November 28, 2025 • 22 mins
For Shop Talk, we explore why did human life expectancy stick around 30-40 years old for thousands of years and then suddenly increased by 4 decades in less than 200 years!
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:04):
Everybody. It's Bill Courtney.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to the shop for Shop Talk number eighty.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I got two numbers for you. Let me ask you first,
which football players were a number eighty?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Which football players were number eighty?
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Famously, Jerry Rice, There you go, that was one of them.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Another eighty Jerry Rice was Michael or no, Michael, Chris Carter,
Chris Carter. Bigs say, yeah, Chris Carter was a player.
But Jerry Rice and Chris Carter Jerry Rice, Yeah, eighty.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's pretty cool. So welcome to shop Talk number eighty.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Today we're going to talk progress, freedom, and energy, three
things that are interesting and important.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
And somehow in together.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, but Alex has found a way two time together
and it centers around Chris Wright's commencement speech at the
University of Colorado at Denver's Global Energy Management Program in
two thousand sixteen. Oddly, I've spoken at the University of
Colorado at Denver, but it was not this speech, nor
(01:06):
am I Chris right, nor was it in twenty sixteen.
So right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors,
we're going to talk progress, feed them, and energy through
the lens of Chris Wright's commencement speech at Colorado University
at Denver right after these three messages from our center sponsors. Hey, everybody,
(01:42):
welcome back to shop. Talk almost didn't ring the bell,
by the way. Welcome to the shop, Alex.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
How are you? Thank you?
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I didn't even welcome you in. I'm so sorry. I
was so rude. You can have a five percent discount
on anything today in the shop for my rudeness. Okay, today.
Chris writes commencement speech at the University of Colorado at
Denver's Global Energy Management Program in twenty sixteen, discussing progress, freedom,
(02:09):
and energy, three interesting topics, all of import that aren't
often found together.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So I'm interested to see what Alex Dugo may.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I'll just give five seconds of context. I've interviewed Chris
before you have.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So he.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Grew up with a single mom.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Actually, when i've interviewed him, I mean, he brings up
his mom and he can't not cry. And this guy's
got a real soul to him and he ends up
creating his multi billion dollar energy company called Liberty Energy.
So anyway, this is a super compelling speech that I
think you guys will find of interest.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Okay, here is his speech.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Less than twenty years ago, in our country, life expectancy
was about forty years old.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Globally, I say twenty two hundred years?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Did I say twenty?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I think you said twenty twenty? Would it makes.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Sense twenty would not be true.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Less than two hundred years ago, in the US, life
expectancy was only about forty years. Globally, life expectancy was
actually thirty five years old. Two thousand years ago. Global
life expectancy is thought to have been little more than
thirty years. Only a few years at most were added
(03:20):
to the average human lifespan over many millennia. But somehow
we've added an additional four decades to human life expectancy
over the last two centuries. First of all, that's really interesting.
Before we go a I've never I mean, that's obvious,
but I've never even considered that I had an neither
intelos two thousand years, we managed to add five years
(03:41):
of life expectancy, and then in a couple of centuries
we add forty years.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
It's incredible. Okay, I'll continue.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Were about to learn why?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Hey, well, he says why.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
How, of course, there are many reasons and public health
advancements were likely the most critical approximate calls. Why did
those advancements only occur so recently? What was the ultimate cause?
I believe that there were two major ultimate callses first
and foremost, the dramatic expansion of individual liberty and property
(04:14):
rights in the first half of the nineteenth century. Expand
individual liberty and property rights replaced mercantilism, a system where
kings and queens governments tightly controlled the granting of corporate
charters to only the wealthy, connected, and favored. Mercantilism was
replaced with a system where citizens could more freely and
(04:36):
equally engage in commerce. This new found freedom unleashed human enterprise, innovation,
and creative in creativity like never before, most famously in
the rapid spread of the steam engine, pioneered in the
previous century by Thomas Newcomb and James Watt, to power
water pumps, textile machinery, and trains for the first time
(04:59):
in human history. The standard of living of the average
person began to consistently grow, and by now has increased
in the developed world by roughly twenty five folds since
eighteen forty tenfold. Globally, humans not only doubled their life expectancy.
