Roaring winds rapped on the windows of the Lincoln Cornhusker Hotel on Tuesday, just outside a conference dedicated to using that energy to power homes.Hundreds gathered for the 18th annual Nebraska Wind and Solar Conference, which underscored the massive wave of investment in renewables over the last decade and the many more investments needed to get the state’s power generation up to where experts say it needs to be.”I’m from a farm family. What I learned as an ethos there was don’t waste anything,” Josh Moenning with New Power Nebraska said. “If it’s useful, use it. And we have these renewable natural resources.”Nebraska ranks third in the country for wind capabilities and 13th in solar. Yet neighboring states like Iowa remain many steps ahead in some infrastructure. A panel of lawmakers discussed what the state has done and may do in the future.”A win for everybody, right?” State Sen. George Dungan said. “We’re talking about ensuring that we have a clean environment for the future, but we’re also talking about jobs that are being created across the entire state.”This falls just a couple of weeks after Attorney General Mike Hilgers voiced concerns about renewables and how to get them to people while announcing his suit against OPPD over its planned retirement of two coal-powered units.”I think some of those arguments are red herrings at this point, and they’re politically motivated,” Moenning said. “Batteries are being more and more utilized at the utility scale.”The One Big Beautiful Bill Act recently accelerated the phasing out of tax credits for solar and wind projects, but experts at the conference say that hasn’t slowed the pace of investment in the state.”With or without credits, there’s an energy demand here that is huge,” Moenning said. “It’s growing by the day.”And despite some rural resistance to wind and solar, some agricultural leaders say embracing renewables can be a lifeline to struggling farmers.”Given the farm crisis that we have, we ought to be aggressively looking for each and every opportunity,” John Hansen, president of the Nebraska Farmers Union, said.Make sure you can always see the latest news, weather, sports and more from KETV NewsWatch 7 on Google search.NAVIGATE: Home | Weather | Local News | National | Sports | Newscasts on demand |