A green energy revolution will leave U.S. dependent on China
One of the subtexts of the Obama administration's decision yesterday to open up parts of U.S. coastal waters to oil and gas exploration is the idea that greater American energy production will deliver us to the nirvana of energy independence. This idea is, of course, bunk. Yet energy independence is a bi-partisan fixation. Conservatives have their drills, liberals, their windmills. But as Daniel McGroarty wrote in these virtual pages earlier in the week, a green energy revolution would leave the United States heavily dependent on China:
The wind turbines, solar panels and next-gen batteries that are at the core of the Green Energy movement. And there's a devilish dynamic at work: The more one set of researchers strives to decrease the amount of rare earths we need for a given function - the more another bunch thinks up new inventions that become viable with smaller traces of rare earths. Multiply those new uses across tens and hundreds of millions of cell phones, PDAs and whatever new device is destined to come off the drawing boards, and you get the picture. The world is going to need a lot more rare earth compounds than we're producing right now.
Where will we get them?
And the answer:
Today, 95 percent of all rare earths produced worldwide come from a single country: China.
In short, the idea that America is going to find defense in self-sufficiency is alluring but false. Even the Hermit Kingdom needs support from the outside world.
