Trump wants to expand US energy. Why does he oppose wind?

President Donald Trump campaigned on a promise to "unleash" American energy production. He's "desperate for more energy," said The Washington Post. But that's only long as it's "not from the wind." After Trump signed an executive order last week halting new leases for offshore wind projects and ordering executive branch officials to review existing leases, economists are left puzzled, as the decision threatens burgeoning wind power projects in Delaware, Maryland, Massachusetts and New Jersey.

What did the commentators say?

Trump's anti-wind stance is "discordant with this overall posture of 'build, baby, build,'" said Ben Cahill, an energy markets expert at the University of Texas, to the Post. And wind energy has long been the "cheapest source of new electricity in the U.S.," said Adele Peters at Fast Company. Trump would have Americans believe otherwise — he has called wind the "most expensive form of energy that you can have, by far." The president has said that wind turbines cause cancer (they don't) and kill birds (which is true, but not in the numbers he suggests). Instead, Trump's antipathy to wind farms appears to be more aesthetic. He opposed a wind farm near land he bought in Scotland in 2006, calling it an "ugly cloud hanging over the future" of the property. Whatever the reason for his wind hatred, it won't help Americans. Restricting wind power will "increase consumer energy bills," said the American Clean Power Association.

The order may also be bad politics. "The five states with the largest share of wind power in America are red states," said Thomas Friedman at The New York Times. Those states generate "at least a third of their power from wind." Opposing wind also puts America behind China in the race to make more energy. Beijing doesn't care where power comes from as long as it is "abundant, efficient, cheap and clean." Wind power fits the bill. Trump's anti-wind stance will "definitely help make China great again."

Subscribe to The Week

Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.

SUBSCRIBE & SAVE

Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.

Sign up

What next?

Trump's order will probably disrupt the domestic American wind industry, said CalMatters. Experts say that "consistent public policy" is needed for private companies to make big investments in turbines, leases and other items necessary to expand wind power's potential. The wind industry "abhors uncertainty," said Ken Alex, the director of Project Climate at the University of California, Berkeley. Developing a wind farm "takes time, it takes resources and it takes consistency."

But other renewable energy producers are "relatively sanguine" about Trump's anti-wind order, said CNBC. The global market is already moving toward cheap sources of power like wind and solar, while the demand for electricity — for everything from electric vehicles to AI data centers — is only increasing. The market is in the "best moment for electrification," said Ignacio Galán, the executive chairman of Iberdrola. The transition away from fossil fuels is "absolutely unstoppable."