Zeus: Why offshore wind companies take Trump's money and run

Taxpayer money to stop wind projects and start oil ones proves too good to give up for some

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Of all the business and investing strategies available to us, there’s nothing like being paid not to work. So we can understand why two more energy companies took the bid last week when the Trump administration said it would pay them hundreds of millions of dollars not to build offshore wind farms on the East and West coasts.

Following a successful offer last month from the Interior Department to pay Total Energies of France not to follow through with an offshore wind farm, two more projects were lined up to take the government money. Each is a joint venture involving European energy companies, with the one on the East Coast partly run by BlackRock BLK 0.00%↑, the giant fund manager that at one time promoted renewable power as a means to fight climate risk.