[HN Gopher] US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reaso...
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US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified
Author : rbanffy
Score : 312 points
Date : 2025-12-22 19:31 UTC (3 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (arstechnica.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (arstechnica.com)
| ChrisArchitect wrote:
| Earlier: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46355227
| msie wrote:
| Reasons:
|
| 1) to own the Libs
|
| 2) oil interests
| pstuart wrote:
| Because Trump failed to block an offshore wind farm near his
| golf course in Scotland. That anger will never leave him.
| josefritzishere wrote:
| Pure idiocracy.
| lateforwork wrote:
| The Saudis have enormous influence over Trump through business
| deals. So does Qatar through the jet they gifted Trump, and the
| UAE through crypto deals.
|
| These oil rich countries are no fans of clean energy.
|
| Is it merely coincidence, then, that Trump is canceling wind and
| solar projects in the United States?
|
| Previously Trump also canceled the largest solar project in the
| United States. Known as Esmeralda 7, the project planned in the
| Nevada desert would have produced enough energy to power nearly
| two million homes.
| verdverm wrote:
| It's more the Scottish that caused this than the oil princes,
| the windmill stuff is all about petty hatred from losing a
| court case and now one of his precious golf courses has
| windmills visible out on the ocean for a few of the holes
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
| lateforwork wrote:
| But he didn't just cancel wind projects. He cancelled solar.
| He cancelled EV tax credits.
|
| Then Trump went a step further: He is using tariffs to
| pressure other countries to relax their pledges to fight
| climate change and instead burn more oil, gas and coal [1].
|
| The oil princes are getting their moneys worth.
|
| [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-
| internation...
| verdverm wrote:
| the rest are more "a bonus" than the RCA, which is
| pettiness at his core and a constant seeing anything and
| everything as a slight against him
|
| how and why the republican/maga party wholeheartedly
| adopted Trump's grievances as their own is beyond me
| hristov wrote:
| The Arab Gulf states have also been pumping billions into Jared
| Cushner investment vehicles.
|
| https://www.newsweek.com/jared-kushner-says-15bn-qatar-uae-c...
| Moldoteck wrote:
| not just that. Fossils are/were the guarantee of US dollar
| dominance. Huge $ are made purely by the fact most fossils
| transactions are in $. It's not in the interest of US to reduce
| the influence of fossils, especially now when it's the biggest
| exporter. Trump is ... trump... his actions can be anyway
| between personal biased hate or US strategical decision...
| kevin_thibedeau wrote:
| > jet they gifted Trump
|
| The jet was gifted to the American people. There's no reason
| why he should be allowed to fly on it. It goes in the library
| with the rest of the state gifts.
| therobots927 wrote:
| All the more reason for me to invest in a personal windmill.
| Rebelgecko wrote:
| YMMV depending on where you live but for MOST people you get
| more bang for your buck with solar+batteries
| beembeem wrote:
| Unlike solar, wind at the utility scale virtually always
| improves load factors, lcoe, and a host of other economics vs
| a personal installation.
|
| Generally utility scale solar buys cheap panels that aren't
| as energy dense as those purchased by rooftop consumers, so
| you could make the argument. However, the efficiency and
| energy density of the ever-growing turbines installed by
| utilities, particularly off-shore, are far more efficient
| than anything you would install yourself. E.g. average annual
| wind speed typically improves with altitude, and having a
| taller turbine can reach those larger sustained wind speeds.
| Whereas, utilities and consumers almost always install solar
| near-ish ground level and see the same sky, perhaps the
| utility installs in a sunnier corner of geography. Consumers
| potentially benefit from the shading of panels, and lower
| distribution costs.
| derriz wrote:
| Sadly wind turbines don't really scale down like PV panels. The
| energy produced by PV panels is a linear function of their
| surface area. For wind turbines, it scales with the square of
| the blade length.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| This is true, but if you already have a battery, getting an
| extra 200-400w when the sun isn't shining is really useful.
| (for a UK based house. Not so sure about the USA.)
|
| The cost isn't as good as solar though. a 1kw turbine is
| expensive.
| MandieD wrote:
| Wow, that would take care of our usual home office base
| load (Germany, not using electricity for heating)
| aidenn0 wrote:
| Doesn't the area described by a turbine's motion scale with
| the square of the blade-length, so given a circular area
| covered by a turbine, the power will scale linearly with that
| area?
| iamnotsure wrote:
| "colonoscopy"
| kylehotchkiss wrote:
| Meanwhile, we're in a multi-year shortage of turbines for thermal
| electrical plants. Electric bill beatings will continue until
| morale improves.
| shmerl wrote:
| Of course they'll classify the actual reason - government
| corruption.
| willis936 wrote:
| It's a matter of national security that the public not know the
| government is illegitimate.
| dvh wrote:
| Putin's orders?
| zppln wrote:
| This happens all the time in my country. The navy has all kinds
| of gear deployed in the sea that could be interfered with.
|
| Edit: Looks like they were a bit late to veto it here though.
| breakyerself wrote:
| This is obviously because Donald Trump notoriously hates
| offshore wind turbines.
| dboreham wrote:
| Perhaps worth recapping that he hates them due to a specific
| personal event (the same is true for everything he does, if
| you dig deep enough to find the reason). In this case he
| developed a golf resort on the East Coast of Scotland.
| Meanwhile wind generators were also being deployed
| immediately offshore. He became enraged that the view from
| his new development was blighted by the turbines. So it isn't
| even due to oil industry bribery. It's personal.
| Swenrekcah wrote:
| In that case he would just approve wind farms that fuck
| with people he dislikes.
|
| It seems to me this is very much intentional to keep oil
| demand up and prices high.
| ceejayoz wrote:
| I'm pretty sure the list of people Trump outright _likes_
| is approximately one.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| The problem there is that other people don't hate wind
| farms the way he does.
| smolder wrote:
| I don't know why people think wind turbines are ugly...
| Someone who admires gold toilets, no less. I think the
| opposite.
| BurningFrog wrote:
| I think you just found the compromise:
|
| Gold painted wind turbines. Art of the Deal!
| linuxftw wrote:
| To be fair, there could absolutely be national security issues.
| One example might be undersea (or even surface) navigation. If
| the coastline is littered with windmills off shore, this might
| create a negative of submarine navigation routes. That's clearly
| information we don't want shared with adversaries. There might be
| undersea classified cables. There might be classified sonar
| stations. It might be hard to detect adversary subs within a
| windmill field due to extra noise, etc.
| breakyerself wrote:
| Sure. We can always imagine an excuse to avoid dealing with the
| obvious reality. I don't think it's productive though.
| vntok wrote:
| Yet Sweden did it too
| (https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/11/11/why-
| swe...) and they quote these defense-related reasons. Are
| they lying, do you believe that Sweden of all countries is
| under Trump's direct influence re: wind aversion?
| breakyerself wrote:
| Sweden is worried about a hostile neighbor. They're freaked
| out enough that they joined NATO after generations of non-
| alignment.
|
| Who are we afraid of? If ICBMs are incoming to the
| Continental United States the world is ending. Regardless
| of whether we prevent wind farms in any of the 12,000+
| miles of coastline.
|
| Are we expecting missiles to come from the Gulf of Mexico?
| People always bend over backwards to justify this
| administration. It's tiresome.
| LastTrain wrote:
| Sweden did not ban all offshore wind projects.
| baobun wrote:
| > do you believe that Sweden of all countries is under
| Trump's direct influence re: wind aversion?
