Clean Energy Exploitations

Clean Energy Exploitations: Helping Citizens Understand the Environmental and Humanity Abuses That Support ‘Clean’ Energy is a Nominee for the 2022 Pulitzer Prize competition in the General Nonfiction category. Authors Ronald Stein, P.E. and Todd Royal examine the uncomfortable realities behind the global push for renewable energy, focusing on the environmental destruction and human suffering that are required to mine and process the rare earth minerals and exotic metals essential for solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and utility-scale battery storage systems.

The book highlights how children in the Democratic Republic of Congo are effectively enslaved in cobalt mines, how China exploits Uyghur forced labor in its supply chains, and how mining operations devastate ecosystems in developing nations — all to produce the materials marketed as ‘clean’ alternatives to fossil fuels. Stein and Royal argue that the true costs of renewable energy are deliberately obscured by governments and corporations.

The book opens with three cautionary tales from California, Germany, and Australia, illustrating the consequences of aggressive renewable energy mandates. Ronald Stein is an engineer, founder of PTS Advance, and a policy adviser for The Heartland Institute. Todd Royal is an independent public policy consultant focusing on the geopolitical implications of energy.