Pro-Con: Are renewables really the best way for US to achieve energy independence?

Yes: Electric, wind and solar already are paving the way for a renewable energy future

As U.S. metropolises rapidly grow into super-cities, fossil-fuel dependent vehicles, factories with smoke stacks that belch pollution, and buildings heated by natural gas and coal will disappear.

That’s already happening in the Pacific Coast megalopolis that runs from San Francisco through Los Angeles and on to San Diego, and the Northeast megalopolis of New York City, Philadelphia, Baltimore and Washington, D.C.

While we are seeing more electric vehicles on highways each day, the use of wind- and solar-generated energy also is rapidly increasing.

The U.S. Energy Information Agency estimates that energy generated by small-scale solar capacity was 16 gigawatts (GW) at the end of last year, and it expects steady growth with solar panels providing 19 GW at the end of 2018 and 23 GW at the end of 2019. As large desert areas are covered with solar panels, those figures will rise dramatically.

And the scarcity of battery charging stations, currently cited as a drawback for the acceptance of electric vehicles (EVs), will no longer be an issue.

Major hotel chains like Marriott and Hilton already have battery boosters at hundreds of their hotels and many are building new hotels run almost entirely on renewable energies.

Even now while driving within a megalopolis or between them, EV drivers are never very far from “civilization” or a battery charge.

Two factors that the fossil fuel industry relies on to tamp down interest and investment in EVs are the climate impact of EVs and the availability of both critical and rare earth minerals required to produce cost-effective vehicle batteries.

Europe, with its general aversion to nuclear energy, remains carbon-intensive when it comes to the production of electricity.

An independent study conducted in Brussels, Belgium, for Transport & Environment, a nongovernmental research organization, found that when compared to fossil fuel-based vehicles, all present versions of EVs — full electric, range-extended and plug-in hybrid vehicles — had less of a carbon footprint over their lifespans, even when reliant on coal-intensive electrical grids like those of Poland and Germany.

Critical elements in the production of EV batteries, including nickel, aluminum, cobalt, and lithium, are readily found around the world.

Such rare earth minerals as neodymium, praseodymium and dysprosium are not actually “rare,” but are found in only small deposits, not huge mother lodes, on the Earth’s crust.

These exotic elements — none of them exactly household names — are also found on sea beds.

And rare earth elements can also be recovered and recycled from millions of discarded phones and computers.

As extraction technology for such rare elements improves, so will the ability to cost-effectively produce more neodymium iron boron and lithium ion magnets, which are vital for EVs.

Electric vehicles currently account for only 1.7 percent of new vehicle sales in Europe. However, the European Union is preparing to change that by mandating a quota for zero-emission vehicle sales within Europe.

The U.S. Congress should do the same for the United States. California, at the urging of Gov. Jerry Brown, has led the way among the states by mandating a 2 percent sales quota for EVs in 2018, a baseline that will increase to 16 percent by 2025.

Other states following California’s lead in mandating a percentage of zero-emission vehicles are New York, New Jersey, Massachusetts, Maryland, Connecticut, Rhode Island, Vermont, Maine and Oregon.

It is no coincidence that the first six of these states are within the emerging Northeast megalopolis, where limiting carbon footprints is critical.

Although the Trump administration and its stripped-down Environmental Protection Agency are doing their best to roll back environmental regulations to 1920s standards, worldwide trends suggest that a carbon-free America may be only an election away.

No: Renewables aren’t up to the job; we need to tap the world’s vast fossil fuel resources

Last March, President Donald Trump issued an executive order “promoting energy independence and economic growth.”

While he specifically included “renewable sources,” he clearly intended to unleash the nation’s massive fossil fuel resources, which is the only conceivable way to achieve energy independence — at least for the foreseeable future.

Since the 1970s, when Middle East oil producing countries imposed an oil embargo to punish the U.S. for its support of Israel, U.S. policy has promoted energy independence.

The U.S. had supposedly reached “peak oil” in the early ’70s, where easy-to-reach crude oil had already been extracted; production was expected to decline while prices increased. Thus it seemed that embracing renewable energy sources, especially corn-based ethanol, would be necessary to fill the energy gap.

But American innovation came to the rescue, as it so often does.

Natural gas and crude oil producers developed ways to crack the shale formations that contained untold reserves of oil and gas.

That process, known as fracking, along with horizontal drilling, opened up vast new hydrocarbon resources. Today, the U.S. has become the world’s largest producer of crude oil and natural gas.

In 2016, the U.S. produced 14.9 million barrels a day of crude oil, associated liquids, and biofuels, according to the Energy Information Administration (EIA). Saudi Arabia only produced 12.4 million barrels per day and Russia 11.2 million.

In addition, the U.S. produced 27 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2015, compared with Russia's 21.1 trillion. Third-ranked Iran extracts one-quarter of what the U.S. produced.

Even so, the U.S. must still import about 6 million barrels of crude oil per day.

Renewable sources help, but play a minor role. And that’s after eight years of the most pro-renewable energy president we’ve ever had and billions of dollars in subsidies.

Take electricity generation, which is the largest source of energy consumption. According to the EIA, natural gas powers about 34 percent of electricity generation, coal 30 percent and nuclear power 20 percent.

Renewable energy sources provide 15 percent, with about half of that from hydro power.

When people think of “renewables,” they generally think of wind and solar power. Yet wind power only provides 6 percent of total electricity generation, solar 1 percent and biomass — consisting of organic material like wood, plants and corn cobs — only about 2 percent.

That’s barely enough to run one of our major cities, much less the largest economy in the world. And that’s only if the sun is shining and the wind is blowing, which they often aren’t.

The EIA reports, “During the recent cold weather event that affected much of the eastern United States, more natural gas was withdrawn from storage fields around the country than at any other point in history.” Renewables can’t match that.

Even hydro power can be sporadic, as Montana experienced during last summer’s drought.

And then there’s ethanol, which makes up about 10 percent of our gasoline. But car manufacturers have repeatedly warned that increasing that ratio will damage millions of car engines.

The good news is that the U.S. has had a long-running energy-sector relationship with Canada and Mexico, thanks in large part to the 1994 North American Free Trade Agreement, which let energy products and services flow between countries with no tariffs and limited restrictions.

In 2016, the three North American economies produced a total of 22 million barrels of crude oil per day and about 33.7 trillion cubic feet of natural gas in 2015.

Energy independence for the U.S. alone is still years away — and may never arrive if we rely solely on renewables. But thanks to free trade, energy independence for North America is within our grasp.

This story was originally published January 25, 2018 at 1:58 PM with the headline "Pro-Con: Are renewables really the best way for US to achieve energy independence?."