National Security and Renewable Energy

I spent most of the afternoon yesterday with 2GreenEnergy intern Louis de Saint Phalle, talking about the project he’s working on: a set of articles that will lay out the main issues associated with the adoption of renewable energy.  The first hour featured a walk on Hendry’s (dog-friendly) beach, pictured here, and a discussion of the national security implications of our energy policy.

Louis’s looking into things like:  How real are the terrorist threats against our grid?  How specifically would clean energy lessen them?  We all think immediately of distributed generation, and how it’s hard to attack something that exists in thousands of places simultaneously—but are there other features of energy generation and delivery from renewable sources that come into play here?

What about the numerous other threats to the grid, like extreme weather events.  What about our addiction to oil and the potential for supply line disruption?

Aren’t there other important factors at play here, like international relations?  In particular, wouldn’t it be of consequence if the U.S. could take the moral high-ground on environmental issues?

But at the end of all this discussion, let’s suppose that we can prove that a steady migration to clean energy would be extremely valuable.  How does that translate into action?  Regardless of what all this means in terms of national security (or the environment, or human health, etc.,) there will be people who remain opposed to it, and fight against it with every ounce of strength (i.e., every dollar) they have.  For the foreseeable future, the fossil industry will endure as the most powerful political force on Earth; it’s hard to imagine their folding their tent under any circumstances.

I’m looking forward to seeing what this young man comes up with.