Transition is having a rough time of it lately. There is backlash around the risky practice of facilitating gender transitions in vulnerable teens, or even younger children, and the physical realities and human demands of the modern world keep interfering with the urgent need, so said, to transition from energy that is provided by combustible fuels like oil, natural gas, and coal to energy that is supplied by cleaving the wind and basking in the sun.
It would be nice, I guess, if harvesting energy by cleaving the wind and sunbathing was all the things that proponents claim it to be: cheap, reliable, and renewable. Sadly, it is the opposite: expensive, intermittent, and in need of regular replacement. I need not go into the details of why wind and solar are not what they are said to be. These are regular topics for the slate of talented Substack authors that write about the short lifespans of wind turbines and solar arrays, the upward trend of electricity prices when replaceables are introduced, and the threats to grid reliability that come with dependence on zero-inertia energy sources that show up when they feel like it as opposed to when they’re needed.
One of the talented Substack authors I had in mind in the last paragraph is Emmet Penney, who writes Nuclear Barbarians. I am a recent subscriber to his collection of essays, but I am very impressed. Emmet, in his recent piece on Industrial Cathedrals, writes about our nation’s industrial achievements with a proper veneration.
I no longer find the climate-oriented view of energy policy viable for stewarding our industrial commons. I want to move beyond climatism and environmentalism as the prisms through which we view energy and industry. Why should we feel ashamed for the achievements of our civilization and all the sacrifice they demanded? Why should we surrender the patrimony of our Declaration and natural rights to ecology, as many environmentalists have called for? It is all so much blackmail, a cross between delusion and sabotage. No, the truth is nearer to Lincoln’s reckoning: “All creation is a mine, and every man, a miner.”
The last sentence, Lincoln’s profound thought, is a reframing of the verse from Genesis: So God created mankind in his own image, in the image of God he created them; male and female he created them. If we are created in his image, then we too are creators.
The infrastructure, the industry, the intricate system of power sources and transmission lines that support our modern lives, all of it was created. With vision, and imagination, and work, it was created. It will take those attributes and more to sustain and improve it for the 21st century and beyond. The replaceables cannot maintain what we have, and forget about expansion and improvement. They are Gatsby energy sources, lazy, decadent, and narcissistic, happy to lay about and bask in the adulation of cheerleaders while home and business owners wonder why the lights are out. I stumbled on a quote from Sir Roger Scruton, the English philosopher and writer, now deceased, that echoes the sentiments of Emmet Penney.
We do not merely study the past: we inherit it, and inheritance brings with it not only the rights of ownership, but the duties of trusteeship. Things fought for and died for should not be idly squandered. For they are the property of others, who are not yet born.
Fortunately, there are individuals and companies out there who are doing their part to sustain and grow the industrial gifts and associated prosperity our ancestors bequeathed to us. In the piece I wrote in the aftermath of COP28, titled A COP28 Carol, I listed some bullet points from a weekly oil and gas exploration report that I receive from Enverus. The point was to illustrate that if the transition away from fossil fuels is inevitable, ongoing, and accelerating, as it is often declared to be, then you might expect the exploration news to reflect those sober facts and not be so exuberant. I’m here to report that the exuberance continues.
I spent two hours yesterday afternoon with a group of geoscience students at our local university, which is the University of Louisiana at Lafayette (ULL). I was there with two other professional geoscientists and the objective of the meeting was to help the students improve their resumés. The geology school at ULL has tradtionally had a strong focus on petroleum geoscience that reflected the vibrancy and long tenure of the south Louisiana oil and gas business. An example of the focus and excellence of the petroleum geoscience curriculum at ULL is the success that university teams have had in the Imperial Barrel Competition (IBA). The IBA is an international competition held every year since 2007. In it, teams of five students from universities around the world are given a geoscience dataset that they must analyze. The data is different every year but typically includes basin geology, well log and geophysical data, an outline of the petroleum system, and infrastructure elements. Teams use modern software and technology, and work with industry and faculty advisors to perform resource assessments and determine their financial viability. The competition concludes with presentations to industry experts who grade the teams on technical quality, clarity, and originality. ULL has fielded a team for every competition since inception and is the only university to win three times at the international level. ULL teams also have two runner-up awards from international competition, and a number of wins and podium spots in regional competition.
