By Craig Rucker
The Trump Administration is hard at work returning sound energy policy to America.
CFACT has been researching and educating policymakers and the public on climate and energy issues for decades.
CFACT scholars are providing Administration officials with the hard facts and policy heft they need to turn our energy economy around.
Doug Burgum is America’s new Secretary of the Interior. Take a look at our coalition letter to Secretary Burgum.
President Trump’s executive order on wind turbines was a major leap forward, however as always, the devil is in the details. The EO may leave room for wind profiteers such as Virginia’s Dominion Energy to slip more monstrous turbines through the legal cracks and onto our coast.
“It is with a sense of real urgency we are writing to you today.” We wrote, “we much appreciate President Trump’s Emergency Order for temporary withdrawal of all areas on the outer continental shelf from offshore wind leasing. We count twenty-two projects that have been paused. However, eleven projects have already received approvals with four of those under construction. Leasing and permitting will be reviewed for these approved projects but may take time… We recommend the Interior Department work with NMFS to immediately revoke the Letters of Authorization and order an immediate cession of construction until a review is complete.”
Similarly, the Bureau of Ocean and Energy Management {BOEM) is in danger of mindlessly stumbling on with some of Biden’s most ridiculous wind energy policies like a zombie that doesn’t know it’s dead.
Big wind corporations are trying to erect floating wind turbines off California’s beautiful coast. CFACT readers and supporters know that we have been relentlessly pointing out the flaws and dangers of this floating folly for years.
We lay out to a detailed list of reasons why California’s “programmatic environmental impact statement” on California floating wind “is woefully inadequate. In fact it specifically avoids those issues that justify cancelling the Program.” We decisively conclude that, “the full Offshore Wind Program needs to be assessed for the entire West Coast before any project is approved for construction. This required assessment is missing in action. Based on this assessment the cumulative impacts then have to be minimized. Capping the authorized harassment of each threatened species may be the best way to avoid destructive.”
In recent years CFACT senior advisor David Wojick has been perhaps America’s number one star on offshore wind turbine analysis. David Wojick digs deep into the scientific facts and arcane policy documents the government has relied on and spotlights their flaws as does no one else.
David’s most recent post at CFACT.org lays out a simple, extremely daring approach to protect America from the dangers both wind and solar pose for our environment and electric grids. David proposes that the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) make full use of its unique authority and prevent future hookups of intermittent / unreliable energy sources such as wind and solar.
Places such as Europe and Australia have wasted vast sums on wind and solar and have nothing positive to show for it. They have transformed places of natural beauty into sterile wind and solar deserts while radically raising the costs of energy for business and homeowners. They have destabilized their electric grids while doing nothing meaningful to alter the temperature of the Earth.
America has been provided with voluminous examples of what not to do on energy.
CFACT will continue to provide the Trump Administration with the facts it needs to avoid the energy mistakes so many others have made.
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Wind should be metaphorically killed, then buried in a crossroads face down with a stake in its heart.
Solar as well. We finally have a leader who is not afraid to call out the total climate change scam for what it is. Hopefully, more will follow!
The “leader” just wants his cut of the wind and solar profits.
Do you have any evidence to support your opinion?
No, Biden was voted out. Please get up to date.
Mad as the Donald might be, you really have to go some to beat Ingsoc
I mean at the moment to give you an idea there’s a cap of 480,000 [Heathrow] flights a day – they want to increase that according to their plans to 720,000 and that means villages being destroyed, and homes being demolished.”
Guido Verify has examined the claims.
If 720,000 flights left Heathrow every day there would be 30,000 planes shooting off every hour which is of course 500 per minute. 8.3 per second.
https://order-order.com/2025/02/20/khan-says-reeves-is-plotting-for-heathrow-to-handle-500-flights-per-minute/
Think of a [big] number.
Now I understand why lines are so long there.
Flights per YEAR?
Per day
The reality is flights per year, the reportage is flights per day.
And your evidence for that is?
“London Heathrow Airport (LHR) averages around 1,300 flights per day, which includes take-offs and landings. This makes Heathrow one of the busiest airports in the world.” — query “heathrow airport number of flights per day?”
~ 1,300 per day divided by 24 hours per day <=> ~ 60 flights per hour, or averaging about one take-off/landing per minute. Nite & day.
~ times 365 days per year <=> ~ 500,000 flights per annum
1,300 flights per day
Thanks for the reality check
Heathrow lands 650 flights a day so I assume 650 flights take off.
8.3 flights per second is simply not feasible. Especially when the big jets need to be something like 2 to 4 minutes apart in order to avoid each other’s wing turbulence.
Quite clearly the reporter made a mistake. The only question then becomes should the numbers have been per month, or per year. Dividing the number of takeoffs by 30 is still a not doable number. Dividing it by 365 is very busy, but doable.
