Someone forgot to tell Jagdeo…
Kaieteur News Texas is the location of ExxonMobil headquarters. But not all oil produced in that state could prevent the rash of deaths and suffering caused by sub-zero temperatures that are now sweeping that part of the United States. Nor could the State investment in wind energy.
The arctic cold that swept this State over the past week is a wake-up call for climate change, fossil fuel development and the inequalities in the capitalist heartland. Despite the decline in aggregate greenhouse gas emissions over the past year due to the pandemic and the consequent slowdown in economic activity, extreme weather events are still occurring. It would seem as though Mother Earth is not only rebel against the air pollution.
The arctic freeze is also a warning to Guyana’s Vice President, Dr. Bharrat Jagdeo, who thinks fossil fuels may be on their way out. Because of this he feels that Guyana should therefore maximize its oil production as soon as possible. Essentially, its depletion policy is held by the myth, “Drill Baby Drill! Baby Pump Pump! ”
Texas reminds us that fossil fuels will be needed well into the next century. The power went out to millions of Americans this past week. The interference was not entirely caused by disruption to power plants and lines. It was also caused by the surge in demand as temperatures dropped and people needed more heat. The power plants – including the renewable energy plants – in Texas could not keep up with rising demand.
All of this punishes Vice President Guyana’s assumption that fossil fuels have a short shelf life. Given the extreme weather events happening around the world and the resulting power outages, Jagdeo’s theory about the decline of fossil fuel consumption and investment is inconsistent with reality.
Texas is America’s largest oil and natural gas producer. And it now says it is committed to increasing, rather than reducing, investments in fossil fuel development. A report in the Houston Chronicle, states that legislators are now demanding more use of fossil fuels in the State’s energy mix and less renewable energy. One legislator has already warned of the dangers of too fast a transition to renewable energy.
And while not all the blame for Texas’ energy woes should be laid at the feet of renewable energy, the power interventions have certainly exposed the shortcomings of an over-reliance on renewable energy sources. For one, it is extremely expensive and inefficient to store this kind of energy. Renewable energy has to be stored in batteries and this is expensive and also makes it difficult to resume supply in the event of sudden and large demand such as what happens during arctic ice. Second is that renewable energy sources have become exposed to breakdowns during extreme weather. During last week’s arctic blast, frozen windmills became inactive.
The first of all this is that the world will have to continue to rely on fossil fuels for a long time. As one headline blamed, “the Texas winter storm highlights the importance of fossil fuels.” That report notes that, in Europe, which is pushing for lowering emission levels, solar and wind power production are declining in many states. He points out that Sweden has experienced a significant decline in wind power generation and has been forced to import energy from Poland and Lithuania. In terms of solar power, the report notes that extreme cold weather in Europe has also ruined this source of energy production with, for example, Slovenia also producing one percent of its total energy needs from solar power.
And even if US fossil fuel production declines in the coming years, this does not mean that fossil fuel-generated energy demand will ease, a difference Jagdeo seems to be not making. do. As reported in yesterday’s issue of the Kaieteur News, the United States already expects to increase crude imports by 62 percent over the next two years. The fact that Europe and America can put in place measures to cut their greenhouse gas emissions does not translate into a worldwide reduction in fossil fuel demand at any time in the future.
Oil companies are not speculating about the nature of future demand. They conduct detailed studies of these issues before making investment decisions. Exxon and its partners would not be committed to investing US $ 20B if they thought fossil fuels would be phased out over the next few years.
But apparently someone forgot to mention this to Dr. Jagdeo. No one, it seems, has taken the trouble of disabling it from the knowing and erroneous notion that it has that the world is drifting away from fossil fuels. They should do so so that it can begin to develop an appropriate Oil Spill Policy and put it in writing.
(The views expressed in this article are those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of this newspaper.)