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On a visit to Italy this week, Energy Secretary Chris Wright, a former gas executive, took pains to celebrate the Trump administration’s rejection of renewable energy. Europe has a different view of abundant energy — to these policymakers, renewables provide independence from the delicate dance of negotiating for fossil fuels. European leaders are also looking ahead to the consequences of climate change: they’re doing all they can to reduce greenhouse gas emissions 55% by 2030 and eliminate them by 2050.
Meanwhile, Wright referred to the European approach as succumbing to “climate ideology.” As a result, and to soothe US–European relations, the EU has offered a bribe to purchase $750 billion of US energy, mostly oil and gas, over the course of President’s Trump’s term in office.
Wright is insidious in his focus on dismantling clean energy. He chose authors to write a July report suppressing the effects of global warming. In the introduction, Wright commented, “What I’ve found is that media coverage often distorts the science. Many people walk away with a view of climate change that is exaggerated or incomplete.” Zeke Hausfather, a climate scientist at Berkeley Earth and the payments company Stripe, told the New York Times that the document is a “scattershot collection of oft-debunked skeptic claims” that “are not representative of broader climate science research findings.”
This week, the US Energy Department disbanded the research group behind the controversial climate report.
Trump 2.0 is in the midst of a war on climate change research, which parallels goals of fossil fuel companies. Yet more US homes and businesses are getting their power from renewable sources than ever before — and in greater amounts. In June, almost one-quarter of US power generation was sourced from renewables, up from 18% in the year-earlier period, according to data analyzed from the US Energy Information Administration.
Kyle Stock notes on Bloomberg that the recent growth in renewables usage is almost certainly tied to investments made prior to Trump’s election in November. He adds that, “for utilities and folks operating the nation’s power grids, the wave of green energy couldn’t come at a better time because volatile weather, electric vehicles and a rash of AI-focused data centers are all driving up demand.”
Despite the Trump administration’s intransigence, renewables remain the most cost-competitive form of new-build generation — even on an unsubsidized basis. As such, renewable energy will continue to play a key role in the buildout of new power generation in the US, even as Trump attempts to destroy the industry.
Paul Krugman reminded us this week of the many economic miracles Trump insisted he would achieve as president. “Starting on day one, we will end inflation,” Trump pledged. “We will be slashing energy and electricity prices by half within 12 months, at a maximum 18 months.” He assured his followers he would reduce gasoline below $2 a gallon. And, of course, he insisted that he would deliver a jobs boom, especially in manufacturing.
None of that has happened, even as more reports point out the negative effect on energy abundance that comes with a reliance on fossil fuels. Trump’s perspective about fossil fuel-based US energy is flawed.
Offshore wind obstacles. The Trump administration ordered crews to stop working on the Revolution Wind project off the coast of Rhode Island where 45 of 65 planned turbines have already been installed, a directive that it now has to defend in court. MA Governor Maura Healey has joined with four neighboring governors to demand that planned developments move forward.
“We reaffirm our unwavering support for working people and the unions that represent them. We stand with America’s workers and strongly urge the Trump Administration to keep these projects on track,” Healey, New York Governor Kathy Hochul, Connecticut Governor Ned Lamont, Rhode Island Governor Dan McKee, and New Jersey Governor Phil Murphy said in a joint statement.
Individual energy giants are to blame for most greenhouse gas emissions. Around one-quarter of the heatwaves recorded between 2000 and 2023 can be directly linked to greenhouse-gas emissions from individual energy giants. Of the 213 heatwaves recorded, the emissions linked to energy companies and other major carbon emitters increased the likelihood of some 53 by a median factor of more than 10,000. The findings could provide fresh evidence to support lawsuits seeking to hold companies accountable for their impacts on the climate. “We absolutely can allocate blame, and we absolutely should,” says climate scientist Karsten Haustein.
Energy density a new requirement for renewables. On August 1, Interior Secretary Doug Burgum released an order to optimize the use of lands under its direct management — i.e., federal lands — by considering, “when reviewing a proposed energy project under the National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA), a reasonable range of alternatives that includes projects with capacity densities meeting or exceeding that of the proposed project.” This order and others like it from the Trump administration give “rise to the question on whether the use of Federal lands for any wind and solar projects is consistent with the law, given these projects’ encumbrance on other land uses, as well as their disproportionate land use when reasonable project alternatives with higher capacity densities are technically and economically feasible.”
Translation? The Trumpies have found one more way to marginalize renewable energy. As Kathiann Kowalski reports on Canary Media, this order fails to address environmental and health concerns about mining for coal or uranium, drilling for oil and gas, or transporting and burning those fuels. “Waste disposal, particularly for coal and nuclear plants, also poses a challenge.”
Fracking wastewater. Oil and gas wastewater, a toxic byproduct of the fracking process, has become a difficult topic for the fracking industry. Often contaminated with carcinogens like benzene and arsenic, the water that flows back up from extraction wells is expensive to store, hard to reuse, extremely brackish, and has caused countless headaches for both industry and nearby residents. Fracking sites produce billions of gallons of this “produced water” a year, and yet a safe method of disposal remains elusive.
“Oil and gas development uses huge volumes of water,” Michael Freeman, a senior attorney in Earthjustice’s Rocky Mountain office, told Oil and Gas Watch. “In the era of climate change and water scarcity, we need to conserve this resource.” Freeman said if drilling is going to occur, then oil and gas companies should be required to recycle their wastewater.
Final Thoughts about Trump’s “Abundant Energy”
“The winner for the most disreputable industry is Big Oil,” Robert Reich, the former Secretary of Labor, wrote in a recent Substack.
“Bad enough it’s despoiling our planet — making life miserable for hundreds of millions of people, and literally threatening human life as we know it. It’s also corrupting our democracy — using its profits to bribe people in high places, such as you-know-who. It’s at the center of an ecological and political doom loop.”
With the cost to pump in addition to the subsidies paid to fossil fuel companies, Big Oil dually profits on consumers.
Reich adds in a vision of how this Big Oil dominance scenario can change with our help.
“We need to keep fighting to get big money out of politics so we can reduce Big Oil’s influence on our democracy. And we need to advocate for our taxpayer dollars to be spent on programs that actually deliver for people — like investing in clean energy that reduces our energy bills, and protects the environment. This is the future we deserve. When (and if) we’re back in power, Big Oil will pay the price.”
Photo of Narragansett Bay, Rhode Island, energy sites by Carolyn Fortuna/CleanTechnica.
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