// Mad as the Donald might be, you really have to go some to beat Ingsoc
The three principles of Ingsoc in 1984 by George Orwell are “War is Peace,” “Freedom is Slavery,” and “Ignorance is Strength“. These slogans are examples of doublethink, a core principle of Ingsoc.
Ingsoc were collectivist pikers compared to today’s Left of mainstreamed gender dysphoria and unlimited immigration.
Us and them Hardly original…
And…. renewables are cheaper
“Wind and solar are free!”
Breezes and sunshine maybe, but the cost of gathering the low density energy from either is GIGANTIC.
Breezes and sunshine may be “free,” but the cost of gathering the low density energy from either is GIGANTIC.
There is a profound lack of appreciation among far too many of the ratepayer impact of creating all those stranded costs. That has to be part of the analysis. And in Virginia we have this pernicious Virginia Clean Economy Act, and another General Assembly is about to adjourn with the majority Democrats making it only worse. Because of that law, should Dominion’s project indeed be cancelled, the stranded costs and removal costs would be just the beginning. The law would mandate massive REC purchases for decades unless another (equally obnoxious) “green” energy facility was built as a replacement. An effective natural gas plant is prohibited by law. As lousy as wind energy is, it has a better ELCC than solar! CFACT has since doubled down by calling on FERC to cancel ALL wind and solar projects waiting in the interconnection queue. The stranded costs of the four wind projects are just a small part of the impact.
The goal of ending it here, no more to come, is where the focus should be. The wind projects not yet under construction should certainly die, and after analysis I might even agree Dominion’s should, but the rete impact analysis should come first.
You mean that once we build the windmills it’s not free energy from the wind forever? There are ongoing costs? The turbines don’t last forever and ever? That can’t be right. It’s free!
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S sources, the less efficient the other, traditional generators They have a hell-of-a-time to counteract the ups and downs of W/S output.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
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At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
Germany and the UK are hitting that wall more and more hours each day
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Base-load nuclear, gas and coal plants are the only rational way forward, plus the additional CO2 is very beneficial for additional flora and fauna growth
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
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US gravy-train subsidies are:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50%
– Community tax credit of 10 percent
– Base tax credit of 30 percent
– State tax credit and other incentives of up to 10%
2) 5-y Accelerated Depreciation write off of the entire project
3) Deduction of interest of borrowed money
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The subsidies reduce the owning and operating cost of a project by 50%, which means electricity can be sold at 50% less than it costs to produce.
Utilities pay 15 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from fixedoffshore wind systems
Utilities pay 18 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from floating offshore wind
Utilities pay 12 c/kWh, wholesale, after 50% subsidies, for electricity from larger solar systems
.
Excluded costs, at a future 30% W/S annual penetration on the grid, based on UK and German experience:
– Onshore grid expansion/reinforcement to connect distributed W/S systems, about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to quickly counteract W/S variable output, on a less than minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– A fleet of traditional power plants to provide electricity during 1) low-wind periods, 2) high-wind periods, when rotors are locked in place, and 3) low solar periods during mornings, evenings, at night, snow/ice on panels, which leads to more Btu/kWh, more CO2/kWh, more cost of about 2 c/kWh
– Pay W/S system Owners for electricity they could have produced, if not curtailed, about 1 c/kWh
– Importing electricity at high prices, when W/S output is low, 1 c/kWh
– Exporting electricity at low prices, when W/S output is high, 1 c/kWh
– Disassembly on land and at sea, reprocessing and storing at hazardous waste sites, about 2 c/kWh
Some of these values exponentially increase as more W/S systems are added to the grid
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The economic/financial insanity and environmental damage of it all is off the charts.
No wonder Europe’s near-zero, real-growth economy is in de-growth mode.
That economy has been tied into knots by inane people.
YOUR tax dollars are building these projects so YOU will have much higher electric bills.
Remove YOUR tax dollars using your vote, and none of these projects would be built, and YOUR electric bills would be lower.
Have never seen a large-scale solar system that reached 30% CF. In sunny Australia, annual average solar CF is 16.26%.
The only reason the IPCC has made CO2 its miracle mascot is to tie it to fossil fuels which Europe does not have enough of.
The woke Euro elites went hog-wild for wind and solar, but at about 30% W/S on the grid, various costs increase exponentially.
The W/S variable output, or too-little output, or too-much output, creates operational difficulties that become increasingly more challenging and expensive to counteract, as proven by the UK for the past 5 years, and by Germany for the past 10 years.
Both countries have “achieved” near-zero, real- growth GDP, the highest electricity prices in Europe, and stagnant real wages.
Their angry native populations are further burdened by the Euro elites bringing in tens of millions of uninvited poor, uneducated, inexperienced folks from all over, a chaotic burden the native populations never voted for.
