Donald Trump's remarks buffet an already reeling wind energy industry
A wind turbine at the South Fork Wind Farm in the Atlantic Ocean in December 2023. Credit: Newsday/Steve Pfost
The U.S. wind energy industry, still reeling after a year of costly retrenchment, is facing severe new headwinds from Washington as a second Trump administration prepares for office, with potential ramifications for New York State and Long Island.
Whether the anti-wind power rhetoric from President-elect Donald Trump is enough to stall projects already underway, or nix ones teed up for federal approval, remains to be seen. New York and other states are already building projects and new ones could be announced as soon as this week. New York proposes getting all of its power from wind and other non-emission sources by 2040.
Trump, in an hourlong briefing from Mar-a-Lago in Florida last week, derided wind-energy turbines as little more than "garbage in a field," while vowing to undo recently enacted oil and gas offshore drilling bans. Trump also said he’d end electric-car mandates and even denounced electric heat while promoting "clean natural gas" as "much better heat ... you don’t itch."
Trump called wind power the "most expensive energy ever," said the industry exists chiefly to enrich its developers with government subsidies and vowed to act quickly to stop future development.
"We’re going to try to have a policy where no windmills are being built," he said, calling them an environmental "disaster" that are "driving the whales crazy."
Offshore wind proponents say such projects are urgently needed to counteract worsening climate impacts, arguing high development costs are offset by health and climate benefits. Opponents point to visual impacts, loss of commercial fishing grounds and potential effects on electric rates and sea mammals.
If the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry was already experiencing severe growing pains after more than a year of canceled projects, massive cost overruns and corporate retrenchings, Trump’s comments threw into doubt the prospect that projects seeking federal permits would sail through the approval process as they have under President Joe Biden.
At a speech on Long Island Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul noted New York has the largest federally sited offshore wind facility in the United States, with the 12-turbine, LIPA-contracted South Fork Wind farm, and said, "We're just getting started."
Asked in an interview how Trump's opposition to wind could set back the state's vision for 9,000-megwatts of wind by 2035, Hochul said she was "happy to have a conversation with the Trump administration, especially with the [future] head of the EPA being from Long Island," in former Rep. Lee Zeldin. Hochul said Zeldin, of Shirley, "should be a great champion because he knows there's tens of thousands of jobs that would be at risk" were offshore wind to be stalled or stopped.
Even before Trump's recent comments, one offshore wind developer that had proposed a project for deep waters between the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey paused it, citing "uncertainty" after Trump’s election. That project, called Attentive Energy 1, had proposed a cable through Long Island Sound and into a planned green-energy hub at the Ravenswood power station in Queens.
"Once again Donald Trump is asking the wrong questions and offering the wrong solutions," said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups in support of clean-energy initiatives. He was referring to Trump’s unfilled promise to revive the coal industry. "He can’t stop the wind industry, but he certainly can damage it."
New York, which has 130 megawatts of offshore wind powering the Long Island grid, and dozens of land-based turbine arrays upstate, has a goal of 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035, with new projects that will need many federal permits expected to be announced as soon as this month. Only three New York projects have all their federal permits.
Construction crews with Haugland Energy have been at work for months building a 17.5-mile, land-based cable for a project known as Sunrise Wind that will make landfall at Smith Point, with plans to power up in 2026.
Asked for a response to Trump’s comments, Denmark-based Orsted, through a spokeswoman, would only say, "Sunrise is under construction and we will continue to advance the project."
Orsted has had to take some $5 billion in impairment charges for U.S. offshore wind projects and cancel two in New Jersey.
The Empire Wind project, with 54 turbines to be located 14 miles from Long Beach, has already begun work on the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal landing site, employing about 1,000 workers, developer Equinor said. The company recently announced the project will cost more than $7 billion to construct — including more than $2 billion in federal tax credits — and that offshore construction will start installing 54 monopiles driven into the seabed sometime in the April-June period.
Equinor said it expects to "farm down" in the Empire project at some future juncture, saying it is "actively working to bring in a new partner" for the project, which parted ways with former partner BP last year.
The project in August received a "no hazard to air navigation" determination from the FAA for a turbine at the southwestern edge of the array, the final needed federal approval. The project expects to begin full commercial operation in 2027.
But some are hoping to stop it. A national day of action against offshore wind is planned by the activist group Protect Our Coast Long Island on Jan. 18. The theme for the protest, which includes a march across the Long Beach bridge, is "End It!"
