Trump Attacks Windmills in Speech to Conservative Group: 'I Never Understood Wind'

[highplainsdem]

https://www.mediaite.com/trump/trump-attacks-windmills-in-speech-to-conservative-group-i-never-understood-wind/

President Donald Trump went off on a longtime subject of his ire, windmills, during a weekend speech to a conservative group in Florida.

While Trump was mocking the Green New Deal to attendees of the Turning Point USA conference Saturday, he turned his attention to wind power.

“I never understood wind,” Trump said. “I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody. I know it is very expensive. They are made in China and Germany mostly, very few made here, almost none, but they are manufactured, tremendous — if you are into this — tremendous fumes and gases are spewing into the atmosphere. You know we have a world, right?”

“So the world is tiny compared to the universe. So tremendous, tremendous amount of fumes and everything. You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right spewing, whether it is China or Germany, is going into the air,” he continued.

“A windmill will kill many bald eagles,” Trump continued. “After a certain number, they make you turn the windmill off, that is true. By the way, they make you turn it off. And yet, if you killed one, they put you in jail. That is OK. But why is it OK for windmills to destroy the bird population?”

-snip-

[gratuitous]

1. You should take advantage of the opportunity to shut up more, Donald

Just. Shut. The. Fuck. Up.

[Kali]

2. every family's obnoxious "silverback" drunk grampa

pontificating at the dinner table. nobody can contradict or say anything so they just sit there and compare notes later.

[Ohiogal]

3. Who in their right mind

can listen to this childish drivel and not burst out laughing?

[dewsgirl]

9. Admittedly occasionally funny...those days are getting fewer

and far between.

[Martin Eden]

36. Me. I can't laugh because this appallingly ignorant POS is President of the United States.

Shame, embarrassment, and very disturbed that more than a tiny fringe think this flaming asshole should be president.

[Skittles]

56. it's not funny, it is cringe-worthy

[3catwoman3]

91. I laugh to keep from crying/screaming.

Every time I see his disgusting face, I still find myself thinking, "How can this be?"

[Frustratedlady]

4. My Gawd! He is even more stupid than I previously thought.

We can't take 4 more years of this guy's idiocy. He is beyond help.

[Wellstone ruled]

5. Orange Anus just can not let

his getting rejected by Scotland go. Real Facts and the Orange Anus are not in the same room at any time of day.

Ignorance is Bliss for the Orange one.

[LonePirate]

6. Repubs could have the same policies/goals with Pence but they prefer 45's stupidity & overt racism.

[TeamPooka]

66. plus now the whole Trump family will cock block every ambitious Republican for the Pres nom

for the next 30 years
Suckers built their own future failure trap.

[The Blue Flower]

7. A mind like swiss cheese

Not merely stupid, but completely incoherent.

[TexasBushwhacker]

8. Of course, birds and other animals being killed by petrochemicals is a-okay n/t

[pazzyanne]

45. To say nothing about the damage that will be done...

by the freaking border wall that he is pushing. Aaargh!

[TexasBushwhacker]

57. And the fucking Keystone XL pipeline n/t

[Efilroft Sul]

10. I'm shocked he doesn't understand wind when he's a world-class blowhard.

[rickyhall]

50. Damn, that's what I wanted to say. LOL!

[Efilroft Sul]

74. Great minds and all that jazz, right? : )

[captain queeg]

11. The real reason he didn't get drafted, not bone spurs but mental incompetence

I know that wasn’t really the case, back then he could form a complete sentence. But really, now, he wouldn’t be admitted to the military with his level of confusion.

I just saw that YouTube video about McNamara’s morons, he probably could have gotten into the army in 68-70. It’s an interesting video if you are interested. I think it’s titled something like McNamara’s low IQ soldiers.

[sarge43]

63. Officially, Project 100,000

They weren't morons; they were cannon fodder.

[captain queeg]

78. Yeah that was it. I'd never heard of it before.

[sarge43]

86. If you're interested, there's a good wiki article about it

with excellent source documents.

