Worse Than I Thought 3
Something queer going on over there.
Most everyone with any common sense already knows the Carbon Neutral scam to limit or ban hydrocarbon use is bad, but it's much worse than I thought.
One would think that "flaring," the burning off of natural gas at the well or refinery, would be small potatoes in the grand scheme of things. But no, it is 151 billion cubic meters per year, according to the World Bank's Global Gas Flaring Tracker Report! Almost equivalent to the total annual gas consumption of the entire continent of Africa (which uses about 162 BCM). Or, in cash terms, up to $63 billion per year flared off.
While people are going hungry and can't make ends meet... they're frivolous and wanton enough to merely cast away billions as an inconvenience, in one particular fraudulent, wasteful crime against the people among many (remember, that's supposed to be our resource).
Now what about the hydrogen con, a con that should be as transparent to people as the Bitcoin con, or the "carbon credits" con?
The Hydrogen vs. Hydrocarbon Debate
Regulators heavily subsidize hydrogen (H2) because its electrochemical use in fuel cells yields zero localized carbon emissions.
However, H2 has a very low volumetric energy density, costs up to 30% of its energy potential just to manufacture via electrolysis, and causes severe embrittlement in conventional steel pipelines.
Now, gases like liquefied natural gas (LNG) and propane are immediately available, use trillions of dollars of existing infrastructure, and burn with near-zero toxic particulate or sulfur output.
Despite being far cleaner than oil or gasoline, intermediate fuels like LNG are politically sidelined because they are not strictly "carbon-neutral," showcasing a conflict where policymakers reject immediate, partial solutions in pursuit of absolute zero-carbon targets.
So these alternative hydrocarbons are not promoted (though much cleaner than gasoline) for purely political reasons.
The drillers treat clean-burning gas as a worthless byproduct because oil yields significantly higher profit margins. By failing to capture this gas, global energy cartels restrict alternative energy supplies, artificially maintaining high crude oil prices. And while regular consumers face aggressive mandates, taxes, and restrictions to reduce minor personal carbon footprints, in a double standard, major state-owned oil operations are permitted to do this flaring completely unfiltered, releasing roughly 400 million tons of carbon dioxide equivalent directly into the atmosphere every year. (Not that that CO2 is actually an environmental problem, but in the meantime they cry crocodile tears about CO2 from essentials like heating your house, or transportation.)
The shift away from hydrocarbons like LNG and propane in modern regulatory frameworks is driven by a fundamental transition in how governments define "clean." The political and economic divide boils down to a conflict between two distinct environmental standards:
Historically, from an engineering and localized health standpoint, LNG and propane are beneficial. Compared to heavy fuel oil, diesel, or gasoline, light alkanes like propane, C3H8, and methane (the primary component of LNG, CH4) have a high hydrogen-to-carbon ratio. When combusted properly, they release virtually zero particulate matter (soot), negligible sulfur dioxide (SO2), and drastically lower amounts of carbon monoxide and unburnt hydrocarbons. For decades, governments heavily subsidized and promoted propane and natural gas as "clean alternative fuels" to clean up urban smog and improve public respiratory health.
The modern political standard has upended that, with its "Carbon Neutral" agenda. The political pivot occurred when global climate policy shifted its primary focus from local air quality to global atmospheric carbon accumulation. Under international agreements like the Paris Accord, the metric for success is no longer "low emissions," but a strict ledger of Net-Zero Carbon. Because LNG and propane possess a carbon atom in their chemical formulas, burning them is blamed for introducing "new fossil carbon" into the active cycle, despite being 90% cleaner than gasoline.
Which brings us back to the "hydrogen loophole." It has nothing to do with logic or sensibility, but receives immense political backing and funding because, despite its massive economic inefficiencies and infrastructure hurdles, hydrogen as fuel allows politicians to check the "absolute zero carbon at point of use" box on policy templates.
The economic consequences of this strict regulatory stance create significant real-world friction, whereby industries are being pressured to adopt expensive, unproven hydrogen systems or electric infrastructure, when highly efficient, readily available, and clean-burning propane or LNG solutions already exist and could be deployed immediately.
Ignoring these cleaner fossil fuels causes grid stability issues, among other problems.
Natural Gas Seepage vs. Drilled Extraction
The nonsense pursuit of carbon-zero was of course, doomed from the start. Coal beds, hot springs, mud volcanoes, and tectonic faults naturally vent methane and CO2 into the atmosphere all the time.