Whether Trump’s vow to enact policies to block wind energy can prevent state plans to power the grid with wind energy over the next two decades remains to be seen.
The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, which is administering offshore wind projects in the state, in a carefully worded statement said it’s "too early to determine how the incoming [Trump] administration will affect the growing offshore wind industry."
The statement noted Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind are already being built, and that New York has worked under "different administrations at the federal level, adapting to shifting policies and priorities, and our mission remains as steadfast today as it was five decades ago."
All forms of wind energy, including the South Fork project, compose about 8.94% of the state’s energy mix this month, according to the webpage of the state grid manager NYISO. Hydroelectric is 17.97%, natural gas 20.44% and nuclear 16.96%. Wind turbines produce more in winter than summer.
In the case of Attentive Energy 1, planned for the waters off Long Island and New Jersey, principal investor TotalEnergies cited uncertainties around Trump’s reelection in announcing it would pause a project that had been submitted as part of the latest New York wind solicitation in 2023, Bloomberg reported. Paris-based TotalEnergies, a gas and oil giant, had planned a project with Rise Light & Power, which owns the Ravenswood power plant and facility in Queens, and Corio Generation.
Clint Plummer, chief executive of Rise Light & Power, in a December interview, said despite the comments from Trump, the offshore wind industry has accomplished enough over the past decade to keep already federally permitted projects active, while future arrays may take longer to build.
"The industry in the U.S. is going to wait and see what happens with the Trump administration, but my personal view is that ... even if there are no further permits issued for the next several years, there’s still a huge pipeline of federally permitted offshore wind projects out there," said Plummer, who helped develop the nation’s first offshore wind farm for LIPA. "I think it will take longer for the rest of the pipeline of projects to be developed, [though] at some point I think they will be developed."
With James T. Madore
Editor's note -- An earlier version of this story misidentified Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance.
The U.S. wind energy industry, still reeling after a year of costly retrenchment, is facing severe new headwinds from Washington as a second Trump administration prepares for office, with potential ramifications for New York State and Long Island.
Whether the anti-wind power rhetoric from President-elect Donald Trump is enough to stall projects already underway, or nix ones teed up for federal approval, remains to be seen. New York and other states are already building projects and new ones could be announced as soon as this week. New York proposes getting all of its power from wind and other non-emission sources by 2040.
Trump, in an hourlong briefing from Mar-a-Lago in Florida last week, derided wind-energy turbines as little more than "garbage in a field," while vowing to undo recently enacted oil and gas offshore drilling bans. Trump also said he’d end electric-car mandates and even denounced electric heat while promoting "clean natural gas" as "much better heat ... you don’t itch."
Trump called wind power the "most expensive energy ever," said the industry exists chiefly to enrich its developers with government subsidies and vowed to act quickly to stop future development.
WHAT NEWSDAY FOUND
- The U.S. wind energy industry is facing severe new headwinds from Washington as a second Trump administration prepares for office, with potential ramifications for New York State and Long Island.
- New York proposes getting all of its power from wind and other non-emission sources by 2040.
- All forms of wind energy, including the South Fork project, compose about 8.94% of the state’s energy mix this month, according to the webpage of the state grid manager NYISO.
"We’re going to try to have a policy where no windmills are being built," he said, calling them an environmental "disaster" that are "driving the whales crazy."
Offshore wind proponents say such projects are urgently needed to counteract worsening climate impacts, arguing high development costs are offset by health and climate benefits. Opponents point to visual impacts, loss of commercial fishing grounds and potential effects on electric rates and sea mammals.
If the nascent U.S. offshore wind industry was already experiencing severe growing pains after more than a year of canceled projects, massive cost overruns and corporate retrenchings, Trump’s comments threw into doubt the prospect that projects seeking federal permits would sail through the approval process as they have under President Joe Biden.
New York's plans
At a speech on Long Island Friday, Gov. Kathy Hochul noted New York has the largest federally sited offshore wind facility in the United States, with the 12-turbine, LIPA-contracted South Fork Wind farm, and said, "We're just getting started."
Asked in an interview how Trump's opposition to wind could set back the state's vision for 9,000-megwatts of wind by 2035, Hochul said she was "happy to have a conversation with the Trump administration, especially with the [future] head of the EPA being from Long Island," in former Rep. Lee Zeldin. Hochul said Zeldin, of Shirley, "should be a great champion because he knows there's tens of thousands of jobs that would be at risk" were offshore wind to be stalled or stopped.
