Crude oil is seldom used for electricity, so why tinker with the supply chain?
President Biden is tinkering with the supply chain of crude oil via restrictions on exploration, fracking and importing to focus on electricity generation from breezes and sunshine, but that effort is an oxymoron, as crude oil is seldom ever used for the generation of electricity.
Most of the world’s continuous uninterruptable electricity generation is by coal, natural gas, hydropower and nuclear.
The primary usage of crude oil is for the manufacture of derivatives for thousands of products and fuels for transportation infrastructures. Tinkering with the supply chain of oil could impact the supply chain of thousands of products needed by current lifestyles and worldwide economies.
Of the three fossil fuels of coal, natural gas and crude oil, it’s only coal and natural gas that are primarily used for the generation of continuous uninterruptible electricity.
■ Natural gas is often used for generation of continuous uninterruptible electricity at extremely low emissions.
■ Coal is often used for generation of electricity, especially in poorer developing countries like China, India and Africa where they need reliable, affordable and abundant coal.
The primary usage of crude oil is for the manufacture of fuels for the many transportation infrastructures such as airlines, merchant ships, automobiles, trucks, military, the space program, and for the manufacturing of oil derivatives that are the basis of more than 6,000 products in our economy and lifestyles.
The short 100-seconds video illustrates how “Fossil Fuels are Essential to Modern Life.”
Under the Biden climate plan, America will be discouraging U.S. energy independence, starting with suspending federal oil and gas permits, encouraging the shuttering, and halting of further fracking efforts in America, the cancellation of the Keystone XL pipeline, and banning importation of foreign crude oil.
Surprisingly, Biden must be oblivious to the consequences of his plan as efforts to cease the use of oil could be the greatest threat to civilization, not climate change.
Without any crude oil to manufacture, elimination of the supply chain to the 129 operating refineries in the U.S. would eliminate that manufacturing sector. Without that American refining sector, the demands for the fuels and products that are the basis of our lifestyles and economy would need to be met by foreign refiners exporting to the USA.
Without the supply chain of crude oil, not only is the refining industry history, but the domino effects are the destructive impacts on the medical, food supply, electronics and communications industries as they are all totally dependent on the products made from oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil. Any grade school educated kid can understand that breezes and sunshine, can only make weather-dependent intermittent electricity.
By picking wind and solar as the green solution to electricity generation, the short 3-minute video from Planet of the Humans illustrates the “blood minerals” needed for green energy that’s discussed in the 2022 Pulitzer Prize nominated book “Clean Energy Exploitations — Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support Clean Energy.
Rather than picking winners and losers for electricity generation, the world should focus on the proper mix of electricity generation via coal, natural gas, hydropower, nuclear, and the renewables of breezes and sunshine, and not tinker with the supply chain of crude oil as it is seldom used for electricity generating.
While renewables continue to underperform in the generation of electricity, the innocent bystander of crude oil that is seldom used for electricity continues to be targeted for elimination along with coal and natural gas. We must be reminded ourselves that crude oil provides societies and economies with the supply chain of manufactured fuels for the many transportation infrastructures, and the manufacturing of oil derivatives, that are the foundation of thousands of products that are the basis of lifestyles.