The corporatisation of US green energy: a double-edged sword worth billions
As tax breaks and incentives for renewable energy increase, corporations are entering the green energy landscape
There’s a popular meme that surfaces on green energy blogs, forums, and Facebook pages. The gist is that large corporations love oil and gas because they can own and control it. They’re against renewable energy because no-one can own the sun or wind.
The problem for anti-corporate green-energy campaigners is, increasingly: the meme isn’t true.
As the materials for producing wind and solar energy become cheaper, tax breaks and incentives for renewable energy increase, and the prospect of finding more oil and gas becomes weaker, corporations are entering the green energy landscape to the tune of billions of dollars.
Last month, NRG, one of the US’s largest energy companies with 100 power plants across the country, including plants that run on coal and natural gas, finalized details in its bid to buy Alta Wind Energy Center in California, the largest wind farm in North America, for $800m.
It was the latest blockbuster renewable energy deal by a large corporation in recent years.
There’s the under-construction 560 megawatt Desert Sunlight Solar Farm in California, which is owned jointly by NextEra Energy – an energy conglomerate that makes about $15bn a year mostly from gas and nuclear plants, GE, and Sumitomo – a Japanese company that gets most of its billions from mining, oil and gas production. And there’s the 550 megawatt Topaz Solar Farm, owned by MidAmerican, a subsidiary of Berkshire Hathaway, Warren Buffett’s multi-billion dollar empire which is also heavily invested in coal and oil.
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