Everyone remembers 2020-2021 when the Covid pandemic hit the world. The U.S. lost 845,000 people, many of whom contracted pneumonia. Across the world, the number of deaths was 5.4 million. The pandemic knocked out demand for coal, oil and gas as industries slowed or stopped, and stay-at-home regulations meant leaving the car and its gasoline in the garage.

Fossil energies took a big hit and for the first time since 2010, fossil fuel production did not increase worldwide. In fact, in the U.S., oil prices infamously slipped into negative territory, meaning there was no demand for oil. A big reason for the Covid hit on oil was due to transport by cars and trucks.

Total worldwide demand for oil is about 100 mmb/d (million barrels per day). Transportation occupies more than half of this. The road sector amounts to 20-35 mmb/d of crude demand. Other kinds of transport, air, rail, and marine provide the balance. When a pandemic like Covid goes global, with wide stay-at-home policies instigated, oil and gas companies feel the commercial disaster very quickly.

Could a Covid-like pandemic happen again? This was on everyone’s mind as almost everybody knew someone personally who died of Covid. But the question was ten times more intense for a small business owner, such as my dentist who spent a year putting in and nurturing a large garden in the plot at the back of his home. And 100 times more intense for an owner of a small oil and gas company. The threat to major oil companies that employ up to 100,000 workers must have been excruciating until vaccines eventually appeared to stem the tide.

Could It Happen Again?

The big question is, could the world have another pandemic? The answer partly depends on how the Covid pandemic started. And this is where Dr Fauci comes in. Dr Fauci has been in the news recently. He famously took the Fifth Amendment rather than answering any of the questions posed by members of the U.S. Congress in late July. The discussion degenerated to a ridiculous level. One question I heard was, what is the color of the carpet on the floor? Once again Fauci refused to answer.

Apparently Fauci felt he needed to protect himself from possible lawsuits, even though President Biden, before he had left office, had pardoned Fauci for any future lawsuits filed against him.

The Fauci story has been documented by Sigrid Bratlie, molecular biologist and author of The Wuhan Mystery. Roger Pielke reported the story, via an invited guest post. Pielke appears to be politically neutral, a scientist who has studied energy and policy for many years. He is committed to the truth of science.

At the first level is research into dangerous viruses, and U.S. policy. After 9-11, it started with President George Bush and Dick Cheney, who appointed Dr Fauci to lead the work on dangerous viruses in the U.S. and overseas that would last for decades. This included funds provided to a Chinese lab in Wuhan, where SARS-like viruses could be genetically modified.

Then a SARS-like virus appeared in Wuhan in late 2019, just a year after Chinese and U.S. scientists had applied for money to carry out experiments that turned out to be a key feature of Covid. In my own opinion, this coincidence is very telling, like a scarlet letter.

Fauci was alarmed, and investigated the situation. Soon after, the engaged scientists published an article called “Proximal Origin of SARS-CoV-2” in which they argued strongly that a leak of the Covid virus from the Wuhan lab was not plausible. But there was uncertainty in this conclusion, as revealed by internal memos, including some from lead author, Kristian Andersen of the Scripps Institute in the U.S. But the uncertainties were suppressed as Fauci and others pushed the natural origins of Covid to the public.

Debilitating new information appeared in the summer of 2021. Researchers in Wuhan and the U.S. had planned in 2018 to create a virus like Covid. Andersen and colleagues admitted that it was plausible that a scientist had made such a virus in the Wuhan lab.

Pielke in his own book, The Wuhan Mystery, concludes that Fauci steered the cause of the Covid virus toward a natural origin. First was his influence on the scientists engaged in Wuhan and their early conclusion. Second was a CIA analysis that concluded a lab leak was the cause of the virus, but that was dropped after a visit by Dr Fauci.

The article explains why Dr Fauci took the Fifth Amendment when interviewed by U.S. Congress. “He had a dilemma: Telling the truth about how he under-communicated the possibility of a lab leak and how he steered others in the same direction would have been too explosive, but lying would have been too risky.” The preemptive pardon by President Biden covered potential offenses back to 2014, but it would not cover new offenses such as lying under oath.

Conclusion.

Pielke complains that “thousands of documents remain classified” on this subject. He says we don’t have all the facts because the truth might lead to a lab leak in Wuhan which was caused by some individual who made terrible choices. But it would also reveal dubious bipartisan policy for research on Sars-like viruses—policies that lasted for several decades.

Pielke also worries that this story has exposed scientists who engaged in conflicts of interest, instead of being completely independent in their search for truth.

It’s clear from this story that another Covid-like pandemic could happen again, with disastrous effects on GDP of countries. But another pandemic would also cause tremendous stress on oil and gas companies who provide much of the world’s power for industry and homes, as well as fuel for cars and commercial trucks.