I was in the Air Force personnel field, Nam era. What little I saw was disgusting. I hope there's a special circle in hell just for Mac the Knife.

[captain queeg]

96. Mac the knife McNamara?

They stopped the draft the year I turned 18. I was talking to a vet about it and told him I was a little too young for Vietnam. He looked at me and said We were all too young for Vietnam.

[sarge43]

103. Yup. McNamara

The name we had for him when Them What Be In Charge weren't in ear shot.

"We were all too young for Vietnam."

Or "I'm too old for this shit."

Considered yourself blessed you weren't sucked in.

[at140]

12. Doofus-45 is worried about eagles? How about humans??

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jamesconca/2013/09/29/forget-eagle-deaths-wind-turbines-kill-humans/#3721c5795467

[mahatmakanejeeves]

94. As I suspected, the article was about work-related fatalities.

Sep 29, 2013, 01:54am
Forget Eagle Deaths, Wind Turbines Kill Humans

James Conca Contributor
Energy

I write about nuclear, energy and the environment
This article is more than 2 years old.

Who cares about birds? What about humans being killed by wind farm accidents? Last week a study by U.S. Fish and Wildlife researchers on the number of eagle deaths by wind turbines ruffled some feathers in the industry (Wildlife Society), but industry supporters were quick to note that other human activities kill more, so who cares?

Does this same philosophy hold true for human deaths? A colleague at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology sent me a paper from the Caithness Windfarm Information Forum 2013 (Wind Farm Accidents and Fatalities) that was rather enlightening.

In England, there were 163 wind turbine accidents that killed 14 people in 2011. Wind produced about 15 billion kWhrs that year, so using a capacity factor of 25%, that translates to about 1,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced (the world produces 15 trillion kWhrs per year from all sources).

These are pretty low numbers. By contrast, in 2011 coal produced about 180 billion kWhrs in England with about 3,000 related deaths. Nuclear energy produced over 90 billion kWhrs in England with no deaths. In that same year, America produced about 800 billion kWhrs from nuclear with no deaths.

Since so many more people die from other causes, can we just forget about it? Like the eagles?

Does any energy source kill a significant number of people? In a post from last year, we discussed human fatalities by energy source (How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt?), and how coal is the biggest killer in U.S. energy at 15,000 deaths per trillion kWhrs produced, while nuclear is the least at zero. Wind energy kills a mere 100 people or so per trillion kWhrs, the majority from falls during maintenance activities (Toldedo Blade).
....

James Conca
I have been a scientist in the field of the earth and environmental sciences for 33 years, specializing in geologic disposal of nuclear waste, energy-related research, planetary surface processes, radiobiology and shielding for space colonies, subsurface transport and environmental clean-up of heavy metals. I am a Trustee of the Herbert M. Parker Foundation, Adjunct at WSU, an Affiliate Scientist at LANL and consult on strategic planning for the DOE, EPA/State environmental agencies, and industry including companies that own nuclear, hydro, wind farms, large solar arrays, coal and gas plants. I also consult for EPA/State environmental agencies and industry on clean-up of heavy metals from soil and water. For over 25 years I have been a member of Sierra Club, Greenpeace, the NRDC, the Environmental Defense Fund and many others, as well as professional societies including the America Nuclear Society, the American Chemical Society, the Geological Society of America and the American Association of Petroleum Geologists.

Jun 10, 2012, 01:08am
How Deadly Is Your Kilowatt? We Rank The Killer Energy Sources

James Conca Contributor
Energy
I write about nuclear, energy and the environment
This article is more than 2 years old.
....

