THIS LAND WAS YOUR LAND a Closer Look at 80 by 50

REPORT | October 2016 THIS LAND WAS YOUR LAND A Closer Look at 80 by 50 Robert Bryce Senior Fellow 1 This Land Was Your Land | A Closer Look at 80 by 50 About the Author Robert Bryce is a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute. He has been writing about the energy sector for more than two decades, and his articles have appeared in such publications as the Wall Street Journal, New York Times, The Atlantic, and Sydney Morning Herald. He is the author of Pipe Dreams: Greed, Ego, and the Death of Enron, named one of the best nonfiction books of 2002 by Publishers Weekly; Cronies: Oil, the Bushes, and the Rise of Texas, America’s Superstate (2004); Gusher of Lies: The Dangerous Delusions of Energy Independence (2008); Power Hungry: The Myths of “Green” Energy and the Real Fuels of the Future (2010), which the Wall Street Journal called “precisely the kind of journalism we need to hold truth to power”; and Smaller Faster Lighter Denser Cheaper: How Innovation Keeps Proving the Catastrophists Wrong (2014), which the New York Times called a “book well worth reading” and the Wall Street Journal called an “engrossing survey.” Bryce has delivered more than 200 invited and keynote lectures to groups of all kinds, ranging from the Marine Corps War College and University of Calgary, to the Sydney Institute and Melbourne’s Institute of Public Affairs. He appears regularly on major media outlets, including CNN, Fox News, PBS, NPR, and BBC. Bryce holds a B.F.A. from the University of Texas at Austin. 2 Contents Executive Summary.............................................................. 4 I. Introduction.......................................................................... 5 II. What Is Deep Decarbonization?........................................... 6 III. Climbing Aboard the Bandwagon........................................ 7 IV. Three 80 by 50 Scenarios................................................... 7 V. The Implications of 80 by 50 for Land Use.........................8 VI. High-Voltage Transmission..................................................12 VII. Growing Rural Opposition....................................................13 VIII. Deep Decarbonization Versus Wildlife................................14 IX. Conclusion............................................................................15 Appendix A...........................................................................18 Appendix B........................................................................... 20 Endnotes.............................................................................. 26 3 This Land Was Your Land | A Closer Look at 80 by 50 Executive Summary oliticians from federal to local levels have joined in a pledge known as 80 by 50, an effort to cut carbon-dioxide emissions 80% by 2050. The pledges are long on fanfare Pbut short on details. There is, however, a published literature that determines how to achieve so-called deep carbonization, and it involves a massive increase of renewable-energy sources, primarily wind and solar. This report analyzes the extraordinary amount of land that would be needed to achieve 80 by 50 through wind and solar, the amount of additional high-voltage transmission capacity, and the growing resistance to local wind-energy projects. It also looks at what all this means for the populations of birds and bats, including endangered species. Key Findings 1. Relying on wind and solar energy to achieve an 80% reduction in carbon-dioxide emissions will require installing energy infrastructure over 287,700 square miles, a surface nearly as large as Texas and West Virginia combined.1 It also will require adding at least 200,000 miles of new high-voltage transmission lines, roughly double the existing capacity. 2. The U.S. would have to install about 1,900 gigawatts (1 gigawatt is equal to 1 billion watts) of wind capacity—26 times the existing U.S. amount and four times the global wind capacity—if it plans to rely primarily on wind energy to cut greenhouse gas emissions by 80%. 3. Rural communities, acting through more than 100 government entities, have resisted expansion of renewable-energy capacity by moving to reject or restrict wind projects in about two dozen states since January 2015. Solar projects have also faced opposition. 4. Wind turbines kill birds and raptors, including bald and golden eagles. The turbines also are the largest cause of bat mortality, including several bats that are categorized as endangered. Attempting a 26-fold increase in wind-energy capacity may have devastating impacts on bird and bat populations. 