Pitting environment vs. energy divides us
Many leaders present energy security and environment security as polar opposites implying that one choice is good and the other bad. Making us choose polarizes and divides us. It is the old “you are with me or you are with them” mantra. Divisiveness and polarization are the last outcome we need regarding energy and the environment.
Our lives depend on available, affordable and sustainable energy. We are conquering poverty thanks to energy. It is the lifeblood of everything we do economically, from our mobility to our building materials, the clothes we wear, the food we eat, the medicines we take, the communications and information that we use throughout the day and night. Energy is an enabler of our national security and our economic sustenance. It helps produce and sustain jobs and livelihoods from our births to our deaths. Molecules and electrons power our lives 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
They come from many sources, such as coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, hydropower, wind, solar, geothermal, biomass or hydrogen. Not one of those sources is the enemy; not one of them is entirely clean. The notion of so-called “clean energy” is a myth designed to alienate us from one another by politicians and others who seek to divide us for the sake of their own political expression and economic gain. Every form of energy is essentially destructive in multiple ways, such as extraction of materials from the earth, consumption of mineral resources, construction of facilities, land use disturbance, damming of water, harvesting of biomass, reformulation of molecules, destruction of natural life, build out of infrastructure and the creation of waste: solid, liquid and gaseous.
Decommissioning of oil and gas wells has environmental responsibilities as does the decommissioning of wind blades, solar panels and electric batteries. Some of the materials for batteries for “green” energy are harvested by using near to, or actual, slave labor in places like the Democratic Republic of Congo.
There are those who pretend to offer an “environmentally friendly” alternative form of energy. Example: electric vehicles in China are dirtier than internal combustion engine vehicles in China. Why? Over 60 percent of all energy in China comes from combusting coal, which is dirtier than refined oil products. In addition, China’s environmental record on mining and burning coal is a long way down the scale from the track record of the American coal industry and consumption by U.S. utilities. Yet some politicians present China’s leadership in electric vehicles as somehow cleaner than U.S. mobility and want us to “catch up” to an environmental disaster.
We need to focus on what some call the circular economy, and begin to capture waste as a good, not just waste. For example, waste from energy production, like heat waste, can be used to produce other things or even more energy. Shockingly, we allow about 68 percent of the fuel we use to be wasted. And that wasted energy causes environmental damage with no corresponding goodness.
To have full energy availability from all sources we must recognize our failures to treat waste as seriously as it must be treated. If we are to reduce poverty, make healthier populations and enhance economic, national and international security we need both energy and environmental security. We need to head toward zero net waste as we improve the livelihoods of our people. What we need is smarter energy use and better waste management. Over time we can modify the mix of the types of energy we utilize by shifting from coal, oil and natural gas to increased amounts of nuclear, wind, solar, biomass, hydrogen and hydropower. We can also tighten up the efficiency of all energy uses.
With proper leadership we can make big positive changes for the overall wellbeing of our people. Over the course of the 21st century we might achieve the following: eradicate poverty, eliminate more waste of every type, restore our land, water and air to pre-industrial levels of man-made pollution. These goals would be more certain with intelligent and heart-felt strategic leadership.
Now why don’t our politicians explain this real possibility to us, and why are they dividing us into polarized camps that turn neighbor against neighbor and generation against generation? What is it about energy and environmental truth that our leaders fear to embrace? Might this have something to do with donations from certain quarters that help some leaders get reelected? Could it have something to do with collecting donations by NGOs and other organizations that feed off the fears or people?
Real leadership is needed that can help us all move toward better energy and environment futures. Where is it?