True Cost of Ending Fossil Fuel Use

The Biden administration’s policy to electrify cars, stoves, and appliances, decarbonize the electrical grid, and achieve net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050 will have minor effects on global temperatures while imposing trillions of dollars in costs to the U.S. economy. In 2019, the United Kingdom imposed similar plans to reach net-zero by 2050. This has had disastrous effects on the country and should serve as a warning to America.
Rupert Darwall, author of a new report, The Folly of Climate Leadership, joins us from the U.K. to caution against following Britain’s lead on net zero. University of Delaware professor David Legates discusses his new paper, “Why Seas Rise and Fall: Much More than Meets the Eye,” and Heritage Chief Statistician Kevin Dayaratna weighs in on alternative paths for the U.S. Don’t miss this conversation.
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[@senbrisbane5352]

Fossil Fuels was first coined by whom? It's weird how this term came about.

[@NickvanBast]

There's an excellent book by Rupert Darwall "The Green Tyranny" about the origins of the green movement. The origins of those expressions is Sweden and the UK. Thatcher used the fossil fuel arguments against the striking coal workers.

[@corrysmith]

Another great discussion.

[@PeriapsisStudios2000]

Here’s some fun facts for y’all watching this. (These numbers aren’t just from the EPA. They’ve been proven by multiple studies from all over the world)
-Per terawatt-hour, energy produced using coal costs 24 human lives.
-Oil costs 18 lives.
-Nuclear costs 0.03 human lives. (And that’s including Chernobyl and Fukushima.) That’s over a thousand times safer than coal.
-There’s only enough fossil fuels left in the Earth to power humanity for 80-100 years at best.
-Using efficient breeder reactors, humanity at its current level of power consumption could power itself exclusively with the uranium in seawater for 4 BILLION years. However, given that a 1 GW breeder reactor costs around 3 billion dollars to build, and we’d need around 18,000 of them to power everything, the total cost would be in the neighborhood of 50-60 trillion dollars.
-Solar energy is cheaper than nuclear. Still, It would take a solar array 150 miles wide, costing around 15 trillion dollars, to power the world.
This may all sound like a lot of money, but a 1GW coal power plant still costs 3.5 billion dollars to build. I estimate the total cost of all the current power plants on Earth to be around 50-70 trillion dollars.
That’s still at least 3 times the cost of a global solar farm, and nuclear plants are actually slightly cheaper than coal plants. (3 billion dollars per gigawatt vs 3.5 billion, respectively.)
Point is, sustainable energy sources are no longer the “super-expensive experimental tech” that they were in the 80s and 90s. They’re cheaper, safer, and in the case of solar, far, far more reliable than most other ways of generating power. It’s not just about climate change anymore. It’s about what method is cheap and easy to maintain.
A coal fired plant needs dozens or even hundreds of employees to keep it running smoothly.
A solar plant is almost completely passive, has almost zero moving parts, and thanks to its modular design, is extremely easy to repair and maintain.
TL/DR: if you want cheap, efficient, safe, sustainable powerplants, use solar and nuclear.

[@phoenixfire6433]

I applaud your effort, but these guys have their lips metaphorically clamped round the genitalia of oil barons. They and their conditioned, hivemind fan base aren’t gonna listen.

[@NickvanBast]

Excellent stuff! Thank you for the event!