Several people might not believe in the fact that Big Oil could play a vital role in saving the climate. However, if you place past activities aside, a recent interest in fossil fuels could actually change and combat the evil effects of global warming. Now, the question is how?
Paul Favret – An overview of climate change and the role of fossil fuels
Paul Favret is an esteemed and credible leader in the oil and gas industry. He is the CEO and Founder of Source Energy LP, based in Denver in Colorado, USA. According to him, there are global commitments to attain a net-zero greenhouse emission by the year 2050. This means there are less than three decades to attain a massive change in the world. In order to achieve this dream of monumental change for global warming, a high level of pragmatism is the need of the hour.
How should the task be achieved?
The world does not have the time to wait for new technologies to emerge and solve the problem of climate change. On the other hand, modern consumers are reluctant to change from their old fossil fuels to the newer technologies that are either inconvenient or untried with limited infrastructure. Even if they are more affordable, consumers are not ready, and this aggravates the delay.
Besides the above, new fuel sources’ infrastructures will lack competitiveness until they attain a massive scale. This means that the present infrastructure still enjoys the scale-cost benefits until more consumers migrate to newer technologies.
An economic challenge to the world
Breaking the above cycle is an economic challenge as much as a technological one. This is where fossil fuels can step in to help. They have a massive infrastructure and huge industries. The resources of fossil fuels are an effective way to cater to this challenge greatly.
Attaining the net-zero emission targets faster
In the past, it has been seen that their affordability and convenience have always driven the adoption of new technologies in the mass market compared to the technology they sought to replace. On top of the above, large vested interests could play a key role in launching the infrastructures needed for the above in the market.
Take, for instance, in the past, railways and canals built during the Industrial Revolution in Britain were not targeted for regular travelers. They were actually sponsored by powerful industrialists who wanted affordable options for transport.
In the opinion of Paul Favret, in the transport industry and other industrial sectors, the transition to net-zero emissions highlighted an additional yet unexpected solution- changing the purpose of the supply -chains and infrastructure of fossil fuels to supply low or even zero-emission fuels. This is a viable solution and could represent a cost-effective way to accelerate rapid change to net-zero emissions by creating completely new infrastructures.
Central to any sort of practical solution is a certainty. For example, buyers of vehicles face the risks of selecting new technology that might fail in the future or opting for one that might displace another over time. The hydrogen option can also be considered as it is a viable solution for transport.