THE CURSE OF OIL

Sistema de clipping / Artículo sobre petróleo

Tom Norris stands before wind turbines in Texas, listening to a provocative speech from the company's lawyer. "What will your future be when they replace oil?" Norris's (Billy Bob Thornton) reply is devastating. "They'll never replace it, because they're here precisely to serve oil." The series Landman (Paramount) is a jolt of reality against environmentalist dreams.

"Never" is a very long time, but it's almost that. We will almost never free ourselves from oil, because our dependence on it is nearly absolute. Nothing is relative in this minefield.

Watching the debates against oil exploration in the mouth of the Amazon basin, I notice how disconnected they are from this painful reality. We want a green planet as a dream, a chimera, because there's simply no possibility of it existing in a world still running on hydrocarbons.

Believe it: even when everything is wind, solar, or electric, 200 or 300 years from now, oil will still be lubricating some turbine, some engine, some propeller. I went looking into the scale of our dependence.

Quite simply, even so-called green energy depends on oil to exist. Production, installation, and maintenance of equipment, along with industrial and transport processes, all depend on fossil fuels.

Electric cars depend on oil for the manufacture of lithium, cobalt, and nickel batteries, whose extraction and transport rely on fuel. The plastics and other components of cars depend on petroleum derivatives. Transporting parts and the vehicles themselves depends on diesel-powered trucks and ships. Sure, the cars themselves don't release CO2 into the atmosphere — great. But if every car in the world were electric, the reduction would be only about 5%. If trucks, buses, tractors, and every other vehicle were electric too, the CO2 reduction would be around 10%.

SOLAR PANELS AND WIND TURBINES

The production of solar panels requires industrial processes that depend on oil. The structures supporting the panels — aluminum and plastic — have petrochemical origins.

Transporting and installing the panels involves diesel-powered machinery.

Wind turbines are made of composite materials derived from oil. The production of the steel and concrete used in the towers also consumes fossil fuels. Installation and maintenance require cranes, helicopters, and conventional oil-powered vehicles.

Practically everything in modern life contains fossil fuel, from sweeteners, aspirin, syringes, and moisturizers to carpets, curtains, and underwear. The asphalt that electric cars drive on contains oil, as do the shoes, the pedals, the gearboxes, and the steering wheels. Trillions of plastic bottles, bags, tubes, gift wrapping, water pipes, sewage pipes, styrofoam. Polyester, nylon, acrylic, lycra, coats, blankets.

Vaseline, sunscreens, cosmetics, perfumes. In medicine, an entire world of it: aspirin, antiseptics, ointments, gloves, syringes, blood bags. In cancer treatment, chemotherapy contains oil, as do many other cutting-edge medications. In agriculture: fertilizers, pesticides, dyes, food preservatives, fruit coating waxes — the list goes on.

DEPENDENTS AND ADDICTS

The hope lies in bioplastics, natural fibers, and biodegradable materials. That hope fades fast once you discover that the machines used to produce bioplastics, fibers, and biodegradable materials also depend on oil to run.

"Ah, but recycling is a way out." Another misconception. Sorting and recycling machines consume fossil energy. And the recycled material itself contains residues of virgin polymers derived from oil.

Dependence on oil is rooted throughout the entire production chain. True "green energy" or "green industry" will only be viable once the whole cycle — extraction, production, transport, and disposal — is powered by renewable sources and circular materials. Are companies and governments investing enough in this structural shift? Nothing. Zero. We're all dependent, all addicted. We live surrounded by and sustained by oil without even realizing it.

If green energy were attractive from a profit standpoint, giants like Chevron Corp, Exxon Mobil, Saudi Aramco, China Petroleum, Petrobras, and others would already be neck-deep in that market. They're not, and they won't make it easy either — they won't lower their guard. After all, no one gives up revenues exceeding 3 trillion dollars, greater than the GDP of the vast majority of countries. They are the ones who run the world. And they're not even that hidden about it. In Landman, a rookie worker turns to a veteran and asks what he should call him. "Call me boss," replies the oil-stained hand.