Answers to questions about fracking, Keystone, hurricanes, and more
My full interview with Rita Panahi of Sky News
Last week I was interviewed by Rita Panahi of Sky News Australia on a number of important topics:
Kamala Harris’s true position on fracking
The destructive consequences to Canada and the free world of the Biden-Harris administration cancelling the Keystone XL pipeline
The myth that fossil fuels are making us more endangered from extreme weather like hurricanes Helene and Milton
The myth that solar and wind cheaper than fossil fuels
The full video and transcript are below.
Rita Pahahi:
Joining me now is bestselling author of Fossil Future: Why Global Human Flourishing Requires More Oil, Coal, and Natural Gas—Not Less, energy expert, Alex Epstein.
Alex, is she or isn’t she? This is the question we’re facing. We know where Donald Trump’s energy policy lies. He’s crystal clear about what he wants to do. But with Kamala Harris’s position, well, it remains murkier. She’s long said that she wants to ban fracking. She promised to do that when she was a Democratic presidential nominee back in 2019. She said she’d ban fracking on day one. Now, she says she doesn’t want to do that. It would certainly end her chances in a state like Pennsylvania if she had that policy these days. But really, where does she sit on this crucial issue?
Alex Epstein:
Yeah, I think it’s actually just really clear. Her position is “net zero by 2050,” which basically means “ban fossil fuel use by 2050,” and she supports steps to get there. And whether you ban fracking outright or just destroy fracking through a series of irrational regulations, doesn’t really matter. The goal is to destroy fossil fuels.
So one way to think of it is you can destroy fracking without banning fracking, just as Obama pledged to destroy the coal industry and largely succeeded without banning coal. You just pass other regulations that make it impossible.
Rita Pahahi:
Now, the Biden-Harris administration did straight away block their Keystone pipeline. What’s been the impact of that decision?
Alex Epstein:
This is one of the most damaging things, because if you think about the situation with Canada, Canada just has enormous, enormous, what’s called proven oil reserves. They have way more than we have in the United States. They have huge amounts of untapped production that could be a great source of oil for us in the US, very well suited to our refineries, as well as oil that could supply the free world, which we need now more than ever because we have a lot of hostile people with a lot of oil.
And instead of taking a step toward more energy trade with Canada—and we should be doing a lot more—they just destroyed it, and they destroyed it on a whim. They basically just got the State Department to destroy it after over 10 years of investment in planning. And so this not only just totally sabotaged a lot of our potential with Canada, it told everyone in industry, “you could be on the chopping block at any moment.” And so that disincentivizes investment, it creates fear. And so we haven’t even started to experience the full consequences of stopping Keystone.
Rita Pahahi:
Alex, let’s have a look at this alarmist piece published by Monash University right here in Melbourne Australia. They claim that Hurricane Milton and Hurricane Helene serve as a stark example of how climate change is influencing storm dynamics. They also say it demonstrates how “warmer ocean temperatures and shifting weather patterns can lead to severe in both coastal and inland communities.”
And they also wrote, “Recent extreme weather events including devastating tropical cyclones underscore the critical need for global cooperation and decisive action,” and that it highlights a disturbing trend: storms are becoming more impactful, closer to the coast. Alex, care to respond to what you’ve just heard?
Alex Epstein:
This is really damaging because the overall message here is, “Let’s get rid of fossil fuels. Fossil fuels are making the climate more dangerous. If we get rid of fossil fuels, then we’re going to be safer from climate.” But if you just think for a second, have fossil fuels made us more endangered by climate or safer from climate?
You just think what was a hurricane like 100 years ago, 50 years ago, even 25 years ago compared to today, and it’s obvious—and the data bear this out—that we’re much, much safer from hurricanes and other forms of extreme weather, and fossil fuels are a huge reason why. They keep us incredibly resilient through things like heating and air conditioning, storm warning systems, evacuation systems, building sturdy buildings, etc, etc.
So we’ve become incredibly resilient to climate thanks to fossil fuels. And whatever climate affects fossil fuels have had are very hard to detect, particularly with storms.
