As energy transition expert Vaclav Smil has pointed out repeatedly,
attempts to design “hypothetical road maps outlining complete
elimination of fossil carbon from the global energy supply” are
“nothing but an exercise in wishful thinking that ignores
fundamental physical realities.”
There’s nothing like real life as a corrective to Disney-like musings, where fantasies are concocted absent any connection to reality.
The latest example comes from the ransomware attack against Atlanta-based Colonial Pipelines, which ships 100 million gallons of refined fuel daily. Colonial was hacked and extorted by an entity known as DarkSide.
It locked the company out of its own network, which affected its ability to move fuel through its 5,500-mile pipeline network, which stretches from Houston to Linden, New Jersey. As of this writing, Colonial’s four main pipelines were just slowly coming back on line.
To give you some sense of the magnitude of the problem, 100 million gallons of fuel daily is nearly one-third of the 337 million gallons of fuel used daily by American consumers, businesses and governments, and it’s 45 per cent of the fuel consumed on the East Coast.
Refined fuel — gasoline, diesel, propane — is used for every conceivable purpose. It powers automobiles so parents can commute to work and drop kids off at school.
For the rest of this article: https://financialpost.com/opinion/opinion-now-do-you-see-the-value-of-pipelines