Democratic presidential candidate Hillary Clinton promises green energy will power every American home by the end of her second term in office — all while cutting taxes for working-class families.
“By the end of my first term, we will have installed a half a billion more solar panels, and by the end of my second term, enough clean energy to power every home in America” Clinton said in Charleston, S.C. Saturday.
“And people say, well, can you do that without raising taxes on the middle class? Absolutely. That’s why I’m going to be fighting for tax cuts that help hard-working families get ahead.”
In 2014 solar and wind power accounted for only 0.4 and 4.4 percent of all electricity generated in the United States respectively according to the Energy Information Administration.
Hillary’s plan targets coal power, which accounted for 39 percent of all power produced in 2014 despite losing a considerable amount of market-share to natural gas. The phrase “clean energy” lacks a commonly agreed upon definition and can include both nuclear, hydropower and natural gas sources.
Clinton’s website repeats the claim, but uses the word “renewable” and states Clinton will “increase the amount of installed solar capacity by 700% by 2020.”
U.S. greenhouse gas emissions have dropped by 1,022 million tons, making them significantly lower than the peak in 2007. Studies suggest solar power is responsible for a mere 1 percent of the decline in U.S. carbon-dioxide emissions, while the switch from coal to natural gas is responsible for nearly 20 percent. For every ton of carbon dioxide cut by solar power, fracking cuts 13 tons.
“The transition from coal to natural gas for electricity generation has probably been the single largest contributor to the … largely unexpected decline in U.S. CO2 emissions” according to the research institution Berkeley Earth, concurring with more formal assessments from the Department of Energy.
Hillary previously stated the United States and other developed countries should be spending $100 billion annually by 2020 to prevent global warming.
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