|
| It looks increasingly like a US vassal state for every year
| so that part wouldn't be so surprising.
|
| Besides, the article you posted does not support your claim
| that Sweden blocked all offshore wind construction. On the
| contrary it refutes it by mentioning some greenlit offshore
| wind construction projects.
| jopsen wrote:
| Defense related reasons canceled projects early in the
| planning phase.
|
| This is the kind of thing you know years before
| construction is even funded, much less started.
|
| This is a US administration being dishonest, whether for
| stupidity or to apply political pressure who knows.
| roamerz wrote:
| They were approved by a prior administration that prioritized
| green energy over national security.
|
| There are several other comments above that allege other
| countries have come to the same conclusion regarding offshore
| wind farms having a negative affect on radar.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| Great, then they can explain the reasons. Most transparent
| administration in history, remember?
| nailer wrote:
| A conspiracy is not the obvious reality.
| ribosometronome wrote:
| If that were the case, why would they have been granted the
| leases in the first place?
| drivingmenuts wrote:
| Are the areas that we are placing windmills regularly navigated
| by submarines? And wouldn't windmills cause as much, or more,
| issues for an adversary submarines?
|
| I smell BS.
| jimt1234 wrote:
| If the US had a normal, rational Administration, then yeah, I'd
| probably accept the "national security" explanation. But when
| the Administration claims completing the White House ballroom
| is a matter of "national security", and Antifa is the current
| largest threat to "national security", then credibility for
| these claims is completely lost.
| vntok wrote:
| > But when the Administration claims completing the White
| House ballroom is a matter of "national security"
|
| All other things equal, opening a literal breach in one of
| the white house's exterior wall seems like it would cause a
| "national security" issue if the construction project was not
| finished and the hole remained gaping afterwards.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| I'm thinking maybe they shouldn't have done that.
| Unfortunately they are all incompetent.
| petre wrote:
| Yeah, especially enemy submarines. A windmill farm presents
| opportunities for defense: as a platform to mount and power
| sonar, radar arrays or other early warning systems, the power
| cables are actual decoys for comms infra, the farm itsrlf is an
| obstacle for drones and enemy subs.
| tony_cannistra wrote:
| I looked into this a little because I was curious. I guess the
| ostensible "national security" rationale (which clearly is not
| the only reason!) for this is that turbines severely degrade the
| utility of radar surveillance along the coastlines.
|
| This is particularly relevant for low-altitude incursions and
| drones.
|
| Now, other large governments (UK) have resolved this in several
| ways, including the deployment of additional radars on and within
| the turbine farms themselves.
|
| So clearly this is politically motivated, and they're using what
| seems to be a real but solveable concern as a scapegoat.
| sigwinch wrote:
| I feel like the defense against drones is denser, sharper
| turbines.
| reactordev wrote:
| This. Also, drones can be jammed pretty easily so making
| jamming stations on those platforms would be something too.
|
| The Brit's have the right approach, just put radar on them so
| now you can see past them.
| beembeem wrote:
| Result first (kill anything not carbon-based), find rationale
| later.
|
| Same applies to how this admin forced layoffs at the green
| energy (hydro + nuclear) behemoth BPA [1] (which was funded
| entirely by ratepayers, not the federal government) then
| claimed an energy emergency to keep open coal plants serving
| the same geographies, coal plants that were already
| uneconomical and planned for shut down (or re-tooling to gas in
| the case of TransAlta's plant in WA). [2] Oh and they already
| re-hired some of the laid off staff at BPA because they
| overcut.
|
| There is no point in taking these arguments at face value. It's
| an excuse generated after-the-fact, and in service of one
| outcome - kill renewable energy.
|
| [1] https://www.columbian.com/news/2025/mar/12/letter-cuts-at-
| bp...
|
| [2] https://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/climate-lab/doe-
| or...
| gregbot wrote:
| BPA is a federal agency. The Trump administration has been
| very supportive of zero carbon nuclear i believe they have
| promised $80 billion dollars to build new nuclear plants.
| Staff cuts dont mean they oppose using those energy sources.
| jetpks wrote:
| on the nuclear front, the administration has cut investment
| and reduced action in exchange for cheap promises. judge
| actions, not words.
| tehjoker wrote:
| this point is very important. trump will take all sides
| of an issue rhetorically so you can almost always find
| some quote of his supporting whatever position you favor
| but they have a very definite political program that is
| concentrating control, cutting federal workers, rolling
| back renewables, doing spectacular stunts to favor
| racists, and aggression overseas
| gardncl wrote:
| US deploys nuclear energy at over $10/watt meanwhile solar
| and wind are deployed around $2/watt (for levelized cost of
| electricity) including battery storage which means they are
| deployed for roughly the same cost as natural gas (so,
| direct competitors).
|
| Don't let comments like this fool you, nuclear is far from
| being competitive with natural gas. Even in countries like
| south korea that can deploy nuclear the cheapest it's still
| $3/watt roughly.
|
| Good news? Net new solar and wind plants can come "online"
| in less than two years. Net new natural gas takes four
| years. Part of why 95% of new energy deployed last year
| were renewables in the US, not just the subsidies.
| vablings wrote:
| Nuclear is insane levels of expensive likely due to
| overregulation.
|
| It is important for base load power and overnight power
| and should always be the backing of the grid frequency.
| Total loss of grid frequency is much more difficult to
| recover from with synthetic inertia.
|
| A healthy grid should have all of the following - Nuclear
| base load that keeps the grid stable and pick up from low
| solar
|
| - Gas plants for surge power and base load when
| nuclear/solar/wind cannot take up the slack
|
| - Battery storage for surge/storage during off peak
|
| - Solar for very low-cost cheap energy during peak usage
| hours
|
| - Wind for other power source ie when the sun isnt
| shining as much
|
| source: https://grid.iamkate.com/
| bayindirh wrote:
| > overregulation.
|
| Americans love to remove regulation to make things
| cheaper (and to enable capitalistic monopolies, but
| that's a different matter), then cry when people die (or
| worse).
|
| Some things needs to be regulated, esp. if mistakes are
| costly to the planet and/or people on the said planet.
|
| So yes, nuclear should be regulated, and even
| overregulated to keep it safe. We have seen what Boeing
| has become when it's effectively unregulated.
| ToucanLoucan wrote:
| > Americans love to remove regulation to make things
| cheaper
|
| Americans have no broad idea how anything works. Decades
| of attacks on our education system have left us civically
| illiterate (and for a lot of people, actually illiterate
| too.).
| stuffn wrote:
| The dunning Kruger effect on full display here. I love
| the mix of anti-American sentiment and BBC-tier soundbite
| nonsense.
| vablings wrote:
| > We have seen what Boeing has become when it's
| effectively unregulated.
|
| I think this is vastly overstated by the media. Boeing is
| still heavily regulated and has a pretty good safety
| record compared 20 or 30 years prior. The biggest
| disaster of recent times (MCAS) was because of the tight
| regulations around type certification and trying to avoid
| costs to carriers
|
| > Some things need to be regulated, esp. if mistakes are
| costly to the planet and/or people on the said planet.
|
| I absolutely agree. I am not for the removing ALL
| regulations from nuclear energy but there is a whole
| political servitude cycle that has taken place for a
| number of years to make nuclear "safer" when in actuality
| it has little to no influence on the technology and just
| adds burden and overhead especially in the new
| construction of a nuclear power plant
|
| Nuclear is this big scary monster because its invisible
| death machine. Despite us being regularly exposed various
| levels of radiation in our lives most people are
| completely unaware of. Some people are terrified of
| dental x-rays but will happily jump on an
| intercontinental flight without any second guess.
