It is difficult to know when Donald Trump's distaste for wind power actually started. But partly, one can probably blame Swedish Vattenfall for it. The energy giant was one of the companies that in 2011 wanted to see a wind farm with eleven turbines on the Scottish east coast, right outside Trump's golf course.
Wind turbines are so unattractive, so ugly, so noisy and so dangerous that if Scotland does this, they will have big problems, argued the then real estate mogul in a debate in the Scottish parliament.
”Trump dislikes wind energy”
The protest was to no avail. Since 2018, the park has been in use. But that does not prevent the American president from doing his utmost to stop new turbines in the USA.
The Trump administration has had an extremely negative impact on the wind energy industry, says Michael Gerrard, founder and professor at the Sabin Center for Climate Change Law at Columbia Law School, and continues:
President Trump dislikes wind energy in general and has encouraged the government to try to hinder the industry.
The same day Trump took office, he declared an energy emergency in the USA.
It's just that nobody really understands why this emergency has been introduced, says Mikael Karlsson, lecturer in environmental science at Uppsala University.
Despite the emergency, the Trump administration has frozen new permits and withdrawn subsidies and tax breaks.
Stopped half-finished construction
Trump has a preference for fossil fuels such as oil, coal and gas. But while other fossil fuel producers like Norway and China continue with extraction, they are also investing in green energy.
But what sets Trump apart is that he is turning off one tap now, when land-based wind and to some extent also offshore wind is more profitable and less dependent on subsidies than it has ever been, says Karlsson.
Trump has also demanded a construction stop for the nearly completed wind farm Revolution Wind off Rhode Island. It sends "an extremely negative signal to the industry and its investors", according to Gerrard.
We knew that Trump was opposed to wind. But it was surprising and depressing to see him shut down projects where construction was well underway. Trump claims to be business-friendly, but this is very anti.
Gustav Sjöholm/TT
Fact: Wind power in the USA
TT
Wind power is a major and important source of energy in the USA. Last year, the milestone of 150 gigawatts in total capacity was reached in the USA, and wind power accounted for 12.2 percent of the country's energy production.
In total, there are at least 76,051 turbines, and 150,000 are estimated to work in the wind power industry.
The states with the most turbines are Texas (17,020 turbines), Iowa (6,472), Oklahoma (5,597), California (4,967) and Kansas (3,931).
Sources: Department of Energy, US Wind Turbine Database, EIA.