In recent years, as the geoscience community in Lafayette has dwindled with the consolidation of large companies to Houston, and the oil and gas business takes its daily whippings in the press, an increasing number of ULL geology students have focused on environmental geology. Even with this change, the recent IBA teams have done very well. The 2023 team won the North American regional competition and was runner-up to the team from King Fahd University in the international event.
There were about 15 students at the resumé workshop. I visited with six of them on a one-to-one basis. I was mildly surprised to learn that five of the six want to work as petroleum geoscientists. Are they so engrossed in their studies that they have not heard we must “end fossil fuel?” It seems doubtful on a college campus. My hope is that more young people are developing the clear vision required to see through the slings and arrows of alarmist rhetoric. The major oil and gas companies are developing some thicker skin of their own. Exxon has finally had its fill of activist investors filing shareholder proposals related to climate change. They are pursuing a lawsuit against two investment groups, Arjuna Capital and Follow This, even after the groups said they would retract their climate change proposals. Anecdotally, young geoscientists and engineers are finding it easier, and more lucrative, to land jobs with major oil and gas companies. Chalk that up to how effectively the oil and gas industry has been poisoned in the minds of young people, and the flood of significant projects (see below) that shows no signs of ebb, or transition.
Conoco Phillips Willow Project: After making an FID for its Willow oil project in Alaska in late December, ConocoPhillips has wasted no time mobilizing 1,200 workers to begin building gravel roads and gravel pads for facilities and to begin laying pipelines … Of the $7.0-7.5 billion in capex needed to reach first production, Conoco anticipates spending at the upper end of a $1.0-1.5 billion range in 2024 … Willow is expected to produce 600 MMbo over its lifetime using a central processing facility with capacity to handle 180,000 bo/d and 250 MMcf/d. First oil is expected in 2029.
Chevron Permian activity: Chevron’s Permian operations produced a quarterly record of 867,000 boe/d in 4Q23 and delivered 10% YOY growth in 2023 overall. The supermajor ran 12 rigs in the basin during the quarter … Chevron expects to achieve 1 MMboe/d from the region in 2025.
Imperial Oil (ExxonMobil) oilsands project: Imperial Oil reported the start of steam injection into the Grand Rapids formation at its Cold Lake oil sands project, representing the first commercial-scale application of solvent-assisted steam-assisted gravity drainage after several years of development. The initial steam injection phase started in December is expected to last until the end of Q1, with production ramping up to nameplate capacity of 15,000 bbl/d over the following months. SA-SAGD could reduce greenhouse gas intensity of what is some of the world’s highest-emissions crude by up to 40% compared to existing cyclic steam stimulation technology used at Cold Lake and is a 10-20% improvement over conventional SAGD, Imperial said.
Equinor Update: At its Capital Markets Day on Feb. 7, Equinor made the case for its continued strong oil and gas production and cash flow to at least 2035. The company expects to grow production more than 5% annually through 2026—it produced 2.08 MMboe/d in 2023—and to still have 2 MMboe/d of net production globally by 2030. Much of its output will continue to come from the Norwegian Continental Shelf, where it expects to be able to maintain net production at or above 1.2 MMboe/d until at least 2035. The Norwegian producer currently has 21 projects in the execution phase, all of which it said have breakevens below $35/boe, average payback times of 1.5 years based on $75/ bbl crude prices, and less than 4 kg/boe of Scope 1 CO2 emissions. The project portfolio, which largely consists of tiebacks to existing infrastructure, will add a combined 250,000 boe/d to Equinor’s net production.