They also became dramatically wealthier and freer. We are all
(05:20):
quite lucky to be living today and not two hundred
years ago. For economic freedom and human liberty to bear fruit,
one other factor had to be present energy, and lots
of it. Before these dramatic changes and property rights in
human liberty unleashed economic growth, nearly all human energy was
supplied by biomass. This meant the burning of trees, sticks, grass,
(05:44):
and dung a rather limited energy source that could never
power the Industrial revolution. Something much vast, denser, and more
uniform would need to power machines. Coal was first to
fit the bill, and the rest is history. Sadly, biomass
remains the primary source of energy today for over a
billion humans who still lack access to electricity, and nearly
(06:08):
another billion who have only unreliable electricity. Burning biomass not
only provides warmth, but it is critical for cooking food. Unfortunately,
pollution from indoor burning of wood, grass, and dung kills
roughly three million people per year. Together with hunger, lack
of access to clean drinking water, and malaria, these four
(06:30):
killers are responsible for fifteen million dus per year. Bringing
affordable energy to the world's poor will be essential to
eradicating these four scourges. Advancements in energy made the modern
world possible, from plane strains and automobiles to computers, the Internet,
modern medicine, and wireless communication. Abundant cheap energy powered air conditioning,
(06:52):
which enabled cities to develop in the tropics. Energy allowed
modern medicine to spread across the globe, and perhaps the
most relevant to this room, energy enabled widespread higher education,
like the University of Colorado's Global Energy Management Program. The
British intellectual and author Matt Ridley gives a very fitting
(07:14):
example of how advancements in energy and technology have revolutionized
something fundamental to education, the reading light. In eighteen hundred,
it took the average person six hours of labor to
earn one hour of reading light from a tallow candle.
How rare bedtime stories must have been back then. By
(07:35):
eighteen eighty, two decades after the first oil well was
drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, kerosene lamps lowered this by twenty fourfold,
only fifteen minutes of labor to warn one hour of
reading light. That is so interesting, However, there was still
a rather significant investment for the average worker. Today, it
(07:57):
requires the average worker only a small fraction of a
second of labor to earn an hour of reading light.
The excuse I couldn't finish my assignment because I ran
out of reading lights simply no longer exist. Coal was
the first major source of energy beyond biomass. It pioneered
the spread of the Industrial Revolution. By the middle of
(08:18):
the nineteenth century, it became a meaningful contributor to total
world energy consumption. Oil became significant fifty years later, as
automobiles and internal combustion engine burst on the scene. Before long,
oil enabled high speed mass transportation to spread across the globe.
Natural gas didn't become a major source of energy until
(08:40):
after World War II, as required a large pipeline network
to transport it. These three hydrocarbons, coal, oil, and gas
have supplied over eighty percent of the US and world
energy during my lifetime. Nuclear, hydro and buyer mass have
supplied almost all the rest. The biggest energy transformation during
(09:03):
my career has not been from a new energy source,
but instead within the realm of hydrocarbons. American entrepreneurship, innovation,
and determination launched the American shale revolution that has radically
altered the American world energy landscapes just over the last
ten years. The shale revolution was simply a different way
(09:25):
to execute hydraulic fracturing and older technology and advancements in
drilling technologies to tap oil and gas from the source
rocks where oil and gas were originally created. This recent
revolution has been transformative. Natural gas now heats over half
of US homes and provides nearly forty percent of our electricity.
(09:47):
Two years ago, it surpassed coal as our largest source
of electricity. It is the dominant fuel powering factories, and
a major feedstock for petrochemicals and nitrogen fertilizer. Urge in
the supply of American natural gas not only dramatically lowered
energy costs for US consumers, but it is also launching
a renaissance in the US manufacturing. Due to our tremendous
(10:10):
energy cost advantage over all other industrial countries, the US
has now become a net exporter of natural gas. In fact,
we're now the third largest export of natural gas in
the world. Quite a reversal of fortune. Is only a
decade ago, we were building multi billion dollar terminals to
import natural gas into the United States. Now these terminals
(10:33):
export natural gas. The shell revolution impact on oil markets
has been even more profound. US dependent on oil imports
dropped from sixty percent twelve years ago to only fifteen
percent today and remain falling. The more than doubling in
US oil production over the last eight years has made
the United States the largest producer of liquid fuels, which
(10:55):
is oil and natural gas liquids, and has supplied roughly
eighty percent of the growth the demand for world globili
over the last five years. The result of a surge
and supply is inevitable a price drop, and this has
been no it section. Over the last three years, oil
prices have averaged about fifty dollars a barrel versus ninety
a barrel in the five years before that. Since the
(11:18):
US consumes over six billion barrels of oil a day,
that equates to a quarter of a trillion dollars of
savings to US consumers every year.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Worldwide, the result has.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Been a trillion dollar annual well transfer from oil producers
to oil consumers each year each of the last three years.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
How can I celebrate the consumer savings when I'm an
oil producer.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
In a market economy, the primary beneficiaries of innovation are
always consumers. I applaud the improved standard of living that
comes with cheaper energy, particularly for lower income folks. We
producers have to compete hard to share some small part
of the gains from technology. We are indeed fighting hard
these days. Likely the prices of oil and gas have
(12:23):
overshot on the downside during the downturn, but the new
equilibrium appears to have been arrived, with oil prices still
far lower than they were in the five years before
the energy shut down. The energy business has always been
cyclical and always will be. It is exciting and meaningful,
but we are forced to live with cyclical enough on
(12:44):
energy markets today. Fossil fuels are viewed by some as
the enemy of the environment, but is that true? The
United Kingdom is quite wet and lush. It is, after
all the land of ramihood sherwood forest. Yet over eighty
five percent of the land is barren of tree cover.
