OPINION:
At the end of President Biden’s renewable energy rainbow is the expectation of primeval purity’s restoration, free from the desecration of fossil fuels. Thus far, the requirements of the president’s dream remain sketchy. Americans have become uncomfortably acquainted with the heavy costs of going carbon-free, but they may be surprised by the dramatic alterations that his “green” energy infrastructure must make to their surroundings.
Allowing a moment of honesty at a press conference during his recent visit to Japan, Mr. Biden hinted at the coming revolution: “[When] it comes to the gas prices, we’re going through an incredible transition that is taking place that, God willing, when it’s over, we’ll be stronger and the world will be stronger and less reliant on fossil fuels when this is over.”
While the president likely used “incredible” as a common synonym for “wonderful,” its literal definition is “impossible to believe.” In context, it’s a meaning Americans can readily comprehend because current gas prices are indeed beyond belief. They have nearly doubled during his brief White House tenure to top a national average of $4.60 a gallon.
Undeterred by others’ pain at the pump, Mr. Biden remains focused on his policy objective of a 50% reduction in emissions by 2030 when, as he put it, “we’ll be stronger.” And by 2050, if he has his way, the nation will achieve net-zero carbon use.
At what impact, though? Aside from mountains of cash, the transformation would consume considerable chunks of these United States.
The Net-Zero America Project, a study produced by Princeton University and published in 2021 with graphics by Bloomberg News, found the Biden energy plan “will require sweeping changes in the power generation, transportation and manufacturing sectors. It will also require a lot of land.”
Fossil fuels that currently power the nation – coal, oil and natural gas — are crammed with concentrated energy. Even still, the U.S. energy sector presently occupies 81 million acres, according to the study, about the combined area of Missouri and Iowa.
By contrast, renewable power from wind and solar is as variable as the ever-changing weather. Capturing sufficient quantities of naturally diffuse energy requires a much broader expanse of land.
To harvest enough renewable energy to meet the president’s “green” goal for 2030 would mean expanding the energy sector’s dimensions by the equivalent of South Dakota. And by 2050, the nation’s energy production footprint would need to quadruple in acreage.
Wind farms alone would occupy land equivalent to the combined area of Arkansas, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska and Oklahoma. Solar panels would cover an area nearly the size of South Carolina. Of course, wind and solar farms and the transmission lines to transport the electricity could be widely disbursed from coast to coast.
Still, at the end of President Biden’s rainbow, Americans may be looking at vast tracts of energy infrastructure standing between themselves and Mother Nature. It’s another cost of going “green.”
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