So-called “Green” energy is nothing like clean.
Huge amounts of CO2 are emitted (if that’s your thing) at every stage of the Green energy manufacturing process.
Even crazier, at the same time the Greens want government to force us to use inefficient, intermittent wind and solar, and short-range electric vehicles, Green gadflies insist that we source none of the materials here. They block every mine and well, forcing producers to comply with Green mandates by sourcing the materials and products they demand overseas.
Not only do we lose jobs, but we shift extraction and production from places with the cleanest and most humane practices, to places with the dirtiest methods, where life is cheap.
CFACT senior policy advisor Paul Driessen explains in detail at CFACT.org:
Green and political interests don’t want drilling or fracking, pipelines, or nuclear, coal or hydroelectric power plants – or mining for the materials
needed to manufacture electric cars. They prefer to have that work done somewhere else, and just import the energy, cars and consumer goods.
Out of the Left’s sight, out of the media’s mind.
Driessen provides powerful examples:
Most of the world’s rare earth ores are extracted near Baotou, Inner Mongolia by pumping acid into the ground, then processed using more acids and chemicals. Producing one ton of rare earth metals releases up to 420,000 cubic feet of toxic gases, 2,600 cubic feet of acidic wastewater, and a ton of radioactive waste. The resulting black sludge is piped into a foul, lifeless lake. Numerous local people suffer from severe skin and respiratory diseases, children are born with soft bones, and cancer rates have soared.
Lithium comes largely from Tibet and arid highlands of the Argentina-Bolivia-Chile “lithium triangle.” Dead, toxic fish join carcasses of cows and yaks floating down Tibet’s Liqi River, which has been poisoned by the Ganzizhou Rongda mine. Native people in the ABC triangle say lithium operations contaminate streams needed for humans, livestock and irrigation, and leave mountains of discarded salt.
The world’s top producer of cobalt is the Democratic Republic of Congo, where some 40,000 children as young as four toil with their parents for less than $2 a day up to 12 hours a day. Many die in cave-ins, or more slowly from constant exposure to toxic, radioactive mud, dust, water and air that puts dangerous levels of cobalt, lead, uranium and other heavy metals into their bodies. The cobalt ore is sent to China for processing by the Chinese-owned Congo Dongfang International Mining Company.
Whether it’s copper from Alaska’s Pebble Mine or rare earth’s from Texas, essential products and materials are produced cleaner and greener in America, than China, Congo and the rest.
Let the free market function and force dirty suppliers to compete with clean ones.
If the price of a cleaner, greener world is American jobs and industry advancing, that’s a price we’re prepared to pay.