“Let’s be clear: the frequent comparison of the fossil fuel and tobacco industries is nonsense. Fossil fuels are a valuable energy source that has done yeomen service for humankind.” – James Hansen, June 1, 2021
Part of the retreat of the climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists is conceding that carbon-based mineral energies have been a key, wondrous factor in human progress. BUT, it is contended, the party cannot go on….
James Hansen knows energy well enough to know what many climate alarmists/forced energy transformationists do not: it is dense mineral energy or bust. And thus he is all-in with uranium/nuclear power. Wind and solar, being dilute and intermittent, are not up for the job, he has concluded.
——————————-
“Let’s be clear,” James Hansen writes in “Fighting the Battles, Winning the War.”
… the frequent comparison of the fossil fuel and tobacco industries is nonsense. Fossil fuels are a valuable energy source that has done yeomen service for humankind…. Fossil fuels raised living standards in much of the world.
He understands energy density in this regard:
One gallon (3.7 liters) of gasoline (petrol) contains the equivalent of 400 hours of labor by a healthy adult.
Hansen explained elsewhere:
Fossil fuels are very convenient, that’s why we use them, that’s how the world moved out of the Middle Ages. I mean, we discovered this amazingly condensed energy that we could burn and every person now has the equivalent of a couple of dozens slaves, that’s how they can drive their vehicles, and can have this energy in their homes, and it raised the standard of living. But it’s come at a cost and we’d like to have an energy without the cost. And that requires making that dirty energies more expensive.
But he is not to be deterred from his current doom view:
But we now understand that fossil fuel use comes with an unacceptable cost for young people and future generations.
But with global lukewarming and a nod toward the manifold benefits of CO2 enrichment, this scare can be moderated. Stay tuned on this one, as the father of the climate alarm, has been retreating a bit even on the science.