Transition from oil is a real opportunity for Texas
At the final presidential debate, Joe Biden said he would transition the nation away from oil and gas.
“The oil industry pollutes, significantly. It has to be replaced by renewable energy over time,” he said.
Sensing an opening, President Donald Trump asked, “Will you remember that Texas?” And after a new Dallas Morning News poll (taken before the debate) showed Biden leading by three points in Texas, Sen. John Cornyn suggested the former vice president’s comments would “have an impact on Biden’s numbers.”
Perhaps. But Biden is merely telling Texans what many of us already know — the transition away from oil is already underway. And it is an opportunity for Texas, not a liability.
Texas has been at the cutting edge of America’s clean energy revolution. We rank first in wind power, third in battery storage capacity and fifth in solar. We’re also a growing leader in electric vehicles. Tesla is currently building a manufacturing facility just outside of Austin to build their Cybertrucks.
This progress has led to significant benefits for Texas. In 2017, renewable energy saved up to $33 billion in potential health costs from avoided sulfur dioxide pollution from power plants and conserved up to 22 billion gallons of water in our perennially drought-stricken state. About 250,000 Texans already work in the advanced energy industry and a new analysis shows a stimulus investment in advanced energy, such as the one proposed by Biden, “would add $350 billion to Texas gross state product, a six-fold return on investment; increase tax revenues; create 2 million jobs; and deliver billions in annual savings to consumers.”
Biden supports shifting our emphasis away from polluting sources by ending federal subsidies to Big Oil, ending new drilling leases on public lands and waters, requiring oil companies to use pollution reduction technologies, and making a $2 trillion investment in wind, solar and electric vehicles.
As point person for the Obama administration’s economic recovery effort in 2009, Biden knows that investing in clean energy can make a difference. He worked with Congress to make the largest single investment in clean energy in history — $90 billion — in the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act; which leveraged approximately $150 billion more in private and other investments to support solar energy, wind power, electric vehicles and other clean energy technologies.
That investment paid off, helping to drive technological advances and economies of scale that have brought wind and solar costs down. Utilityscale solar photo-voltaic electricity is 82 percent less expensive than it was in 2010, while the cost for onshore wind electricity fell by 39 percent in the same time period. According to a new report from the International Energy Agency, solar is today the cheapest form of electricity for electric companies to build.
Today, America produces almost four times as much renewable electricity from the sun and wind as it did in 2010, with wind, solar and geothermal power provide more than 10 percent of our nation’s electricity.
And there is more to come. Electric vehicles are breaking through to the mass market. And virtually every day, there are new developments that make renewable energy cheaper, more efficient and able to be applied more widely and flexibly.
Texans have been preparing for the transition from oil for a long time. Back in 2006, President George W. Bush declared in his State of the Union address that “America is addicted to oil” and insisted the United States “break this addiction.”
Even major oil companies recognize that the industry is in decline. BP’s annual energy outlook recently predicted that oil demand will drop even without action by the federal government to fight climate change. Investors are increasingly concerned. Firms such as BlackRock, Goldman Sachs and the European Investment Bank announced their move away from fossil fuels in the past 12 months alone. Just last week, the French government blocked a deal to buy American liquefied natural gas over “concerns that U.S. natural gas producers emit too much methane at the West Texas oil and gas fields.”
Texas can’t afford to ignore these trends. Earlier this year, a number of oil companies urged Texas’s regulator to reduce the amount of oil in the market to boost prices that had plummeted as a result of glut in the market. Long-term planning will ease the transition for all parties over decades, including the oil and gas industry, creating abundant, new, well-paying jobs in renewable energy and other low-carbon technologies, generating tax revenue to local governments and, of course, helping create a greener, healthier future.
With all the benefits clean energy stands to bring to our communities, it’s perhaps no surprise that a September poll found that a majority of Texas voters are more likely to support a candidate who pledges to achieve 100 percent clean electricity by 2035.
Yes, Trump, Texans will remember Biden’s comments. Not because we’re afraid of a post-oil future, but because we know — as he does — that the time to start building it is now.
Metzger is the executive director of Environment Texas, a nonprofit advocate for clean air, clean water and open spaces.