America is losing the arms race for clean energy

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The United States has long understood energy independence as a central part of its national security efforts. But as climate change commitments and technological innovations transform the global energy industry, America is lagging behind.

In the past, the United States was aggressive on energy security. An early adopter of drilling technology, America controlled oil production throughout the first half of the twentieth century, and when the industrial hub moved overseas, it quickly solidified the position of major U.S. oil companies across the globe. ‘abroad. At the same time, America continued to innovate at home and, in 2018, new advances in fracking technology made the United States energy independent for the first time since 1957. This was rightfully celebrated as a Major Finding: As Rep. Fred Keller (R. -PA) wrote in a 2020 editorial for The Hill, American energy independence means a safer nation, a safer economy, and a more secure future The Fortunes of the Americas are on the rise.

But not all energy mixes are created equal, and America is unlikely to be sustainable in the long term.

Simply put, the U.S.’s sudden shift from importer to exporter is due to the shale revolution, an innovation in drilling that allowed it to significantly increase domestic oil and gas production. And to be sure, oil and gas have long been the cornerstone of American energy production, virtually unchallenged by alternative energy sources during the late twentieth and early twenty-first centuries.

But now, the clean energy industry is booming. Over the past two decades, investments have skyrocketed, prices have dropped considerably, and renewables have nearly doubled their share of the American electricity mix. Innovations in battery technology also appear set to accelerate global energy change.

Here, too, America was once aggressive and avant-garde. As the 1950s space race ushered in an era of frenzied innovation, American investments in solar PV helped commercialize the once nascent technology. For the next three decades, the United States dominated the global solar industry, leading development and controlling over 90% of the market. The results of this effort are now evident to everyone: deemed prohibitive just a decade ago, renewables are now often the cheapest form of energy, even without subsidies, and their costs continue to drop at a much faster rate than their competitors in fossil fuels. In short, clean energy will become an invaluable resource in the coming years.

If renewables were recognized for even a fraction of their future potential, the United States would surely rush to become a world leader in clean energy capacity. But the Americas’ commitment to renewables has weakened exceptionally in recent decades.

The Carter administration did not prioritize solar, and the Reagan administration rejected it altogether, paralyzing the industry with underinvestment, record interest rates and environmental deregulation. Over the next decade, America’s share of the global solar market plummeted, and by the mid-2000s, American companies were producing only 9 percent of solar panels worldwide.

Now, US rivals have capitalized on the void left by America’s lack of leadership in the industry. China now dominates solar production, building three quarters of the world’s photovoltaics. As many as 80% of the solar panels installed in the United States come from Chinese companies. American concessions to the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) are not limited to solar energy either: the United States has given up market share in the clean energy industry, often at an impressive rate. A little over a decade ago, the United States had double the wind capacity of China; today, that relationship is reversed. In 2013, the United States had five times more electric vehicles than China; China now has double the American supply.

These developments have enormous geopolitical consequences, as the CCP is well aware. Particularly when it comes to energy, economic competition does not exist in a vacuum and countries often exploit their natural resources as a foreign policy tool. In 1973, OPEC famously imposed an oil embargo on the United States for its support of the Israeli military, sparking a months-long energy crisis. In more recent times, Russia has punished neighboring countries with fuel price hikes when they defied the Kremlin’s wishes. Energy security and independence are not abstract concerns; they have material consequences for American security and prosperity in both the short and long term.

Now, with its inability to compete in the arms race for clean energy, America has exposed itself to an energy security risk reminiscent of the 1970s. China has already explored limiting American access to rare earth minerals, softening critical components of clean energy hardware in response to US arms sales to Taiwan, and continues to explore ways it can hinder contractors defense authorities by limiting supplies of minerals.

This is a big deal given China’s near-monopoly on critical minerals. China’s production of lithium, the element of choice for storing electricity, is ten times that of the Americas and its reserves exceed the United States by a factor of thirty. Some estimates put America’s lithium supply chain twenty to thirty years behind China. The story with other minerals isn’t all that different.

This is not because China has more natural mineral reserves, per se. Instead, the CCP is willing to go overseas for its resources and is willing to mine, with a portfolio that now includes lithium in Chile, cesium in Canada, and cobalt in Congo.

To compete, the United States will have to respond with its own mining operations; it can be expected that after years of traditional anti-mining rhetoric, this will meet with some resistance. But critical minerals, as their name suggests, are vital, and mining will therefore be a necessary evil if the U.S. is to avoid sending its clean energy industry (and with it, its environmental efforts). in a wall.

At the same time, America must reduce its wider dependence on Chinese energy with a more aggressive decarbonization campaign. This isn’t as simple as reducing China’s wind and solar energy production costs (Chinese subsidies make this nearly impossible), but will instead require the US to pursue innovative new renewable technologies. While this certainly means continuous investment in research and development, it also means moving away from a national industrial policy that focuses entirely on technology and none on application. If the United States wants to control alternative energy sources, it is not enough to invent, it must be commercialized.

That’s not bad at all, obviously in the first quarter of 2021, American lithium miners raised over $ 3 billion from Wall Street to support cleaner mining alternatives. Some of the resulting initiatives, such as California’s plan to extract lithium from the Salton Sea brine, are particularly promising. But these solutions are far from perfect and the reality is that the United States, despite its vast resources, is currently unable to zero emissions. To get there, it will have to pursue an all-encompassing approach that involves sustainable mining, sure, as well as nuclear, wind and solar energy and next-generation technology.

China’s attempts to monopolize the clean energy industry have shown, in no uncertain terms, that leadership in renewable energy is much more than a climate issue. Politicians, national security experts and environmentalists now face a showdown: act soon or fall further behind in a race we cannot afford to lose.

Thomas Hochman (@thomashochman) is a member of the Citizens Climate Lobby. His work has been featured in Deseret News, The Washington Examiner and a number of other outlets.

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