Alex Epstein: Why the Future Needs More Fossil Fuels

The energy policy analyst says cheap and abundant gas, oil, and coal will continue to play a central role in human flourishing.

1x 1.1x 1.25x 1.5x 2x 3x

:15 :15

Download

Alex Epstein: Why the Future Needs More Fossil Fuels

My guest today is Alex Epstein, the author of Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less.

Two basic beliefs frequently circulate today: First, that fossil fuels are causing imminent global catastrophe and, second, that renewable energy sources (especially solar and wind) can supply all our energy needs either right now or in the very near future.

Epstein says that both of those points are wrong. He believes that fossil fuels have contributed to a warming global climate system but argues that they give us more and more mastery over the environment and their renewable replacements can't scale up to fulfill our needs. Humans, he says, are flourishing like never before precisely because oil, gas, and coal allow us to withstand a world that is very inhospitable to our living here. Wind and solar make up just 3 percent of all energy right now and forcing a fast-paced shift to renewables, he argues, would consign billions of people to poverty or death in order to stave off the impact of man-made climate change, the consequences of which have often been exaggerated and with which humans are equipped to deal. 

In this wide-ranging conversation, Epstein discusses how he came to his views, how he fought an attempted hit piece in The Washington Post by using social media, why Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) corporate rules are troubling, and how Ayn Rand influences his thinking.

Comments

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

In this wide-ranging conversation, Epstein discusses how he came to his views, how he fought an attempted hit piece in The Washington Post by using social media,

Huh, interesting. I'm watching his video now. So it looks like the WaPo is using the same "journalistic standards" it used to go after a twitter rando.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

And wait, while this guy appears to have been the target of an absolutely despicable campaign by the Washington Post (a known compromised newspaper), but if he "successfully fought" this with this video (linked in the article) the video has 687 views. That's twice as many as a video that caused the embassy in Libya to be attacked.

[CharlesWT]

The video was also viewed via Twitter and embedded on other sites that wouldn't add to the view count on YouTube.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

I figured there had to be other outlets. But... seriously, who watches 1 hour videos on twitter?

[Entelechy]

With so many lawyer-trained professional witnesses and PR flacks as friends, Epstein has become his sensible energy policy position's own worst enemy.

[KAR-n evil 9]

Boring

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Ehh, it's kind of racist so you might find it interesting.

[Mother's Lament]

Not enough child rape and cannibalism to keep his button pressed.

[KAR-n evil 9]

“Child rape and cannibalism” where have I ever mentioned those? Except criticizing the Mormon and Catholic church’s problems with it?

ML the lying aspie incel.

You’re really dumb to suck mormon cock. They put folks like you in camps.

[Overt]

What Kar-n Sees: Mormon over there! Mormon over there! You're a Mormon. Let me tell everyone about Mormons and how much I hate them. They are in my fevered dreams, I tell you. Mormons Mormons Mormons. Won't someone look out for the Mormons!!!!

What everyone else sees: Kar-n trying to find a mormon leg to hump every single day of the week.

Just find a good boy to marry and settle down already.

[MT-Man]

So is Kar-n right wing by today's media standards with a specific religous group hate?

[Hank Ferrous]

By media and academe 'standards,' yes. If one deals with facts, then, no, typical left-leaning/progressive bigot.

[KAR-n evil 9]

How am I a “left-leaning/progressive bigot?”

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

This video is interesting. I like this guy, but I also winced at his naivete.
]
@11:42 he correctly notes that "racist is the fastest /easiest way to smear someone". He then goes on to say that (and this is a very tight paraphrasing) because his writings (past and present) were so individualistic that he thought he was immune to such attacks.

Again, not every normie out there is going to spend their afternoons reading Bell Hooks, Kimberly Crenshaw and Angela Davis. But now that he's been the direct victim of a vicious attack by a major American newspaper and all the "journalistic standards" that entails, he might be better prepared in the future.