|
| I think arguing in the opposite of "you can never be too
| safe" is kind of like the whole double your bet every
| time you lose at the casino yes, its technically true but
| you need an infinite pool of chips for it to work.
| piva00 wrote:
| > The biggest disaster of recent times (MCAS) was because
| of the tight regulations around type certification and
| trying to avoid costs to carriers
|
| Meaning they tried to skirt around the regulations,
| including regulatory capture by pushing self-
| certification because competition caught up to them while
| they spent money on buybacks instead of investing in R&D,
| perhaps even investing in absorbing some costs of
| certification of pilots into a new type they could
| develop into the future instead of relying on a design
| from 60 years ago.
|
| Mismanagement is what created Boeing's issues, not
| regulation.
| ericmay wrote:
| There is room between under-regulation and over-
| regulation.
|
| Given that we are experiencing high costs and other
| barriers to construction, we can do at least two things:
| reduce red tape where it makes sense or where the risk is
| acceptable to help lower costs, or the US government can,
| through a variety of mechanisms ranging from basic
| research funding to direct subsidies, spend taxpayer
| money to try and alleviate costs.
|
| Given that we supposedly (and I agree) need to build
| nuclear reactors to help power our country and given that
| we aren't building them, we can optionally use both
| levers to encourage construction. There seems to be this
| mind virus that has infected many people on the internet
| that seem to think that regulations are a moral good, and
| so having more of them must be more good.
|
| This is not accurate.
|
| Regulations are simply a tool we can wield to achieve
| desired outcomes within various risk and need-based
| calculations. More regulations can be good, for example
| we should ban highway billboards- that would be a good
| regulation. Or we can eliminate regulations - allow
| businesses to build more housing using pre-approved
| designs that meet existing zoning code. Neither is good
| or bad, except in that it helps to achieve some aim that
| society has.
|
| The regulation or lack there of, of nuclear energy in the
| United States has absolutely nothing to do with Boeing
| airlines screwing up some plane designs. Drawing a
| conclusion that nuclear energy must be regulated (it is)
| or over-regulated (it probably is or else we would build
| more), because of a belief that Boeing airliners weren't
| regulated enough is, to put it lightly, nonsense, and you
| are mistakenly using the application of some regulation
| or lack of causing some bad things to happen, to imply
| that more regulation in another area would mean good
| things happen through this framework of regulation ==
| good.
|
| And further, if you're going to suggest that Boeing is
| _effectively unregulated_ , which is untrue in practice
| and in principal, then I'd argue that was for the best
| given that it is a hugely successful company that employs
| tens of thousands of people and hundreds of millions have
| flown and continue to fly on their airlines every single
| day safely and without incident.
| Forgeties79 wrote:
| With something as serious as a nuclear reactor, I am OK
| with over regulation.
| stuffn wrote:
| Regulation, I'd argue, is a far more efficient route to
| monopoly than "unchecked capitalism". If you have enough
| money you can gain regulatory capture.
|
| If you pay close attention the majority of "evil
| capitalists" the far left bitches and whines about so
| much are masters at this. Last mile service, car
| manufactures, medicine, law, construction, power, water,
| technology, banking, housing, etc. Most of the world's
| billionaires got their money through fucking over the
| average person with regulatory capture. This must present
| the leftist with a conundrum they simple ignore because
| it doesn't fit their paradigm. More government leads to
| more control of wealth by fewer people.
|
| This isn't to say all regulation is bad. However, the
| line between over-regulating and under-regulating is so
| thin it's often better to err on the looser side.
| Otherwise, in many places, small business is immediately
| crushed and "late stage capitalism" is the result.
| root_axis wrote:
| Regulatory capture is not an argument against regulation,
| it's an unavoidable externality that has to be managed.
| CamperBob2 wrote:
| _So yes, nuclear should be regulated, and even
| overregulated to keep it safe._
|
| Here's what overregulation of nuclear power has done for
| us over the past several decades: "We can't risk
| releasing radioactive pollution in an accident, so we'll
| build coal plants that spew it into the air during normal
| operation instead."
| psunavy03 wrote:
| This entire comment is conflating "overregulation" with
| "no regulation" when these are not at all the same
| things.
|
| Oh, and with an extra seasoning of Murica Bad on the
| side.
| sheikhnbake wrote:
| I suspect geothermal is going to quickly replace Nuclear
| as the most viable option for base load stabilization.
| Tech has come a long way towards letting us access it
| away from hot zones and it uses a lot of the same
| infrastructure and expertise that the oil industry has
| already developed.
| lawlessone wrote:
| >Nuclear is insane levels of expensive likely due to
| overregulation.
|
| Would to prefer underregulating it?
|
| How would you find the exact amount of correct
| regulation?
| vablings wrote:
| > Would to prefer underregulating it?
|
| No
|
| > How would you find the exact amount of correct
| regulation?
|
| Difficult problem. The issue right now is that nobody
| wants to be seen to remove a regulation from a nuclear.
| One of the biggest things is that ALARA/LNT needs to go
| away. It is not useful, and it is not based on good
| modern science
|
| Creating new assessments based on modern research would
| be good and there is already a ton of evidence around
| that could be foundational for making real science based
| changes
| AlexandrB wrote:
| Changes to bring regulation in line with actual risk
| would be a good start:
| https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=gzdLdNRaPKc
| Retric wrote:
| Nuclear is inherently expensive even with zero
| regulations you have the full costs of a coal power plant
| + more expensive lifetime costs for fuel + extra costs
| associated with nuclear such as more and more highly
| educated workers.
|
| Meanwhile coal is dead because it's already more
| expensive than the market is willing to accept.
|
| The only hope for nuclear is massive subsidies,
| deregulation on its own isn't going to work.
| cperciva wrote:
| _Nuclear is insane levels of expensive likely due to
| overregulation._
|
| It's not just a matter of "overregulation". ALARA, aka As
| Expensive As Reasonably Achievable is an explicit goal of
| nuclear regulation.
| sdenton4 wrote:
| Or maybe it's expensive because it doesn't scale. The
| per-unit cost of nuclear power plants is extremely high,
| making it hard to get economies of scale in building more
| of them. And if we /do/ hit economies of scale, uranium
| availability is likely to become a problem...
| vablings wrote:
| > The per-unit cost of nuclear power plants is extremely
| high, making it hard to get economies of scale in
| building more of them.
|
| I disagree. building big infrastructure projects always
| scales well. As stated by the project managers at Hinkley
| Point C (the most expensive nuclear reactor ever) they
| estimate that build times and cost will be significantly
| reduced for the second reactor due to the knowledge and
| expertise baked into the workforce. Frances nuclear
| revolution during the 1972 oil crisis also shows the same
| thing with construction cost getting lower the more
| reactors built.
|
| There are other reactor designs that do not use uranium
| that have been tested and hypothesized.
