journalistsresearch.org
When the House of Representatives approved the Senate’s emergency “fiscal cliff” deal on New Year’s Day 2013, one of the winners was the U.S. wind-power industry. The production tax credit of 2.2 cents per kilowatt was renewed, which has the effect of making wind power more competitive with fossil fuels.
Even working within the more restrictive context of previous bills, wind energy is the fastest growing of all renewables. Among all energy sources, it is second only to natural gas in terms of added capacity in recent years. Wind represented 32% of the electrical-generation capacity added in 2011, with approximately 6.8 gigawatts of new capacity and $14 billion invested. As of that year, wind generated nearly 3% of the country’s electricity, second among renewable sources only to hydropower, which has shown little growth since the 1970s.
