Portia Roberts
Summer is here, the air conditioning is on, the SUVs are loaded, and the whole family is hitting the road to the beaches, forests, mountains, and national parks. Because of our unique conservation history and conservation culture, Americans have taken access to natural beauty for granted for decades. Our nation's 400 national parks, hundreds of miles of protected coast, and 800 million acres of forests (only 40 percent of which are government managed) embody a reverence and even love for natural beauty.
Organizations like Save the Bay and thousands more founded by concerned citizens work to support habitat restoration and protection. In fact, this is the foundation of the modern environmental movement, spawning nonprofit organizations that advocate for policy, educate, install oyster beds, protect sea turtles, clean up woodlands, “save the whales,” and alert drone operators about the impact of drones on wildlife. Negative impacts on animals, of course, also limit or prevent drilling and mining projects to protect species and habitats.
But now the environmental movement is at odds with itself. The movement embraced so-called “green energy” and successfully scaled it up through unprecedented government mandates and subsidies, leading to habitat invasion and destruction of beautiful energy projects on a scale that outraged not only onlookers, but those who still Environmentalists who are dedicated to this.
In California, a 2,300-acre solar project would require the destruction of thousands of 150- to 200-year-old Joshua trees, home to the endangered desert tortoise. Locals objected. Official approval. The electricity generated in the eastern part of the state will reportedly benefit communities hundreds of miles to the west.
A dispute in Maine over where a massive wind turbine is planned to be built has pitted environmental groups against conservationists dedicated to protecting wilderness and wildlife. Paradoxically, the state has some of the strictest mining laws in the country, precluding even the possibility of directly purchasing some of the raw materials needed to build the turbines and solar panels used on Maine’s power grid. Meanwhile, in Vermont, a solar panel project covering 227 football fields of pristine landscape has faced fierce opposition.
These so-called “green” technologies can be used to generate intermittent power under discrete conditions and geographical locations, not only affecting the visual environment but also having unknown impacts on our environment when deployed at scale. However, we are starting to get some signs.
Scientists are still studying the effects of large offshore wind installations on sea temperatures and marine life. Only now, as these turbines age, are some communities and environmental groups beginning to come to terms with the magnitude of the impending waste of non-recyclable plastic blades. Just this month, several beaches were forced to close after part of a blade from one of Vineyard Wind's Eiffel Tower-sized wind turbines failed and fell into the ocean. On top of this, there are other newly discovered consequences, such as research showing that the large-scale solar installations often proposed for the Sahara Desert will contribute to rising global temperatures. We also know that large-scale solar installations can cause habitat loss, disturb birds, cause runoff, pollute waterways, reduce soil health and disrupt animal migrations.
Despite ample evidence that we should be cautious about industrial-scale deployment of intrusive green energy, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) promised trillions of dollars in subsidies for such projects. So-called green energy (other than nuclear)—from extraction to deployment—is extremely land and resource intensive. Some environmental groups have begun to raise alarms about deep-sea mining and the expansion of conventional mining to obtain the vast quantities of critical materials needed for aggressive electrification and large-scale solar and wind projects.
Coal, natural gas and nuclear use a very small combined area per megawatt compared to wind and solar. Solar power plants typically require 5 to 10 acres of land per megawatt, while natural gas plants require less than half an acre per megawatt. These estimates don't even take into account the increased extraction of land for essential metals and mining.
In the hundred years since modern environmentalism began, the resources and land we use to supply energy have become increasingly more efficient. But now, “green” energy policies come at the cost of vastly increased land and water use. “Green” policies also ignore increased dependence on overseas resources and environmental impacts. The production of useful energy drives economic productivity, but there are always trade-offs. Americans are unlikely to tolerate the increasingly obvious “green” trade-offs.
In the future, urban footprints will be denser, cleaner, and protect natural habitats, requiring us to continue reducing natural resource and land consumption, especially given that our population is expected to peak within 20 to 60 years. In addition to affordable cars, air conditioning, and smartphones, nearly all Americans want clean air, rich, biodiverse oceans, and wide open spaces for our 19thCenturies ago helped make this possible. You can bet the same will be true for future generations. This is our nature. Our energy policies and choices should reflect this.
Portia Roberts is policy director at the National Center for Energy Analysis and holds a master's degree in SAIS from Johns Hopkins University.
This article was originally published by RealClearEnergy and provided via RealClearWire.
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