What are the Military Implications of How The US Will Transition its Energy Future?

By Peter Huessy, President of Geostrategic Analysis. Warrior Maven Senior Nuclear Weapons Analyst

(Washington D.C.) The major assumption of the news, entertainment and academic communities in the USA and most of the industrialized world is that a transition to what is described as clean or green energy is absolutely necessary and that by an arbitrary date certain such as 2035 and 2050 the US can indeed achieve the goal of a carbon neutral or carbonless energy environment. However, as former Secretary of State Kerry acknowledged just recently, even should the US and all of Europe achieve a net-zero production of green house gases, nothing will have been accomplished if India and China continue their current paths toward greater utilization of fossil fuel and particularly coal fired energy production.

Greenhouse Gasses

The numbers are roughly as follows: the world’s GHG production is around 52 billion tons. The US produces 5 billion tons annually, down from 6 billion tons. China at 13 billion tons and India at 3.5 billion tons, by comparison, are projected to reach 30 billion tons by 2035, while the US might reduce its emissions to 4-4.5 billion tons by that deadline.

The world’s overall GHG emission load would at best thus be 65+ billion tons, (a 25% jump) assuming the rest of the world remains static. In Africa, where fifty percent of the population has no regular access to electricity, the need for grid energy is huge and without it Africa cannot achieve any kind of prosperity and economic freedom. The GHG production in Africa and elsewhere would have to be factored into the equation to get the most likely GHG impact. (One good thing about natural gas production and use in Africa is that the traditional use of wood and agricultural waste as a source of fuel could markedly decline, and with it serious airborne pollution and the resulting respiratory illnesses.)

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Whatever the GHG number, one critical key to the future is natural gas production. It is the only way India and China can grow their energy demand while also cutting GHG emissions, and the only reasonable path forward for Africa and the rest of the world. But there is no international financial mechanism to provide the capital for such production, as the UN and World Bank system are being captured by a woke bureaucracy that wants to go from the current energy state to a non-fossil fuel capability directly, as opposed to adopting a transition where natural gas and other fuel sources are in the mix. (Assuming such a transition is necessary which I don’t).

One often hears that nuclear power is the answer. But financing nuclear power is a tough hurdle for most investors, and without the ability to use spent fuel as a reactor fuel—as France does—the decision by former President Carter to prevent such technology from going forward flipped the nuclear power industry into the red. That needs to change for nuclear energy power to be viable. Nuclear power production also takes time to build, and while we know how to store nuclear waste, that is also a serious problem because of those in society whose idea of energy policy is a banana—build (b) absolutely (a) nothing (n) anywhere (a) near (n) anybody (a)!