It's both cost-rational and environment-rational to invest heavily in clean energy (with or without the comparatively paltry tax incentives).<p>The long-term costs of climate change and inaction are unfortunately still mostly external costs to energy producers. We should expect that to change as we start developing competencies in evaluating the costs and frequency of weather disasters exacerbated by anthropogenic climate change. We all get to pay for floods, fires, tornados, hurricanes, landslides, blizzards, and the gosh darn heat.<p>Insurance firms clearly see these costs. Our military sees the costs of responding to natural disasters. Local economies see the costs of months and years spent on disaster relief; on just getting back up to speed so that they can generate profit from selling goods and services (and pay taxes to support disaster relief efforts essential to operational readiness).<p>The cost per kilowatt hour of wind (and solar) energy is now lower than operating existing dirty energy plants that dump soot on our crops, air, and water.<p>With wind, they talk about the "alligator curve". With solar, it's the "duck curve".
Grid-scale energy storage is necessary for reaching 100% renewable energy as soon as possible.<p>Iowa's renewable energy tax incentives are logically aligned with international long-term goals:<p>UN Sustainable Development Goal 7: Affordable and Clean Energy
<a href="https://www.globalgoals.org/7-affordable-and-clean-energy" rel="nofollow">https://www.globalgoals.org/7-affordable-and-clean-energy</a><p>Goal 13: Climate Action
<a href="https://www.globalgoals.org/13-climate-action" rel="nofollow">https://www.globalgoals.org/13-climate-action</a><p>SDG Target 12.6: "Encourage companies to adopt sustainable practices and sustainability reporting" (CSR; e.g. GRI Sustainability Reporting Standards that we can score portfolios with)<p><a href="https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-12-responsible-consumption-and-production/targets.html" rel="nofollow">https://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-develo...</a> :<p>> <i>Rationalize inefficient fossil-fuel subsidies that encourage wasteful consumption by removing market distortions, in accordance with national circumstances, including by restructuring taxation and phasing out those harmful subsidies, where they exist, to reflect their environmental impacts, taking fully into account the specific needs and conditions of developing countries and minimizing the possible adverse impacts on their development in a manner that protects the poor and the affected communities</i><p>...<p>> <i>Thanks. How can I say "try and only run this [computational workload] in zones with 100% PPA offsets or 100% directly sourced #CleanEnergy"? #Goal7 #Goal11 #Goal12 #Goal13 #GlobalGoals #SDGs</i><p>It makes good business sense to invest in clean energy to take advantage of tax incentives, minimize future costs to other business units (e.g. insurance, taxes), and earn the support of investors choosing portfolios with long term environmental (and thus economic) sustainability as a primary objective.