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| > per-unit cost of nuclear power plants is extremely high
|
| Unless you are the US Navy. It probably helps that they
| churn out dozens of the same few cookie-cutter designs
| without needing permission from NIMBYs.
| epistasis wrote:
| Those reactors were also very expensive, though, weren't
| they? I've heard lots of people look to them as a reason
| that SMRs might work, but not because the naval reactors
| were cheap. Plus they use uranium enriched to levels that
| we typically don't allow in civilian reactors...
| vablings wrote:
| Honestly not a terrible idea. Just have your reactor on a
| huge barge and if it goes meltdown just drag it out into
| international waters and let the fish deal with it /s
| epistasis wrote:
| Nuclear is expensive because of the large amount of high-
| skill labor, including welding, that's required. For less
| economically advanced countries, that labor is cheap. For
| more economically advanced countries, that labor becomes
| more expensive. Regulation is a red-herring being pushed
| as an excuse, mostly by startups that are desperate to
| get the next round of funding, because it plays very well
| to the investor class, but it's not based in reality. I
| ask about this all the time and even if there are some
| half-baked critiques of things like ALARA, nobody has a
| path to actually making the Nth build of a reactor
| cheaper from changing regulations.
|
| Even France, which is known for having far lower
| construction costs than the US on big projects, and for
| being very good at building out their nuclear fleet in
| the past, is at ~$12/W with their newest round of 6
| reactors. And that's before they have even started
| construction:
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/frances-edf-
| estimate...
|
| This is roughly the cost of the latest US nuclear reactor
| at Vogtle, which is viewed as unrealistically expensive
| energy.
|
| And even the most optimistic plans for reducing the cost
| of nuclear from the Liftoff report in 2023 from DOE
| doesn't place regulations as having much of a role in
| lowering costs:
|
| https://gain.inl.gov/content/uploads/4/2024/11/DOE-
| Advanced-...
|
| There's significant political interest in having
| regulation be the reason that nuclear is expensive, but I
| find almost zero people in the nuclear industry that are
| able to articulate where regulations increase the cost of
| builds or whether there's anything that could or should
| be changed about the regulations.
| cyberax wrote:
| > US deploys nuclear energy at over $10/watt meanwhile
| solar and wind are deployed around $2/watt (for levelized
| cost of electricity)
|
| That's when storage is not considered. Once storage is
| factored in, the LCOE becomes anywhere between $5 to $20.
| In the US, solar makes a lot of sense in the southern
| states, less sense in Midwest and WA.
|
| That being said, the US still has plenty of capacity to
| accommodate more "sewer grade" (no battery backup) solar
| generation. It will provide easy CO2 savings and it can
| work well with flexible power consumers (AI training
| datacenters).
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| This administration won't last long enough to see any of
| these nuclear ambitions to any sort of success (its takes
| at least a decade to build nuclear generators in the
| developed world). Words are cheap, and regime change is
| coming. Solar and battery storage is already the cheapest
| form of generation in most of the world, and will only
| continue to decline in price, while the US will continue
| to face system and labor challenges precluding the large
| scale construction of commercial nuclear. The US
| currently doesn't have enough labor to build residential
| construction and naval vessels, so it will be interesting
| to see where they attempt to source this labor from
| (assuming the usual labor pipeline challenges where it
| takes up to half a decade to turn a human into a skilled
| tradesperson from an apprentice or other form of
| beginner).
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-insights/solar-
| electricity-e...
|
| https://ember-energy.org/latest-updates/batteries-now-
| cheap-...
|
| https://www.agc.org/news/2025/08/28/construction-
| workforce-s...
|
| https://www.nahb.org/blog/2025/10/hbi-labor-market-report
|
| https://www.slashgear.com/2034405/us-navy-warship-
| building-w...
| gardncl wrote:
| That is not correct, and doesn't even pass the sniff
| test. Solar is deployed at ~$2/watt and you're saying
| batteries are increasing that cost 2.5x to 10x? So,
| someone installing a home battery system is paying up to
| 10x their solar install cost to also have battery backup?
| No way.
|
| Also, battery tech continues to improve rapidly, we're
| seeing breakthroughs like this rapidly reduce the price:
| https://spectrum.ieee.org/co2-battery-energy-storage
|
| A good video on LCOE:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i-891blV02c
| coryrc wrote:
| As usual, explain how you're going to power heat pumps in
| the Northern half of the country during a 3 week bomb
| cyclone. There are answers and they cost money.
|
| The only answer we're using is to build 1:1 natural gas
| capability for solar, which is roughly double the cost.
| That's a solution, but it needs to be accounted for when
| comparing options.
| osn9363739 wrote:
| Couldn't this also be solved with transmission from other
| parts of the country? or is that what you're saying?
| gardncl wrote:
| Alternative to natural gas? Wind, geothermal, or nuclear.
| Wind is already in the northern half of the country and
| operates well when winterized, unlike the ones in Texas
| that broke since they were not winterized during that
| freeze a while back.
|
| Natural gas and fossil fuels are not our only options,
| they are the easiest options.
| triceratops wrote:
| > a 3 week bomb cyclone
|
| Sounds pretty windy to me.
| fasterik wrote:
| This comment is also misleading. First, $/watt is not how
| levelized cost of electricity is measured, you need to
| use $/watt-hour (or more commonly, $/MWh) over the
| lifetime of the project. By definition, levelized cost of
| electricity does not include storage.
|
| The cost is also affected by the percent of energy coming
| from wind+solar+batteries vs. from natural gas.
| Wind+solar+batteries are cheap when they are used to
| supplement natural gas. If they were supplying 95% of
| generation (Levelized Full System Cost of Electricity
| 95%, LFSCOE-95), then the price of wind+solar+batteries
| would be $97/MWh compared to $37/MWh for gas, and $96/MWh
| for nuclear. For LFSCOE-100, the price of
| wind+solar+batteries increases to $225/MWh, compared to
| $122/MWh for nuclear and $40/MWh for natural gas.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity
| _by_source#...
|
| So yes, natural gas is much cheaper than nuclear. But
| that doesn't mean that nuclear shouldn't play a large
| role going forward. The moral of the story is that the
| price of energy is complicated. It's likely that a
| combination of nuclear, wind, solar, and battery backup
| would be the best option in terms of price and carbon
| emissions.
| gardncl wrote:
| My comment is not misleading, you're just using outdated
| data from 2022.
|
| Sure, happy to quibble over units.
|
| The most recent mid-2025 data is from lazard here, it
| echos exactly what I'm saying.
|
| Website: https://www.lazard.com/research-
| insights/levelized-cost-of-e...
|
| PDF of report:
| https://www.lazard.com/media/5tlbhyla/lazards-lcoeplus-
| june-...
|
| Go to page 8 of that PDF and you will see these ranges
| for LCOE:
|
| * Solar $38-$78/MWh
|
| * Solar + battery $50-131/MWh
|
| * Gas combined cycle (cheapest fossil fuel) $48-107/MWh
|
| Yes, we are finally at price parity for the technologies.
| fasterik wrote:
| I didn't disagree that there is price parity for the
| levelized cost. There is still not price parity for
| levelized full system cost. If we used wind and solar for
| 95-100% of generation, the price would be much higher.
|
| My point is not that we can or should replace wind and
| solar with nuclear. It's that it is far cheaper to use a
| combination of nuclear, wind, and solar than it is to use
| 100% wind and solar.
| gardncl wrote:
| Agreed. I misunderstood your comment and got too hot-
| headed.
|
| Yes, the 95% renewables is the number we should be
| shooting for not 100% as that causes battery backup price
| to explode.
|
| I have been pro-nuclear for a long time, to disappointing
| results naturally. So, with how well renewables are doing
| I've really just jumped on this train and seen nuclear as
| more of a distraction from the critical next 10-20 years
| given how long it takes to come online.
|
| At the end of the day the grid is only about 30% of the
| emissions problem (depending where you look).