Why because coal arrived too late to save the United
(13:07):
Kingdom forest. But it did arrive in time to save
the forest of continental Europe, and together with oil and gas,
the forest of the United States it's interesting. I've been
all over the United Kingdom and there's not a lot
of forest, but it once was all forested because it's
really even though it's kind of northern, it's a tropical land.
(13:29):
And they cut it all down and it hadn't grown back.
That's really interesting. Fortunately, oil drilling, which began in Pennsylvania
in eighteen fifty nine, arrived just in time to save
the whale population which is being rapidly decimated. To supply
the cleaner burning whale oil that is displacing candles for
coal for indoor lighting, nearly a thousand whaling ships for
(13:50):
trawling all four oceans of the world because of the
impact this clean lighting fuel had, kerosene saved the remaining whales,
and the whale population has surged in the last one
hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I want to add something to that. I'm in the
lumber business and I'm just going to say this inconvenient truth.
We have three times as many lightning strikes east of
the Missisippi rivers who do west of the Missisippi River.
But out west we have tons of forest fires, and
(14:26):
out east we have very few.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
I actually want you to do a whole shop talk
on this topic.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, just brief all right, So how is it that
we have three times the lightning strikes? I mean, think
of it. It just rains more on the east raft
of the United States than does West raft. So along
with that comes more lightning. We have more forest land
and we have more lightning strikes, but we have about
a tenth of the forest fires. And the answer is
(14:51):
this because of really unwise environmental policy out west. We
stopped harvesting trees and managing the forest in a responsible way.
We just stopped it because cutting down trees became bad. Well,
when you don't when you don't cut down some trees
(15:15):
and you don't harvest, you don't professionally manage your forest.
You have what's called dead fall, which is a tree
just dies. Well when it dies that it sits there.
It creates tender. And when you don't have logging roads,
you don't have fire breaks. So when a fire catches
fire in one area, when it hits a logging road,
it runs out of tender. So out east, where we
(15:37):
log and we professionally manage forest, one we have fire breaks. Two,
the tender is kept off the ground. And three because
we professionally manage the forest. Contrary to popular belief, there
is sixty percent more harvestable timber in the east half
of the United States than there.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Was in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We've actually grown the forest and out west where there
has been no long no real professional forestry management and
no logging. One year of forest fires burns more harvestable
timber that could be consumed in forty years. So the
point that oil and gas and all of that is
(16:21):
the enemy of the environment. There's a lot of notions
that started with the seventies movement for conservation that I
do think we're well intentioned that morphed into some environmental
causes that are in fact harmful to our environment and
make no sense. And I think this does a really
(16:44):
good job of pointing out that energy, consumption, freedom, growth, lifespan,
all of it is really really intertwined, and we need
to have a really thoughtful approach to how we literally
power our world and the health and freedoms and liberties
(17:06):
and opportunities that energy provids.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
What a great what a great speech. This guy.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
May you met this guy, Yeah, I've interviewed him a
couple of times. And what's he like he's amazing. One day,
hopefully you can meet him too.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, I want, I want to meet him. Why can't
we interview him? Does he do anything for the communities
and stuff?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So he's actually the current energy secretary Oh yeah, ery
for the United States right now. But I mean, and
he left his you know, big job to do it.
So it's really a sacrifice on his part to leave
his company. But you know, regardless of whatever people think
about which administrations, that's irrelevant to his speech. He gave
this speech a decade ago, so it has nothing to
do with any of that whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
That's interesting, all right, So let's recap progress progress?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What is it? What progress? What's the title? Yeah, I
don't know. I just set it over here and I
got to look it up.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Because progress for them and energy?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, progress, freedom and energy. It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
But freedom and energy being the enablers of this massive
human progress over time, and one thing just based off
of your riff and then kind of what he covers
too is a lot of this is the law of
un attendant consequences. Like you think you can be doing
something good, but there's always consequences any action, right, And
we need to think through that. And that's the problem
of a managed economy where you know, top down try
to control, is you can't possibly imagine all the consequences
(18:26):
that are going to happen.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
And so this kind of Chris makes the point too.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
If you unleash human freedom and you have these bottom
up solutions and bottom up businesses, you can experiment with
a whole bunch of ideas and see what works and
what doesn't, and ultimately that's what leads to human progress.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
That's really good point.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I mean, it'd be interesting if people all stood together
with bottom up solutions.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I mean, I think ninety percent of us, no matter
your political party, believe we could do a better job
than these people.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I think so too. I think so all right, So
that's it shot top number eighty.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Good all think about think about what you've heard, and
think about energy and freedom and growth and health.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
And gratitude for a living at this time and era.
