Chasing a Green Myth of "Renewables" Puts China in Control

This strategic disaster is a complete reversal of what President Donald Trump had achieved. Under him, the U.S. — long dependent on OPEC for oil — became a net exporter of natural gas and crude oil for the first time in more than 50 years. Exploration of oil and natural gas boosted the economy, lowered energy prices, and bolstered national security by increasing our energy independence.

Biden, on assuming office, pledged to eliminate the fossil fuel industry and pursue a radical climate agenda to replace carbon energy with renewables. He has since called for replacing 50% of carbon-fueled automobiles with electric vehicles (E.V.s) by 2030, creating a carbon-free electric grid by 2035, and having a carbon-free economy by 2050. This push toward unstable solar and wind power will markedly increase dependence on China, which dominates the market in materials required for E.V.s, batteries, and other renewables.

As a report from the Institute for Energy Research (IER) states, "green energy runs through communist China." It notes that even if China were a trustworthy trading partner, near-total dependence on one country would still disadvantage America greatly.

While Biden pursues a chimerical goal, increasing energy prices in America despite rich domestic resources of oil, natural gas, and coal, China and India are building coal plants to grow their economies with readily accessible electricity. The green agenda, for whatever it's worth, is also defeated by the massive amounts of carbon energy required to manufacture wind turbines and solar panels and the unrecyclable material with which they will clog landfills at the end of their useful lives. Manufacturing E.V.s requires six times more minerals than gas-powered cars; wind farms require nine times more minerals than gas-fired plants. Add to that the greenhouse gas emissions associated with the import of required materials.

The U.S. neither has the minerals needed to make E.V.s, windmills, and solar panels, nor the capability to extract and process them. The U.S. Geological Survey has listed 50 minerals as critical to the security of the U.S., and China is the primary producer of many of them. The risk of supply disruption is therefore extremely high.

The Biden administration has also thwarted American efforts to mine for renewables to support its own climate agenda by committing to placing 30% of all land and waterways in "conservation" by 2030. So, as we are forced to move from fossil fuels to "clean energy" — that is, land-intensive wind power, mineral-dependent solar power, and the prospect of having some 500,000 E.V. charging stations — we might bear in mind that these sources are so far unproven. According to the Monthly Energy Review, as of 2022, only 1.8% of U.S. energy was produced by solar-power sources and 3.7% by wind-power sources. Fossil fuels and nuclear plants generated 87% of the total energy supply. So the hope of solar and wind energy sustaining us by 2035 is foolhardy.

Energy entrepreneur Brian Gitt, who believes that nuclear and natural gas are the most viable energy choices over the next 20 years, estimates that an offshore wind farm requires 13 times more critical minerals than a natural gas power plant, plus massive amounts of steel, concrete, and non-recyclable plastic. A disillusioned champion of renewable energy, Gitt examined the lifecycle of solar and how the manufacturing process uses a vast array of minerals, toxic chemicals, and fossil fuels. Solar panels require 10 times the minerals to produce the same energy as a natural gas plant, and installing them involves covering natural habitats with concrete and steel.

"Sustainable development" projections of the International Energy Agency (IEA), which has called for moving from "fuel-intensive" to "material-intensive" energy to reach net-zero emissions as outlined in the 2015 Paris Climate Accord, will call for a 42-fold increase in demand for lithium, a 25-fold increase in demand for graphite, a 19-fold increase in demand for nickel, and a sevenfold increase in demand for rare earth minerals by 2040.

President Trump pulled out of the Paris accord in 2017, citing how it disadvantages the U.S. with "draconian financial and economic burdens," while allowing China to increase emissions for 13 years and providing India billions of dollars in aid from developed countries. Biden, however, rejoined the accord on his first day in office, signaling that he is okay with the punishing requirements. He followed up with domestic policies that inflict more punishment on our economy.

In 2019, the U.N. Environment Program reported that China had outspent every country in green or renewable energy research and development, and positioned itself as the primary supplier of "clean" energy. It also dominates the solar manufacturing industry. This came about because Chinese miners and processors, operating with few restrictions, are free to engage in the challenging and environmentally damaging extraction and refining of rare earth minerals used in "renewable" energy sources.

Not only is China the world leader in rare earth separation processes, it manufactures half the world's steel. Its powerful position is predicated on cheap coal-fired power plants: it uses over half the world's coal, nine times as much as the U.S. lax environmental standards, government subsidies, and forced labor have paved its path to the status of economic powerhouse. Now, the U.S. is far more dependent on China — by a factor of 3.5 — for rare earth minerals than it was for oil from the Middle East.

The domestic commitment to renewables is counterproductively tied to environmental policies: under the Biden administration, many federal mining leases have been revoked, new ventures are subjected to crippling permit delays, and Democrat lawmakers are intent on making it more costly to mine for metals and minerals in the U.S. These policies are aimed at making environmental standards stricter, extracting significant royalties, and disallowing the deduction of expenses from mining operations. Currently, getting permission for a mining project takes 7–10 years, given lengthy appeals and other legal challenges.

In a recent appearance before the House Ways and Means Committee, Minnesota state senator Tom Bakk summed up the situation perfectly. His state has some of the largest undeveloped deposits of copper, cobalt, nickel, platinum, and more. But, he said, the Biden administration has "severely hobbled mining" in the U.S., leaving communist China with a monopoly, concluding, "It's bad for Minnesota, it's bad for the country. Frankly, I think it's bad for the world."

Senator Bakk is right. Energy insecurity will threaten American national security. And if America is weakened, free societies across the world will be under threat. We cannot allow that to happen.