, and author in energy.