Essay by Eric Worrall
The Aussie Government is worried it might have to pay for Australia’s own commercially unviable renewable projects, after President Trump pulled US support.
Blue Float Energy abandons $10 billion Gippsland Dawn offshore wind proposal
Wed 16 Jul
In short:
The company behind a planned major Victorian offshore wind farm has pulled out of the market, saying it is no longer commercially viable.
It comes as an energy expert warns the country is not on track to meet its renewable energy targets.
…
Gippsland Dawn was to be a 2-gigawatt offshore wind farm built between Paradise Beach and Ocean Grange on the Gippsland coast.
The proposal received major project status from the federal government in November, and promised to deliver power to more than one million homes.
But the company behind the project, Blue Float Energy, withdrew from offshore wind internationally after major shareholder Quantum Capital said it was no longer commercially viable to invest in the sector.
…
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-16/blue-float-energy-pulls-out-of-gippsland-wind-farm-offshore/105495614
So where is the Trump connection?
Clicking through the Blue Float Energy link in the last paragraph of the article above;
Offshore wind companies cool Australian interest as public investment considered
Tue 15 Jul
…
Mr Trump’s intervention has had a chilling effect on the industry.
“You have a bull market before Trump takes office that turns into a bear market when Trump gets in because he doesn’t like offshore wind,” Mr Evans said.
With every Australian offshore wind project backed by an international partner, the global shift has impacts at home.
…
The Victorian government has offered support for offshore wind projects, including direct funding for feasibility studies.
…At a federal level, Australia has so far managed to avoid the significant public investment made by countries like the United Kingdom to set up the industry.
…However, the government will consider direct funding support as part of its review of the National Electricity Market (NEM) wholesale market settings.
Read more: https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-15/offshore-wind-industry-hit-by-global-headwinds/105520316
…
There is plenty of evidence offshore wind projects all over the world are in trouble – and that the problem started before Trump took office in 2024.
How can Trump pulling funding and support for offshore wind in the USA make the situation worse for offshore wind projects in Australia?
Inflation Reduction Act set to allocate billions to Australia’s energy sector
Energy
24th May 2023Australian mining and energy companies are set to access billions of dollars in funding as part of President Joe Biden’s Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) – this could significantly contribute to the clean energy transition.
This allowance follows deals to grant special status to the country’s defence manufacturing and critical minerals industries under the IRA.
The plans were announced at the G7 summit in Hiroshima, where Australian Prime Minister Anthony Albanese met up with Biden. The summit welcomed members of leading industrial economies to discuss Chinese economic coercion and Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Australia is set to become a domestic source for critical sectors
Biden explained that under the Inflation Reduction Act, Australia would become a domestic powerhouse for sectors deemed critical, such as defence, critical minerals, and clean energy.
…
Read more: https://www.innovationnewsnetwork.com/inflation-reduction-act-allocate-billions-australias-energy-sector/33295/
I don’t know if the billion dollar gifts for foreigners component of IRA funding was actually accessed, but one thing is clear: Biden’s government borrowing didn’t only fund the fake US green economy, anticipation of direct US funding was propping up the entire world’s fake green economy.
It gets crazier. Given China is a major US government creditor, the money Biden was borrowing from China to fund the IRA was being returned to China in the form of orders for green energy components, leaving the USA to pay debt interest on money which had already been returned to the pockets of Chinese investors. No doubt some of that returned money would have been recycled back into lending more money to the US government. The US Government was effectively borrowing the same recycled money again and again, pushing up debt interest payments for US taxpayers to China with every cycle.
No wonder greens were upset when President Trump stopped the green funding carousel.
Got to love Trump!
Trump hates all windmills, not just those off shore.
You are correct: Big Windmill’s woes came before Trump won the election and Trump is going to put in his two cents worth (which matters a lot).
Windmills and Industrial Solar have lost their luster (no more subsidies, in Trump’s case).
Trump says only stupid countries build windmills.
Our highly intelligent energy minister says we should all have one in our back gardens.
When Democrat/Deep State wackos tried to assassinate Trump, he got real, super mad.
Fight, fight, fight, he said,
He closed the border, stopped the European and Australian wind mills, and the Chinese solar panels.
Imposed tariffs, reduced the US trade deficit,
Reduced federal spending and the federal government had a surplus in June 2025
And provided tax cuts for tens of millions of tax payers
And reduced waste, fraud and abuse
Now you know why the Democrat/Deep State wants to kill him
Ocean waves, salt water, mechanical and electrical components in a remote location. Eh, what could happen.
Pirates breaking into the nacelle and stealing ca. 8 tons of copper. I just checked: The spot price for copper is $5.60 per pound.
I recently read that thieves took down 3 wind turbines and stole the copper.
Theft of copper from EV charging stations is a big problem in the UK.
Not for me it’s not 🙂
That depends on whether your tax money is being used to replace them.