| fasterik wrote:
| I may have misinterpreted your original post as saying we
| should be going full renewables. I think we're basically
| in agreement about prices. We might just disagree about
| the percent of energy that should come from nuclear.
|
| I don't see nuclear as a distraction, I see it as a piece
| of the puzzle. We will always need a source of reliable,
| uninterrupted power. Whether that comes from natural gas,
| nuclear, geothermal, hydro, etc. depends on geographical
| considerations and what tradeoffs we are willing to make
| in terms of cost and carbon emissions. I'm still
| optimistic that small modular reactors are going to see
| success in the coming decades.
| gardncl wrote:
| Yeah, my opinion on how much should come from nuclear is
| that current levels (~20%) are enough to fill the rest in
| with renewables.
|
| I'd love to be France (~50%) but there is so much
| pushback against the technology due to accidents that
| happened decades ago with generation II plants (chernobyl
| + three mile island). We're now building tech for gen
| III+ plants and there is just almost no appetite to build
| them, we finished the vogles and now are completely
| pivoting to SMRs, which is fine.
|
| SMR is probably what makes the most sense even if they're
| less efficient because until now the nuclear plants have
| not been very standardized which increases costs.
|
| Why do I think nuclear is a distraction? Because I don't
| think it's a like-for-like replacement of fossil fuels
| and this admin knows that. They're willing to invest
| because it won't disrupt their biggest donors. The time
| horizon on nuclear is long, and there is a future (I
| hope) where we have nuclear plants hooked up to carbon
| capture technology and we pull these gasses out of the
| atmosphere but until then what is the cheapest and most
| efficient path between current emissions and a massive
| cut in them?
| laurencerowe wrote:
| I think it's quite conceivable that nuclear would be
| cheaper for a 100% carbon free grid.
|
| But I don't understand how the combination of nuclear,
| wind and solar would be low cost. Wouldn't you
| effectively have to build out enough nuclear to cover
| still cloudy days at which point your wind and solar is
| not very useful? That sounds expensive.
|
| I suspect we won't end up building much nuclear because
| we will already have built out so much wind and solar.
| Nuclear is a poor fit for filling gaps in generation by
| intermittent renewables because fuel costs are negligible
| so it costs the same whether you run at 50% or 100% of
| rated output.
|
| To eliminate carbon emissions entirely we will need some
| green hydrogen for turning into aviation fuel and as
| chemical feedstocks. Perhaps the gas backup will
| eventually burn that.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| First. $120/MWh for new built nuclear power is cheaper
| than any modern western reactors. Real costs are
| ~180-220/MWh when running at 100% 24/7 all year around.
| As based on Vogtle, FV3, HPC, EPR2s, Polish reactors etc.
|
| The problem with these "system costs" analyses is that
| they don't capture the direct physical incentive
| structure of our grids.
|
| Why should someone with rooftop solar and a home battery
| buy $180-220/MWh when they have their own electricity
| available?
|
| Why should they not sell their excess to the grid cheaper
| than said nuclear power? It is zero marginal cost after
| all.
|
| You can call it tragedy of the commons but new built
| nuclear power simply is unfit for our modern grids.
|
| We need firming for near emergency reserves coming from
| production with the cheapest possible CAPEX without an
| outrageous OPEX.
|
| Likely gas turbines running on carbon neutral fuels. But
| only if we determine that they are needed in the 2030s.
|
| New built nuclear power simply doesn't even enter the
| picture in late 2025.
| salynchnew wrote:
| > Don't let comments like this fool you, nuclear is far
| from being competitive with natural gas. Even in
| countries like south korea that can deploy nuclear the
| cheapest it's still $3/watt roughly.
|
| People still insist that ecofascists(?) or NIMBYism is
| what killed nuclear, when the reality is that it was the
| coal industry.
| ViewTrick1002 wrote:
| South Korea which famously had an enormous corruption
| scandal coupled to their nuclear industry. Leading to
| jail time and a complete regulatory retake.
|
| https://www.technologyreview.com/2019/04/22/136020/how-
| greed...
|
| The proposed costs for the Westinghouse reactors in
| Poland and EPR2s in France are pretty much in line with
| the unthinkably expensive Vogtle costs. They haven't even
| started building.
| vablings wrote:
| So why make the cuts in the first place? There are so many
| things that could have been changed like getting rid of
| ALARPA for actual scientifically backed methods other than
| pointless gratitude's of X dollars for X industry. If the
| Trump admin truly believed in move fast and break things
| why is nothing moving
|
| More power is always good (see china being 1# in solar,
| nuclear and wind lol), and it's known that the cost of
| energy directly correlates with growth right now there is
| no excuse for cutting any federal workers in the energy
| industry.
| stefanfisk wrote:
| Here in Sweden a bunch of offshore wind farm project and even
| residential PV installations are blocked by the military for
| unspecified reasons that everyone assumes is that it blocks
| radar and other signal intelligence.
|
| Even though you can partially work around the issue with better
| onshore equipment or just placing the stuff on the other side
| of the interfering equipment it is still a step down from not
| having any interference in the first place. Especially if you
| want to keep your listening equipment secret.
| opello wrote:
| I'm surprised residential PV even interacts with radar -- or
| is that the other signal intelligence part?
| rolph wrote:
| yes i found that take as well, i also found it interesting that
| potential for an industrial colony, and early warning
| infrastructure is undervalued.
| bakies wrote:
| Seems like "national security" has become a phrase that can be
| used to circumvent many laws, facts, and balance checks. Just
| like the word "terrorist." It seems like if these ever get
| challenged to the Supreme Court the current judges will rule
| with something like it being at the president's discretion.
|
| So obviously the government can spend some of that $1T military
| budget on fixing their coastal radar.
|
| I thought Massachusetts just won in court to get their money or
| construction resumed, wonder if this means they have to go back
| to court.
| dylan604 wrote:
| > Seems like "national security" has become a phrase that can
| be used to circumvent many laws
|
| By has become, you mean always has been, right?
| bakies wrote:
| I guess I think it used to be more believable that it was
| used for security, but maybe I wouldn't if I knew better
| history.
| BLKNSLVR wrote:
| Since 2001 at least.
| _aavaa_ wrote:
| Since WWII and the bomb. See Bomb Power by Garry Wills
| KoolKat23 wrote:
| It's well known ol' Don Quixote doesn't like windmills, I mean
| wind turbines.
| andyjohnson0 wrote:
| > I guess the ostensible "national security" rationale (which
| clearly is not the only reason!) for this is that turbines
| severely degrade the utility of radar surveillance along the
| coastlines.
|
| Could it be that they just feel that offshore wind infra is
| difficult to defend militarily?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| No, they aren't any more difficult to defend than any other
| offshore platform. They do interfere with long-range land-
| based radar in a way that is problematic with the emergence
| of shipborne drones.
| triceratops wrote:
| Are they shutting down offshore oil drilling too?
