By Anders Lorenzen

Oil production is something that quickly comes to one’s attention when mentioning Texas, the deeply Conservative and influential US state, for decades it has been the number one US oil-producing state and the home of the US oil industry.

Texas is by far still the largest oil-producing state, producing more than three times as much as the runner-up state New Mexico.  

But it is also the leader of something else which contrasts and in the future could compete with oil; clean energy.

On the back of extreme heat which has gripped huge parts of the US over the past couple of weeks, Texas set a new solar power generation record and beat the high of 13.2 gigawatts (GW) set in July last year by over 50%. On Thursday the 1st of August, solar peaked – delivering roughly 20.5 gigawatts (GW), and met 26% of the state’s electricity demand, with wind power accounting for 21%.

According to the Cleanview Newsletter written by Michael Thomas, the growth of clean energy in the oil state is not set to drop anytime soon, as they will install more clean energy than any other US state during the course of the next 18 months at 35.8 GW. This is more than three times the planned new capacity for the second-largest state of the US enjoying a similar climate to Texas as California is due to install 11 GW the second-most in the country.

Politics

Texas is not only one of the US states, most opposed to climate policies, if not the most resistant one, but also the one where the political establishment rejects the overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change. More than any US state, the Republican party have been sitting heavily on Texas politics, with its citizens time after time electing Republican Governors and Senators. All of these flatly reject climate science and are opposed to climate policies. The state often sues the government for its climate laws. There are some pockets of Democratic-controlled areas in the state, but this is mainly reflected in the representatives of the US House and local politics. The current delegation counts 12 Democrats and 25 Republicans. Even amongst the Democrats, they are more often than not much more conservative than the national average and much more likely to adopt anti-abortion and climate policies.

Energy policy

Therefore it would be a mistake to conclude that the high penetration of renewables in the state reflects a sudden desire to do more on combatting climate change.

But The Lone Star State is an incredibly electricity-hungry state, and no other US state has such a high energy demand. Even with the planned renewable energy capacity, some analysts speculate that this is not even enough to keep up with demand. Therefore the state has in place an all-of-the-above energy policy investing in rapid increase of all energy forms.

Apart from being the US’s biggest producer of oil and wind power, they’re also the number one producer of natural gas with 25 of the US’s proven natural gas reserves located in Texas and they currently account for 27% of the country’s production. In addition, they’re also the second biggest producer of solar power in the US and have 9 billion tons of estimated recoverable coal reserves representing 4% of the country’s total.  

Surging electricity demand

The reason behind the surging demand of electricity demand in Texas is mixed, but key contributing factors are that due to the vast land and precisely the high penetration of renewables, companies are queueing up to build data centres in the state as well as deployment of Artificial intelligence (AI) technology both highly energy-intensive practices. Additionally due to the deregulated energy market people mining bitcoins, an incredible energy-intensive activity, are also setting up bases in the state. 

Then there is climate change, due to extreme heat becoming commonplace in the state year-on-year there has been a huge increase in the uptake of air conditioning usage and infrastructure, another energy-intensive technology. On several occasions, there has been such a rapid increase in energy demand that the grid has struggled to cope causing blackouts, in fact renewable energy such as wind and solar power has been much more resilient to weather extreme weather events, continuing to deliver electricity to the grid during such events

2024 Election

In this year’s election one Senate seat, held by Ted Cruz is up for election as well as all the House seats. Cruz is up against Democrat Colin Allred, a former American Football player who currently serves in the Texas delegation in the US House. Cruz firmly rejects the scientific consensus on climate change. Allred supports action on climate change, but also the all-of-the-above energy policy and says he is in favour of what he calls responsible oil and gas production, but adds that Texas can and should lead on renewable and clean energy. Allred is not given many chances to win though with Cruz leading 6.1% based on 18 polls.

Not enough polling has yet been done on the 38 Texan House seats up for grabs to provide any accurate date. But it would be fair that the current mix of Democrats and Republicans will not change much.

You can find out more about the 2024 US Election on our dedicated election page.