"Going Green Pits Renewables Against Farmland. Nuclear Energy Can Help" By CWP Alum Zongyuan Zoe Liu

Decarbonizing the global energy system is no mean task. According to a 2022 McKinsey report [PDF], achieving net-zero emissions by 2050 would cost an additional $3.5 trillion in annual capital expenditure on physical assets for energy and land-use systems. That figure is equivalent to half of all global corporate profits, one-quarter of total tax revenue, or 7 percent of household spending in 2020. However, the clean energy transition is not just about the money. As the United States progresses toward net-zero carbon emissions, it inevitably runs into competing demands for land, driven primarily by land-intensive renewable sources for power generation such as wind and solar.

Not all renewable energy sources are equally land efficient. Maximizing land-use efficiency is critical to ensure that a cleaner energy future does not come at the expense of the unity of American communities and the foundation of the United States’ farmland and food security. Expanding the domestic infrastructure for nuclear energy, one of the cleanest and least land-intensive sources of energy available, could be the most viable strategy.

Blog Post by Zongyuan Zoe Liu March 23, 2023 3:35 pm (EST)

Zongyuan Zoe Liu is a fellow for international political economy at the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR). Her work focuses on international political economy, global financial markets, sovereign wealth funds, supply chains of critical minerals, development finance, emerging markets, energy and climate change policy, and East Asia-Middle East relations. Dr. Liu’s regional expertise is in East Asia, specifically China and Japan, and the Middle East, specifically Gulf Cooperation Council countries. Dr. Liu is the author of Can BRICS De-dollarize the Global Financial System? (Cambridge University Press) and Sovereign Funds: How the Communist Party of China Finances its Global Ambitions (Harvard University Press, forthcoming 2023).

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