Americans Rejoice after Trump Admin Pulls Plug on Behemoth Rhode Island Offshore Wind Project
Meanwhile, Rhode Island leaders slammed the Trump administration’s decision to halt Revolution Wind.
Legal Insurrection has been following the complaints and valid concerns raised by local residents, area fishermen, and environmentalists about the giant offshore wind projects that have emerged in recent years, all of which were supported by massive tax breaks and grants from Biden’s ‘Green New Deal.’
Residents objected to the visual impact of turbines, cited concerns over property values, and complained about noise and changes to the local seascape (especially in the wake of the Vineyard Wind incident).
Fishermen warned about the potential loss of fishing grounds, the disruption of fish habitats, and difficulties navigating safely within and around turbine arrays. They feared impacts to fish populations due to noise, surveys, and construction. They also argued that substantial portions of valuable fishing areas may become inaccessible, threatening their livelihoods.
Environmentalists regularly complain about threats to marine biodiversity, such as risks to birds, marine mammals, and ocean ecosystems during both construction and operation.
Add to this mix the increasing doubt about the promises made by wind energy developers regarding environmental benefits and job creation. And given the likely escalation in electricity prices in Blue States pushing the “Net-Zero” inanity, this skepticism will likely increase exponentially.
However, the Biden administration, Blue State politicians, and climate activists ignored the complaints, the protests, and the findings that challenged the idea that the windfarms were “environmentally friendly.” They persisted in building and funding.
This steamrolling completely ended with President Donald Trump, who recently posted that he was essentially going to put a stake in the heart of the wind and solar energy industries.
The Deal That Wasn't Green
Old Joe rolled out a mighty plan,
To “save the earth,” he'd say he can.
With windmills high and taxes new,
A Green New Deal for me and you.But Trump came back with booming cheer,
“Those turbines? Folks, they’re killing deer!
And solar’s fine, but… pic.twitter.com/fwDxD2uiSz— Leslie Eastman ☥ (@Mutnodjmet) August 23, 2025
Following this Truth Social chestnut, the Trump administration has ordered a halt to the construction of the Revolution Wind project, a major offshore wind farm located off the coast of Rhode Island. This stop-work order came despite the project being about 80% complete, with 45 out of 65 turbines already installed and significant investment already made.
Matthew Giacona, the acting director of the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management, issued a letter on Friday to Orsted, the Danish company building the wind farm, ordering it to “halt all ongoing activities” because of unspecified issues.
“In particular, BOEM is seeking to address concerns related to the protection of national security interests in the United States,” Mr. Giacona wrote, adding that Orsted “may not resume activities” until the agency has completed a review of the project.
…In a statement, Orsted said that it was “evaluating all options to resolve the matter expeditiously,” including “potential legal proceedings.” The company said it still aimed to complete the project by next year.
Last week, Orsted said that it needed to raise an additional $9.4 billion to shore up its finances as it attempted to complete both Revolution Wind and Sunrise Wind, another large offshore wind project near Long Island, while contending with an industry downturn that has been exacerbated by President Trump’s opposition to wind farms.
BREAKING: Trump administration halts all work on Revolution Wind project off the coast of RI and MA, southwest of Martha’s Vineyard citing the OCS Lands Act. #mapoli #offshorewind #GreenEnergy pic.twitter.com/PFeckLXsce
— JohnFGately (@johnfgately) August 22, 2025
Rhode Island’s Democratic politicians are unhappy:
In a statement, Gov. Dan McKee (D-RI) calls the decision to halt the project a big blow to hundreds of thousands of Rhode Islanders who could have gotten power from the project, saying:
The Trump administration’s stop-work order on Revolution Wind undermines efforts to expand our energy supply, lower costs for families and businesses, and strengthen regional reliability. This action puts hundreds of union jobs at risk by halting a project that is 80% complete—just steps away from powering more than 350,000 homes in Rhode Island and Connecticut. At a time when we should be moving forward with solutions for energy, jobs, and affordability, the Trump administration is choosing delay and disruption. We are working with our partners in Connecticut to pursue every avenue to reverse this decision. Revolution Wind is key to Rhode Island’s economic development, energy security, and long-term affordability for our residents.
However, many Americans (especially in Rhode Island and Connecticut) are happy. And many want all the rest of these monstrosities halted as well.
