The realization that Donald Trump is returning to the White House next year is rattling the cleantech industry and unnerving climate advocates – with good reason. The last time he was in office the president-elect pulled the U.S. out of the Paris Climate Accords, called climate change a hoax, falsely claimed offshore wind turbines kill whales and big wind farms are a top killer of birds (house cats are a much bigger threat).
But don’t count out the fast-growing clean power industry just yet. Billionaire investor Tom Steyer is betting that renewable energy and the cleantech sector are going to be just fine, regardless of Trump’s fixation on hydrocarbons.
“Texas has tripled their solar in the last three years and is by far the biggest wind producer. Are they doing it because they like renewables or because they like money? I think it might be because they like money. And so does everybody else,” Steyer told Forbes. “People are making decisions for cheaper, faster, better. That’s the decision, not politics.”
He plans to continue to use the $1 billion his firm Galvanize Climate Solutions has raised and future investments to back companies with advantages in areas like cost-competitive low-carbon cement, ag technology that helps farmers improve efficiency and sustainability, energy management software as well as cheap, continuous geothermal power.
And though he talked about repealing the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) during the campaign, that’s easier said than done. Most of those projects have been bringing jobs and investment dollars to Republican-held Congressional districts. Cleantech could even benefit from some Trump policies–like cutting both the corporate tax rate and red tape, including time-consuming environmental reviews, that hold up the siting of green projects and electricity transmission lines.
No one knows exactly what the next administration will do, but Steyer thinks rising U.S. power demand and the cost advantage that wind and solar will trump all other factors.
“Most Americans think fossil fuels are cheaper as an electricity source than solar and wind. And that’s not true. In fact, solar and wind are cheaper now and getting even cheaper,” he said. “So you’re talking about competing against that. You can’t make oil or natural gas more efficient. It just is what it is.”