Coal vs oil

Two very different events came together yesterday which indicate the total misunderstanding of the climate change problem. First the CEO of Ford announced they will spend 4.5 billion dollars on electric cars. This in and off itself is not that peculiar but the reason he gave was ridiculous. He said that since oil was a non-renewable resource he had to prepare for the day that it ran out, which he suggested would be in ten or so years. The Green River Formation in the Western United States has 3 trillion barrels of recoverable oil and that is enough to cover our needs for 2,700 years. The second thing was the congress passing a budget bill that included changing the existing law which prohibits the export of oil. The recent climate conference in Paris pointed out that the US has lowered its carbon emissions by switching away from coal and that Africa and Asia are increasing their carbon emissions by using coal. It is well known that oil produces less carbon dioxide than coal and the US is now in a position to send oil to these coal using countries. Perhaps this is the first step to moving toward natural gas which is much better for the environment than coal or oil. In all discussions about fueling the economy we must not lose track of the fact that the ultimate solution is hydrogen which will come in the future. Here the only bi-product is water.