Individualism IS a racist concept. It's the product of liberal western culture which is inexorably tied in with The White Race. Individualism is EXPLICITLY called out in various CRT journals as a racist concept. He also goes on to talk about his colorblindness. Again, colorblindness is EXPLICITLY called out in various CRT journals as a racist concept. So while Mr. Epstein may not be a registered Republican, he literally thought the very things that were at the core of his philosophy would exempt him from these attacks, yet they were the very things that made him a target.

I say again, you misunderstand this shit at your peril.

Thanks, Nick this is a good find.

[mad.casual]

At the same time, anymore it's getting hard to tell even from somewhat in depth reading what's genuine naivete and what's baiting, feigning aloofness, and playing people off their own rules.

For instance, his individualism only make him immune if other people are wearing masks to protect him.

[Overt]

I agree that the worm has turned on phrases like "colorblind" and individualism. I think it gets even worse, though.

Climatology and Anti-Racism are fundamentally anti-modernity and collectivist. At their core, they are incompatible with any idea other than massive command and control of people. Now, I think that is by design because commies intentionally cloaked their ideologies in environmentalism and anti-racism, but even if it was subconscious, they will not accept anything that doesn't look like rigid, luddite command and control.

Had Epstein not been individualist, he'd have been taken down by some other complaint- his whiteness, or some scandal from his past. Or they'd just tar him as monumentally stupid, like they did to Bjorn Lomburg when he committed his acts of apostasy.

This is why climatologists sneer when you talk about geo engineering- the last thing they can tolerate is the ingenuity of free humans solving a problem- a problem tailor made to demand the centralized control of all economic activity by Top Men. The last thing they want is smart people solving problems in innovative way. That's how we got Norman Borlaug. And we can't have that, can we?

So, it isn't just that these people hold certain incorrect views, it is that we ALL do. We all have some inconvenient view that will be used to silence us if we stray from solutions where the Elite impose control in a pastoral, farm to table, grey-skinned utopia of communal housing on a planet that can only support 1 or 2 billion serfs.

[MT-Man]

Dude - Kirkland you named yourself after an anime character I don't think you have much to be superior in your smugness about.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Wrong.

Maybe you spend too much time with anime?

[Hank Ferrous]

He definitely did/does not comprehend the degree to which anti-individualism, collectivism, and marxist thought is central to the tenets of those who point and accuse using racist/sexist/homophobe/transphobe.

[Dogmai]

CRT is an explicitly racist theory through and through despite its Orwellian posturing as “anti-racist”.

Individualism is the exact opposite of racism, which is just one form of collectivism, which is the idea that groups have more moral/political/social significance than do any one particular person.

Indeed, on what grounds does CRT itself maintain that prejudging a person by the color of his/her skin over the content of their character is *wrong* or bad? CRT’s answer: it’s not bad so long as the person with the prejudice is disadvantaged along some predetermined dimension such as…wait for it…race/sex/class. Who determines what conditions constitute a disadvantage? Why, it’s those very same groups of course. Anyone who is unlucky enough to have had ancestors or internal body chemistry that does not match those groups by definition can’t complain or object because they are guilty by that fact alone. They are prejudged by their unchosen group, not by their own character.

CRT is pure evil. Pure poison and pure nihilism and should be condemned by every person on the planet.

[Rev. Arthur L. Kirkland]

Alex Epstein, the unqualified industry mouthpiece and climate change misfit with a weakness for bigoted statements?

That guy?

[MollyGodiva]

Epstein is an idiot. It is just wrong to sacrifice the environment for profit. Republicans have been making this same argument for 30 years. Had told them to stuff it back then, we would have the problem solved by now.

[Don't look at me!]

How would that have happened?

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

This is a remarkable example of the provincial attitudes and thinking of your average lefty. 'If only we'd have told Republicans to stuff it' the world would be using sustainable energy!

[MollyGodiva]

30 years of research and rolling out of clean energy technology without Republicans sabotaging it would have made a massive difference.

[creech]

Just think how many nuclear power plants would be coming on line now if we had only listened to the environmentalists and climate change warriors.

[TJJ2000]

LMAO..... "sabotaging it" --- Oh you mean ALL that STOLEN OTHER PEOPLE'S MONEY to subsidize it...

