Serving the progressive climate agenda, the Biden administration has done everything it can to block the use of natural gas to produce electricity.
Russian President Vladimir Putin’s now overt threat to turn off natural gas supplies to Europe has revealed the potentially disastrous national security consequences of impeding U.S. natural gas production and distribution. But there is another, perhaps more fundamental problem with the war on natural gas that is rarely brought to public attention. Namely, natural gas is crucial to achieving the progressive goal of increasing renewable power.
To understand why this is so, consider California and Germany. These two political jurisdictions each get about 40% of their electricity from renewable energy sources. That means wind in Germany and solar in California. But wind and solar are intermittent power sources. When the wind is calm and the sun doesn’t shine, there is no solar or wind power. To ensure a reliable supply of electricity, any place that relies heavily on solar or wind power to produce electricity must also rely heavily on other power sources that can be turned on and off relatively quickly and cheaply. In both Germany and California, the primary source of such easily dispatchable power is natural gas.
Many progressive climate warriors don’t appear to know reliance on wind and solar also entails reliance on natural gas. Some do know this but seem to believe we can run the electric grid with electricity generated by solar and wind and then store that electricity in batteries. This is currently not technologically possible — less than 1% of all U.S. electric power comes from batteries — and will likely never be possible unless a major advance beyond lithium-ion batteries occurs. Right now, eliminating natural gas-fired power in reliance on nonexistent battery storage would destroy the reliability of the electric supply system. It would also be economically catastrophic.
Other progressives tout the possibility to complement wind and solar power with vast increases in hydropower. But hydropower comes from pushing turbines with water stored behind dams. Because such dams destroy entire river ecosystems, a major focus of environmental groups over the past several decades has been on tearing dams down. Increasing electricity from hydropower would require costly upgrades to existing dams and the construction of many more and much bigger dams in the future. Increased reliance on hydropower would greatly harm the environment.
Without massive increases in hydropower, destroying natural gas will almost surely harm economic growth. A surprisingly large number of people respond to this reality by saying things like, “We just need to consume less and have a smaller economy.” Such folks, sometimes called no-growthers, believe developed world economies generate unjust outcomes. They castigate reliance on economic growth as a way to improve human welfare.
Economists of all political stripes agree economic growth has been a tremendous engine for sustained improvements in human welfare, especially the welfare of the poorest people in society. Shutting down natural gas will shut down economic growth. In turn, no person who actually cares about the poorest members of society and also wants to move to reliable electricity with a high reliance on wind and solar should support the war on natural gas.
Jason Johnston is the Henry L. and Grace Doherty Foundation professor of law at the University of Virginia.