Like the lated point is like John D. Rockefeller, you know,
supposed the richest man in you know, human history. I
relooked this up, but back in his era he made
not if you even had access to air conditioning, I think.
And then like the infant mortality rate was fourteen times
higher than today, so something like eight percent of kids
(19:32):
and his era would die, you know, and now it's
like so infinitely low, and so I mean, we are
just incredibly blessed to live in this time.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Well, I think about this. I'm wearing glasses.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I actually I swear to you this is not just
an off the cup rifka about a week ago. I'm
fifty seven. I'm wearing glasses that are I can read
on the bottom of whether they bought vocals or whatever.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Thankfully I don't do with that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Whatever. I'm wearing glasses in a hearing aid.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I have sciatica and I get a nerve block every
probably seven or eight nine months, So that can even
bend over a wall.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
When you put it that way, you're even more broken
than I think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I'm listen, man, I beat my body up, my whole life.
But the whole point is two hundred years ago I
would be death blond and couldn't walk.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, I'd have been dead ten years ago. There's no
waiting surviv like that. Actually, that reminds me.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And we take so for granted a hearing aid and
glasses and run into a guy to get a shot
in your back so you can feel it. It's like
commonplace to us, but two hundred years ago I would
be dead because there's no way a bed ridden, deaf,
blind guy could function.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Do you know the eye pencil story, the eye pencil story. Uh,
all right, that's gonna be a future shot talk. It's
on that topic. Oh okay, Well, then we just tease
to imagine how many individuals are involved with creating a pencil.
Something so cheap is one singular pencil. I'm human beings
touch that process.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Well, you got lead, you've got rubber wood, you've got metal,
you've got ink, and you've got wood, and you've.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Got transportation, and you've got energy, and like, all right.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
We're going to do a shop talk on that. We're
also going to.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Do a shop talk on responsible forestry because we should
have done one already on that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
A shop talk on responsible for Street and a shop
talk on Alex's pencil.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Okay, that's shop talk number eighty. Your body. I hope
you enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I hope it's food for thought, and I hope you
really will consider all of what was said there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
If you enjoyed this rate it, review it.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
If you have ideas for shop Talk or an army
normal folks, please email me at Bill at normal folks
dot us. Rate us, review us, tell your friends about us,
wake the kids, phone the neighbors. Help us out grow
this thing at shop Talk number eighty. Anything else, Alex.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yes, we mentioned this in our primary episodes. We're launching
six local chapters coming up in January February Milwaukee, Atlanta, Oxford, Wichita, Clinton,
New York. I hope I'm not missing one. Memphis, Memphis. Yes,
that's the most exciting new one. And so if you
live in these areas and you're interested in.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Being involved, I would love for you to be involved.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Email me at army at normal folks dot us and
we'll get you plugged in.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That's actually helped convert all of this work into action.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Guys. That's chop Talk number eight. I'll see it next week.
Everybody. It's Bill Courtney.
Speaker 2 (00:05):
Welcome to the shop for Shop Talk number eighty.
Speaker 3 (00:09):
I got two numbers for you. Let me ask you first,
which football players were a number eighty?
Speaker 1 (00:14):
Which football players were number eighty?
Speaker 4 (00:16):
Famously, Jerry Rice, There you go, that was one of them.
Speaker 2 (00:19):
Another eighty Jerry Rice was Michael or no, Michael, Chris Carter,
Chris Carter. Bigs say, yeah, Chris Carter was a player.
But Jerry Rice and Chris Carter Jerry Rice, Yeah, eighty.
Speaker 1 (00:32):
That's pretty cool. So welcome to shop Talk number eighty.
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Today we're going to talk progress, freedom, and energy, three
things that are interesting and important.
Speaker 4 (00:42):
And somehow in together.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Yeah, but Alex has found a way two time together
and it centers around Chris Wright's commencement speech at the
University of Colorado at Denver's Global Energy Management Program in
two thousand sixteen. Oddly, I've spoken at the University of
Colorado at Denver, but it was not this speech, nor
(01:06):
am I Chris right, nor was it in twenty sixteen.
