US: Wind ready to meet new call for converting to clean energy

There’s a new call for candidates and elected officials to tell how they would triple renewable energy in America by 2030, and take us all the way to a completely clean energy economy by 2050.

Those are the targets in a new video that NextGen Climate released today, “The Time is Now,” and a companion white paper on “The Economic Case for Clean Energy.”

Presidential candidates are starting to stake out their positions. The Obama administration recently announced international commitments with China and Brazil to triple renewables by 2030.

The Bush administration in 2008 identified the possibility of getting 20 percent of America’s electricity from wind by 2030, which galvanized the growth and plummeting cost of American wind power.

Wind energy can do its part, and more, to meet all these numbers. See for example the Wind Vision report released this spring by the Department of Energy, which is a follow-up to the 2008 Bush administration report. It finds wind energy can quadruple its portion of the U.S. power grid by 2030, and could even be the largest source of electricity by 2050.

Reaching such goals will improve public health, lower energy costs for families and businesses, create new jobs in America, and spur innovation that will drive U.S. economic growth for decades. That is why renewable energy standards have received bipartisan support in dozens of states across the U.S.

However, “the deck is still stacked against clean energy,” today’s release noted, and strong leadership is needed if we are to shift fast enough from outdated energy policies.

The public wants such leadership. In a recent poll, 69 percent of voters in eight battleground states responded favorably to the goal of powering America with more than 50 percent clean energy by 2030 and a completely clean energy economy by 2050; only 8 percent responded unfavorably.

The pending Clean Power Plan can take us most of the way to that first goal. And wind energy will play a big role. According to the Energy Information Administration, states looking for ways to comply will find that wind would supply the majority of the clean power needed under the most cost-effective solution.

The potential consumer savings explain why, even in states with entrenched power sources and political opposition, the Clean Power Plan is increasingly seen as cost-effective and achievable . That’s today’s good news.