Why Red States Love New Energy
Why Republican Leaders Love Renewable Energy
Joshua Rhodes, September 25, 2018 (Forbes)
A common misconception in today’s hyper-polarized world is that people more aligned with the political left are more in favor of renewable energy than those that politically lean to the right, who presumably want more fossil fuels…[but] Republicans from Texas to Iowa regularly extoll the virtues of renewables like wind and solar power, and for good reason. Rural Republican districts are often the locations with the best solar and wind resources, and when those resources are harnessed they bring good jobs to places where new sources of employment are often otherwise scarce…
Not only do wind and solar power bring jobs, they increase the local tax base for revenue-starved public schools and other districts…[R]esearchers analyzed four types of coal facilities three types of natural gas plants, three types of solar, nuclear and on-shore wind to calculate the levelized cost of electricity (LCOE) for new power plants in every county of the continental U.S…on a county-by-county basis…green = wind, purple = utility solar PV, red-orange = natural gas combined cycle..[LCOE is not a perfect metric for assessing the viability of building a new power plant but it is a useful screening tool. Wind, solar and natural gas] were the cheapest options in most places…
These maps perhaps provide a good picture of why local Republicans love renewable energy…Of the 240 Republican districts (in the continental U.S.), 157 have wind or solar as their cheapest electricity option. For the 192 districts represented by Democrats, 105 have wind or solar as their cheapest technology…Already, many of the fuel and technology options highlighted on these maps are being built in those locations. And since renewable energy seems to be one of the few things these days with bipartisan support, surely we can afford to double down on it.” click here for more
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home