Donald Trump has railed against clean energy technology for years, and when targeting solar and wind power, the president has routinely repeated a familiar mistake: After sundown or when the wind isn’t blowing, those energy sources are practically useless.
Unfortunately, he’s not the only Republican who’s expressed confusion about this. The New Republic reported:
The secretary of the interior should presumably know how solar power generation works. On Wednesday, Doug Burgum showed that he does not.
Burgum was testifying before the House Natural Resources Committee, and exposed himself under questioning from Democratic Representative Jared Huffman, who brought up energy projects in Nevada.
The Cabinet secretary, toeing the GOP line, told Huffman that solar arrays “produce zero electricity” after sundown.
“Mr. Chairman, I request unanimous consent to enter in the record this amazing new technology that apparently the secretary is unaware of: It’s a battery,” the California Democrat replied. “China’s figured it out. That’s why they’re cleaning our clock on clean energy.”
The exchange was clearly embarrassing for Burgum — or at least it should have been. Later in the same congressional hearing, the interior secretary proceeded to tell Rep. Seth Magaziner, “When the wind doesn’t blow and the sun doesn’t shine, [solar and wind] produce nothing.”
The Rhode Island Democrat quickly reminded the witness, “We have these things called ‘batteries.’”
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For some who are unfamiliar with the debate over energy policy, I can imagine why Burgum’s misguided rhetoric might have seemed vaguely compelling. Solar panels generate energy from the sun, and turbines generate energy from the wind, so perhaps it’s logical to conclude that clean energy technology is pointless at night and during calm skies.
But as people keep trying to help Burgum understand, battery technology exists. As MS NOW host Catherine Rampell explained in a Washington Post column a couple of years ago:
Growth in clean-electricity generation is a longer-term trend driven largely by technological improvements that have improved solar’s and wind’s cost-competitiveness. But recent policy changes, such Biden’s 2022 Inflation Reduction Act, have also accelerated development. The same forces are boosting battery development, which is helping solve intermittency problems caused by relying on wind or solar when the weather doesn’t cooperate. The Energy Information Administration recently forecast that U.S. battery storage capacity will nearly double [in 2024] alone.
Since that column was first published, U.S. battery storage capacity had an even better year in 2025.
If Burgum made one foolish comment about this years ago, because he wasn’t up to speed on the relevant details, he could be forgiven for being confused. But the fact that he keeps making the same mistake, even after being presented with the facts, highlights the difference between ignorance and willful ignorance.
This post updates our related earlier coverage.
Steve Benen is a producer for "The Rachel Maddow Show," the editor of MaddowBlog and an MS NOW political contributor. He's also the bestselling author of "Ministry of Truth: Democracy, Reality, and the Republicans' War on the Recent Past."
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