>. In his confirmation hearing, the Liberty Energy founder pledged broad support for renewable energy. But when speaking to conservatives, he declared, “We don’

>. In his confirmation hearing, the Liberty Energy founder pledged broad support for renewable energy. But when speaking to conservatives, he declared, “We don’t have replacements” for coal, oil and gas. This is not doublespeak. It's perfectly reasonable to both support renewable energy and understand the importance of fossil fuels. Importantly, renewables only generate electricity. But we use coal, oil, and gas for so much more than just electricity - road surfaces, tires, medical equipment, plastics, heavy shipping, air travel, high-heat industrial processes, construction projects, etc. Many of these applications have no viable substitutes - you do it with low-entropy carbon or you don't do it at all. Could there be viable sustitutes ready in the next decade? Not a chance. We'd need a time machine in order to have sufficient time to develop and scale these. We don't even have theoretical ways to solve some of these, let alone solutions already proven and scaled. Our DOE secretary is absolutely right. We don't have replacements for coal, oil, and gas.