The world uses 100 million barrels of oil every day. I often wonder where it all comes from. And then I read snippets of exploration and production news like the ones listed above, and I realize that every day, there are hundreds, if not thousands, of announcements and pronouncements that herald a new discovery here and a production enhancement there. Some are tiny and only traded between friends at a small-town petroleum club. Some are massive and ricochet through the channels of major news organizations. They add up.
Emmet followed his piece on Industrial Cathedrals with some reporting and comment on the climate suit recently filed by the city of Chicago and its Mayor, Brandon Johnson. The piece is titled How to Entrench Decline. The suit is filed against six major oil and gas companies, and the American Petroleum Institute (API) for “climate deception.” Are they not aware of the similar attempt filed by former New York State Attorney General Eric Schneiderman? And of its ignominious end? Or are they just running cover for their own incompetence and mismanagement, as autocrats tend to do—find a villain to blame, signal that you’re fighting back, and absolve yourself of all responsibility for the lousy infrastructure and sad state of your town/city/state/country. Emmet says the latter.
This lawsuit reveals climatism’s ultimate political logic: scapegoating and lawfare to avoid the difficult work of building and stewarding infrastructure. It’s a self-exculpatory justification for decline via the moral license of environmentalism.
There are attempts to draw parallels between the recent lawsuits against oil and gas companies and the landmark decisions against tobacco companies in the 1990s. There are two problems with this. The first is that the connection between cancer and smoking has been supported by epidemiological studies and experiments dating back to the early 20th century. The attribution of severe weather to CO2 emissions does not possess that level of certainty. Despite what the climate industrial complex tries to claim, there are credible scientists and credible theories that question the paradigm that a heavy rainstorm in Chicago must have been made worse by combustible fuels and their associated CO2 emissions.
The second is that tobacco use does not provide any legitimate utility. The farmers who grow tobacco plants and the companies that make cigarettes and other tobacco products make a living from the industry, but the user gains nothing save the dopamine rush when the nicotine hits the brain. It makes you feel good, nothing more. Alcohol is the same. I’ve never been a smoker, but I like beer, good wine, and a quality cocktail. Alcohol is a depressant, but it can also stimulate and reduce inhibition, making us more relaxed, or more animated. I like the taste, and to a point, the brain alteration, but I cannot legitimately argue that it has made my life better. Medical studies that claimed health benefits associated with moderate consumption of alcohol, especially red wine, are being countered by more recent work that rejects that correlation. Still, I choose it freely, just as smokers choose to buy cigarettes, and we all choose to buy gasoline, diesel, propane, and natural gas. There are potential side effects associated with all these products, but only one category, hydrocarbon fuels, can claim to enhance people’s lives. We burn these elixirs and run our businesses, heat and cool our homes, cook our food, and obtain the freedom to explore the world. Comfort, wealth, travel, leisure, and good health—all derive from the affordable energy supplied by fossil fuels. Chicagoans reap these benefits as well. Good luck with the lawsuit.
🖤 Like this post or have your brain altered.
Climate hysteria is about social control, its not about the environment. Oil and Nuclear - more of both please.
Fabulous piece. I could write quite a bit in response because -
1) I happily worked for 30 years in downtown Chicago, so this lawsuit elicits very strong emotions. I'll just go with disgust and stop there.
2) Over 20 years ago I invested in the common stock of a cigarette company. That was based on firsthand knowledge that when governments get ongoing money from a corporation, they ultimately don't want it to go out off business (it's called payola):
"The attorneys general of 46 states signed a settlement agreement in 1998 with the nation's largest tobacco companies. The agreement requires the tobacco companies to make annual payments to the states in perpetuity as reimbursement for past tobacco-related costs."
3) I like wine....a lot. In fact, I had a hard look in the mirror at Christmas and decided my 25 year daily habit had reached a point of "too much". It's very seductive given the aura around wine has more high brow association than other alcoholic beverages (and even claims of positive health attributes). Too much is just too much. Two months hence I've managed to cut back what I intended. We shall see.