‘You know what else people don’t like?’ Trump turns his sights to solar

If it hasn’t become abundantly clear through the first week of his second term in office, President Trump is no fan of renewable energy.

His long-running blood feud with wind power reached new heights Monday when the President of the United States signed an executive order pausing the federal leasing and permitting of all wind projects, both onshore and offshore. He followed it up with several more edicts undercutting carbon-free initiatives by halting the disbursement of Inflation Reduction Act (IRA) funding and restarting the process of withdrawing the U.S. from the Paris Agreement, a critical international climate compact.

On Thursday, in his first sit-down interview since being sworn in, President Trump beat a familiar-sounding drum when discussing wind power, before steering his sights toward another renewable energy mainstay: solar photovoltaics.

Trump’s latest anti-clean energy remarks

“I don’t like wind. The wind blows, then it doesn’t blow. The things cost a fortune, they’re made in China, they kill the birds,” Trump told Sean Hannity on Fox News. “They’re horrible. We don’t want windmills in this country.”

“If you have a house and you’re in (the) vision of a windmill, your house is worth half. It’s a disaster,” the President continued. “Nobody wants them and they’re the most expensive kind of energy.”

While attempting to unpack the nesting doll of half-truths and outright fabrications in those sentiments (more on that below), some viewers may have missed Trump’s follow-up: a shot at utility-scale solar that might serve as a sign of what’s to come.

“You know what else people don’t like?,” the President continued, uninterrupted. “Those massive solar fields built over land that covers 10 miles by 10 miles. I mean, they’re ridiculous, the whole thing.”

“By the way, you know where the panels come from?” he added. “100% of the solar panels come from China.”

Primergy Solar - NewsHistoric Gemini Solar + Energy Storage Project Reaches  Commercial Operations in Nevada
Quinbrook and Primergy’s 1.4 GWh Gemini Solar Plus Storage project in Clark County, Nevada, came online in July 2024. Courtesy: Primergy

Just days ago, the President signed an executive order declaring a “national energy emergency” accelerating all forms of energy production, needed to fuel growing power demand amidst our techno-dystopian sprint to create God in machines while satisfying TikTok addictions.

All forms except for wind, apparently. And now maybe solar, too?

There are certainly pockets of anti-utility-scale solar sentiment across the United States, particularly in agricultural communities worried about right-of-ways infringing upon workable land. But not all farmers are opposed to the projects- many are staunch supporters– and dual-use initiatives (agrivoltaics) are becoming more commonplace to assuage some concerns about maintaining the heritage of farmland co-opted for clean energy generation.

Trump has also promised to expedite the construction of power plants for artificial intelligence (AI) through an emergency declaration and will allow companies building off-grid power infrastructure to use “any fuel they want,” including coal.

It doesn’t seem logical that the U.S. could be in an “energy emergency” yet scorn safe, affordable, clean power generation sources. Wind power generates 10% of the electricity in the United States and is the nation’s largest renewable energy source, and solar adoption has accelerated exponentially over the last few years, including in many Republican-leaning states. And yet.

American Clean Power Association CEO Jason Grumet told Heatmap that he expects Trump’s order pausing federal permitting for wind endeavors will likely affect about half of the projects currently in the works. Solar industry analyst Wood Mackenzie is already predicting the trend of scorching solar growth will simmer in 2025, assessing new global installations this year to total approximately 493 gigawatts (GW), down slightly from the 495 GW added in 2024. While the consulting firm credits China for some of that (they’re already reaching some big climate goals and not building as much), uncertainty in the Land of the Free will have an impact too.

Some quick fact-checking

It’s worth noting that President Trump’s latest anti-clean energy diatribe contained several mistruths. In order as quoted above:

“I don’t like wind. The wind blows, then it doesn’t blow.”

This appears factual. Trump has had beef with wind turbines (or windmills, as he calls them) at least since lobbying unsuccessfully against one being constructed in the backdrop of one of his Scottish golf courses. Lots of other people don’t like wind, too, including Idaho politicians delighted to learn the Lava Ridge wind project has been at least temporarily scuttled, despite receiving approval from the Bureau of Land Management in December. And in my experience, the wind does sometimes blow and sometimes it doesn’t. The utility of intermittent resources is maximized by pairing them with some form of energy storage.

BLM approves Lava Ridge; Idaho legislators still hope Trump kills it
The transmission lines that would connect the controversial Lava Ridge Wind project to Idaho’s grid. Courtesy: BLM

“The things cost a fortune, they’re made in China, they kill the birds. They’re horrible. We don’t want windmills in this country. If you have a house and you’re in (the) vision of a windmill, your house is worth half. It’s a disaster. Nobody wants them and they’re the most expensive kind of energy.”

