“Green Energy”: A Recipe for Energy Poverty

Proponents of “green energy” claim that oil and coal are “dirty” addictions and that “renewable” energy sources, like solar and wind, represent the future of energy. Should we get on board with their plans?

Not according to ARC fellow Alex Epstein. Last Earth Day he wrote:

Fact: there are three proven categories of industrial-scale energy: carbon-based, which produces about 86% of the world’s energy; nuclear, which produces roughly 6%, and hydroelectric, which produces another 6%. Revealingly, most environmentalists oppose nuclear and hydroelectric (both emissions-free) as insufficiently “green”; in the last several decades they have successfully made nuclear plants nearly impossible to build and shut down hundreds of dams.

That means a meager 2% of energy is produced by “green” sources such as wind, solar, and plant/animal materials (“biomass”). Is this a case of promising technologies denied a chance to develop? Hardly; they have been heavily subsidized in the United States for decades. Consider: In 1977 Jimmy Carter proclaimed that he would “develop permanent and reliable new energy sources. The most promising, of course, is solar energy, for which most of the technology is already available.”

But even with decades of subsidies, “green” proposals have failed to deliver the industrial-scale energy required to fuel our cars, light our homes, and make possible the daily activities of our modern economy—like running hospitals, transporting goods, and growing food on an industrial scale.

Why do “green” alternatives like solar and wind perform so poorly? According to Mr. Epstein:

“Green energy” has failed because it lacks the physical properties necessary to provide industrial-scale power: a combination of abundance, high energy concentration, and reliability. For example, where coal, oil, and natural gas can be burned whenever power is needed, at the exact quantity needed, wind and sunlight can be harnessed only when the weather cooperates—and electricity can’t be stored for a rainy day. Thus, they are always used as supplemental, not primary, sources of power on electric grids. Statistics about Denmark getting 10% or 20% of electricity from solar and wind are misleading; that is the maximum they can get without seriously endangering the grid with power outages and electronics-frying power overloads.

Yet despite the physical shortcomings of “green” alternatives, their proponents continue to push for political programs that would force a shift to these meager energy forms. What would this mean for our daily lives? In his essay “Energy Privation: The Environmentalist Campaign Against Energy” in Why Businessmen Need Philosophy, ARC fellow Dr. Keith Lockitch considers what life would be like without industrial-scale energy. He says:

Today industrial-scale energy fuels a global trade worth trillions of dollars, with automated factory equipment churning out all manner of life-enhancing goods and with petroleum-powered trucks, freight trains, and cargo ships carrying them all over the planet.

Yet even today, large numbers of people still suffer for lack of industrial-scale energy. About 1.5 billion people have no electric lighting, refrigeration, computer technology, electronic devices or medical equipment—no access to electricity at all. About 2.5 billion people—more than one-third of the world’s population—have no source of energy for heating or cooking other than biomass fuels such as wood or animal dung, and the resulting smoke from open fires is a leading cause of death in undeveloped countries. The World Health Organization estimates that about 1.6 million people die every year from respiratory diseases directly attributable to indoor air pollution—almost as many as die annually from AIDS.

Similarly, for lack of freshwater and sewage infrastructure built and powered using industrial-scale energy, “over 1 billion people globally lack access to safe drinking-water supplies, while 2.6 billion lack adequate sanitation.” Consequently, “diseases related to unsafe water, sanitation and hygiene result in an estimated 1.7 million deaths every year.” And for lack of an adequate capacity for food production and distribution, chronic undernourishment affects more than 1 billion people. The result is that in parts of the world today—particularly in parts of Africa—life expectancy is under forty years. It hasn’t been that low in the industrialized world since the eighteenth century—and today, in industrialized countries life expectancy is closer to eighty years.

Industrial-scale energy is an indispensable, life-saving value. It has completely transformed human life for the better in the industrialized world. And the benefits of industrial development will come to undeveloped countries only if they develop the infrastructure for the large-scale production and use of energy, as India and China are currently doing.

All of the life-saving, life-enhancing goods and services we enjoy today in industrialized society require massive amounts of cheap, concentrated, and reliable energy—and solar and wind just don’t cut it. But if “green energy” proponents get their way, what quality of life can we expect in the future?

If you have questions about the “green energy” movement, be sure to submit them here and watch the live Q&A on Earth Day (tomorrow, Friday, April 22) at 9 a.m. PST via ARC’s Facebook page to hear your questions answered by Dr. Keith Lockitch and Alex Epstein.

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