Oklahoma is a leader in the clean energy revolution

Our long overdue national pivot away from fossil fuels like oil, gas, and coal is accelerating with a speed that experts find astonishing. Companies large and small, encouraged by federal investment in clean energy, are creating billions of dollars in new revenue, thousands of new jobs, and embracing a once-in-a-generation economic opportunity as well as a taking crucial steps toward slowing our global march toward climate catastrophe. And most are doing it in Republican-controlled states like Oklahoma.

Yes, Oklahoma.

In Tulsa, Navistar is building electric school buses while scientists at the University of Tulsa research new hydrogen clean energy technology. Enel, an Italian company, is building a $1 billion solar panel factory near the Port of Catoosa. Francis Energy is building electric vehicle charging stations statewide. Canoo, an electric vehicle startup, has plans to build a 100,000-square-foot factory, and Public Service Company of Oklahoma now generates 28 percent of all the electricity it sells with wind turbines. Solar Power of Oklahoma, a leading manufacturer of solar panels, generates $18 million annually, while Panasonic is considering constructing a $4.4 billion battery manufacturing plant near the Tulsa metropolitan area.

And that is just the beginning. Individuals and corporations are realizing that energy is energy, whether it comes from fossil fuels or renewable sources like wind and solar, and that the smart money going forward is in renewables.

Globally, the cost of renewable energy is dropping so quickly that it will overtake coal by 2025 as the largest source of electricity in the world, and more than $1.7 trillion will be invested in clean energy this year, which is significantly more than in fossil fuels. In the United Kingdom, one-third of all electricity is generated by wind, solar, or hydroelectric power, while China will double its wind and solar power production by 2025 (five years ahead of schedule). Here at home in the United States, forecasts indicate we will generate 23 percent of our electricity with renewables in 2023, and that percentage will grow dramatically in the future.

Virtually all this growth is driven by federal investment in clean energy, a sign that political achievements are still irreplaceable in shaping our collective future. The Biden administration supported a $1 trillion infrastructure law that Congress approved with bipartisan support. It provided funds for expanding and improving the national power grid, electric school buses for many public schools, and the installation of thousands of electric vehicle chargers nationwide. Then Biden supported the CHIPS and Science Act, which allocated billions of dollars to subsidize the manufacture of computer semi-conductor chips, which are vital for a wide array of military and civilian applications, including the manufacture of almost all automobiles. That law also passed Congress with bipartisan support. The crowning achievement was the Inflation Reduction Act, which carries that name for political reasons (though it did have a few stipulations that dealt with reducing inflation) in spite of being the most significant environmental legislation ever passed in the United States The act provided for tax breaks to support the purchase of electric vehicles, heat pumps, and energy efficient upgrades in homes and business. It also provided funds for the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines, and for clean hydrogen energy production.

All three acts, especially the Inflation Reduction Act, were bitterly opposed by many Republicans. Dozens of conservative groups, led by the Heritage Foundation, have plans to roll back all of these achievements in 2024 if Republicans win the White House and control Congress. Given their proclivity to ignore science and argue global warming is a leftist plot rather than an observable, empirical fact, it seems likely they would actually do it, even though two-thirds of all the new investment driven by Biden’s policies has gone to Red States.

And that last fact is crucial. If you want to ignore the science related to global warming and the need to cut fossil fuel production and consumption as rapidly as possible, fine. If you want to ignore the fact that renewable energy enhances our national security by making us less dependent on foreign countries for energy, fine. If you want to ignore the fact that bringing the manufacture of semi-conductor chips to the U.S. is also a matter of national security because we depend on Taiwan for the vast majority of those chips and the Taiwanese face the threat of an invasion by mainland China on a daily basis, fine. If you want to pretend that we can ignore renewable energy even though General Motors has announced it will stop building gas powered vehicles by 2035, fine. Heck, if just cannot help opposing everything Joe Biden supports or you think the Inflation Reduction Act is too expensive, that is fine too. All you really need to remember is that the support Biden and Congress have given to the renewable energy sector is creating thousands of jobs in Oklahoma and hundreds of thousands across the United States economic boom in energy that shows no signs of slowing in the foreseeable future.

Creating new jobs and spurring economic growth is what the government is supposed to do, right? And Oklahoma could be a leader in renewable energy because we have plenty of sun and wind, right? These concepts should not be hard for us all to get behind.

All of these initiatives deserve our support, now and when you vote in 2024. The future is calling, my friends, and it will be dominated by renewable energy.

Lance Janda holds a PhD in History from the University of Oklahoma and has more than 30 years of experience in higher education. He is the author of “Stronger Than Custom: West Point and the Admission of Women”, among other works.