Red States Rank among Renewable Energy Leaders

Scientific American -------- Wyoming might be in coal country, but it's also leading the country in renewable energy capacity, a new report finds. Wyoming's expanding wind sector has placed it at the top of a ranking of states' clean energy development by the Union of Concerned Scientists. The report found that renewable sources account for all of the new power plant capacity added to the state between 2016 and 2019. Wyoming also leads in terms of renewable energy development per capita. “If you look at Wyoming, you might think about coal. But it tops all our metrics that look at new capacity, what's being built in each state in the near future and the percentage of renewable energy in what they're building overall,” said John Rogers, energy analyst with UCS and the lead author of the report.