Yesterday, Part I in this series presented the introduction, overview, and opening syllabus of Pierre Desrochers’ master course on energy. Part II today presents the all-importation section on carbon-based energies (oil, natural gas, coal).

Next week, Parts III will cover hydro, nuclear, biomass, and renewable energies, Part IV, will cover the readings for The Great Energy Debate.

Carbon Fuels
– Overview
Alex Epstein. 2015. “Why You Should Love Fossil Fuels.” PragerU (April 20).  

GatesNotes. 2014. Bjorn Lomborg: Saving Lives with Fossil Fuels (June 25).

Oil Sands Action. 2016. “Life Without Oil and Petroleum Products? Not so simple…”  

What If. 2018. “What If No More Oil?” 

American Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM). 2016. “Petrochemicals: The Building Blocks of Modern Life.”  

Heritage Foundation. 2018. “Who Is Reducing Its Greenhouse Gas Emissions the Most?…

Pierre Desrochers’ course at the University of Toronto Mississauga, Energy and Society, might just be the single best introduction to its subject in North America.

The students get both sides in impressive depth. As such, this course provides a study guide for anyone interested in the multi-faceted issues around the master resource.

Part I today presents the course description as well as the videos and readings from the first two weeks of the class. Part II tomorrow will cover the readings for carbon-based energies (oil, natural gas, coal).

Objective:

The development of new energy sources has had a major impact on the development of both human societies and the environment. This course will provide a broad survey of past and current achievements, along with failures and controversies, regarding the use of various forms of energy.…

Editor Note: Today is the release of a new book by Pierre Desrochers and Joanna Szurmak, Population Bombed! Exploding the Link Between Overpopulation and Climate Change.  The authors have provided this synopsis at their website by the same name.

“This book is an attempt to present a relatively concise case for the environmental benefits of economic development, population growth and the use of carbon fuels.”

Many scholars, writers, activists and policy-makers have linked growth in population to environmental degradation, especially catastrophic climate change. They argue that:

• A more numerous and increasingly affluent population creates a growing demand for resources of all kinds. This increased demand requires increased combustion of fossil fuels.
• Burning ever larger quantities of these fuels (coal, petroleum and natural gas) increases atmospheric carbon dioxide concentrations to levels said to cause catastrophic global warming.

“WHEREAS all the major productive provinces of the World have been identified with the help of advanced technology and growing geological knowledge, it being now evident that discovery reached a peak in the 1960s, despite technological progress and a diligent search … NOW IT IS PROPOSED THAT … No country shall produce [or import] oil at above its present depletion rate.”

– Colin J. Campbell (2003), reprinted here

MasterResource has been a home for mineral-resource optimism from such luminaries as Julian Simon, Pierre Desrochers, and Michael Lynch. Perhaps the most profound statement on this subject is from a University of Houston economics professor, Thomas Degregori, himself a student of Erich Zimmermann’s functional theory of resources, who stated in back in 1987:

If resources are not fixed but created, then the nature of the scarcity problem changes dramatically.