Current Events > Texas could potentially become center of renewable energy

(+) Yeah! (+)

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/features/2017-06-20/texas-is-too-windy-and-sunny-for-old-energy-companies-to-make-money
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Texas already is in a lot of ways. It's the #1 state in terms of total wind power installed by a long shot already. Something it has going for it in addition to its wind/solar resource endowments is the fact that there "deregulated" grid system with ERCOT allows basically any company to build a power plant and connect to the grid and participate in the electricity wholesale market. In "regulated" states, the way it works is that a monopoly is given exclusive rights to a service territory in exchange for following the rules set out by the state public utility commission. So it ends up being easier for more people to set a lot of wind/solar up in the deregulated systems like Texas has.

Texas and California are the two states with the biggest opportunities in large scale renewable energy right now, in my opinion. I'm not sure if the same is true for things like residential solar and commercial/industrial solar, as they usually operate under completely different systems (retail instead of wholesale)
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Asherlee10 posted...

This may be a dumb question, but do renewable energy jobs mostly have white collar or blue collar jobs associated to them? Or both?

This is going to be a pretty awful statement from me, but if renewable energy pushes out roughnecks from the oil industry, I would be so happy. That rural demographic really sets our state back in terms of voting.

It's a mix of both, but it has its own term as a "green collar" job.
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