“If you want to continue to be frustrated with a failing worldview, stay in your present state of denial. If you want to better understand reality and be happier, a different worldview based on sound intellectual premises and comporting to the real world awaits. The choice is yours.”

In a recent piece in DRILLED, climate activist Amy Westervelt asked: “Why is Fairness Being Ceded to the Fossil Fuel Industry?” The simple answer is the physical fact of energy density and the verdict of billions of us all day, every day, resulting in a global market share of fossil fuels of 82 percent. (And that percentage should be 90 percent or so if government was energy-neutral.)

Ms. Westervelt should read Vaclav Smil to understand what energy density is (the sun’s work over the ages); why it drives energy markets (superior economics); and why renewables are worse for the environment (land and other infrastructure bloat).…

Two planets are talking to each other. One looks like a beautiful blue marble and the other a dirty brown ball.

“What on earth happened to you?” the beautiful planet asks the brown one.

“I had Homo sapiens,” answers the brown planet.

“Don’t worry,” says the blue planet. “They don’t last long.”

Climate alarmism has turned into a big funny. The above, a joke at COP26 recalled by Thomas Friedman, says much about the stalled-out Church of Deep Ecology. It seems that enough governments are self-interested to slow down the march on road to serfdom–and a lot of Homo sapiens really care about energy affordability and reliability.

So much for the quixotic quest to substitute dilute, intermittent energies for dense mineral energies.

Of course, the energy intelligentsia refused to deal with that stubborn thing called Energy Density, opting for a blank check for wind, solar, and batteries.…

“While incremental improvements can be expected with biomass, wind and solar, what is needed for them to become viable is an order of magnitude increase in productivity…. As significant future energy sources these technologies are dead ends, which is why the government, and not the private sector, is funding them.”

When it comes to power, density is the key. Energy density. The reason that solar power, wind power, and ethanol are so expensive is that they are derived from very diffuse energy sources. It takes a lot of energy collectors such as solar cells, wind turbines, or corn stalks covering many square miles of land to produce the same amount of power that traditional coal, natural gas, or nuclear plants can on just a few acres.

Each of these alternative energy sources is based on mature technology.…

Editor note: Del Torkelson of The American Oil & Gas Reporter covered Robert Bryce’s address talk to the Permian Basin Petroleum Association at its annual meeting in Midland last October. Torkelson’s  summary is reprinted with permission.]

“One of the reasons I wrote Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future (Public Affairs: 2010) is that our discussions are fundamentally wrong-headed,” author and journalist Robert Bryce told the Permian Basin Petroleum Association.

“Politicians generally do not understand the issues of energy and power, and in particular, the issues of scale.”

Bryce expounded on a number of key themes, including density, the distinction between energy and power, and the future of natural gas and nuclear generation. He also pointed to signals that suggested ordinary citizens were losing patience with green energy sources.…