Trump Administration Will Pay More Energy Firms to Cancel Wind Farms
- Reference: 0183017512
- News link: https://hardware.slashdot.org/story/26/04/28/041256/trump-administration-will-pay-more-energy-firms-to-cancel-wind-farms
- Source link:
> [...] The first new agreement affects Bluepoint Wind, a wind farm in the early stages of development off New York and New Jersey. The project was proposed by Global Infrastructure Partners, a part of asset manager BlackRock, and Ocean Winds, which is itself a joint venture between Engie and EDP Renewables, two European clean-energy firms. The second deal would cancel Golden State Wind, another early-stage venture off California's central coast. Golden State Wind is a 50-50 partnership between the developers Ocean Winds and Reventus Power.
>
> Both Bluepoint Wind and Golden State Wind agreed not to pursue any new offshore wind projects in the United States, although that pledge would not necessarily apply to the companies behind the ventures. Ocean Winds has also been developing another giant wind farm known as SouthCoast Wind, off Martha's Vineyard, Mass., that is much further along in the planning and permitting process. That project is not affected by Monday's announcement, although it has essentially been paused since Mr. Trump took office last year. [...] It is also unclear how much the companies will actually invest in new fossil fuel infrastructure. In documents released this month, Interior revealed that it would count investments that TotalEnergies made before the deal toward its pledge, raising questions over whether the company had any obligations to make additional investments.
[1] https://www.nytimes.com/2026/04/27/climate/trump-administration-wind-farms.html
[2] https://news.slashdot.org/story/26/03/23/2221232/trump-administration-to-pay-french-company-1-billion-to-stop-offshore-wind-farms
Solar next (Score:5, Insightful)
Pretty soon he'll have his masked ICE thugs destroying everyone's solar panels.
Re: (Score:3)
His cult followers were convinced that Kamala would do that with their steaks and gasoline engines.
Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Informative)
How does ANY of this make sense. We're paying people NOT to generate energy?
Undoing the damage this bezerk administration is doing to science , society and the environment will take decades. Good luck explaining THAT to your grandkids.
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Informative)
Yes. And 3 days ago he [1]fired the entire National Science Board [theguardian.com]...
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/28/trump-fires-national-science-foundation-board
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Wow....I thought our African politicians were corrupt, but they are rank amateurs compared to yours. Shithole country indeed....
Re: (Score:3)
> Wow....I thought our African politicians were corrupt, but they are rank amateurs compared to yours. Shithole country indeed....
I think that's not just an Africa phenomenom. Having seen some former Eastern block countries, I realized that their corrupt politicians were so totally amateur that they do their corruption illegally and sometimes even get caught and arrested. That almost never happens in the West.
In the West, on the other hand, they do corruption by getting directorships and so on after the event. Even if there are totally obvious links between the purchases they made when they were ministers and the companies that they t
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
> Yeah, the vast majority of America agrees with you.
I wish I believed this, but I think only about a third does. Another third thinks this is great and the last third is made up of people with heads up asses, the kind of people who still think they can be apolitical even though politics happens to them whether they understand it or not.
Re: (Score:3)
It's not a vast majority. How large we'll get an inkling after mid-term elections.
Re: Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:4, Informative)
Worse, he still wants them to generate energy, just by using oil and gas.
Re: (Score:3)
> Worse, he still wants them to generate energy, just by using oil and gas.
You missed the burried lede.
Not only is he stopping them generating energy he could have already. He's also paying his friends for getting oil production licenses that otherwise he could have sold for money.
The oil and gas is not an extra source of energy that's being created here. It is a distraction.
Re: (Score:3)
According to the administration (in the article):
> “The companies that bid for these offshore wind leases were basically sold a product in 2022 that was only viable when propped up by massive taxpayer subsidies,” [Interior Secretary] Mr. Burgum said in a statement.
I have not looked at the numbers to see if that's a true pretext, but anyway that is their pretext.