Energy Source Mortality Rate (deaths/trillionkWhr)

Coal – global average 100,000 (41% global electricity)

Coal – China 170,000 (75% China’s electricity)

Coal – U.S. 10,000 (32% U.S. electricity)

Oil 36,000 (33% of energy, 8% of electricity)

Natural Gas 4,000 (22% global electricity)

Biofuel/Biomass 24,000 (21% global energy)

Solar (rooftop) 440 (< 1% global electricity)

Wind 150 (2% global electricity)

Hydro – global average 1,400 (16% global electricity)

Hydro – U.S. 5 (6% U.S. electricity)

Nuclear – global average 90 (11% global electricity w/Chern&Fukush)

Nuclear – U.S. 0.1 (19% U.S. electricity)

It is notable that the U.S. death rates for coal are so much lower than for China, strictly a result of regulation, particularly the Clean Air Act (Scott et al., 2005). It is also notable that the Clean Air Act is one of the most life-saving pieces of legislation ever adopted by any country in history, along with the Fair Labor Standards Act (1938) which established the 40 hour week, and Medicare in 1965. Still, about 10,000 die from coal use in the U.S. each year, and another thousand from natural gas.

Hydro is dominated by a few rare large dam failures like Banqiao in China in 1976 which killed about 171,000 people. The reason the U.S. hydro deaths are so few is, again regulation - specifically our Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC).
....

[at140]

100. Great information about deaths in various electricity generation

activities. Are those deaths strictly work related or includes peripheral effects such as emphysema caused by coal burning?

[marble falls]

13. If he would only start drinking, he's already drunksplaining.

[Maru Kitteh]

73. This may be ordinary dumbsplaining. nt

[Hermit-The-Prog]

14. we're going to need a very large rubber room

[SCVDem]

65. NO!

Many small cells at Supermax!
They are lucky we no longer hang traitors!

I will make exceptions for their Federal desire to resume capital punishment.

Just a few!

[John Fante]

15. I'm not saying Trump is as dumb as a rock.

I'm saying he's dumber.

[at140]

24. Is that why he is popular with those who

did not go to college?

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

48. Please do not insult rocks.

Some of my best friends are rocks.

I have lovely conversations with them.

[SCVDem]

69. A Debian Slime Devil perhaps?

KORAX: No. I just remembered. There is one Earthman who doesn't remind me of a Regulan blood worm. That's Kirk. A Regulan blood worm is soft and shapeless, but Kirk isn't soft. Kirk may be a swaggering, overbearing, tin-plated dictator with delusions of godhood, but he's not soft.
(Chekov leaps to his feet)
SCOTT: Take it easy, lad. Everybody's entitled to an opinion.
KORAX: That's right, and if I think that Kirk is a Denebian slime devil, well that's my opinion too.
SCOTT: Don't do it, mister, and that's an order.
CHEKOV: You heard what he called the captain.
SCOTT: Forget it. It's not worth fighting for. We're big enough to take a few insults. Now, drink your drink.
(
The Trouble With Tribbles

[captain queeg]

84. If I remember correctly Korax went on to compare the Enterprise to a garbage scow

And that set Scottie off. Maybe that was a different episode.

[JHB]

102. Nope, you have it right

[MurrayDelph]

97. At least a rock

knows when to sit there and be quiet.

[Grasswire2]

16. Take his teeth and get the net, boys. nt

[Eliot Rosewater]

17. 10 yr old , any random 10 yr old, is smarter than this russian agent

[napi21]

18. If this post is erally what he said, he needs to use a speech writer more often! None of what's in

that post makes sense. Few words are actually make a sentenence.

[Captain Zero]

39. Word Salad. It's a Symptom.

Psychotic mind nearby.

[milestogo]

19. "You know we have a world, right?"

[milestogo]

20. OK, parse this, if you please:

You talk about the carbon footprint, fumes are spewing into the air, right spewing, whether it is China or Germany, is going into the air, he continued. “A windmill will kill many bald eagles,” Trump continued. “After a certain number, they make you turn the windmill off, that is true. By the way, they make you turn it off.

[intrepidity]

83. Is he saying you can't have a "footprint" in the air?

And then air reminds him of birds.

Stream-of-consciousness, as it were?

[milestogo]

89. If the fumes are spewing to the right, they're from China or Germany.

If the fumes are spewing to the left, they're from Bernie or Elizabeth Warren.

