---

---

Last Updated on: 3rd August 2025, 11:11 pm

Several Republican Senators are sending signals of unhappiness to the Trump administration. These politicians have basked in the glow of Inflation Reduction Act largess from the Biden administration, and now the Senators are nervous they won’t be able to salvage funding for renewables that are already earmarked for their states. Politico reports that the Republican advocacy “comes on the heels of the Interior Department’s new secretarial order calling for the identification of any ‘preferential treatment’ toward wind and solar facilities in current regulations, guidance, policies, and agency practices.”

Increased national productivity is a key ingredient of sustained growth. Nonetheless, while promising an all-of-the-above energy mix, Trump and his merry pranksters have done everything in their power to halt the exponential rise of solar and wind energy projects.

Fear among Republicans is that power demand failures will spark consumer scrutiny, which could have negative consequences for 2026 elections. “It will become very clear very quickly that our energy needs will outstrip our ability to produce energy unless we also include wind energy in the mix,” explains Senator Mike Rounds, who represents the large wind-producing state of South Dakota.

There is also the stark realization that more than half of clean energy projects since the passage of the Inflation Reduction Act were located in red states. Oops. The loss of investment and jobs will hurt communities that voted for less government — or so they thought.

One barrier to Trump’s proclamation to “drill, baby, drill” is coming from an usual source: the oil and gas sector itself. Even with opportunities to drill on additional public lands at reduced royalty rates and limits on incentives for wind and solar, there’s been a relatively lackluster push for more fossil power.

“The industry is going to do what the industry is going to do,” Jenny Rowland-Shea, director for public lands at the Center for American Progress, told Wired.

The price of oil is the driving factor for its commercial production. Global demand and supply dynamics figure heavily into that equation — much more so than as a reaction to a White House prod. It might seem that the One Big Beautiful Bill Act’s vision to reduce new wind and solar would be making headway with energy speculation.

However, the appeal of solar and wind is getting harder and harder to deny. “Paradigm shifts like this don’t come along often,” climate activist Bill McKibben reminds us.

• Last year, 96% of the global demand for new electricity was met by renewables.
• In the US, during that time, 93% of new generating capacity came from solar, wind, and an ever-increasing variety of batteries to store that power.
• In March 2025, for the first time, fossil fuels generated less than half the electricity in the US.
• Texas is now installing renewable energy and batteries faster than California. The state has also set records for solar and wind production as well as for battery discharge.

A 2025 United Nations analysis concludes that “solar and wind are now almost always the least expensive — and the fastest — option for new electricity generation.” With costs falling far faster than originally predicted, solar and wind have become “the fastest growing sources of electricity in history, and growth in renewable energy is now outpacing that in fossil fuels in the power sector.”

Global Voices for a Wide-Ranging Energy Mix

Politicians who recognize the need for funding for renewables are speaking up around the world. Chancellor Rachel Reeves of Scotland rebuked Trump’s remarks that the North Sea is a “treasure chest,” saying that renewable and non-renewable energy sources are not an “either-or” equation.

Reeves acknowledged that oil and gas continue to be “incredibly important for the UK and our energy security.” The plan for energy production doesn’t stop there for Scotland, however. “At the same time, we’re investing in clean homegrown energy, including at Berwick Bank in Scotland, which will create thousands of new jobs and power millions of homes. And that’s what we need to do to make sure that our economy has this energy security that we need, that we bring down bills and bring more good jobs to Scotland.”

As example, a proposed wind farm, off the coast of East Lothian has the potential to add more than 4.1 gigawatts of capacity, which could power more than six million homes annually. Continually focusing on superficial perceptions of wind turbines, Trump reacted to Reeves’ remarks by saying, “When we go to Aberdeen, you’ll see some of the ugliest windmills you’ve ever seen, the height of a 50-story building.”

No Funding for Renewables for Security?

The US military consumes 80% of all of the energy that the federal government uses annually. The Biden administration had embarked on an ambitious campaign to drastically cut the US military’s carbon emissions as part of its broader climate strategy. Trump 2.o doesn’t have time for decarbonization — the Administration is busy with Coca Cola and renaming bodies of water.

Yet two projects designated for military applications demonstrate how funding for renewables and companies that support them makes sense.

One example is US firm NanoGraf, which announced last July that it held production-scale orders for its new silicon battery, with the US military in mind. Today’s electronic military gear requires batteries, and plenty of them, to power the increasing load of portable electronic gear carried by soldiers.

Another is Solar Ready Vets, which is a collection of initiatives designed to strengthen solar career pathways for veterans and support the industry’s efforts to invest in military talent. Funded by the US Department of Energy, the Solar Energy Industries Association (SEIA) is working alongside the Interstate Renewable Energy Council (IREC), solar businesses, and other partners to develop resources that help the solar and storage industry recruit and retain veterans and the broader military-connected community.

Industrial policy is better suited to focus on three high-conviction investment themes, writes Charles Hayes on Ainvest Fintech.

• Battery and Solar Manufacturing: Firms with IRA-backed tax credits and vertical integration capabilities (e.g., companies producing both cells and modules) are well-positioned to outperform.
• AI-Enabled Infrastructure: Startups and established players deploying AI for predictive maintenance, grid optimization, and deployment automation will benefit from surging demand in data centers and smart cities.
• Carbon Management Technologies: Companies developing DAC, BECCS, and high-integrity CDR platforms are set to capitalize on the $50 billion global CDR market, which is expected to grow 20% annually through 2035.