Former US President Donald Trump has claimed on the campaign trail for his re-election bid that a power grid based on wind power will see TVs cut out if the wind is not blowing.
Speaking at a campaign rally in Iowa on Saturday, Trump said that oil and gas is “real energy” as opposed to “intermittent wind.”
“‘Darling, I would like to watch the President on television tonight. Honey, I don’t think we’ll be able to, the wind is not blowing.’”
“So crazy,” he said. “Most expensive energy there is.”
In fact, the International Renewable Energy Agency recently reported that the global weighted price of onshore wind was $0.033/kWh last year, “slightly less than half that of the cheapest fossil fuel-fired option.”
Recharge reported earlier this year how voters in Republican-leaning areas in the Midwest and South have been among the biggest beneficiaries of the incentives poured into the US green economy under current President Joe Biden.
This is not the first time Trump has made outlandish claims about wind farms, with previous examples even including the assertion that they cause cancer. In September, he said offshore wind turbines “are causing whales to die in numbers never seen before,” as well as “driving the whales a little batty.”
Trump famously fought a years-long legal battle over the impact of offshore wind turbines on views from his Scottish golf club.
Trump is currently the overwhelming favourite to secure the Republican nomination going into next year’s presidential election.
He has also recently posted slim national polling leads against President Joe Biden, whose popularity has been hit by his handling of the war in Gaza as well as concerns about his age (he turned 81 today).
Trump said that under his previous presidency the US was “going to be supplying all of the oil and gas to Europe” and would have soon been “energy dominant”.
He also lashed out at Biden’s plans to ramp up sales of electric cars, saying that they “don’t go far and cost too much.”
Under a future Trump presidency, he said “gasoline engines will not only be allowed but very much pushed.” He also praised hybrid cars, saying they would get people “further than the candy store.”
