In his first term, Mr. Trump promised to save coal and stop renewables. But he failed; complying with regulations on mercury emissions made it harder for coal plants to operate, and cheap wind, solar and natural gas outcompeted coal in the markets. In fact, wind, solar and battery farms have made up a vast amount of construction in the power sector in the past 15 years, and hundreds of thousands of people nationwide now depend on those facilities for their livelihoods. Clean energy isn’t a niche, mom-and-pop industry of enthusiasts and tinkerers anymore.
Though Mr. Trump has surrounded himself with climate skeptics, many top officials in his administration support geothermal energy, nuclear power and carbon capture projects, all of which help stave off the worst effects of climate change. Last week the secretary of energy, Chris Wright, announced he wants to streamline permitting for new energy infrastructure, expand the energy system rather than shrink it, improve the transmission system to prepare for growing demand for electricity and unleash commercial nuclear power. The secretary of the interior, Doug Burgum, is focused on undoing many Biden policies, but he is pushing for a more robust domestic supply chain for minerals used for batteries and renewables, as well. All of these efforts would be beneficial for clean energy.
Mr. Trump’s G.O.P. rank and file might not let him choke off the money flowing to Republican districts; a majority of federal clean energy investments for wind, solar, batteries and clean tech factories are going to those regions. In places like Texas, rural Republicans have been cheerleaders for wind and solar because the projects pay higher wages compared with agricultural jobs, generate royalties for landowners and increase local property tax revenue for schools, parks, libraries and courthouses.
Anticipating potential funding cuts, 18 G.O.P. representatives sent a letter in August to House Speaker Mike Johnson warning him not to end the federal support for clean energy. Several Republican lawmakers also conveyed their support for maintaining several tax credits in the Inflation Reduction Act in a Jan. 22 hearing on Capitol Hill.
Another conflict in Mr. Trump’s energy agenda is his push for the United States to dominate the so-called artificial intelligence arms race. Data centers that train and deploy large A.I. models require vast amounts of electricity, and throttling construction of wind and solar installations — the cheapest and fastest kind of energy facilities to construct — will limit their growth and give adversaries the upper hand. Building solar, wind and battery installations buys time while utilities and other companies reopen shuttered nuclear power plants, deploy geothermal energy and build nuclear reactors that will last decades.
