Pentagon’s Latest Plan To Fight ‘Climate Change’: Chinese Solar Panels On Its Rooftops

The Pentagon, a U.S. military installation located right across the river from Washington D.C., is entertaining a proposal to load up the campus with Chinese-manufactured solar panels. [emphasis, links added]

“The Defense Department will install solar panels on the Pentagon, part of the Biden administration’s plan to promote clean energy and ‘re-establish the federal government as a sustainability leader,’ ” PBS reports.

“The Pentagon is one of 31 government sites that are receiving $104 million in Energy Department grants that are expected to double the amount of carbon-free electricity at federal facilities and create 27 megawatts of clean-energy capacity while leveraging more than $361 million in private investment, the Energy Department said.”

Republicans in Congress are trying to stop the project from going through.

“We write today to express strong concerns regarding the implementation of the Biden administration’s executive order to make the federal government carbon neutral by 2050. As part of its green agenda, at the start of this year the Department of Defense announced that it would install solar panels on the Pentagon,” House Republicans Robert Wittman, Ben Cline, Jen Kiggans, and H. Morgan Griffin wrote in a letter to Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin this week.

“We are deeply concerned that the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy are not demonstrating appropriate attention to the economic and national security risks posed by pursuing this initiative when Chinese solar manufacturers continue to dominate the marketplace, historically violate U.S. trade laws, and advance the surveillance activities of Chinese military and intelligence agencies.”

.@SecDef cannot allow our nation’s military installations to rely on CCP materials and must ensure U.S. dollars do not benefit one of our greatest adversaries.

I’m calling on @SecDef to put America’s economic and national security interests over the Biden administration’s green… pic.twitter.com/kpaEqTlG9n

— Rep. Rob Wittman (@RobWittman) June 10, 2024

“Today, eight of ten solar panels installed in the United States come from China. Even if the Department of Defense and the Department of Energy buy panels made in the United States, the metallurgical grade silicon and polysilicon needed for solar panels primarily come from China.

“Further, if the Pentagon relies on solar energy for operation, it will necessitate increased dependence on battery storage capacity. China remains the world’s third largest producer of the lithium that batteries depend on,” they continued.

“While Buy America Act requirements will also apply to any solar panels purchased for the Pentagon’s use, many requirements under the Act can be waived if it is in the public interest to do so.”

For the record, solar panels are not carbon neutral. They are heavily carbon-intensive to produce, transport, and dispose of. The data used to claim carbon neutrality is also unreliable.

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