Why Oil’s 100th Anniversary in New Mexico is Cause for Celebration
This year is the 100th anniversary of oil drilling on state lands in New Mexico. While some think that New Mexico should be ashamed to be a leading producer of oil in 2024, I think that it should be proud—and should try to produce more oil in the future.
I say this not as a member of the oil industry, but as a philosopher and energy expert who came from totally outside the oil industry and grew up in the anti-fossil-fuel environment of the Washington, DC area.
Here are 6 truths that make me believe that America and the world need to be producing more oil and other fossil fuels.
Truth 1: To decide what to do about fossil fuels and other forms of energy, we must carefully weigh their benefits and side-effects.
When evaluating what to do about a product or technology (e.g., a prescription drug), we need to carefully weigh the benefits and side-effects of our alternatives.
But most “experts” just focus on fossil fuels’ negative climate side-effects.
Truth 2: Fossil fuels for the foreseeable future will remain a uniquely cost-effective and scalable source of energy.
Fossil fuels are uniquely able to provide energy that’s cost-effective (low-cost, reliable, and versatile) and scalable (available to billions of people in thousands of places). This is due to fossil fuels’ combination of remarkable attributes—naturally stored, concentrated, and abundant energy—and generations of innovation by the industry.
Here are answers to some common myths about fossil fuels.
Myth: Fossil fuels are being rapidly replaced in an “energy transition” to solar and wind.
Truth: Fossil fuel use is 80% of the world’s energy and still growing despite 100+ years of aggressive competition and 20+ years of political hostility and massive solar and wind favoritism.(2)
Myth: Fossil fuel use will soon rapidly decline because countries know “green” energy will be cheaper.
Truth: Countries that care most about cheap energy are pro-fossil fuels.
(E.g., China, which uses mostly coal to produce “green” tech, has over 300 planned new coal plants designed to last over 40 years.1)
Truth 3: The more cost-effective and scalable energy is, the more human beings can flourish.
The more energy is cost-effective (affordable, reliable, versatile) and scalable to billions of people in thousands of places, the more people can use machines to produce the values they need to flourish on this naturally inhospitable planet.
Thanks to today’s unprecedented availability of cost-effective energy (mostly fossil fuel), the world has never been a better place for human life. Life expectancy and income have been skyrocketing, with extreme poverty (<$2/day) plummeting from 42% in 1980 to <10% today.(2)
Truth 4: Given that the vast majority of the world is energy-poor, the world needs far more energy as quickly as possible.
The world needs much more energy.
Billions of people lack the cost-effective energy they need to flourish. Three billion people use less electricity than a typical American refrigerator. One-third of the world uses wood or dung for heating and cooking. Much more energy is needed.(3)
The desperate lack of life-giving, cost-effective energy means that any replacement for fossil fuels must not only provide energy to the 2 billion who use significant amounts of energy today but also to the 6 billion who use far less. Rapidly eliminating fossil fuels would be mass murder.
Truth 5: Any negative climate side-effects of our massive fossil fuel use so far have been completely overwhelmed by their “climate mastery” benefits.
We are told that we are more endangered than ever by climate because of fossil fuels’ CO2 emissions.
The truth is that we have a 98% decline in climate disaster deaths due to our enormous fossil-fueled climate mastery abilities: heating and cooling, infrastructure-building, irrigation, and crop transport.(4)
Truth 6: Mainstream climate science predicts levels of warming and associated climate changes with which human beings can continue to master and flourish.
Here are answers to several common myths about mainstream climate science.
Myth: Future warming is ominous because heat-related death is already such a catastrophic problem.
Truth: Even though Earth has gotten 1°C warmer, far more people still die from cold than heat (even in India)! Near-term warming is expected to decrease temperature-related mortality.(5)
Myth: We face catastrophically rapid sea level rises, which will destroy and submerge coastal cities.
Truth: Extreme UN sea level rise projections are just 3 feet in 100 years. Future generations can master that. (We already have 100 million people living below high tide sea level.)(6)
Myth: Hurricane intensity is expected to get catastrophically higher as temperatures rise.
Truth: Mainstream estimates say hurricanes will be less frequent and between 1 and 10% more intense at 2° C warming. This is not at all catastrophic if we continue our fossil-fueled climate mastery.7
These 6 truths have convinced me that fossil fuels are a near-term, irreplaceable source of the energy humans need to flourish.
With fossil fuels, billions more people can have the opportunity to flourish. Without them, billions of energy-starved people plunge into poverty and early death.
New Mexico should be proud to play a role in improving the futures of billions of people.
References
- As of July 2023, China has over 300 new coal-fired power stations in various planning and construction phases.
“Global Energy Monitor – Coal Plant Tracker, Coal Plants by Country” (Power Stations)
https://globalenergymonitor.org/projects/global-coal-plant-tracker/summary-tables/ - World Bank Data – Poverty headcount ratio at $1.90 a day (2011 PPP) (% of population)
https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SI.POV.DDAY - “IEA – Access to affordable, reliable, sustainable and modern energy for all”
https://www.iea.org/reports/sdg7-data-and-projections
A Question of Power: Electricity and the Wealth of Nations, Robert Bryce
https://www.amazon.com/Question-Power-Electricity-Wealth-Nations/dp/1610397495/ - “UC San Diego – The Keeling Curve”
https://keelingcurve.ucsd.edu/
For every million people on earth, annual deaths from climate-related causes (extreme temperature, drought, flood, storms, wildfires) declined 98%–from an average of 247 per year during the 1920s to 2.5 per year during the 2010s.
Data on disaster deaths come from EM-DAT, CRED / UCLouvain, Brussels, Belgium – www.emdat.be (D. Guha-Sapir).
Population estimates for the 1920s from the Maddison Database 2010 (https://www.rug.nl/ggdc/historicaldevelopment/maddison/releases/maddison-database-2010), the Groningen Growth and Development Centre, Faculty of Economics and Business at University of Groningen. For years not shown, population is assumed to have grown at a steady rate.
Population estimates for the 2010s come from World Bank Data (https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/SP.POP.TOTL). - Zhao et al. (2021)
https://doi.org/10.1016/S2542-5196(21)00081-4
Bjorn Lomborg – Climate Change Saves More Lives Than You’d Think
https://www.wsj.com/articles/climate-change-heat-cold-deaths-medical-journal-health-risk-energy-cost-fossil-fuels-11631741045 - IPCC AR6, WG1
https://www.ipcc.ch/report/ar6/wg1/ - “NOAA – Global Warming and Hurricanes”
https://www.gfdl.noaa.gov/global-warming-and-hurricanes/
Article written by Alex Epstein and originally published in Focus Regional 2024 Oil & Gas edition.
Alex Epstein
Alex Epstein is an author and speaker who advocates for fossil fuels as a valuable and efficient energy source. He is the author of Fossil Fuels Improve the Planet, The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels, and most recently, Fossil Future. Alex is an expert on climate and energy issues, contributing to numerous media outlets, including The Wall Street Journal and Fox News, and often testifying before Congressional committees.
