All fossil fuel is bad, but some is worse

Politics & News
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Sure but every molecule of North American fossil fuel that is exported is one less molecule of Russian or Saudi fossil fuel.

The point I was making was that Riverman was right. We can’t act shocked when we allow petrostates run by dictators to flourish while at the same time trying to shut down North American production that we end up with this kind of war.

Nobody who knows anything about the energy market thinks renewables can replace fossils fuel for decades. We therefore have to add to the ROI calculation not just the greenhouse gas effect of fossils fuel but the cost in actual blood and human rights when comparing North American molecules to Russian or Saudi.

I wish we could replace it all with renewables. We can’t right now. I spend all day every day now working on this and other carbon capture technologies but it’s not ready yet.

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Russia supplies about 40% of the EU’s natural gas imports. Most of the rest comes from Norway and Algeria.

Overall, Russian gas exports to Europe have been decreasing over the last couple of years - down 32% in February this year compared with February 2020.

Russia only provides about 5% of the UK’s gas supplies, so it’s less reliant on Russian imports than other European countries.

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I mean, sure but again what does this have to do with the left on a philosophical level? The original post citing ‘leftists’ just reads (imho) like a snipe because (the left) we despise fossil fuels and megacorporations (which unless I’m mistaken all of US energy is). I mean sure there are pragmatic arguments and then there are philosophical arguments which I would suggest usually have a longer time horizon.

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It has nothing to do with philosophy. It’s pragmatically correct to support North American fossil fuel over Russian or Saudi fissile fuel if your goal is less global suffering.

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I know, I’m just saying that’s how I interpreted the original post. Maybe I’m pedantic but it says leftists, thus pigeonholing it exclusively to them. I loathe all fossil fuels and all producers!

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What if your goal is more global suffering and higher fuel prices to force a greater commitment to moving off of fossil fuels?

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Here’s a pragmatic yes/no proposition about fossil fuels:

The Pemex Conundrum: Shallowest Ethical Layer Possible

Pemex = dirty, inefficient, intensively polluting state oil monopoly of Mexico. Recently, there was an energy reform to allow foreign fuels to compete with Pemex. American and European refined products are much cleaner and refined with much less waste. On the barest level, it’s both good for the environment and Mexican energy consumers to have an alternative to Pemex.

The Pemex Conundrum: Somewhat Deeper Analysis

But that’s not to say it’s all good. Mexico is a developing country, and the energy reserves belong to the Mexican people (unlike in the USA). Their inability to extract and profit off of their energy reserves is an economic hindrance to Mexico that countries like the USA, Canada, Norway, and UK haven’t suffered. We got rich and were able to invest in renewables partially because we extracted all of this energy in the past. Furthermore, lower energy prices in Mexico mean more energy consumption in the short term, which is bad from an environmental perspective but good from an economic perspective.

As another factor, a lot of Mexico’s current cartel issues go back to Pemex, which faces major challenges with corruption, theft, tapped pipelines, stolen gasoline, etc. Guanajuato is currently Mexico’s most violent state, and the reason is the convergence of pipelines and Pemex refinery in Salamanca, which has been a major source of cartel profits and cause of cartel violence.

The Pemex Conundrum: Fundamental Level

If foreign energy flows into Mexico unabated, there is a decent likelihood that Pemex never solves its extraction, refinement, and corruption issues, and Mexico’s energy reserves largely go unextracted. It’s somewhat Machiavellian to think about a developing country’s economic future this way, but isn’t that more in service of fighting global warming than anything? Ultimately, someone has to take the hit and never exploit known fossil fuel reserves.

(Under both scenarios, some risk exists that a future partnership will allow Pemex to properly solve its extraction and refining issues. Probably more risk in the Pemex-only scenario, but it could happen either way.)

So what’s the conclusion?

  • North American and European companies should sell fuels in Mexico, to the competitive detriment of Pemex.
  • North American and European companies should refrain from selling fuel in Mexico, leaving Pemex to do its thing.

0 voters

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I don’t really see why this is true nor why there’s any more reason to predict Pemex solves its issues if foreign energy stays out.

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This is a good example where the fossil fuel economy is not the simple good vs evil it is often portrayed as by some.

I think this war will make it clear the world has to dramatically reduce its reliance on energy from countries run by dictators. This needs to be a two phase change where we shift focus to North American and Western European resources in the short term and continue to invest heavily in carbon-reduction and non-carbon energy sources.

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I know a little about Pemex since my wife grew up near a Mexican refinery. Their union is just as corrupt as their management. There’s no meritocracy whatsoever, people get union jobs because their parents are in the union and they basically do nothing and never get fired. Management is only interested in skimming for themselves.

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Well, I said it can go either way when it comes to wholesale reform of Pemex.

But as I understand it, Pemex’s cost structure is higher than imports from the Permian Basin, meaning in an open market environment they lose money on marginal production. Hence less Mexican oil will be extracted in that scenario in the near term.