George W. Bush’s vision is alive: Texas is the green powerhouse of the USA

The green heart of the USA beats in California – that is the widespread assumption. In fact, Texas generates almost three times as much wind and solar power as the liberal energy paradise, so Texas is predestined for this. The people like it, the Republicans don’t.

George W. Bush is known for many things. He was US President when terrorists attacked the United States on September 11, 2001. Bush started the Iraq war in violation of international law, throwing the country into chaos. The 76-year-old is also a gifted artist and is close friends with former First Lady Michelle Obama.

However, George W. Bush was apparently also a green visionary. Because in 1999, as governor, he unintentionally laid the foundation for Texas as the green powerhouse of the USA. Because he was really only interested in liberalizing the electricity market, like energy historians Stephen Milder explained by the LMU Munich in the “Again what was learned” podcast from ntv.de. Every Texan should be able to choose who they get their electricity from.

Targets are pulverized

A common assumption is that the green heart of the US beats in California. No US state produces more solar energy than the liberal one on the Pacific coast. As a wind power pioneer, California became a role model for countries like Germany as early as the 1980s. In an America-wide comparison of renewable energies, however, it is now only enough for second place, despite the early start: Texas is enthroned at the top – and by a wide margin. Only with wind and sun does he Lone Star State in the past year 136 gigawatt hours (GWh) of renewable electricity is generated – almost three times as much as California (53 GWh).

Since the green go-ahead in 1999, Texas has managed to “crush” every single expansion target for renewables, as the Americans say. Pulverized. Bush’s specifications were only two gigawatts of renewable energy capacity by 2009. This milestone was reached in 2005.

Rick Perry, Bush’s successor as Texas governor, subsequently increased the target to 10 gigawatts of installed capacity by 2025. That target has been met 2011 reached. Just over a year ago, the renewable capacity was more than 35 gigawatts. Globally, only China, Germany, India and the US themselves have larger capacities.

Wind farms on the ranch

Because wind turbines have been sprouting up like mushrooms in Texas for a good 20 years. The wide, flat plains and large desert areas are predestined for wind and solar parks. Just like the outstanding space: The second largest American state stretches from east to west and from north to south over almost 1300 kilometers at the widest points. In terms of area, Texas is almost twice the size of Germany, but with 29 million people it only has a third of the population – and the Republican leadership, with its rejection of bureaucracy, rarely dictates what they can and cannot do.

“The big landowners, the ranchers, eventually got visits from investors. They told them that if they were allowed to build a wind farm with dozens or even hundreds of wind turbines on the ranch, they would pay money for it,” says Stephen Milder at “again what learned”. “And Texas doesn’t have any strict rules about what you can use your own land for.”

The Texans agree

Wind power is the new oil in Texas. There are now more than 150 wind farms with a total of more than 15,000 turbines spread across the giant state. That’s in just one US state approximately half as many as in Germany in total. Capacities that become abundantly clear in an American comparison: Good one Quarter of all American wind power comes from the texan plains. Texas is also making big strides to catch up with California as the leader when it comes to solar power.

And the Texans? Like it, says Stephen Milder. As early as the 1990s, 80 percent of people would have said in surveys that they support clean energy technology and would even be willing to pay more for it. Nothing has changed to this day.

Green Subsidies

But the green successes are not met with approval everywhere: Texans who are supposedly close to nature are increasingly complaining about wind turbines on the horizon and solar parks in the desert, which disrupt the Texan panorama. A special, not only visual nuisance, are also power lines, as in Germany. Because the more wind turbines are built, especially in remote areas, the more power lines are needed to then route the green energy to where it is needed – in the densely populated regions in the east and on the coast.

On particularly windy and sunny days, the existing routes are already overwhelmed by the excess of green electricity. In order not to overload the Texas grid, many wind turbines and solar systems are operated regularly shut down and throttled. Neighboring states can’t take the excess power: Texas’ power grid isn’t connected to the rest of the US.

A complex problem trumped by another: the Republican leadership, which still rules the Texan capital Austin. She doesn’t seem to like the green image, although it would bring Texas a lot of money: The US government’s green subsidy hammer, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), rewards the construction and development of electric cars, batteries, but also wind – and solar parks with up to 370 billion dollars.

According to the latest calculations, Texas has the greatest claim to this: energy projects, but also companies like Tesla and others could probably access almost a fifth of the sum, that is $70 billion. The current governor, Greg Abbott, seems to have so little interest in this money that he intervenes in the free market in a very un-Republican way. “Paradoxically,” says Stephen Milder.

Role model Bavaria?

Because Abbott and his allies in the Texas legislature have been trying for some time to pass more than a dozen laws that would slow down the expansion of renewables. It is envisaged, for example, that further wind farms will be connected to the Expansion of gas power plants be paired. Another law sees new distance rules for wind turbines and solar systems, which are reminiscent of the 10H regulation from Bavaria, and which would not apply to fossil infrastructure such as oil wells or pipelines.

Does Greg Abbott hate green energy? That would not be a surprise. But another explanation is more likely for the resistance: Texas is not only the windy (26 percent), but also that fossil powerhouse of the USA. Almost half (43 percent) of America’s oil is produced in Texas. The Texas share of natural gas is 25 percent. Production quotas that bring influence, but also money and, above all, jobs: Texas has grown by four million people in the past ten years. Can America’s green powerhouse supply them with energy too?