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Is it though? Given how offshore wind with fixed platforms can be competitive with gas turbines without subsides, and given how wind is being built without subsidies elsewhere I think that this can be the usual case of "according to the administration" just meaning once again - we're lying through our teeth to justify supreme orange man's ideology.
Even then the approach is stupid. Some of these projects are very early on. Just remove the subsidies and they'll fail their FID and cancel themselves. The fact that you need to pay them out to the tune of the dollars mentioned shows that any pretext of them not being viable is just bullshit.
Re: (Score:2)
> Is it though? Given how offshore wind with fixed platforms can be competitive with gas turbines without subsides,
I have no idea, ask ChatGPT. She probably knows all the answers to everything ever and she's really good at logic and math.
> Even then the approach is stupid. Some of these projects are very early on. Just remove the subsidies and they'll fail their FID and cancel themselves.
According to the article, they had to pay the companies to keep them from suing the government, because their method was "unorthodox." That is to say, not entirely putting the bell on the cat. Or in other words, illegal.
Re: Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:2)
Does that include the cost of the massive amount of land they occupy? I'm thinking the government subsidies are for the land.
Re: Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Informative)
Actually, they don't occupy much land. You can easily use the land around a wind turbine. Most wind turbines I know of are built somewhere on a crop field, and around the wind turbine, the crops are still growing. Many wind turbines in the U.S. are built on land which was not used anyway for anything else. And if the wind turbines are off-shore, they use no land at all.
Re: (Score:2)
Every time you do something on someone else's land you must compensate then for it, doesn't matter if it is in a farmers field or in the middle of the ocean. If a turbine in the middle of a farmers field needs service than trucks may need to be brought in, thus destroying part of the crop. If they are off shore then there will be people who have to look at them and maybe hear them, so their tax base should get compensated.
Re: (Score:2)
The question you are really asking is "does wind energy create cheap electricity". The overall final answer, taking into account materials and land rental and everything is that wind energy has been one of the things vastly reducing the cost of energy in most of the places where it's been taken into heavy use. Yes, wind is cheaper than the alternatives, has been falling in price and continues to do so.
Re: (Score:2)
The scale of energy we need has vastly changed in the last ten years. How many turbines would we need to power an AI datacenter to spew bullshit all day. And then people are expecting electricity for their EVs to remain cheaper than gas. Listen, I'm not trying to defend Trump here but we need very high density power now or we will run out of space.
Re: Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:4, Informative)
Luckily, wind turbines don't need much service. The farmer moves his equipment across his field way more often. You can schedule the maintenance during the time when there is no crops on the field. You also don't need to build the wind turbine as much away as possible from the next path. Why not place it directly beneath the access road which is already there? And for maintenance, you only need a small service van. If you have to replace anything large, you use the helicopter. There are not many mobile cranes which are able to lift something into 500 ft height. The rent contract with the farmer contains wording about the rules for access. As someone who has serviced cell phone antennas somewhere in the nothingness, I call that a non-issue.
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OTOH, you do have to allow for unscheduled maintenance. Wind farms are much better over pasture. In hot areas, solar panels can improve yields of many crops is planned with reasonable care. (But you still have to allow for unscheduled maintenance.)
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> In hot areas, solar panels can improve yields of many crops is planned with reasonable care.
Please, explain how covering land with solar panels improves the yield of crops...
Seems to me that could only benefit crops that don't need direct sunlight and where the equipment to harvest the crops can operate underneath the solar panels, but I'm sure you don't mean that, so please, explain.
Re: (Score:3)
An easy Google search would answer your question:
[1]https://www.forbes.com/sites/j... [forbes.com]
[2]https://phys.org/news/2026-03-... [phys.org]
[1] https://www.forbes.com/sites/joshpearce/2025/11/15/why-farmers-are-shielding-their-crops-with-solar-panels/
[2] https://phys.org/news/2026-03-agrivoltaics-yields-profits-crop-deployed.html
Re: (Score:2)
I'm in Texas. Our governor lied about wind and solar during that massive freeze a few years ago. Both of those were back and almost fully working within days of the blackout. Thermal (oil, gas, etc.) took much longer to recover from freezing. It was possible to look at the graphs of power generation from the state 'energy market' system, and see how wind and solar were back at the previous level of generation after the storm, well before the oil and gas generators.
