Den lagrede solenergi i form af kul, olie og gas har gjort os ubegribeligt rige. En kommandoøkonomisk udfasning af fossile brændstoffer vil blive en katastrofe for mennesker og natur.
Vi skal blive ved med at bruge kul, olie og gas, så længe det er den billigste energiform og det vil den være i det mindste de næste 100-200 år. Se mit foredrag om dette på klimakonferencen i Folketinget.
Her mit abstract til foredraget. (på udenlandsk)
Abstract: The material living standard for humankind has never been higher. We can expect this development to continue so far into the future as we can see. Which will make all people in the world materially richer than even people in the richest countries are now. At the same time, we will make more space for nature and secure a healthy environment by using our steadily increasing knowledge and wealth.
This tremendous human flourishing is not influenced to any significant degree by the world having gotten 1.3 degrees C warmer and a water level increase of 30 cm.
On the contrary, this very positive development would have been impossible without ample access to cheap, stable, and versatile energy as stored solar energy in the form of fossile fuels.
The benefits of using fossile fuels many times exceed the externalities, which just will make us marginally less rich in 100 years.
To strive for net-zero using planned economy with fixed goals for reduction and fixed deadlines and unproven and/or extremely expensive and nature destroying methods like wind/solar, batteries, Power-to-X, Carbon Capture and Sequestration and burning forests will make all of us much worse off than even the most alarmistic consequences of climate change.
A particularly bad policy is the irrational obsession with wind and solar, which are intermittent sources and not suitable for supplying a modern society, which need energy on demand. Furthermore, the Energy Return on Investment of this technology (EROI) is extremely low.
Acknowledging these facts about the huge value of fossile fuels, the best thing we can do about climate is nothing. The problem will solve itself when other serious sources like nuclear energy becomes cheaper than fossile fuels as they gradually run out.
Enforcing net-zero would surely be catastrophic for the world. So, the next best thing would be to stabilize the emissions. This would stabilize the atmospheric CO2 at a level where emissions equal uptake. With a resulting stabilization of excess temperature. This makes it possible for humankind to use fossile fuels for hundreds of years for purposes which they are eminently suited for like transportation and raw materials for plastic and chemicals.
