Full Title: Turning to the Wind: American Wind Power is Cutting Carbon Pollution Today and Paving the Way for a Clean Energy Future
Author(s): Kim Norman, Gideon Weissman, Rob Sargent, and Bronte Payne
Publisher(s): Environment America and the Frontier Group
Publication Date: December 1, 2015
Full Text: Download Resource
Description (excerpt):
Wind power continues to grow as a source of clean energy across America. The United States generated 26 times more electricity from wind power in 2014 than it did in 2001. American wind power has already significantly reduced global warming pollution. In 2014 alone, wind-generated electricity averted an estimated 143 million metric tons of carbon dioxide emissions – as much as would be produced by 37 typical coal-fired power plants. With America’s massive potential for wind energy on land and off our coasts, wind power can play a key role in meeting the emission reduction targets of the recently adopted Clean Power Plan and moving the nation toward a future of 100 percent renewable electricity.
To take advantage of that potential, however, the nation must create a public policy environment that is supportive of continued wind energy growth. Long-term renewal of federal tax incentive programs for renewable energy, including the Production Tax Credit and the Investment Tax Credit for wind energy, both of which expired at the end of 2014, can help the United States maintain momentum in the fight against global warming.