How long will this forced energy transition take?
The Energy Information Administration has the answer
There have been energy transitions before, most notably the wood-to-coal transition in Britain which began in the thirteenth century and and lasted well into the 1900’s and the coal-to-oil transition, which took more than 100 years. However, those were natural transitions prompted by market forces—a shortage of wood which made wood expensive and the superior qualities of crude oil, respectively.
We are being told that we are now in an energy transition from fossil fuels to wind and solar (more on this in followup articles since the Supreme Court announced their historic decision yesterday in West Virginia v. EPA). The major difference between this energy transition and earlier ones is this transition is a forced transition, not a market driven transition. Daniel Yergin said in his book ‘The New Map’, “Previous energy transitions have primarily been driven by technology, economics and environmental considerations, and convenience and ease. The current one has politics, policy, and activism more mixed in.”
Even more important is that few if any U.S. citizens voted for an energy transition. Yes, Joe Biden talked about it from time to time during the presidential campaign, but most people paid little attention to his statements such as “I guarantee that we are going to end fossil fuel,” which most people ignored as political bluster. While a great many people are now thinking that completely transforming the energy structure of the United States is a bigger deal than a political speech, here we are presumably in the middle of an energy transition.
With every U.S. citizen is facing $5 plus per gallon for gasoline, shortages of almost everything and a rapidly falling standard of living, it is fair to ask how long this process will take.
The readily available answer is published by the Energy Information Agency, the federal government’s official provider of U.S. energy data and forecasts. The EIA’s “Long term Energy Outlook 2022” which was published in March 2022 contains the answer in the hundreds of pages of text and graphs. Here’s a short summary of what the EIA forecasts for U.S. energy demand in 2050:
U.S. production and use of crude oil and natural gas remains flat (AEO2022, Table 1)
Gasoline powered cars will still comprise 96% of light-duty vehicles (AEO2022, Table 36)
Electric powered cars will comprise 3% of light-duty vehicles AEO2022, Table 36)
Residential energy use for home heating and other uses changes very little with natural gas declining 0.1% and renewable energy declining by 1.3% (AEO2022, Table 2
That doesn’t sound much like a transition from current fossil fuel use today to renewables given the economic pain the country will endure for the next 28 years if things don’t change.
With the politically unbiased EIA telling the truth that electric cars are not going to replace gasoline powered cars for at least 28 years, why is the administration doing everything possible to kill America’s fossil fuel industry while saying that this energy transition will take only a few years. What is the real agenda?