[muriel_volestrangler]

93. Perhaps "diarrhoea-of-consciousness" is more apt for Trump (nt)

[Goodheart]

21. Wait. What. Is he saying that windmills cause fumes and gases?

Silly me for trying to decipher the shit and fumes and gases that spew from his mouth.

[LeftInTX]

26. If a bird flies into the rotating turbine, it usually kills the bird

This has been around for awhile. There was some talk about shutting turbines down during whooping crane migration along the migration routes, but that is the most I've heard.

The turbines probably kill more grackles than anything, which are already pests anyway.

[Liberal In Texas]

47. The bigger the wind turbine, the less likely there will be bird strikes.

Larger machines turn more slowly giving the birds a better chance to avoid them.

Oh, and Deadbeat Donnie is an idiot. That made no sense.

[PoindexterOglethorpe]

52. For years I've been reading that wind turbines kill

millions of birds. I often drive by such turbines on cross country trips, and honestly? I've never seen the piles of dead birds that ought to be there.

Anecdotally, I've once and only once in my life (71 years so far) actually seen a dead bird on the sidewalk. I was completely gobsmacked, because I realized that birds must die all the time, alas, but had never run across one such.

I am discounting the baby birds that don't survive at my house. Shortly after I moved in here in 2009, a couple of sparrows built a nest and I've been raising baby birds ever since. Some years they don't do so well. But since these birds die before they are on their own, they don't really count.

[Beartracks]

79. I think he meant the manufacturing of them?

Hard to tell in that word salad. But I don't see why the manufacture of metal turbine parts would be more fume-y than any other industrial metal manufacturing anyway.

=========

[uncle ray]

95. like, um, maybe giant fucking wall slats?

FWIW there is a wind turbine manufacturing facility about 40 miles down the road from me in Pueblo. the company that makes trumps* wall slats is also in Pueblo.

[TheCowsCameHome]

22. Was that at the Shitler Youth gathering?

My god, he should be locked up and the key thrown away.

[smirkymonkey]

23. WHAT the ever-loving fuck was THAT?

He's completely off his rocker. None of that made any sense at all.

[Talitha]

25. Don Quixote of MaraLago strikes again.

[LeftInTX]

27. He's been listening to Vlad again!

Russian President Vladimir Putin has warned against over-reliance on renewable energy, something he says harms birds and other wildlife.

https://www.bbc.com/news/science-environment-48936941

[highplainsdem]

105. Thanks for that link!

[Aristus]

28. The entirety of Thomas Pynchon's "Gravity's Rainbow" was more coherent than that.

[PatrickforO]

41. Oh, funny. You know, I got that book and tried...really tried...to wade

through it.

But I couldn't.

Trump's speeches are like that, aren't they.

[Baked Potato]

29. I get it! He's covering the Elementals...

Water... Wind...

Earth and Fire next. Oh SHIT !

[greatauntoftriplets]

30. For God's sake, keep him out of the Netherlands!

Unless it's a certain court in The Hague.

[OAITW r.2.0]

31. A deeply stupid, man child. nt

[Docreed2003]

32. ...

[eppur_se_muova]

33. Expect tomorrow's papers to be full of Don Quixote cartoons. nt

[SCantiGOP]

34. Windmills are bad

but its those horrible toilets and washing machines that are going to bring down the American republic.

[yortsed snacilbuper]

35. I need a word salad translator to understand this gibberish?

[Botany]

37. What don't you get?

"I have studied windmills very much. I know it better
than anybody."

What is not to understand?

[mwooldri]

38. Windbag doesn't understand wind.

Hmmm... I don't know many bald eagles that fly out at sea... That's where a lot of the wind turbines are going to be placed in the future. They say a shed load of wind turbines in the North Sea can supply Europe with most of its electricity needs. So a shed load of wind turbines out at sea could supply America's electricity needs.

