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Power United States Government The Almighty Buck

Trump Administration To Pay German Firm $1.2 Billion To Halt US Wind Projects (bbc.com) 40

Posted by BeauHD from the war-against-windmills dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: German energy company RWE has said it will abandon its offshore wind projects in the U.S. after reaching a $1.2 billion payout deal with President Donald Trump's Department of the Interior (DoI). RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, including $900 million in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Louisiana. "After careful consideration, it was determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the US for the foreseeable future," the company said in a statement.

RWE said it has agreed to relinquish its leases off the California and Louisiana coasts as well as in the New York Bight. Overall, the German firm plans to invest approximately $19.6 billion in the U.S. over the next six years "to grow its generation capacity." Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement posted on X that Americans deserve an energy system built on common sense and not one dependent on "costly subsidies." "We welcome RWE's agreement and voluntary investment in projects that strengthen our nation's energy security," he added. Earlier this year, the DOL reached a deal with TotalEnergies putting an end to the French company's offshore wind projects in the U.S. "Instead, the firm agreed to reroute investment to build a LNG plant in Texas and to develop 'upstream conventional oil' in the Gulf of Mexico," reports the BBC.

Another similar deal was signed with Charlotte-based Duke Energy last month to terminate the company's offshore wind lease in the Carolina Long Bay area.

Trump Administration To Pay German Firm $1.2 Billion To Halt US Wind Projects More | Reply

Trump Administration To Pay German Firm $1.2 Billion To Halt US Wind Projects

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  • Are you sure that's wise? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by jenningsthecat ( 1525947 ) on Friday August 07, 2026 @11:40PM (#66278480)

    ... the German firm plans to invest approximately $19.6 billion in the U.S. over the next six years "to grow its generation capacity."

    The US is sufficiently unstable that I would be very hesitant to invest large sums of money there. I realize that server farms built largely to service the AI bubble need LOTS of power. But even if the demand isn't a bubble, do you really want to be investing in a country which is making an enemy of pretty much all of the rest of the world?

    I think America is on very shaky ground now, and may not be nearly as far from "failed state" status as many people imagine it is.

  • FOR MAGA ONLY (Score:4, Insightful)

    by zeiche ( 81782 ) on Friday August 07, 2026 @11:47PM (#66278482)

    how, exactly, is spending over a billion dollars to halt a renewable energy project (literally free electricity after the project is paid up minus a little bit of maintenance) Making America Great Again? are you really concerned about the birds? really? what is the reason? do you even have one? or is this just “follow the leader” ? this is a legitimate question. i really want to know.

    • Re:FOR MAGA ONLY (Score:5, Insightful)

      by Anonymous Coward on Friday August 07, 2026 @11:52PM (#66278486)

      Give away a Billion dollars in taxpayer's money so he can pocket $100 Million in fossil fuel kick backs? He literally doesn't see a problem with this.

    • Re: (Score:3, Interesting)

      by Brain-Fu ( 1274756 )

      From what I just read on this, the whole "common sense" bit was the idea that wind power is not stable power. Power only comes when the wind blows. For an energy grid to be viable it needs a foundation in a more reliable power stream (hence fossil fuels) first, with wind on the periphery. I have no idea how much of an impact this really has, it's just the argument I read.

      Separately, that billion dollars was a refund. The company already paid US the billion dollars before to get leases on the land to bui

      • but then other laws essentially blocked their ability to actually build the wind power there

        "other laws" = Trump executive orders

      • Re: (Score:1)

        by drnb ( 2434720 )
        I’m not saying this reason applies here, but some projects are being reconsidered for military defense purposes. The projects provide a radar shadow that would allow an enemy to get closer before detection. The US military has raised such concerns for certain projects for many years. Some EU nations are also raising such concerns.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Offshore wind has a decent capacity factor, with show term variations smoothed out with batteries. In fact some of the North Sea turbines are rivalling French nuclear plants for capacity factor now, although that's more a statement on how old and unable to deal with heat the latter are.

