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Plant-based meats, which once seemed destined to help us reduce our consumption of slaughtered cows and lower the vast ecological damage that the beef industry is inflicting on our planet, seems to have failed.

Beyond Meat, which is the only publicly traded company in this space, has seen its stock price drop from $200 per share to $0.90.

What happened is a matter of speculation, though two things are certain:

a) The beef industry tried to sue, claiming that the word “meat” meant specifically “the flesh of dead animals.”  But the courts sided against them, on the basis that there are a variety of other legitimate uses of “meat” in the contexts of “the meat of the matter,” “the meat of the avocado,” etc.

b) They then launched a g0-for-the-jugular PR campaign against the competition, spending uncountable millions of dollars in an effort to convince consumers that plant-based meat was essentially toxic.

Sadly, it appears that the campaign has been successful.  Many fast-food chains have dropped their burger options based on the products from Beyond Meat and Impossible Foods.

FWIW, I remain a fan, particularly of Burger King’s “Impossible Whopper.”

Hard Times for Plant-Based Meat

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Pentagon Stalls 30 GW US Wind, New York Defends Sunrise

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Weather Guard Lightning Tech

Pentagon Stalls 30 GW US Wind, New York Defends Sunrise

Allen covers the Pentagon stalling 165 US wind projects on private land, New York stepping in to defend Sunrise Wind, New Mexico approving a 212 MW wind farm, Octopus Energy’s €584M European buying spree, and Europe’s tightening offshore turbine market.

Sign up now for Uptime Tech News, our weekly newsletter on all things wind technology. This episode is sponsored by Weather Guard Lightning Tech. Learn more about Weather Guard’s StrikeTape Wind Turbine LPS retrofit. Follow the show on YouTubeLinkedin and visit Weather Guard on the web. And subscribe to Rosemary’s “Engineering with Rosie” YouTube channel here. Have a question we can answer on the show? Email us!

Good morning, everyone. Here is a number for you. One hundred and sixty-five. That is how many onshore wind projects the Pentagon is now holding up across the United States. One hundred and sixty-five projects… on private land. Thirty gigawatts of generating capacity… frozen.

The American Clean Power Association says the delays began last August. Canceled meetings. Applications no longer being processed. Then in April… letters went out. The Pentagon said it was reviewing how it evaluates the national security impact of energy projects. That review has no deadline. This is the same justification used against offshore wind… the one courts have already struck down. And the administration has already paid nearly two billion dollars in taxpayer money to buy out offshore leases… paying developers not to build. Thirty gigawatts… enough to power millions of American homes… sitting in a stack of unprocessed paperwork.

But here is the thing about wind. It does not wait for permission.

In a federal courtroom in Washington… New York State just stepped up to fight. Attorney General Letitia James filed a motion to intervene on behalf of Ørsted’s Sunrise Wind project. A Rhode Island nonprofit called Green Oceans sued the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management back in March… trying to overturn the project’s federal permits. New York is not having it.

Sunrise Wind is a nine hundred and twenty-four megawatt project. Already under construction. Expected online next year. NYSERDA says the project carries eight hundred and seventy-five million dollars in economic benefits for the state… including nearly one hundred and seventy million dollars for the Town of Brookhaven alone. If it gets canceled… New York says those benefits vanish… tax credits expire… and replacement power would cost ratepayers far more. So the state is putting its name on the line… in open court.

Meanwhile… out in New Mexico… a different kind of wind story. Ten thousand acres of state land in Torrance County just got approved for a new wind farm. Two hundred and twelve megawatts. Enough to power sixty thousand homes. It will become the second-largest wind farm on state land. And it is projected to send nearly ninety-nine million dollars to New Mexico public schools over the life of the lease.

Now… across the Atlantic. Britain’s Octopus Energy just went on a shopping spree. Five hundred and eighty-four million euros… for seventeen onshore wind farms. Three hundred and twenty-one megawatts spread across France, Germany, and Poland. Ten farms in France. Four in Germany. Three in Poland. Combined… enough power for a quarter million European homes. Octopus now manages sixty-seven onshore wind farms across Europe. Zoisa North-Bond, Octopus Energy Generation’s CEO, said Europe has exceptional wind resources… but needs to move faster. Faster. There is that word again.

And then there is the supply side of the equation. Rystad Energy reports that Europe’s offshore wind market is running into a structural supply constraint. With GE Vernova having paused new offshore wind orders… the Western turbine market is now essentially a two-player game. Siemens Gamesa and Vestas. Turbine selling prices are up forty to forty-five percent since twenty twenty. Manufacturing costs? Up only twenty to twenty-five percent. The OEMs are recovering their margins… and developers are absorbing the difference. That is the new reality for European offshore wind.

So let us step back. In America… the federal government blocks thirty gigawatts of wind on private land. New York goes to court to protect a project already under construction. New Mexico approves a wind farm that will fund schools for a generation. In Europe… a British company spends more than half a billion euros on wind farms in three countries. And OEMs finally have the pricing power they have been chasing for years.

The push… and the pull. Washington pulls back. But everywhere else… the industry pushes forward.

And that’s the state of the wind industry for the 11th of May 2026.

Join us for the Uptime Wind Energy Podcast tomorrow.

Pentagon Stalls 30 GW US Wind, New York Defends Sunrise

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Who Isn’t a Sucker for a Good Illustration?

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What an artistic way to point out the debauchery and insanity of the current presidential administration.

Impressive.

Wish I had that talent.

Who Isn’t a Sucker for a Good Illustration?

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“Triggering” Liberals

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Liberals, unless they’re extremely unintelligent, are not “triggered” by Trump supporters who want to burn the U.S. Constitution and make a criminal lunatic the first king of America.

We may be upset that the sociopath is doing his damnedest to destroy 250 years of liberty and freedom, but “triggered” is the wrong word, as it implies an irrational, normally drug-fueled reaction to a certain stimulus.

We are doing everything in our power to prevent the end of the U.S. as it has been known over the centuries, but caving in to insanity is not part of the plan.

And, to be frank, I (age 71) don’t have the strength left in me to fight the way George Washington did in 1776 when he was 44.  A big part of what I do is going to be blogging and perhaps standing with a “no kings” sign at an occasional rally.

“Triggering” Liberals

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