Liam Denning, Columnist

Billions in Cleantech Investments Are Going Up in Smoke

Projects worth nearly $42 billion have been delayed, shrunk or canceled since Trump’s inauguration.

September 18, 2025 at 10:30 AM UTC

Liam Denning is a Bloomberg Opinion columnist covering energy. A former banker, he edited the Wall Street Journal’s Heard on the Street column and wrote the Financial Times’s Lex column.

Losing support.
Photographer: Timothy Fadek/Bloomberg

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The capriciousness of US energy policy under President Donald Trump increasingly looks like a feature rather than a bug.

A nearly built offshore wind project is suddenly blocked on spurious grounds. A giant transmission project ready to be built loses an agreed federal loan guarantee. Executive orders redefine the very notion of ‘energy’ to exclude certain sources. The objective seems to be not merely to rip up clean technology by the roots but also to salt the soil. The damage is real, even if the objective is ultimately futile.