Alex Epstein Profile picture
Nov 24, 2021 • 11 tweets • 4 min read • Read on X
Need talking points for this year's Thanksgiving energy/climate conversations?

Here's a đź§µ with my top 6.

Summary: Fossil fuels are making the world a better and better place by providing uniquely low-cost, reliable energy to billions of people--and are needed by billions more.
1: Contrary to rhetoric that we've "destroyed the planet," the world has never been a better place for human beings to live. Life expectancy and income have been skyrocketing, with extreme poverty (<$2/day) plummeting from 42% in 1980 to <10% today.
2: A root cause of today's amazingly livable world is fossil fuel. Low-cost, reliable energy enables us to use machines to be productive and prosperous. And only fossil fuels (80% of energy) provide low-cost, reliable energy for all energy needs on a scale of billions of people.
3: Fossil fuels have actually made us far safer from climate by providing low-cost energy for the amazing machines that protect us against storms, protect us against extreme temperatures, and alleviate drought. Climate disaster deaths have decreased *98%* over the last century.
4: Fossil fuels' CO2 emissions have contributed to the warming of the last 170 years, but that warming has been mild and manageable—1° C, mostly in the colder parts of the world. And life on Earth thrived (and was far greener) when CO2 levels were at least 5X higher than today's.
5: Solar and wind can't come close to replacing fossil fuels. They only provide electricity (20% of energy use)--and they don't even do that well. Because solar and wind are unreliable, they don't replace reliable power plants--they add to the cost of reliable power plants.
6: Billions of people desperately need low-cost, reliable energy, which for the foreseeable future largely needs to come from fossil fuels. 3 billion people use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator. 1/3 of the world uses wood and dung for heating and cooking.
Conclusion, part 1: The world needs to continue and expand its massive use of fossil fuels, while making sure we have the freedom necessary for genuinely cost-effective non-carbon alternatives to emerge. For example, we need to decriminalize reliable, non-carbon nuclear energy.
Conclusion, part 2: The legislation the US is on the verge of passing, called Build Back Better, should be renamed Destroy American Energy--because, by seeking to rapidly eliminate fossil fuel use, it will make American energy unaffordable and unreliable.
Happy Thanksgiving. Whoever else you thank, thank the people of the fossil fuel industry, who alone provide every form of energy we need--including the energy that enables us to fly to see loved ones. Yet they are perpetually demonized by the ignorant and hypocritical.
PS If you like my talking points, you can find a nearly limitless free stockpile at EnergyTalkingPoints.com. And for the ultimate resource on the future of energy, preorder my book Fossil Future for yourself and/or your loved ones. It comes out Earth Week 2022 (April 19).

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More from @AlexEpstein

Oct 14
Why are leading institutions so biased against fossil fuels?

Because their operating “anti-impact framework” causes them to view fossil fuels, which are inherently high impact, as intrinsically immoral and inevitably self-destructive.

A summary of Fossil Future, Chapter 3 🧵👇
An Anti-Human Moral Goal and Standard

Our knowledge system’s opposition to fossil fuels while ignoring their enormous benefits can only be explained by it operating on an anti-human moral goal and standard of evaluation that regards benefits to human life as morally unimportant.
Outside the realm of energy, an example of an anti-human moral goal at work is the scientists who, operating on the anti-human moral goal of animal equality, oppose animal testing for medical research and disregard its life-saving benefits to humans.
Read 22 tweets
Oct 2
LCOE must die.

If you ever hear anyone favorably compare solar and wind to coal, gas, or nuclear by citing a low LCOE—"Levelized Cost of Energy"—you are being scammed.

LCOE explicitly ignores "reliability-related considerations" and is therefore a garbage metric. 🧵👇 Image
You've heard it over and over: "Solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels."

You might suspect something is wrong here, because if solar/wind were so cheap their developers wouldn't always be asking for subsidies, or claim the sky is falling when subsidies are taken away. Image
The suspicious claim that "Solar and wind are now cheaper than fossil fuels" is usually justified using an intimidating-sounding metric called LCOE: "Levelized Cost of Energy."

LCOE is used all the time in prestigious publications and in government.
Read 18 tweets
Oct 1
Our “knowledge system”—the people and institutions we rely upon to research, synthesize, disseminate, and evaluate expert knowledge—consistently ignores the massive, life-or-death benefits of fossil fuels.

A summary of Fossil Future, Chapter 1 🧵👇 Image
Save the World With…Fossil Fuels?

I am going to try to persuade you of something that might seem impossible: that one of the best things you can do to make the world a better place is to fight for more fossil fuel use—more use of oil, coal, and natural gas.
Questioning the “Expert” Moral Case for Eliminating Fossil Fuels

We're told rapidly eliminating fossil fuels is the expert consensus, but consider: 1) sometimes the alleged “expert” view is wrong, and 2) eliminating fossil fuels is a radical and potentially disastrous change.
Read 32 tweets
Sep 20
Apple, Google, Meta and hundreds of other companies claim be "100% renewable" while using mostly fossil fuel electricity.

