Darbonne: What are We Supposed to do Without Hydrocarbons?

The “end oil” types basked in late September on X.com in their, um, “brilliance” after halting what was to be a daylong, New York Times-hosted forum—on climate solutions.

Have any anti-oil purveyors ever answered the question, “What are we supposed to do without hydrocarbons?”

Oil and Gas Investor (OGI) polled those who’ve had proximity to the anti-fossil-fuel camps. None have been able to get an answer either.

Steve Pruett, for example. A longtime oil producer, Pruett is currently chairman of the Independent Petroleum Association of America.

“They refuse to answer,” he said. Other groups, such as the Environmental Defense Fund and Ceres, do communicate with oil producers, he said. These groups are solution-oriented. “Neither espouse a world of ‘no petroleum.’”

What the “no petroleum” camp doesn’t understand is “how pervasive petroleum is in our products and lives.” Nor do they understand that among the products made possible by hydrocarbons are wind turbines, solar panels and other low- or no-carbon energy sources.

“Their ‘no petroleum’-scenario defies math, physics and humans’ well-being,” Pruett said.

Mark Mills hasn’t gotten an answer either. Mills has spoken at many energy events that have been targeted by “end oil” types.

An author, physics faculty fellow at Northwestern University and energy-tech venture capital partner in Montrose Lane, Mills said he hasn’t heard one explain a viable hydrocarbon-free future.

“They either ignore the question or engage in hand-waving, PowerPoint, vacuous solutions,” he said.

Among the “climate apocalyptics,” there are those who have published and claim that there is a path to replacing hydrocarbons in nearly every application, including chemical feedstocks, he said.

But “they are, at best, wildly unrealistic about the cost and scaling of the laboratory-scale biofuels and other semi-imaginary alternatives.”

When he has encountered the rare, “honest anti-hydrocarbon campaigners,” these are in the camp of “de-growth” as the solution.

They want others to “fly less or not at all, use less, vacation less, live in dense communities in tiny apartments, etc.,” Mills said.

OGI asked David Gelles, too. Gelles is lead editor of the New York Times’ Climate Forward newsletter, which hosted the ruckus-abridged forum: “What would we do without hydrocarbons?”

Gelles did not respond by the time OGI went to press.

When the forum resumed, Occidental Petroleum CEO Vicki Hollub retook the stage, after police cuffed and cleared it of marauders.

“It is a sad day for them … that they have nothing better to do with their time,” Hollub said. Eliminating global oil and gas “is not the right answer.”

She added, “… What they're trying to do is get some publicity, raise some funding and continue a business.”

Gelles told Hollub that people believe the solution to climate problems is “to phase out fossil fuels as rapidly as possible” yet “we’re still burning oil and gas.”

Hollub said, “I find it really hard to understand how we got to where we are that people like you believe that.”

She told OGI later, “What we have to get the world to understand is that somebody, somewhere started this idea that we need to eliminate the production of fossil fuels in order to deal with the emissions—that that's the only way.

“That's not the only way.”

To solve for climate, “stop trying to kill oil and gas. Start including us and helping us … make [emissions solutions] happen.”

In a “Good Morning Britain” interview in the spring of 2022 with a “Just Stop Oil” spokesperson, anchor Richard Madeley said, “Let’s talk about hypocrisy.”

He read a viewer’s question that he said was typical of most questions GMB was receiving. At the time, U.K. residents were panicking about fuel supply in the midst of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

He added that, to be fair, he would read a viewer message in support of the Just Stop Oil group, but “we haven’t had one. Not one. We’ve had nothing but furious complaints from people.”

The one Madeley read: “Everything these ‘stop oil’ protesters wear or buy or eat was delivered or manufactured using oil and that includes the glue that they use to stick themselves to the road with. …

“The clothes that you’re wearing, to some extent, owe their existence to oil … but you don’t acknowledge that.”

The distraught spokesperson replied. “[We’re] talking about crop failure … and you’re talking about the clothes that I’m wearing. This is so serious.”

She didn’t answer the question: “What are we supposed to do without oil?”