Solar and wind power are the greenest of them all.
Bryce uses a couple conceptual tricks here, one of which is ignoring both the existence and benefits of decentralized power production. Solar and wind generation aren't that green, he contends, because of how much square mileage they require and their intermittency, which must be supplemented by carbon fuels like coal and natural gas. Yes, wind and solar farms take up a lot of space, are located far from populations and therefore require significant transmission -- much like coal, oil and natural gas. He excludes the benefits of phasing out carbon transmission (with its continuous import and mining infrastructure), but includes the costs of new transmission and land-use requirements in this cost-benefit analysis. Nor does he mention small-scale solar and wind generation, which have the capacity to power average homes and businesses. This capacity will only increase with future investment and deployment, and has the added benefit of making power generation much less vulnerable to attack/disaster. Lastly, he ignores the potential that battery storage has to eventually contribute. Some combination of significant deployment and advanced battery technology can create a critical mass of solar and wind generation to render his argument on intermittency completely moot.
Going green will reduce our dependence on imports from unsavory regimes.
To prove this as a "myth," Bryce notes that shifting to clean technology simply substitutes energy imports like natural gas and oil for "'rare earth' elements that are essential ingredients in most alternative energy technology." He focuses on one type of these rare earth elements, lanthanides, the increased reliance on which would make the United States too dependent on China, which "controls between 95 and 100 percent of the global market in these elements." Okay, well, it's useful to ignore other vital ingredients to clean energy like silicon, bauxite, uranium, and copper--of which there are vast reserves in Africa--and predict that our trade deficit in lanthanides will make the US economically subservient to China. And personally, I'd rather import the clean technology components from China than the clean technology itself, which is where we're headed--China is investing $9 billion monthly in clean tech, and Pew Research found China surging ahead as a global player in clean tech.
A green American economy will create green American jobs.
I imagine it's tempting to compare the manufacturing of wind mills and solar panels to shoes to make this point, but I think it's misleading--we may not like American cars, but we don't buy Japanese and German ones because of cheaper labor going into them, and cars are a much better comparison for clean technology than shoes. Bryce does ask the pertinent question of how to define a green job, but then uses the ethanol subsidy to argue that green jobs are too expensive. That'd be a more effective argument if there were a single environmental policy wonk who thought that America's ethanol program was effective at doing anything. Bryce also ignores green jobs in clean tech research, development, innovation, installation/weatherization, finance, and construction. If America plans to add millions of jobs by subsidizing each one, then sure, building a green economy will be too expensive. But if the United States sets up a basic policy structure of R&D investment, infrastructure/grid planning, weatherization/construction projects, feed-in tariffs and maybe carbon pricing, then a green economy can grow more organically from a private sector that appreciates clear market signals.
Electric cars will substantially reduce demand for oil.
This is Bryce's most accurate, if unoriginal, complaint about clean energy. Yes, electric cars still rely on fossil fuel-generated electricity; yes, current battery technology isn't energy-dense enough to perfectly replace the internal combustion engine; yes, we are severely lacking in infrastructure to support an electric vehicle fleet. Bryce is correct on all counts, but again, I'd characterize these as difficult technological challenges, and certainly not insurmountable ones.
The United States lags behind other rich countries in going green.
Here, Bryce notes that the United States has been among the most effective of rich countries in reducing our per-capita emissions over the last few decades. Okay, well first of all that depends on how you measure emissions. But more importantly, our emissions are rising anyway. Even if "the United States has improved its energy efficiency as much as or more than other developed countries," we still started out in a worse position and are still emitting more carbon than anyone but China. California has been especially successful when it comes to energy efficiency, with per-capita energy use staying virtually flat since the last 1970s, but we still rely heavily on carbon fuels. Denmark generates 20% of its power from wind (compared to the US's <1%); France gets 70% of its power from nuclear (compared to the US's 20%); add in China, Australia, South Korea, Japan, Germany and others and the US starts to look pretty infantile on the global clean energy playing field.>
Energy is important, and clean energy is coming whether Robert Bryce likes it or not. To build a green economy from scratch, and to compete with rising juggernauts like China, will require significant public investment and policy. There are a myriad of political and economic obstacles to success, but that's a perennial truth in the American story. We can approach these challenges with pessimism and doubt, which Bryce does proudly in his piece, or we can throw our hats over the wall and rise to the occasion.
Please, don't make the same mistake of ignoring glaring nuances of wind power's shortcomings. Credible, clear efforts have been undertaken by highly motivated folks who have invested heavily in trying to make wind work to reduce carbon emissions demonstrably. There is yet to be published any peer reviewed or white paper demonstrating that carbon reductions from wind power in the western states of the US decrease CO2 emissions. There are, however, hard repeatable measurements that show it is probably a wash and in some cases, more CO2 is emitted (re: the Xcel program, the PRPA program). In the West, the only option now and well into the future is to trim with coal, and this absolutely offsets the benefits of wind power for CO2 emissions. In other areas where coal trimming is not necessary, wind might show a net benefit. It just seems like you are wearing a jersey for a team you don't actually thoroughly understand when you mention magical battery technologies as a means to justify the greenwashing of wind capacity in the west right now, right here.
ReplyDeleteLet's be mindful of these nuances, and make wind power and other energy solutions even better by developing appropriately rather than stupidly develop capacity based on some flim flam economist view of the world. We all know that will give us more of what we certainly don't need.