    • how, exactly, is spending over a billion dollars to halt a renewable energy project (literally free electricity after the project is paid up minus a little bit of maintenance)

      Maintenance is not a minor cost. Especially so at sea. I have a local land based wind project that has been idle for many years. It was more costly than expected, including maintenance costs. It turns out the hardware did not have the expected longevity and reliability. And this is in a very pro-renewables state, California. If it could have been make viable it probably would have been. Other projects in the state have been commercially successful, and they too have significant ongoing maintenance costs.

    • This has nothing to do with rationality.
      Wind turbines have long been a hate object for Trump.
      He has claimed that they cause cancer and that they ruin the environment, etc.

      Meanwhile, despite being an intermittent source of energy, wind power in 2026
      is used in 138 countries and capacity increased by 40% worldwide last year.

    • how, exactly, is spending over a billion dollars to halt a renewable energy project ...Making America Great Again? ...

      Maybe it's to Make Germany Great Again? /s
      I'm sure that would track with this administration (*cough* Stephen Miller *cough*) and its supporters...

    • If you build wind generators, you also need to build storage or additional generation capacity. Donny is now forcing then to supply what is presently needed to support the grid.

  • This administration (Score:3, Insightful)

    by fredrated ( 639554 ) on Friday August 07, 2026 @11:54PM (#66278488) Journal

    is evil.

  • "Costly subsidies" (Score:3, Funny)

    by 93 Escort Wagon ( 326346 ) on Saturday August 08, 2026 @12:08AM (#66278496)

    Americans deserve an energy system built on common sense and not one dependent on "costly subsidies."

    Costly subsidies... like $1.2 billion?

  • RWE initially paid a total of approximately $1.26 billion for its U.S. offshore wind leases—$1.1 billion for its New York Bight lease in 2022 plus $163 million combined for California and Louisiana leases—before striking a $1.22 billion exit settlement with the U.S. government in August 2026 to relinquish them

    So put your pearls down, this just resets the clock. Or whina nad stamp your feet. No skin off my nose.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by Cyberax ( 705495 )

      So put your pearls down, this just resets the clock.

      How? The net result: we are $1.2B poorer. Are you doing accounting for DOGE?

    • Re: (Score:3)

      by nickovs ( 115935 )
      Right, because there was no value to the US in having $19.6 billion of inbound investment into US infrastructure, or in having another large scale source of energy at a time of rising energy demand. And there as clearly no value to the US in leaving that $1.2 billion in the treasury. We're clearly better off without it.

    • So put your pearls down, this just resets the clock.

      Hopefully that's also how you feel as well about the $100 billion in refunds of Trump's tariffs, which were ordered by the Supreme Court - not a problem, just resets the clock. But it certainly didn't seem to be how Trump felt about that.

  • Ideology vetos reality, news at 11.

  • Art of the DEAL, amirite? (Score:4, Informative)

    by haruchai ( 17472 ) on Saturday August 08, 2026 @01:18AM (#66278544)

    Cancellation payouts so far this year for wind projects and lease terminations:
    $1.2B to RWE AG
    $928M to TotalEnergies SE
    $900M to Golden State and Bluepoint
    $765M to Invenergy

    These deals of course were made very strongly,
    Could Sleepy Joe have done this?
    Of course not.

  • The question is, what is the value of wind generated power?

    The UK has real time and archived data available to anyone who really wants to answer this question. The data shows, in summary, that wind generated power is not the same as conventional or nuclear generated power. You can see it clearly here in graphical form ( and from other sources, (www.gridwatch.templar.co.uk for instance) there's the raw data available in csv format. Here's the graphical version:

    www.gridwatch.co.uk/wind

    What happens is that

  • He adjusts everything till it matches his plans. And I guess a main point of his plan is to get richer day by day.

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