Wind energy prices are now less than 2 cents per kWh in long-term Purchase Price Agreements. These prices are competitive with natural gas and solar. Coal is dead going forward. It can’t compete on price or cost of construction for a new plant. Stick a fork it it. And before some woke libertarian has a hissy fit because renewable energy is partly subsidized by the government, why yes, it is. So is oil, natural gas, and coal. Insuring the country has reliable sources of energy and doing so through subsidies, investments, and R&D is absolutely what governments can and should do.
Ignore Trump’s senile and comically ignorant meanderings about how “windmills” cause cancer, the turbines “kills all the birds” and most ludicrously “And then, all of a sudden, it stops; the wind and the televisions go off.”
Let’s unpack Trump’s rubbish babblings. No, of course wind turbines don’t cause cancer, that’s tinfoil hat bonkery.
Turbine operators currently go to elaborate measures to avoid harming birds. The Fish and Wildlife Service estimates an average 234,012 birds were killed by turbines in 2017. Contrast that with 599,000,000 killed by flying into windows with a total of 2,019,218,024. Turbines are 0.0011 of that total, so they aren’t killing all the birds at all.
Finally, just like with non-renewable energy sources, if one plant goes offline another one immediately ramps up, insuring the grid stays in balance between supply and demand. Trump clearly doesn’t understand how the grid works, but then he’s ignorant on so many things that this isn’t surprising.
Wind energy prices are at historic lows and the installed cost of wind contines to drop too. Solar PV is the same.
Oh, guess which state has the most installed wind by far, with no other state even close. Hint. It’s a red state.
Texas. Yes, Texas.