Despite its long history as a leader in fossil fuels, the Lone Star State leads the nation in renewable-energy production

Chart by Paul Horn, ICN, from Energy Information Admin. data

Some people say "Everything is bigger in Texas," and that sentiment rings true in the case of a subject that some may find surprising, given the state's fossil-fuel heritage: clean energy.

"A new batch of data about the country's electricity generation shows the increasing dominance of one state as the clean-energy leader . . . Texas," reports Dan Gearino of Inside Climate News. "Texas has produced more gigawatt-hours of electricity from renewable sources than any other state. . . . thanks largely to wind energy. Now, the state is expanding its lead by continuing to be the county's leader in wind energy. . . and is quickly closing the gap on California on utility-scale solar power."

Texas' dominance is partly a function of its size, but it already generates more than twice as much power from wind and solar as California, and "more than either New York or Ohio generated from all electricity sources," Gearino notes. "But Texas is also the country's leader in overall electricity generation, and it's the leader in generation from gas and coal, so the total for wind and solar, while gigantic, was just 34.3 percent of the total from all sources."

If you add up "all carbon-free electricity sources, which includes renewables and nuclear., the leader, again, is Texas, with 180,145 gigawatt-hours, followed by Illinois with 124,055 gigawatt-hours, most of it from nuclear," Gearino reports. Just about any way you slice the numbers, Texas is on top."

Chart by Paul Horn, ICN, from Energy Information Admin. data

"Texas has the best combination of wind and solar resources in the U.S.," said Eric Gimon, a senior fellow at the think tank Energy Innovation in San Francisco, told Gearino. He adds, "By that, he means the state has high winds and bright sun. . . . But Texas is more than just resource-rich. It also has vast amounts of developable land and a regulatory system that is friendly to renewable energy developers, Gimon said."

The state's renewable-energy dominance is somewhat surprising because politically, its "leadership is closely tied to fossil-fuel industries and has been hostile to cleaner options."

Doug Lewin, president of Stoic Energy, a clean energy consulting firm, told Gearino that other states "are scrambling to attract this kind of investment. And here, Texas has some subset of policymakers that seem hell-bent on slowing it down."

"But this sentiment is more pervasive in politics than it is in the business community, Lewin said. Some of Texas' largest oil and gas companies are also investing in renewable energy," Gearino reports. Lewin told him, "It doesn't look like as much of a cage match as some people in the Capitol think it is."