Trump said wind power is for ‘stupid people.’ Five days later, European countries agreed to build one of the planet’s biggest wind farms in the North Sea
https://edition.cnn.com/2026/02/19/climate/trump-wind-europe-clean-energy-independenceOpen linkView original on feddit.org
71 replies
I'm 99% sure trump is against wind because Scotland built some near his golf course and he, once again, decided to be an absolute toddler about it
https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
Honestly if he wasn't such an all-round, existential threat to humanity, you'd almost have to be impressed with how far he has managed to get powered by pure spite.
No. The far right and the fossil fuel industry have entered a deadly symbiosis. The far right wants to undo democracy. The fossil fuel industry wants to continue to make profits, even at the cost of millions of lives. Because climate change is a deadly risk to our civilization, they can't do that in a democracy. And that's why they did become allies to undo democracy, and why people like the Koch Brothers, Robert Mercer, UK's Nigel Farage, and Steve Bannon do work together. Or why for example Germany's AfD is working together with both Trump and Putin, or Austrian right-wing people were caught on videos discussing campaigns with Russians.
and because renewables just don't give the same guaranteed profit level as fossil fuels.
Renewables are also more decentralised or at least they can be.
There's also a huge barrier to entry in fossil fuels, since the existing industry owns the oil wells and refineries.
Any dumb asshole can just go build a wind turbine.
... so it IS for stupid people! (/s, obvs)
And the patents you need to license to build them.
Well, patents only last for 20 years. I'm sure they have newer processes that have been patented in the last 20 years, but I'm also sure that they are using refineries more than 20 years old.
No, I don't believe this had anything at all to do with trump's personal hatred for wind. Why? Your argument makes sense, and that jackass is dumber than a pile of shit.
Well partially it's because of that, but also because he's taking a lot of kickbacks from the fossil fuel industry who are desperate to stay relevant, the irony of course is that because he doesn't know what he's doing he's gone started a war with a petro state that has reduced global supply by 25% and increase the likelihood of people moving over to wind turbines and solar panels for power and electric vehicles for transport.
Generally, rich a-holes don't like wind because it disturbes the view from their properties. Really selfish and dumb, of course.
This, unfortunately, is not just a rich people thing. Normal people opposes wind mills all the time because of the view. Source: I’m from Denmark and many wind mill projects never startes because of this.
Depends on your definition of rich, I suppose. Here in Sweden it's mainly upper middle class conservative voters that whines about this.
It's not that simple. The US produces more oil than ever, other oil production is suffering (in Venezuela, Russia, Iran, other Middle Eastern countries). Trump wants the US to replace them despite not having enough and the right refinery capacity).
When is he going to sabotage Norway?
He just needs to finance a big ad campaign and most of Norway will be on board with almost anything. There are "traditions" here based on ad campaigns, it would be funny if it wouldn't be so stupid
Like a red and white "Santa Claus"? Giving diamonds upon engagement for marriage? Chocolate eggs at Easter?
Mate, it's universal.
More like having tacos on Fridays, reading crime stories for easter, eating (crappy) frozen pizza for christmas, ...
You see not wrong though, it's frustrating..
It's weird though that he kept on going with this particular vendetta. Usually, he forgets everything after three minutes, unless he perceived it as a personal insult. But what insult could wind farms possibly have lobbed his way?
I oppose calling him a "mob boss". That assumes he makes decisions on his own, and I don't think there is any evidence of that right niw.
Sadly, it is not. The disturbances to oceanic life are too big. We should build them on land only.
One has to see that in proportion. Oceans that are several degrees warmer due to greenhouse emissions would for sure mean a sixth mass extinction of life on Earth.
That’s a much reduced statement. Construction noise is indeed a massive disturbance, which is why there’s a lot of efforts on mitigation it. Once the plant is running, however, it has been observed to work as an artificial reef increasing the local populations. To increase the effect there’s some work on adding boulders in between the monopiles. Another reason is that power boats are (depends on country) often forbidden to enter which actually reduces the noise disturbance within the area. There’s also effects on some species (lower trophic levels) due to the local reduction in wind speed in the wake which modifies the amount of mixing in the surface. That is, however, an active field of research. Long story short: fields of wind power plants are depending on the current life stage a disturbance but have in some sites been observed to be the opposite once operating. A conclusion to only build them on land could hardly be drawn at this time.
I hope you are right
Okay then, I don't hope he's right 😑
There is a lot of acoustic mitigation in place nowadays when using monopiles. And the easy locations are taken, so other foundation types (jacket platforms, floating wind turbines) are also in play. Grand generalizations like "we should build them on land only" sort of fall apart in the real world.
There are also wave power devices like the Pelamis wave energy converter, which have a high potential and make a lot of sense in Eoropean countries with ocean coasts, like France, Portugal, the UK, Ireland and Scotland, and Norway. In the case of the Pelamis Wave Energy Converter, E.ON, a fossil energy company, has killed the project, but apparently the Chinese are continuing to work on it.