Industrial extraction, pressurized pipeline transport, and high-velocity drilling unearth and release these gases much faster than natural geological seepage. When drilling for oil, natural gas often comes as a byproduct. If the site lacks a pipeline to transport that gas to a city, oil companies burn it on-site because releasing raw methane is a localized safety hazard.
The massive waste of clean-burning energy is only alleviated when pragmatic policies focus on building immediate infrastructure to capture that flared gas and compress it into LNG or propane for commercial use, rather than letting it burn into the sky for nothing.
Who is Responsible?
Just nine countries are responsible for three-quarters (75%) of all global flaring, despite producing less than half of the world's oil. The top four highest-volume offenders are:
- Russia
- Iraq
- Iran
- The United States (driven heavily by drilling in the Bakken shale-oil basin, where drilling speed outpaces the construction of pipelines to carry the gas away).
Hypocrisy
If governments are truly in a state of emergency over carbon emissions, a rational management strategy would mandate an immediate, global ban on routine flaring before spending a single dollar on unproven hydrogen infrastructure. Flaring is, by far, the easiest source of carbon emissions to eliminate.
Looking at the global picture, governments are passing aggressive regulations to restrict consumer energy use, while simultaneously allowing energy cartels to burn hundreds of billions of cubic feet of clean fuel straight into the atmosphere completely unfiltered.
Normal citizens face car bans, carbon taxes on fuel, and mandates to phase out gas stoves or heaters to shave off fractions of a percent of carbon emissions.
At the exact same time, major state-owned oil operations are permitted to open up the valves on oil rigs and burn away trillions of cubic meters of natural gas.
When an engine or a factory burns a hydrocarbon, it utilizes catalytic converters, scrubbers, or particulate filters to clean the exhaust.
A flare stack is simply an open pipe with an active flame at the end. It has no filtration systems of any kind. Because winds blow the flame sideways, the combustion is frequently incomplete (known as "methane slip"). This blasts not just unburnt methane (a gas supposedly 80 times more potent at trapping heat than CO2) but also toxic benzene, sulfur dioxide, and black soot straight into the wind.
Of course, geopolitics trumps the environment. The world's top flaring offenders are state-owned oil monopolies. Western environmental regulations have zero legal jurisdiction over these borders. Inside the United States, they say enforcement is soft because shutting down a well for flaring too much gas reduces domestic oil supply, causing immediate gasoline price spikes that are politically fatal for whoever is in office.
Placing these burn sites "out of sight" is a strategy used to soften any blowback. Unlike a coal plant with a massive cooling tower near a major city, flare stacks are located in remote deserts, oceans, or sparsely populated shale fields. Because the general public cannot see them, politicians face no localized public outrage and can safely ignore the waste.
Making Fuel Moot
Advanced battery technologies (such as high-density solid-state, sodium-ion, and silicon-anode cells) are approaching commercial parameters capable of resolving the grid-storage and heavy-transport sectors. Because battery-electric platforms demonstrate roughly 80-90% grid-to-wheel efficiency compared to hydrogen's highly inefficient 30% lifecycle, market economics are positioned to phase out both expensive hydrogen projects and fossil fuels for transportation, assuming regulatory frameworks do not artificially skew the field toward less efficient, mandated alternatives.
Many market analysts believe the entire hydrogen versus fossil fuel debate will eventually be settled by economics rather than regulations. New chemistries, such as solid-state batteries, sodium-ion, and silicon-anode cells, are pushing energy densities to levels that make electric drivetrains viable for long-haul trucking and even regional aviation.
With the efficiency advantage of a battery-electric system, hydrogen just can't compete, due to the losses from electrolysis, compression, and fuel-cell conversion.
So, if battery technology achieves permanent, high-density longevity without relying on scarce minerals, the market will naturally drop both expensive hydrogen research and even fossil fuels for vehicles. The biggest threat to this trajectory remains government mandates picking artificial winners (like forcing hydrogen adoption) before battery chemistry naturally wins the market on its own merits.
Better than I Thought
80-90% efficient electric cars. Almost hard to believe, but good news if true.
Neglect
As usual, the powerful talking point of flaring is ignored or neglected by the oblivious so-called "opposition" to all the oppressive political lunacy. Which is another condemnation, again raising the question of just what it's really up to, and how compromised it is.
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