Frontieras’ Innovation to Protect America’s Independence
Written by Matthew McKean, CEO and co-founder of Frontieras North America (LinkedIn)
Countries are recognized and judged by a combination of traits. These traits can be their political affiliation, resources, innovation, location, history, culture, people, opportunities, etc. Since its founding, America has been recognized as a land of opportunity. America is blessed with vast amounts of natural resources and the formation by our founding fathers of a republic government that has allowed America to flourish.
As a leader within the global energy discussion, I am both fascinated and saddened to see the state many European countries currently find themselves in. The inaction of Europe’s political leaders to address an obvious gap of energy supply and demand has led to an unprecedented situation. Europe’s exuberance to embrace renewable energy has created an energy crisis that has prices skyrocketing and governments scrambling to address the energy deficit. According to a recent blog from the International Monetary Fund, Europeans are experiencing soaring energy prices that have sharply increased living costs. Specifically, global oil prices have doubled, coal prices have nearly quadrupled, and European natural gas prices have increased almost seven-fold since early last year. While these costs are easy to identify for consumers, it is the hidden costs that are a result of the pass-through process that have me nervous. Specifically, the IMF estimates that the average European household will see a rise of about 7 percent in its cost of living this year relative to what was predicted in early 2021. This is a direct result of higher energy prices related to the production of other goods and services. And this percentage is expected to rise dramatically if Russia completely cuts off its supply of natural gas to Europe.
Without being an alarmist, I believe that Europe could be on the brink of an economic and social collapse. The inaction by the respective European governments and regulatory bodies to recognize their reliance on surrounding countries in respect to energy production has placed them in their current precarious position. Energy is a foundational element to all facets of life, and without reliable and abundant energy, industries including agriculture, industrial, transportation and manufacturing will cease to operate. I fear that the Euro is going to continue to lose its value and that citizens, tired of not having access to reliable and affordable energy, will revolt against their current governments.
Europe has been an advocate for the 2015 Paris Accords, an international treaty on climate change that covers climate change mitigation, adaptation, and finance. Europe was able to embrace stringent green policies because it was able to import natural gas from Russia. This dependence on foreign energy was an underpinning of Europe’s energy strategy. Now that Russia has started to tighten its delivery of gas, it has weakened Europe as a whole and has local governments scrambling to restart plants that were fully operational less than 12 months ago.
While Europe’s energy struggles seems obvious now, it is important to learn from Europe’s energy mistakes and analyze the United States’ current energy practices, the most recent legislation that further advances green policies and the unsteady road that we are heading down as a country. I believe that our path forward on the energy front will test the current economy and force change at the highest levels of government as individuals lose the ability to heat their homes and inflation continues to push the cost of living higher.
Let me be clear -- America’s energy market is out of balance. America was founded on the use of fossil fuels to power innovation and growth. This innovation paved the way for new technology to be developed, housing to be constructed, businesses to run and food to be grown. Viable energy sources should not be shut off until they can be completely replaced as so many Americans are realizing that we cannot rely on renewable energy. The United States has been investing in renewable energy for the past two decades and it continues to prove unreliable. Today, according to the findings reported in a recent Wall Street Journal report, the world still depends on hydrocarbons for 84% of all energy, a mere two percentage points lower than two decades ago. The study also reported that solar and wind technologies supply barely 5% of global energy and electric vehicles still offset less than .05% of the world’s oil demand.
America’s access to resources and the innovation that it applies to these resources cannot be discounted. America’s resilience has been on display since we signed the Declaration of Independence in 1776. We have been a country that harvested the land, built communities and created cities to support continued growth. This independence leveraged innovation and technology advancement to develop medicine and protect against natural occurrences, including storms, rising tides, and severe changes in weather patterns. It is with this spirit in mind that Frontieras North America, a subsidiary of Frontier Applied Sciences, has spent the last 10 years developing a technology that reimagines the processing of hydrocarbons within a broader energy market. Specifically focused on efficiently processing fossil fuels, Frontieras maximizes the energy output and produced yields of each form including solids, liquids and gas. Frontieras’ Solid Carbon Fractionation (SCF) is a continuous-feed refining process for coal and other solids that uses heat and pressure to reform, refine and liberate the constituents of solid carbonaceous materials into various forms of viable products.
The United States has not reached the tipping point of an energy crisis that Europe currently finds itself in. Countries like India and China have resisted the calls to reduce their use of fossil fuels because they do not have other ways to support the continued energy demand that exists within their countries. If we are not careful, we will see those countries with adequate energy surpass America in innovation. I believe that it is important that we recognize and utilize the vast supply of resources that are available here in the United States and that we continue to invest in innovation from all forms of energy. We believe that innovation on the energy front will allow America to grow, adapt and continue to declare its independence on the global stage.
To learn more about Frontieras North America and its patented energy solution or to invest in the company, please visit www.Frontieras.com.