Planet Earth’s Natural Resources are limited to its 8 billion residents!

Our Planet Earth has existed for more than 4 billion years without present-day humans. In the past, dinosaurs and cavemen never used the plentiful natural resources on Planet Earth.

Today, with 8 billion humans on this planet, those natural resources are being extracted by the few wealthy countries at alarming rates, and NOT being replenished.

• Crude oil consumption is more than 35 billion barrels per year with less than 50 years left of known reserves of oil.
• Coal consumption is more than 8 billion tons per year, with less than 135 years left of known reserves of coal.
• Natural gas consumption is more than 132 million cubic feet per year,with about 50 years left of known reserves of natural gas.
• Similar scenarios for the exotic minerals and metals, like lithium, cobalt, manganese, copper, etc., needed to go "green" with EV batteries, wind turbines, and solar panels.

With advances in technology, motivated with the increasing cost of those resources, we may find other ways to locate and extract more, like the "fracking" technology being used to extract more oil, BUT Planet Earth's resources are limited!

Our 4-billion-year-old planet has limited natural resources like oil, gas, coal, lithium, cobalt, manganese, etc. that are being extracted at alarming rates. Even with technological advances and increasing values of those resources in the next few decades, we may find "more", but at current rates of extraction of those resources, the planet may be sucked dry in 100, 1,000, or 5,000 years, but this 4-billion-year-old planet will be here with or without humans. Shockingly, 80% on this planet of 8 billion are living on less than $10 a day.

For the more than 6 billion on this planet that are economically challenged, they may get a sneak preview of coming attractions just by looking at wealthy and expensive California. California, with its 40 million residents representing only a miniscule 0.5% of the world's 8 billion, is a very expensive state to live in, with the separation of the wealthy and the less fortunate growing wider each day. Using California as an example, with about 12% of the USA population, it accounts for 28% of all people experiencing homelessness in the country, and 49% of all unsheltered people in the US, so a question for our Energy Literacy conversation is: "Should there be a greater focus on the limitations of earth's natural resources now being extracted for the enjoyment by wealthier countries on Earth as our 4-billion-year-old planet will continue to be here, with or without humans?".

Renewables, like wind and solar, CANNOT exist without the products made from oil and major government subsidies. Wind and Solar can only generate occasional electricity but CANNOT make any of the 1,000s of products made from oil. In fact, renewable energy equipment is one of the 6000+ products made from oil, without oil, wind and solar would simply not exist.

Renewables CANNOT support Transportation

One of the most visible impacts of fossil fuels is their role in modern transportation. Cars, planes, and ships are all constructed from the products made from the oil derivatives manufactured from crude oil, and all powered by gasoline, diesel, or jet fuel would vanish in a world without fossil fuels.

Renewables CANNOT support Industry and Employment

In a fossil-fuel-free world, affordable housing itself would be a nearly impossible dream. Industrial processes - construction materials like cement, steel, and glass - are all heavily reliant on fossil fuels. Without the products made from fossil fuels, the scope of construction would revert to pre-industrial techniques: wood, stone, and limited quantities of brick.

Manufacturing jobs, which underpin much of the middle-class prosperity, would never have existed. Instead of large factories producing goods for regional or global markets, small workshops might churn out handmade products-slowly and expensively.