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The conversation was not how quickly they were fixed, but how often they break down and need to have trucks bringing parts in.
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Interesting)
What happened to letting the free market decide, eh?
Trump is doing this because he knows that wind is cheaper and will hurt gas producers, who have already bribed him.
Re: (Score:2)
The "free market" is only allowed to work if (for example) small bakery shops run by grandma and grandpa compete with each other, until one files bankruptcy - so it can be bought up by the big chain who owns already 43% of the bakeries in town ... or by the other chain that owns 41% ... or best case: by the guy who owns 7 shops and now is lucky enough to buy shop number 8.
No worries: that little business will be soon out of business, too.
Re: (Score:2)
> What happened to letting the free market decide, eh?
> Trump is doing this because he knows that wind is cheaper and will hurt gas producers, who have already bribed him.
If you want to go down the 'free market' path, be willing to give up federally guaranteed loans, tax breaks, and requirements that electric companies *must* buy all electricity solar/wind farms produce, if they need it or not...
If wind/solar are so cheap, why do they need anything from the federal government (grants, loans, tax breaks, etc)?
Re: (Score:2)
On-shore wind went subsidy free in Europe years ago. What off-shore gets is more than offset by the reduced costs it brings.
Maybe US wind tech is behind, but it should be possible to do subsidy free.
Re: (Score:3)
Double standard much? If oil/gas are so cheap, why do they need anything from the federal government (grants, loans, tax breaks, etc)?
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:4, Informative)
> Given how offshore wind with fixed platforms can be competitive with gas turbines without subsides, ...
I think that's the problem, anything competitive with fossil fuels is "bad". Those oil companies gave Trump money for a reason and now that's paying off - after they paid him off (at his request)...
Google: [1]oil companies donate trump [google.com]
[1] https://www.google.com/search?q=oil+companies+donate+trump
Re: (Score:2)
> Do you have examples where offshore wind produces cheap energy?
"cheap" is slightly the wrong question. The thing which produces the cheapest electricity is South facing solar panels. The problem with them is that they produce it at the time when all the other south facing solar panels are also producing lots of cheap electricity. If you face your Solar panels East and West, they produce a bit less electricity, but it comes at a time when it's more vauable so it helps more people and, if you have a variable input tariff which takes demand into account, you will actually
Re: (Score:2)
> Aside from solar farms built to power crypto data centers exclusively, please tell me about all the large-scale (heck, or small-scale) solar or wind farms built with NO subsidies of any kind.
Pretty much every company wants a handout for any investment of any kind. Look at the battle in Kansas City with two states fighting to see who will throw more cash at for-profit sports teams' stadiums.
The problem with comparing fossil fuel electricity generation and renewable electricity generation is that A) much of the true cost of fossil fuel is hidden (through costs for clean-up of pollution and health care for people who get sick and have worse health and the hidden costs of fossil fuel extraction)
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
> According to the administration (in the article):
>> “The companies that bid for these offshore wind leases were basically sold a product in 2022 that was only viable when propped up by massive taxpayer subsidies,” [Interior Secretary] Mr. Burgum said in a statement.
> I have not looked at the numbers to see if that's a true pretext, but anyway that is their pretext.
If that's the case, then why are oil and gas companies being propped up with massive taxpayer subsidies? Such as the current issue where taxpayer money is being used to cancel a project then being used to subsidize the new projects.
This doesn't even take into consideration all the massive subsidies handed out over the last 100 years to oil and gas companies. Burgum is just lying his ass off, just like the rest of the regime.
Re: (Score:2)
> If that's the case, then why are oil and gas companies being propped up with massive taxpayer subsidies?
I don't know but I understand it was a problem before Trump, maybe before Trump was born.
