Thread by @AndrewDessler

Thread on the insipid “moral case for fossil fuels” that @emorwee wrote about.

heated.world/p/chevron-push…

A few things everyone should agree on: 1) As Amory Lovins says, people want cold beer and hot showers. No one gives 2 craps where the energy comes from. 2) Most of the energy we’ve gotten in the past is indeed from fossil fuels, so we owe fossil fuels a debt of gratitude.

So the “moral case for fossil fuels" is really about *future* energy. So what’s the case for fossil fuels being the best energy source in the future?

As I can see it, there really are no good arguments. It is true that we probably don’t have the technology to go 100% renewable today (although some will disagree with that). But with present technology we could certainly get MOST of our energy from renewables today.

If you believe in ingenuity and power of innovation of the private sector, then over the next decade or two we can develop the tech to go 100% renewable given sufficient market incentives (i.e., a price on carbon).

There are a few edge cases where energy density of liquid fuels is required (i.e., airplanes). I expect these are solvable, but they don’t represent a huge fraction of emissions, so even if we never solve them emissions can still be reduced to a small fraction of today's.

So what are the advantages of fossil fuels? I can’t see any. In particular, they're not much cheaper than renewables (esp. if you include the externalities).

But I see lots of disadvantages. The obvious one is climate change. Making the moral case for fossil fuels requires ignoring this. Thus, climate denial is a key part of the moral case.

There’s also air pollution, which kills millions of people worldwide and tens of thousands here in the US. Making the moral case for fossil fuels requires ignoring these deaths.

There are lots of other problems with fossil fuels: oil has punishing prices swings, which can destabilize our economy. Coal produces coal ash, which is itself an environmental catastrophe. Fracking causes earthquakes & water pollution.

So I see zero “moral case for fossil fuels”. The case is built on logical errors + science denial.

In fact, it appears to me that the opposite is true: any plan other than ramping down fossil fuels as fast as possible & transitioning to renewables seems quite immoral.

quick addendum: if you want to know what kind of intellect Alex Epstein is, listen to this snippet of him interviewing Dick Lindzen.