In a sea of redundant, woke garbage, Taylor Sheridan continues to produce shows with a refreshingly honest and fresh direction. From "Yellowstone" to "Tulsa King," he's not afraid to break the traditional mores dictated by Hollywood, and it's paid dividends with viewership.
His latest endeavor, "Landman," centers on the oil industry and contrasts the lives of Texas-based tycoons and workers, and one clip is already going viral. Billy Bob Thorton, who plays "Tommy Norris" in the show, lays out the reality of wind turbines and the human need for fossil fuels in a way that will have you fist-pumping.
TOMMY NORRIS: Do you have any idea how much diesel they have to burn to mix that much concrete? Or make that steel and haul this **** out here and put it together with a 450-foot crane? Do you want to guess how much oil it takes to lubricate that ******* thing? Or winterize it? In its 20-year lifespan, it won't offset the carbon footprint of making it. And don't get me started on solar panels and the lithium in your Telsa battery.
There's more, but the first question people are going to ask, especially those inclined to support "renewables" in their current form, is whether the above statement is true. The answer is yes. The wind industry readily admits that turbines are not carbon neutral. They last about 20 years, and the pieces are very difficult to recycle. While they produce less carbon emissions than some other forms of energy, they are also far less efficient.
Nuclear power remains king if carbon emissions are a concern and is much more reliable. The environmental footprint, specifically dealing with land usage, is also much smaller. Of course, carbon emissions and efficiency aren't the only issues with wind power. Petroleum is used for far more than energy production, which is where the clip goes next.
TOMMY NORRIS: And never mind the fact that if the whole world decided to go electric tomorrow, we don't have the transmission lines to get the electricity to the cities. It'd take 30 years if we started tomorrow. And unfortunately for your grandkids, we have a 120-year petroleum-based infrastructure. Our lives depend on it. And hell, it's in everything. That road we came in on. The wheels on every car, including yours. It's in tennis rackets and lipstick, refrigerators and antihistamines, pretty much anything plastic, your cellphone case, artificial heart valves, any kind of clothing that's not made with animal or plant fibers, soap, ******* hand lotion, garbage bags, fishing boats, you name it. Every ******* thing, and you want to know what the kicker is? We're gonna run out of it before we find its replacement.
The amount of petroleum-based products is mind-boggling, and I'd venture a guess that most people have no idea how much we rely on it. Any suggestions that humans stop pumping (or fracking) oil is a pipe dream. People are not going back to the pre-industrial age, and that means those products will either need to be fully replaced with better alternatives, or they are here to stay. There is no other option.
I will mention that some people have questioned that last sentence which states "We're gonna run out of it before we find its replacement." Is that true? In a macro sense, sure. Humans will eventually reach a point where they can't get to what is left of the Earth's fossil fuels. With that said, past hysteria surrounding the specific timeline has proven to be false and will likely continue to be proven to be false as more reserves are discovered and newer extraction techniques are developed.
Regardless, "Tommy Norris" is specifically referring to oil used in the litany of life-saving products that humanity depends on. Will we find replacements for those? That's a different story than talking about increasing nuclear power production.
AINSLEY NORRIS: It's the thing that's gonna kill us all, as a species.
TOMMY NORRIS: No, the thing that's gonna kill us all is running out before we find an alternative, and believe me, if Exxon thought them ******* things right there were the future, they'd be putting them all over the ******* place. Getting oil out of the ground is the most dangerous job in the world. We don't do it because we like it. We do it because we've run out of options.
For my money, this is the most important part of the clip. No one has more of an incentive to pursue and dominate the market for "renewables" than the oil companies. They also happen to have the most capital to do so.
If the oil companies thought wind turbines or solar panels were a viable alternative to fossil fuels, they'd be first in line to seize the market because, in the end, it's all about sustainability in making money for them. That they aren't is the biggest tell. Yes, Chevron and Exxon dabble in the sector, mostly for public relations reasons, but it's clear they aren't believers.
I don't think anyone should be against alternatives to fossil fuels. Innovation is a good thing, but the currently forced regime has already led to disaster in some European countries, which then had to scramble for more oil and natural gas. No one knows what the future holds, but you can't fight reality, whatever it may be.