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| Even if it is a pretense, it is pretty obvious that this would
| allow ship-borne drones to use the wind farms as an effective
| screen. Putting radar platforms beyond the wind farms that are
| as capable as the existing land-based radars would be quite
| expensive in both capex and opex. Some of the existing land-
| based radars would likely need to be moved, ideally. No one was
| really thinking about this type of threat a decade ago.
|
| That said, Democrats have also been trying to stop offshore
| wind farms for years (e.g. Vineyard Wind), so there is probably
| bipartisan support.
| Msurrow wrote:
| The construction on some of these windmill farms started
| years ago. Before that permits & legal has been in the works
| for a long time. This surely included security clearances.
|
| The orange shrimp pulling the "national security" card now,
| on the same day as he also creates a new Greenland debacle,
| is very clearly simply an attempt to strong arm the danish
| govt into Greenland concessions (in turn simply to please his
| fractile lille ego)
| jandrewrogers wrote:
| This reply doesn't address any core point.
|
| When these wind farms were permitted many years ago,
| shipborne drones were not part of the threat matrix. It was
| considered purely hypothetical even a decade ago because it
| was not an imminent capability for any country even though
| e.g. the US DoD had studied it. In the last few years
| shipborne drones have emerged very quickly as a substantial
| practical threat, largely due to the Russia/Ukraine war.
| Governments around the world are struggling to adapt to
| this new reality because none of their naval systems are
| designed under this assumption.
|
| Whether or not this is convenient for Trump doesn't take
| away from the reality of the security implications.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _So clearly this is politically motivated_
|
| Trump has been charging at windmills ever since he was defeated
| in UK courts in a case where he didn't like that wind turbines
| (that provide enough power for 80,000 homes) could be seen from
| his golf course.
|
| https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo
| Gibbon1 wrote:
| Combination of he's vindictive and he's making an example of
| what happens when you don't preemptively pay him a bribe.
| IndrekR wrote:
| Taiwan strait is filled with offshore wind turbines from both
| sides. This is not an issue for PRC nor Taiwan.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Yea... I don't trust the motivations, but can confirm that on
| AA radars looking low (Where you might find UAS or just low-
| flying aircraft), wind farms show up as clusters of false hits.
| anigbrowl wrote:
| It's not like they're moving around though.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| Yea; it will be obvious if you've accidentally locked into
| one, then look at it with eyes or other equipment. And the
| 0 ground speed. But UAS could hide in them effectively I
| speculate?
| stevage wrote:
| But if they're just false hits it's easy to filter them out,
| right?
| KaiserPro wrote:
| https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/14/3541/2021/
|
| There is data on what wind turbines do to radar.
| alphazard wrote:
| Bringing up a map of wind power deployments tells the story;
| what you will see is a hot vertical strip in the center of the
| US. That is where it actually makes sense to deploy windmills,
| and people will continue to put them there even if subsidies
| end. It makes sense for the area, the amount of wind, the
| serviceability of the deployments, etc.
|
| Off shore has always been politically contentious because it's
| much more dependent on subsidies, it's a battle for/against
| rent-seeking. One party is in favor of this particular kind of
| rent-seeking and the other party isn't (they will be in favor
| of a different kind, no doubt). The subsidies are necessary for
| these deployments to make financial sense, and if they went
| away, then it would just be a bad place to put a windmill.
|
| There is no national security issue, there is no real case for
| energy infrastructure either. This use case needs government
| money to make sense, and is therefore sensitive to political
| fluctuations.
| giantg2 wrote:
| I'd imagine subsurface detection faces issues with the large
| electromagnetic fields from generation and transmission too.
| moomoo11 wrote:
| Wind seems like a waste of money compared to solar. We aren't
| the UK where they are a tiny island holding on.
|
| We have a massive land area on which we can build solar and
| plug it into existing power lines or build that part out.
| Probably way more feasible and better power generation results
| than building wind out in the ocean.
| AnthonyMouse wrote:
| > So clearly this is politically motivated, and they're using
| what seems to be a real but solveable concern as a scapegoat.
|
| I approve of this, because they were going to come up with an
| excuse one way or another, but "it's classified" has been a BS
| excuse that has received far too much deference to cover for
| all kinds of nonsense going back many decades, and being
| sufficiently flagrant about it is exactly what it takes to
| create enough of a backlash to finally do something about it.
| standardUser wrote:
| That you could come up with one reasonable-sounding explanation
| while they offered nothing makes me wonder if the
| administration is too lazy, or too inept.
| sl_convertible wrote:
| Also look at how defensible having your power generation
| outside your coastline is. This is creating a big vulnerability
| in your power grid.
| scoofy wrote:
| The problem is that we have a Congress that cares more about
| in-group loyalty than they do about idiocy.
|
| Meanwhile, we even have Michael Burry pointing out the obvious:
| we're losing to China because we're not building up every bit
| of energy capacity that we can. But, sure, why not just ban
| windfarms in a location perfectly suited to them:
|
| https://x.com/michaeljburry/status/2002285483158569147
| pclmulqdq wrote:
| These things are also probably really loud if you happen to
| have a sensitive set of sonar buoys. I'm not entirely sure how
| you solve that one, because putting them in deeper water would
| also make them less effective.
| catigula wrote:
| It's interesting that people are very incredulous of there being
| a legitimate defense reason for this when we have had unilateral
| unanswered drone incursions all over Europe and the US.
|
| There's obviously some sort of arms race occurring and some of it
| is public.
|
| The world in on the precipice of many technologies advancing at
| an all too rapid pace. The idea that technology will become
| tightly regulated isn't inconceivable.
|
| FYI Sweden did the same thing last year. There is likely a
| (drone) reason, it's all but completely clear.
| dcminter wrote:
| It could in principle be legit. But there's a trail of previous
| bad faith behaviour around the same windfarms.
| LastTrain wrote:
| No, Sweden did not ban all offshore wind projects last year.
| catigula wrote:
| Is that the strawman framing of my argument that you want to
| stick with?
|
| https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/11/11/why-
| swe...
| LastTrain wrote:
| You framed it that way. This is an article about how the US
| shut down every offshore wind farm project. People are here
| discussing the fact that the us shut down every offshore
| wind project. You came in and said Sweden did it too.
| Setting aside the fact that they did not do that, they
| blocked some projects, not all - you don't even know what
| "it" is because the US did not give a rationale.
| pickleglitch wrote:
| This is part of the problem with having an administration that
| so obviously corrupt and so frequently tells the most obvious
| lies and consistently acts with such obvious, naked
| partisanship. You can't trust them about anything.
| heavyset_go wrote:
| They've been crying wolf for nearly a decade now, they aren't
| suddenly going to have a change of heart and be honest now.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > unanswered drone incursions all over Europe
|
| But thats nothing to do with turbines. Its not like russia are
| hiding behind wind turbines launching drones between them.
|
| They are just sitting there, well within radar range launching
| away. they also have AIS on, so its not like they are hiding.
|
| Also if you look at where they are:
| https://openinframap.org/#8.13/51.48/1.67 there is plenty of
| overlap for existing radar to overlap.
|
| _Also_ they are the perfect platform for extending your radar
| network. they are tall, well connected and widely spaced.
| blahedo wrote:
| I've been wondering all year about what happens when an
| executive-branch office issues orders that it is not legally
| qualified to issue; by and large everybody has just... followed
| them. This may be another example (I don't know quite enough of
| the legal specifics in this case, though there are certainly
| others that are more slam-dunk-y in this respect).
|
| What are the enforcement mechanisms here if the states in
| question---MA, RI, CT, NY, NJ, and VA---just said "no go ahead,
| keep building"? What happens to the companies if they just keep
| building? I'm not saying they _should_ but at this point rule-of-
| law has fallen apart so badly that I literally don 't know what
| happens when the government invents a new rule and people just...
| disregard it. (Particularly if state-level enforcement decides
| not to play along.) Do they bring in the FBI? Military?
| dmbche wrote:
| These things take large amount of money from upstream, if the
| money is cut they can "say" what they want, nothing is getting
| done, from my understanding
| reactordev wrote:
| Power of the purse, given to the executive
| jrmg wrote:
| Short term punishment for states: ICE and the National Guard
| get sent into cities to make people feel unsafe, under the
| guise of an 'immigration emergency'. Perhaps also Marines!
|
| To punish more fully, just illegally withhold federal funds for
| whatever is most hurtful. Highways? Education? Healthcare?
|
| And to your direct point, I'm sure someone could whip up a
| reason for the military to take over and shut down the sites if
| they don't comply - this _is_ a national security matter after
| all.
|
| Court system stops any of that? Just comply (or pretend to)
| with the letter of the ruling and try another barely-
| distinguishable but arguably different illegal method for the
| next few months while the gears of the court system grind.
|
| What is _meant_ to stop the executive branch (meant to
| 'execute' the will of Congress, not just follow its own
| desires) going rogue is impeachment by Congress, but that seems
| like a far off prospect.
