GOP states benefit from shift to green energy
Leading the way in wind projects: Texas, Oklahoma, Kansas
WASHINGTON — If there’s a War on Coal, it’s increasingly clear which side is winning.
Wind turbines and solar panels accounted for more than two-thirds of all new electric generation capacity added to the nation’s grid in 2015, according to a recent analysis by the U.S. Department of Energy. The remaining third was largely new power plants fueled by natural gas, which has become cheap and plentiful as a result of hydraulic fracturing.
It was the second straight year U.S. investment in renewable energy projects has outpaced that of fossil fuels. Robust growth is once again predicted for this year.
And while Republican lawmakers in Washington have fought to protect coal- fired power plants, opposing President Barack Obama’s efforts to curtail climatewarming carbon emissions, data show their home states are often the ones benefiting most from the nation’s accelerating shift to renewable energy.
Leading the way in new wind projects are GOP strongholds Texas, Oklahoma and Kansas, home to some of the leading critics of climate science and renewable energy incentives in Congress. Republicandominated North Carolina trails only California in new solar farms, thanks largely to pro-renewables polices enacted years ago under a Democratic legislature.
The most dramatic change has been seen in the plummeting cost of emissions-free wind energy, which has declined by twothirds in the last six years thanks to the availability of cheaper, more efficient turbines.
An annual analysis by the Wall Street investment firm Lazard determined that wind energy is now the lowest-cost energy source, even before federal greenenergy tax incentives are factored in.
“Wind energy is very low-cost and not subject to the fuel price risk that both natural gas and coal face,” said Michael Goggin, senior director of research at the American Wind Energy Association, an industry trade group. “Adding wind is cheaper than new gas or new coal. It is by far the lowest-cost resource.”
Billions of dollars in private equity are going to construct massive new renewables projects, especially in the Sun Belt and Great Plains. Thousands of miles of new high-voltage transmission lines are also under construction to send power from the wind and sun from the sparsely populated areas where it is collected to the urban centers where it’s needed.
Even with the surge in new projects, energy from such renewable sources as wind, solar and water accounted for only about a tenth of total U.S. power generation last year.