The Great Con accelerates

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Democrats use Ukraine war to push their green agenda

The U.S. must transition to green energy “as quickly as possible,” bring an end to alleged price gouging from oil companies and provide assistance to consumers battling high energy prices, according to the Democratic non-binding resolution first reported by The Washington Post.

“The war in Ukraine has underscored how our dependence on oil fills the coffers of tyrants and dictators like [Russian President Vladimir] Putin, and that a rapid transition to clean and renewable energy is not just necessary for our environment, but critical to our economic and national security,” Democratic Oregon Sen. Jeff Merkley, who led the effort Monday, told the Post in a statement.

The resolution stated that “energy efficiency and renewable energy from domestic manufacturers can come online more quickly and reliably than oil and gas production” and ensure energy independence while promoting a clean environment. The argument echoes recent comments from President Joe Biden, senior administration officials and several Democratic lawmakers who have argued that Russia’s invasion of Ukraine proves that oil and gas markets are too volatile. (RELATED: ‘The Supply Chain Does Not Exist’: Green Energy Industry Is In For A Rude Awakening)

However, the resolution didn’t mention the highly-volatile renewable energy supply chain which has, like traditional energy markets, been disrupted by the Ukraine crisis. Critical minerals needed for green tech are controlled by hostile foreign powers including Russia, sending prices through the roof in recent weeks.

China alone controlled about 55% of the world’s rare earth mineral mining capacity and 85% of global mineral refining in 2020, a White House supply chain report from June concluded. The International Energy Agency has also suggested that there is a “looming mismatch” between critical mineral availability and Western governments’ ambitious green transition plans.

To achieve the European Union’s lofty green new deal plan, the bloc will need to ramp up lithium production by 3,500%, according to a study from Belgian university KU Leuven. The EU must also substantially boost its supply of nickel, cobalt and rare earth minerals. (RELATED: Biden’s Green Transition May Usher In More Energy Insecurity. Here’s How)

Democratic Sens. Elizabeth Warren, Chris Murphy, Cory Booker, Chris Van Hollen and Richard Blumenthal backed the effort by Merkley on Monday.

Admittedly, the names behind the resolution belong to some of our dumbest senators (and in Murphy’s case, the dumbest), but someone pushing around the stick figures down there in swamp knows better, and knows this:

“Green” energy’s dirty, not-so-secret reality: it’s filthy

The International Energy Agency warned last year that “to achieve net-zero carbon emissions by 2050, overall mineral requirements would need to increase six-fold.”

“Those minerals have to come from somewhere, and that often involves harmful sourcing, increased greenhouse gas emissions, and limits on the mineral supply.”

It’s somehow news that we can’t put minerals that we don’t have into solar panels, electric car batteries, or wind turbines.

More:

In the Atacama Desert, for example, lithium mining has tripled in the last decade, said Javiera Barandiarán, an associate professor of Global Studies at the University of California, Santa Barbara. “We need to continuously tell people this is a non-renewable resource, and it will run out,” she said. “The more quickly we extract it, the more quickly it will run out by a factor that we don’t know.”

It was without any apparent irony that Evergreen noted that “renewable energy comes from finite resources.”

Um … so how renewable is renewable energy, actually?

It’s hungry for real estate, too.

New mining sites, Evergreen says,

often create a “land grab” that can remove people from their livelihoods while degrading human and ecological health. They also result in higher levels of poverty—a well-established correlation for commodity-rich areas known as the “resource curse.”

I had been told that the switch to clean energy would result in everybody getting richer, but as it turns out the benefits have mostly flowed to well-connected billionaires, usually found in Communist China.

One Ars commenter wrote:

“Reduce, reuse, recycle.”

[L]et’s get back to that key word: “Reduce.”

Any clean energy solution to whatever our planet’s problems might (or might not) be, if it doesn’t include nuclear power then it doesn’t solve anything.

As Evergreen and the IEA both admit, extracting the minerals needed for solar and wind is a very dirty business — maybe even dirtier than drilling, fracking, or mining for coal.

Those processes release an awful lot of that postmodern boogeyman, carbon, too.

But clean energy does solve one of the Left’s problems: People they don’t like doing things they don’t approve of.

The key is in that one word, quoted above: “Reduce.”

Non-nuclear “clean energy” isn’t about saving the Earth — how could it be, after even its proponents admit how filthy it is?

No, non-nuclear “clean energy” is about forcing people to reduce the energy they use. Just like the return to “organic” farming, which the Biden Administration is using the Ukraine War to nudge farmers into doing, is about reducing crop yields.

Reduce energy production and everyone but the well-connected would be reduced to a pre-industrial lifestyle. Reduce food production and there won’t be enough of the hoi polloi to put up a fuss about it.

Am I being paranoid, or am I just taking the Left at their word?