They pollute the landscape and “kill whales”: Donald Trump accuses wind turbines of all evils and plunged this industry into the storm since his return to the White House.
“We will not do this with wind,” said Trump on Monday. The “ugly turbines” generators “kill birds” and disfigure “neighborhoods” and “ruin beautiful landscapes,” he added. “They are all made in China” and “if you love whales, you don’t want one,” said the Republican magnate before signing a series of decrees that hinder the growth of the wind energy sector.
Among the measures announced, federal permits to install wind turbines will be frozen as well as public loans for any of these wind farms, whether at sea or on land.
In a statement, Jason Grumet, president of the American Renewable Energy Corporation (ACP), condemned measures that “aim to stop or hinder the development of wind energy” and that “harm American companies and workers.”
On Tuesday, after the announcements, the shares of the major groups in the sector fell on the stock exchange.
“It had a real negative effect on the sector,” Elizabeth Wilson, a specialist in offshore wind energy at Dartmouth University, told AFP.
“There are developers who have withdrawn from some of these projects because they do not want conflict,” she added.
Clean and cheap wind energy
Although Trump’s questions about this source of clean energy are not new, these announcements raise questions as they come after the Republican declared a state of “energy emergency.”
“It is not very clear how you can have an energy emergency and at the same time give up a great source of energy” such as wind power, said Jeremy Firestone, a professor at the University of Delaware and a specialist in energy law and policy.
Although the wind sector is not as developed in the United States as in Europe, in 2023 it represented 10% of the country’s total electricity production. This is more than double that of solar energy, a significant volume.
This is cheap energy, especially when obtained with wind turbines on land, experts point out. In 2024, the price of MWh of wind energy was 27 to 73 dollars, much less than in the case of electricity from nuclear sources or obtained from coal.
As major global economies, including China, increasingly embrace wind power as a “source of clean, cheap electricity,” “the United States could be left behind in the clean industrial revolution,” energy think tank Ember warned Thursday.
Republican states
The real effects of these measures on this sector, which has already been struggling in the United States in recent years due to high interest rates for financing and opposition from local communities to the implementation of wind farms, remain to be seen.
According to Elizabeth Wilson, the offshore wind energy industry, still in its infancy in the United States, should suffer the worst impact, since most of the offshore sites where it could be installed are federal and therefore covered by the restrictions imposed by Trump.
In the case of onshore wind turbines, “most of the projects are on private land where the federal government really has no control,” she explained.
But Trump’s assertion that he does not want to see “any windmills” installed during his term worries the entire sector. The government could hit subsidies or block environmental permits.
These measures could end up in court. And they would be divisive for Republicans since most of these initiatives “are in largely conservative states, such as Texas, Oklahoma, Iowa or Kansas,” recalls Barry Solomon, professor emeritus in energy policy at the University of Michigan.
“Restricting the development of wind energy in these regions could make consumers’ energy bills more expensive,” insisted the ACP association.
Despite the uncertainty, some experts are optimistic.
“At the end of the day, it is the economy that motivates the desire for wind and solar energy and with AI (artificial intelligence), energy needs have increased and are increasing considerably, therefore there will be a lot of pressure to continue building wind turbines,” said Firestone.
