How Texas became America’s biggest producer of wind energy | Speed & Scale

The podcast "Speed and Scale" hosted by Anjali Grover and Ryan Penchatswaran, focuses on strategies to tackle climate change, specifically highlighting unexpected successes in reducing emissions. This episode explores how Texas, a state known for its oil and gas industry, became the largest producer of wind energy in the United States. They interview Pat Wood, who headed Texas’s Public Utility Commission, about the policies he implemented in the 90s that mandated renewable energy, driven by customer demand identified through deliberative polling and the economic benefits of wind energy. The discussion covers the political dynamics, infrastructure investments, and the surprising non-partisan support that enabled Texas to significantly cut emissions from its power grid, despite overall CO2 levels increasing due to the oil and gas industry.