COMMENTARY: Putting America’s energy security ahead of fantasy

Many Americans are fed up with watching the country stumble into an energy crisis dressed up as a climate crusade. Energy security isn’t some abstract concept — it’s the backbone of the nation’s strength, and we are risking it all chasing net-zero pipe dreams.

Common sense and numbers don’t lie. We can’t sacrifice reliable, homegrown power for unreliable wind, solar and batteries that cost a fortune and leave us vulnerable. It’s time to wake up before the lights go out and our energy costs skyrocket.

Let’s talk about China. While activists trip over themselves to “save the planet,” Beijing is playing a different game. In 2023, it added 500 terawatt-hours of new electricity generation, mostly from coal.

China is not slowing down. It knows cheap, reliable energy fuels its economy and global ambitions. Meanwhile, under the Joe Biden administration, we were stuck with energy policies that drove up our bills and made our grid shakier than a house of cards in a windstorm. Thankfully, the One Big Beautiful Bill ends $500 billion in wind and solar subsidies, just not fast enough.

Wind and solar? They sound great until you look at the real world. They aren’t just expensive; they’re destabilizing. Ask Californians about their sky-high electricity rates and shortages, or Texans about their blackout nightmares. When the wind stops or the sun sets, so does electricity.

We’re funding China’s coal empire by buying its solar panels, turbines and batteries. China uses more than half of the world’s 9 billion tons of coal, and it is building hundreds of coal plants that will last 50 years. India and Indonesia are doing the same.

The good news? The corporate green facade is starting to crack. Big Oil, Shell, BP and others used to play along, trumpeting climate pledges to keep the activists happy. Now, they’re backing off.

Shell is cutting wind and solar targets to focus on oil and gas profits. BP is slashing wind projects because the math doesn’t add up. Even Exxon is backing away from the net-zero hype. These aren’t eco-villains; they’re businesses realizing that gutting hydrocarbons, oil, natural gas and coal is economic suicide. Why don’t many of our politicians get it?

America has more coal than China. We’re sitting on enough to power industries for generations, yet we’re paying through the nose for electricity. Why? Because we’ve vilified coal and bet on “green” tech that comes from China.

Subsidizing solar panels and wind turbines made with low-cost coal, low labor costs, sometimes using slave labor, and few environmental protections isn’t just bad business; it’s bankrolling an authoritarian regime that’s building its military at an amazing clip and polluting the world.

Our tax dollars are propping up a regime that crushes dissent and eyes global control, all while many worry about “sustainability.”

We should protect our environment. But we have taken our eye off real conservation in favor of attempting to regulate the gas of life, carbon dioxide, out of existence. Carbon dioxide makes plants grow much better, greens our Earth, and is a gas that we each exhale about two pounds a day.

Energy security is national security. We need to lean into what works: coal, oil, natural gas and nuclear, sources that keep the lights on and the factories humming and transportation moving all the time, not just when the wind blows (32 percent of the time) and sun shines (20 percent of the time).

We must stop funneling money to China for tech that doesn’t deliver. Ditch the subsidies that make us weaker, and embrace the home-harvested energy that strengthens the economy and national security.

Net-zero might make for nice headlines, but in a world where power means survival, it’s a luxury we can’t afford. We’ve got the resources and the know-how to lead; let’s stop pretending and start acting like it.

Americans want electric grids that don’t flicker, where energy bills don’t take ever more from our wallets, and where we’re not at the mercy of rivals who don’t play fair. That starts with an energy policy grounded in reality, not fantasies. We are choosing strength over slogans and building a future that’s powered by us, for us.

Putting Americans and the country’s security ahead of the fantasies of controlling the weather by limiting the gas of life is the right direction for our country.

Frank Lasee is the president of Truth in Energy and Climate. He wrote this for InsideSources.com.