Warren Buffett's Green Cash Washes Over Coal Country

Cross posting from the Environmental Group

https://www.democraticunderground.com/1127167750

RAVENSWOOD, W.Va.—No state is more reliant on coal for electricity than West Virginia. Yet a clean-energy industrial project rising on the banks of the Ohio River is challenging coal’s stranglehold on the Mountain State. Behind the project: Warren Buffett and state Republican lawmakers. It’s a surprising base of support in a region where political power and wealth has long derived from coal mining.

Two of Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway companies are teaming up to build a manufacturing hub that will include a $500 million factory to produce titanium for aircraft parts. It will be powered by solar panels and rechargeable batteries. The Buffett name and the promise of 300 jobs helped the companies overcome resistance in a state where coal provides more than 90% of the electricity.

West Virginia has in the past year approved some $400 million in funds for three renewable-energy projects, including Berkshire’s. The Republican-led legislature, eager to create jobs, has passed new legislation that benefits renewable energy. Accelerating the shift are billions in federal subsidies to clean-energy entrepreneurs and manufacturers from the Biden administration’s new infrastructure and climate laws.

The federal money—tied to industrial production that brings jobs—is beginning to sway even the most coal-centric areas of the country. The funds have reframed the renewable-energy debate away from global warming and environmental protection, and toward economic development. That’s brought on board many Republicans in the GOP-majority states of Appalachia, where green energy projects backed by the federal subsidies are drawing billions of dollars in investments.

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To pave the way for the Berkshire project, the Republican-led West Virginia state legislature passed a law last year that bypassed the state’s powerful pro-coal utility regulator.

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https://archive.ph/wt0NI

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A long article, details about the W.VA politics with Justice running against Manchin