Re:Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:5, Insightful)
Remember all the shit that Obama got for "picking winners"?
Trump is doing the same, only for dying industries instead of to push the US forward and keep it competitive.
Re: (Score:3)
> Remember all the shit that Obama got for "picking winners"?
> Trump is doing the same, only for dying industries instead of to push the US forward and keep it competitive.
Yes, but Obama is a Democrat and Trump is a Republican, so Republicans are okay with that. And those dying industries donate $$$ to them, and Trump. Short-sighted is a feature not a bug. Just look at Florida Republicans denying climate change and sea level rise in a state with a LOT of low-lying coastal areas.
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To be fair, oil is NOT a dying industry. Neither is coal. Shrinking isn't the same as dying. Both have uses that are (so far) essentially impossible to replace. Generating electricity, however, isn't one of them.
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> How does ANY of this make sense. We're paying people NOT to generate energy?
I think it's actually worse. The companies were already investing in wind, so this extra $885M could have been used to have them *also* invest in oil and gas projects. Now Trump is just buying them off to turn their current investment into scrap. What a huge waste of our tax dollars, which seems par for this administration -- although, to be fair, it's less than the cost of one day of his elective war with Iran at $1-2B/day.
Don't attribute to ideology that which ... (Score:5, Informative)
[1]How Trump's loathing for wind turbines started with a Scottish court battle [bbc.com].
Back in 2012, Trump had objected to 11 wind turbines which were planned within view from his golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The wind turbines were eventually built.
He had objected up in the Scottish courts and even appealed as far as the UK Supreme Court.
He lost all the way, and because he is a sore loser with unbounded meanspiritedness he has been an enemy to wind turbines ever since.
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
Re: (Score:2)
Yes, much like the supposed elephants never forget thing, trump never forgets or forgives. He probably weighs about the same as an elephant too.
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This makes me think about some of the speeches I heard in the 70s about paying farmers not to farm. I can't remember who it was, but one senator or representative said something along the line of. "I figure I'll start small. The first year I'll not plant 500 acres. The second year maybe 1000. And then just gradually work my way up". It was actually pretty funny.
Re: (Score:3)
> How does ANY of this make sense. We're paying people NOT to generate energy?
First rule of MAGA: Do not question dear leader.
Second rule of MAGA: Was something implemented by a democrat? Undo it. For example [1]https://obamawhitehouse.archiv... [archives.gov]
[1] https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/node/328996
Re: (Score:2)
Iran having nukes would stop incursions from Israel and stabilize the region.
Discuss.
Re: Ideologically fueled insanity. (Score:2)
The truth varies slightly from the headlines. These companies paid huge sums for offshore leases. Trump is refunding those. Still a boneheaded move but the companies involved are definitely not profiting or happy about this outcome.
This has nothing to do with ideology (Score:2)
Billionaire oil owners and Saudi Arabian Kings are pushing this. Wind and solar are going to take over from oil no matter what so the goal right now is to slow down the transition in order to make damn sure that the people who will control energy today will control it tomorrow.
There is a little bit of right wing ideological nonsense that helped put Trump in power don't get me wrong but honestly it was mostly voter suppression that put him in office.
But nobody really cares anymore about being ideolog
Re: (Score:2)
We've been paying farmers not to farm for nearly a century.
Re: (Score:2)
We're refunding people money they paid to get the leases to build the wind farms produce- we are returning their deposit on the land, so to speak.
And no, we are not "paying people NOT to generate energy" - we're returning their money and encouraging them to invest in other projects to generate energy.
> The Trump administration says it will reimburse energy companies $885 million to cancel two planned offshore wind farms,
Reimburse...
> with the firms in turn agreeing to put money into oil and gas projects instead.
"Oil and gas projects" either produce energy or are energy production-adjacent (pipeline, refinery, and so on)
Re: (Score:2)
It makes sense on one or two bases.
One, because he's getting kickbacks from the corporations these decisions benefit.
