Wind power

Monday

Cockburn

Trump goes tilting at windmills

Donald Trump hates windmills. He’s ranted against them consistently over the last decade. They’re as constant a member of his mental rogues’ gallery as "Gavin Newscum" or "George Slopodapolous." And never is the President’s windmill-hatred more fervent than when he visits Europe, which has been the windmill center of the world since the age of the Quixote. Immediately upon stepping on the tarmac at Glasgow Airport yesterday, Trump said, “Stop the windmills! They’re ruining your countries. I really mean it. It’s so sad. You fly over and you see these windmills all over the place. Ruining your beautiful fields and valleys and killing your birds. If they’re stuck in your oceans, they’re ruining your oceans.” But Trump wasn’t done on this topic.

Wind Turbine

Tuesday

Robert Bryce

Big Wind is in big trouble

Barack Obama famously said, “Elections have consequences.” For proof of that, look no further than the carnage hitting Big Wind. A few days ago, Jason Grumet, the head of the American Clean Power Association (annual revenue: $62.3 million), told Heatmap News that “probably more than half” of all new wind projects under development in the US could be killed due to President Trump’s executive order requiring a “comprehensive assessment” of federal permitting. Heatmap explained that Trump’s policies pose “a potential existential threat to the industry’s future. Just don’t expect everyone to say it out loud.

wind

Wednesday

Michael Fumento

Biden’s offshore wind goal is a waste of energy

After realizing that offshore wind turbines only supply about 2 percent of all US grid energy (and about 1 percent worldwide), the Biden administration has decided it needs a big push. It hasn’t cogitated that just maybe there’s a reason for this. There is: it’s called “physics.” The administration’s goal is a lofty thirty gigawatts of offshore wind operating by 2030, compared to currently just forty-two megawatts of offshore wind from a grand total of seven turbines. A gigawatt is 1,000 megawatts so we’d have to increase output by about 700 times. By comparison, the largest US nuclear plant produces almost four gigawatts of power, while a Japanese one produces twice that.

wind energy