So right after these brief messages from our generous sponsors,
we're going to talk progress, feed them, and energy through
the lens of Chris Wright's commencement speech at Colorado University
at Denver right after these three messages from our center sponsors. Hey, everybody,
(01:42):
welcome back to shop. Talk almost didn't ring the bell,
by the way. Welcome to the shop, Alex.
Speaker 1 (01:48):
How are you? Thank you?
Speaker 4 (01:49):
I'm doing great.
Speaker 2 (01:49):
I didn't even welcome you in. I'm so sorry. I
was so rude. You can have a five percent discount
on anything today in the shop for my rudeness. Okay, today.
Chris writes commencement speech at the University of Colorado at
Denver's Global Energy Management Program in twenty sixteen, discussing progress, freedom,
(02:09):
and energy, three interesting topics, all of import that aren't
often found together.
Speaker 1 (02:16):
So I'm interested to see what Alex Dugo may.
Speaker 4 (02:18):
I'll just give five seconds of context. I've interviewed Chris
before you have.
Speaker 1 (02:22):
So he.
Speaker 4 (02:24):
Grew up with a single mom.
Speaker 3 (02:25):
Actually, when i've interviewed him, I mean, he brings up
his mom and he can't not cry. And this guy's
got a real soul to him and he ends up
creating his multi billion dollar energy company called Liberty Energy.
So anyway, this is a super compelling speech that I
think you guys will find of interest.
Speaker 1 (02:42):
Okay, here is his speech.
Speaker 2 (02:45):
Less than twenty years ago, in our country, life expectancy
was about forty years old.
Speaker 4 (02:50):
Globally, I say twenty two hundred years?
Speaker 1 (02:53):
Did I say twenty?
Speaker 4 (02:54):
I think you said twenty twenty? Would it makes.
Speaker 1 (02:57):
Sense twenty would not be true.
Speaker 2 (02:59):
Less than two hundred years ago, in the US, life
expectancy was only about forty years. Globally, life expectancy was
actually thirty five years old. Two thousand years ago. Global
life expectancy is thought to have been little more than
thirty years. Only a few years at most were added
(03:20):
to the average human lifespan over many millennia. But somehow
we've added an additional four decades to human life expectancy
over the last two centuries. First of all, that's really interesting.
Before we go a I've never I mean, that's obvious,
but I've never even considered that I had an neither
intelos two thousand years, we managed to add five years
(03:41):
of life expectancy, and then in a couple of centuries
we add forty years.
Speaker 1 (03:46):
It's incredible. Okay, I'll continue.
Speaker 4 (03:49):
Were about to learn why?
Speaker 1 (03:50):
Hey, well, he says why.
Speaker 2 (03:52):
How, of course, there are many reasons and public health
advancements were likely the most critical approximate calls. Why did
those advancements only occur so recently? What was the ultimate cause?
I believe that there were two major ultimate callses first
and foremost, the dramatic expansion of individual liberty and property
(04:14):
rights in the first half of the nineteenth century. Expand
individual liberty and property rights replaced mercantilism, a system where
kings and queens governments tightly controlled the granting of corporate
charters to only the wealthy, connected, and favored. Mercantilism was
replaced with a system where citizens could more freely and
(04:36):
equally engage in commerce. This new found freedom unleashed human enterprise, innovation,
and creative in creativity like never before, most famously in
the rapid spread of the steam engine, pioneered in the
previous century by Thomas Newcomb and James Watt, to power
water pumps, textile machinery, and trains for the first time
(04:59):
in human history. The standard of living of the average
person began to consistently grow, and by now has increased
in the developed world by roughly twenty five folds since
eighteen forty tenfold. Globally, humans not only doubled their life expectancy.
They also became dramatically wealthier and freer. We are all
(05:20):
quite lucky to be living today and not two hundred
years ago. For economic freedom and human liberty to bear fruit,
one other factor had to be present energy, and lots
of it. Before these dramatic changes and property rights in
human liberty unleashed economic growth, nearly all human energy was
supplied by biomass. This meant the burning of trees, sticks, grass,
(05:44):
and dung a rather limited energy source that could never
power the Industrial revolution. Something much vast, denser, and more
uniform would need to power machines. Coal was first to
fit the bill, and the rest is history. Sadly, biomass
remains the primary source of energy today for over a
billion humans who still lack access to electricity, and nearly
(06:08):
another billion who have only unreliable electricity. Burning biomass not
only provides warmth, but it is critical for cooking food. Unfortunately,
pollution from indoor burning of wood, grass, and dung kills
roughly three million people per year. Together with hunger, lack
of access to clean drinking water, and malaria, these four
(06:30):
killers are responsible for fifteen million dus per year. Bringing
affordable energy to the world's poor will be essential to
eradicating these four scourges. Advancements in energy made the modern
world possible, from plane strains and automobiles to computers, the Internet,
modern medicine, and wireless communication. Abundant cheap energy powered air conditioning,
(06:52):
which enabled cities to develop in the tropics. Energy allowed
modern medicine to spread across the globe, and perhaps the
most relevant to this room, energy enabled widespread higher education,
like the University of Colorado's Global Energy Management Program. The
British intellectual and author Matt Ridley gives a very fitting
(07:14):
example of how advancements in energy and technology have revolutionized
something fundamental to education, the reading light. In eighteen hundred,
it took the average person six hours of labor to
earn one hour of reading light from a tallow candle.