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After spending all that money, while uglifying the countryside, killing fisheries, tourism, and view sheds, etc., the Euro elites are richer and living in posh places, but the climate is not any different than 30 years ago.
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Here in New England, we are freezing our butts off. Snow everywhere.
In Detroit, there was flooding up to car windows in the streets, and then it froze!
Such flooding is due to not spending on flood-prevention measures for decades.
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When will woke Euro elites finally admit, CO2 is a good gas, absolutely essential to grow more flora and fauna, and increase crop yields to feed hungry people?
The Euro elites are using Orwellian measures, such as censorship, misinformation labeling, throwing out elections if they do not like the results, freezing out major political parties, etc., to cow/control/disenfranchise their populations, similar to what the USAID-subsidized US Corporate Media are still doing.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/co2-has-a-very-minor-role-in-the-atmosphere
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
Germany, the UK, France, etc., are in Chaotic De-growth Mode
Their Euro elites are forcing populations to put up with, and pay for, tens of millions of unvetted walks-ins, who make minimal contributions, cause maximal pain, crime and chaos, all while sucking from the government tit.
Spending more on defense and Net-Zero green stuff, will be accelerating de-growth
The woke elites in Europe and the US are pre-maturely closing, already-paid-for, in-good-working-order nuclear plants.
The woke elites have banned 1) oil and gas fracking projects, 2) gas/oil pipelines, 3) gas/oil storage systems near power plants, and 4) new energy exploration projects, as part of “leaving it in the ground”
The very important results of DOGE are not reported by the leftist, USAID-subsidized, Corporate Media, but the criticisms of DOGE are reported 24/7/365.
And so, the people in New England, the US and Europe are permanently kept in the dark, already for at least 5 decades, or more.
The Social-Media, by gaining eyeballs, is quickly ending the Corporate-Media monopoly, which is losing eyeballs.
US VICE PRESIDENT JD VANCE SPEECH IN MUNICH, FEBRUARY 14, 2025; FULL TEXT
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/us-vice-president-jd-vance-speech-in-munich-february-14-2025
The election of President Trump and Vice President Vance has led to a 180-degree turn in energy policy in the United States, which will probably lead to energy being much cheaper in the USA than in Europe, which may lead to European industries moving to the USA.
President Trump also reversed former President Biden’s “pause” on building export plants for liquefied natural gas (LNG). If Europe suffers from a long period of cloudy, calm weather with little or no energy output from solar panels and windmills, and Russia won’t sell them any gas, the Europeans might appreciate American LNG to keep their lights on and their houses warm!
We Americans wouldn ‘t mind if the extra CO2 warmed up the climate by a few hundredths of a degree, ” ’cause baby it’s cold outside!”
We should not export our fossil fuels, because they are needed to make tens of thousands of products.
We should be manufacturing those products and exporting them
We should use hundreds of large, standard, nuclear plants to make electricity. They last up to 80 years
“When will woke Euro elites finally admit, CO2 is a good gas,”
Why should they, ???
THEY have feathered their own nests, so sod the plebs !!
Since wind and solar require subsidies in order to operate at a profit, allowing them to ever operate will cost the consumers money.
So kill the subsidies. Please. Kill the subsidies and the utilities will be the first to cancel all this. But the number of Republicans in Congress who may vote to keep the subsidies will dismay you.
Yes Republicans too like pork.
They have to be shamed not to like pork, by DOGETIZING them.
The only stranded cost from cancelling the queue is preliminary studies. In fact most of that queue would never be built in any case.
If the Feds stop the dominion OSW they will have to pay their costs to date. The ratepayers are not at risk. .
As someone with decades here watching regulatory matters in Virginia, I know you are 100% wrong, and the SCC made it clear in its approval of the project that the risk was 100% on the ratepayers. The utility is entitled to recover all costs.
Basic contract law says you cannot break a contract, in this case the lease contract, without compensating the injured party. The SCC and Virginia law have nothing to do with this. The Feds will have to pay to break the lease.
An additional cost will be pulling the 80 or so giant piles presently sticking up out of the water over 70 or so square miles. An extreme hazard to navigation just off a bust port and huge Naval Base.
Oh no. Let VA feel the pain of voting for the idiots pushing this crap. Then they can carry on with the work of voting them OUT.
Sadiq Khan is what happens when a country allows so much immigration that it loses control of its core society.
To 7th century values. Square peg, round hole.
I am sure that Seldin and Bergham will get around to wind in due course. They both have a lot on their plates cleaning up acute Biden messes.
The transition in the US from one crazy old president to the next crazy old president went quite smoothly.
What about Trump do you find crazy?
The fact that he’s trying to dismantle the stuff your president put in place?
It’s not 2015 anymore. You howler monkeys shot your shot with all the insanity already, then elected zombie biden. Now sit down, the adults are in charge.
