By David Wojick
President Trump’s day one Executive Order (EO) on wind power is a clear threat to the offshore wind projects that are under construction but they seem to be ignoring this threat. I find no evidence that they are disclosing this threat to the public or their stockholders.
The EO is quite clear in initiating an investigation into terminating these leases. Here is the text:
“With respect to such existing leases, the Secretary of the Interior, in consultation with the Attorney General as needed, shall conduct a comprehensive review of the ecological, economic, and environmental necessity of terminating or amending any existing wind energy leases, identifying any legal bases for such removal, and submit a report with recommendations to the President, through the Assistant to the President for Economic Policy.”
Here are the five OSW projects under construction listed by owner, with the most relevant statements that I could find on this threat:
1. Dominion Energy’s Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project
“Dominion says offshore wind farm moving forward, despite executive order”
“Trump warned axing largest US offshore wind farm would be ‘most inflationary action’”
“Dominion Energy CEO Bob Blue doesn’t foresee impacts from President Donald Trump’s halting offshore wind leasing and permitting to its mammoth 2.6GW Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind (CVOW) project currently in at-sea construction.”
2. Orsted’s Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind projects
“Orsted’s Sunrise Wind and Revolution wind projects that are under construction offshore New York and New England respectively should not be impacted by Trump’s order, CEO Rasmus Errboe told investors the company’s company’s Feb. 6 earnings call. Future developments, however, may be at risk.
“We are fully committed to moving them forward and deliver on our commitments,” Errboe said. “We do not expect that the executive order will have any implications on assets under construction, but of course for assets under development, it’s potentially a different situation.”“
3. Equinor’s Empire Wind project
“But the international companies behind Empire Wind and Sunrise Wind say they are committed to protecting their investments and completing the projects amid the uncertainty as the “best way to create and protect shareholder value,” as Equinor’s CFO put it in a recent earnings call.”
4. Copenhagen Infrastructure Partners and Avangrid Renewables’ Vineyard Wind project
“Trump’s pause on offshore wind leasing may have limited impact in New England”
https://www.wbur.org/news/2025/01/22/trump-wind-executive-order-massachusetts-vineyard-wind
Vineyard Wind itself is understandably silent as they are already in a warm Federal embrace thanks to the debris laden failure of a 70 ton wind tower blade. They were allowed to resume construction just before Trump took office and issued his EO.
Overall it looks like the offshore wind construction projects are simply ignoring the Federal investigation into their legitimacy. Even under Biden the federal leasing agency made it clear that a lease is not a right to build, just a right to make a proposal. The leases themselves contain language allowing the Feds to change them with no limit to how big these changes might be.
Statements by offshore wind developers that their federal leases are not subject to the Presidents Executive Order are simply incorrect. The investigation into terminating these leases in underway.
Stay tuned to CFACT to see how this multi-billion dollar story plays out.
It is early days. 47 presently has bigger fish to fry.
Burgum too. I doubt the called for investigation has even begun. Mind you a simple reason to cancel and buy out all leases is that wind causes a lot of marine mammal deaths, which we did not know when the leases were sold.
But aren’t these companies supposed to disclose risk to stockholders?
Yes, those companies knew, the habitats of sea birds are being destroyed by wind mills in the North Sea, which is worse than birds killed by blades.
New birds are growing in ever fewer numbers.
This has been known by the industry for at least a decade
The consequences of seabird habitat loss
from offshore wind turnines: a research plan
for five selected species
https://tethys.pnnl.gov/sites/default/files/publications/van_Kooten_et_al_2018.pdf
Impacts on sea birds
https://www.wind-energy-the-facts.org/impacts-on-marine-mammals-and-sea-birds-5.html
This is EPIC: Extensive Periphery for Impact and Control to study seabird habitat loss in and around offshore wind farms combining a peripheral control area and Bayesian statistics
https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1574954124005235
CO2 Has a Very Minor Global Warming Role in the Atmosphere
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/co2-has-a-very-minor-role-in-the-atmosphere
I am sure they will keep going until the subsidies run out.
Not if their leases are cancelled.
They are probably counting on a Biden or Obama judge to find a reason to block any cancellations.
Well, that will “run out” the subsidies, eh? 😁
Better grab the Dems playbook with lawfare costs piled on, made up regulations added to raise costs, and seed the coastal areas with snail darters to add some chaos for the investors.
I don’t need tiny fictional darters as I have 15 ton whales dying by the dozens.
Align the tariff target list with the supply chain for these projects starting with steel, turbines, and support ships.
Excellent suggestion.
Stop all subsidies. That should fix them.
They tried in the last budget bill but some Republicans love wind money.
Some Republicans are going to be primary-ed in 2026. It’s a new day in America. The drums of doom are beating for wind power, onshore and off.
That would be great, but read the above post about the 21 republican senators that oppose it.
For a semi-insiders look at the situation, look at:
https://www.workboat.com/magazine/
From the home page, search “Wind”. Need to ‘subscribe’ (free) to get two emails a week with the latest news, but they do ask a ‘background’ question for your ocean/sea/river experience. (For me? “Observer” on the “United Geo 1”, seismic oil exploration , the Java Sea, way back when.