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Midterms are coming up next year.
| consumer451 wrote:
| Don't worry, there is a plan. CNN will be in new hands by
| that point. Reddit's r/all will be, or already is gone from
| the app's defaults, and much more to come!
| ta9000 wrote:
| I don't even know liberals that watch CNN. It's already
| irrelevant.
| consumer451 wrote:
| If it was truly irrelevant, then there wouldn't be
| billions being thrown at it.
| Tostino wrote:
| It's the airport TV's and doctor's office waiting rooms
| that they are bidding for at this point.
| techgnosis wrote:
| I would imagine that most if not all will comply with illegal
| orders out of fear of retaliation, which is a very valid fear.
| pred_ wrote:
| > just said "no go ahead, keep building"? What happens to the
| companies if they just keep building?
|
| As the article also touches upon, this already happened in the
| particular case of Revolution Wind: There, work, was forced to
| stop in August, then in September a federal judge blocked
| enforcement of the block, and work continued:
|
| https://www.cnbc.com/2025/09/22/judge-orsted-revolution-wind...
|
| https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/offshore-wind-develo...
|
| And "what happens" seems to be that rather than appeal, the
| rule-of-law deniers apparently choose to not care? Work has
| stopped again:
|
| https://orsted.com/en/media/news/2025/12/revolution-wind-and...
| bell-cot wrote:
| Don't expect any sort of mass disobedience here. Doing anything
| in offshore wind requires a large, highly-skilled organization
| and lot of time. One firm "ahem!" from the Coast Guard, Navy,
| or Treasury, and that kinda org will back down.
|
| If things fall apart so badly that the CG, USN, and Treasury
| don't matter - then who's paying the bills for any offshore
| construction, and who's protecting anything that is built from
| looting or seizure?
| linuxhansl wrote:
| What the... It seems we crossed into the realm of intentionally
| doing damage. I'm reminded of threatening tariffs to successfully
| derail global carbon levy on ship emissions.
|
| Meanwhile China runs away with all the clean energy tech (solar,
| wind, batteries, etc, etc.) while we hold to fossil fuels to save
| less than 200,000 jobs.
| andrewflnr wrote:
| Intentionally doing damage started with DOGE. So, roughly day
| 1.
| bakies wrote:
| you forgot this is part 2
| nailer wrote:
| Eliminating government waste damages the wasteful and
| corrupt.
|
| https://doge.gov/savings
| watwut wrote:
| The group that was found to be massively lying every time
| they released stats in easy to catch ways and wasted more
| money then they saved?
| amanaplanacanal wrote:
| Just because they call it waste, doesn't make it so. You
| could cut anything and then justify it by calling it waste.
|
| It's all bullshit.
| dboreham wrote:
| > we crossed into the realm of intentionally doing damage
|
| That occurred a long time ago with the destruction of USAID and
| arbitrary firing of large numbers of federal workers.
| nailer wrote:
| But USAID needed to be destroyed. 'AID' never stood for aid,
| it was an organization for international development and
| spent vast amounts of money on cultural programs for
| countries that didn't want them.
| Tostino wrote:
| There will be an estimated 14 million extra deaths directly
| attributed to this policy choice: https://www.thelancet.com
| /journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6...
|
| 91 million lives were saved over the last two decades. The
| vast majority of that wasn't "international development"
| fluff; it was basic survival. We're talking about stopping
| tuberculosis, malaria, and starvation.
|
| Framing this as getting rid of unwanted "cultural programs"
| is a convenient way to ignore the fact that we pulled the
| plug on the life support system for 30 million children.
| triceratops wrote:
| > vast amounts of money on cultural programs for countries
| that didn't want them.
|
| I don't understand. How do you give someone money if they
| don't want it?
| huntertwo wrote:
| The intention is to make specific individuals a lot of money.
| It has been since day 1.
| dylan604 wrote:
| Do you mean the first day 1 or the second day 1?
| iwontberude wrote:
| Reminiscent of how most water which used to melt into the Great
| Salt Lake is now being used to farm Alfalfa, which only makes
| up 1% of their GDP and far fewer jobs than other industries. Of
| course if this continues for another generation, toxic arsenic
| dust will pollute and force the failure of Salt Lake City and
| surrounding regions. Luckily this will cause the agricultural
| industry to fail (after killing many people) and nature will
| heal itself.
| JohnTHaller wrote:
| We've been in the realm of intentionally doing damage for a
| while now. But we got these cool red hats.
| Herring wrote:
| Blue states need to learn how red states work, because this
| country is turning into one big red state.
| Threatening/damaging your population to keep them in line is
| absolutely par for the course normal and expected, as
| perfected during slavery.
|
| https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11109-024-10000-8
|
| In a nutshell, this is what Trump was elected to do to
| minorities, women, trans, blue states, Europe, China,
| everyone.
| watwut wrote:
| He is going to do to America the same thing he had done to
| his companies - destroy it. Unfortunately, he fails
| upwards, so he will take over the whole world and then
| destroy it all.
| DFHippie wrote:
| He will die pretty soon. He's just the first stage of the
| rocket. He thinks he's a pharaoh letting a thousand
| pyramids bloom, but he's expendable. He'll be gone.
| People will chisel his name off the monuments he's
| vandalized. But the people who granted him power like
| what he's doing. He's somebody's monkey. The hollowing
| out of the US and the world order that produced western
| prosperity and security will continue. The people who
| call the tune to which he dances will call tunes for the
| next monkey.
| NewJazz wrote:
| Trouble is... You can do it to a few minorities and get
| away with it. When you act like an asshole to the entire
| world, well suddenly assholes as big as you are in the
| minority... Oops.
| Moldoteck wrote:
| china runs with everything. They are still expanding coal units
| for firming and they'll build a ton of new gas units too. But
| to ban deployment of wind turbines without any explanation is
| ... expected from current administration...
| hopelite wrote:
| Being blind with bias is also expected. I don't like what is
| going on either, but please consider that if it was only
| about "damaging" as others have implied, it would not just be
| off shore wind turbines. I can assure you there are other
| reasons.
| nerevarthelame wrote:
| >It seems we crossed into the realm of intentionally doing
| damage.
|
| "The Trump administration's decision to shut down the U.S.
| Agency for International Development (USAID) has resulted in
| hundreds of thousands of deaths from infectious diseases and
| malnutrition, according to Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public
| Health's Atul Gawande ... The dismantling of USAID, according
| to models from Boston University epidemiologist Brooke Nichols,
| "has already caused the deaths of six hundred thousand people,
| two-thirds of them children," Gawande wrote. He noted that the
| toll will continue to grow and may go unseen because it can
| take months or years for people to die from lack of treatments
| or vaccine-preventable illnesses--and because deaths are
| scattered." [https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/usaid-shutdown-has-
| led-to-hund...]
