I am sure you have covered the fact that we get a lot more than gas and diesel from oil, we get lubricants, medicines, plastics, road materials, roofing, propane, wax, etc etc etc - just where does one expect to get / synthesize all of that - and if you can, at what multiple of cost 2X? 7X ? 31X ? ? ?
I live in Kenya. The guys who sell the illegal LPG don't sell it at a discount. They sell at the prevailing prices and pocket higher margins. That's why it's so lucrative and in their best interests to forgo the law. They can afford any legal fees and bribes and still make a lot of money
"Last month, Cornell professor Robert Howarth told Bloomberg, 'We need to get rid of all fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Let’s just move on and get rid of the gas system.'”
Someone needs to ask Howarth to point out a single item in a hospital trauma bay or operating room that isn't made of petroleum products, with petroleum products, or supplied to the hospital using them. Then ask him where TF he thinks those items will come from if he ever "moves on and gets rid of the gas system."
As usual Mr.Bryce is right on target. The globalist green energy advocates continue to ignore the facts, and prefer their feel good nonsense to actually helping the population of the third world.
You look good on TV! Great article Robert. The goal seems to be having Americans chasing tanker trucks for spilled fuel, not helping Africans avoid it. Made me re-watch Road Warrior.
We had a brief consulting gig in Nigeria many years ago. One of the oil majors had a huge refinery and a gasoline pipeline about 50 miles to the port. People were always drilling into the pipeline and taking gas. A genius came up with a process improvement and replaced the hand drill with an electric one and a Honda generator. The resulting explosion and fire killed a bunch of people burned a large town to the ground and knocked out a large section of pipe.
The oil company got blamed, of course. They had a tough time for a while.
The Left and their puppet masters want to phase out and prohibit the use of fossil fuels so they can have it all to themselves for their private jets, super-sized yachts, multiple massive homes, etc.
The obvious fuel for poor regions like Africa is Methanol. The West/Big Oil have blockaded methanol as a fuel since they know damn well it is the best substitute for gasoline, diesel fuel, CNG, LNG & propane. It is fanciful to believe these areas will develop the pipeline infrastructure to deliver natural gas. Propane is a difficult & expensive fuel to store & transport. Gasoline & diesel are too expensive and poor nations can't afford them. The methanol blockade is one of the most destructive policies of Western nations to regional development in developing nations.
In China, mostly in the rural regions where gas is unavailable, most people & restaurants have burnt coal for cooking, which causes a lot of pollution. What they are doing now is replacing coal cook stoves with methanol ones.
China makes a large amount of methanol from Coal, which costs ~13cents/liter to produce. Lacking the double-carbon bond, burns more cleanly than any other fuel including NG. It is also widely used for building heat, hot water and transportation. Unlike natural gas it is easy to store and transport. And is less expensive than LNG. And is far safer than the other fuel options for fire/explosion hazard, since it burns with a much gentler, cooler flame. Spills are benign, they are easily dispersed in water of which it is 100% miscible. And is rapidly dissipated by evaporation & bacteria feed on it. These advantages make it the easiest & least expensive fuel to store.
Unlike petroleum derived fuel, methanol can be made in much less expensive production plants, even in container sized units, that can be trucked to areas with a large biomass resource. Biomass --> methanol is one of the simplest and oldest chemical processes. That's why it used to be called wood alcohol. Far better to process forest overgrowth into methanol than to allow it too burn in destructive, dangerous, polluting wildfires.
Here is a pdf on Methanol cookstoves and furnaces in China:
Methanol Cookstoves and Heating Kai Zhao, China Chief Representative Methanol Institute:
In the late 1960’s my dad’s old college roommate was a Peace Corp director in Sierra Leone. The locals would steal gasoline from the central supply tank, replacing it with water to conceal the theft. When the tank was almost all water, they would stage a fire, rinse and repeat. Or so I was told.
The “socialist republic” of Victoria (actually a State in Australia) has also banned natural gas mains attachments to new home builds. We ask”How can they do that?” And there is just silence. It’s sickening to know the fate we all have in store when energy should be so plentiful…
A tell tale sign a person is a climate propagandist is if they say “end all hydrocarbons” rather than “end all hydrocarbon based transportation fuels”. The later could be achieved for most individuals and maybe even across most of the transportation sector someday. But the former is absolutely impossible to achieve. You simply cannot replace the products created by the other 75% of the Petro-barrel feedstock, with something made of wind, solar, hydro and even nuclear.
So a person can live off the land riding a horse and spend 100% of their time hunting and gathering to survive, but they cannot replicate a modern human life with “renewable” energy. So anyone advocating to “do away with all hydrocarbons” is speaking nonsensically and should not be taken seriously.
I feel like I understand the 30,000 foot view of proper climate policy well
Warming is concentrated at the poles. People die of cold stress over heat stress by 9-1. While the costs of warming will be greater in equatorial regions where the relative impact is greater the costs of climate policy are also much greater for them. Decisively, people experiencing significant costs of warming in 2100 will be much better off and able to adapt than people today can, with minimal economic forecasts for a world twice as rich as today
All of these combine to make a powerful case for responsible climate policy. But the way Robert brings it right home and puts us face to face with energy poverty may be more effective than knowing all of that
I am sure you have covered the fact that we get a lot more than gas and diesel from oil, we get lubricants, medicines, plastics, road materials, roofing, propane, wax, etc etc etc - just where does one expect to get / synthesize all of that - and if you can, at what multiple of cost 2X? 7X ? 31X ? ? ?
