Green China? — VOICES for REASON

Tell me if this refrain sounds familiar: China is leading the world in “green,” “renewable” energy such as solar and wind, and if the US doesn’t shovel (even more) taxpayer money into these technologies, we will suffer an economic deathblow.

Here’s a recent example of this line of argument from the New York Times.

Companies that make solar cells and wind machines argue that a national energy policy is needed to guarantee them a market that will allow their industry to develop. Clean power will be an important industry globally for years, they say, and if the United States does not subsidize renewable energy now, it risks falling far behind other countries.

They point to China, which is rapidly increasing the amount of electricity it generates from renewable sources. In its most recent quarterly assessment of the renewable energy sector, the accounting and consulting firm Ernst & Young identified China as the most attractive market for investment in renewable energy.

There are many fallacies here–for example, that truly promising industries need government backing, and that another country’s superiority in one line of production is somehow a threat (ever hear of division of labor and comparative advantage?). But it’s important as a factual matter to obliterate one distortion shared by this article and much other commentary on the subject–that “green energy” is in any way, shape, or form responsible for China’s recent economic success.

China’s impressive growth over the last 20 years and its potential for growth in the upcoming years have been and overwhelmingly will be fueled by the greens’ most-hated energy source of all: coal. Coal has provided the vast, vast majority of the nearly 500 percent increase between 1990 and 2008. (See Power Hungry by Robert Bryce, page 60). And don’t just take my word for it; see the statistics provided by the Obama administration’s Energy Information Administration. Of the 77.3 quadrillion Btus China produces annually, coal provides 74%, oil 15%, hydroelectricity 7%, Natural Gas 4%, Nuclear 1%, and so-called Other Renewables (solar, wind, ethanol) 0.2%! Whatever solar and wind farms China is building, to great fanfare, are mere window dressing to win over world opinion.

Those who admire China for its economic progress should take note: it is not coming from the endlessly subsidized, diluted, intermittent, expensive sources such as solar and wind–it is coming from highly concentrated, cheap sources such as coal, oil, natural gas, nuclear, and hydro (all of which the “green energy” movement opposes as “unnatural”). The lesson? If you want more prosperity, don’t go green–go industrial.

Image: Wikimedia Commons