Now order it to be disassembled!! @realDonaldTrump
— Annie F. (@PamelaSpeaksNow) August 23, 2025
Big offshore wind news: the Trump administration has halted construction on Revolution Wind: pic.twitter.com/JXXflPd03J
— Nantucket Current (@ACKCurrent) August 22, 2025
Great news!
Trump halts Revolution Wind project that’s nearly complete off the Rhode Island shore | AP News https://t.co/RJFybmMGtD— Donald Morgan (@dmorgan1773) August 23, 2025
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Comments
I’m not rejoicing. Wind and solar are now capable of competing with fossil fuels on cost and emissions. We need more of these energy sources not less.
Electricity prices are going to increase because of AI’s (and crypto’s) tremendous demand. 2% of our income goes to our electricity bills. Trump is going to make it 3%.
This is dumb.
No matter how low the establishment cost goes, wind and solar can NEVER be capable of competing with fossil fuels, because so-called “renewables” are intrinsically intermittent and must be backstopped by excess fossil-fuel generation to provide reliable power. As graphically illustrated in Spain not long ago.
The fact that you even use the word “emissions” in these discussion identifies your POV unscientific.
No, they aren’t and they never were.
Wind and solar DO NOT WORK AT SCALE. They can only safely provide a SMALL percentage of total power generation of a grid, and they REQUIRE full backup from fossil fuels because big shocker, they generate wildly different amounts of power based on the environment.
And oh by the way, they COST more ’emissions’ to manufacture them than they can possibly save in their entire lifetimes, so that crap is just a lie.
The only game in town to actually replace fossil fuels is nuclear.
“Wind and solar are now capable of competing with fossil fuels on cost and emissions.”
Assuming this is true (and I don’t think it is), wind and solar cannot compete with the reliability of fossil fuels. What if the sun doesn’t shine, and the wind doesn’t blow? The grid issues in Texas should have served as a warning to those touting solar and wind as reliable replacements for fossil fuels. I guess you didn’t get the memo.
Olinser in his comment makes the right call: the power source of the future should be nuclear. It’s clean, reliable, and scalable. In fact, Google and Kairos Power are looking to build an advanced nuclear plant in Oak Ridge TN to power Google data centers.
The only thing here that’s dumb is the substance of your post.
I hate to pile on, but you are very, very mistaken. There are many very detailed analyses on why wind is not cost effective and a poor solution, but a good starting place is here: https://unpopular-truth.com/2025/02/21/where-the-wind-blows/
Moreover, as an engineer I find it amazing that people are advocating for an energy system that is located in the ocean. You would be hard pressed to find a worse environment for mechanical systems. We have deep sea drilling platforms, but those are manned and constantly maintained. Ocean vessels are under constant maintenance. It is no different, and perhaps worse, for a wind turbine. Just because the turbine blades don’t rust doesn’t mitigate the corrosive effects of salt and wind (Yes, wind) on the turbine and mechanical subsystems. In other words, their real world capacity factors will be even worse than land-based.
The only good source of energy is one that produces power essentially 24/7/365 regardless of the weather or if it’s daytime or night.
Do you honestly think wind/solar will provide the power required for AI, crypto, server farms, and so on? Do you honest think that power will be 24/7 reliable?
You DO understand what happened in Texas a couple of winters ago, right?
First cost. What metric do you use to compare wind turbine energy to (say) combined cycle gas turbine (CCGT)? Many energy economists use LCOE (levelized cost of electricity). Look up the formulas and assumptions behind LCOE. Lazard dot com has done LCOE for wind turbines vs CCGT, and wind turbine does come in cheaper, but there many parameters (like interest rates and the cost of capital) that change from year to year. In my opinion, most energy economists lack the knowledge of physics needed to tell the whole story. Most alternative energy sources do not produce dispatchable energy. What happens when the wind dies down for a long time? Exactly this happened in Europe well before the recent problem in Spain. Wind fields exhibit spatial correlation (look up Kriging to go into the theory). So you can’t rely on active wind all the time and everywhere (temporal and spatial correlation). Moreover the wind can blow too hard and the turbine shuts down. So you need something like CCGT as a backup and I don’t see that cost factored into LCOE.
There are other non-quantifiable costs to wind turbines: aesthetics, acoustics, land use, bird harm … not reflected in LCOE.
