Texas likes Trump and solar power

New Republic - Turning coal mines into solar farms sounds so smart, it’s almost hard to believe that it’s happening in the United States under President Trump. But late last month, construction began in Texas on a 1.2 gigawatt solar farm that will be one of the largest clean energy projects in the country and the biggest solar project built on a brownfield site in North America. It will start producing power a year from now, and will also include 1.6. gigawatt-hours of battery storage.

This $1.7 billion project is groundbreaking, as is another one forthcoming in the same state: The world’s largest carbon removal plant will open at the end of the year. There are caveats in both cases. The surface coal mine and adjacent coal-fired power plant in Bremond, which sits between Dallas and Houston, will continue operating alongside the new solar farm. And many environmental experts are skeptical of carbon removal as a realistic solution to the climate crisis.

But there’s no doubting this much: Texas is a national leader in renewable energy, and has been for decades. It’s first in wind power—by a long shot—and second in solar power generation, behind only California. It generates enough power from solar to power the equivalent of half the homes in the state.

In its enthusiasm for wind power, Texas, which Trump won even more convincingly in 2024 than he did in 2016 and 2020, couldn’t be more at odds with the president. He has had a weird vendetta against wind power ever since the early 2010s, when a wind farm was built near one of his golf courses in Scotland—ruining the view, in his opinion. He claims that all renewable energy is part of the Democrats’ “Green New Scam,” and he’s wildly exaggerated the impact of wind turbines on whales and birds.