From Watts Up With That?

Bill Ponton

In 1519, Hernán Cortés and his fellow conquistadors arrived on the coast of a new exotic world. They soon learned that it was an outpost of a powerful, warlike empire on a great inland plateau. It was then that Cortés decided to march on the Aztec capital and conquer it. To dispel any notion amongst his crew of fleeing, he destroyed his ships, leaving only victory or death as their path forward. Cortés exemplifies the classic romantic figure in history. One who is willing to gamble all for gold and glory and willing to lead his compatriots to destruction in the event that his venture fails.

Today, we have leadership in the Western world with the romantic vision of Cortés to march us forward to the Net Zero uplands and allow no one to turn back and embrace the comfort of their former fossil-fueled past. Both figuratively and literally, these leaders have embarked on a plan of wanton destruction of the assets that have propelled our civilizational advance since the start of the industrial revolution.

The first assets to be targeted for destruction were coal-fired power plants. Until recently, coal was the mainstay fuel for baseload generation of electricity. Easily stored in stockpiles near generation sources, coal is a dependable fuel. It does not leave one vulnerable to the vagaries of weather, as with renewables, or sudden disruption in supply, as in the case of pipeline interruption (or destruction). It is for this reason that it is so zealously attacked by those who advocate for Net Zero. Coal plants must be uprooted and destroyed because they offer a tempting way back to a former era of dependable generation.

Coal-fired power is just one of the ships that the modern-day Cortés intends to torch. The other is power from natural gas. Eliminating natural gas is problematic because it provides the buttress for renewables to even function as a viable source of power. Natural gas power plants are dispatched to deliver backup generation when renewables flounder. Net Zero advocates know that battery and pumped hydro storage are not feasible substitutes for dispatchable power from natural gas. However, they believe that green hydrogen storage is an acceptable substitute even though estimates of its round-trip efficiency range between 20-30%. Moreover, they hope that hydrogen fuel will hijack the existing natural gas infrastructure, making it technically difficult and expensive to return to the status quo. This will leave the followers of our modern-day Cortés with no other option but to march forward and not look back.

Net Zero leaders have an unappeasable appetite to cut off all avenues of retreat. Nothing exemplifies it more than the banning of the internal combustion engine. They are afraid that their followers’ resolve for a Net Zero future will waver if they encounter a driver who does not worry about his car running out of fuel or self-combusting in his garage while he is asleep. Pay no attention to the past. March on to victory or death.