How Berkshire Hathaway Energy Escaped 'The Coal Trap'

Contributing sentiments towards policy:

69% : Solar energy is nationwide.
65% : Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway Energy purchased 2,000 acres in West Virginia, where the company will provide solar energy to an aerospace enterprise, creating as many as 1,000 jobs.
61% : The interconnected grid means we can buy clean power elsewhere for now.
61% : It's been a slow process, but West Virginia will move forward -- powered by clean energy and demanded by its people.
60% : Of the nearly 28,000 MW of power that came online in 2021, wind power made up 41%, while solar energy comprised 36%.
59% : According to Van Nostrand, the project will function more like a microgrid, generating onsite solar power, storing it in a battery, and sending it through a localized mini-grid.
58% : Meanwhile, West Virginia legislators passed bills so that the two biggest utilities -- AEP and FirstEnergy Corp. -- could install solar power in 50-megawatt increments.
56% : In 2005, it owned 24,000 MW of coal.
55% : Duke Energy, too, has retired 6,500 MW of coal since 2010, and it will close 1,900 more MW of coal by 2025.
52% : West Virginia's Public Service Commission is under the thumb of coal companies that still have political muscle.
49% : The state's Clean Energy Transformation Act eliminates coal and requires the grid to be decarbonized by 2045.
45% : Moving away from coal is needed to save the planet -- and it will result in lower electricity rates."
44% : "The consumer education process is going to be challenging," says Van Nostrand, relating to communities that have long depended on coal.
43% : Ideally, utilities could run their coal plants at less capacity and buy wind and solar power more cheaply on the open market.
38% : Unfortunately, West Virginia's utility regulators have doubled down on coal.
38% : Nationally, the coal industry has lost its influence.
35% : Otherwise, we will go down the drain with coal."

*Our bias meter rating uses data science including sentiment analysis, machine learning and our proprietary algorithm for determining biases in news articles. Bias scores are on a scale of -100% to 100% with higher negative scores being more liberal and higher positive scores being more conservative, and 0% being neutral. The rating is an independent analysis and is not affiliated nor sponsored by the news source or any other organization.