Keep on pluggin’! (Literally!). If asked, would u accept a position in the Dept. of Energy?
Great article!
I live in Kenya. The guys who sell the illegal LPG don't sell it at a discount. They sell at the prevailing prices and pocket higher margins. That's why it's so lucrative and in their best interests to forgo the law. They can afford any legal fees and bribes and still make a lot of money
"Last month, Cornell professor Robert Howarth told Bloomberg, 'We need to get rid of all fossil fuels as quickly as possible. Let’s just move on and get rid of the gas system.'”
Someone needs to ask Howarth to point out a single item in a hospital trauma bay or operating room that isn't made of petroleum products, with petroleum products, or supplied to the hospital using them. Then ask him where TF he thinks those items will come from if he ever "moves on and gets rid of the gas system."
As usual Mr.Bryce is right on target. The globalist green energy advocates continue to ignore the facts, and prefer their feel good nonsense to actually helping the population of the third world.
You look good on TV! Great article Robert. The goal seems to be having Americans chasing tanker trucks for spilled fuel, not helping Africans avoid it. Made me re-watch Road Warrior.
We had a brief consulting gig in Nigeria many years ago. One of the oil majors had a huge refinery and a gasoline pipeline about 50 miles to the port. People were always drilling into the pipeline and taking gas. A genius came up with a process improvement and replaced the hand drill with an electric one and a Honda generator. The resulting explosion and fire killed a bunch of people burned a large town to the ground and knocked out a large section of pipe.
The oil company got blamed, of course. They had a tough time for a while.
The Left and their puppet masters want to phase out and prohibit the use of fossil fuels so they can have it all to themselves for their private jets, super-sized yachts, multiple massive homes, etc.
The obvious fuel for poor regions like Africa is Methanol. The West/Big Oil have blockaded methanol as a fuel since they know damn well it is the best substitute for gasoline, diesel fuel, CNG, LNG & propane. It is fanciful to believe these areas will develop the pipeline infrastructure to deliver natural gas. Propane is a difficult & expensive fuel to store & transport. Gasoline & diesel are too expensive and poor nations can't afford them. The methanol blockade is one of the most destructive policies of Western nations to regional development in developing nations.
In China, mostly in the rural regions where gas is unavailable, most people & restaurants have burnt coal for cooking, which causes a lot of pollution. What they are doing now is replacing coal cook stoves with methanol ones.
China makes a large amount of methanol from Coal, which costs ~13cents/liter to produce. Lacking the double-carbon bond, burns more cleanly than any other fuel including NG. It is also widely used for building heat, hot water and transportation. Unlike natural gas it is easy to store and transport. And is less expensive than LNG. And is far safer than the other fuel options for fire/explosion hazard, since it burns with a much gentler, cooler flame. Spills are benign, they are easily dispersed in water of which it is 100% miscible. And is rapidly dissipated by evaporation & bacteria feed on it. These advantages make it the easiest & least expensive fuel to store.
Unlike petroleum derived fuel, methanol can be made in much less expensive production plants, even in container sized units, that can be trucked to areas with a large biomass resource. Biomass --> methanol is one of the simplest and oldest chemical processes. That's why it used to be called wood alcohol. Far better to process forest overgrowth into methanol than to allow it too burn in destructive, dangerous, polluting wildfires.
Here is a pdf on Methanol cookstoves and furnaces in China:
Methanol Cookstoves and Heating Kai Zhao, China Chief Representative Methanol Institute:
https://www.siew.gov.sg/docs/default-source/default-document-library/tricom_siew2021_thinktank-roundtable_cass-iags_kai-zhao.pdf
In the late 1960’s my dad’s old college roommate was a Peace Corp director in Sierra Leone. The locals would steal gasoline from the central supply tank, replacing it with water to conceal the theft. When the tank was almost all water, they would stage a fire, rinse and repeat. Or so I was told.
Global Warming/Climate Change/The Climate Crisis is a 1st world issues.
BTW wish they would make up their mind on What To Call It.
The “socialist republic” of Victoria (actually a State in Australia) has also banned natural gas mains attachments to new home builds. We ask”How can they do that?” And there is just silence. It’s sickening to know the fate we all have in store when energy should be so plentiful…
A tell tale sign a person is a climate propagandist is if they say “end all hydrocarbons” rather than “end all hydrocarbon based transportation fuels”. The later could be achieved for most individuals and maybe even across most of the transportation sector someday. But the former is absolutely impossible to achieve. You simply cannot replace the products created by the other 75% of the Petro-barrel feedstock, with something made of wind, solar, hydro and even nuclear.
So a person can live off the land riding a horse and spend 100% of their time hunting and gathering to survive, but they cannot replicate a modern human life with “renewable” energy. So anyone advocating to “do away with all hydrocarbons” is speaking nonsensically and should not be taken seriously.
Unfortunately, the response from the climate hysterics will be that we will rectify this imbalance by paying reparations to the unplugged world.
I feel like I understand the 30,000 foot view of proper climate policy well
Warming is concentrated at the poles. People die of cold stress over heat stress by 9-1. While the costs of warming will be greater in equatorial regions where the relative impact is greater the costs of climate policy are also much greater for them. Decisively, people experiencing significant costs of warming in 2100 will be much better off and able to adapt than people today can, with minimal economic forecasts for a world twice as rich as today
All of these combine to make a powerful case for responsible climate policy. But the way Robert brings it right home and puts us face to face with energy poverty may be more effective than knowing all of that
Bryce for Secretary of Energy in the next Trump administration, with Alex Epstein as his deputy. America would be a much better place.