Two, because he is paid to by other nations or because he's being blackmailed into it.
Nothing precludes the answering being both things, of course.
It's a struggle to make it make sense any other way.
Re: (Score:2)
Good luck finding a habitable planet for them
The three most evil people on earth are (Score:5, Funny)
Netanyahu, Putin & Trump
Re:The three most evil people on earth are (Score:4, Informative)
It's definitely a suitable trio to condemn, but something like "the three worst people in international politics" might be a more accurate description, they're the three most obvious points where evil/amorality and power come together with international implications. (What e.g. North Korea does to its own population is utterly horrific, but they aren't bombing any other countries at least.)
They're actually quite different, Putin is the epitome of amoral self-interest, prosecuting a huge war which is crippling his own country just becuase he thinks having to say "ooops, I made a mistake" would weaken his grip on power domestically. Netenyahu is driven half by vicious racism and half by needing constant war to keep his coalition together and avoid potential legal problems for himself. And Trump is this half-crazy narcissistic collection of all of his country's worst impulses, doing things like this simply to validate the way he feels.
Re: (Score:2)
> Go, fuck, and yourself. Cunt.
I am truly curious. What part of the parent post offended you?
Re: (Score:2)
If you dare question the actions of Israel you're literally Hitler.
Re:RuckFu (Score:5, Insightful)
Abject, ignorance? The three named people have been responsible for the deaths of a large number of people for their own egotistical reasons. That qualifies them as evil in my book.
In the case of trump it is fine if he fucks over the USA as that is what people there voted for. The problem is trump is fucking over the whole planet. In this example he is increasing global warming, with the key word there being 'global'. And for such a petty reason, the view at his Scottish gold club. Scotland rightly put him in his place and his ego is so fragile that he is hell bent on stopping all wind turbines like a extra dumb Don Quixote.
Re: RuckFu (Score:2)
Iran is Israel's Nemesis
Re: (Score:2)
Explain me this. In the DOGE era, why are we giving tens of billions of dollars every year to Israel? They have a population of only 10 million. [1]https://www.military.com/daily... [military.com]
[1] https://www.military.com/daily-news/2025/10/07/us-has-given-least-217-billion-military-aid-israel-war-gaza-began-report-says.html
Re: RuckFu (Score:2)
The USA isnâ(TM)t really handing them cash. Itâ(TM)s handing money to defense contractors, which are shipping them weapons.
Re: (Score:2)
> Your buddies in Iran are trying to exterminate them,
They aren't buddies, and they aren't.
> maybe has something to do with it yes?
No.
We're paying Israel to attack the nations around them, period. That's why we founded their country, period.
Re: (Score:2)
> and it's stopped Iran from getting nukes so far.
What evidence is there that Israel's actions have done that?
Fossil fuel for Fossil thinking (Score:5, Insightful)
Why? Just why?
Sometimes, Oil and gas is needed. Lubricants, etc. Some types of transport.
However, anyone with any sense is going electric. First you don't need to kowtow to facist dictatorships, like the US, UK, and the MIddle East. And Norway. So, you gain a lot of sovereignty.
Its better for the environment. No, it isn't a reliable source of energy but energy saving technologies exist and are getting better.
Not going to ignore the nasty chimicals in battery technology and their own supply chain issues. They exist.
If you support dying technologies, you'll die with it.
Re: (Score:2)
You need to look at this from the POV of an oligarch. For the guys making wind farms its way better to get paid to not build something than to get paid to build it. Later on you can get paid to build it again anyway. And then from the POV of the electric company guys its way better to be able to sell what you already have at a higher price than to make enough so everyone can afford it.
Because the people in power right now (Score:2)
Need to make sure that when the transition finishes they are still the ones in control of electricity and energy. So they have to slow down the transition.
It's not about money or greed it's about power. Greed is wanting more stuff. They don't just want more stuff they want the ability to tell human beings what to do and then those human beings have to do it. That's not greed that's lust for power
Why? It's a variation on my sig on irony... (Score:2)
"The biggest challenge of the 21st century is the irony of technologies of abundance in the hands of those still thinking in terms of scarcity."
