From Nathan Dombeck

Janesville

To the Editor:

Tariffs are not a surgically precise instrument; tariffs are not an operating room scalpel. Rather, they’ll plow through wide swathes of our society like a bone saw. As an advocate of advancing renewable energy for the sake of energy security, climate health, and personal health, these tariffs are devastating, and also more than a little hypocritical to Trump’s own stated aims.

Tariffs will hit the raw materials of renewable energy manufacturing; the steel for new power transformers that carry green electricity, the ceramics for wind turbines, the silicon for photovoltaic solar panels. Tariffs will hit the imported equipment; the lines needed to carry the electrical current, the manufactured chips that make a power station ‘smart’, the batteries that store renewables for grid intermittency. Clean and green energy projects will almost certainly be delayed or thrown by the wayside.

But all is not well in fossil fuel land, either. Trump understands very little of his favorite pet, the tariff. These tariffs will hit mining and drilling equipment, metals needed to craft oil pipelines. It will shatter global alliances — who will even want to import our expensive oil and be seen as an ally?

Renewable energy is still the cheapest path to success and a necessary transition.

Tesla vehicles, once seen as an environmentally-friendly quality product, now carries negative connotations. The association with Elon Musk and his erratic, bizarre, and downright harmful behavior have turned off the brand, or worse yet, has led to some openly committing acts of destruction towards the vehicles and dealerships.

The longer-term worry is that this will stunt the needed electrification of our transport sector. Electric vehicles (EVs) are by and large quite efficient — estimates suggest EVs convert 70% of electrical energy towards moving the wheels, compared to 30% in a gasoline powered car. EVs require less labor to produce and maintain — reportedly 30% less construction manpower, and saving up to $3,000 in maintenance costs over a 5-year period according to Forbes. Pound-for-pound, the cars also generate less polluting emissions, although exactly how much depends on how much renewable energy powers the local grid.

I am all for expressing displeasure with Musk’s antics and pushing back against the terrible aspects of his many cuts to our social safety nets, and hitting him in his wallet sounds great. Hopefully society at-large is still willing to support the EV revolution, for the sake of our planetary and personal health.