Philip Totaro is founder and CEO of Houston-based IntelStor LLC, a global research and consulting firm that focuses on competitive intelligence, technology trends and innovation strategy in the renewable energy sector. Its market analysis has guided more than $600 million in R&D sector investment; legal, technical and commercial due-diligence for $1.8 billion of mergers and acquisitions; and development of product and service offerings, according to the firm. In a chat with ENR Deputy Editor Debra K. Rubin, Totaro assesses impacts of recent Trump Administration actions to restrict U.S. renewable energy growth — particularly those to halt fully permitted offshore wind projects under construction or set to be — and policies aimed to destabilize sector confidence and financial support.
ENR: What is President Donald Trump’s motive in serial policy actions to obstruct U.S. clean power development, particularly wind energy?
Philip Totaro: He’s obviously had a long-standing grudge against wind, especially since the Aberdeen Bay wind farm was built in Scotland [more than a decade ago in sight of a Trump-owned golf course]. But keep in mind that the oil and gas industry has seen a decline in annual U.S. capacity additions and investment spent on power generation since wind and solar became cheaper to build, about eight years ago. It pledged significant campaign contributions [to then-candidate Trump and others] in exchange for stopping all renewable energy project development to try and stem the tide of [that sector’s] growth. Renewable energy in the US is already a multi-trillion dollar industry. You cannot really paint yourself as pro-business if you deliberately and wantonly try to dismantle it.
What does Trump seek from the Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maryland governors in the latest stop-work workers against projects in their states? What is the “ask” as Gov. Dick McKee (D-R.I.) states it? What kind of deal do you foresee?
The administration is looking for those states to use more natural gas, which they can do up to a point. However, with increasing electricity demand, capacity constraints and the inability to build coal or natural gas power generation facilities fast enough to meet the demand, there will be brownouts and blackouts due to the lack of wind and solar that could have been added. Nevertheless, I question why anyone should be willing to be held hostage like this. Nobody should have to give in to bullying.
What are the issues the administration alleges related to wind project “national security” threats and potential legal actions?
It’s a way for the administration to appear to stop work for a seemingly legitimate reason. If it’s called a national security concern, [administration officials] do not have to disclose what those concerns are, so there is zero transparency or accountability. However, if there were actual national security concerns, those would have been addressed during the seven years spent in the project’s federal permitting process.
What would be the impact of this wave of new actions related to offshore wind projects?
If the U.S. is in an “energy emergency,” and we desperately need electricity, then how does the government justify halting offshore wind projects that are under construction already, in favor of projects that will cost more and take longer to come to fruition? It is likely that almost every single U.S. offshore wind developer will need to go to court to litigate the right to build projects for which they already received approval. This is a nonsensical waste of time and resources, especially when the U.S. is supposedly in the midst of an “emergency.”
Do the states have any standing or bargaining power?
The states will sue. But the damage is done, even if the states win. [The legal process] causes delays that make projects non-viable because developers will run out of contingency budget. They cannot simply go raise extra capital.
Is Trump looking for all investors to pull out? Will they follow suit? What would be the impact?
Yes. There would be nothing good for the U.S. It’s making Canada great again, and Europe for that matter. More than $50 billion that was supposed to have been spent on onshore wind and solar energy in the US in the first six months of this year has been spent in Canada, Europe, Asia and South America.
How is the rest of the world looking at this?
At a minimum [countries] find it head scratching. Privately, many investors, project developers and politicians believe the U.S. has become a bit of a joke. They are certainly put off at the idea of investing money in a market like the U.S. when they have little to no confidence of a viable return on their investment.
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