How rare bedtime stories must have been back then. By
(07:35):
eighteen eighty, two decades after the first oil well was
drilled in Titusville, Pennsylvania, kerosene lamps lowered this by twenty fourfold,
only fifteen minutes of labor to warn one hour of
reading light. That is so interesting, However, there was still
a rather significant investment for the average worker. Today, it
(07:57):
requires the average worker only a small fraction of a
second of labor to earn an hour of reading light.
The excuse I couldn't finish my assignment because I ran
out of reading lights simply no longer exist. Coal was
the first major source of energy beyond biomass. It pioneered
the spread of the Industrial Revolution. By the middle of
(08:18):
the nineteenth century, it became a meaningful contributor to total
world energy consumption. Oil became significant fifty years later, as
automobiles and internal combustion engine burst on the scene. Before long,
oil enabled high speed mass transportation to spread across the globe.
Natural gas didn't become a major source of energy until
(08:40):
after World War II, as required a large pipeline network
to transport it. These three hydrocarbons, coal, oil, and gas
have supplied over eighty percent of the US and world
energy during my lifetime. Nuclear, hydro and buyer mass have
supplied almost all the rest. The biggest energy transformation during
(09:03):
my career has not been from a new energy source,
but instead within the realm of hydrocarbons. American entrepreneurship, innovation,
and determination launched the American shale revolution that has radically
altered the American world energy landscapes just over the last
ten years. The shale revolution was simply a different way
(09:25):
to execute hydraulic fracturing and older technology and advancements in
drilling technologies to tap oil and gas from the source
rocks where oil and gas were originally created. This recent
revolution has been transformative. Natural gas now heats over half
of US homes and provides nearly forty percent of our electricity.
(09:47):
Two years ago, it surpassed coal as our largest source
of electricity. It is the dominant fuel powering factories, and
a major feedstock for petrochemicals and nitrogen fertilizer. Urge in
the supply of American natural gas not only dramatically lowered
energy costs for US consumers, but it is also launching
a renaissance in the US manufacturing. Due to our tremendous
(10:10):
energy cost advantage over all other industrial countries, the US
has now become a net exporter of natural gas. In fact,
we're now the third largest export of natural gas in
the world. Quite a reversal of fortune. Is only a
decade ago, we were building multi billion dollar terminals to
import natural gas into the United States. Now these terminals
(10:33):
export natural gas. The shell revolution impact on oil markets
has been even more profound. US dependent on oil imports
dropped from sixty percent twelve years ago to only fifteen
percent today and remain falling. The more than doubling in
US oil production over the last eight years has made
the United States the largest producer of liquid fuels, which
(10:55):
is oil and natural gas liquids, and has supplied roughly
eighty percent of the growth the demand for world globili
over the last five years. The result of a surge
and supply is inevitable a price drop, and this has
been no it section. Over the last three years, oil
prices have averaged about fifty dollars a barrel versus ninety
a barrel in the five years before that. Since the
(11:18):
US consumes over six billion barrels of oil a day,
that equates to a quarter of a trillion dollars of
savings to US consumers every year.
Speaker 1 (11:27):
Worldwide, the result has.
Speaker 2 (11:29):
Been a trillion dollar annual well transfer from oil producers
to oil consumers each year each of the last three years.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
We'll be right back.
Speaker 2 (11:56):
How can I celebrate the consumer savings when I'm an
oil producer.
Speaker 1 (12:00):
Well, that's a good question.
Speaker 2 (12:02):
In a market economy, the primary beneficiaries of innovation are
always consumers. I applaud the improved standard of living that
comes with cheaper energy, particularly for lower income folks. We
producers have to compete hard to share some small part
of the gains from technology. We are indeed fighting hard
these days. Likely the prices of oil and gas have
(12:23):
overshot on the downside during the downturn, but the new
equilibrium appears to have been arrived, with oil prices still
far lower than they were in the five years before
the energy shut down. The energy business has always been
cyclical and always will be. It is exciting and meaningful,
but we are forced to live with cyclical enough on
(12:44):
energy markets today. Fossil fuels are viewed by some as
the enemy of the environment, but is that true? The
United Kingdom is quite wet and lush. It is, after
all the land of ramihood sherwood forest. Yet over eighty
five percent of the land is barren of tree cover.
