By 2030 there will be about $180 billion in additional investments in renewable energy in the United States. A separate Rystad Energy research group predicts that even more will be directed to this sector. They give a figure of 270 billion dollars. Such investments will lead to the creation of hundreds of thousands of new jobs.
“The Inflation Reduction Act is a game-changer for the U.S. wind and solar industry.” Marcelo Ortega, a renewable energy analyst at Rystad, commented on the IRA bill.
Previously, wind and solar energy developers had to rely on short-term tax breaks. They cooperated with banks or other large institutions. The new bill provides confidence in the tax credit program and allows loans to be passed on to developers themselves.
Billions of dollars will go into the domestic production of clean energy components. A discount system will motivate people to buy electric vehicles.
President Joe Biden called the bill a “historic moment” and promised to halve U.S. emissions this decade.
Climate campaign activists hailed the law as a long overdue breakthrough. However, they criticized some aspects of it—for example, the opening of large areas of public land for drilling oil and gas wells.
Yet even with the additional land and water devoted to drilling, several different analysts predict that the U.S. should cut its planet-warming emissions by about 40% by the end of this decade.
This could galvanize global efforts to avert catastrophic climate change. Such projections could be hampered by various factors, such as the supply chain problems that currently hamper the production of electric vehicles.
There may be economic downturns and problems with establishing transmission infrastructure for the transmission of green electricity throughout the country.
The possible resistance of local communities to new development wind and solar power plants cannot be ruled out. “Each figure must be taken with a great deal of skepticism. There are many serious assumptions, but taken together, all these analyzes show that this bill is of great importance.” James Stock, an economist at Harvard University, said.