WIND POWER UPDATE—INCLUDING QUESTIONS OF TRUMP’S MENTAL ACUITY PART 1

THE GUARDIAN REPORTS “TRUMP Appears to Tie High Bacon Prices to ‘Horrible’ Wind Energy,” August 30, 2024. Anna Betts writes, “Donald Trump revived questions about his mental acuity after appearing to say that wind energy was to blame for the increased price and decreased consumption of bacon. The former president’s bizarre remarks came at a town hall-style campaign gathering in Wisconsin on Thursday, when an audience member asked the Republican nominee for November’s White House election what he would do to help bring inflation down.”

Image from “More (Clean) Energy to Ya.”

Trump might have recognized when in Wisconsin that four nearby midwestern states as well as Oklahoma already have wind power as their top source of electricity. 

No, actually he was doubling down on a previous misstatement about wind power; this one, fact-checked by CNN that “Trump Claims Windmill Farms are Driving Whales ‘crazy.’ ” 

And, more recently, The Guardian reported on May 13, 2024, “Trump Pledges to Scrap Offshore Wind Projects on ‘Day One’ of Presidency.” 

Keeping Trump’s animosity/ignorance of wind power in mind for November 5, let’s provide an update on the concept gleaned from rather more authoritative sources: the U.S. Energy Information Administration, the U.S. Department of Energy, Spectrum News NY 1, MIT News, and AAAS Science.

These sources were so fruitful that gleanings yielded Parts 1 and 2 today and tomorrow. 

Wind’s Electrical Generation. The U.S. Energy Information Administration recounts, “Total annual U.S. electricity generation from wind energy increased from about 6 billion kilowatthours (kWh) in 2000 to about 434 billion kWh in 2022. In 2022, wind turbines were the source of about 10.3% of total U.S. utility-scale electricity generation.”

Image from the e.i.a.

Added on August 24, 2023, “The U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) today released three annual reports showing that wind power continues to be one of the fastest growing and lowest cost sources of electricity in America and is poised for rapid growth. According to the new reports, wind power accounted for 22% of new electricity capacity installed in the United States in 2022, second only to solar, representing $12 billion in capital investment, and employing more than 125,000 Americans.”

Tomorrow in Part 2, we’ll learn about longevity of wind turbines, their current and proposed recyclability, and their future designs. (No more politics until the very end.) ds

© Dennis Simanaitis, SimanaitisSays.com, 2021