Trump's Department Of Energy Apparently Has Never Heard Of Batteries For Clean Energy

If you take Trump's Department of Energy at face
value, then they apparently are unaware of the
concept of batteries. 

 Let's check in with those electricity generating wizards at the U.S. Department of Energy, shall we?

They had this to say on X

"Wind and solar energy infrastructure is essentially worthless when it's dark outside, and the wind is not blowing."

Hoo boy. 

Could it be that the fine Trumpian folks at DOE have never heard of this nifty gadget called a battery?

They're amazing! The sun's out, and the wind is blowing and all those solar panels and wind turbines charge up those nifty batteries. 

Then the sun goes down and the wind goes calm, and those batteries supply electricity until the wind blows and the sun shines again. 

Those DOE guys and gals should check those batteries out! 

I'm sure DOE loved the community post on the X pointing out batteries exist in the real world, if not in the MAGA atmosphere.

 The comments on that @Energy post are pretty withering, as you can imagine. The first comment I saw when I last looked at it came from Josh Morgerman (@icylcone) who wrote, "This is quite possibly the stupidest tweet I've ever seen from any government account, in any country, anywhere on Earth."

Can't argue with that! 

California Gov. Gavin Newsom as he does so much, couldn't resist the urge to troll DOE, and by its extension Energy Secretary Chris Wright. Newsom's staff posted the following on X: "We're excited for the Trump administration to learn about BATTERIES(we have them here in California and they've helped the Golden State shift to green, clean energy AND keep the lights on)."

Even Elon Musk weighed in, pointing out the availability of batteries. His response to the @Energy tweet was "Um....hello?"

Then again, a some named Emily on X (Emnode) wrote "It's crazy how much money Elon Musk spent to buy the United States government and leave us with a Department of Energy that doesn't know batteries exist."

By the way, people use electricity during the day,  believe it or not, so those solar panels come in handy on sunny days, with or without batteries.  And, believe it or not, the wind sometimes blows at night. 

Of course, we actually doubt the people at the Department of Energy are as stupid as they pretend to be.  (Quite an aspiration, pretending to be as stupid as Lauren Boebert).

We're picking on Wright and his department for stupidity, but they know what they're doing. I'm quite sure they are aware batteries exist. OK, I hope they really understand batteries exist. 

This ignorant posting is all about a larger Trump administration effort to spread misinformation. And to turn the public away from clean energy. 

After all, the official Trump position is that climate change is - against all evidence - a hoax and therefore clean energy is verboten. 

There's a percentage of Americans who don't understand solar and wind power and how they relate to batteries, so Wright is appealing to that base,

What the Department of Energy and its Secretary Wright and his Department of Energy is doing is blasting misinformation to convince people who don't have a lot of knowledge about clean energy.

For the rest of us, the misinformation is meant to make the rest of us mistrust solar and wind power. They hope enough to turn the majority of the public against it, so that climate changing fossil fuel will reign supreme. 

Wright, after all, is the former CEO of two former fossil fuel companies, specializing in shale gas and oil.   

 I don't have a problem with people questioning the efficacy of solar and wind power. As long as the questioning is based on reality and facts. Questioning anything when it's based on facts is a great way to make things better, no matter what you're talking about. 

But as climate change continues to take its worsening toll, we'd better be promoting and improving clean energy. Trump and his minions live in the 1950s, when we didn't know much about fossil fuel and how they contribute to climate change. 

Good changes happen as society learns more information.  The Trump administration, and people who work for him, are trying to take information away from the public. Because it benefits them, and to hell with everyone else.  

Trump Continues To Rage Against Wind And Solar Power With Lies

Donald Trump ramped up his hatred of wind turbines
and solar power this week, which is bad news both
for climate change and an increasingly
serious electricity shortfall. 

 So we had this bit of tedium recently from Donald Trump via his ironically named social media site Truth Social:  

"Any State that has built or relied on WINDMILLS and SOLAR for power are seeing RECORD BREAKING INCREASES IN ELECTRICITY AND ENEGY COSTS. THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!  We will not approve wind or farmer destroying Solar. The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!! MAGA." 

As usual, I don't even know where to begin with this train wreck/word salad.  But he clearly keeps ranting about wind turbines and solar installations. When he fixates on something, he doesn't let go. Usually for irrational reasons. 

One theory is that the wind turbines  Scotland installed offshore of Trump's golf course are ugly, at least to him, so therefore, all windmills around the world must go.

Or something like that. 

This latest screed came after the Trump administration announced Wednesday that going forward, he will not approve solar and wind power projects. 

Additionally, Agriculture Secretary Brook Rollins said Monday that his department would rescind "all programs building solar panels on our farmland." 

Also this week, the Trump administration launched a national security probe into imported wind turbines and their components. This seems to be a prelude to big tariffs on wind energy. 

The administration, in typical fashion, does not give us reasons or evidence behind the probe. But as The Hill tells us, they're looking at the role of foreign supply chains, the affects foreign government subsidies and predatory trade practices. That sounds like economics, not national security, but who knows?

The Trump people said they are also checking into whether there's an ability to weaponize foreign-built wind turbines.  I'm not sure what that is. Maybe they think China can launch nuclear warheads or some damn thing from turbines installed near Sioux City, Iowa or something?

Spoiler: They can't. But who knows whether there's some other security risk. Again, we haven't been given any evidence so far. don't have evidence of that. 

THE NEED

Solar and wind power are great for combating climate change as an alternative to fossil fuel. But there's also a more immediate need for these sources of electricity. 

Electricity demand is outpacing supply in some parts as the United States, as CNBC reports. 

Electricity costs have gone up for many American consumers, but experts are saying that's mostly because of growing demand from data centers and related industries.

Per USA Today:  

"'We need to build more power generation now, and that includes renewable energy. The U.S. will need roughly 118 gigawatts (the equivalent of 12 New York Cities) of new power generation in the next four years to prevent price spikes and potential shortages,' said Ray Long, CEO of the American Council on Renewable Energy. Only a limited set of technologies - solar, wind, batteries and some natural gas - can be built at that scale in that frame."

Solar, wind and battery storage would ease the electricity shortage due to AI and expanded data centers the quickest, because you get them up and running pretty quickly. Solar and wind comprise most of the projects in line to connect to the grid. 

So, what Trump is doing is actually driving up the cost of we'll pay for electricity more. You know, supply and demand. Less supply, the price goes up. 

He's also creating a danger of electricity shortages, perhaps doing yet another thing to turn us into a third world country by causing blackouts to power the grid.  And if one part of the grid goes, it can cause an imbalance that can cause the whole thing to go dark. 

That's obviously a worse-case scenario, but since Trump is so cavalier about everything else, he also wouldn't care if all us serfs freeze in the dark.