On Earth Day, according to various advocates, “events are held worldwide to increase awareness and appreciation of the Earth’s natural environment.” As we observe the annual environmental event on Sunday of this week, it might be a good time to appreciate the fact that Americans get most of their plentiful, affordable energy directly from the Earth’s “natural environment” in the form of fossil fuels: coal, natural gas, and petroleum.
It’s largely those energy sources from the natural environment that fuel our vehicles and airplanes; heat, cool, and light our homes and businesses; and power our nation’s factories, and in the process significantly raise our standard of living. Shouldn’t that be part of “increasing our awareness and appreciation of Earth’s natural environment” — to celebrate Mother Earth’s bountiful natural resources in the form of abundant, low-cost fossil fuels?
The nearby chart illustrates the importance of the Earth’s hydrocarbon energy treasures to the American economy — in the past, today, and in the future. Over a more than 100-year period from 1949 to 2050, fossil fuels have provided, and will continue to provide, the vast majority of our energy according to the Department of Energy. Last year, fossil fuels provided 80 percent of our energy consumption, which was just slightly lower than the 85 percent fossil fuel share 25 years ago in the early 1990s, and not that much lower than the 90.6 percent share back in 1949.
Even more than a quarter of a century from now, the Department of Energy forecasts that fossil fuels will still be the dominant energy source, providing 79 percent of our energy needs in 2050. So, despite former President Obama’s frequent dismissals of oil and fossil fuels as “energy sources of the past,” government forecasts tell a much different story of a hydrocarbon-based energy future where fossil fuels will serve as the dominant energy source to power our vehicles, heat and light our homes, and fuel the growing economy.
Further, Obama’s energy policies focused on forcing U.S. taxpayers to “invest” in politically favored “energy sources of the future” – renewables like solar and wind — instead of expanding production of oil, natural gas, and coal. But again, government data tell a much different story. Even after billions of dollars in taxpayer subsidies for renewable energy, all renewables together (including hydroelectric power, biomass, solar, and wind) last year provided only 11.4 percent of America’s energy, which was just slightly greater than the 9.3 percent share that renewables provided in 1949, nearly 70 years ago – that’s not a lot of progress for the politically popular but very expensive renewables.
When it comes to solar and wind, those two energy sources combined provided only 3.2 percent of America’s energy in 2017 – an almost insignificant amount, especially wind’s contribution of less than 0.8 percent, or just a little more than a rounding error in the overall energy picture. Even in 2050, all renewables together will provide only 14.9 percent of our nation’s energy – not that much higher than renewable’s 9.3 percent share of energy in 1949!
To further appreciate the Earth’s natural environment on Earth Day 2018, we should celebrate the revolutionary extraction technologies of hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling that have allowed us to tap into what were previously inaccessible oceans of natural energy treasures trapped in tight shale rock formations miles below the Earth’s surface. It’s an important point that those shale resources have been part of the Earth’s “natural environment” for hundreds of thousands of years, but have only become usable natural resources in the last decade, because of the human resourcefulness that led to breakthroughs in drilling and extraction technologies.
Therefore, the full awareness and appreciation of Earth’s natural environment really only makes sense as a greater appreciation of the human resourcefulness and human ingenuity that have transformed natural resources like sand into computer chips, and oil and gas trapped in shale rock formations miles below the ground, into useful energy products.
Mother Nature provides us with a vast abundance of natural resources, but without any “instruction manuals” that tell us how to process those resources into usable products that improve our lives and raise our standard of living. On Earth Day 2018, as we celebrate Earth’s natural environment that includes fossil fuels, let’s not forget to also celebrate our tremendously valuable human resources of ingenuity, creativity, “petropreneurship,” and imagination.
It’s the application of human resources to the natural environment that transform otherwise unusable natural resources like shale hydrocarbons into energy treasures that will power our economy for generations to come.
Mark J. Perry (@Mark_J_Perry) is a contributor to the Washington Examiner’s Beltway Confidential blog. He is a scholar at the American Enterprise Institute and a professor of economics and finance at the University of Michigan’s Flint campus.
