Clean energy is Putin’s kryptonite
”Americans will always do the right thing. After exhausting all the alternatives.” — Winston Churchill
Democracies from Australia to Japan are watching in horror as an unhinged autocrat slaughters innocent people and menaces the world with threats of nuclear violence. Vladimir Putin’s shelling of innocents makes a mockery of the post WWII ethos that intertwined economic interests will protect the world, and that globally linked economies will check the worst impulses of madmen.
The shift is pressing a teachable moment, whether we want it or not. In spite of our toxic polarization, few Americans watching Putin’s massacre can now refute the danger of an autocrat to whom laws don’t apply, who sells misinformation, and who amplifies his personal grievances onto a national stage.
Aside from domestic whiplash of all-too-recent political deja vu, the lesson from Putin’s invasion of Ukraine dwarfs politics. The lesson of war in the new global economy is that reliance on energy of finite supply — like oil — now dominates geopolitical movements and will continue to do so until we make a massive pivot toward energy that cannot be monopolized or weaponized. Our reliance on oil — foreign or domestic — will eventually cause more destruction, mass migration, extinctions, and starvation than empowered lunatics like Putin can even dream of.
Europe didn’t entice Russia’s dictatorship into the world’s democratic sphere through private enterprise, investments and technologies, rather, Russia’s dictator weakened the democracies of Europe by supplying more than a third of their energy. It’s a dependency Putin rightly calculated would hamstring the world’s response to his aggression. While the U.S. and our allies quickly coalesced around severe and swift economic punishment, Russian oil was largely given a pass because more than half of it is exported to Europe, and its leaders cannot replace Russian oil overnight — if ever. For now and the relevant future, replacing the oil and natural gas Russia sells to Europe to heat homes, propel vehicles, and fuel industry has been deemed practically impossible because the pipeline infrastructure through which liquified natural gas travels is limited. Europe does not have enough miles of pipeline to transport gas from import locations along the coast to consumers located thousands of miles inland, and it would take years to build them.
Although the U.S. leads the world’s production of oil, we are not in a position to replace Russian oil exports to Europe either, as US export facilities are already operating at maximum capacity. Expanding domestic oil export facilities would not only require billions of dollars, but sufficient expansion would take years, a luxury of time our NATO allies don’t have.
The U.S. ban on Russian oil is largely symbolic
The U.S. imports around 700,000 barrels a day from Russia, which is less than 4 percent of America’s total oil consumption. Given the relative fungibility of oil, and the limited amount of crude the U.S. imports from Russia, bipartisan demand to ban Russian oil in the U.S. appears more symbolic than substantive. Nonetheless, the Biden administration this week announced a ban on Russian oil imports, effective immediately. Biden had resisted the move to stave off increases in gas prices and inflation, but even before Biden announced the Russian oil ban, gas was already up by 75 cents a gallon, due to several factors including pandemic supply and distribution challenges.
Although inflation is fair political fodder in any election year, attributing the rise in gas prices to the U.S. ban on new drilling on public lands is myopic. In the U.S., there are currently 9,000 drill permits
already granted but not utilized. For various reasons, including market volatility, lag time between investment and profits, and diversification into renewables, the oil industry has opted not to drill under the existing 9,000 permits. Moreover, the vast majority of drill sites are on private land, not public.
Paradoxically, some of the heaviest investors in renewable energy are the world’s oil giants. Of the six “super-majors” — BP, Shell, Chevron, Total, Eni and Exxon — most have pumped billions into clean energy projects, evidencing the extreme profitability of wind and solar, and illustrating that the world is switching to renewables, it’s just a question of when. Big oil no longer disputes climate science so much as insists on bending the climate prognosis to their own timeframe. They claim the time trajectory of a cooking planet is uncertain, and that there is still time to gradually transition away from fossil fuels (presumably when their equipment nears obsolescence and their ROI is satisfactory). They have successfully lobbied state and federal lawmakers for time to maximize returns on their oil investments, a timeframe scientists warn will ravage the planet’s ability to feed itself within a generation.
Are we going to replace one tyrant with another?
Modest amounts of Russian oil imported by the U.S. will be replaced by continued release of strategic reserves as well as increased imports from Canada, Brazil and Colombia, without much difficulty.
But replacing Russian oil consumed by our European allies, who import about 40 percent of their gas and more than a quarter of their oil from Russia, is a different matter entirely. Acknowledging this reality, last weekend U.S. officials traveled to Venezuela for talks on whether Venezuelan oil could help ease rising oil prices; the U.S. and Europe are also considering both Iran and Saudi Arabia to replace Russian oil. Each of these countries is a strategic Russian ally ruled by a ruthless dictator, and each poses a threat to the post-WWII order.
In Venezuela, the United States accused President Maduro of human rights abuses and electoral fraud, attempted to oust him, and in 2019 recognized his opponent, Juan Guaidó, as the country’s president. The U.S. then imposed sanctions on Venezuelan oil to avoid enriching Maduro’s government; it is the same government with whom we would be engaging on any revived oil negotiations. Lifting oil sanctions on Iran is equally fraught. Iran is known for its human rights abuses, and is suspected of developing a covert nuclear program. Hostilities worsened under Trump until we ordered an air strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful general. While Iran may be anxious to resume lucrative oil sales, it will not soon forget our air strike, nor will it forgo its alliance with Russia. Turning to the Saudi Arabian option, buying more oil and enriching the Crown Prince of Saudi Arabia is inherently offensive to democratic norms and freedoms. It is widely assumed that Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman approved of the murder and dismemberment of Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, for his criticism of the Saudi government. No one wants to further enrich a spoiled, murderous brat for the sake of oil. No one, that is, except a nation desperate to keep the heat on with no other choice.
