It is a nice time of year, when home heating and cooling costs are minimal. Of course, savings on home energy are being replaced with skyrocketing transportation costs for gasoline and diesel. At the local level, there is not much we can do about these increases, as they are occurring because of federal policies. But we can think about how reliance on oil keeps hurting us. And good alternatives are increasingly available.
One cost that many may not think about is that maintaining global stability is very expensive. Of course, it is currently vital to have a reliable global stream of oil, and the Mideast is where much of the oil is. The reasons for so much conflict in that region are complex but have centered for a long time on the availability of its oil. The global influence of that region, including on the United States, is largely based on its ability to export oil. It is easy to see how expensive our military involvement is in the region – but even in quieter times our country spends enormous amounts to support a steady oil stream available to the world. This means our continuing use of gasoline continues to support the nations of the Mideast while being a major expense to all of us. It’s not just the cost at the pump – it is our tax dollars at work. And any full accounting should include the costs of human lives, as they also result from conflicts over oil.
Shifting to renewable energy is an important political divide – for reasons that seem irrelevant now as they largely originated from presidential candidate Al Gore’s early belief in the importance of moving away from fossil fuels. It’s clear that the world is making this shift – led by China. Looking at the web to find numbers on our relative use of solar does not provide a consistent accounting of production in each country – but every accounting I found was consistent in reporting China far surpassing the U.S. For example, one source showed for 2025 China adding 315 gigawatts of solar capacity, more than seven times the added capacity in the U.S. We are quickly falling far behind. Also very important is that China is leading the world in the production of the equipment needed to harness solar energy. One estimate is that 85 percent of all solar panels are produced in China! As the world ramps up to use solar energy, the U.S. manufacturing base currently is not a very competitive player. This is not a good thing going forward.
So, what can we do locally? One thing is to support the initiatives passed in the Virginia legislature that help us take advantage of renewable energy – including the regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative. A variety of other bills were recently passed designed to move us forward in reducing energy prices now, while investing in technology to decrease energy costs in the future. Of course, investments cost money, so transitioning to cheaper energy is not easy. No one wants high energy costs, but the current legislature is trying hard to do this while controlling current costs. This is being done in part through initiatives to help with producing and delivering energy more cost effectively and providing focused help to those who cannot pay any higher energy bills. Even in this current legislature, where much bipartisan work is being done (as evidenced by both parties being successful in passing legislation), we still hear partisan complaints about wanting to go back to the old ways of producing energy. Perhaps a good comparison is to look at the transition in 1926 from horses to cars – lots of folks complained then about cars and wanted to keep their buggies. Today, dependence on fossil fuels for energy is clearly fading away around the world, as renewable technology continues to develop quickly. China knows it and has developed an enviable industrial infrastructure to help its economy. Do we really want to be left behind?
