Trump Pushes False Claim That Wind Power Is Not Reliable Because ‘It Only Blows Sometimes’

President Trump repeated the misleading claim that wind power can’t work as an energy source because the wind “only blows sometimes.”

The president, who campaigned on restoring coal jobs to the U.S., made the comments during a nearly 45-minute phone interview with Fox News’s Sean Hannity on Wednesday.

“It’s what we have done with energy and oil and gas. That’s all competition from, for Russia,” Trump said. “You look at the Ukraine. You look at so many different levels. You look at our military.”

“You look at the fact that we would have been powered by wind, which wouldn’t have worked by the way because it only blows sometimes and lots of problems come about.”

The president still believes that wind power is not a viable energy source because “it only blows sometimes” pic.twitter.com/UgTzygyN35

— Josh Billinson (@jbillinson) March 28, 2019

Just a week earlier, Trump mocked wind power by mimicking a man telling his spouse: “Turn off the television darling, please. There’s no wind, please turn off the television quickly.”

According to the Department of Energy’s own website, power grids are designed to accommodate variability from energy generation sources, such as wind and solar, without having to rely on “backup” energy sources.

Solar and wind power are on track to phase out coal as cheaper energy alternatives within the next few years, according to a new study released this week by a nonpartisan think tank.

The national business group Advanced Energy Economy (AEE) released a fact sheet showing that the advanced energy industry employed 3.5 million U.S. workers in 2018 — an increase of 125,000 jobs over 2017.

Advanced energy employment grew 4% year-over-year, more than twice as fast as the overall U.S. employment growth rate of 1.5%. Employers expect to add 6% more advanced energy jobs in the coming year.

Employment in advanced energy generation – which includes wind, solar, hydro, high-efficiency (combined cycle) natural gas, and nuclear power – totaled 695,000 jobs, down 1% from 2017. Wind jobs are up 4%, solar jobs are down 4%, advanced (combined cycle) natural gas jobs up 7%.