Excerpts from:
The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels
By Alex Epstein
"There are seven billion people in the world who need cheap, plentiful, reliable energy to flourish.
Some three billion have virtually no energy by our standards, which means we need vastly more energy.
It is extremely difficult to produce cheap, plentiful, reliable energy.
In the entire history of humanity, only three industries have achieved this on any scale: the hydrocarbon (fossil fuel) industry, the nuclear industry, and the hydroelectric power industry.
The fossil fuel industry produces over 80% of the world’s power because it is the only industry that has figured out how to produce cheap, plentiful, reliable energy for electricity, transportation, and heating on a scale of billions.
Since the energy industry is the industry that powers every other industry, the fossil fuel industry increases productivity and prosperity in every area of life, from agriculture (diesel-powered farm equipment) to hospitals (24/7 electricity).
The only industries that can meaningfully supplement fossil fuel energy are the nuclear and hydroelectric industries, which are widely opposed by environmentalists.
Even without this opposition fossil fuels would still be irreplaceable for decades to come.
Hydro is limited by lack of suitable locations. Nuclear has the long-term potential to expand greatly, but is many decades away from scaling to the level of billions.
For these reasons, any restriction on fossil fuel use would do devastating damage.
This must be factored into all policy debates over restricting fossil fuels to reduce CO2 or other byproducts."
About the author:
Alex Epstein, founder of the Center for Industrial Progress, is a humanist philosopher who seeks to identify the full context of industrial and environmental controversies.
His New York Times bestseller The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels has been widely praised as the most persuasive argument ever made against climate catastrophism, and led The McLaughlin Group to name Epstein the most original thinker of 2014.