4 THIS LAND WAS YOUR LAND A Closer Look at 80 by 50 I. Introduction ver the past few years, politicians and environmental groups have declared that the U.S. must make drastic cuts in domestic carbon-diox- Oide emissions. On July 21, the Democratic Party released its platform, which included a plank to reduce domestic “greenhouse gas emissions more than 80% below 2005 levels by 2050.” The platform also says that “America must be running entirely on clean energy by mid-century.”2 In August, Bill McKibben, a prominent American environmentalist, wrote in The New Republic that the domestic economy can be run solely on renewable energy, adding that the U.S. should mobilize to fight climate change with the fervor that the Allies used to defeat Hitler in World War II.3 While 80 by 50 has many adherents, it is by no means clear how many of them understand that achieving it will require restructuring the domestic electric grid, a major expansion of the country’s high-voltage transmission system, and retooling nearly every sector of the U.S. economy. This report focuses on how 80 by 50 will affect land use. It highlights wind and solar energy because many of the environmental groups and climate activists who champion 80 by 50 and other decarbonization scenarios oppose nuclear energy. McKibben claims in his New Republic essay that the all-renewable-energy plan he favors will only require “four-tenths of one percent of America’s land mass”—about 15,200 of the country’s 3.8 million square miles. This report will show that the actual amount of land required is about 19 times larger. As renewable-energy projects proliferate, land-use issues have already become increasingly important and controversial. Small communities nationwide have begun to actively oppose projects. Recently, to take just one example, the Board of Selectmen in Stoddard, New Hamp- shire, voted unanimously in August to oppose a proposed 29-megawatt wind project near their town. In a letter to state officials protesting the project, the board cited concerns about a “significant wildlife area” centered in the town.4 Renewable-energy projects routinely ignore the impact on wildlife when figuring decarbonization scenarios. This is a significant omission, given the iconic status of the many bird species that can be affected by the projects. And bats, which are especially at risk from such projects, play a critical environmental role as pollinators and insectivores. 5 This Land Was Your Land | A Closer Look at 80 by 50 II. What Is Deep The only scenario that relies on a major expansion of nuclear energy was written by Barry W. Brook, pro- Decarbonization? fessor of environmental sustainability at the Univer- sity of Tasmania. Brook claims that a global decar- In recent years, groups such as Greenpeace Interna- bonization effort modeled on France’s rapid adoption tional, Worldwatch Institute, the International Energy of nuclear energy during the late 1970s and 1980s Agency, and the consulting firm McKinsey & Company could allow the global economy to derive about half have published scenarios that show how carbon-dioxide its energy needs from nuclear energy by 2060.8 emissions might be reduced by 80% or more. Achieving such cuts will require a dramatic reduction, or perhaps While Brook’s paper presents a possible decarbon- elimination, of the use of coal, oil, and natural gas. The ization strategy, some of America’s most influential process is known as deep decarbonization. environmental groups are staunchly antinuclear and are working to close down reactors. The Natural Re- Published decarbonization scenarios vary widely in their sources Defense Council and Friends of the Earth led assumptions of key factors such as cost, future energy the negotiations with Pacific Gas & Electric to shutter demand, development of better batteries, and adoption Diablo Canyon, California’s last nuclear energy rates for alternative- and electric-vehicle technology. plant. PG&E recently announced that it will close They also differ on the amount of electric generation ca- down Diablo Canyon by 2025.9 When the announce- pacity required. ment was made, the NRDC claimed in an article on its website that the closure sends a message to other Consider a decarbonization scenario published in 2015, utilities: “You can replace reactors without increasing which says that the “average fleet fuel economy” for a greenhouse gas output.”10 light-duty vehicle in the U.S. will need to be greater than 100 miles per gallon of gas-equivalent in 2050 in order The Sierra Club, among the largest environmen- to achieve 80 by 50. It also warns that up to 95% of all tal groups in the U.S., is “unequivocally opposed to the miles driven should shift from gasoline-fueled vehi- nuclear energy.”11 This environmental group is part cles to use electric- or hydrogen-powered ones. That’s of the Alliance for a Green Economy. The Alliance not all: the paper predicts that total energy demand says that

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