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Oh, what irony, it burns. US President Donald Trump* has been obsessed with getting rid of wind turbines since the early 2000s, when he lost a fight with Scotland over a new offshore wind farm off one of its golf courses. Now Canada is starting the fight again with the official unveiling of plans for a series of huge new wind farms to spring up across the North Atlantic coast off Nova Scotia, practically on the doorstep of the United States.
*As surreal as it may be to believe, Trump really is the president of the United States of America, treason and all.
Losing the war against offshore wind farms… to Canada
Canada unveiled its offshore wind project last month, focusing on Nova Scotia’s considerable wind resources. Natural Resources Canada made it official last week.
“Canada’s east coast has some of the strongest winds in the world, and developing that natural advantage presents a transformative economic opportunity for Nova Scotia, Atlantic Canada and our entire nation,” the NRC announced Oct. 15.
The NRC left out the part that Canada is also a leading source of imported renewable energy to the United States, particularly in the area of hydropower. What happens in Canada does not necessarily stay in Canada.
The most recent example is a new hydroelectric transmission line from Lake Champlain in Canada that terminates in New York City. All things being equal, there is a chance that Canadian wind energy will come to the United States, with or without Trump.
It takes a village, and the village is ready
The Oct. 15 announcement committed the Canadian government to a $100 million investment to boost Nova Scotia’s offshore wind industry. If all goes as planned, government support will help reduce the company’s risk to private capital.
To be clear, the overall plan is not limited to wind energy. The new “Atlantic Energy Strategy,” which was formulated last year, also includes nuclear and hydropower in an effort to boost Atlantic Canada’s grid to meet the demands of the 21st century. Still, considering the limitations of nuclear and hydroelectric energy (location, expenses, long development times), the “West Wind” component of the plan is emerging as the fastest, most economical and accessible path to success.
After all, the offshore wind industry is a mature global industry, allowing Canada to draw on experts and supply chains from around the world (including here in the United States) to fill the gaps it is missing domestically.
For example, earlier this year the state of Massachusetts signed an agreement with Canada, aimed at accelerating the development of North Atlantic wind resources (shhh! don’t tell Trump!). Although the agreement speaks vaguely of cooperation, Nova Scotia was more specific in a news release earlier this year. “Nova Scotia and Massachusetts signed an agreement on February 4, 2026 to work towards Nova Scotia supplying the state with clean energy from offshore wind,” was the message.
In fact, Canada is already off to a good start. “Nova Scotia’s world-class wind energy and highly skilled offshore workforce, developed through the legacy of offshore oil and gas, give Canada a competitive advantage in the potentially trillion-dollar global offshore wind market, an advantage we are determined to exploit,” enthused Canada’s Minister of Energy and Natural Resources, Tim Hodgson, in a news release.
One offshore wind plan to rule them all
“Wind West aims to generate enough zero-emission electricity to power the entire population of Nova Scotia and export additional power beyond Nova Scotia through new transmission infrastructure,” the NRC said last week.
The wheels are already in motion to launch the project in 2027. Of the new $100 million commitment, $5 million is earmarked for buoys mounted with detection and measurement equipment. The idea is to provide investors with hard figures on wind speed and other factors ahead of a call to investors, which will be held sometime after the New Year.
The NRC is diverting another $3 million to the research agency Net Zero Atlantic, which is tasked with laying the groundwork for transmission, including cables from wind farms, as well as transmission from Nova Scotia to Quebec and points beyond.
Next steps for offshore wind in the US
As for America’s rich offshore wind resources, Trump has tried hard to stop the new “steel in the water” while in office (here’s just one example, and there are many more).
“Picking energy winners and losers” was supposed to be a very bad thing, according to Republican officials during US President Barack Obama’s administration. Now that the situation is on the other foot, the whole idea of leveling the energy playing field has slipped into the dustbin of political expediency.
Trump has spent a lot of time, effort, and taxpayer money trying to kill the American wind industry, leaving tens of thousands of good-paying jobs across the United States, in both red and blue states. Speaking of irony, the ruby red state of Louisiana was instrumental in building the country’s first offshore wind farm, the Block Island complex in Rhode Island, leveraging its wealth of knowledge and equipment in the offshore energy business.
Despite all of Trump’s efforts, five new wind farms are in operation or close to operation off the coasts of the Atlantic states under his watch, and more are in the pipeline. Trump has tried to order work stoppages on projects several times, only to lose in court. In the latest development, the Trump administration last week filed a court brief seeking to stop Connecticut’s 65-turbine Revolution Wind project, which is already in operation awaiting full completion later this year.
That maneuver will probably be rejected in court like all the others. Meanwhile, Trump’s war on offshore wind has all the makings of a vanity project, akin to his debacles at the Reflecting Pool and Lincoln Center, along with his gilded ballroom, his triumphal arch, his tree-destroying golf course project, and the renaming of considerable areas of the world in his honor.
Cub, sound and fury, sound and fury. It will take years of work to repair the damage, but it will be undone after Trump leaves office in January 2029, this time peacefully, it is hoped. The next president of the United States will most likely resume the offshore platform leasing program that Trump suspended upon taking office last year, and thousands of turbines will sprout in the water to give the soon-to-be former president nightmares long after he bids farewell to the Oval Office.
Photo: Canada plans to send offshore wind power from the coast of Nova Scotia to energy-hungry communities, including parts of the US (courtesy of NRC via CleanTechnica archive).
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