The Trump attack on wind energy is a bad idea for the president and republicans. And they would be wise to pull back on the rhetoric.
Let me explain …
Last week, Donald Trump “demanded” the UK get rid of its wind farms in the North Sea.
I thought it was a bizarre thing to demand from the winner of the most recent U.S. Presidential election. Which, the last time I checked, did not give him any authority over how other countries choose to keep their lights on.
It’s no secret that the incoming president has disdain for wind turbines. Often referring to them as “wind mills” instead of wind turbines in an effort to trivialize the immense power they can put out; claiming they cause cancer; and even promising to “kill offshore wind energy development" on day one of his next term.
Now I’m not writing these words today to attack President Trump. He’s not the first president to attack renewable energy. In fact, it’s long been a part of the messaging of the republican party. i.e.) Fossil fuels are good. Solar and wind are bad.
The Dems have similar messaging. You just have to switch it around. i.e.) Fossil fuels are bad. Solar and wind are good.
But it’s never been about “good” or “bad.” How can we even label energy sources so simply and in such a basic way? Indeed, a strong energy economy that serves to secure national interests is one that is well-diversified. That means we need it all: natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, geothermal, energy storage. And to be honest, I’m just so sick and tired of these guys in Washington always politicizing this stuff. We’re literally turning on each other over what kind of resources we should use when we still need them all.
Senator Mike Lee also recently took a cheap shot at wind power with this tweet …
No form of power production is environmentally benign, so why single out wind?
Simple: because it fits that stupid narrative I just told you about. A narrative, by the way, that doesn’t include things like …
- Wind energy can serve as a hedge against volatile fossil fuel pricing.
- Unlike oil, coal, natural gas, and nuclear, wind energy doesn’t require massive amounts of water.
- Wind energy doesn’t require the resource (wind) to be shipped or stored, and is 100% domestically-produced.
- From the perspective of a life cycle analysis, wind power is generally cheaper than coal and natural gas due to the fact that the cost of building and operating a wind farm is lower than the cost of buying natural gas for a natural gas power plant.
To be fair, coal and natural gas provide baseload power, whereas wind does not. But as we’ve seen in locations where wind is abundant, it can provide cheaper electricity for consumers. Certainly this has been the case in Texas, where the Lonestar state generated nearly 29% of its electricity from wind in 2023. And I can assure you, Texans are using wind power because they’re a bunch of treehuggers. It just makes economic sense. And of course, it also bolsters the state’s ability to provide electricity to residents in times of crisis. This was definitely the case during the deep freeze of Texas in 2021.
During those uncommonly frigid days, 30 gigawatts of gas, coal and nuclear had to be taken offline, while 16 gigawatts of wind and other renewables went down.
With the combination of all the state’s energy sources being taken down, it was inevitable that Texans would lose power. But Dan Woodfin from ERCOT (the Electricity Reliability Council of Texas), reported that a lot of that generation that went offline was primarily due to issues with the natural gas system – now the wind power system.
As well, the arctic temperatures affected the water system necessary to run the South Texas Nuclear Power Plant. That caused the reactor to shut down completely.
Indeed, if Texas wind power was not in the mix, it would’ve been much, much worse. Something not lost on the good people of Texas.
So when I hear guys like Trump attack wind power or claim he’s going to “shut it down,” I just roll my eyes.
First of all, he’s not shutting anything down because it would be nearly impossible for him to do so unless there was a legitimate national security implication. Which there is not.
As well, the wind farms currently in development already have financing in place. And the guys that put up that cash aren’t the type to roll over and lose their money because of some short-sighted campaign promise. Indeed, we’re talking about billions of dollars in play here.
The Trump attack on offshore wind is NOT a winning proposition
While Trump could prohibit future offshore wind leases, it’s unlikely he’ll be able to stop the offshore wind farms currently under development. He can make efforts to slow them, but “killing them” isn’t realistic.
And definitely not when power purchase agreements are already signed and literally billions of dollars in financing have already been set in motion.
In fact, Norwegian energy giant Equinor just announced last week that it secured $3 billion to finance the first offshore wind farm connected directly to the New York City grid. That wind farm, by the way, will provide power for a half billion homes when it comes online in 2027. It’s also already created more than 1,000 union jobs. So I can’t imagine shutting down this project would be in Trump’s best interests. And most of the folks who found his “I’m going kill offshore wind development” schtick to be a determining factor in the decision to vote for him will never even know about this project.
I do need to point out again, that this is not an attack on President Trump. It’s merely an observation of political buffoonery and dishonesty that is shared by nearly every lawmaker in Washington. Trump isn’t the only way to play this game. And he won’t be the last.
But as the costs for wind power continue to fall and the demand for electricity continues to rise, shutting down offshore wind projects currently in development is not a winning proposition for the Trump administration, or Republicans in general. If they’re smart, they’ll limit their attacks on offshore wind to stupid memes and politically-motivated comments on social media.