The tools of universal global abundance (in this case wind, solar, and batteries) are available -- but some politicians (and their supporters) are still stuck in the mindset of trying to maximize private gain in the short term -- even if it costs their country and the world a huge amount of suffering. But, this damage also would not be possible without using the abu
Re: (Score:2)
Coincidentally the next story on Slashdot is about infrasound making people feel uneasy:
"The Silent Frequency That Makes Old Buildings Feel Haunted "
[1]https://science.slashdot.org/s... [slashdot.org]
"What happened, specifically, was this: those exposed to infrasound reported higher irritability, lower interest in the music, and a tendency to rate the music as sadder, irrespective of whether it was the calming or the horror track. Cortisol levels, measured before and about 20 minutes after exposure, were also elevated. Kale
[1] https://science.slashdot.org/story/26/04/28/0413216/the-silent-frequency-that-makes-old-buildings-feel-haunted
headline disagrees with article. (Score:2)
Headline: pay
Article: reimburse (the lease fee).
AFAIK the article has it right.
Re: (Score:2)
Pay, from Collins dictionary
1. verb A1
When you pay an amount of money to someone, you give it to them because you are buying something from them or because you owe it to them. When you pay something such as a bill or a debt, you pay the amount that you owe.
Yes, when you reimburse someone you do that by paying them money. You are doing that because, since you aren't giving them whatever it was you agreed to do for them, you now owe them money. Not difficult. Very very stupid indeed when they were going to do
Wow that didn't take much (Score:2)
Nice to see the ideological commitment to wind power out there! Or not.
He should pay Jimmy Kimmel to cancel jokes (Score:4, Insightful)
What's even the difference really? I mean, think about it.
Right when datacenters are ramping up (Score:3)
Stopping renewable construction while the economy is so invested in the AI bubble, while job losses are mounting, and datacenters are burning through energy? Are you kidding? Renewables are the fastest, and often cheapest energy to build now. China has tripled its rate of wind installation buildout in the past two years.
For the USA, this is a perfect storm brewing. No major power is so vulnerable to the likely energy shocks ahead.
Re: (Score:2)
A weird part of that perfect storm may actually be gas shortage, in the short to medium term, in the USA. From that I gather the USA can't actually refine much of the oil it pumps, so imports oil from Canada. So while it may be a net exporter of oil it is currently reliant on imported oil. The problem is Asia can no longer get the oil it needs due to the Iran war but has realised Canada is a safe and viable option as a replacement source. Canada is pissed with the USA so will be quite happy to redirect
Great initiative (Score:2)
Instead of foolishly reaping the benefit of renewables the US can pay to not have those benefits. 3D chess move from Don Tzu himself.
While you may mistake Trump as a serial loser that has sucked his creditors into a whirlpool of neverending debt; and thas ruined everything he touched if you waited long enough but actually this time it's different.
(Mainly because he is not ruining a business but rather a country)
Crazy (Score:2)
The lunatics have taken over the asylum.
Re: (Score:2)
And their custodians are doing ABSOLUTELY NOTHING ABOUT IT.
Still.
Demented. (Score:3)
Quite literally demented.
Trump is indeed a danger for democracy, but in a "Fucking hell, a majority of Americans voted for this lunatic, what's the point in voting !?!" way.
why? (Score:2)
Right when gas is f-g $$ in ($yourState)
The reason is spite (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no ideological, economical or scientific reason for Trump's stance against wind turbines. It is purely out of spite.
This article sums up the background:
[1]How Trump's loathing for wind turbines started with a Scottish court battle [bbc.com].
Back in 2012, Trump had objected to 11 wind turbines which were planned within view from his new golf course in Aberdeenshire, Scotland. The wind turbines were eventually built.
He had objected up in the Scottish courts and even appealed as far as the UK Supreme Court.