All that being said I have my own critique of alternative energy which I hope to bring out in a book. Put simply: pipes vs wires. Once you generate energy you have to get it to the end user. Do you transfer as chemical energy as a fluid (like oil) in a pipe, or as electrical energy by wire. Small digression. Where is the energy in wire transmission? Not in the wires! In the electromagnetic field between the wires. I don’t think many economists know Poynting’s theorem which shows you where the energy is flowing. Big deal. Electrical transmission can’t compete with fluid transmission. The Alaska pipeline, (four foot diameter) when operating at full capacity delivers 17 times the all the electrical energy consumed in New York City. Pipes vs wires. The US is riddled with pipelines carrying energy in chemical form as a fluid flow. We really can’t replace all those pipes with wires because of cost and land use. Transmission is the Achilles heel of alternative energy.
Wow! You drank the whole gallon of Kool-Aid!!!
Stupid take. AI companies are looking to nuclear. Solar and Wind have to either be backed by large expensive explosive battery farms or fossil fuel sources because they are unreliable, They are also environmentally unsound to produce, increase reliance on china, unsightly, require lots of acreages, have short lifespans, and a problem recycling. Wind farms off NE have shown themselves to be a hazard as well.
I guess genius didn’t read about the Google plan for a mini reactor.
My Massachusetts electric bill MANDATES that 61% of my electricity needs come from so called renewable (HYPER expensive) sources like your crappy wind. My kWhr rate rose 28% this year due to this mandate.
Go pound sand.
Wind and solar do not now nor will they ever “compete” with fossil fuel generation on cost and energy production. If they could they would not need massive tax payer subsidies to survive.
Don’t stop the work already completed. BUT, remove the federal taxpayer support… subsidies, tax breaks, etc. State support may continue in our federal system. If the project is worthy, it will stand on it’s own economics. “No Green Scams”
Agree. Might as well use what’s already built instead of tearing it down (Shoreham, anyone?), but not replace anything that gets damaged or worn out.
Those wind turbines are killing a lot of sealife and birds in unsustainable numbers. When a beach is full of bodies of sealife washing up there is something very wrong.
Force the power companies to remove their green subsidies. My power costs have increased with a portion put toward green energy.
Yes. The windmills that are built are there so let the state use them but remove any and all federal support. Let’s see if they can provide any reliable electricity at current market rates. I have my doubts.
I’d like to see whose (which politicians) pocketbook benefitted
Ask Shelly Whitehouse. This was his baby.
His wife is definitely involved.
I’d like to see investigations into kickbacks to dramacrat politicians from green companies receiving government contracts or subsidies.
I HIER U LIEK KEYSTONE PIPLINE
SO WE PUT SUM KEYSTONE PIPLINE IN YUR WIND FARM
SO U KNOW WHAT IT’S LIEK
while youre in that neighborhood
stop the obama era ..”zipcodes cant stop you from living where you want” agenda as multifamily “affordable housing” is taking over neighborhoods that are meant to be single family as the agenda of giving to those that havent earned their keep…giving them YOUR KEEP
“stop the obama era ..”zipcodes cant stop you from living where you want”
Right — only from going to school where you want.
GREAT NEWS!!
Even better news will be when theyre ordered to remove those wind generators and the fish habitat destroying stantions supporting them.
I don’t know what can be done with the huge, unrecyclable, composite blades but the important thing is to get them out of the water so we can get at the bases.
.
Maybe we can make a big pile of blades in Delaware somewhere until the geniuses figure this problem out.
Replace the classified ballast beside Joe’s Corvette.
Bring back impalement and apply it to all who promoted these wind farms using the blades of course.
Pile them up along the southern border.
“We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar.”
I dearly await the small child predestined to cry out:
“The Emperor has no punctuation!”
Geez, I wish Trump would learn to write.
And if you think Trump does it for any reason other than to further irritate the Left into mindless grammar-and-punctuation rage… think further.
How about the government getting out of subsidizing established technologies such as solar and wind turbines or mandating their use? If these technologies are all that the proponents say they are, then we should see the market react accordingly. I am more that a bit skeptical that, without subsidies or use mandates, solar and wind will be economically competitive with hydro, gas, or nuclear.
RI is tiny state. Their entire coastline could be potentially decimated by one wind turbine project. The environmental impact of these projects is not “neutral”.
PA has enough natural gas to supply nearby markets if they stop blocking pipeline construction.