[Beartracks]

80. But, but he SAYS he has studied it!

He SAYS he knows about turbines!

He SAYS so!!1!




===========

[PatrickforO]

40. I'm sure he made a really big impression on the conference attendees.

A negative one.

[paleotn]

42. Holy Toledo.

I'm nearly speechless. If that were you or me we'd find ourselves in an institution. Windmills spew fumes and kill bald eagles. He's out of his goddamn mind.

[pazzyanne]

43. There. Is. Not. One. Thing. To. Admire. About. This. Blowheart!!!

[ooky]

44. Its hard to believe anyone is this stupid

much less also the President of the United States..

[Pepsidog]

46. What dumb-fuckary is this idiot babbling about?

[hatrack]

49. You forgot Brain Cancer!

Do they have to turn the windmills off after diagnosis?

What. A. Fucking. Embarassment.

[RockRaven]

51. Trump's "I never understood..." list is very, VERY long.

And not at all distinguished, given how widespread and mundane the things are which he fails to understand.

[Mr. Ected]

53. Another Russian ploy

Take a veritable issue, deny it, then twist a ridiculous counter-story to confuse the ignorant.

In this case, use climate change terminology and concerns, apply it to a green concept, and conflate gashouse emissions with the fumes and gases "spewing out of wind turbines".

This seems simply the product of a twisted and uneducated mind, but it's much more dangerous than that. This is Soviet disinformation delivered by the President of the United States. Intentionally.

[area51]

54. Donnie: "I know windmills very much, I have studied it better than anybody."

Uh-huh. How can he have studied since he doesn't read?

[Chicago1980]

55. What an airhead...

Dude is just a total blowhole of a windbag that's so full of hot air.

[John Fante]

58. I've stared at bowls of alphabet soup that were more

coherent than that drivel.

[TheFourthMind]

59. He must be planning to do something really shitty. Cue idiotic distraction.

Such statements are as much for us and they are for his base. Fodder.

[teach1st]

60. Fumes Spewing

I am guessing that the president's "fumes spewing" garble is in reference to the manufacturing of wind turbines, which inevitably produce carbon emissions. But so do the production infrastructures for solar, gas, and coal-generated power. Nuclear power uses less.

Onshore wind power is relatively inexpensive (cheaper than coal and gas). Offshore wind power is about three times more costly than onshore.

The largest wind turbine manufacturer (Vestas) is in Denmark, but Germany and China do have skin in the game.

The president's insistence that wind power is killing birds is true. But, as far as I can tell, wind power doesn't kill nearly as many bald eagles as he has claimed previously. It's also true that wind energy manufactures are building new technologies that hopefully will mitigate bird deaths. Anyway, here's the part that President Trump leaves out. We do need more data, but it looks like wind turbines kill far less birds than nuclear and fossil fuel power generation does, and less than cell towers. Cats are the major cause of bird mortality, though: Using high end bird death estimates caused by wind turbines compared to low end estimates of bird death estimates caused by domestic and feral cats, cats kill way over 300 times more birds. Of course, there are more cats than wind turbines (and far more coal and nuclear generators, transmission lines, and cell towers). We need more data.

(Not the only source I used) Wikipedia - Environmental Impact of Wind Power

[Mrs. Ted Nancy]

75. He may be referring to sulphur hexaflouride

It's a hugely effective insulating material for medium and high-voltage electrical installations.

However, I doubt that he knows anything about it. Actually, I am certain that he knows nothing about electricity.

[Dirty Socialist]

61. He isn't completely wrong

The "Fumes" part is BS. However, windmills kill birds, 140,000 to 328,000 per year: https://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/how-many-birds-do-wind-turbines-really-kill-180948154/

[Sogo]

62. I live in an area where there are

hundreds and hundreds of wind farms. Not a dead bird in sight.....

There are two major wind turbine manufacturers here. They don't come from China or Germany.