The EO calls for Burgum to conduct two studies. One on wind permit deficiencies the other on how to break offshore wind leases.CFACT’ et al’s letter lists nine deep deficiencies. Breaking leases comes next and that is easy. We now know that wind development kills whales which was not known when the leases were awarded. The lease holders will have to be compensated but wind is gone. Stay tuned.
“Britain and Germany are the patsies of Net Zero” | Paul Marshall
not sure if I’ve already mentioned this
UK, GERMANY AND NORWAY
Norway gets 90% from hydro reservoir plants and 10% from west coast windmills.
Because of long distances, there is little connection between the north and south grid.
Any draw by the UK during W/S underproduction affects the south grid.
.
The grid is pumped by generators to a voltage with 50-cycle electromagnetic waves which travel at near the speed of light. Electrons do not travel. They just vibrate at 50 Hz
Any UK underproduction, resulting in voltage drops, is immediately sensed about 800 miles away, and compensated for, by automatically opening the water valves to hydro turbines in Norway.
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A few years ago, during a W/S lull, Norway oversupplied Germany and the UK, which resulted in much higher wholesale prices in the south grid, too low water levels in reservoirs, rationing, aka blackouts/brownouts, and lots of Norwegians with mandated EVs and mandated heat pumps being peed off.
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This time the W/S lull happened again, and, just like that, the ruling-party government fell. A new ruling-party government was installed, which may, or may not, remedy the situation. INSTANT DEMOCRACY.
We should have it in the US, instead of endless lying, obfuscation, grandstanding, obstruction, etc., for up to 4 years, or, God forbid, 8 years
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NOTE: I lived in Norway for 3 years. My brother-in-law, a managing director, worked at Norsk Hydro, which provides almost all hydro power in Norway. We talk shop. He thinks the nutcases in Oslo should be exiled to Nova Zembla.
“I lived in Norway for 3 years. My brother-in-law, a managing director, worked at Norsk Hydro, which provides almost all hydro power in Norway. We talk shop. He thinks the nutcases in Oslo should be exiled to Nova Zembla.”
wilpost, is it true that you can always tell a Norwegian, but that you can’t tell him much?
In any case, I presume you are referring to Nova Zembla Island (“New Land”) — an uninhabited island about two miles wide and three miles long located in the Qikiqtaaluk Region of Nunavut, Canada.
According to Wikipedia, the island is located across the mouth of Coutts Inlet in Baffin Bay off the northeastern coast of Baffin Island. Round Island is 4.6 miles to the southeast.
The island’s claim to fame — such that it is — is that it was visited in 1875 by a Swedish expedition led by Adolf Erik Nordenskiöld and sponsored by the businessman Oscar Dickson.
Here in the 21st Century, the Norwegians might have a better go at it than the Swedes did in evaluating the potential of the island for future mineral production.
Assuming there is anything there to produce, and the Chinese don’t get there first.
There is also a large island called Novaya Zemlya in the Arctic Ocean north of Russia, which is to the northeast of the far northern end of Norway.
It probably has an unhospitable climate due to its extreme latitude, but it would be a somewhat closer exile for the “nutcases in Oslo” than the Nova Zembla in Canada.
Interestingly enough, some botanist decided to name a variety of rhododendrons “Nova Zembla”, although it’s doubtful that rhododendrons could grow or bloom on Nova Zembla in Canada or Novaya Zemlya in Russia.
In either location, either Nova Zembla in Canada or Novaya Zemlya in Russia, their permanent assignment for the next thirty years would be to man and operate a weather station to determine if the Arctic is warming according to climate model projections. And, if they were still alive after that thirty years, they would be expected to write up a report on what their thirty years of observations showed.
Sounds inexpensive to me
An ideal place for woke folks
I’m no expert on Norway’s government (a nice way of saying I know nothing about it), but if is similar to other European governments with “parliamentary” type systems, the problem becomes that too often minority parties like “greens” are part of the “coalition” in power, and therefore end up having an outsized (and negative) influence. In other words, you never can completely excise the rot.
I’d be interested to hear more of the specifics.
Trump just took control of FERC. New EO asserts authority over independent agencies including FERC. What they are independent of has always been an open constitutional question because the Constitution makes no provision for them.
Press focus is on Presidential review of regs but it might even include initiating them including the ban on intermittency grid hookups. Here is key EO language in bold: “The President and the Attorney General, subject to the President’s supervision and control, shall provide authoritative interpretations of law for the executive branch. The President and the Attorney General’s opinions on questions of law are controlling on all employees in the conduct of their official duties. No employee of the executive branch acting in their official capacity may advance an interpretation of the law as the position of the United States that contravenes the President or the Attorney General’s opinion on a matter of law, including but not limited to the issuance of regulations, guidance, and positions advanced in litigation, unless authorized to do so by the President or in writing by the Attorney General.”
See https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/02/ensuring-accountability-for-all-agencies/
Woohoo!