Expensive case for renewable energy

It is repeated so often that it is a cliché bordering on a truism: Renewable energy would be nice, but America still needs baseload electricity generated in coal or nuclear plants.

But what if that isn't quite right?

Countries all over the world are testing the principle right now, according to a story in The New York Times, ramping up renewable energy as quickly as they can.

Portugal, as an example, will generate 45 percent of its electricity this year from renewable sources - hydropower, wind, solar, waves, biomass - up from 17 percent just five years ago.

Of course, that shift comes with costs. Electricity, already twice the average price in America, rose by 15 percent over that same period.

But Portugal's experiment, along with ongoing efforts in Canada, Iceland, Ireland, Denmark, Britain and Brazil, argue that shifting considerable generation from fossil fuels - coal, mostly - is possible if a nation is willing to pay the price.

By 2025, according to a report by IHS Emerging Energy Research cited by The Times, those countries expect to get 40 percent of electricity from renewable sources. The United States, by contrast, has a paltry 5 percent coming from renewable sources now, and the report estimates that will rise to just 16 percent by 2025.

Beyond the missed opportunity to clean up its electricity generation, the United States' slow walk toward renewables also means that the technology to capitalize on wind, solar and other green sources will end up being developed and implemented elsewhere.

With the exception of nuclear, which has problems of its own, most traditional means of power generation release greenhouse gases, which contribute to global warming. They also release particulates that foul the air and toxins of all kinds.

The world's reliance on oil has its own deleterious effects on the environment, not to mention the massive disruption it creates in geopolitics and the world economy.

Even if you deny man's role in the planet's warming, there's no dispute about either the pollution caused by burning coal or the health effects. Or the fact that fossil fuels will run out.

Other nations have access to the same information as America. Many have decided that it makes good sense to begin shifting from finite and dirty energy sources to renewable and clean ones, and to do it now.

If it doesn't begin a similar push of its own, America runs the risk of being left behind in a world economy that depends now on energy and energy technology, and will for the forseeable future.