He lost all the way, and because he is a sore loser he has been an enemy to wind turbines ever since.
BTW. Trump calls wind turbines that creates electricity "windmills".
There is a British idiom "Tilting at Windmills" which means to attack imaginary enemies. It is a reference to the classic novel "Don Quixote". So for a Brit used to the expression, Trump appears even more ridiculous.
(moved out from a thread, so that people can see it)
[1] https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
Re: (Score:2)
> There is no ideological, economical or scientific reason for Trump's stance against wind turbines. It is purely out of spite.
It improves Trump's personal economy as fossil fuel fucks pump money into his wallet.
This is just so stupid (Score:4, Informative)
Trump hates windfarms because they "spoiled" the view on a Scottish golf course he owned. The Scottish government and supreme court told him to gtfo with his complaints and here we are. So he irrationally blathers on about them all the time. BTW Scotland actually generates a surplus of wind power and exports it to the rest of the UK.
Re: (Score:3)
I wish Scotland had the balls to seize his golf course and rename it the Trump Epstein nature preserve.
He's an idiot but he still won two elections (Score:2)
Think about that for a second. Trump is a spiteful, easily fooled moron but he beat the Democrats twice. His party beat the Democrats in the presidency, the senate and the house. And he didn't win because of the crazy, religious, uneducated, white men. They were always going to vote for him. He won because the Democrats systematically alienated the swing voters. Trump mostly picks fights with people who would never vote for him. NYC Mayor Zohran Mamdani is about to alienate anyone owns a business. E
Re: (Score:2)
The Democrat leadership is in bed with the Republican leadership, period, especially Chuck the Fuck. Too many of them are too personally enriched by the status quo to want anything to change. Pelosi is the poster child but a majority of Congress engages in not just insider trading, but actual market manipulation. No one should be allowed to be in a position to profit from anything they're voting for or against, but that's SOP for Congress today. It emboldens, enriches, and enables the worst possible people.
Re: (Score:2)
Yep, to your point, it wasn't Trump who won two elections, it's Democrats that lost two elections that the electorate would have handed to them on a silver platter had they simply not continued to ignore the concerns of 80% of democratic voters in favor of a system that continues to punish poor people for trying not to be poor.
Re: (Score:2)
I tend to think they threw it on purpose. What purpose? I'm not sure. Perhaps they saw AI coming and didn't want to get blamed for it. But they knew the alternative was Trump, which makes choosing a candidate who had small chance of winning nearly an act of treason.
Re: (Score:2)
tl;dr
I voted for Trump and am too ashamed to admit it was a mistake. To compensate I will apply mental gymnastics to say both sides are bad.
Trump is accidentally the greenest President (Score:4, Interesting)
By being a lapdog to Putin he forced Europe to wean itself of Russian gas
By attacking Iran he's made oil more expensive and also unreliable accelerating the rest of the worlds movement away from it
By being a totally unreliable trading partner and trashing the integrated North American auto industry he's made it politically possible for Canada and Mexico to import Chinese electric cars. In putting an oil embargo on Cuba he's forced Cuba to move to solar and wind. If Cuba survives it will serve as an example to the developing world on how to transition.
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And by cutting the country loose from its allies and destroying international faith, he may have weakened the country enough to avoid WWIII when China makes it's bid for recognition as the supreme power.
Re: (Score:2)
The first one had nothing to do with the orange shitgibbon.
Re: This is what America voted for (Score:2)
Anyone can run, yes, and many have. The issue is that only Democrats or Republicans will get the votes. Until you can actually get a proper third alternative that people will vote for, you're stuck in this 2-party system.
Re: (Score:3)
Two party systems is what you usually get with a "First Past the Post" voting system, as used in the USA, as voting for a third party is a wasted vote. Better democracies usually use some form of proportional representation so minor parties that get past a modest threshold get a voice, so are not a wasted vote.
Also first past to post leads to an us vs them mindset, very evident in recent years in the USA. With proportional representation you often have consolation governing so that drives more common g
Re:This is what America voted for (Score:4, Informative)
It's because one went up near his Scottish golf course, he fought it and lost, and he's been pissed about it ever since.
