Or is that just more Trump bullshit. My bullshit detector is pinging.
Oh, this is just beautiful. The administration has decided to halt every wind-farm project in the United States on the grounds of … wait for it … national security. From Financial Times (via Reuters):
Approvals for about 165 onshore wind projects on private lands are being held up by the Pentagon, FT said, citing the American Clean Power Association and people close to the matter. The affected projects include wind farms that were awaiting final sign-off, others in the middle of negotiations and some that typically would not require oversight by the Pentagon, the FT said.
Since August 2025, wind developers have faced a mix of setbacks, including a lack of expected communication from the Pentagon, canceled meetings with no chance to reschedule, and being told that applications are no longer being processed, FT reported, citing people with knowledge of the situation. Letters sent to developers in early April said the Pentagon was reviewing its processes for evaluating the impact of energy projects on national security, according to the newspaper.
Apparently it’s hard to make the dead whales and/or shredded eagles into threats to national security, so the latest excuse is that wind farms cause “radar interference.” There’s more truth to this one than we’re used to getting from the administration. But as the NYT report makes clear, the problems are easily handled.
New York Times:
Wind turbines create two problems for radar on ships and for ground-based systems looking for aircraft. The steel support towers can reflect electromagnetic waves, making it more difficult for radar to pick up nearby objects, while the rotating blades can create a “blade flash” on a radar screen, appearing to be another object where there is none.
Pentagon officials in recent weeks have blocked reviews of 150 onshore wind farms, citing issues of national defense and radar interference. President Trump has called wind farms ugly and expensive, and has vowed not to allow them to be built.
But researchers who study radar interference say the problem is manageable, by using new technologies and by adjusting where companies build wind turbines.
Hao Ling, a professor emeritus of engineering at the University of Texas at Austin, participated in government studies looking at radar interference from wind farms in 2013 and 2022. “There will be some interference,” Dr. Ling, an expert in radar signal processing, said. “That’s the nature of the physics. But it’s a solvable situation.”
A 2024 report by the Energy Department stated that new technologies and collaboration between federal agencies and the wind industry have “enabled federal radar agencies to continue to perform their missions without significant impacts, and have also enabled significant wind energy deployments throughout the United States.”
To cope with wind farm interference, newer solid state radar systems can be adjusted to eliminate some of the disturbance from the rotating blades. Turbine blades can also be coated with radar-absorbing carbon or other composite materials used on stealth aircraft to dampen some of the distortion.
Experts also say the shape of towers and blades can also be designed to make them a smaller target for radar signals and can lessen the scattering effect.
In 2023, Republican lawmakers asked Congress’s watchdog arm, the Government Accountability Office, to look at the potential impacts of offshore wind farms, including how they might affect military operations and maritime navigation. The G.A.O. convened a panel of 23 experts and consulted with the Defense Department.
The G.A.O. study found several ways to solve the problem, including making some areas off limits or temporarily turning off turbines during military operations, according to Frank Rusco, director of natural resources and environment at the G.A.O. and an author of its 2025 report.