Dakota Beacon

“Green energy” may be all the rage, but it also may not be the panacea we are led to believe. The crusade may be more of a farce in three acts than a solution to a questionable problem.

A presentation recently delivered by Mark P. Mills, Senior Fellow at the Manhattan Institute (MI) seemed too good to pass by. The MI free-market think tank focuses on economic growth, education, energy, the environment, and more. The gist of Mill’s presentation illustrates the charade of the “green” or “alternative energy” movement.

Mills is a faculty fellow at Northwestern University’s McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science. He served in the White House Science Office under President Reagan and subsequently provided science and technology policy counsel to the Department of Energy, U.S. research laboratories, and a variety of private-sector firms.

“Green” advocates maintain that wind, solar power, and battery storage will provide a true replacement for fossil fuels. They believe electricity produced through wind and solar farms with electricity stored in batteries will provide all the energy we need.

Mills complies with a well-worn idiom, “Follow the science.” Energy sources are constrained by definite conversion limits. In the case of sunlight, the maximum limit of photons converted to electrons is 33%. Currently, the best technology can convert 26%. The maximum wind energy conversion to electrons is 60%. The best turbines currently can convert 45%. Despite claims of “big gains” in the future, it is physically impossible to exceed conversion limits. Ultimately, energy capture will occur only when the wind blows or the sun shines. But, we need energy all of the time.

“Green” proponents offer batteries as a solution to this problem. Again, “Follow the science.” Chemistry and physics indicate this is extremely difficult to do. For example, the world’s biggest battery factory built by Tesla in Nevada would take five-hundred years to make enough batteries to store one day’s worth of America’s electricity needs. This explains why wind and solar provide only 3% of the world’s energy even after twenty years and billions of dollars in subsidies.

Furthermore, environmental protection becomes impossible. If protecting the environment rates high, then forget “green” or “alternative” energy. All machines are built from non-renewable materials. For example, one electric car battery weighs half a ton. Producing a battery this size requires, on average, digging, moving, and processing two hundred and fifty tons of earth.

Building a 100 megawatt wind farm to power 75,000 homes requires 30,000 tons of iron ore, 50,000 tons of cement, and 900 tons of non-recyclable plastics for the blades. The same solar power generating equipment requires an additional 150 times more cement, steel, and glass.

Next, consider the increased requirement for rare earth metals such as lithium, cobalt, and dysprosium. To meet the world’s alternative energy demands will require a 2000-fold increase in mining activity. This requires extremely large mining operations outside America. Most of the activity must occur in countries either hostile to America or in countries in whose land we seek to protect.

Some proponents of “green energy” are wise enough to have seen past the end of their collective noses and have counted the cost. Mills cites the liberal Institute for Sustainable Futures at the University of Technology in Sydney, Australia. “A global ‘gold rush’ for energy materials will take miners into ‘…remote wilderness areas [that] have maintained high biodiversity because they haven’t yet been disturbed.’”

Mills highlights other concerns. Who will do the mining in these overseas locations? Amnesty International has done the research. “The…marketing of state-of-the-art technologies are a stark contrast to the children carrying bags of rocks.”

The mining itself requires massive amounts of energy. So do the processes used to refine the materials and finally to build the wind and solar hardware.

Eventually, massive amounts of waste must be dealt with. Wind turbines, solar panels, and batteries have a short life span, on average about 20 years. Conventional energy machines last at least twice as long. Mills cites the “green energy” advocate named the International Renewable Energy Agency (in coordination with the United Nations). They calculate that by 2050 the disposal of worn out solar panels will constitute over double the tonnage of all of today’s global plastic waste. Wind turbines and batteries will add millions more tons of waste.

Without thinking, the environmentalists have created a whole new environmental challenge. We might want to re-think history’s biggest leap in mining, excavation of pristine areas, child labor, and unmanageable waste problems.

Following that, we might want to reconsider our almost inexhaustible supply of hydrocarbons, the very fuels that run the modern world. Today’s technology make fossil fuels cleaner to use and easier to acquire. It costs about the same to drill one oil well as it does to build one wind turbine. However, an oil well produces far more energy per dollar than does a wind turbine.

Proponents of solar, wind, and battery energy must answer the question, “What is the environmental cost you are willing to endure?” The real answer will expose the farce.

Dennis M. Patrick can be contacted at (JavaScript must be enabled to view this email address)