The recent debate over the siting of solar installations has proceeded from the assumption that there is a tradeoff between two desirable goals — generating more energy from renewables and protecting forests and farmland. From an ecological standpoint, this simply isn’t true.
We are in the midst of an ecological crisis that stems from our overconsumption of the Earth’s resources, and a long-term commitment to significantly reducing our consumption is the only way out of it. Adding more capacity to the grid, whether from renewables, fossil fuels, nuclear, or any other source, will have the opposite effect, fueling increased consumption, and leading to even greater ecological destruction.
That may seem like a controversial statement, but it is grounded in the most basic of economic principles, the law of supply and demand. Going on a spree of building solar and wind power facilities will add significantly to supply, making energy substantially cheaper than it would otherwise have been. That will in turn lead to significantly higher levels of energy use, stronger economic growth, and greater consumption. That is just Economics 101.
I realize that my perspective on this issue runs counter to the approach taken by most advocates in the area, and I am familiar with the counter-arguments to it. Let’s take them one at a time:
But… we will be taking all of those fossil fuel plants off-line. That will more than compensate for the additional capacity from renewables. Wrong. The commonwealth’s own 2050 Decarbonization Roadmap calls for developing generating capacity from renewables to “meet a growing demand for electricity,” meaning that the state is planning for ever increasing energy consumption, even as fossil fuel plants are shut down.
Moreover, what guarantee do we have that the fossil fuel plants will really go? During the pandemic, when supply chain disruptions led to sharply higher energy prices, Democratic members of Congress, who had just months before berated energy executives for not phasing out fossil fuels quickly enough, criticized those same executives for not increasing oil and gas production faster. After Western sanctions against Russia led to natural gas shortages across Europe, Germany, which had shut down its nuclear and natural gas plants in favor of wind and solar, turned to coal, the dirtiest of all energy sources, to meet its needs. In an energy-constrained future, it is all too easy to imagine our leaders making similar choices, especially if taking fossil fuel plants off-line would lead to energy shortages or increased consumer prices.
But… economic growth need not cause ecological harm, because we will direct that growth into “clean” sectors of the economy. We have heard such promises before. Back in the 1990s, many environmentalists hailed America’s shift away from its traditional manufacturing base towards high technology as promising a cleaner, greener future. Today, computer use, the internet, and data storage — all of those files you are saving to the cloud and all of those photos you are sharing — accounts for a significant and growing percentage of global electricity use. And high tech companies are busy building dedicated natural gas and nuclear power plants for their AI data centers. This is the dirty truth about supposedly clean industry.
But… reversing economic growth will negatively impact the most vulnerable in our society — millions may starve! The truth is that only a small portion of the energy we use today is needed to provide people with food, shelter, health care and other necessities. There is no reason our society could not adapt to significantly lower energy use while still meeting everyone’s basic needs. In fact, a 2021 article published in Global Environmental Change, a
leading peer-reviewed journal, found that the most efficient way to extend basic services to underserved communities was not through increased energy use or economic growth, but by reducing income inequality and improving public services.
So, no, all of those solar panels being sited on former forest or farmland aren’t needed to feed the poor. Rather, they are being put there so that you can post even more photos of what you had for breakfast on Instagram.
For centuries, we have used economic growth as a crutch to avoid addressing the inequities and power imbalances in our society. It is high time we tossed the crutch away and directly addressed those issues, so that we may reduce our consumption of resources and allow the Earth to heal herself.
I am not against renewable energy. Indeed, I write this as someone who has just had rooftop solar installed at my home. But I have already at least begun the work of reducing my energy consumption — I don’t fly on airplanes, my driving mileage is less than half the national average, I don’t use air conditioning, I grow much of my own food, and I take care of my own health with a daily chi gung practice, among other things. Home scale and appropriately sited neighborhood or regional scale installations can be part of a sustainable future for our society — but only if they are preceded by a commitment to rapidly and permanently reduce our consumption.
If we are serious about addressing the ecological crisis gripping our planet, all of us, but especially the most affluent among us, are going to have to accept a lower standard of living, and fewer comforts and conveniences. Such a future doesn’t have to be bleak or depressing. In fact, If we do it right, it could be a future of greater freedom, health and human connection for all of us. But real sacrifice is going to be required.
From this point of view, the question of siting solar installations on forest and farmland isn’t a difficult tradeoff. It’s an obvious choice that we have simply become too comfortable and complacent to make.
Michael Alterman is a homesteader living in Chesterfield. He holds a master’s degree in urban and environmental policy from Tufts University.