John Hinderaker writes for the Powerline blog about an inconvenient truth for the activists and politicians who constantly push a so-called green agenda for America’s energy future. Relying on their preferred power sources would cause much greater harm to the environment than continuing to use traditional fossil fuels and nuclear power. Those who push for wind and solar power rarely look into the details of those energy sources’ impact.
Green energy is a disaster in several ways: it is inherently unreliable and ridiculously expensive. Some people naively assume, however, that wind and solar energy make up for these liabilities by being good for the environment. They couldn’t be more wrong.
The basic problem with wind turbines and solar panels (plus hypothetical batteries) is that they are extremely low-intensity. Do they work? Intermittently, yes. But compared with conventional energy sources, they produce a very small amount of energy on a per-unit of input basis. Thus, they require both enormous amounts of land and vast quantities of raw materials.
Thus, to supply America’s electricity with wind turbines would require a land area twice the size of California. But that isn’t all. Because they are so low-intensity, wind, solar and batteries require enormous amounts of raw materials. To actually transition to a “green” economy (which will never happen) would require the greatest mining, manufacturing, transportation and construction effort since the Industrial Revolution. And mining, manufacturing, transportation and construction all have significant environmental impacts.
Earlier today, American Experiment published a new report titled “Shattered Green Dreams,” by Sarah Montalbano. It contains all the facts you need to know about the baleful environmental effects of green energy. …
… For those who care about the environment, the most environmentally benign source of energy is nuclear, followed by hydropower, natural gas, coal, and, in more or less a tie for last place, wind and solar.
The post Documenting ‘green’ energy’s harmful environmental impact first appeared on John Locke Foundation.
Click this link for the original source of this article.
Author: Mitch Kokai
This content is courtesy of, and owned and copyrighted by, https://www.johnlocke.org and its author. This content is made available by use of the public RSS feed offered by the host site and is used for educational purposes only. If you are the author or represent the host site and would like this content removed now and in the future, please contact USSANews.com using the email address in the Contact page found in the website menu.