How is this possible?

Because an FTC rule called the "Green Guides" lets them buy so-called "credits" to count others' solar and wind use as their own. 🧵👇 Image
No significant US company is close to being "100% renewable," since all such companies rely on the mostly fossil fuel electricity grid.

But in 2012, the Obama FTC rewrote a guidance document called the "Green Guides" to let companies falsely claim to be "100% renewable" anyway.
The FTC has published the "Green Guides" since 1992 to specify what constitutes deceptive environmental marketing claims under The FTC Act.

In particular the Green Guides specify when it is misleading—and therefore illegal—to claim to use a given amount of "renewable" energy.
Read 20 tweets
Jul 1
Senate fails to terminate Green New Scam

The Senate bill *looks like* it has a 2027 "placed in service" cutoff for new solar/wind subsidies.

But one last-minute paragraph makes it worthless—because projects making a recoverable 5% investment in the next 12 months are exempt!

The idea of a 2027 "placed in service" cutoff was that new subsidies would actually end during the Trump administration.

But under the last-minute carveout, Big Green has 12 months to initiate as many subsidized projects as it wants using the insanely-easy-to-meet "construction" threshold. (All you need to do is commit 5% of expected project cost to buying re-sellable assets like solar panels.)

Once they declare "construction"—e.g., in July 2026—they'll have 4 years (e.g., July 2030) to "place in service." And then some of those projects, e.g., most wind projects, will get 10 years of subsidies.

So we'll still have wind subsidies on Donald Trump's 94th birthday!

Here's how much worse the Senate bill just got:
* Two days ago: "Placed in service" by 12-31-27—with new subsidized solar/wind projects stopping very quickly, and Trump being able to let subsidies truly end.

* Today: "Placed in service" by JULY 2030—with new subsidized solar/wind projects absolutely spamming the rid and ripping off taxpayers like never before, and Trump having no control over whether the subsidies end.

The current Senate bill is arguably worse than the original Senate Finance one. At least that bill decreased solar/wind subsidies starting in 2026 to 60%. The current bill just increased them to 100%.

The current bill is a solar/wind lobbyist's dream. It does not terminate the Green New Scam in any way, shape or form. It absolutely perpetuates it. And offensively so, I might add, by keeping the "placed in service" cutoff language so many people courageously fought for, then totally undoing it with a single last-minute paragraph that makes it worthless.

If the Senate wanted to extend the Green New Scam it should have said so, not insulted our intelligence by trying to bury the extension in one sneaky little paragraph.

PS Several Senators have already told me they didn't know about or understand this last-minute paragraph. If that's the case they should do whatever they can to fix the situation.Image
And just to be clear, NOTHING good will come out of extending the Green New Scam.
More on how a "construction" cutoff—e.g., the Senate's new "construction" by July 2026 "cutoff"—is not a cutoff but an extension.

Lobbyists love “construction” by a certain “cutoff” because they get 4 more bonus years of eligibility: a 4-year "safe harbor."

E.g., a solar/wind developer can just put a small amount of money down (5%, most of it recoverable) and it gets 4 more years to cash in the subsidy.

With the earlier Senate 2027 “placed in service” cutoff—no exceptions—new subsidized solar/wind projects would slow to a crawl by early 2026. And President Trump could ensure that subsidies would terminate during his term.

But under the final Senate bill's exemption for projects in "construction" by July 2026—which TOTALLY EXEMPTS PROJECTS FROM "PLACED IN SERVICE" BY 2027—these new unreliable projects will spam our grid at least through 2030 (4 years after the "construction" pseudo-cutoff).

Using the 10-year PTC (Production Tax Credit) subsidy, wind farms will still be collecting subsidies on President Trump’s 94th birthday in 2040!

This disaster for our grid and our budget is unfortunately the best-case scenario for the Senate bill.

Realistically, by extending eligibility for new subsidies well beyond President Trump’s term, the proposal makes it likely that future administrations and Congresses will extend solar and wind subsidies yet again—just as previous ones have done for over 30 years!Image
Read 5 tweets
Jun 30
Dear US Senators,

Here is a refutation of every lobbyist lie that more solar/wind subsidies are good for electricity.

FACT: SUBSIDIES HAVE PROVABLY REDUCED CAPACITY + RELIABILITY—AND INCREASED PRICES.

More subsidies can only make things worse.

Vote against extending them!

⚡️
Senators are deluged by lobbyists who say solar/wind subsidies have been great for America—and that the Senate needs to pass @joniernst's amendment to extend them.

But the Administration's top experts know the truth: these subsidies are a disaster the Senate needs to terminate. Image
@SecretaryWright @SecretaryBurgum Chris Wright, Secretary of Energy, this year called IRA solar and wind subsidies “lunacy,” “a big mistake,” and “political posturing that results in higher costs and less reliable electricity.”
Read 22 tweets

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