Washington (AP) – In Electricity prices will rise More than twice the inflation rate, President Donald Trump has been rampaging renewable energy sources such as wind and solar power, denounced the surge in energy costs.
Trump called wind and solar “the fraud of the century!” In a social media post, he vowed not to approve wind or “farmers destroy solar generation” projects. “The age of stupidity is over in America!!” he wrote on his true social site.
Energy analysts say renewable energy sources have little to do with recent price increases. Increased demand, More and more extreme weather events, such as aging infrastructure and wildfires that are exacerbated by climate change.
The rapid growth of cloud computing and artificial intelligence It accelerated the demand for energy-hungry data centers that needed power to run servers, storage systems, networking equipment and cooling systems. Even as Republicans in the Trump administration and Congress moved, increased use of electric vehicles also increased demand. Limit tax credits and other incentives For EV purchases approved under the Biden administration.
Meanwhile, natural gas prices have risen sharply amid rising exports to European and other international customers. Over 40% of US electricity is produced by natural gas.
Trump promised to cut American electricity bills by 50% during his 2024 campaign. Democrats quickly blamed the price rise, citing their hamstring behavior on clean energy A vast tax and spending reduction bill It was approved last month Rules Since then, we have further restricted wind and solar power.
Advocates say renewable energy will provide the extra energy needed
“More than ever, we need more energy to meet the increased energy demand and the power of the grid. Instead of increasing our energy supply, Donald Trump is hiring hammers in the clean energy sector, killing jobs and projects.”
The GOP bill costs thousands of jobs and places higher energy costs nationwide, Heinrich and other critics said.
A report from Energy Innovation, a nonpartisan think tank, found that the GOP tax law increases energy bills for the average family. $130 a year By 2030. “By quickly phased out the technology-neutral clean energy tax credit and adding complex material procurement requirements,” the tax law “substantially hinders the development of domestic power generation capacity,” the report states.
Renewable supporters are more dull.
“The actual scams denounce solar for a surge in fossil fuel prices,” the Solar Energy Industry Association said in response to Trump’s post.
“Farmers, families and businesses will choose solar to save the high costs of old dirty fuels forced on them by this administration, save land and escape,” the group added.
As technology improves, wind and solar offer some of the cheapest and fastest ways to provide power. Clean energy was more than 90% of the new energy capacity that came online in the US in 2024, said Jason Grumet, CEO of another industry group, the American Clean Power Association.
Prices have fallen in states with the highest clean energy production over the past year, while prices have risen in states with the lowest renewable energy use, according to data from the U.S. Energy Information Agency.
“By slowing down the deployment of clean energy, the Trump administration is driving direct costs increase,” Gourmet said.
“Doubling out cheap, clean energy while doubling out obsolete fossil fuels has no economic or environmental meaning,” added Ted Kelly, director of U.S. Clean Energy at the Environmental Defense Fund, a nonprofit advocacy group.
Partisanship builds debate about rising energy prices
Energy secretary Chris Wright has condemned the rise in prices of “momentum” from Biden-era policies that favored renewable electricity over fossil fuel sources such as oil, coal and natural gas.
“That momentum is pushing prices up right now. And who’s going to blame it? We’re in office, so we’ll be criticized,” Wright told Politico when he visited Iowa last week. Approximately 60% of the state’s electricity comes from the wind.
Not all pushbacks come from Democrats.
Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley, a Republican who supports wind power, has put on three Treasury candidates to ensure they have the “good glide path to orderly phase-out of tax credits” approved under former President Joe Biden under Climate Act 2022.
Grassley said he was encouraged by the new Treasury guidance that limits tax credits on wind and solar projects but does not eliminate them. The guidance “seems to provide a viable pathway for the wind and solar industries to continue to meet the growing energy demand,” Grassley said in a statement.
John Quigley, a senior fellow at the Kleinman Center for Energy Policy at the University of Pennsylvania, said Republican tax laws could increase the U.S. electricity bill by slowing construction of solar, wind and battery projects, and eliminate as many as 45,000 jobs by 2030.
Quigley said the Trump administration’s policy of emphasizing fossil fuels is “a very backward force in this conversation.” “In addition to handing over a clean energy future to other countries, we are paying more for the stupidity of fossils than money.
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