Peak Oil and the Cult of Renewables

Where the fuck are we going? As a civilization, a society, an industry, and as landmen…I can’t answer that question. I don’t have the answer. What I can say, is that we have faced challenges like this before. Things are a little different now that the cult of renewables has spread, but “Peak Oil” is a concept that has been around since the beginning of the oil industry. It has been proven wrong decade after decade. This time they are using it to mean “peak demand” rather than peak supply. Is the end of the petroleum/fossil fuels industry something in the future? Yes. Maybe. Probably, and hopefully. Full tilt on this rant…it’s going to happen, eventually. SOMEDAY.

Is that 10 years from now? Probably not. 20? Maybe. 30? Could be. I don’t know. What I do know is that we do not have the technology to completely abandon fossil fuels yet. So many essential items are made from petroleum products without any substitutes right now, it’s just not possible to go completely “green.” Let’s get a little deeper into what the green label really means…because solar panels are not carbon neutral. The wind turbines are a huge problem, because…holy shit, they’re made with carcinogens AND ALL KINDS OF OTHER CHEMICALS.

Wind Turbine Farms

Do you remember Gasland? The “proprietary chemicals” they kept talking about in frac fluid? What are those wind turbines made out of? If someone wants to give me a legit answer with every chemical listed, then fuck me let’s read through that. It’s proprietary. You think BP and other oil companies have decided to “save the planet” by embracing renewables? Wow, you must be dumber than the memes about you. Companies like that are doing it because it’s a new opportunity. There is no altruistic revelation that BP went through when they decided to “save the planet” instead of…doing a damn good job destroying it.

The same companies that are setting up the giant wind and solar farms are covering up the fact that their method of generating energy is just as toxic, if not more, than drilling for oil and gas. When people talk about “fracking is destroying our ecosystem” what they are really saying is that they feel more comfortable plugging things into the coal powered electrical grid and thinking they’re “doing their part.” Yes, a lot of power gets generated by wind energy in Texas. CRAZY RIGHT? That’s a bulletin point in the greenies playbook.

What’s the lifespan of a wind turbine? 20 years? 30 years? What happens to it when it reaches the end of its lifespan? You don’t want to be near one if that happens before it is disassembled. The parts are taken to a landfill, because they contain so many carcinogens that they cannot be ground up or disposed of in any other manner than to bury them. Not to mention…these things have a possibility of literally falling out of the sky, or firing blades off to possibly destroy anything in their path. You can find tons of videos on YouTube of turbines that fail.

Solar Farms

Solar panels last about 25 years, with declining efficiency. What do you do with a solar panel that is no longer effective? You throw them in a landfill just like all the other “renewables.” NEWSFLASH: IF YOU HAVE TO KEEP MAKING MORE, IT’S NOT RENEWABLE. At some point you will run out of the resources needed to MAKE MOAR. Those resources are finite. Let’s exploit the third world more just so we can feel great about offsetting OUR (current) carbon footprint. Other side note: you know where we can find large deposits of those minerals in the United States? California. Ha! We’ll never get the NIMBYs to let us mine those. Sure, the sun and the wind are going to be around forever (hopefully), but your methods of capturing that energy are transitory at best.

The economic viability of wind and solar has always been an interesting argument. Without massive subsidies and a third party market to purchase collateralized contracts over the lifespan of those systems, they are not economically viable. That’s when the greenies spout off things like “end fossil fuel subsidies!” Cool. They don’t exist, so let’s just say we ended them. Nothing changed, but we all sleep a little better at night now. My favorite argument is that “the technology won’t advance until we fully adopt it.” Sounds a lot like the logic Pelosi used when she said (about Obamacare) “you have to pass the bill to find out what’s in it.” Insert shocked face emoji.

The Cult of Renewables

When we really boil down the arguments for de-carbonization at a rapid pace, you are not dealing with people operating on logic. They are responding with emotion and a misplaced faith that their side is right and must triumph over “the (insert derogatory term here)” to save the planet. It has become a religion to them. When you present facts about the need for energy and the increasing lifespan of people in developing countries which require cheap fossil fuels, there isn’t much of an answer but it has always come back to the necessity of “sacrifice.” What they are not saying is that they don’t care if human lives are lost as a result of their political and cultural demands, because it’s “for the greater good.” They have joined a cult and their savior is “renewables.”

It’s not hard to imagine a future where you are only allowed a certain amount of energy per day, because it all has to come from “renewable sources.” Green outs are probably a term they’ll be using in California in the next couple of years. It’s just a “temporary inconvenience” that you cannot heat or cool your home, or actually get your job done, because we are literally saving the planet brah! But you better believe there will be exemptions for things that the greenies deem “necessary” for their utopian dystopian society, most likely for the rich and politicians that are benefiting from the never ending crises. Can’t buy meat this week, we’ve gone carbon free! Here’s an extra ration of grasshoppers for your daily meal.

Vindictive Opposition

The idea of punishing “the other side” has been gaining traction at an alarming rate. For a long time the idea was mostly political. A new party comes to power and passes an agenda that’s directly opposed to the previous one. That’s politics. In 2020, the idea of punishing people became personal. Forcing people to get vaccinated or lose their jobs, pay more for insurance, not be allowed in public places, etc was a mainstream idea on the left. They’re still talking about it in 2023! Any opportunity to cause division is going to get headlines so politicians are stoking those flames, in hopes nobody pays attention to all the money they’re shoving into their pockets at our expense.

What’s the antidote to this mental poison? I’m not sure there is one. Maybe we just hope that people aren’t as stupid as they seem…which doesn’t look like a good option. Try to educate the greenies about the error of their ways? Heresy! Rely on the for-profit-news to disseminate factual information instead of the never ending stream of bullshit that’s making them billions of dollars? Don’t hold your breath. Will our elected politicians save us? Only if there’s a big handout involved! Maybe our educated elites will save us with their big brains and even bigger bank accounts? They’re the ones funding these nutjobs! When you can excuse almost any type of behavior under the guise of pursuing “justice,” there is no justice at all.

When Renewables Fail

Without a backup plan for baseload power generation, such as coal, natural gas, or nuclear, there will be catastrophic failures of renewables. Lives will be lost. The wreckless race to decarbonize society is going to stunt economic growth, especially in developing nations, and start to undo much of the progress humankind has made over the past century. We have seen it before and will see it again, remember all of the greenies that were saying “Texas got what it deserves” when winter storm Uri caused deaths all over the state? They will cheer on their team no matter what the cost, human or otherwise. We need a better plan.