For almost a decade, President Trump has promised to “dominate energy.” This is a vaguely fascinating slogan that suggests a world in which America is king. A world where other countries rely on us on their power and ensure economic prosperity in the form of domestic work, cheap gasoline and low electricity bills.
The problem is that it’s a breathtaking lie.
As recent events have become abundantly clear, Trump and his allies don’t care about energy control. They are interested in killing renewable energy and supporting the profits of fossil fuel companies. Even if that means higher electricity costs. Even if it means destroying American jobs. Even if that means giving away the future to China.
They’re all happening. “Energy Domination” was, like the Democrats, a terrifyingly effective propaganda campaign that called for a robust response from the renewable energy industry, and we barely met at the moment. Instead, Solar and Wind businesses pushed Trump’s messaging rules that day, weakly at best to compete for slices of “energy domination” pie that were never theirs.
It’s time for them to start regaining their punches.
For solar farms, wind turbines and electric vehicles, in a year-long attack on clean power, including Trump’s “one big beautiful bill,” there’s nothing better than the efforts to block several large clean energy projects, including at least one that’s under construction.
Last month, the Trump administration ordered the Danish company to a wind revolution, a $4 billion floating wind farm located in waters off the coast of Rhode Island. Judges that can move the job – New England victory sets up payment on a higher utility bill, and if the project is not done online, there is a higher risk of a power outage.
And last month, Trump’s Secretary of Home Affairs Doug Burgham approved approval for Lava Ridge, the Biden administration’s Idaho wind project. Previously, he halted the construction of imperial winds from the New York coast and changed courses only after Governor Kathy Hochul to approve two gas pipelines. Burgum’s agency last week asked the judges to cancel their offshore wind farm approval.
Trump’s hatred of wind turbines goes back to him in the mid-2010s, derailing offshore wind farms that he said would ruin the views from Scotland’s golf resorts. But he and his accomplices are also attacking the solar industry.
Trump’s appointees have made it difficult for solar and wind companies to qualify for tax credits before they expire, and are seeking renewable energy projects on public and private lands. The USDA is a program that provides financial support to farmers who want to reduce their energy bills by installing solar panels.
“The era of stupidity is over in America!!” Trump in August.
When climate-friendly energy is stupid, America’s biggest energy companies are pretty stupid. Solar panels, wind turbines and batteries made up last year are trends driven by the fact that there is solar and wind. Even in Texas.
So how did Trump and his friends justify their attack on clean energy?
Mainly by lying.
In a social media post in August, Trump allegedly relied on wind and solar power, saying that he “sees record-breaking increases in electricity and energy costs.”
That’s wrong. Californians pay high electricity bills, but states with equally climate-friendly power sources enjoy some of the cheapest electricity in the country.
Meanwhile, energy secretary Chris Wright said that in the presence of batteries, solar panels and wind turbines are essentially “less worth” when the sun doesn’t shine and the wind is not blowing.
Lights are all engaged. Global warming is realistic, but claiming the outcome is not so bad, and argues that eliminating oil and gas is actually more harmful than replacing it with clean energy. Don’t worry about bigger wildfires, harsher droughts, deadly heat waves, rising oceans, deadly air pollution…
To support his lies, Wright has carefully selected five infamous opposition researchers who have produced a report questioning decades of well-established climate science. Many major experts.
“The rise of human prosperity over the past two centuries is a story worth celebrating,” Wright said alongside the report. “But it is said that the very energy systems that have made this progress possible will pose an existential threat.”
Oil, gas and coal have actually helped to build today’s society. And now we know that if they continue to use society for too long, they will pose an existential threat to society.
This is not a difficult story for renewable energy companies to communicate. At least one European generator is doing well.
For Swedish energy company Wattenfall, actor Samuel L. Jackson stands on a bluff on the edge of the gorgeous sea. He looks out over the water, where the wind turbine spins gently in the distance.
“Mother – Wind Farm. Noisy, ugly, harmful to nature. Who will say that?” Jackson asks, shaking his head. “These giants are taller against fossil fuels. They rise from the ocean like their middle finger and are CO2.”
Catchphrase: “We work for fossil freedom.”
You will have a hard time finding such a punchy and provocative message from the US clean energy industry.
When the Trump administration last month said it was making it difficult for solar and wind projects to qualify for federal tax credits, for example, Abigail Ross Hopper, president of the Solar Energy Industry ASSN. – The Trump administration is “really taking it on how to stop political games, stop punishing businesses, and actually build the strength they need now to meet demand and stay competitive.”
Similarly, when federal officials halted their work on the winds of revolution, America’s Clean Power Asun. Chief Executive Jason Gourmett: “A broken promise to the communities, workers, consumers and businesses that rely on this project.”
“It’s not leadership to take jobs from American families while raising the energy bill,” Gourmet said.
From what I’ve seen, what underlies the overall playbook of both Missive and industry is the assumption that clean energy companies deal with normal, sincere government. Trump and the company are not just trying to own Libs and line up their pockets. That they really care about “control of energy.”
It’s time for the solar and wind executives to stop pleasing with Maga Republicans and telling Americans the real story. Its clean energy is as cheap, healthy and reliable as fossil fuels. That’s China, and we need to catch up badly. They don’t need coal, they don’t always need oil and gas, and “energy domination” is a lie intended to benefit a few at the expense of many.
That strategy probably won’t pay off in the short term. But in the long run, I will do nothing else.
