Yesterday, readers of the Wall Street Journal opened the opinion page, only to find an extended advertisement where an op-ed usually lives. Of course, it looked just like an op-ed, and in fact is a normal op-ed, but in reality the piece functions as little more than a Big Oil-commissioned hit piece against renewables.
The op-ed, which points out that wind and solar require physical inputs like steel and other minerals, is designed to make readers believe renewables are dirty and fossil fuels a more resource-friendly option. Running the economy on clean energy would trigger the “biggest expansion in mining the world has seen and would produce huge quantities of waste,” according to the piece’s first paragraph.
It continues by pointing out that fossil fuels require less land than renewables, and that a battery’s inputs weigh more than the gas it replaces, therefore “hydrocarbons remain a far better alternative” than renewable energy.
Now, who would make such a stupid argument, comparing the land used by a power plant to a solar field, while ignoring any and all impacts of carbon pollution, as well as the thousands of miles of leaking oil pipelines crisscrossing the globe? An argument that pretends that it’s legitimate to compare an electric car battery’s entire manufacturing process to the weight of gas that goes through a car, and not the entire manufacturing process required for fossil fuels?
If your guess is “someone whose financial situation relies on fossil fuel profits,” you would be correct! The author is Mark Mills, whose WSJ byline identifies as a senior fellow at the Manhattan Institute, a partner at an “energy-tech venture fund,” and the author of a “recent report” titled “The ‘New Energy Economy’: An Exercise in Magical Thinking.”
What the WSJ fails to tell readers is that the Manhattan Institute has been funded by the fossil fuel-producing Koch brothers (in addition to the tobacco industry) and that the report mentioned is just another Manhattan Institute product that pales in comparison to a real life-cycle analysis of energy production.
And while “energy-tech venture fund” sounds like it could focus on renewables just as well as fossil fuels, in reality, and according to their own press release, it’s an “investment firm partnering with companies that provide digital solutions for the oil & gas industry.”
So the WSJ, in its infinite wisdom and integrity, thought it was a good idea to print something promoting fossil fuels by Mark Mills, someone whose financial livelihood depends on fossil fuels, while making sure not to let them know that the opposite position (that we should replace fossil fuels with renewables) would cost Mr. Mills and his investment firm major money.
And the worst part? This isn’t even a rare occurrence, as the WSJ giving space to fossil fuel propagandists is a pretty run of the Mills situation.