Also in the UK there have recently been several thefts of copper from remote wind farms. !2 such farms in Essex, Cambridgeshire,, N Yorkshire, Bedfordshire, Derbyshire, Humberside, Northamptonshire and Lincolnshire have suffered thefts with up to 3 turbines in each being affected.
Ha, didn’t know that!
There have been a number of nominations for the Darwin Award from people who tried to steal copper from electricity substation transformers which were in operation at the time.
Hmmm…Sounds like Big Wind is far too expensive of an energy source for any single government to afford without international support.
Are you sure that isn’t A Mighty Wind?
I can stomach about 5 minutes of their Australian ABC over breakfast for news highlights. Over the past year, I doubt there has been a single day when Trump has not been mentioned. At the moment they are trying to make the most of the Epstein connection.
But Trump has had a huge impact on Australia and TDS runs very deep in Australia. For example from today:
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2025-07-18/trump-moves-to-unseal-transcripts-from-epstein-case/105546530
I expect few US citizens would realise how deep TDS runs in Australia. PM Albanese would rather spend a week in China walking the Great Wall and conversing with pandas than having a meeting with POTUS Trump. Albanese believes he is above grovelling to a climate denying womaniser like Trump (that is the view of the majority of Australians as well). The widely held view of Australians is that only the USA could have such an immoral individual gain high office. It does not surprise me that Trump is blamed for the lack of commercial interest in wind energy. Australia blames most of its current predicament on Trump.
‘Albanese believes he is above groveling to a climate denying womanizer like Trump (that is the view of the majority of Australians as well).’
I guess that’s an improvement over the old stereotype of Australian men as insensitive lager louts taking their ‘Sheilas’ for granted.
Australia has the ABC government broadcaster, which is almost as influential as the BBC is in Britain. Sadly a lot of my fellow Australians don’t look beyond the mainstream media garbage, those who bother to watch the news at all.
But it’s not completely hopeless. Green communists don’t get all the votes in elections. We have some right wing parties like One Nation which are slowly making headway. And we have had some more conservative Prime Ministers than you might expect, like Tony Abbott.
Unless the British establishment find a way to rig the election, Nigel Farage stands a good chance of being the next British Prime Minister. A similar breakout could occur in Australia, if the wind blows right.
Starmer will probably ban voting to anyone older than 25.
Sky news Australia is worth a watch. The Polar opposite of the woke UK version.
I watch it on YouTube and like it very much.
That’s as with ‘comedy’ programmes on UK telly. Trump always makes an appearance, also when he was not president, accompanied by the most unflattering picture the editor could find, followed closely by Nigel Farage and the independent broadcaster GBNews, and then, early on the founder of the free speech union Toby Young. Those fascist nutters, they have to be exposed and ridiculed.
Lately Lord Young has disappeared from the menu. Someone must have realised that free speech is actually a noble cause and not only that, the FSU is increasingly seen as the last defence against a woke bureaucracy and tramplers on the citizen’s rights.
“At the moment they are trying to make the most of the Epstein connection.”
What Epstein connection? Remember: The Leftwing Media lies about Trump all the time. Just because they insinuate a connection does not mean there is a connection.
“But Trump has had a huge impact on Australia and TDS runs very deep in Australia.”
That makes sense. If anything, Australia’s leftwing media is even worse than those in the United States, and all leftwing media, from all Western nations, routinely demonize the Right, and in this case, Trump and Republicans. The Leftwing Media of all Western nations are basically propaganda organs for the Leftwing.
“Mr Trump also says he has asked Attorney-General Pam Bondi to produce any and all “pertinent” grand jury testimony related to the Jeffrey Epstein case, a move that would fall well short of what has been demanded by even his own supporters”
Much Ado about Nothing. About a dozen of Trump’s “supporters” are complaining about the Epstein files. Attorney General Pam Bondi says there is no Epstein “Client List”, and says the evidence shows Epstein killed himself in prison. Some people don’t want to accept this and are crying “coverup” (mostly on the Left), but they have no evidence contrary to what Bondi has said.
It order to placate the complainers and show that Trump is trying to get everything out to the public, Bondi is requesting that grand jury testimony be released to the public. This probably won’t happen, as judges don’t like making grand jury testimony public, but that’s about as far as Bondi can legally go. So we’ll see. If grand jury testimony is released, that ought to satisfy the Republcian complainers, but nothing will satisfy the radical Left complainers. Trump is perpetually guilty to them.
“Albanese believes he is above grovelling to a climate denying womaniser like Trump (that is the view of the majority of Australians as well).”
Definition:
AI Overview
A womanizer is a man who frequently engages in casual sexual relationships with multiple women. It implies a pattern of behavior characterized by pursuing numerous short-term romantic or sexual encounters, often with a lack of commitment or emotional depth. A womanizer may also be referred to as a philanderer, seducer, or Lothario”
end
I don’t believe that is a correct description for Trump. Trump has had long-term romantic relationships with women, his wives, but there’s no evidence he casually has relationships with every woman that comes down the pike, and there is no evidence he has ever forced himself on any woman. Just another pack of lies told about Trump by the radical Left. And since Australia doesn’t really have an alternative to Leftwing propagada, it’s no surprise that Australians believe the lies.
