Nationwide, about 10% of the electricity mix in the U.S. comes from wind power. Here in Texas, though, that number is much higher.
According to the latest numbers from 2023, wind power accounted for more than 28 percent of the mix in Texas, almost three times the national average. Wind is second only to natural gas, helping make Texas a leader in the industry.
According to the Department of Energy, wind energy is one of the fastest-growing job markets in the nation. But some fear a new White House executive order could put the brakes on the rapid growth of wind power. Within days of taking office, President Donald Trump signed an executive order temporarily halting the approval of new leases permits for wind energy projects – both offshore and onshore.
Brian Korgel, director of The University of Texas at Austin Energy Institute, spoke with Texas Standard about what the order could mean for the industry here in Texas. Listen to the interview above or read the transcript below.
This transcript has been edited for clarity:
Texas Standard: What’s the [Trump administration’s] justification in putting forward this pause on approvals for new wind power projects? What do you understand it to be?
Brian Korgel: Yeah, I think a lot of us are trying to figure it out. It seems a bit bewildering. I was reading the executive order again and there’s a lot of mention of environmental impacts, negative environmental impacts. We’re trying to figure that out. I think the motivation is still a bit unclear at the moment.
Texas Standard: Yeah, I was listening to a story on NPR in which some experts were really questioning whether or not wind power had the kind of negative environmental impact that the White House was claiming in its executive order. But as I understand it, this is supposed to be a temporary stop for approvals for new wind energy projects on federal lands and waters. That seems a pretty narrow thing, pretty limited. I mean, we’re talking about federal lands and waters and new wind energy projects. So there are a lot of projects on federal lands and waters?
Korgel: Well, there are. In Texas, not so much.
So the situation in Texas, we don’t have a lot of federal lands, unlike a lot of other states. Like neighboring state, New Mexico, for example, has a lot of federal lands.
So I think the pause that these executive orders are placing, if anything, they’re probably temporary. They’re making people wonder what does the future hold. And so that’s creating some stress right now.
Texas Standard: Yeah, I guess certainly if you’re in Nevada, where they have a lot of federal land… You’re in someplace like New Mexico, as you mentioned. … But what about the industry overall? Is there a sense that this is a kind of broadside against the wind industry in a bigger sense? And I guess that perhaps that could affect the health of the Texas wind industry, which has seemed to be growing in leaps and bounds in recent years.
Korgel: Yeah, I think it does appear to be a broadside against the wind industry.
I think in terms of wind development in Texas, it’s unclear whether it will have a real impact. We need wind power on our grid. ERCOT, who manages the grid in Texas, predicts that the power demands will double in the next five years. So to have a stable grid and enough power, you’ve got to have wind.
We have a lot right now. So there are questions. I think the biggest concern is if the production tax credit for wind was to go away – that’s a longer discussion that would take congressional approvals and things like that that could have a real negative impact.
But in terms of this executive order and permitting on federal lands, it’s probably not going to impact Texas wind development as much. If anything, it actually may encourage it because we don’t have the issue of a lot of federal lands. So the wind projects tend to be on private landowner’s land and they don’t have the same restrictions.
I think one of the interesting things about this is that if you look at the energy sector and, say, America’s goal to energy dominance, we need wind. Wind is part of the whole balance of energy.
And these days, everything is really interconnected. So when you talk about wind power, wind power is not necessarily distinct from oil and gas. The oil and gas industry needs that electricity in many of these rural places. And the only way to get it is from from wind and solar. And so we need wind.
A lot of the emerging technologies in the energy sector, which represent the future and the countries that develop these new energy technologies are going to dominate the market. Wind power is central to that. You can use wind power to generate hydrogen. You can do a lot of different things.
So I think it’s all really interrelated. But it does look like a broadside against the wind industry.
Texas Standard: So it sounds like from what you’re saying, that you’re not so much concerned about this particular executive order and its impact on Texas, except to the extent that this could hint at perhaps a bigger political attack on wind more broadly — like, say, the removal of that tax credit for businesses, right?
Korgel: Yeah. And even more broadly than that, we’re trying not to take it this way, but it almost looks like an attack on the energy sector. And we’ve heard a lot of support of oil and gas from the Trump administration. And we get a sense of that.
But like I said, the energy sector is very complicated these days, especially when we talk about the power grid. And people in Texas care about blackouts and they care about having firm power. Wind is part of that, the same way that natural gas is part of that, even coal. Nuclear is a big discussion here.
It’s all interrelated. So I think the biggest concern in Texas is that the entire energy sector is going to face major headwinds from these things.