President Biden: The NEW one and only politics thread

Yes, yes, yes ... that's totally within the purview of the Texas Governor.

 

Anybody care to guess which state has the MOST combined solar and wind generating capacity? Bueller? Bueller?

 

Are you talking per capita?

 

In the last few months Texas either tried to or did - I don't remember the outcome - pass legislation that would punish companies for using green energy because Texas runs on oil!

 

Is that in the aggregate? Because Texas is the 2nd biggest state geographically and in population so it's not surprising they'd be 1 or 2. Or is it by percentage of capacity? I guess more context would be helpful.

 

Total generating capacity (solar + wind)

#1: Texas (9.3 + 33.1 = 42.4 Mw)
#2: California (31.9 + 5.9 = 37.8 Mw)
#3: Whocaresitssorelativelysmall

 

But just 20 percent of their total energy generation, as Texas produces more electricity than any other state.


State Wind Electricity Generation (Terawatt hours) Wind's Share of Net Electricity Generation
Texas 92.9 TWh 20%
Iowa 34.1 TWh 58%
Oklahoma 29.6 TWh 35%
Kansas 23.5 TWh 43%
Illinois 17.1 TWh 10%
California 13.6 TWh 7%
North Dakota 13.2 TWh 31%
Colorado 12.7 TWh 23%
Minnesota 12.2 TWh 22%
Nebraska 8.7 TWh 24%

 

Ah, now I see what you were getting at. Nevertheless, I think we should all wonder why California is so environmentally irresponsible.

 

Because they dominate the solar energy production market?

tate Utility-scale solar electricity generation, 2020 (in billion kWh) Small-scale solar photovoltaic electricity generation, 2020 (in billion kWh) Total solar electricity generation
California 30.5 17.5 48.0
Texas 7.9 1.6 9.5
North Carolina 8.9 0.4 9.3
Arizona 6.0 2.9 8.9
Florida 6.6 1.1 7.7
Nevada 5.3 0.9 6.2
Georgia 3.9 0.3 4.2
New Jersey 1.6 2.5 4.1
Massachusetts 1.6 2.3 3.9
New York 1.1 2.3 3.4

 

No, it was one of those "you don't boycott me I'll boycott you" type bills that forbade state pension funds, etc., from investing in financial firms engaged in "boycotting" (whatever the hell that means) non-green firms.

 

You're Dr. Quant. Shouldn't it have been intuitive in the first place that gross output data doesn’t mean a whole lot in terms of measuring environmental responsibility (assuming for the sake of argument that solar and wind DO represent environmental responsibility) without that kind of context?