Why does Donald Trump hate wind turbines?

BBC News

6 days ago

"I am the evidence," was the eyebrow-raising comment made by Donald Trump when he appeared before the Scottish Parliament in 2012.He was speaking as an "expert" witness on green energy targets, describing how he believed wind turbines were damaging tourism in Scotland. Five years before he first became US president, it was one of his earliest interventions on renewable energy - but since then his opposition to them has grown to become government policy in the world's biggest economy.He was objecting to 11 turbines which were planned - and ultimately constructed - alongside his Aberdeenshire golf course.On his latest visit to Scotland, he described those turbines as "some of the ugliest you've ever seen".
When Trump bought the Menie estate, about eight miles north of Aberdeen, in 2006, he promised to create the "world's greatest" golf course. But he soon became infuriated at plans to construct an offshore wind farm nearby, arguing that the "windmills" - as he prefers to call the structures - would ruin the view. The Aberdeen Bay Wind Farm contained the world's most powerful turbines when they were built in 2018.They generate enough electricity to supply up to 80,000 homes but the wind farm was also built as a test and demonstration facility for new technology.Trump battled the plans through the Scottish courts, then appealed to the UK's Supreme Court - but he was unable to stop the "monsters" from going ahead.It clearly left him smarting and he's not had a good word to say about wind power since.Before making the transatlantic crossing for his Scottish summer jaunt, the US president urged the UK to "get rid of the windmills and bring back the oil".He repeated his animosity on the tarmac of Glasgow Prestwick Airport, saying they were "ruining" Europe's fields and valleys.
For clarity, there are no windmills in the North Sea. Windmills mill grain into flour. What he's seeing are wind turbines.But making them sound like centuries old technology is a way to deride their worth.Getting rid of them - or even stopping more being built - would be at a huge cost to the economy.An initiative to lease the seabed around Scotland's coasts, called ScotWind, gave initial backing to 17 new wind farms - which has now been expanded to 20.Between them, they're expected to bring in about £30bn of investment over the next decade.Currently onshore projects produce about four times as much power as offshore ones, but it's the latter which are expected to grow most rapidly in the coming decades.
The Scottish government is currently consulting on plans to increase offshore generation capacity by 40GW by 2040, enough to power 45 million homes. The growing renewables sector already supports about 42,000 jobs in Scotland while oil and gas supports 84,000, according to the their respective industry bodies.But while the renewables jobs are going up, the workforce built on fossil fuels has long been falling.The North Sea oil boom peaked in 1999 which means output has been in decline for a quarter of a century.That's not because of any government policy; that decline has been witnessed by three Labour prime ministers and five from the Conservatives.It's because of geology. Put simply, the oil is running out.
The mature nature of the North Sea basin has not put off the president from talking up its future.From his Aberdeenshire course, he posted on Truth Social (with his trademark capital letters) that the UK should "incentivize the drillers, FAST", and that there was "VAST FORTUNE TO BE MADE" for the UK from the "treasure chest" of oil.Trump has criticised the UK's taxes on oil and gas production which sees a headline rate of 78% when you include the temporary "windfall" tax, in force until 2030.But that's the same rate levied by Norway, which shares the North Sea with the UK - although the industry here argues other Norwegian allowances are more generous.Tax rates for oil and gas production in the US are much lower – with a 21% federal tax and generous tax breaks, although some state or local taxes are also levied. Trump's "One Big Beautiful Bill", meanwhile, removes incentives for renewable energy projects.
Is Trump right when he says wind farms are killing birds?
The president has also expressed great concern for the impact of wind farms on birds which, he says, they are killing.With the prime minister by his side, he told a news conference at his Turnberry golf course that shooting a bald eagle in the US could result in five years' imprisonment but the windfarms are "killing hundreds."He added: "They kill all your birds."While there is limited solid research into the impact of wind turbines on birds, a significant two-year study was carried out on the very site in Aberdeenshire which Donald Trump tried to block.Cameras were attached to the towers which detected and tracked birds passing through the site and, according to the developers, it didn't record a single bird strike.The research was carried out with the British Trust for Ornithology but further research is being undertaken across the globe to better understand how the birds respond to the blades.Whatever its outcomes, it's unlikely to change the president's mind that wind is a "very expensive, very ugly energy".