Trump administration removes the word renewables from world-famous NREL

In a move that is only surprising for the length of time it took them to make it, the Trump administration has announced that it is renaming the famed National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) to excise any mention of the dreaded “renewable energy”.

In a statement published on Monday, the US Department of Energy (DoE) – which is currently being led by Chris Wright, a former oil industry chief who maintains that climate science is a hoax – announced that the National Renewable Energy Laboratory would now be renamed the National Laboratory of the Rockies (NLR).

It says this new name reflects the “laboratory’s expanding mission” under the Trump administration.

“The energy crisis we face today is unlike the crisis that gave rise to NREL,” said Audrey Robertson, assistant secretary of energy responsible for Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy. “We are no longer picking and choosing energy sources.

“Our highest priority is to invest in the scientific capabilities that will restore American manufacturing, drive down costs, and help this country meet its soaring energy demand. The National Lab of the Rockies will play a vital role in those efforts.”

The NREL was created in response to the 1973 oil crisis and was the first time that the US took aim at tackling energy issues through a centre of innovation to create and market new renewable energy policies.

Formerly known as the Solar Energy Research Institute (SERI) before its name was changed to the more well-known NREL in the early 1990s, the Laboratory has gone on to play a vital role in developing and integrating a broad array of energy technologies not only in the United States, but around the globe.

But any government-run operation with a focus on renewable energy was always going to be a target of the Trump administration and its anti-renewable, pro-fossil fuel agenda.

So far this year the Trump administration has cancelled previously approved renewable energy projects around the country, cut and eliminated funding and grants for clean energy and electric vehicles research and development, and forced the firing of over 100 employees at one of NREL’s campuses.

Other government agencies are facing similar attacks, such as the National Oceanic Atmospheric Administration (NOAA), which has seen the termination of hundreds of employees and dozens of federal contracts as well as the roll-back of critical responsibilities, including those of the National Weather Service and the National Centers for Environmental Information.

Trump has repeatedly and publicly lambasted renewable energy projects and the technologies behind them, and in turn called for more drilling of oil and gas and the revitalisation of the country’s coal industry.

The “energy crisis” that led to the creation of what would become the NREL was financial in nature and affected the ability of Americans to affordably purchase fuel for their cars.

Conversely, the only “energy crisis” that the Trump administration currently recognises is one that similarly affects only the United States and a limited depiction of what life in America should look like – gas guzzling cars, gas stoves, and a coal-powered electricity grid.

Any suggestion that there might be a global environmental crisis that the United States of America is partly responsible for is a suggestion that Donald Trump and his cronies have no time for, and a financially-motivated incentive to ignore.

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