A Powerful Essay On Renewable Energy Reminds Us How Witheringly Stupid The US Has Become

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Last Updated on: 31st July 2025, 12:38 pm

Actually, one does not need to read an entire essay of more than 5,000 words to be reminded, once again, of the blithering idiotic goo that represents itself as the Commander-in-Chief of the US. Just endure 10 seconds of President Donald Trump vomiting up word salad at a press conference or on social media, and that’s all you need to know. Still, the essay — by the well known climate activist and writer Bill McKibben — is worth a quick review, considering the latest White House blow against the nation’s vast renewable energy resources.

US Misses The Global Renewable Energy Point, Bigly

As a longtime and widely read author, climate journalist, and contributing editor to The New Yorker magazine, Bill McKibben sure knows how to make a point. In an essay posted by The New Yorker on July 9, he neatly sums up the renewable energy moment. Skipping over the Republican-driven war against the domestic wind and solar industries, he gets right to the meat of the technology-driven movement within the first 250 words.

“It took from the invention of the photovoltaic solar cell, in 1954, until 2022 for the world to install a terawatt of solar power; the second terawatt came just two years later, and the third will arrive either later this year or early next,” McKibben notes.

“That’s because people are now putting up a gigawatt’s worth of solar panels, the rough equivalent of the power generated by one coal-fired plant, every fifteen hours,” he adds, meaning not the old DIY solar panels of the 1970’s but the modern, mass-produced engineering marvels of today.

Solar Energy Is Not The Only Renewable Energy Game In Town (But It Almost Is)

Last week, CleanTechnica’s Steve Hanley highlighted some key renewable energy themes underscored by McKibben. You can also get more details in McKibben’s forthcoming book from which the essay is condensed. Look for Here Comes the Sun: A Last Chance for the Climate and a Fresh Chance for Civilization, available for pre-order at your local independent book store or through bookshop.org.

One key takeaway is that solar energy is just the tip of the renewable energy iceberg. Aside from the obvious example of biomass, McKibben points out that wind energy also derives from the sun. “Solar power is now growing faster than any power source in history, and it is closely followed by wind power — which is really another form of energy from the sun, since it is differential heating of the earth that produces the wind that turns the turbines.”

And, that’s where the White House has truly stepped in it again. While the US solar industry can muddle through the next 3.5 years on the strength of the rooftop solar market and utility-scale opportunities that are immune to federal boobytraps, the US wind industry is uniquely dependent on federal permits, particularly those needed to establish offshore wind farms.

White House Twists Knife Into The US Wind Industry, Deeply

The US offshore wind industry represents a domestic energy opportunity of historic proportions. With its long coastlines, energy-sucking coastal populations, and deep store of offshore infrastructure expertise in hand, the US is in a perfect position to push the renewable energy envelope.

Unfortunately, the shifting winds of state and federal renewable energy policy during the early 2000s put a damper on the sector. Things only started rolling during the first Trump administration (yes, the first Trump administration), when the Interior Department’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management cranked its lease-making process up to speed.

Last year, the National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a new wind market report, in which it noted that projects under development in the offshore sector alone grew 53% in 2023, collectively reaching 80.5 gigawatts when constructed.

Except, not. A tiny handful of projects managed to squeeze under the wire before Trump took office on January 20 and summarily shut down the federal offshore lease program.

“Three projects under construction in the Atlantic are expected to add 4.1 GW to the U.S. capacity,” NREL recounted, and that’s about it — if the developers are lucky.

In New Jersey, for example, the Atlantic Shores project gave up the ghost after its formerly issued “final” permit was revoked. The Trump administration also tried to kneecap the Empire Wind project in New York, only to capitulate after Democratic Governor Kathy Hochul voiced support for a new gas pipeline, and the Maryland Wind project is fighting for its life after the Trump administration challenged the state’s permitting process. Meanwhile, developers of the Vineyard Wind project in Massachusetts have gone underground, buffeted by a series of lawsuits.

Oddly, the White House has raised not a peep against the sprawling Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind project, perhaps out of respect for Republican Governor Greg Youngkin, who has enthusiastically endorsed the project. Just wait and see what happens after Election Day 2025. Youngkin is term-limited and if the new Republican candidate fails to win the office, a Democrat is all but certain to take the reins.

Renewable Energy Versus The Trump Chopper

In another sign that the Trump administration is hell-bent on blowing up domestic renewable energy opportunities, on July 29 Interior Secretary Doug Burgum announced a new Order aimed at obstructing both offshore and onshore wind energy projects subject to federal leases. The new directives are purportedly aimed at ending “special treatment for unreliable energy sources, such as wind.”

Where to begin? Wind power is weather-dependent, but that doesn’t make it “unreliable,” particularly in regards to offshore resources. Besides, as applied to renewable energy, the weather issue is a circumstance of 20th century technology. Here we are, fully 1/4 into the 21st century, with advanced energy storage and grid technologies that make wind and solar just as reliable as any other power generation resource.

Nevertheless, the Trump administration insists that we are still stuck in the 20th century. “Leveling the playing field in permitting supports energy development that’s reliable, affordable, and built to last,” Burgum asserts, reverting to the same old renewable energy canard from years past.

“The Order calls for identifying policies biased in favor of wind and solar energy and halting support for energy supply chains controlled by foreign rivals,” the Interior Department emphasizes, blithely skipping over the fact that foreign rivals — Shell, bp, and Equinor for example — control a goodly share of the oil and gas production on US turf.

To further drive the stupidity nail even deeper into the coffin of federal energy policy, the Interior Department also aims to re-, re-, and re-review established literature on the impact of wind turbines on migratory birds. Meanwhile, the Trump administration is determined to reverse a 2009 endangerment finding by the EPA, in which the agency determined that its pollution protection mission encompasses carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gas emissions.

So, for all you migratory birds, look out. No more greenhouse gas protections for you. From now on, you’re on your own.

What Is This Baseload Energy Bias Of Which You Speak?

To be clear, President Trump is not against all forms of renewable energy. He’s not even against renewable energy competing with fossil fuels. In addition to supporting nuclear energy, his whackadoodle “American Energy Dominance” policy covers biomass, hydropower, and geothermal.

The common denominator is “baseload” power generation, which refers to the ability of a facility to deliver a minimum floor of electricity on a 24/7 basis, regardless of the weather. The term is somewhat obsolete in the diversified power generation profile of today, where 21st century energy management technology, including energy storage as well as advanced grid systems, provides for reliability. In that context, the baseload bias against wind and solar is nothing more than that, an unsupported bias.

As for why Trump deploys the baseload bias to support other forms of renewable energy while excluding wind and solar, drop a note in the comment thread if you have any thoughts on that. For the record, my guess is that solar energy drew the short straw simply because it serves to promote the false logic of the baseload bias, helping to mask Trump’s longstanding and highly personal vendetta against wind turbines. However, that’s just a guess. After all, it would be unthinkable for personal vendettas to supersede the public welfare in a functioning democracy…oh, wait…

Photo: US President Donald Trump doesn’t seek to throttle back on all forms of renewable energy development in the US, just wind and solar energy with a particularly energetic bias against offshore wind (courtesy of NREL).