The Trump administration announced it will pay nearly $1 billion to French energy giant TotalEnergies in exchange for the company abandoning plans to build offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean and instead pursue fossil fuel projects in the US.
The current administration has thrown up roadblocks at every turn for offshore wind projects; a type of energy that President Donald Trump has personally reviled for years. After trying and failing to block construction on more mature projects, this announcement is the first sign of a new strategy: The federal government is paying to stop wind farms before they begin.
We’re kind of not at all having an energy emergency, actually. Most states have pretty diverse energy generation portfolios, so electricity costs are not as responsive to global oil prices as e.g. gasoline for cars. The reality is there’s already tons of wind and solar online, and that’s going to continue even if Trump tries to stop projects on federally controlled land