A New Wind Blowing: Obama’s Clean Energy Revolution

[babylonsister]

http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/10/a-new-wind-blowing-obamas-clean-energy-revolution/

A New Wind Blowing: Obama’s Clean Energy Revolution
By Michael Grunwald
August 10, 2012


Before President Obama took office, the U.S. had 25 gigawatts of wind power, and the government’s “base case” energy forecast expected 40 GW by 2030. Well, it’s not quite 2030 yet, but we’ve already got 50 GW of wind. We’ve also got about 5 GW of solar, which isn’t much, but is over six times more than we had before Obama. Mitt Romney has suggested that wind and solar are “imaginary” sources of energy, but they can now power 15 million homes, and their industries employ more than 300,000 Americans. That’s real.

On Thursday, Obama was in Colorado, a big wind state, talking about wind. On Wednesday, Romney was in Iowa, another big wind state, not talking about wind. But the media, for a change, were talking about wind, because Republicans in Iowa have criticized Romney’s opposition to tax credits for the wind industry. I would also point out, and not only because The New New Deal is coming out next week, that Romney and his party opposed the Obama stimulus bill that revived the wind industry and the rest of the clean-tech sector from a near-death experience. As I’ve written before, wind turbines the size of 747’s were rusting in the fields after the financial collapse of 2008; after Obama signed the stimulus, wind companies began pouring billions of dollars back into the U.S.

Anyway, it’s nice to see political reporters paying attention to something that matters. Romney would say that the tax-credit issue goes to Obama’s penchant for supporting goodies for specific industries, which isn’t really fair, since as Obama often says but reporters rarely repeat, Romney and his party support outrageous subsidies and tax breaks for the spectacularly wealthy oil industry. But it’s true that Obama has tried to support clean energy in general, and the results have been remarkable.

For example, the generation of renewable electricity has doubled on Obama’s watch. The stimulus has financed the world’s largest wind farm, a half dozen of the world’s largest solar farms, the nation’s first refineries for advanced biofuels, a new battery industry for electric vehicles, unprecedented investments in cleaner coal and a smarter electric grid, and over 15,000 additional clean-energy projects. The Obama Administration has also approved the first 17 utility-scale solar projects on public lands, as well as historic new fuel efficiency and appliance efficiency standards that will dramatically reduce our energy consumption. Last year, the United States was the least dependent on foreign oil it’s been since 1995, and our greenhouse-gas emissions are dropping even though the economy is growing.

more...

http://swampland.time.com/2012/08/10/a-new-wind-blowing-obamas-clean-energy-revolution/

[DippyDem]

1. That's encouraging news!

The global warming will speed the renewables even more!