Further one of my Senators (a Republican) was the lead on the wind energy credits: "Pretty simple. I wish his staff would tell him I'm the father and now the grandfather of wind energy tax credits. I don't think he knows it, or I don't think he'd make those comments that aren't quite appropriate," Grassley said. https://www.politico.com/story/2019/04/03/grassley-trump-wind-energy-1254531

Nearly 40% of the energy use in Iowa is from wind energy.

My guess is that this is another one of his schemes to get back at someone who doesn't support him: Warren Buffet's Berkshire Hathaway is owner of Mid-American Energy, which has put more than $12B into wind farms in Iowa.

[Liberty Belle]

70. In some areas they have caused massive bird kills, ie along the gulf coast flyway, millions.

One northern California wind farm, Altamont, killed thousands of eagles - it was a major feeding ground where eagles would come form far away.

Of course the rest of what he says is B.A. They don't produce fumes (unless he's referring to factories in China powered by coal that may produce some of the turbines).

As for not understanding how wind turbines (the industry preferred term, not wind mills) it just shows his simple-mindedness. He is probably being put up to this by fossil fuel executives who want to bring back coal and oil fired power plants.

In areas where solar is feasible, I do believe it's better than wind because it doesn't cause massive bird kills and solar panels aren't 500 feet tall, so there are less issues with neighbors over visual blight, flashing lights, noise, vibrations etc. as well as the bird issues.

(The exception is the microwave beam type of solar, which does kill birds. The other types of solar, which are in widest use, are generally safe for birds.)

[lonely bird]

64. Someone wanna tell President Shit-For-brains

There are plenty of wind towers made in the U.S. including a small company call G.E. Renewables.

Hey, Donnie? There is this thing call “Google”. Ya might wanna try it sometime.

[Norbert]

92. Google is extreme left wing

because it keeps telling him what he doesn't want to hear.

[lunatica]

67. His hairspray is the only weapon that defeats wind.

Well, most of the time.

[liberalmediaaddict]

68. This really isn't funny it's terrifying

Trump is a malignant narcissist with frontotemporal dementia. His condition is only going to get worse in the next 13 months or god forbid, 5 years. Stress only exasperates his narcissism and dementia symptoms. As long as he is leader of the free world and has access to nuclear weapons none of us are truly safe.

[Midnight Writer]

77. Exactly. I went through this with my father. A smart man with personality disorders, senile dementia

He was mostly pretty cool, but when the dementia started, his personality disorders exploded. I assume his damaged consciousness was no longer strong enough to keep his base impulses contained.

And like Trump, I had relatives who knew him best telling me, no, no, he's just kidding, he's yanking your chain, you just don't "get" the joke.

[moondust]

71. Anti-renewable propaganda.

He's a fossil fuel fossil.

[wnylib]

72. Don Quixote rides again.

with Melania as Dulcinea.

[Captain Zero]

76. I think his siblings farted in sacks and then made him breathe it when he was a kid.

nt

[Aussie105]

81. Trump wants to return to a simpler time, when America was great . . .

The Amish may find a place for him?

He can entertain them with his grandpa tales of how bad things are out there in the World filled with Evil, and frighten the little children before they go to bed.

Then again, the Amish may be too smart for him.

(I humbly apologise to any Amish people this post offends.)

[pbmus]

82. The Don Quixote of our time...!

[oasis]

90. Good one!

[captain queeg]

85. I would bet that transportation (cars, planes) kill far more birds NT

[CatMor]

101. I read that skyscrapers kill more birds ...

like Trump Tower.

[samnsara]

87. was it Caligula who ordered the sea to be whipped because it sank his boat or some such nonsense?

..just a matter of time before trump declares war on seat belts and bike helmets...

[hatrack]

98. For your viewing pleasure . . .

[tblue37]

88. He blathers non-stop nonsense. nt

[Botany]

99. So what is wrong with this bit of Trump's genius?

“So the world is tiny compared to the universe."

The republicans have to know that Trump couldn't hit water if he fell out of a boat and
that he is completely bat shit crazy.

[kairos12]

104. His toilet understands wind all too well.