Why because coal arrived too late to save the United
(13:07):
Kingdom forest. But it did arrive in time to save
the forest of continental Europe, and together with oil and gas,
the forest of the United States it's interesting. I've been
all over the United Kingdom and there's not a lot
of forest, but it once was all forested because it's
really even though it's kind of northern, it's a tropical land.
(13:29):
And they cut it all down and it hadn't grown back.
That's really interesting. Fortunately, oil drilling, which began in Pennsylvania
in eighteen fifty nine, arrived just in time to save
the whale population which is being rapidly decimated. To supply
the cleaner burning whale oil that is displacing candles for
coal for indoor lighting, nearly a thousand whaling ships for
(13:50):
trawling all four oceans of the world because of the
impact this clean lighting fuel had, kerosene saved the remaining whales,
and the whale population has surged in the last one
hundred and fifty years.
Speaker 1 (14:04):
That's it.
Speaker 2 (14:05):
I want to add something to that. I'm in the
lumber business and I'm just going to say this inconvenient truth.
We have three times as many lightning strikes east of
the Missisippi rivers who do west of the Missisippi River.
But out west we have tons of forest fires, and
(14:26):
out east we have very few.
Speaker 4 (14:27):
I actually want you to do a whole shop talk
on this topic.
Speaker 2 (14:30):
Well, just brief all right, So how is it that
we have three times the lightning strikes? I mean, think
of it. It just rains more on the east raft
of the United States than does West raft. So along
with that comes more lightning. We have more forest land
and we have more lightning strikes, but we have about
a tenth of the forest fires. And the answer is
(14:51):
this because of really unwise environmental policy out west. We
stopped harvesting trees and managing the forest in a responsible way.
We just stopped it because cutting down trees became bad. Well,
when you don't when you don't cut down some trees
(15:15):
and you don't harvest, you don't professionally manage your forest.
You have what's called dead fall, which is a tree
just dies. Well when it dies that it sits there.
It creates tender. And when you don't have logging roads,
you don't have fire breaks. So when a fire catches
fire in one area, when it hits a logging road,
it runs out of tender. So out east, where we
(15:37):
log and we professionally manage forest, one we have fire breaks. Two,
the tender is kept off the ground. And three because
we professionally manage the forest. Contrary to popular belief, there
is sixty percent more harvestable timber in the east half
of the United States than there.
Speaker 1 (15:56):
Was in nineteen seventy.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
We've actually grown the forest and out west where there
has been no long no real professional forestry management and
no logging. One year of forest fires burns more harvestable
timber that could be consumed in forty years. So the
point that oil and gas and all of that is
(16:21):
the enemy of the environment. There's a lot of notions
that started with the seventies movement for conservation that I
do think we're well intentioned that morphed into some environmental
causes that are in fact harmful to our environment and
make no sense. And I think this does a really
(16:44):
good job of pointing out that energy, consumption, freedom, growth, lifespan,
all of it is really really intertwined, and we need
to have a really thoughtful approach to how we literally
power our world and the health and freedoms and liberties
(17:06):
and opportunities that energy provids.
Speaker 1 (17:09):
What a great what a great speech. This guy.
Speaker 3 (17:11):
May you met this guy, Yeah, I've interviewed him a
couple of times. And what's he like he's amazing. One day,
hopefully you can meet him too.
Speaker 2 (17:18):
Yeah, I want, I want to meet him. Why can't
we interview him? Does he do anything for the communities
and stuff?
Speaker 3 (17:23):
So he's actually the current energy secretary Oh yeah, ery
for the United States right now. But I mean, and
he left his you know, big job to do it.
So it's really a sacrifice on his part to leave
his company. But you know, regardless of whatever people think
about which administrations, that's irrelevant to his speech. He gave
this speech a decade ago, so it has nothing to
do with any of that whatsoever.
Speaker 2 (17:44):
That's interesting, all right, So let's recap progress progress?
Speaker 1 (17:52):
What is it? What progress? What's the title? Yeah, I
don't know. I just set it over here and I
got to look it up.
Speaker 4 (17:58):
Because progress for them and energy?
Speaker 2 (18:00):
Yeah, progress, freedom and energy. It's pretty interesting.
Speaker 3 (18:03):
But freedom and energy being the enablers of this massive
human progress over time, and one thing just based off
of your riff and then kind of what he covers
too is a lot of this is the law of
un attendant consequences. Like you think you can be doing
something good, but there's always consequences any action, right, And
we need to think through that. And that's the problem
of a managed economy where you know, top down try
to control, is you can't possibly imagine all the consequences
(18:26):
that are going to happen.