Wind power on see has vastly better energy reliability.
What do you prefer instead? Burning biomass, heavy use of mining for massively larger battery facilities, very destructive water reservoires with pumping stations, building large overcapacities of wind power on land, or even burning fossile fuels? Some other option?
Please tell us your choice.
Burning human corpses on the street, per my original proposal 👍
Yes cute “let’s melt billionaires” we all agree
That doesn’t feed society though. It removes a lot of barriers sure but the runoff alone will kill sea life
He's still salty of the time a wind farm was built next to one of his golf courses. No, seriously.
Shame he doesnt play mini golf. Windmills are standard in them.
It would be more suitable to his skill level...
Lol imagine the cheating.🤣
"107 under par, I'm the best at golf! Thank you for your attention to this matter."
And yet his war on iran has now driven everyone to maximize efforts on alternative energy sources.
Keep it going dumb-ass. Dispite all your efforts you might -indirectly- become the greenest president anywhere ever.
He also said China doesn’t have any
I think its kinda dumb to relate irl to games, but any good civ leader knows you decommission your coal, oil, and nuclear facilities as soon as you get solar and wind tech. Lest the oceans rise and ruin coastal economies. But I just play games, I don't lead the free world.
I used to keep those going to drown cities when I knew mine were safe...
Right, his revenge vendetta against... the wind.
I don't remember what the fuck that's about: Is that one of the important ones that we need to keep track of like how he fucks little kids or wants to invade Canada, or is that one just background noise that can be safely ignored like how he pretends to be tall or how he wants to fuck his own daughter?
God, I'm so tired...
It's literally about how Scotland refused to tear down the wind farm that was off the coast of his golf course there. He said it ruined the view.
So because of that: no new wind power in the US.
Isn't it awesome having to live according to the whims of a malignant narcissist who acts like a fucking 6 year old?
Only smart people here, that's nice.
Well, when the world's most obviously idiotic leader calls someone or something "stupid", those people or things should bear serious consideration
only reaction to anything that pissface says should just be SHUT UP. Complete excommunication.
Denmark is big on wind power, and its extra windy these days, so electricity is basically free right now. But yeah, such a hoax. /s
Well, as a general rule of thumb, if Orange Hitler says one thing, then the opposite of that is the right choice. So in a way, what he's saying can be interpreted as a recommendation (only) if you invert the meaning of his whole expression.
Could anyone explain to me how Trump is able to tell people wind and solar are more dangerous than coal and oil and they believe him? Shouldn’t a 5th grader be able to know the difference?
I've had the displeasure of taking to MAGA people. They are indeed dumber than a fifth grader.
5th graders don't write the economic policy for a whole country...
i mean the pulsing shadow from wind that one hour a day can get pretty annoying and you might have to buy a blackout curtain. maybe two!
Donald Quixote
Quite quixotic
Petroleum parrot wants a cracker
Does this orange baby need to be mentioned in every post in this sub?
Trump is a reverse indicator so yeah this checks
Trump has said a lot of dumb things. Among some of the dumbest are the suggestion of shining UV lights inside the body or injecting bleach to cure COVID (this one's a two-fer) and the suggestion that windmills cause cancer.
I just hope it has some defense around it
It looks like those wind generators are anchored somewhere below the surface which makes sense. Could you attach something along the shaft that will rise and fall with the surface level to also help generate power? I know ive seen theoretical machines that can harness waves for energy and it seems like you could combine these two methods into one apparatus
Of course you could, but the energy math only really makes sense if you scale it up.
Most tidal energy projects involve damming a bay or reservoir and extracting energy with turbines as water flows in or out due to the tides.
I wonder if you could make a grid in 3 dimensions that could harvest energy as the nodes change position relative to each other, almost like a piezoelectric system on a macro scale edit: i'm kinda stoned so the ideas are flowing freely lol
Not on earth, but there are certain orbits of Jupiter where it would work like gangbusters!
I was actually thinking about something like that recently. I read a book by Peter Hamilton that had biomechanoid space ships incubating in jovian orbit because of the radiation, and then the other day there was an article somewhere about (potentially) radiotrophic fungi in the chernobyl exclusion zone and I was thinking you could line a spacecraft/station with that stuff. I guess it's no surprise that melanin is just stupid good at absorbing ionizing radiation since that's what is has evolved to do
where is the wind turbine and tidal energy generator ??
I bet it's possible but I wonder how much more complex the engineering would have to be to account for that and financials
Yeah, things usually turn out that way. It seems like it a good idea but id bet the efficiency would be low enough that it would be better to just have separate machines. Maybe if you scale it up enough it would be worthwhile
Just wait until fuel prices hit 10 or 15 dollars. At that point, basically free electricity starts looking rather tempting...
Please explain how electricity helps with fuel prices.
There are some indirekt, but significant points.
some more links, partially a lot more direct:
If you need less oil to produce electricity...