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Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Empire Offshore Progress, New RWE Offshore Farm Approved

Allen covers forecasts for 46 GW of new US wind capacity by 2029, driven by data centers and reshoring. Plus Equinor’s Empire Wind project stays on track for late 2026, RWE gets approval for the Five Estuaries offshore wind farm in the UK, and a Scottish startup raises funding for modular multi-rotor turbines.

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There is an old saying about the wind. You cannot see it. You cannot hold it. But you can harness it. And right now, people around the world are doing exactly that.

After years of sluggish growth, American wind power is waking up. Wood Mackenzie reports the United States will add more than seven gigawatts of new wind capacity in 2025. That is a thirty-six percent jump from this year. And by 2029? Forty-six gigawatts of new capacity coming online.

Why now? Because after a decade of flat electricity demand, America is hungry for power again. Data centers. Electric vehicles. Factories returning home. Demand is growing three percent annually now, up from less than one percent before.

Out West, they are leading the charge. Wyoming. New Mexico. Colorado. Pattern Energy’s three-point-five gigawatt SunZia project in New Mexico alone will make them the top wind installer in 2026. And Invenergy’s Towner Energy Center in Colorado? Nine hundred ninety-eight megawatts. The single largest project expected to come online in 2027.

But here is where it gets interesting. Off the coast of Long Island, a different kind of story is unfolding. The Empire Wind project. Eight hundred ten megawatts of offshore wind power. Enough to power half a million homes in Brooklyn. Norwegian energy giant Equinor is building it. And despite the political headwinds blowing against offshore wind, New York is standing firm. First electricity expected by late 2026.

Across the Atlantic, Britain just gave the green light to something bigger. The Five Estuaries offshore wind farm. Seventy-nine turbines off the coast of Suffolk and Essex. At least twenty-three miles from shore. German energy company RWE is building it. When complete, it will power one million British homes. One million.

Meanwhile, Europe is putting its money where the wind blows. Austria’s Erste Group just signed a two hundred million euro deal with the European Investment Bank. Part of an eight billion euro program to strengthen European wind turbine manufacturers. As Karl Nehammer, the bank’s vice president, put it: Europe is serious about keeping wind manufacturing jobs at home.

Now… You might think wind power is all about going big. Massive offshore farms. Turbines taller than skyscrapers. But in Stirling, Scotland, three entrepreneurs have a different idea. Adam Harris. Paul Pirrie. Peter Taylor. They founded a company called Myriad Wind Energy Systems.

Their invention? Small modular wind turbines. Multiple rotors mounted in a framework. No cranes needed. No special roads. Install them on a farm. On a factory. On a remote site where traditional turbines could never go. This week, they secured eight hundred sixty-five thousand pounds in seed funding. Led by Tricapital Angels. Their first prototype? A fifty-kilowatt unit scheduled for 2026.

From Wyoming to New York. From Essex to Austria. From the North Sea to the Scottish Highlands. Wind energy is not waiting for permission. It is happening. Forty-six gigawatts in America alone by decade’s end. Billions of euros flowing in Europe. Innovators in Scotland proving that sometimes, smaller is smarter.

You cannot see the wind. But you can see what it is building.

That’s the wind industry news for the 22nd of December 2025. Happy Holidays folks, wherever you may be.

Empire Offshore Progress, New RWE Offshore Farm Approved

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Renewable Energy

Things Have Changed

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To the author of the meme here, I respond:

Yes, all this is true.  But we must never forget that we voted for this, not once but twice.

Still, a full 30% of us support the lies, the stupidity, and the criminality, while our enemies are popping to the tops off of champagne bottles.  Russia took us down without firing a shot.  China is making its way toward world domination, largely because the United States committed suicide.

Fifty years ago, we were a reasonably well-educated and principled people.

Now, we’re a blend of greedy pigs and hateful imbeciles.

We have no one to blame for the implosion of America but ourselves.

It would be incorrect to say that literally no one saw this coming, but it took the overwhelming majority of the world by complete surprise.

Things Have Changed

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Renewable Energy

America’s Cultural, Moral, and Spiritual Decay 

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Former Republican strategist Steve Schmidt makes an important point here, one that makes us wonder exactly how long it’s going to take to repair the damage that Trump has inflicted on our country.

Let’s say that the midterm elections shift the balance of power in congress and Trump is removed from power in the first half of 2027.  Perhaps this will happen on the basis of his senility, using the 25th Amendment. Or better, he’ll be impeached and convicted for any of dozens of the crimes he’s committed.

As much of the physical damage as possible will be undone, almost overnight.  No Trump names on public buildings.  Tariffs removed.  Science re-instated as the pillar of policy making and public health.  No more idiot sycophants in key positions. Iran and the U.S. (somehow) move back into the relationship we had before Trump’s asinine and illegal war.

The vast majority of Americans and virtually everyone else on Earth will breathe a huge sigh of relief.

But even if this happens swiftly, it will most certainly not make the “Trump phenomenon” vanish into the mist.  People all around the globe will continue to regard the former envy of the world as a nation of hateful idiots, and it’s likely that this perception, as many have suggested, will take a generation or so to lift.

Canadian PM Mark Carney is predicting that, given the implosion of the U.S., that a new world order is forming with Europe as its center.  Maybe “a generation or so” won’t get the job done.  Maybe American dominance is gone forever.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing.  Imagine for a moment that billionaires didn’t control every facet of life here, and that our nation morphs into one that resembles the more enlightened places on this planet, where its people are well-educated and feel a distinct level of compassion for one another.

America’s Cultural, Moral, and Spiritual Decay 

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Renewable Energy

Rejection of Science Comes at a Cost

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As the U.S. crawls further into the woods of anti-vaxxers and other conspiracy theorists, everyone living here encounters a variety of threats.

Rejection of Science Comes at a Cost

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