From PBS NewsHour.
President Donald Trump renewed his criticism of renewable energy – specifically wind turbines – during his address Tuesday to the United Nations General Assembly.
“By the way, they’re a joke. They don’t work. They’re too expensive. They’re not strong enough to fire up the plants that you need to make your country great,” Trump said of renewable energy options.
He called wind turbines “so pathetic and so bad, so expensive to operate.” While the U.S. Department of Energy says that a wind turbine “will have high upfront costs,” it “typically pays for itself after a number of years.”
“You’re supposed to make money with energy, not lose money,” the president said.
The Department of Energy calls wind energy “a cornerstone of the nation’s power system, offering cost-competitive, emission-free and locally produced electricity across the country.” The agency says wind energy “helps the nation increase its competitiveness, diversify its energy supply, increase energy security and independence, reduce emissions of air pollutants, save water that would otherwise be used by thermal power generation, and provide affordable electricity across the country.”
Trump also falsely claimed that China builds wind farms, but does not use them in their own country. In fact, China outpaced all countries last year by installing wind and solar power at a pace that increased its production through those energy sources by 45 and 18 percent, respectively, compared to 2023.
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