America has to be bold and re-imagine its energy future. Fossil fuels are a finite resource with a heavy environmental cost. Faltering on the renewable energy challenge will without doubt result in an American disadvantage technologically, militarily, economically and environmentally.
The United States supported the vision, creativity, ingenuity and innovation during the space race in the 1960’s. A half century later a new race is on and we must rise to the challenge and lead a modern renewable energy transformation. The consequences otherwise could be irrevocable.
Solar farm in Long Island, New York. Photo by Brookhaven National Laboratory on Flickr
Already, countries like Germany with “energiewende”— energy transition — has emerged as the world leader in renewable energy (National Geography 2015). China, until recently, depended almost exclusively on fossil fuel (87%), but now has emerged as the largest investor of renewable in the world, dominating the solar-module and wind turbine manufacturing market (Institute for Energy Economics and Financial Analysis 2017). China is also investing over $360 billion in renewable energy through 2020, creating 13 million jobs (Reuters 2017). Worldwide, Renewable energy (excluding hydropower) is a $ 285.9 billion market employing 8.1 million people (International Renewable Energy Agency-IRENA 2016). It would be a grave mistake for America to cede the global race to clean energy economy (World Resources Institute 2017).
If the “America First” agenda refers to economic growth in the USA, a renewable energy economy should be its top priority. Driven by growth in the wind and solar market, renewable energy employment in the US rose by 6% in 2015, translating to 769,000 jobs (IRENA 2016). The Solar industry alone employs more than 200,000 people and has been growing at a rate of 20% annually. In 2015, the US solar industry created jobs 12 times faster than the overall job creation and surpassed jobs in oil and gas extraction (187,200) or coal mining (67,929) (IRENA 2016). So, the US economy has a significant stake in the renewable market.
Figure from Renewable Energy and Jobs: Annual Review by International Renewable Energy Agency 2016.
To sustain job growth, the renewable energy sector requires federal and state government to co-operate and create an environment for incentives and investments through an unambiguous and favorable policy stance. At the moment, however, uncertain policy positions toward renewable energy plus energy plans focused primarily on “bringing the coal jobs back” is causing undue stress on the renewable market. The coal jobs may or may not come back (NPR 2017). Why not provide opportunities for those who have lost coal jobs to be trained with renewable energy job skills?
This is when public support based of a shared desire to forsake fossil fuel energy, might be the impetus for greater government action toward energy revolution in the US. In Germany, it was not only the government’s favorable attitude but also the backing of a striking 92 percent of Germans that accounted for the rapid rise of energiewende (National Geography 2015).
Like Germany and China, the US should aggressively invest in renewable energy to promote green economy. It is time for us to not only participate, but to aggressively compete in the race toward building the energy legacy of the future.