‘Targeted Attack’ | US DOI Plans To Revoke More Permits; White House Seeking To Engage Health And Human Services Department?
The title of this post, is the same as that of this article on offshoreWIND.biz.
This is the sub-heading.
In a matter of months, the US offshore wind industry went from a growing investor and employer to an industry that is now undergoing what Oceantic Network called a “targeted attack” after reports emerged that the US Department of the Interior (DOI) plans to revoke federal permits for two more projects. The Trump administration has reportedly also asked multiple agencies, some of which are typically not involved in offshore energy permitting, to get involved in reviewing the impacts of offshore wind.
The whole article is very much a must-read.
The last two paragraphs are a quote from Sam Salustro, who is SVP Policy & Market Strategy at Oceantic Network.
“The Trump administration is singling out an American energy industry, undermining a 40-state, $25 billion domestic supply chain while holding American business investments hostage. This is from a political playbook that should make every industry worry whether they will be targeted by this administration or the next”
“We call on federal leaders to halt this targeted attack and restore certainty and predictability to our energy industry and the thousands ready to get back to work.”
Trump has no right to destroy an industry along with thousands of jobs, just because he doesn’t like it, when there is no commercial or environmental reason.
I will certainly not welcome Trump and his fellow travellers to the UK for his State Visit.
The Anonymous Widower 
There was an interesting interview with the chief executive of DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, in The Times last Friday about the battle to keep Ukraine’s electricity flowing.
The epic battle to keep Ukraine’s lights on
“……Since Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 it has invested €1.4 billion.
Much of this has been in its renewables division. “The irony of this war is that the green transition accelerated in Ukraine, because they destroy a coal-fired power station and we build more wind parks to replace it.”
While a 200 megawatt coal-fired unit can be destroyed by one or two missiles, the equivalent capacity wind farm would comprise 35 turbines, requiring hits from at least 35 missiles. “Building more solar or wind or battery storage is not only about the green transition, it’s about energy security.”
So I asked Microsoft Copilot if Trump’s move will result in the direction to be towards large (and less secure) centralised power generation plants or more distributed smaller ones. This is the discussion it produced (and I do wish these AI engines would stop being so patronising about my questions!).
Great question, Howard—and the answer is a bit of a paradox. While Trump’s administration is clearly favouring large, centralized power generation—especially fossil fuel and nuclear plants—the market forces and technological trends are nudging utilities and consumers toward distributed energy resources (DERs).
Government Push: Centralized Power
Trump’s energy strategy is rooted in:
• Reviving coal and expanding gas through large-scale plants with federal support.
• Boosting nuclear with new subsidies and fast-tracked approvals for centralized reactors.
• Scaling up LNG exports, reinforcing the role of massive infrastructure hubs.
• Rolling back support for utility-scale renewables, which ironically also tend to be centralized (like large solar farms and offshore wind).
This reflects a preference for traditional grid architecture: big plants feeding into transmission networks, with consumers as passive endpoints.
Market Reality: Distributed Energy Rising
Despite federal headwinds, there’s growing momentum for smaller, decentralized systems:
• Rooftop solar, battery storage, and microgrids are gaining traction among industrial users and communities seeking resilience and cost control.
• Virtual power plants (VPPs)—aggregating thousands of small assets like home batteries—are being explored as flexible, fast-to-deploy alternatives.
• DERs can sidestep grid bottlenecks, especially as tariffs and supply chain issues slow utility-scale projects.
As one energy executive put it: “Distributed solar and storage can come online much more quickly than larger resources”.
The Tension
So while federal policy leans hard into centralized generation, the technological and economic landscape is tilting toward decentralization. Utilities are caught in the middle—some doubling down on big plants, others experimenting with DERs and demand response to stay agile.
Comment by HW | September 8, 2025 |
Thanks for that! I am a subscriber to The Times, so I’ll look at the article.
As one of the first Graduate Control Engineers trained in this country, I know the value of comprehensive distributed networks.
I used to live on a farm and one big area will be to find ways to heat and power remote rural properties, that is much more zero-carbon, than using a tank of propane. Natural gas or even better hydrogen tankered into remote properties would be much better and also could replace diesel for tractors and other vehicles.
I suspect Ukraine has the rural energy problem too! And what a superb place to test the robustness of the system.
Comment by AnonW | September 8, 2025 |