This is why there’s no strong trend with hurricane frequency or intensity. And so they’re really just trying to make stuff up, saying like, “Oh, it develops faster here and there.”
The big picture is fossil fuels are making us safer than ever from extreme weather. And so if you’re manipulating science to tell us to get rid of fossil fuels, you’re going to make us far more endangered from extreme weather. And if you did it literally, you just destroyed the whole country because the grid can’t work without fossil fuels.
Imagine Australia without coal. That’s over half your grid. So you get rid of coal really quickly, a huge percentage of the population dies, the grid doesn’t function, you have civil war. These guys are not at all thinking through what they’re advocating—or they are and they just really hate humans.
Rita Pahahi:
Well, I think that’s at the heart of a lot of the activism we see in this area. And one of the claims we hear over and over again in this country, and I’m sure elsewhere, is that renewables are cheaper, that they actually lower energy costs, but the reality seems to be fairly different to that.
Take me through this graph you recently shared. It seems to show that places with the highest percentage of renewable use seem to be paying more for energy.
Alex Epstein:
Yeah. That’s a good description of what that shows—and we see this around the world. And Rita, I think it should be pretty obvious to somebody. Imagine I said, “Hey, Rita, I’ve got something that’s better and cheaper than the iPhone, but I’m not just going to make it and compete with the iPhone. I need you to ban the iPhone, and then give me a couple trillion dollars in subsidies, and then I promise it’ll be cheaper than the iPhone.”
Well, if it were cheaper, then you wouldn’t need to ban the competition and you wouldn’t need subsidies—so obviously it’s an inferior thing, and they’re just issuing press releases with lies.
If you’re actually better, then compete with fossil fuels on providing reliable electricity and other forms of energy—and they’re not willing to do that because the technology and economics aren’t there. And really this whole “renewable is cheaper” thing, it’s just a cover to pretend that we’re not going to experience extreme suffering from banning fossil fuels.
And what we’ve seen in Europe is just even with a little bit of restriction of fossil fuels, it creates a total energy crisis. So they should learn their lesson. And if renewables (so-called) are actually cheaper or can become cheaper, then let them compete on a real market to provide reliable energy. Otherwise, it’s obviously just a lie.
Rita Pahahi:
Now, you’ve highlighted more catastrophizing by the climate activists. It’s something that we hear daily, and it’s not new. Let’s go back 20 years to this from The Guardian in 2004 where they claimed that “climate change over the next 20 years could result in a global catastrophe costing millions of lives in wars and natural disasters.” Once again, Alex, that claim has not aged too well?
Alex Epstein:
Yeah. If we actually had news, it would just constantly be telling us, “Guess what? Life is better than ever. We’re safer than ever from climate. Thank you fossil fuels. Let’s give the fossil fuel industry a medal.” That’s all we would be talking about—because we’re obviously safer from hurricanes, we’re much safer from drought, we’re safer from temperature extremes.
We should be celebrating. We’ve become incredibly resilient to climate. And whatever climate change has occurred, it hasn’t mattered that much, and we shouldn’t expect it to matter that much. Why would one or two degrees change on the Earth overwhelm the most adaptable species in the history of the planet that’s increasingly getting better at being resilient from climate?
So people are just—they’re thinking about climate like it’s the year 1300 and drought is going to be a problem versus no, we’re in the 21st century. We’re really good at dealing with climate. We’re safer than ever from climate. We’re in a climate renaissance. Let’s keep getting better at dealing with climate, and let’s keep being freer and energizing the whole world and deal with real things like 3 billion people using less electricity than a typical US refrigerator. That’s a real problem, not the weather.
Rita Pahahi:
Alex Epstein, said beautifully. Thank you so much for your time this evening.
Alex Epstein:
Thank you.
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“Energy Talking Points by Alex Epstein” is my free Substack newsletter designed to give as many people as possible access to concise, powerful, well-referenced talking points on the latest energy, environmental, and climate issues from a pro-human, pro-energy perspective.
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Rita is awesome