Energy's Been Weighed . . . and Found Wanting
September 27, 2023
It’s all crumbling.
This facade that we’ve constructed about what’s possible and what’s plausible. Green tech, green energy, and the ridiculous notion that collective sacrifice will save our global planet from climate change. The widespread and pervasive notion that a greener shift will come without cost, and emerging markets will be willing to share in that burden.
Unprepared, the West embarked on the folly willingly.
Hey, here’s a strategy. Why don’t we tighten the spigots to free-flowing and affordable fossil fuels and leap headfirst into a pool emptied of inventories. Tank-bottom meet head. It was all for naught, but at least we were cheered all along by juveniles. Yay.
Apparently, we did it for “the likes” since this endeavor produced little in the way of helping the environment, or increasing energy capacity. Mind you, this isn’t a critique about the need to change, it’s simply an indictment on every leader who’s utterly failed to balance the reality of what we all need vs. what a few want. We’ve conveniently forgotten, that when you pander to the vocal minority, we all collectively suffer in the end.
Need vs. want. Change vs. climate death. It’s not that simple, nothing is ever that binary. It’s all just choices and tradeoffs, a sliding scale of really freaking hard decisions. Still like the asinine Brexit, we left climate change and energy security to the masses.
Hey public, we know this is a tough one with an infinite range of variables and tradeoffs, but what do you think? Yay or nay?
Smh.
So we’re now down to the truth of the matter. After all as Buffett says . . . the market’s a weighing machine . . . and it’s judgement time.
To wit, Wall Street, who previously were so eager to exploit the grift are now weighing in . . .
Capital in developed markets are receding, but that’s okay, consumers are still willing to pay for solutions and save the planet. We are, after all, still shifting to electric vehicles right?
Oh . . .
That’s okay, maybe capital in emerging markets will come in. Surely emerging markets will share our “Western concerns” and help shoulder the cost of energy transition.
COAL??!
I think India’s channeling Justin Bieber . . .
Cause if you like the way you look that much
Oh, baby, you should go and love yourself
Fine!
We don’t need them.
So what if green energy isn’t as “profitable” as we thought, and so what if it produces only a fraction of energy (and intermittently at that) vs. our Excel expectations. So what if capital to that sector is getting shut-off.
We’ll just pivot back to fossil fuels. We can just transition more slowly right? We’ve still got them oils in the tanks . . . right?
Right?
Well . . .
As we chased “green likes,” we’ve fully abdicated our responsibility for protecting energy security to the likes of Russia, OPEC+, Brazil, etc., countries that aren’t particularly interested in our thoughts about energy security. True Bieber fans, they’re now telling us . . . you should go an love yourself.
So why do we bring this all up?
Because . . . and pay attention now . . . over time, the market is a weighing machine. Over time, everything is measured and everything is weighed, frauds are discovered, and faulty notions generally exposed. If what you believe or think makes little or no economic sense, you will likely and eventually pay dearly in the markets.
It’s the market’s toll charge, one exacted on the lazy, the ill-conceived, and the ill-considered. The market is a weighing machine, and when measured, our climate solutions have been deemed to be entirely ephemeral and flights of fancy. Energy security costs what it costs because it takes immense and committed long-term capital to find, develop, drill, and extract enough fuel to sustain our industrialized and industrializing world. We can deny that for awhile, but reality will eventually catch-up.
In the end, this is just the beginning.
. . . and to that we say . . . Let it Burn.
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