Tornado Alley (PROG)

[blackhawks]

RFK Jr. gets no traction here, perhaps because IL pursues an 'all of the above' for energy production and because......... Illinois has a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that requires all investor-owned electric utilities and alternative retail electricity suppliers to obtain increasing proportions of the power they sell from renewably-sourced generation. In 2021, the RPS target was increased to require that 50% of electricity retail sales come from renewable sources by 2040, replacing the earlier target of 25% by 2026.The RPS will help Illinois reach its goal for its economy to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050.

https://www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=IL

Illinois is the nation's fifth-largest energy-producing and energy-consuming state. The state's industrial sector, which includes agriculture, accounts for about three-tenths of Illinois' total energy use. Chemicals, food and beverages, machinery, fabricated metal products, and computers and electronics are the largest contributors to the state's manufacturing GDP.

Other energy-intensive industries in Illinois include petroleum refining, coal mining, and plastics manufacturing. The residential sector accounts for one-fourth of the state's energy consumption, the transportation sector uses slightly less than one-fourth, and the commercial sector accounts for one-fifth. Despite the state's cold winters and its warm, humid, and occasionally hot summers, Illinois' total energy consumption per capita ranks near the midpoint of the states.

Electricity

Illinois generates more electricity from nuclear energy than any other state, accounting for one-eighth of the nation’s total nuclear power generation.

Illinois is the nation's fifth-largest electricity producer, and typically sends about one-fifth of the power it generates to other states over interstate transmission lines. Illinois generates more electricity from nuclear energy than any other state, accounting for one-eighth of the nation's total nuclear power generation. In 2022, the state's 6 nuclear power plants, with 11 total reactors, produced 52% of the state's electricity net generation. Five of the six nuclear plants rank among the 10 largest power plants in the state by both generating capacity and annual electricity generation.

Because of economic issues in the electricity market, several of the state's nuclear power stations were scheduled to close, but the Illinois legislature in 2016 approved financial incentives to keep the stations operating. The utility that owns two nuclear power plants in northern Illinois, the Byron and Dresden generating facilities, reversed its plans to retire the nuclear power plants in the fall of 2021 after a new state law passed that requires Illinois to transition to 50% clean energy by 2040 and 100% clean energy by 2050 Illinois has the only chemical facility that converts uranium yellowcake into uranium hexafluoride, a step in making fuel for use at nuclear power reactors.

Renewable energy
Illinois's primary renewable energy product is biofuels. The state is a leading producer of both ethanol and biodiesel, with an annual production capacity of 1.7 billion gallons of ethanol and 192 million gallons of biodiesel. A fertile prairie state, Illinois is a major corn and soybean producer. The state's 13 ethanol plants use corn as feedstock, and the state's 4 biodiesel plants use multiple feedstocks, including soy and corn oils. Illinois' annual ethanol production of 1.4 billion gallons is the third-highest in the nation, after Iowa and Nebraska, and is more than three times larger than the state's ethanol consumption of 434 million gallons. Illinois produces 167 million gallons of biodiesel, the fourth-highest total, after Iowa, Missouri, and Texas. The state is the third-largest consumer of biodiesel, after Texas and California, at 163 million gallons.

In 2022, Illinois ranked fifth in the nation in wind power capacity with about 7,000 megawatts installed.

In 2022, renewable energy accounted for 14% of Illinois' total in-state electricity generation, more than triple the amount generated a decade earlier. Wind is the primary renewable resource used for electric power generation in the state. In 2022, wind power provided 87% of the state's renewable energy generation, and Illinois was fifth in the nation in utility-scale (1 megawatt or greater) wind power capacity, with about 7,000 megawatts. About 850 megawatts of additional wind power capacity are scheduled to come online in 2023. Illinois' best wind energy resources are found in the northern one-third of the state.

In 2022, Illinois' total solar power generation from both utility-scale facilities (1 megawatt or larger in capacity) and small-scale, customer-sited solar panel systems (less than 1 megawatt each) accounted for 11% of the state's renewable electricity. The largest solar power facility in Illinois, the 200-megawatt Prairie Solar Farm, came online in late 2021. Nearly three-fifths of the state's solar generation in 2022 came from utility-scale facilities and the rest was small-scale generation, mostly from rooftop solar panels.

Biomass and hydropower together generated about 2% of Illinois' renewable-sourced electricity. Waste and methane gas from municipal landfills fuel nearly all of the state's biomass electricity generation at 12 facilities with 56 megawatts of combined generating capacity. Illinois has many rivers, but the state's relatively level terrain limits hydroelectric potential. The state's 8 hydroelectric facilities have a total of 31 megawatts of generating capacity.

Illinois has a renewable portfolio standard (RPS) that requires all investor-owned electric utilities and alternative retail electricity suppliers to obtain increasing proportions of the power they sell from renewably-sourced generation. In 2021, the RPS target was increased to require that 50% of electricity retail sales come from renewable sources by 2040, replacing the earlier target of 25% by 2026.The RPS will help Illinois reach its goal for its economy to have net zero carbon emissions by 2050.