Fifty years after the OPEC embargo and our vow to do better, Europe finds itself caught in the same oil dependency trap. Apparently the regimes in Venezula, Iran, and Saudi Arabia are not too evil for the free world to do business with, as our reliance on oil continues to make us accessories to regimes that threaten liberal democracies and the freedoms that go with them.
GOP finally admits climate change caused by fossil fuels
The world’s inability to stop Putin has underscored the need to pivot away from a finite oil supply toward clean energy that cannot be depleted, monopolized, or weaponized. Following the invasion of Ukraine, the EU acknowledged that dependence on Russian oil — on any oil — is dangerous. Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, tweeted this week that the EU must reduce dependency on Russian oil by “investing in renewables,” and that Europe must “structurally prepare for a massive increase of renewables in our electricity market.”
Whether the U.S/ has the political will to switch to renewables remains unclear. Until recently, the right has resisted the nation’s transition to clean energy, in quid pro quo for consistent campaign funding from the oil and gas industry. According to Open Secrets, the oil industry regularly “pumps the vast majority of its campaign contributions into Republican coffers… Since the 1990 election cycle, more than two-thirds of this sector’s contributions to candidates and party committees has gone to Republicans.” In addition to oil and gas, electric coal-based utilities and the mining industry also heavily support Republicans, who have paid them back by blocking the nation’s quick transition to renewable energy.
The fossil fuel industry’s well funded, industry-wide campaign to spread disinformation about the role of fossil fuels in causing global warming is well-documented. At the opening of a hearing on ‘Fueling the Climate Crisis: Exposing Big Oil’s Disinformation Campaign to Prevent Climate Action,’ the Chair of the US House Committee on Oversight reported, “The fossil fuel industry has had scientific evidence about the dangers of climate change since at least 1977. Yet for decades, the industry spread denial and doubt about the harm of its products — undermining the science and preventing meaningful action on climate change even as the global climate crisis became increasingly dire, and its deadly impact on Americans increased.”
In spite of big oil’s pernicious but effective misinformation campaign, growing weather-related calamities are welcoming in a late sea change among Republicans, collected by The Hill’s Jim Tolbert: In 2019, Sen. Mike Braun (R-Ind.) told the Washington Examiner, “I’m not afraid to talk about climate change. … We’re obviously pumping more CO2 into the air, and there’s a thing called the greenhouse effect.”
Other Republicans have similarly reversed course: Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.):
“I’m a Republican who believes the greenhouse gas effect is real, that climate change is being affected by manmade behavior.” Sen. Mitt Romney (R-Utah): “There’s no question that we’re experiencing climate change and that humans are a significant contributor.” Sen. Pat Roberts (R-Kan.) says everyone in his agriculture-heavy state realizes climate change is happening, calling the issue “obvious.” Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), from America’s largest coal producing state, admits, “The climate is changing and we, collectively, have a responsibility to do something about it.”
The time for mass conversion is now
Oil didn’t cause Putin to invade Ukraine, but Europe’s reliance on Russian oil has weakened NATO’s response to the invasion. Reliance on Russian oil — on any oil — not only threatens political stability, it threatens our very existence. Last week, UN scientists issued a report on the trajectory of climate change, warning of devastating impacts of any continued delay in transitioning to renewable energy. Recent UN Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change conclusions are stark: “Deadly with extreme weather now, climate change is about to get so much worse. It is likely going to make the world sicker, hungrier, poorer, gloomier and way more dangerous in the next 18 years with an “unavoidable” increase in risks… Delaying cuts in heat-trapping carbon emissions and waiting on adapting to warming’s impacts, will miss a brief and rapidly closing window of opportunity to secure a livable and sustainable future for all.”
Albeit expensive, technological and battery capacity to convert to renewables has existed for at least ten years, but the U.S. transition has been mired in politics. Now that the GOP and big oil have largely stopped denying climate science, and the world sees how reliance on oil creates global risks, we have the political impetus to make immediate investments in our conversion to renewable energy, which will be cheaper in the long run than waiting until our coasts and farms disappear. Like our WWII wartime investments, massive renewable energy investments will transform our economy with jobs, purpose, and a revamped national infrastructure for the future.
The biggest winner in transitioning to renewable energy will be the consumer because renewable energy is far cheaper (not to mention cleaner) than oil and coal derived energy. The price of utility-scale solar energy is now 3.7 cents per kilowatt hour, while power from utility-scale wind costs 4.1 cents per kilowatt hour. Compared to natural gas (5.6 cents) and coal (10.9 cents), wind and solar power is unquestionably and vastly cheaper. Costs are even lower for rooftop solar, because consumers don’t have to pay for distribution at all.
We are smarter than Putin
Watching as Putin instigates the next world war, there has never been a more momentous thrust toward clean energy. As long as the world remains dependent on a finite supply of oil, we will fight over it, and we will be vulnerable to powerful bad actors — foreign and domestic — who lie about everything, including climate science.
The best way to disarm Putin, Maduro, bin Salman and petro thugs of the future is to harvest the kryptonite of clean energy and wean America, Europe, and the rest of the developed world off fossil fuels now, while the window of opportunity is still open. Seen from a global security lens, installing rooftop solar on every home and harnessing the wind in every ocean is akin to arming every man, woman, and child: no Putinesque thug can ever stop the wind or turn off the sun.