To bolster energy security, the best U.S. approach begins with lowering unjustified regulatory barriers.
To bolster energy security, the best U.S. approach begins with lowering unjustified regulatory barriers.
A t National Review, Nate Hochman amplified Chris Barnard’s important Wall Street Journal op-ed on the changing global perception of nuclear power. Hochman reiterated the value that nuclear energy provides over and above alternative low-carbon power sources such as wind and solar, and he rightly noted that the resistance to nuclear in the U.S. is largely concentrated in blue states. He also added an element to the discussion over nuclear power, however, by implying that a transition away from fossil-fuel electricity sources is a national-security imperative.
Hochman wrote, “Cleaner energy grids are a laudable goal — not just in the fight against climate change, but for an array of crucial national-security reasons,” and linked to Thomas Hochman’s more extensive 2021 piece at the National Interest, where he warned that America’s weak commitment to renewables has been an energy-security — and, ipso facto, a national-security — misstep.
The environmental case for instituting policy frameworks to reduce pollution from the electric sector is strong. But a tipping of the policy scales in favor of renewables, particularly absent crucial regulatory reforms, courts energy-security disaster.
Public policy is an exercise in trade-offs. Rarely can one commitment be fully endorsed without it coming at some expense to another. Issues pertaining to the environment invariably display this. For example, regulating the dumping of industrial waste into waterways improves health outcomes but elevates industrial costs and prices for consumers. While that is a worthy trade-off, it is a trade-off nonetheless. Sometimes, as the displacement of coal by lower-cost natural gas has shown, markets themselves will yield positive environmental outcomes, even if unintended. When markets fail to account for polluting emissions, it may be appropriate to accept a cost trade-off and implement a framework to account for them.
Thomas Hochman acknowledges that this interplay is at work, writing in NI that as climate-change commitments transform our energy landscape, the U.S. is losing ground on national security. It is perplexing, therefore, that his proposed remedy is not to reconsider the climate-change commitments, but rather to plunge headlong into industrial policies abetting those commitments.
A nuclear-forward response to the environmental imperative, as Nate Hochman initially suggested in NR, differs significantly from the pro-renewables response Thomas Hochman favors. The nuclear-forward approach could indeed enhance our environmental standing without sacrificing national security. Contrarily, the pro-renewables approach would jeopardize national-security concerns in exchange for any environmental improvements it could achieve, until and unless we enable massive scaling of mining and transmission building.
By pursuing the climate-change commitments Thomas Hochman references, we introduce certain new energy-security vulnerabilities, most of which pertain to China and what the International Energy Agency (IEA) calls the energy transition minerals. As I wrote in these pages last year, the IEA’s 2021 mineral report indicates that a race to renewables would swap climate risks for dependency on Beijing.
Thomas Hochman identified those very concerns at NI. “The United States has surrendered market-share across the clean energy industry, oftentimes at a staggering pace,” he wrote, citing Chinese predominance in solar manufacturing and wind-power installations as evidence. Indeed, China has carved out a commanding perch on many of the materials that gird renewable-energy systems. In one specific example, IEA describes China’s global position on rare-earth elements as one of “dominance . . . across the value chain.” Any policies that move our grid away from the natural-gas and coal plants that supply more than 60 percent of our utility-scale power must account for the pitfalls they would invite and distinguish between renewables and nuclear. Thus, Nate Hochman’s claim that clean-energy grids are a laudable goal for national-security reasons is at best incomplete.
Thomas Hochman recommends that the U.S. compete in a “clean energy arms race” and enact an “aggressive decarbonization campaign” to beat China. I would consider each of those proposals — to the extent that they resemble central planning — hubristic. Moreover, this approach overlooks that China’s efforts to sustain its critical minerals, wind, solar, and battery industries are in significant part motivated by China’s fossil-fuel deficit. By 2030, Wood Mackenzie estimates, China will depend on imports for 80 percent of its crude oil and half of its natural gas. On the other hand, the U.S. is a now leading global producer of both commodities and is a prolific exporter of natural gas and refined petroleum products.
Despite these disagreements, the Hochmans and I would concur that it is time to launch an agenda enabling the domestic development of key minerals, permitting new energy infrastructure such as pipelines and transmission lines, and approving new nuclear designs. On this score, Thomas Hochman astutely noted in City Journal that progressive anti-development politics preclude the progressives’ ostensible net-zero goal.
With Europe experiencing Kremlin-induced natural-gas shortages, we see clearly the importance of reliable, affordable energy from stable, trustworthy sources. To the extent that wind, solar, and battery technologies can contribute to that objective, we ought to be thankful for their continued development. But coercing our economy in that direction does not strengthen U.S. energy security; it does the opposite by putting the United States into a dependent position relative to China.
To bolster energy security, the best U.S. approach begins with lowering unjustified regulatory barriers. It is felicitous that this market-aligning strategy does not require inflexible commitments to any of the competing industries here in the United States. Rather, the abundance agenda will give tailwind to U.S. production of oil and natural gas; of the critical minerals for wind, solar, and batteries; and of nuclear power, which, the Hochmans and I agree, presents a golden opportunity to enhance environmental quality and energy security simultaneously.