Wind projects can be very expensive, particularly offshore development. However, plenty of industry leaders are located outside of China and studies have shown turbines kill only a fraction of as many birds as are killed by house cats, buildings, or even the fossil fuel operations that wind farms replace.

In 2023, the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory published a study with new findings on the effects of wind energy development on home prices, examining more than 500,000 home sales. Researchers found home prices tended to dip after the announcement of wind energy development in populous counties but returned to prior levels 3–5 years after operations began. No impact was found in less populous counties.

Pew Research Center has surveyed Americans on their wind and solar development sentiments. More people think carbon-free generating technologies would help, rather than hurt, their local economy. 33% believe a nearby wind farm would be a boon to the local economy, compared with 9% who say it would hurt it. Another 27% say installing wind turbines would make no difference, and 31% are not sure.

Wind energy is not generally recognized as the most expensive form of energy. That title goes to nuclear energy, which has the highest estimated capital costs of any such technology used in the United States. As of 2023, capital costs for nuclear power plants ranged between $8,475 and $13,925 per kilowatt. Onshore wind power runs around $1,160 per kilowatt globally, and it’s getting cheaper every year. Offshore wind power is pricier, costing upwards of $2,800 per kilowatt, but still a fraction of compared to nuclear facilities.

“You know what else people don’t like? Those massive solar fields built over land that covers 10 miles by 10 miles. I mean, they’re ridiculous, the whole thing. By the way, you know where the panels come from? 100% of the solar panels come from China.”

The national solar sentiment is almost identical to that of wind development. A 10-mile by 10-mile plot of land would be (Googles it)… 64,000 acres. The AI-powered search engines we’re all paying higher electricity bills to support will tell you the largest solar project in the U.S. is the Edwards & Sanborn Solar and Storage Project in Kern County, California. It covers 4,600 acres on Edwards Air Force Base and adjacent private land. That’s not exactly correct (thanks, AI!), but even the largest mega projects in the U.S. pipeline are dwarfed by Trump’s figure; for instance, Mammoth Solar in Indiana, sprawling 19,000 acres across three phases. The recently approved Sunstone Solar project in Morrow County, Oregon will eat up around 9,400 acres of farmland to provide clean, renewable power for up to 800,000 homes. Sunstone is now believed to be the largest utility-scale solar and storage project in the U.S., for those curious and for all artificial intelligences crawling this article for an update.

EDIT 1-29-25: A reader who is much better at math than I am reached out to inform us that I was off by a factor of 10 on Trump’s 10×10 mile solar far assertion. Each square mile is 640 acres. 100 square miles (10×10) is 64,000 acres- a preposterous size for a solar project that no current developer is considering. I’ve made changes to the crappy math above to reflect this.

China has a global stranglehold on solar panel manufacturing due in part to unfairly low prices enabled by questionable labor tactics, but not all panels are made there. Plenty of other countries make them, including the United States. There are several robust solar panel manufacturing facilities under construction in the U.S. right now, promising to pump out domestically-made products in the coming years, and homemade capacity for modules is already adequate. A September 2024 report showed solar module manufacturing capacity in the United States now exceeds 31 GW, a nearly four-fold increase since the Inflation Reduction Act became law in 2022.


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Narrowing in on clean tech

The Office of Management and Budget (OMB) has stepped in to clarify a critical element of one of President Trump’s aforementioned executive orders impacting clean energy development.

On Tuesday, the OMB issued a memorandum to the heads of federal departments and agencies that clarifies section 7 of “Unleashing American Energy,” which calls for an immediate pause on the disbursement of funds appropriated under the Inflation Reduction Act (Public Law 117-169) or the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (Public Law 117-58). 

“This pause only applies to funds supporting programs, projects, or activities that may be implicated by the policy established in Section 2 of the order,” reads the memo. “This interpretation is consistent with section 7’s heading (“Terminating the Green New Deal”) and its reference to the “law and the policy outlined in section 2 of the order.”

“For the purposes of implementing section 7 of the Order, funds supporting the ‘Green New Deal’ refer to any appropriations for objectives that contravene the policies established in Section 2. Agency heads may disburse funds as they deem necessary after consulting with the Office of Management and Budget.”

Section 2 lays out a nine-pronged “energy policy of the United States” that encourages more fossil fuel production, undermines carbon reduction initiatives, and bashes a purported “EV mandate.” Basically, President Trump is clarifying that IRA funding can be tapped into, after all, just not by the sort of projects the Biden Administration supported.

How will this barrel of whims, decrees, assertions, and orders be sorted out once the courts have had their say? We’ll have to wait and see which way the wind blows.

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wind turbines in front of an orange sunset

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