Energy Literacy and the Limits of Electrification

28 Oct 2025

Energy Literacy and the Limits of Electrification

Ronald Stein and Yoshihiro Muronaka - Protrait by Copilot

By EVWorld.com Si Editorial Team

As COP30 convenes in Belem, Brazil this November, the global climate community will once again gather to reaffirm its commitment to decarbonization. With 70,000 attendees expected, the event promises a chorus of pledges, targets, and declarations - many centered on the promise of renewable electricity. Yet beneath the optimism lies a persistent blind spot: the conflation of electricity with the material foundations of modern civilization.

This critique is sharply articulated in a recent op-ed titled Green Delusionists Attending COP30 Are Clueless of Their Renewable Idealism, published by Eurasia Review and authored by Ronald Stein, P.E., and Yoshihiro Muronaka, P.E.Jp. Stein, an energy columnist and advisor to the Heartland Institute and CFACT, and Muronaka, a chemical engineer focused on net-zero policy evaluation, argue that the global push for renewables overlooks the indispensable role of hydrocarbons as feedstocks - not just fuels.

Wind turbines and solar panels generate electrons, not molecules. They can power vehicles and illuminate cities, but they cannot produce the steel, cement, plastics, fertilizers, and pharmaceuticals that underpin global infrastructure and public health. These materials require hydrocarbons as carbon-rich building blocks that cannot be replaced by voltage alone.

This distinction is not academic. It is structural. Electricity is a utility; hydrocarbons are a substance. Even basic metallurgy depends on carbon as a reducing agent. Without it, iron ore remains rust, and copper stays locked in its mineral matrix. The green movement's central flaw, as Stein and Muronaka argue, is its failure to grapple with this reality. It treats electricity as a universal solvent for fossil dependence, when in fact it is only one part of a much larger industrial equation.

Consider the electric vehicle. Celebrated as a zero-emission solution, its production is anything but. Mining lithium and cobalt requires diesel-powered machinery. The vehicle's body is made of steel, glass, and plastic - all derived from fossil inputs. Tires, wiring insulation, semiconductors - each traces its origin to petrochemicals. The EV is not a break from fossil fuels; it is a reconfiguration of them.

This is not to dismiss the value of electrification. It is to demand precision. Climate policy must distinguish between energy carriers and material sources. It must acknowledge that decarbonization is not a binary switch, but a complex transition involving chemistry, logistics, and geopolitics.

Globally, more than six billion people live on less than $10 a day. For them, energy transitions are not ideological - they are existential. Mandates and subsidies crafted in wealthy capitals often ignore the realities of energy poverty, supply chain fragility, and industrial interdependence. When California imports coal-fired electricity to meet renewable quotas, or when Europe outsources emissions through offshore manufacturing, the illusion of progress masks a deeper incoherence.

The path forward requires energy literacy. Policymakers must understand what energy can and cannot do. They must recognize that hydrocarbons are not merely fuels to be replaced, but ingredients in the very fabric of modern life. Substitutes - whether bio-based polymers, green hydrogen, or carbon capture - must be proven, scalable, and economically viable before mandates are imposed.

COP30 should not be a stage for ideological performance. It should be a forum for rediscovering balance - between ambition and reality, between innovation and infrastructure, and between global aspiration and local capacity. The future of climate progress depends not on slogans, but on substance.