The first US built vessel for assembling offshore wind units is currently undergoing sea trials.
I have long wondered if they have studied, consulted, even read ocean engineering books, journals, reports and petroleum engineering experts. Ocean is a tough place. I’ve worked with such and been on enough platforms and ship time which apparently isn’t required anymore. One of the oil spill papers did satellite work for months before visiting site. Many didn’t know about the clockwise gyre from Mississippi’s Southwest Pass that puts water in Barataria Bay where they received the most oil. It was rediscovered and the ocean diluted river water going into the bay was a “salt plug,” incorrect use of hypersaline because it was saltier than lower estuarine salinity Barataria Bay but not more than ocean water. Paper in the 1960s knew it made Barataria more productive. Oh well, just a few name changes and definitions thereof. Juarez, B. A. Valle-Levinson and C. Li. 2020. Estuarine salt-plug induced by freshwater pulses from the inner shelf.. Est. Coast. Shelf Sci. 232.106491. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2019.106491
If wind at sea is halted- that’ll be the end of Net Zero for Wokeachusetts since almost nobody wants any more wind or solar “farms” on land. So to arrive at Net Zero nirvana, the state would have to do it all at sea. Pretty unlikely under any circumstance never mind with Trump trying to stop them.
Dominion, I see, claims reliable power, which is only true as long as their generation portfolio includes enough coal and gas to balance their wind and solar. They have warned Trump that cutting their wind project will, as they put it,
because they who drink the “Kool aid” are sure that wind is the cheapest power around. Actually, there is no more expensive power than power that you expected to have, but don’t when you need it most — That’s wind! Adding too much wind, while simultaneously kicking thermal to the curb, is a reliability and cost risk for rate payers.
Everyplace a significant amount of wind and solar gets added to the grid, electricity prices go UP.
It is truly amazing that there are still suckers er people that believe the opposite of reality is true.
In the top 20 countries by GDP, Saudi Arabia has 2% of their electricity generated by wind and solar. Their retail cost of electricity us USD0.05/kWh. At the other end, Germany gets 45% from wind and solar and pay USD0.40/kWh for theirs.
Anyone installing offshore wind turbines to reduce ithe cost of electricity is deluded. If Trump can turn off the subsidies and make wind and solar pay their full imposition on the grid, they will all close shop.
I recall reading Germany actually got less than 30% from wind and solar, despite building 150 GW of solar and wind capacity (against PEAK demand of 80 GW).
I don’t know what to say but I don’t think I would try to push Trump around.
I guess if 47 can ignore the law, then so can everybody else…
…Popcorn?
I remember being surprised by a pop quiz in my AP math class, after getting stoned with friends at lunch. I was even more surprised, like my instructor, the next day; to find that I had gotten every question correct, including the extra credit, for an A+! An obvious exception proving the rule.
When you were studying Civics/US Government, were you smoking phatties, daytime drinking; or is your complete ignorance of the Constitution a more recent acquisition?
I’m uncomfortable with cancelling wind leases that have been lawfully granted. When they cancelled oil and gas leases, I thought that was wrong, too.
I believe the real problem is subsidies. If they can make a go of offshore wind without federal subsidies, more power to them. If states want to subsidize the generation, they should be free to do so, but I suspect their voters, in the form of power customers, will weigh in on that eventually. Require intermittent sources of power supply to pay a reasonable price for the cost of intermittency.
Letting renewables stand or fail on their own ought to be the test. Let the market decide. I think we know where that will end up.
Better to cancel now then build a useless monstrosity with unconsidered environmental effects. They should have been honest from the get. They were not, and the above plus the claim of wind being anti inflationary should be adequet in itself to regulate them to the very large trash heap of bad ideas, low morals, and graft.
If the leasing agreement allows the government to cancel the least, as is implied by the article, then there is nothing illegal about doing so. If the Leasor objects, they shouldn’t have signed the contract with that clause in place.
No thinking needed. Without government mandates and subsidies, not a single “wind farm” or “solar farm” ever would have been built. They are nothing more than “mandate and subsidy farms” making the wealthy wealthier.
No utility without the government’s gun at its head would ever contract with “electricity at the whim of the weather and/or time of day” when reliable 24/7 electricity is available.
While I am also an opponent of offshore wind power, a little context is in order here. President Trump’s executive order did not cancel any existing wind leases. It paused permit approvals and temporarily halted future lease sales.
https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/2025/01/temporary-withdrawal-of-all-areas-on-the-outer-continental-shelf-from-offshore-wind-leasing-and-review-of-the-federal-governments-leasing-and-permitting-practices-for-wind-projects/
Dominion’s CVOW is fully approved and under construction. Nothing in the executive order affects this.
https://virginiabusiness.com/dominion-says-offshore-wind-farm-moving-forward-despite-executive-order/
None of the permits that were approved during the Biden maladministration are affected by this EO. None of the projects currently under construction are affected either.