Speaker 4 (18:27):
And so this kind of Chris makes the point too.
Speaker 3 (18:29):
If you unleash human freedom and you have these bottom
up solutions and bottom up businesses, you can experiment with
a whole bunch of ideas and see what works and
what doesn't, and ultimately that's what leads to human progress.
Speaker 1 (18:40):
That's really good point.
Speaker 2 (18:41):
I mean, it'd be interesting if people all stood together
with bottom up solutions.
Speaker 1 (18:45):
Yeah.
Speaker 3 (18:47):
I mean, I think ninety percent of us, no matter
your political party, believe we could do a better job
than these people.
Speaker 1 (18:52):
I think so too. I think so all right, So
that's it shot top number eighty.
Speaker 2 (18:59):
Good all think about think about what you've heard, and
think about energy and freedom and growth and health.
Speaker 3 (19:11):
And gratitude for a living at this time and era.
Like the lated point is like John D. Rockefeller, you know,
supposed the richest man in you know, human history. I
relooked this up, but back in his era he made
not if you even had access to air conditioning, I think.
And then like the infant mortality rate was fourteen times
higher than today, so something like eight percent of kids
(19:32):
and his era would die, you know, and now it's
like so infinitely low, and so I mean, we are
just incredibly blessed to live in this time.
Speaker 1 (19:39):
Well, I think about this. I'm wearing glasses.
Speaker 2 (19:41):
I actually I swear to you this is not just
an off the cup rifka about a week ago. I'm
fifty seven. I'm wearing glasses that are I can read
on the bottom of whether they bought vocals or whatever.
Speaker 4 (19:56):
Thankfully I don't do with that.
Speaker 1 (19:57):
Whatever. I'm wearing glasses in a hearing aid.
Speaker 2 (20:02):
I have sciatica and I get a nerve block every
probably seven or eight nine months, So that can even
bend over a wall.
Speaker 4 (20:09):
When you put it that way, you're even more broken
than I think about it.
Speaker 2 (20:13):
I'm listen, man, I beat my body up, my whole life.
But the whole point is two hundred years ago I
would be death blond and couldn't walk.
Speaker 1 (20:21):
Yeah, I'd have been dead ten years ago. There's no
waiting surviv like that. Actually, that reminds me.
Speaker 2 (20:26):
And we take so for granted a hearing aid and
glasses and run into a guy to get a shot
in your back so you can feel it. It's like
commonplace to us, but two hundred years ago I would
be dead because there's no way a bed ridden, deaf,
blind guy could function.
Speaker 3 (20:46):
Do you know the eye pencil story, the eye pencil story. Uh,
all right, that's gonna be a future shot talk. It's
on that topic. Oh okay, Well, then we just tease
to imagine how many individuals are involved with creating a pencil.
Something so cheap is one singular pencil. I'm human beings
touch that process.
Speaker 2 (21:03):
Well, you got lead, you've got rubber wood, you've got metal,
you've got ink, and you've got wood, and you've.
Speaker 3 (21:11):
Got transportation, and you've got energy, and like, all right.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
We're going to do a shop talk on that. We're
also going to.
Speaker 2 (21:17):
Do a shop talk on responsible forestry because we should
have done one already on that.
Speaker 1 (21:22):
Yeah, we're going to do.
Speaker 2 (21:23):
A shop talk on responsible for Street and a shop
talk on Alex's pencil.
Speaker 1 (21:28):
Okay, that's shop talk number eighty. Your body. I hope
you enjoyed it.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
I hope it's food for thought, and I hope you
really will consider all of what was said there.
Speaker 1 (21:38):
If you enjoyed this rate it, review it.
Speaker 2 (21:41):
If you have ideas for shop Talk or an army
normal folks, please email me at Bill at normal folks
dot us. Rate us, review us, tell your friends about us,
wake the kids, phone the neighbors. Help us out grow
this thing at shop Talk number eighty. Anything else, Alex.
Speaker 3 (21:57):
Yes, we mentioned this in our primary episodes. We're launching
six local chapters coming up in January February Milwaukee, Atlanta, Oxford, Wichita, Clinton,
New York. I hope I'm not missing one. Memphis, Memphis. Yes,
that's the most exciting new one. And so if you
live in these areas and you're interested in.
Speaker 4 (22:15):
Being involved, I would love for you to be involved.
Speaker 3 (22:17):
Email me at army at normal folks dot us and
we'll get you plugged in.
Speaker 1 (22:21):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (22:22):
That's actually helped convert all of this work into action.
Speaker 1 (22:26):
Guys. That's chop Talk number eight. I'll see it next week.
Host
Bill Courtney
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