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There is a growing contradiction in modern environmental activism, especially on the left, and it is time we start talking about it honestly. We cannot protect the environment or support economic growth if our energy arguments are based on slogans instead of math, infrastructure, and reality. The conversation needs to mature. The stakes are too high for feel-good talking points that fall apart when tested.
The truth is simple. Humanity needs energy. Every single modern comfort and every modern industry relies on it. The environmental conversation will go nowhere until we acknowledge that fact first.
Energy Is Everything
Cars use energy. Homes use energy. Streaming TV, cloud computing, and every AI model on earth use energy. Hospitals, manufacturing, refrigeration, steelmaking, trucking, and logistics all depend on energy. Even the things activists claim to support rely on the very systems they criticize.
People forget basic economics. More supply reduces cost. More demand with limited supply increases cost. It is not philosophy. It is math.
Right now, China is increasing its total energy production faster than any nation on earth. New nuclear plants, new solar fields, new hydro facilities, new wind farms, and yes, new coal and gas plants. They are building at a scale and speed the United States no longer matches. And because of that, China’s energy costs stay lower, which supports their manufacturing, technology sector, and national growth.
Meanwhile in the United States, a single data center proposal in a suburb of Northeast Ohio leads to protests. Residents are told energy prices will rise. They blame AI servers, electric cars, or Bitcoin. The truth is energy prices spike because we are not building enough infrastructure to meet demand. The data center is not the problem. The grid is.
The Wrong Things Keep Getting Blamed
Instead of addressing the lack of new generation capacity or the aging transmission system, activists blame the users. They attack electric vehicles for putting strain on the grid in one breath and then demand everyone buy electric vehicles to reduce CO2 emissions in the next. They oppose data centers because they use energy, while also demanding high-speed internet, cloud storage, and streaming services. They criticize Bitcoin mining without acknowledging that the same grid would fail under the load of electric heating mandates or the expansion of electrified public transit.
The common thread is simple. People blame what they see while ignoring what actually matters.
The problem is not cars, data centers, or new industries. The problem is stagnation.
The Real Culprit Is Infrastructure
There are two major sources of energy waste in the United States.
First, off-peak overproduction. Power plants routinely generate more electricity than the grid needs during low-demand hours. Because large-scale, long-duration storage is still limited and expensive, a portion of that surplus ends up curtailed or dumped instead of stored. This is especially true for wind and solar, which sometimes have their output reduced because the grid cannot absorb it.
Second, transmission loss. The United States loses a measurable amount of its generated electricity during transmission and distribution. The national average is roughly 5%, but some regions with older infrastructure lose more. Modern high-voltage lines, upgraded substations, and improved local distribution systems would significantly reduce those losses, but many of these projects are delayed or blocked.
Instead of addressing these root issues, local governments and activists often block new solar farms, wind installations, hydropower expansions, and natural-gas plants. In Ohio, commercial-scale wind development is restricted in many counties because township and county boards use setback rules, zoning, and “aesthetic” objections to stop projects. This has effectively shut down large-scale wind development across most of the state.
Meanwhile, people blame rising utility bills on industries that use the power they are permitted to access, instead of on the outdated grid that wastes energy and the regulatory bottlenecks that prevent new supply.
If we want cheaper power and a cleaner environment, the answer is to modernize the grid and build more generation capacity — not to shut down industries.
Real Solutions Exist. We Just Aren’t Using Them
We should be expanding renewable energy. Hydro, solar, geothermal, wind, and nuclear all produce electricity without heavy carbon output. Natural gas remains abundant in Ohio and is far cleaner than coal. We should build new generation facilities. We should update the grid. We should install batteries near plants.
A solution that almost never gets talked about is a decentralized energy grid. We already allow individuals to produce energy, but we do not empower them to participate in the grid in any meaningful way. If a house in Parma has solar panels and produces excess power, there is no efficient system for selling that energy directly to a business park in Independence or a data center in Akron.
The current system forces everything through outdated utilities that lose massive amounts of energy in transmission. Imagine a network where homes, farms, businesses, and small renewable sites feed clean energy into local microgrids that share electricity regionally.
Instead of wasting off-peak power, we bank it or redistribute it instantly. Instead of forcing every kilowatt through old infrastructure, we create a flexible, connected map of small producers. Farmers in Lorain County could sell wind energy. Homeowners in Lakewood could sell solar back to the grid at market rates. Industrial parks in Youngstown could run on locally generated power without pulling from an overwhelmed transmission system. This is how you make energy cleaner, cheaper, and more reliable. Not by shutting down industries, but by opening up the grid itself.
Bitcoin miners have already demonstrated a functional model by building directly next to hydroelectric dams, solar farms, and gas wells. They buy excess energy at a discount. They stabilize demand. They capture energy that would otherwise be wasted. This is the kind of creative modernization the grid needs.
The United States could incentivize similar patterns across the tech industry. Instead, we regulate demand while ignoring supply.
Stop Fighting the Wrong Battles
Humanity will always need more energy. That has been true for every century of modern civilization. China knows it and is preparing for the next hundred years. The United States is not.
It does us no good to attack industries for using energy. They are supposed to use energy. That is the point of an economy. The moral argument is not about how much energy we use but how we generate it and how efficiently we transmit it.
Right now, the United States wastes roughly one-third of the energy it produces, mostly through outdated equipment, conversion losses, and an aging grid that can’t efficiently move or store electricity. This is the real crisis. This is the real carbon footprint. This is the real policy failure.
Turning off data centers or banning electric cars will not fix that. Only infrastructure will.
Have the Right Conversation
If activists want to help the environment, they need to start focusing on the real causes of energy waste. Not industries. Not technology. Not innovation. Infrastructure.
We need more power plants, cleaner power plants, modernized lines, better storage, and decentralized energy options. Without that, every environmental policy is a bandage on a broken bone.
We do not need less energy. We need better energy.
Until we accept that, we will keep fighting the wrong battles and hurting our own economy and technological future.
If environmental activism wants a win, this is where it lives.
Matt Diemer is ANGRY. Please share with other Angry Democrats.
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