How the country votes on Nov. 8 will have far-reaching implications for the price of electricity and gas at the pump, as well as the future of the U.S. energy industry, which employs about 10 million people.
As Reuters reports, Democrat nominee Hillary Clinton and Republican nominee Donald Trump have dueling visions for how America will power its cars and homes in the future. Trump’s vision is an America in which oil derricks pump furiously again, coal miners get back to work, and the country puts its own economy ahead of foreign nations worried about the effects of fossil fuels on sea levels, droughts, and storms.
Clinton sees an America where half a billion solar panels power homes, cars run on electricity, oil use is cut by a third, and the clean energy sector provides a deep well of new jobs supported by government mandates and subsidies.
Sarah Emerson, the head of Energy Security Analysis Inc in Boston tells Reuters voters will have to decide if they want fossil fuels or renewables.
“At a very basic level, it would be a climate vote,” Emerson says.
