Trump and Clean Energy, Again

Back in August, I wrote about the opposition of cult leader, convicted felon, and failed President Donald Trump to renewable energy, especially wind generation projects. As I wrote then, Trump's dislike of wind turbines goes back to a battle he lost to stop an offshore wind project that was within view of his Scottish golf course. Since then, Trump has nurtured a hatred of wind turbines, blaming them for a host of issues including causing cancer, killing both birds and whales, and, strangely enough, being bad for the environment. Other than the fact that some birds are killed by wind turbines — though far fewer than are killed by buildings and electrical lines, not to mention cats — Trump's allegations have no basis in fact. At a time of rising electricity rates and an oil crisis brought on by Trump's war against Iran, the administration's stance on renewable energy continues to be self-defeating and unwise.

Trump's first attacks on clean energy after returning to the presidency involved policy. Trump and his Republican allies in Congress stopped a host of incentives for renewables. The tax credit for home solar panels was ended, the subsidy for electric vehicles was terminated, and grants and other incentives for the renewable energy industry were halted. As has frequently been the case with Trump, he frequently exceeded his authority, leading to a string of court losses.

For instance, in January of this year, the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia ruled that millions of dollars in federal grants for clean, affordable energy had been illegally cancelled. Last month, a federal judge in Massachusetts struck down Trump administration efforts to slow down clean energy projects. Reporting on the Massachusetts case, oilprice.com wrote that:

The Trump administration’s attack on renewable energy over the last year has resulted in the delay or cancellation of approximately 57.2 GW of wind, solar, hybrid, and offshore wind capacity across projects with around $905 million in capital invested. The government’s renewable energy restrictions put between $8.4 billion and $25.6 billion of federal tax credits for renewable energy development at risk over the next three years, according to Judge Casper.

Trump also lost a string of battles to stop wind farms. In January, a U.S. federal court allowed the Revolution Wind offshore wind project to continue construction after the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management had previously ordered a halt to the project. In February, another federal judge struck down the Interior Department's order to halt work on a wind farm off the coast of New York State. According to the New York Times, this was "the fifth time the courts have ruled against the Trump administration’s efforts to throttle the country’s offshore wind industry. The administration is now 0-5 in its effort to stop wind farms under construction along the East Coast."

Trump then adopted a new tactic: bribing companies to abandon offshore wind projects. The first example was with the French company TotalEnergies, in which the Trump administration agreed to pay nearly $1 billion in exchange for the company returning its leases for two offshore windfarms. Last week, the New York Times reported that the Trump administration had agreed to pay a combined $885 million to stop wind projects planned by Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind.

Yesterday, the Electrek blog reported on a Financial Times article that found that the Trump administration "has effectively frozen 165 new onshore wind farm developments in the US, leaving the projects on private land in limbo...Combined, they represent around 30 gigawatts of electric generating capacity." As Electrek writes:

The timing is tone-deaf. The US clean power sector is booming: In 2025 alone, it attracted $79 billion in investment, supported more than 1.4 million jobs, and accounted for over 90% of all new electricity capacity added to the grid, according to the American Clean Power Association.

Electric continues:

This is beyond absurd.

“National security” is being used here as a catch-all excuse, and it’s weak. We’ve already seen this play out with offshore wind: The Trump administration tried to stop five projects using similar claims, and every single one was overturned in court as unlawful.

Now the same playbook is being used to stall onshore wind – including projects on private land that don’t involve the Pentagon at all. That’s not a targeted security review; that’s a blanket slowdown.

To put it simply, at a time when electricity costs are spiking and the U.S. is in a war that has provoked an energy crisis, it is completely stupid to interfere with renewable energy projects. If anything, such efforts should be encouraged. But this is simply another indicator of Trump's impaired cognitive state. His hatred of wind turbines is childlike and completely irrational. His love of coal, which is both more expensive than renewables and damaging to the environment, will cause significant damage to our country.

Recently, the Trump administration has taken to joking about solar and wind projects, suggesting that when it is dark or the wind doesn't blow, they don't produce electricity. A complex discussion of the energy production infrastructure would explain much of the fallacy in this belief, but a simpler explanation is "batteries." One achievement of the green energy revolution has been the development of inexpensive and long-lasting batteries. Many electricity suppliers have been investing in batteries to store electricity to be used later. For instance, Arevon has a $600 million project south of San Francisco that will power 321,000 homes at peak demand. California has a goal of transitioning to 100% clean energy. Batteries are a crucial part of the state's plans. In November, the state announced that "California has reached 16,942 megawatts (MW) of battery storage available". The announcement went on to say that:

The new total marks an increase of about 1,200 MW in the past six months and a 2,100% surge in storage capacity since Gov. Newsom took office in 2019. California has now built one-third of the storage capacity estimated to be needed by 2045 to reach its clean energy goals.

Also noted was that "Battery systems now provide enough capacity to meet the equivalent of roughly one-quarter of California’s record peak demand for several hours."

Trump policies that hinder the growth of renewable energy are not only costly to consumers and detrimental to the environment, but they are terrible for American competitiveness. While Trump pursues coal projects, China is surging ahead on the clean energy front. China will soon dominate the entire green energy market. The U.S. had an opportunity to become competitive, but Trump has destroyed that chance. Literally, there is not a single aspect of energy policy on which Trump has been effective. We are facing higher electricity and gasoline prices, and instead of investing in cheap renewables, Trump is supporting energy sources that are expensive and polluting. It simply makes no sense.