The abiding question behind almost everything Donald Trump does is figuring out why he’s doing it. Is it a grift? Is it an ego-boost? Is it political skulduggery? Is it vengeance? Or is it a weird misfiring set of synapses?
That pertains to his long-held bizarro-world views of wind power — something that produces power vitally needed by the ever-growing grid in the US.
Sure, it could be a matter of Trump rewarding fossil fuel billionaires for their donations, tied to his steadfast climate denialism. It could be a grift, concern over “unsightly” wind farms damaging the views from places like his golf courses.
But the way he approaches it strikes me as odd, and something beyond that. Every now and again, Trump will repeat his baseless claim that wind turbines cause cancer. Never mind the occupational danger and environmental health issues around fossil fuels — something has lodged in his brain that paints wind power as some sort of existential danger.
And, perhaps in an effort to turn “green” folk against them, he constantly brings up mass bird kills (even though wind turbines kill fewer birds, in various ways, than fossil fuels do).
He also is convinced that wind farms are “losers” economically — even though is Department of Energy still has a page on how they are anything but.
At least for the moment, that page touts the positive benefits of jobs, renewable energy production, community benefits from taxes, and, ultimately, that “and-based, utility-scale wind turbines provide one of the lowest-priced energy sources available today.”
Not that Donald would ever let something like “facts” get in the way of something he’s decided is true. Admitting you were wrong is (from his point of view) for pussies.
Now, it’s easy to say, “Well, at worst, Trump is just delaying some of these projects by a few years.” But that assumes, first, that whoever comes behind him isn’t just as rabid on the topic as he is. Second, business demands stability in economics before they invest lots of money. The projects Donald is mid-stream canceling will cost many, many zeroes of lost money based on already-made investments. That sort of unstable business climate (“Can we afford to risk money in the US when in four years policy may swivel about 180 degrees”) means his actions will impact economic and clean energy production for a decade or more.
In short, he’s not only burning down these projects, he’s salting the earth so as to keep them from happening again, even after he’s gone.
Which, of course, can only hurt the US (and the world), but Donald doesn’t let that keep him up at night, as long as enough statues are erected to him in his lifetime.