Wind Power Support Should Survive the Trump Energy Disruptors

Wind Power Support Should Survive the Trump Energy Disruptors

 
Should has a few meanings, from best for the planet, to actually will occur.

 
The greatest inland wind capacities in the US exist in the Midwest states from Texas North to North Dakota, which are solid Republican. Then you have that over the Great Lakes surrounding the extremely close state of Michigan, won by Trump. Finally, you have the off-shore high winds, not slowed down by the land obstacles.

 
The states with the top percentage of their electrical power from wind are: Iowa at 31.3%; South Dakota at 25.5%; Kansas at 23.9%; Oklahoma at 18.4%; and North Dakota at 17.7%.
The new Secretary of Energy is past Gov. Rick Perry of Texas. The new Administrator of the EPA is Oklahoma Attorney General Scott Pruitt. Scott’s funder is Harold Hamm, Oklahoma’s richest oil mogul and Trump’s energy advisor, who opposes further state subsidies for wind. It is also possible that the people in Oklahoma are getting tired of earthquakes resulting from high pressure injection of fracking waste water underneath them, and their homes and businesses.

 
There is little doubt that Trump would win these oil rich states. But it still would look bad if their politicians would run the two energy departments, and cause jobs in the states to be lost, or wind industry development halted, if the federal tax credit would be abolished. Texas is the second largest population state, with 36 representatives, of which 11 are Democrats. One of its Senators is the irrepressible Republican, Ted Cruz.

 

Texas is also the biggest wind generating state, by a factor of 3, with a 17.7 GW capacity.
As a businessman, Trump would realize how awkward it would appear for businesses in Oklahoma and Texas, which were developed on the basis of a promised 5-year tax credit, to have it pulled out from under them. Especially from Trump, who hasn’t paid federal income tax for 18 years. And, who is the first candidate in decades who has not made his tax records public. And, who is so far not only ignoring, but also increasing his conflicts of interest, with his kid’s involvements.

 
Of course, I can’t end without giving a wind overview. At the end of 2015, the US had a 74.5 GigaWatt wind capacity, operating at a capacity factor or average efficiency of its rating, of 33%. The 2015 the wind energy electricity generation was 191,000 GigaWatt-hours. For 8,760 hours in a year, dividing this into the total energy generation, give 21.8 effective GigaWatts. That is equivalent to 20 nuclear reactors on full time. The total US electricity generation in 2015 was 4,087,000 GigaWatt-hours. So, wind was 4.67% of total output, and in clean energy. While the wind turbines need constant upkeep, we remind the politicians that the energy source, the wind, is FREE! How can Trump pass up that kind of a deal? Isn’t a better deal the whole point of electing a businessman to be President?

 

We look at the largest wind generating states, in GigaWatts: Texas 17.7; Iowa 6.2; California 6.1; Oklahoma 5.2; Illinois 3.8; Wisconsin 3.2; Oregon 3.2; Washington 3.1; and Colorado 3.0.

 
Wind farms are subsidized with a production tax credit, of 2.3 cents per kilowatt hour produced. This has been extended for four more years by a non-partisan vote of the Congress. At a cost of $25 billion, it will incentivize industry to build about $35 billion for both wind and solar, each. This is how Republicans want to encourage infrastructure spending, to be paid for by industry. The tax credit is a direct deduction from the taxes owed.

 
It seems illogical for the Congressional Republicans, the Midwestern states, the two energy administrators, or for Donald Trump, to erase the tax credit for renewable energy, and hold back wind farm development in the states that Trump relies on.

About Dennis SILVERMAN

I am a retired Professor of Physics and Astronomy at U C Irvine. For two decades I have been active in learning about energy and the environment, and in reporting on those topics for a decade. For the last four years I have added science policy. Lately, I have been reporting on the Covid-19 pandemic of our times.
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