In a particularly weird passage of his uninspiring State of the Union address, President Joe Biden went off script and, in contravention of his administration’s policy, called for more oil and gas to be extracted from the earth.
“Have you noticed Big Oil just reported its profits? Record profits,” Biden said disparagingly. “Last year, they made $200 billion in the midst of a global energy crisis. … Why? They invested too little of that profit to increase domestic production.”
A BANAL FAILURE OF A STATE OF THE UNION
Biden proceeded to argue that the United States needs to pump more crude out of the ground. Perhaps sensing the bizarre contradiction between this and his administration’s oil and gas policies, he then went off script with this: “And when I talked to a couple of them, they say, ‘We’re afraid you’re going to shut down all the oil wells and all the oil refineries anyway, so why should we invest in them?’ I said, ‘We’re going to need oil for at least another decade.’ And that’s going to exceed—”
At this point, Biden was rightly interrupted by derisive laughter from the audience. Seemingly in response, he broke off his next sentence and stated, “And beyond that,” apparently meaning to say oil has at least a little bit longer than 10 years.
If Biden were correct about there being one more decade for oil, it would undermine his demand that companies invest in further production. It would be ridiculous to spend billions of dollars in the lengthy process of oil exploration if the oil economy was going to disappear so soon. Why spend billions if petroleum products will be out of use too soon to make the investment worthwhile?
Biden is, of course, completely off-base with his time estimate. He and his administration are so high on ideology and so low on real-world understanding that they are functionally innumerate. They foresee a quick transition from fossil fuels but have no idea how that can be achieved or how soon.
The U.S. Energy Information Administration projects that domestic oil consumption in 2050 will be more than 10% higher than it is today, and that is probably a lowball estimate. If you are curious whether such a result could come from an aggressive push to put more electric vehicles on the road, think again — or look at the example of Norway, which increased its share of electric vehicles from 1% to 20% between 2014 and 2021. Chemical engineer Robert Rapier recently wrote in Forbes that even this dramatic change resulted in only an 8% cut in Norway’s oil consumption over the same period.
This is like telling environmental activists that Santa isn’t real.
Even in 2100, when perhaps oil will no longer be used for most transportation, fossil fuels will still be with us. A significant share of fossil fuel consumption is for chemical industrial applications and materials used in everyday items, from clothing to computers, not directly related to energy production. In 2050, fossil fuels will still be used to produce fertilizer for the cereal crops required to feed humanity. They are used today to produce all or part of nearly everything you own, including that iPhone, your laptop, the fake oriental rug in your hallway, the Ziploc bags in your freezer, and your puffy North Face jacket.
As odd as it is to hear Biden embrace “Drill, baby, drill,” he can blame no one but himself if he is unsatisfied with current levels of oil and gas production. The industry, which made “record profits” only because it was coming off massive losses from the demand bust during COVID, could have produced much more oil and gas under Biden’s tenure were his administration not deliberately blocking needed pipelines and dragging its feet on selling leases that it is legally obligated to sell and issuing the permits required to make use of those and existing leases.
Biden can either take credit for his pointless exercise in woke environmentalism, which won’t save the planet or accomplish any meaningful reduction in greenhouse gases, or he can demand the oil and gas industry produce more of its product. He cannot do both without looking foolish.
Which explains how Tuesday night’s speech went.
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