Clean Power, Batteries, and Cutting Gas Use Could Strengthen U.S. Security and Economy
Published · Updated · 4 min read
Zero-carbon electricity is no longer just a climate issue. New analysis shows it carries major national security and economic benefits, but only if countries move quickly to cut natural gas use and scale up battery storage.
Energy Security Is Now a Defense Issue
The U.S. military depends on data centers, artificial intelligence, and remote systems to operate. All of these run on electricity. According to the New Buildings Institute, energy security is national security, and the vulnerability of centralized fossil fuel infrastructure to attack or disruption is a direct defense risk.
Russia’s targeting of Ukraine’s power grid during the ongoing war has made this clear. Centralized fossil fuel plants and their supply chains proved far more vulnerable than distributed renewable systems with battery backup.
Around 80 percent of the global population lives in countries that import fossil fuels. That dependence creates ongoing exposure to price shocks and geopolitical pressure. Renewable energy, by contrast, draws from domestic sources that cannot be cut off by a foreign supplier.
The Economic Case Has Already Been Made
The financial argument for clean power has shifted from environmental to purely economic. More than 90 percent of new renewable energy projects now cost less than fossil fuel alternatives. Solar costs have fallen 41 percent below coal and gas, while offshore wind runs 53 percent cheaper.
Global clean energy investment hit $2 trillion in 2024, outpacing fossil fuel investment by $800 billion. Clean energy sectors drove 10 percent of global GDP growth in 2023 alone.
Jobs are following the money. For every dollar invested in renewables, the sector creates three times as many jobs as fossil fuels. More than 3.5 million Americans already work in clean energy, and the sector added nearly 100,000 jobs in 2024, growing more than three times faster than overall U.S. employment.
Gas Still Dominates Grids, and That Is a Problem
Despite record renewable capacity additions, natural gas now accounts for 45 percent of U.S. summer electricity generation, up from 29 percent in 2014. That growth is happening at the same time as the clean energy boom, which points to a serious gap in grid management.
Gas plants can be turned on quickly when demand spikes. Grid operators lean on that flexibility, often dispatching gas even when stored renewable electricity would cost less. This reduces returns for clean energy investors and slows deployment.
It also locks in long-lived gas infrastructure. Every new gas plant or pipeline built today constrains the grid for decades. That infrastructure lock-in has both economic and security costs, diverting capital away from distributed systems that are harder to knock out.
Fossil fuel subsidies make the problem worse. Globally, those subsidies totaled roughly $7 trillion in 2022, including tax breaks and uncounted health and environmental costs. That artificial price advantage makes it harder for batteries and renewables to compete on equal footing.
Batteries Are Changing the Math
Battery storage is now growing fast enough to reshape how grids work. The U.S. added more than 15 gigawatts of battery storage in 2025 alone. Total operating capacity reached 37.4 gigawatts by October 2025, up 32 percent year-to-date.
Costs have dropped 40 to 60 percent over the past decade, with lithium-ion batteries now below $100 per kilowatt-hour in many markets. A pipeline of 187 gigawatts is projected by 2030.
Batteries solve the core challenge of renewable energy. When solar produces too much power at midday or wind spins overnight, batteries capture that energy and release it during peak demand. That turns variable output into reliable, dispatchable power.
Beyond storage, modern battery systems provide frequency support, voltage control, and emergency grid response. These are services that used to require gas-fired turbines. As battery capacity grows, the need for gas backup shrinks.
Grid Investment Pays for Itself
Upgrading transmission and grid infrastructure to support this shift is expensive, but the returns are clear. Research shows that every dollar invested in transmission yields up to $4.70 in customer benefits. For U.S. residential customers, well-planned transmission investment could generate $14.4 billion in annual electricity savings.
Market rules are catching up. Grid operators in Texas, the mid-Atlantic, and New York have introduced new payment structures that reward batteries for the reliability services they provide. Those reforms improve project financing and accelerate deployment.
What Comes Next
The interconnection system remains a bottleneck. As of 2024, 1,650 gigawatts of solar and wind were waiting for grid connection globally. Some U.S. projects have waited more than a decade.
Federal regulators have begun reforming interconnection rules, and several states have launched faster approval processes. Permitting reform for rooftop solar and distributed batteries is also moving forward, though progress varies by state.
Supply chains are another pressure point. China controls a large share of solar panel and battery manufacturing. The U.S. and allied nations are working to diversify that base, though building competitive domestic capacity takes time and sustained investment.
The direction is set. The pace of change depends on how quickly policy, investment, and grid infrastructure can align.
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