Recently, I was reading a booklet entitled Leadership for a New American Economy, which details an approach to developing renewable energy to reduce our dependence on hydrocarbons. The piece was put together by a group of environmental organizations that includes the Sierra Club, the National Wildlife Federation, and the League of Conservation Voters, among others. Their goal is to have much of America’s electricity powered from renewable sources such as wind, solar, geothermal, and biomass in order to reduce our dependence on imported energy and also to reduce greenhouse gases.
The theme of the booklet is that moving to the “clean energy economy” will create millions of jobs and strengthen the nation’s economy, both by the creation of these jobs and by reducing the importation of hydrocarbons, both goals that I can support. According to the organizations sponsoring this booklet, the new jobs include engineers, iron workers, steelworkers, machinists, welders, metal fabricators, engine assemblers, electricians, sheet metal workers, millwrights, electricians, pipefitters, energy auditors, and many others. Even farmers and other landowners are due to benefit by leasing land for solar and wind farms.
As complete as this list might seem at first glance, there are some omissions in this inventory of potential economic opportunities. For instance, there is no mention of the gaggle of attorneys that will be involved in litigating against the location of these new facilities and the transmission lines needed to bring this energy to those who need it. We already see opposition to a wind farm off the coast of Massachusetts and a solar farm in the Mojave Desert in California. If clean energy is in trouble in two of the most “green” states in the union, it will be interesting to see how it fares elsewhere.
However, as concerned as I am about recognizing the role of lawyers in the “green economy,” I was really struck by what I think is an even more glaring omission by these promoters of clean energy.
Nowhere is there any mention of miners. Where do organizations like the Sierra Club think all of the iron workers, steelworkers, welders, metal fabricators, engine assemblers, electricians, sheet metal workers and others listed in their booklet are going to get the materials they need to manufacture, assemble, and connect these new energy producers? For instance, every one megawatt wind turbine requires more than 500 pounds of copper, plus an even greater amount of steel for its construction. Similarly, the materials needed to manufacture solar panels must be mined. And, of course it is useful to transmit the energy once it is produced, and for that activity the country will need steel towers and copper cables.
It is difficult to discern whether the omission of miners from the list of employment opportunities was intentional. We do know that many in the environmental movement find mining distasteful, so it is possible miners were left out on purpose so as not to offend some of the supporters of the groups sponsoring this clean energy initiative.
Unfortunately, I suspect the real reason is much more disconcerting, at least to me. Many people in this country just do not understand where things come from. If we want to make substantial changes in our energy infrastructure, someone – somewhere – is going to have to dig some holes in the ground.
A few of you may think that I am writing this column because of my position at Pebble, as the prospect contains large amounts of copper and molybdenum, both of which will be needed to build the pieces of the “clean energy economy.” While it is true that my new hybrid car contains twice the copper of a non-hybrid I might have bought, my whole life does not revolve around finding new uses for that metal.
The potential development of Pebble is not particularly relevant to the point of this column. What really concerns me is that this booklet is an unfortunate example of a situation in which the environmental community is not telling the whole story when it comes to what is necessary to have a “green economy.”
It is probably not important to discern whether the omission of miners and mining is based on the distaste many in the environmental movement have for the mining industry or out of ignorance for how the world actually works. What is important is that without mining, the “green economy” will be a total disconnect.
Editor's Note: John Shively is Chief Executive Officer of the Pebble Partnership, a member of the RDC Executive Committee and past president.
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