Cancelling valid leases, with projects currently under construction and/or in operation, would be just as unlawful as canceling oil & gas leases currently being drilled and/or in production. Biden tried to do this and lost every time in court.
Hopefully, Trump’s temporary pause in offshore wind leasing will last at least 12 years (with two JD Vance terms). However, the next Democrat president will probably reverse this order. Unless the Republicans somehow could get 60 votes in the Senate to permanently ban offshore wind power projects, these economic monstrosities will be back.
Here are some reasons to oppose so-called “wind power”
HIGH COST/kWh OF W/S SYSTEMS FOISTED ONTO A BRAINWASHED PUBLIC
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/high-cost-kwh-of-w-s-systems-foisted-onto-a-brainwashed-public
By Willem Post
.
What is generally not known, the more weather-dependent W/S systems, the less efficient the other, traditional generators, as they inefficiently counteract the increasingly larger ups and downs of W/S output. See URL
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/fuel-and-co2-reductions-due-to-wind-energy-less-than-claimed
.
W/S systems add great cost to the overall delivery of electricity to users; the more W/S systems, the higher the cost/kWh, as proven by the UK and Germany, with the highest electricity rates in Europe, and near-zero, real-growth GDPs
At about 30% W/S, the entire system hits an increasingly thicker concrete wall, operationally and cost wise.
UK and Germany have hit the wall, more and more hours each day.
The cost of electricity delivered to users increased with each additional W/S/B system
.
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 and increased crop yields to feed hungry people.
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/we-are-in-a-co2-famine
.
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt:
1) Federal and state tax credits, up to 50% (Community tax credit of 10 percent – Federal 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) Loan interest deduction
.
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
.
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.
Here are the costs of an ACTUAL FLOATING OFFSHORE project near the Norway coast
FLOATING OFFSHORE WIND IN NORWAY
https://www.windtaskforce.org/profiles/blogs/floating-offshore-wind-in-norway
By Willem Post
.
Equinor, a Norwegian company, put in operation, 11 Hywind, floating offshore wind turbines, each 8 MW, for a total of 88 MW, in the North Sea. The wind turbines are supplied by Siemens, a German company
Production will be about 88 x 8766 x 0.5, claimed lifetime capacity factor = 385,704 MWh/y, which is about 35% of the electricity used by 2 nearby Norwegian oil rigs, which cost at least $1.0 billion each.
On an annual basis, the existing diesel and gas-turbine generators on the rigs, designed to provide 100% of the rigs electricity requirements, 24/7/365, will provide only 65%, i.e., the wind turbines have 100% back up.
The generators will counteract the up/down output of the wind turbines, on a less-than-minute-by-minute basis, 24/7/365
The generators will provide almost all the electricity during low-wind periods, and 100% during high-wind periods, when rotors are feathered and locked.
.
The capital cost of the entire project was about 8 billion Norwegian Kroner, or about $730 million, as of August 2023, when all 11 units were placed in operation, or $730 million/88 MW = $8,300/kW. See URL
That cost was much higher than the estimated 5 billion NOK in 2019, i.e., 60% higher
The project is located about 70 miles from Norway, which means minimal transport costs of the entire supply to the erection sites
.
The project produces electricity at about 42 c/kWh, no subsidies, at about 21 c/kWh, with 50% subsidies
Subsidies shift costs from project Owners to ratepayers, taxpayers, government debt
In Norway, all work associated with oil rigs is very expensive.
Three shifts of workers are on the rigs for 6 weeks, work 60 h/week, and get 6 weeks off with pay, and are paid well over $150,000/y, plus benefits.
.
If Norwegian units were used in Maine, the production costs would be even higher in Maine, because of the additional cost of transport of almost the entire supply, including specialized ships and cranes, across the Atlantic Ocean, plus
A high voltage cable would be hanging from each unit, until it reaches bottom, say about 200 to 500 feet.
The cables would need some type of flexible support system
The cables would be combined into several cables to run horizontally to shore, for at least 25 to 30 miles, to several onshore substations, to the New England high voltage grid.
https://www.offshore-mag.com/regional-reports/north-sea-europe/article/14195647/floating-wind-turbines-to-power-north-sea-gullfaks-snorre-platforms
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Floating_wind_turbine
Good post. Sad yet accurate. In the lease I assume the subsidies are locked?
No. The lease just establishes the rights to develop the lease and rental & royalty payments to the US government. The subsidies aren’t tied to the lease. The subsidies mostly consist of production tax credits (sort of bad for consumers) and power purchase agreements with utility companies (extremely bad for consumers).
To be honest, anyone with an IQ bigger than their shoe size is ignoring Trump. And why not? He’s clearly utterly incompetent at absolutely everything, has not the slightest credibility with anyone who knows what they’re talking about, and has surrounded himself with a gutless, boot licking cabal of yes-men, hangers on and spineless toadies, each one more ignorant and arrogant than the next.
We just have to wait him out. He’ll be the biggest lame duck in history sooner than you think.
BTW – I fully support the new MAGA movement: “Make America Go Away”!