In Just 15 Months, America Made $37B In Clean Energy Investments In Fossil Fuel-Reliant Regions

America passed a climate bill in August of 2022 with incentives to build wind and solar energy in regions that historically relied on fossil fuels. And sure enough, since then 'a disproportionate amount of wind, solar, battery and manufacturing investment is going to areas that used to host fossil fuel plants,' reports the Washington Post.

They cite a new analysis of investment trends from independent research firm Rhodium Group and MIT's Center for Energy and Environmental Policy Research:

In Carbon County, Wyo. — a county named for its coal deposits — a power company is building hundreds of wind turbines. In Mingo County, W.Va., where many small towns were once coal towns, the Adams Fork Energy plant will sit on a former coal mining site and produce low-carbon ammonia... While communities that once hosted coal, oil or gas infrastructure make up only 18.6 percent of the population, they received 36.8 percent of the clean energy investment in the year after the Inflation Reduction Act's passage. 'We're talking about in total $100 billion in investment in these categories,' said Trevor Houser, a partner at Rhodium Group. 'So $37 billion investment in a year for energy communities — that's a lot of money....'

Most significantly, 56.6 percent of investment in U.S. wind power in the past year has gone to energy communities, as well as 45.5 percent of the storage and battery investment... The analysis also found that significant amounts of clean energy investment were going to disadvantaged communities, defined as communities with environmental or climate burdens, and low-income communities. Many of the states benefiting are solidly Republican...

Josh Freed, senior vice president for climate and energy at the center-left think tank Third Way, is not sure whether the clean energy investments will make a difference for next year's election. But in the long term, he argues, rural Republican areas will become more dependent on clean energy — potentially shifting party alliances and shifting the position of the Republican Party itself. 'It's going to change these fossil fuel communities,' he said.

Read more of this story at Slashdot.