Renewable energy has become a political football in recent years as the GOP has gone all-in on a kind of culture war for fossil fuel, but as Matthew Roney from the Earth Policy Institute shows wind power is growing very rapidly from its small base, and not necessarily in the blue states.
The crux of the matter is that these Plains states tend to be very windy, hence the large installed base of wind power. Since land is also cheap in these places, there’s also plenty of opportunity for further growth. Unfortunately for the cause of clean electricity generation, these also happen to be places where not many people live. America’s old and fragmented electricity grid isn’t necessarily capable of getting this energy from where it can be captured to the places where it’s needed.
