Is Decarbonization Dead?

What It Covers

Trump's Big Beautiful Bill gutted Biden's Inflation Reduction Act clean energy investments, cutting wind, solar, and EV tax credits while keeping nuclear and advanced geothermal subsidies. Jenkins and Flagle assess climate progress lost and paths forward.

Key Questions Answered

• •Emissions trajectory impact: Biden-era policies would have reduced emissions 40-43% below peak by 2030. The Republican bill cuts that progress in half to 20-24%, eliminating roughly a nuclear fleet's worth of clean generation while raising household energy costs $280 annually by 2035.
• •Permitting reform priority: Non-market barriers like three-year interconnection queue delays and county-level project bans block clean energy deployment more than economics. Texas demonstrates success through proactive transmission planning and automated grid connection studies that could reduce approval times from years to months nationwide.
• •Technology-neutral tax credits survived: Republicans maintained decade-long tax credits for any zero-emissions electricity technology through 2033, including nuclear, advanced geothermal, and green hydrogen. Only wind and solar were specifically excluded, revealing culture war politics override fiscal or energy policy logic in current climate debates.
• •EV competitiveness destroyed: US invested over $100 billion in EV manufacturing under IRA, briefly out-investing China in 2024. Ending EV tax credits by September 2030 will cut US demand to less than half previous projections, leaving factories without customers while Chinese manufacturers dominate global markets.
• •Advanced geothermal breakthrough potential: US oil and gas drilling expertise positions America to lead in enhanced geothermal systems using directional drilling and hydraulic fracturing in hot rock formations. This technology could enable terawatt-scale deployment anywhere with subsurface heat, unlike traditional geothermal requiring natural hot springs.