Report: Wind energy, tax credits needed to combat global warming
Environment Colorado
DENVER, CO. — The carbon pollution from 8 coal plants could be eliminated in Colorado if wind power continues its recent growth trajectory, according to a new analysis by Environment Colorado. The analysis comes just as Congress considers whether to renew tax credits critical to wind development.
“Wind power can replace the dirty energy sources of the past and the pollution that comes with them,” said Anna McDevitt, Campaign Organizer for Environment Colorado. “But Congress needs to act now to ensure a clean energy future.”
Wind power projects in areas such Weld County already produced enough energy in 2013 to power 679,188 homes. And the analysis predicts wind will expand significantly in Colorado over the next 15 years, producing enough power for 4,607,033 million homes.
The report, More Wind, Less Warming, comes just days after the comment period closed for the Clean Power Plan, which Congressional leaders are trying to block. The analysis also comes as lawmakers jockey over the fate of wind energy tax credits in the nation’s spending plan, due to be adopted next week.
“Now that we have a Federal mandate through the EPA for a more than 25% reduction in carbon emissions, we have to move even more aggressively on all clean energy technologies, said Sam Weaver, Boulder City Council Member and CEO of Cool Energy. “Wind will be one of the largest pieces of the new clean energy portfolio so we need Congress to reinstate tax credits that can spur more wind development here in Colorado.”
Continued, rapid development of wind energy would allow the renewable resource to supply 30 percent of the nation’s electricity by 2030, providing more than enough carbon reductions to meet the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency’s proposed Clean Power Plan. America has the potential to power itself 10 times over with wind that blows both over land and off the East Coast.
“Speeding the development of pollution-free wind energy will slow global warming,” said McDevitt. “That’s why our leaders should invest now in healthy air and a healthy planet.”
