Unless you’re living in a time warp of the horse and buggy days, when humans were friendlier to the environment, but limited to travel as far as they could walk or as far as their horse would take them, you’re stuck reminiscing on those good-old emission free days without fossil fuels when lives were dirty, smelly, difficult – and short.
Today, for those enjoying the lifestyle of the industrialized society, virtually everything you see, touch, and use in your daily life is derived from the benefits of our use of the fossil fuels that have revolutionized our infrastructure and contributed to the ever reduction in infant mortality and is the major contributor to the longest life expectancy in history.
The development of the internal combustion engine at the beginning of the 20th century, combined with the introduction of mass-produced affordable personal vehicles, trucks, buses, trains and airplanes powered by transportation fuels manufactured from crude oil got people moving on an unprecedented scale. And we haven’t looked back since.
Long before humans and industrialization arrived, Mother Nature had been creating global warming and cooling cycles. Today, the environment, California’s energy portfolio mix, and climate change are always discussed together. Currently, in California alone 10,000,000 gallons of aviation fuels are consumed daily for commercial and military aviation, and 50,000,000 gallons of gasoline and diesel are consumed each day by the 35 million registered vehicles – only 3 percent are powered by alternative fuels.
Worldwide, the consumption of aviation fuels, astoundingly, is in excess of 225 million gallons of aviation fuels every day. Cruise ships’ fuel consumption on average is roughly 30 to 50 gallons of fuel per mile. Complimentary to the aviation and cruise liner industry are the billions of gallons of transportation fuels, also manufactured from crude oil, being consumed to get passengers back and forth from airports, ports and hotels.
For America’s armed forces, the strongest in the world, California is home to more than 30 military installations and over 168,000 of our war fighters, all of which rely on fossil fuels and products derived from crude.
More important than the transportation fuels for the military and commercial aviation needs, as well as business, personal and leisure travel, are the related chemicals and by-products from crude oil that have revolutionized our infrastructures and products that directly enhance and improve our quality of life. Keep in mind, while many people assume fossil fuels merely power transportation vehicles, the fact is that batteries, rubber tires, asphalt, iPhones, and solar panels and are all manufactured from chemicals and materials derived from the fossil fuels.
Renewable electricity in California is currently projected to be 50 percent of all installed by 2020, a decade ahead of schedule. And while alternative and renewable energy sources are beneficial to reducing emissions wind and solar are only able to provide intermittent electricity to the grid, but cannot manufacture the chemicals and by-products manufactured from fossil fuels that are the basis for aviation, military, NASA, cruise liners, trucks and vehicles and all the components of every infrastructure and modern civilizations’ industries.
In the decades to come, in addition to the intermittent alternative energy for the electrical grid from wind or solar we will need to find replacements for the plentiful, reliable chemical ingredients and by-products from fossil fuels that have been supporting global growth and the health and well-being of the world’s population.
This energy reality seems to have been lost on California lawmakers, some of whom are now pursuing legislation that would require a severe cut in the use of vehicles that run on internal combustion engines in the near future. Hopefully they will change course before their good intentions send our state back to the horse and buggy days.
Ronald Stein is founder of PTS Staffing Solutions, a technical staffing agency that serves the energy industry.
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