[Hank Ferrous]

Cornucopian dream-world + it's the out-group's fault. Delusional thinking is really your strong point, closely followed by the habit of making dishonest and wild assertions based on the delusion.

[TJJ2000]

Exactly......... And Republicans are stopping the average leftard from buying and purchasing sustainable energy HOW????

Oh let me guess; They're stopping it because they don't want to FORCED by Gov-Guns to Pay for someone's idiotic project that has no hope of being "sustainable".

[mad.casual]

It is just wrong to sacrifice the environment for profit.

Then maybe Elon should stop pimping electric cars that don't offset their batteries' production footprint for over 250,000 mi.... And then telling us new and better battery technology is the way to go.

[sarcasmic]

What are profits?

[TJJ2000]

Imaginary Problems are NEVER solved...
That's the WHOLE point of their mindless idiocy.....

Chicken Little just keeps screaming, "They sky is falling! The sky is falling!"

JUST Two Years ago the COLDEST temperatures since the 60s was set... F'Chicken Little and his B.S. alarm-ism. It has been PROVEN *FALSE* by reality over and over and over and over and over again... But stupid Chicken Little just keeps going with his Imaginary Problem to build a Nazi-Empire....

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

Huh, Oregon is gearing up for their next governor. Their choice is Liberal Democrat (running as unaffiliated), Progressive and a Republican (GOP hasn't been in the governor's seat for 35 years, long before most of the Reason staff was born).

The Big Worry, according to the Journolisming I've been reading is that the more moderate liberal (unaffiliated) Democrat will pull votes away from the more mainstream Progressive candidate. If only they had RCV in Oregon, then they could better guarantee keeping the GOP out of the governor's mansion. Fingers crossed, people, fingers crossed.

[Diane Reynolds (Paul.)]

By the way, all snark aside, it appears my initial theory (which people have argued against, fairly) appears to be correct. It takes a place that leans one direction... and leans it harder.

Ranked-choice voting moves Minneapolis politics left and lefter
Minneapolis has now had four ranked-choice voting (RCV) elections and some patterns are emerging. The Nov. 2 general election was the fourth since 2009 to use the method, also known as “instant-runoff” voting.

It appears that the mechanics of RCV have pushed politics in heavily Democratic Minneapolis even further to the left.

This year the incumbent Minneapolis mayor, Jacob Frey, was re-elected to a second term. Although municipal elections in Minnesota are officially nonpartisan, Frey is a member of the state’s Democratic-Farmer-Labor (DFL) party.

No identified Republican has won an election for mayor of Minneapolis since 1957, when Paul Kenneth Peterson prevailed. Peterson left office in 1961 after serving two terms, losing his bid for a third. For the past 60 years, Democrats have exclusively served as mayor, with the exceptions of one independent serving and a Republican acting mayor holding office for a handful of hours.

In state and national races, Minneapolis voters tend to support the Democratic candidates with more than 80 percent of the vote. There are districts within Minneapolis where Donald Trump received less than 10 percent of the vote in the November 2020 presidential election.

In ranked-choice voting, rather than choosing a single candidate, voters are invited rank up to three choices for each office. If no candidate receives more than half of voters’ first choices, then second and third choices are added up, until one candidate obtains a majority of voters’ preferences.

[...]

But what if a locality routinely votes for one party 80 percent of the time in conventional elections? “Partisanship,” much less “hyperpartisanship,” is not the issue when most candidates and voters represent the same political party. In such instances, RCV tries to bridge the gap — not between left and right or Democrats and Republicans — but between left and lefter, in the case of Minneapolis.

Think of politics and political ideology as a football field. RCV imagines it is trying to bridge the gap between hostile parties camped on each side’s 40-yard-line. RCV tries to get candidates to move to midfield by appealing to the other side’s moderates. But if all the candidates are crammed into one end of the stadium, then RCV is bridging a gap between factions on the 9 and 11-yard lines. It is not moving politics back toward midfield, it is pushing politics toward one goal line.

[mad.casual]

It takes a place that leans one direction... and leans it harder.

