On Tuesday, Port City Daily, in Wilmington, North Carolina, reported the following:

The U.S. government has offered a French energy company a billion dollars to abandon two offshore wind leases along the East Coast, including one in Brunswick County. In a deal to stop the clean energy source from being developed, the Trump administration settled with TotalEnergies to invest in natural gas infrastructure instead in Texas.

TotalEnergies agreed to vacate leases in North Carolina and New York, after paying around $1 billion in fees to obtain them. This year the company will turn its attention toward construction of the 29 Mt Rio Grande Liqueified Natural Gas plant, develop shale gas production and upstream conventional oil in the Gulf.

The article notes:

DOI Secretary Doug Burgum called the TotalEnergies deal a “win-win” for Americans, while Attorney General Pam Bondi said it “prioritizes affordability for hardworking American consumers over the prior administration’s ideological, ineffective energy policies. Americans will benefit from this significant investment in our energy industry, which will also enhance our national security and grid reliability.” 

The settlement comes as the Iran war’s disruptions of oil supply continue to escalate. Fuel prices have surged by 60% in the last month, with barrels trading for upward of $100 or so, compared to the low $60s in January this year.

“Furthermore, these investments will contribute to supplying Europe with much-needed LNG from the U.S. and provide gas for U.S. data center development. We believe this is a more efficient use of capital in the United States,” Patrick Pouyanné, chairman of the board and chief executive officer of TotalEnergies, said in a release.

I have written about the problems with offshore wind and windmill farms in general in previous articles (here, here, here, and here). In the long run, I believe we are going to find out that when you consider the manufacture of solar panels and wind turbines and the lifespan and disposal of them, green energy isn’t all that green. The technology may improve in the future, but right now it simply isn’t there in terms of cost, reliability, and the environmental impact.