Even before Trump's recent comments, one offshore wind developer that had proposed a project for deep waters between the coasts of Long Island and New Jersey paused it, citing "uncertainty" after Trump’s election. That project, called Attentive Energy 1, had proposed a cable through Long Island Sound and into a planned green-energy hub at the Ravenswood power station in Queens.
"Once again Donald Trump is asking the wrong questions and offering the wrong solutions," said Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance, a coalition of labor and environmental groups in support of clean-energy initiatives. He was referring to Trump’s unfilled promise to revive the coal industry. "He can’t stop the wind industry, but he certainly can damage it."
New York, which has 130 megawatts of offshore wind powering the Long Island grid, and dozens of land-based turbine arrays upstate, has a goal of 9,000 megawatts of offshore wind by 2035, with new projects that will need many federal permits expected to be announced as soon as this month. Only three New York projects have all their federal permits.
Projects underway
Construction crews with Haugland Energy have been at work for months building a 17.5-mile, land-based cable for a project known as Sunrise Wind that will make landfall at Smith Point, with plans to power up in 2026.
Asked for a response to Trump’s comments, Denmark-based Orsted, through a spokeswoman, would only say, "Sunrise is under construction and we will continue to advance the project."
Orsted has had to take some $5 billion in impairment charges for U.S. offshore wind projects and cancel two in New Jersey.
The Empire Wind project, with 54 turbines to be located 14 miles from Long Beach, has already begun work on the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal landing site, employing about 1,000 workers, developer Equinor said. The company recently announced the project will cost more than $7 billion to construct — including more than $2 billion in federal tax credits — and that offshore construction will start installing 54 monopiles driven into the seabed sometime in the April-June period.
Equinor said it expects to "farm down" in the Empire project at some future juncture, saying it is "actively working to bring in a new partner" for the project, which parted ways with former partner BP last year.
The project in August received a "no hazard to air navigation" determination from the FAA for a turbine at the southwestern edge of the array, the final needed federal approval. The project expects to begin full commercial operation in 2027.
But some are hoping to stop it. A national day of action against offshore wind is planned by the activist group Protect Our Coast Long Island on Jan. 18. The theme for the protest, which includes a march across the Long Beach bridge, is "End It!"
Whether Trump’s vow to enact policies to block wind energy can prevent state plans to power the grid with wind energy over the next two decades remains to be seen.
The New York State Energy Research & Development Authority, which is administering offshore wind projects in the state, in a carefully worded statement said it’s "too early to determine how the incoming [Trump] administration will affect the growing offshore wind industry."
The statement noted Sunrise Wind and Empire Wind are already being built, and that New York has worked under "different administrations at the federal level, adapting to shifting policies and priorities, and our mission remains as steadfast today as it was five decades ago."
Looking to future
All forms of wind energy, including the South Fork project, compose about 8.94% of the state’s energy mix this month, according to the webpage of the state grid manager NYISO. Hydroelectric is 17.97%, natural gas 20.44% and nuclear 16.96%. Wind turbines produce more in winter than summer.
In the case of Attentive Energy 1, planned for the waters off Long Island and New Jersey, principal investor TotalEnergies cited uncertainties around Trump’s reelection in announcing it would pause a project that had been submitted as part of the latest New York wind solicitation in 2023, Bloomberg reported. Paris-based TotalEnergies, a gas and oil giant, had planned a project with Rise Light & Power, which owns the Ravenswood power plant and facility in Queens, and Corio Generation.
Clint Plummer, chief executive of Rise Light & Power, in a December interview, said despite the comments from Trump, the offshore wind industry has accomplished enough over the past decade to keep already federally permitted projects active, while future arrays may take longer to build.
"The industry in the U.S. is going to wait and see what happens with the Trump administration, but my personal view is that ... even if there are no further permits issued for the next several years, there’s still a huge pipeline of federally permitted offshore wind projects out there," said Plummer, who helped develop the nation’s first offshore wind farm for LIPA. "I think it will take longer for the rest of the pipeline of projects to be developed, [though] at some point I think they will be developed."
With James T. Madore
Editor's note -- An earlier version of this story misidentified Jason Walsh, executive director of the BlueGreen Alliance.
Mark Harrington, a Newsday reporter since 1999, covers energy, wineries, Indian affairs and fisheries.
Updated 2 minutes ago Increase in bird strikes ... Trump economic effect on LI ... School bond package rejected ... Fitness Fix: Sauna sessions
Updated 2 minutes ago Increase in bird strikes ... Trump economic effect on LI ... School bond package rejected ... Fitness Fix: Sauna sessions