At the very least, should suggest it's more of a post- rather than pre-COVID vaccine against political extremism.

Still trying to fully practically grok Round Robin voting. Out of the gate it's clearly better than IRV. It still doesn't, IMO, address that candidates are, using the football analogy, free to run between their own 1 and the 50 (not sure that any voting system can). It also doesn't exactly address that putting 20 people on the 50 yd. line and leaving two candidates on either one yard line makes them seem like more outstanding as genuine alternatives. It does, however, address (or can) the 'vote for' vs. 'vote against' issue that IRV explicitly destroys.

[mtrueman]

"But what if a locality routinely votes for one party 80 percent of the time in conventional elections?"

It's pretty clear in that case the other party isn't trying hard enough or offering attractive candidates or policies. Jesse Ventura managed to get himself elected governor as an independent without any party affiliation. If the Republicans can't manage to get elected to office in Minnesota, that's down to them, their candidates, and their policies.

[Joe Friday]

Yes, fossil fuels are an incredible resource with amazing portability for which there are no equals. It is also non-renewable and limited which is why we shouldn't be wasting it on 3/4 ton king cab pick-ups that lawyers drive to work instead of conserving it as best we can for future generations. Or do we not GAF about our grandkids and their kids?

[mad.casual]

I know you're pretty poor on physics so I'll let you in on a little secret: nothing is 100% renewable. Nothing. The question isn't "Can you always make more of it?" because we know the answer to that question is always "No." The question is "Can you get more productive using less and less (get more efficient) until you find a larger, more available store of potential energy?" And the answer to fossil fuels for the last 100 yrs. is an unequivocal "Yes." and the answer to the question "Does transferring to renewables make us more efficient?" is unequivocally, at best, "Not for a very, very long time. If ever." Moreover, as lots of watermelons are finding out, selling people on the "It's more efficient and 100% renewable." when, in reality neither are true, undermines their cause. Makes them seem like some sort of dishonest, capitalist huckster or deceptive Russian oligarch who tells people they're going to save money with solar and that the panels will pay for themselves when, in reality, panels on the north side of your roof, closer to the poles than about the 38th parallel wouldn't pay for themselves in 100 yrs. of pristine conditions, let alone support several human lives underneath them for that amount of time.

[mad.casual]

But, don't take my word for it, there are people out there who genuinely believe we must shift away from fossil fuels (I believe the must is irrelevant and that we will) who are realizing and raising these points (if you can sit through the 10s clickbait intro):
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S1E8SQde5rk

I've been saying this essentially since before the first Tesla rolled off the assembly line. We've known physio-mechanically for a better part of a century that electric motors can't wholly replace ICEs and that hybrids are far superior to either technology, and we've known about as long, if not longer, that you will expend or waste more energy eliminating old technology by force than you will by simply allowing it to age out or fade into irrelevance. Moreover, "Just make better batteries." isn't a solution. As a century of ICE technology *should've* taught us, you can always "just" build a more powerful engine or a larger gas tank but that's a first-order solution that doesn't solve the second-order problem. We need to make better batteries that are more efficient and cost less and, again, taking money from other places and industries (via taxation) to research and build better batteries makes them look better without actually making them more efficient or otherwise better.

[Joe Friday]

Yeah mad, I know. The sun will burn out and the universe end. None of this is relevant to what do we do now keeping in mind our heirs.

[CE]

And free SUVs for All.
Everyone deserves safe, comfortable transportation.
Plus you can sleep in it if need be.

[Joe Friday]

Mad, no danger of me taking your word for anything based on your apparently drunken ramblings.

By the way, electricity is not a power source, nor are batteries unless you can capture lightning.

[mtrueman]

"and their renewable replacements can't scale up to fulfill our needs"

What exactly are our needs? The US uses about 70,000 kwh per capita. Zimbabwe about 500. In previous millennia, humans flourished enough to spread around the globe, presumably consuming less energy than that, and none of it derived from fossil fuels.

[The Encogitationer]

Fuck Off, Watermelon Rickshaw Man!

[mtrueman]

What are our needs? How much energy must you consume to flourish?