Re: Trump should shut down LEFT WING FASCISTS (Score:2)
Yet Donald Trump can 'joke' about taking over entire nations and presumably killing many from those nations. Why does he expect to do things like that and not have it blow back on him?
Re: (Score:3)
I am still wondering which level of irony you are aiming for.
Re: (Score:2)
That's one interpretation. Or he could be an agent. The evidence is equivocal, but the actions are the same.
Doctor Evil 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
Trump has gone full Doctor Evil mode.
Re:Doctor Evil 2.0 (Score:4, Interesting)
I just [1]tried to put this story up [slashdot.org] but perhaps Slashdot is censoring for the US govt? This is honestly the first energy crisis where countries that have gone green are benefiting majorly. Europe really isn't suffering that badly at all and likely won't (with a partial exception of the UK where all energy prices are based on gas for some stupid reason). China has a massive overcapacity of Solar Panel production right now and the lack of oil arriving all over the Pacific means they are suddenly able to shift a huge quantity of them at the same time as solving many people's problems.
This is not even just Trump damaging the US strategic / long term situation through stupidity and ignorance. He could have demanded that those wind turbines were accelerated and used the war powers act to make it possible. Merely the knowledge that some serious action was happening would reduce the price of oil futures and mean that people knew running down reserves to keep supply going during the war wasn't nearly as dangerous as if there was nothing more being done. This seems close to treasonous support for Iran in times of war.
[1] https://slashdot.org/submission/17346756/the-war-has-the-world-buying-clean-energy-china-is-benefitting-the-most
Re: (Score:3)
The UK is nowhere near the only country where the price for electricity is based on the most expensive generation. It is the same in Germany at the very least.
Re: (Score:2)
[1]https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
[1] https://de.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merit-Order
Re:Doctor Evil 2.0 (Score:5, Insightful)
I have posts I made years ago where I said the US could make a shit ton of money by embracing renewables and reaping the rewards. Or they could let China & others do it and watch as they became a technological backwater. And that's basically what has happened.
Previous administrations didn't exactly embrace renewables but this one is positively hating on them but ironically gifting China in theprocess. Tariffs, threats against South America, destabilising Venezuela & Cuba, threats against Europe, destabilising the Middle East, attacking Iran. China's order book for electric cars, solar panels, and trade deals must be so full they cannot believe their luck.
Re: (Score:2)
> I have posts I made years ago where I said the US could make a shit ton of money by embracing renewables and reaping the rewards. Or they could let China & others do it and watch as they became a technological backwater. And that's basically what has happened.
> Previous administrations didn't exactly embrace renewables but this one is positively hating on them but ironically gifting China in theprocess. Tariffs, threats against South America, destabilising Venezuela & Cuba, threats against Europe, destabilising the Middle East, attacking Iran. China's order book for electric cars, solar panels, and trade deals must be so full they cannot believe their luck.
There was an article recently about Australia making similar mistakes. Over and over again for decades. And China making the right decisions, and thriving. [1]https://www.abc.net.au/news/20... [abc.net.au]
[1] https://www.abc.net.au/news/2026-04-20/strait-of-hormuz-china-renewable-energy/106581226
Re:Doctor Evil 2.0 (Score:4, Interesting)
> Absolute NONSENSE! .. We in the UK have some of the most expensive electricity on earth! Our Green endeavour has been a disaster for paying customers! Most of us can't even afford to heat our homes.
That's because we're paying the cost of nuclear and gas, not because of Wind. [1]Hinkley point C [theguardian.com], delivering just 3 GW just went up to £35 billion.
If that same money had been invested into a new super capacity transmission line from Scotland to England and increasing offshore Wind in Scotland, not only would prices fall vastly, but it would also already have been delivered.
[1] https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2026/feb/20/hinkley-point-c-delayed-to-2030-as-costs-climb-to-35bn