Did you see where Trump’s Director of National Intelligence came out yesterday with a report saying the Trump/Russia cooperation during Trump’s first run for president in 2016, was a complete hoax, created by the Obama-Biden administration in an effort to prevent Trump from getting elected, and after he won, to prevent him from governing properly, and that Obama and Biden were the inspiration for these Treasonous Acts.
The National Intelligence Director, Tulsi Gabbard, says those in the Obama administration should be criminally prosecuted for trying to thwart the will of the American People.
Obama and Biden were hip-deep in this TREASON! Along with all their Minions.
And this group of radical Democrat criminals are still going after Trump to this very day.
Of course, if you listen to the Leftwing Media only, then you won’t be hearing about ths little tidbit.
Yeah, TREASON on the part of Obama and Biden and the entire Obama administration. These people need to go to jail to set an example for the future. The illegally used the power of the federal government to try to overthrow an election and to cause as much harm to the Trump administration as possible.
Had they been successful, the United States might be a One-Party nation now, with the criminal Democrats in control. It still might happen if we are not careful because the criminal Democrats are still committing crimes against the Nation and trying to undermine legitimate government.
The Criminal Democrats are trying to take our freedoms away from us, even as I write.
What Epstein connection?
Trump once posed for a photo with Epstein so that proves (whatever)
It’s funny, but among my friends Epstein’s death was assumed to be murder to cover the Clintons, who were alleged to be on a flight log to his island. Another of the ‘mysterious’ deaths that surround the Clintons. My friends wanted the files made public to see if Hillary was indeed connected.
Rick,
Did you notice that the US Govt has passed an act to cease funding theIR Public Broadcasting Service PBS and National Public Radio NPR?
Somewhat the same as an Aussie stop to funding ABC.
It will happen here one day.
We need to find a Trump or Farage home-bred Conservative political leader. I am sure that they walk among us, many of them, but which bright person would decide to volunteer to put remaining life into public good instead of status quo? You would almost need religious zeal to drive you. Geoff S
Ah yes, spoken like a refined lobbyist to the uninformed and avoiding cost issues again.
One needs to carefully time pulling out of a subsidy mining operation as much as one needs to time getting out of a Ponzi scheme. As neither is viable as a real business venture, finding a sucker to stick with the losses is critical.
Yes – Blue Float was indeed a Ponzi scheme. Quantum Capital created entities within their renewable energy subsidiary and “invented” a bunch of projects to create a portfolio that could be flogged off to a naive corporate desperate to virtue signal. They never had any intention of building anything themselves. Blue Float was on the market for about $500M but there was no interest. With the game up on government subsidies, no surprise to see Quantum pulling the pin.
Every cloud has a silver lining.
Every silver lining, by definition, has a cloud.
Story tip.
Probably one for Paul H. to fact check.
“The truth about Britain’s taxpayer cash-soaked wind farm industry laid bare in scandalous detail in court papers.”
https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-14919977/truth-Britain-taxpayer-cash-soaked-wind-farm-industry.html
Very good piece, an excellent summary of a complicated and misunderstood topic.
If half the time when the wind is blowing you have to pay the wind farm operator not to use it to generate electricity, is the wind still free?
If in addition they can then turn around and also sell you electricity they have not produced, I guess in some sense something is free to someone.
Got it, it must be the money that is free, to the operator!
It’ no longer commercially viable.
It never was commercially viable. Any economic activity that needs subsidies to keep going is not commercially viable.
Why the hell would Americans pay for wind mills in Australia? Oh, yea, theft, graft and corruption.
The Victorian government has offered support for offshore wind projects, including direct funding for feasibility studies.
Thanks for the consultancy slushfunds but unless you’re going to bankroll a certainty we’re done here chaps. Well unless you need anymore feasibility studies on tidal geothermal hydrogen…..?
So is this proving that the chorus of “If we do the right thing the world will follow” is correct while simultaneously confirming that building these boondoggles was/is not the right thing?
How stupid can we get? Government needs to get out of the energy production and transmission business. They have already screwed us over bad enough.
In the US, Government shouldn’t be involved in business at all. They’re supposed to run government AND provide security – mainly a military. Post Office as a sideline, but the Constitution should be amended to do away with the latter IMHO.
The constitution gives the government permission to operate a post office. It doesn’t say that it has to. We don’t need to amend the constitution in order to get rid of the post office.
All we need to get rid of the Post Office is bill eliminating it. Amending the constitution is a lot harder.
There is a God. Thank you President Trump for stopping these insane windmills off shore. They are the most dumbass thought bubbles ever….
Headline: “Trump Breaking Wind on Leftists’ Schemes”