A reality-based Republican party could be offering cheaper, better ways to decarbonize the economy, writes jonathanchait
Green power for red states. Photo: Carol Highsmith/Getty Images Last week, after the Biden administration approved the nation’s first major offshore wind energy farm, the previous president was agitated enough to issue a statement denouncing the project. “Wind is an incredibly expensive form of energy that kills birds, affects the sea, ruins the landscape, and creates disasters for navigation,” he complained.
The need for a conservative climate agenda is amply demonstrated by the shambolic failure of high-speed rail in California. In 2009, President Obama signed a stimulus bill that included partial funding for a project California’s voters had already approved: a rail network that would allow a trip between L.A. and San Francisco in two and a half hours. Even though the state has poured billions into the project, a dozen years later it has almost nothing to show for it.
Some of those blind spots can be seen in specific issues. Nuclear power is the most obvious example. As a large source of zero-emission energy, nuclear power plays an important role in weaning the power grid off fossil fuel. Wind and solar energy have lots of room to expand, but will need a complementary source that doesn’t require access to sun and wind.
Labor is another source of friction between Democrats and environmental goals. Putting unemployed coal miners to work building wind turbines sounds nice in theory. In practice, it often means shutting down unionized jobs and replacing them with non-union jobs. The Biden administration has prioritized building its new green-energy infrastructure with domestically manufactured components, pushing up the cost.
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