Does the U.S. have an energy crisis? According to at least one source, yes. On January 20, minutes removed from Donald Trump taking the oath of office, the White House released an executive order declaring a “National Energy Emergency.” “The energy and critical minerals identification, leasing, development, production, transportation, refining, and generation capacity of the United States are all far too inadequate to meet our Nation’s needs,” the order reads.

Multiple sources deemed this declaration a means to speed up permitting for energy companies looking to drill offshore and on federal lands, as well as provide cover for withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Climate Agreement (again), revoking leases for the development of offshore wind farms, and reversing course on other environmental initiatives spearheaded by the Biden-Harris Administration.

But when taken at face value, the declaration and its claim of “inadequate” generation capacity don’t hold water. No, the U.S. is not experiencing an energy crisis. Let’s explore why this is.

A market of nonrenewables

If you isolate energy markets to only factor in fossil-fuel sources like coal, oil, and natural gas, and the volatility of those commodities in just the last few years, then indeed the crisis case could be made (although prices have dropped dramatically since 2022, when the International Energy Agency declared a global energy crisis). This outlook is reflected in Trump’s emergency declaration: “The term ‘energy’ or ‘energy resources’ means crude oil, natural gas, lease condensates, natural gas liquids, refined petroleum products, uranium, coal, biofuels, geothermal heat, the kinetic movement of flowing water, and critical minerals,” the order reads. Notice anything missing?

As an economic imperative, this is retrograde thinking. To say nothing of the fact that producing and exporting more oil and other fuels will have minimal effect on the market rate of those things (they are global commodities, not manufactured products), it is a poor financial and public health decision to double down on fossil fuels.

“Too many people are invested in the incumbent system,” says Jim Boyle, CEO of Sustainability Roundtable Inc. (SR Inc.), an advisory group that helps businesses engage in renewable energy agreements. The company recently facilitated a Virtual Power Purchase Agreement for the city of Cambridge, Mass., which will deliver enough clean energy to power about half – approximately 25,000 – of the city’s households. A core part of Boyle’s business is generating large investments in utility-scale solar. These transactions “cause new renewable energy” developments to happen, he says, indicating that more demand catalyzes increased supply.

Boyle further states that because solar-generated energy isn’t tied to global markets, it is “cost superior” to fuel-based energy, both in the near and long-term. He believes the future, or at least a big part of it, lies with utility-scale solar with integrated battery storage. “It’s wickedly more efficient, and you don’t have a global distribution system to deal with.” As things stand, the numbers support this outlook.

Consider the interconnection queue

The growth of renewable energy deployment has been proven to drive electricity cost savings across the board, even when accounting for varying regulations and clean energy policies from one U.S. state to the next. The volatility of natural gas prices in particular has hit many electricity customers the hardest, especially as extreme climate events become more frequent, causing demand to spike at unforeseen times.

On the question of demand, last year’s data indicate that peak demand occurred in the (contiguous) U.S. at 6:00pm EDT on July 15, 2024, reaching 745 GWh, a figure consistent with the previous two years. Meanwhile, the country is producing more each year. And right now, there is enough energy in the interconnection queue (the list of power-generation and transmission projects requesting connection to one of the country’s three major grids) to meet demand. “It’s already there!” says Brendan Pierpont, director of energy modeling at Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan climate policy think tank. “There’s enough storage alone in the queue to cover us at peak electricity demand. It’s just a massive quantity of projects seeking interconnection.”

Figures from Lawrence Berkeley National Lab indicate that by the end of 2023, close to 2,600 gigawatts of total generation and storage capacity was seeking grid interconnection, over 95% of which was from solar, battery storage, and wind. The first two are the fastest growing by far, accounting for 80% of new capacity entering the queue in 2023. To be clear, many requests are made on behalf of proposed power-generation developments. But to Pierpont’s point, the sheer quantity of renewable energy projects built or in the works that have yet to be plugged in should be comfort enough that the country is on the right track.

“Given the fact that load is growing at a pace that we haven’t seen in many years, and getting new resources online is necessary to meet that growing demand, interconnection is important, regardless of the politics,” Pierpont says. “But the reliability and affordability needs of our electricity system are issues that need to be addressed.”

A transmission crisis?

When it comes to connecting an ever-increasing amount of zero-carbon energy resources to the grid, there is of course plenty of red tape to contend with. In fact, lag times between initial request and commercial operation have risen in recent years, with periods averaging over four years for projects built between 2018 and 2023. But then, this may be a blessing in disguise.

In a 2024 white paper, “Clean Energy Isn’t Driving Power Price Spikes,” Pierpont writes, “Grid infrastructure across the U.S. is aging, and transmission and distribution lines built more than 50 years ago need to be replaced and modernized. So, it’s no surprise that utility spending on transmission and distribution infrastructure has increased substantially in recent years.”

While there is no energy emergency to speak of, the country’s respective grids’ ability to efficiently move all that energy across state lines and deliver it to homes is in a state of crisis. The deployment of cheap renewables makes things easier, but the grid itself just isn’t equipped to take on higher loads and next-generation technologies. For that, ongoing upgrades to transmission and distribution lines are key, but so is greater regionalization of power-generation systems, whether in the form of virtual power plants, community micro-grids, or something similar. Such mechanisms are flexible, resilient, and equitable options for customers who may not like waiting around to see what the price of natural gas does when the next big storm hits.

The case for public health

Within the last five years, SR Inc.’s collective work has created 1 gigawatt of new renewable energy development. The financial transactions that made this possible are valued at $1.5 billion, and the energy yield is enough to power more than 800,000 homes. These numbers are impressive by any measure. But one of the oft-ignored dividends of increased renewable power generation is the public health benefit.

According to Boyle, citing statistics generated by Quantum Energy, the 1 gigawatt created by SR Inc. has “saved more than 3,700 disability-adjusted human life years” and generated $925 million in public health savings. “People generally don’t understand that clean energy is not only great and necessary for our climate and our economy, but it’s also a game changer for human health.”

One encouraging thing about the interconnection queue is the fact that proposed zero-carbon generating capacity absolutely dwarfs that of fossil fuels (1,086 GW of solar and 366 GW of wind vs. 79 GW of natural gas and 1.5 GW of coal). If these trends continue, they represent a significant carbon offset. If and when this recent energy emergency declaration bears fruit in the form of more drilling, more pipelines, and more oil in our strategic reserves, those ratios will shift. That forecast is anything but encouraging.

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Justin R. Wolf is a Maine-based writer who covers green building trends and energy policy. He is the author of Healing Ground, Living Values: Stanley Center for Peace and Security, published by Ecotone.