Renewables Aren’t Perfect

Here’s a message greens need to hear loud and clear: every energy source has its problems. The modern environmental movement holds renewables like wind and solar power as quasi-mythical solutions to all of the eco-woes we humans have brought down on ourselves, but like any other energy source, they have their problems. The World Bank has a warning for the growing clean-tech industry: moving away from fossil fuels is going to create new environmental problems. The FT reports:

Technologies needed to meet the Paris climate agreement from wind, solar, and electricity systems are “more material-intensive” than our current fossil-fuel supply systems, a report by the bank said. The mining or extraction of metals and rare earth elements could create environmental problems in terms of energy, water and land use, the report said. […]

“Simply put, a green technology future is materially intensive and, if not properly managed, could bely the efforts and policies of [resource] supplying countries to meet their objectives of meeting climate and related Sustainable Development Goals,” the bank said. “It also carries potentially significant impacts for local ecosystems, water systems, and communities.”

This isn’t the first we’ve heard of this.

This also isn’t to say that renewables are just as good for the environment as nuclear power or just as bad as coal. Each and every one of these options has upsides as well as downsides, and it’s important to take all of those into consideration when planning for a sustainable national or global energy mix.

The veneration greens have for renewables blinds them to the nuance that underpins any of these energy policy discussions, though. We’re far better off acknowledging the tough trade-offs that come with these decisions: coal may be terrible for local environments and greenhouse gas emissions, but it’s dirt cheap and can lift millions out of poverty; renewables may be able to provide a secure source of power without forcing climate change, but they’re generally expensive and have their own environmental impacts; natural gas may be a fossil fuel, but its recent boom is behind the drop in American emissions over the past few years.

“All of the above” has the ring of a political platitude, but it gets to the point: all of these energy sources have roles to play, and they also all entail risks that need to be minimized. Renewables aren’t perfect, but that doesn’t mean they don’t have transformative potential. Environmentalists could advocate for them better if had a firmer grasp on what wind and solar are, and what they can (and cannot) do.

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