Audrey Streb
Contributor
The Department of Energy (DOE) is reportedly considering the closure of federal programs devoted to renewable energy as part of President Donald Trump’s fiscal year 2026 budget request.
The potential cuts, worth millions of dollars, would impact offices within the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, including Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies, Solar Energy Technologies, Wind Energy Technologies and Renewable Energy Grid Integration, according to a document reviewed by Politico’s E&E News. This is the latest reported slashing of government funds for climate and renewable energy initiatives that were championed during former President Joe Biden’s administration, though Congress will ultimately have to sign off on the decision. (RELATED: ‘Got To Go’: DOE To Cut Off Billions Of Dollars’ Worth Of Biden-Era Green Energy Projects)
“Recently I’ve been called a climate denier or climate skeptic. This is simply wrong. I am a climate realist,” Secretary of Energy Chris Wright said during a speech in March. “Responses to climate change bring their own set of trade-offs. The Trump administration will end the Biden administration’s irrational quasi-religious policies on climate change that imposed endless sacrifices on our citizens,” he continued.
The Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy “regularly issues funding opportunities” through its 11 sub offices and other programs which finance solar, wind, geothermal, hydrogen and fuel cell systems development. Each sub office has invested millions into renewable projects over the years, some of which were wholly devoted to funding or developing a particular kind of renewable energy, as is the case with the Wind Energy Technologies Office, the Solar Energy Technologies Office and the Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies Office.
Renewable energy projects were regularly promoted by the Biden administration through executive action as well as through the former president’s signature climate bill, the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), which he signed in August 2022. While the bill was initially touted as a means of reducing record-high inflation, Biden later admitted its purpose was to advance his climate change policies. Biden allocated approximately $370 billion towards efforts to combat climate change through the IRA.
Trump, who declared a national energy emergency immediately after returning to office, previously referred to the IRA as the “Green New Scam” and vowed while on the campaign trail to “rescind all unspent funds under the misnamed” act. Republican lawmakers have since introduced measures that would repeal several subsidies provided under the IRA, including for hydrogen development and electric vehicles.
The president stated in a Jan. 20 executive order that the “integrity and expansion of our Nation’s energy infrastructure” is “an immediate and pressing priority for the protection of the United States’ national and economic security.” (RELATED: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly: Biden’s Climate Bill Turns Two Years Old)
The DOE, the Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy, Hydrogen and Fuel Cell Technologies and Solar Energy Technologies did not respond to the Daily Caller News Foundation’s request for comment. The Wind Energy Technologies declined to comment and referred the DCNF to DOE.
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Renewable energy needs to go. It is useless. See https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MPydWl5Djxs&t=139s
Sack Milliband, Katheryn should be in charge of UK energy
No, keep the donut – easiest way to kill off nut zero…
Ax
Even the word has had an axe taken to it.
The real problem is RINOs who want subsidies for programs in their districts.
The Supreme Court may rule that violation of thermodynamic laws must continue.
Exactly – 21 of them at last count along with most others who don’t have the courage to do what is needed. Alex Epstein explains it well.
Dealbreakers to the proposal to “phase out,” not terminate, IRA subsidies
I am all for fuel cell technologies – the possibility of getting 100% energy from a fuel, instead of 40%, fascinates me. But why hydrogen? I prefer ethanol. Or gasoline.
“the possibility of getting 100% energy from a fuel”
WTF !!!
Have you been listening to Miliband ?
Fuel cell efficiency typically ranges from 40% to 60%, with some high-temperature fuel cells achieving efficiencies of up to 65%.
Here’s some basic info on fuel cells to bring you up to speed
– https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1155/2024/7271748
We already get 100% energy from a fuel.
The inefficiencies is transforming that energy into something useful.
A coal thermal electric plant uses all 100% of the coal’s energy, but 65% of that is used to drive the turbine to create electricity, which results in 35% of the energy transformed into electricity, the rest exhausted as waste heat.
That gigantic DOE building was right next door to FAA Headquarters, where I spent the last years of my career. It was probably best known for having the very best cafeteria of any federal office building, and I would go there whenever I had the time. That is now gone, a victim of the Covid pandemic, and I have heard that the building itself may be closed down. In my opinion, the Department of Energy should be disestablished. DOE was established in the 1970s to solve a phony “energy crisis” which the government tried to convince us was the result of the world running out of oi, but was actually oil shortages caused by government imposed price controls. They spent billions attempting to develop “synfuels”, and failed spectacularly. After Reagan removed oil price controls, there has never been a shortage of oil. But DOE found another phony cause to keep it going: “transitioning” our energy supplies to things which supposedly add no carbon dioxide to the atmosphere in order to fight a supposed climate crisis that said CO2 is allegedly causing. It is spending billions pursuing alternative energy sources, and failing just as spectacularly as it did in the the synfuels fiasco. Almost everything DOE does is counterproductive, and it needs to be shut down. The sole exception is the department’s control of U.S. nuclear weapons, which must remain a civilian activity. Resurrecting the Atomic Energy Commission and returning to it the responsibility for nuclear weapons control would be simple. And the resulting office would easily fit in the space occupied by the grand old DOE cafeteria.
The DOE is exceptionally bloated, but should not be torn down lock, stock, and barrel.
As you pointed out, nuclear weapons still needs civilian activity. AEC for regulating nuclear power plants is also a must (but without the overbearing regulations in place today).
DOE could also oversee studies and developments in emerging energy technologies (not solar voltaic and wind turbine generators), but promising technologies that could (repeat could) become economically viable and practical. Fusion is an example.
The government should be pro-investment for new opportunities without the heavy hand of edicts to control and manipulate.
There should be a data base of all the innovations in the labs and universities across this great land. With regular updates as well as a 1 to N ranking based on viability and economy metrics. It is a diamond in the rough type of thing.