Imagine there is no Fossil Fuels. Even when you try it is not easy.

"Imagine" is a song by the English musician John Lennon (remember the Beatles?) from his 1971 album of the same name. Folks from my generation know it by heart. It was a major hit but also a cultural statement by Lennon. It was the best-selling single of his solo career, the lyrics encourage listeners to imagine a world of peace, without materialism, without borders separating nations and without religion. Shortly before his death, Lennon said that much of the song's lyrics and content came from his wife, Yoko Ono, and in 2017, she received a co-writing credit.

It seems like there are a lot of people today that want to imagine an energy world without fossil fuels as the solution to our climate change issues. With the current share of global energy still at near 80% despite the tremendous growth of renewable energy (solar and wind) over the past couple of decades, it takes quite a bit of imagination to reach this goal. Many environmental scientists and policy makers are writing articles showing just how far behind the world is at reaching the ambitious targets agreed to a COP21 with the Paris Agreement. We are just getting ready to start COP29.

One of the challenges is the growth in energy demand for areas in the developing economies, in heating and cooling, and in developed countries with data centers (especially for generative AI applications) and even in electric charging stations. These demonstrates that energy demand is a moving and growing target. We can’t manage a transition away from fossil fuels if energy demand won’t slow down. Remember the Alice in Wonderland quote from the rabbit that the “faster we go, the behinder we get.” The growth in renewables in the developed world has been very valuable, but it just barely meets new energy demand and doesn’t make much of a dent in the fossil fuel share. I have talked about datacenters in a previous article. Who we are to say that people can’t have the benefits of increased energy demand? Isn’t that a key tenant of a “just transition”? Without the carbon emissions, fossil fuels make a great fit for many applications.

But despite macroeconomics, despite engineering and physics constraints, despite a greater reliance on lower density forms of energy there is still the objectives of net-zero that the UNPCC process with the Paris Agreement goals that drive the imagination of leaving fossil fuels behind us and to our industrial history. Lack of understanding of many of the energy transition challenge drive some naivety in the dreamers. If you don’t understand where energy currently comes from and how it comes to your electric plug in your home, it is also easier to believe speakers who argue for “keeping it in the ground.” ?But renewable energy (especially if you define that as only wind and solar) aren’t a great fit for all energy needs. Don’t bet against physics (especially the laws of thermodynamics), don’t bet against market drivers (especially signals for private finance) but then again don’t bet against human innovation. I am not trying to predict the future only to try and understand the present a little better.

John and Yoko challenged many people who listened to their song and reaction was controversial. The same is true for the calls for getting rid of fossil fuels. A call for a radical new world doesn’t really help promote collaborative discussions with the experts of today’s energy systems. Mud-slinging doesn’t generate too many watts. So, a gap exists and grows. Is carbon the enemy? Are greenhouse gas emissions the enemy? Is a growing global population the problem? Are oil and gas companies the enemy? Or is there a balance to be won? Maybe not all-of-the-above but some-of-the-right solutions for specific applications. To much carbon in the atmosphere, we cook. Too little and we freeze. The experiment is the whole planet so we better get this right.

While the song was a massive hit, it really didn’t stop folks believing in heaven and there are still a lot of religious believers around. People still feel better with national border that are maintained. But it did challenge conventional thinking. That is the possible impact of believing we won’t be needing oil and gas in the future. While it won’t change the oil and gas reserve calculations or nor will I believe it will dismiss the need for oil and gas energy in the later half of this century (just my opinion), it could just convince a young student away from studying an energy engineering discipline (and we need more energy STEM future talent in the pipeline) or convince an investor to follow an ESG path away from oil and gas (and we are underinvesting in fossil fuels right now if we expect them to be around in a couple of decades). So, there could be an impact. And it could convince a voter to back a “keep it in the ground” bill next election which will really do some damage to the energy mix.

Maybe I am the na?ve one. I am always searching for a solution in the middle not the extremes. When I was a kid, we lived on a ranch in the Colorado Rockies (which are buried in several feet of snow as I write this). I tried to make friends with our family dog (a boxer names Julie) and the cat that lived in the barn. I ended up with a scratch on one hand and a bite on the other so maybe you shouldn’t listen to me. ?Even John Lennon himself, the former Beatles musician, was shot and killed by Mark David Chapman on 8 December 1980 in New York City.

But watch what your dreams are, they might actually come true. “It is easy if you try.”