“There are no solutions,” the celebrated economist Thomas Sowell once wrote, “only trade-offs.”

Nowhere is this wise maxim truer these days than in the realm of green energy, where the headlong quest for a carbon-free economy has collided with other cultural, social, and environmental forces.

Want to extract lithium, a critical component of the batteries that run electric cars? Watch out for that sacred Native American burial site.

Looking for cobalt to power smartphones? Careful you’re not exploiting child labor in the developing world.

Eager to dig up the rare earth metals necessary for modern weapons systems? Make sure you’re not despoiling an otherwise pristine recreation area.

Oh, and are you trying to onshore all of these resource-generation activities to enhance national security and deprive the Chinese Communist Party of its global stranglehold on extraction of minerals? Better cut through the red tape of dozens of federal, state, and local agencies.

Continue reading at The National Review.

See also: China’s Electric Vehicle Onslaught: Europe’s Muddled Response | The China Consensus: Do Almost Nothing | Emerging from the Great Stagnation: My Long-read Q&A with Tyler Cowen, Michael Strain, Catherine Tucker, and Dietrich Vollrath | Preparing Supply Chains for a Coming War