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| What? They've been intentionally doing damage for a long time.
| Pardoning criminals is one that comes to mind.
| dfxm12 wrote:
| _Pardoning criminals is one that comes to mind._
|
| Seriously, the pardons alone make this the most pro-crime
| administration in my lifetime. Probably ever.
| iwontberude wrote:
| Our President allegedly has a fetish to to "suck on the pert
| nipples of underaged girls until they are red and chafed" and
| there is video evidence Israel is using to twist his arm, maybe
| the energy industry has other dirt on him too. What a joke of a
| country.
| bakies wrote:
| not to deny the allegations but every president has had their
| arm twisted by Israel and sell out to oil.
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Meanwhile China runs away with all the clean energy tech
| (solar, wind, batteries, etc, etc.) while we hold to fossil
| fuels to save less than 200,000 jobs._
|
| If you're talking about coal miners, David Frum joked /
| observed that there are more yoga instructors in the US than
| coal miners:
|
| * https://www.sfgate.com/columnists/article/Yoga-teachers-
| vs-c...
| canyp wrote:
| That headline really deserves a literary prize.
|
| Yoga instructors, assemble!
| wnevets wrote:
| > What the... It seems we crossed into the realm of
| intentionally doing damage.
|
| That began almost the moment this administration came into
| power.
| pheggs wrote:
| there are at least two reasons trump is pushing for oil:
|
| 1) the US has lots of oil reserves, which would lose lots of
| value if everybody was using renewables 2) oil is the main
| driver for dollar demand, as oil is paid in dollar, allowing
| the US to have lots of debt relatively cheaply
|
| That's also the reason why he wants to tell Europe to stop
| using renewables, and that's the reason why he is threatening
| Venezuela - because they have the biggest oil reserve and
| started selling it in different currencies.
|
| Now whether that whole genius strategy to gain wealth through
| geopolitics is worth an extinction event is a different story.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > That's also the reason why he wants to tell Europe to stop
| using renewables, and that's the reason why he is threatening
| Venezuela - because they have the biggest oil reserve and
| started selling them not in USD.
|
| What's interesting is that the strategy you suggest (tell
| Europe to stop using renewables, attack nations that compete
| with US oil sales) only _motivates_ other nations to move
| away from oil. It 's a terrible strategy if the intent is to
| sell more US oil. Renewables are far more sustainable in many
| regards, and bolster national energy security while remaining
| on fossil fuels leaves them weak wrt energy security.
| pheggs wrote:
| it could very well be that it backfires. I guess time will
| tell. A lot of his actions seem to be trimmed into this
| direction, and it's not a new one. He left the paris
| climate agreement quite a while back as far as I remember.
| blocking offshore wind construction just fits this agenda,
| as supporting companies to manufacture these windmills
| would just make everything cheaper (more demand, rising
| production capacity etc.) and demonstrate actual use of it.
|
| At least that's how I see this.
| Jtsummers wrote:
| > it could very well be that it backfires.
|
| It's kind of hard to see the strategy you outlined as
| doing anything other than backfiring. Oil and other
| fossil fuels are consumables. Once burned, they're gone.
| For strategic reasons, most nations with any sense and
| the economic ability to do so are turning away from
| fossil fuels precisely due to this fact. European nations
| are not exceptional here, the US is actually the outlier.
|
| Your suggested strategy is that the US wants European
| nations to buy more US oil, and in order to motivate them
| the US is demonstrating how bad oil dependence is. See
| Cuba (they depend on Venezuelan oil there).
|
| How could a demonstration of the _flaws_ of oil
| dependency possibly motivate the _sale_ of US oil rather
| than hasten the move towards solar, wind, and other power
| sources?
|
| This is why I said it's a terrible strategy. Only the
| non-thinking would go for it.
| jopsen wrote:
| Also the US is increasingly proving itself as an unreliable
| partner. Do you want that for your energy supply?
|
| This is just more of that, contracts in the US are suddenly
| subject to political winds.
|
| In the end, this will probably be unblocked by the legal
| system, and eventually the US tax payers will pay for
| damages. But it'll be a long time.
| aqme28 wrote:
| There is a third important reason--
|
| For some reason, oil has masculine aesthetics but wind power
| doesn't. I don't think this is a calculated play
| osn9363739 wrote:
| How many people actual think like this or are influenced by
| it? (I'm going to be disappointed aren't I)
| llbbdd wrote:
| Nobody at all, but isn't it scary to imagine? In fact we
| could imagine and invent all kinds of scary things if we
| think too much. Ahh!
| tagawa wrote:
| Maybe a third reason:
|
| "Last week, Trump Media, the parent company of Truth Social
| that is majority-owned by the president, said it was getting
| into the energy business, announcing a merger with a fusion
| firm TAE Technologies."
|
| Source: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/cd74lyr094vo
| simonsarris wrote:
| I hope you realize that China's coal and oil use for
| electricity is at an all-time high and increasing. They have
| installed more coal capacity since 2020 than the US has total.
| US coal usage peaked circa 2000 and has decreased for the last
| 2 decades.
|
| https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...
| triceratops wrote:
| > They have installed more coal capacity since 2020 than the
| US has total
|
| 80% or more of _new_ electricity generation in China is
| renewable. They build coal capacity but they don 't use more
| of it.
|
| This year their absolute carbon emissions decreased.
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292
| ch2026 wrote:
| can we setup a polymarket for the number of days until trump
| blames offshore windmills for hurricanes
| mv4 wrote:
| Trump Media merging with a fusion energy firm.
| brewdad wrote:
| Not sure why this was downvoted. This was announced last week.
|
| https://apnews.com/article/trump-media-fusion-power-company-...
| meroes wrote:
| If fent is a WMD then so are turbines!
| ineedaj0b wrote:
| We don't need offshore wind or onshore. Wish the US focused more
| on Solar. Seems to be the smartest path forward.
|
| China understands and is gunning for Nuclear and Solar.
| Geothermal and wind are nice but too location dependent.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Wind and solar are highly complementary. Wind tends to be peak
| during evening and morning, and is often stronger at night than
| during the day. Wind is cheaper than overbuilding solar and
| adding batteries.
| michelsedgh wrote:
| The big solar plant they made in between Cali and Las Vegas
| one, it wasn't online more than a few years? It shut down...
| jeffbee wrote:
| You're thinking of an actually quite small solar-thermal
| plant, which is bankrupt because solar-thermal is a dumb
| idea.
| martinpw wrote:
| It shut down because it can't compete cost wise with ...
| solar. Specifically solar photovoltaic.
| teaearlgraycold wrote:
| Old man yells at large fans.
| dlt713705 wrote:
| Next step is invade Venezuela and pump as much oil as possible
| marcosdumay wrote:
| The theory that the US government does those wars to keep oil
| prices high fits the timing way better than the opposite.
|
| I still thinks it's missing important details, but the US
| making wars to get more oil doesn't fit reality at all.
| BenFranklin100 wrote:
| This is dumb. We are in the midst of an energy shortage that will
| only get worse.
|
| Between MAGA blocking wind and Progressives blocking nuclear, the
| US is left with solar and carbon.
|
| Solar is fine, but it needs a 24/7 base. Unfortunately it
| increasingly appears that base will remain carbon.
| speed_spread wrote:
| > energy shortage that will only get worse
|
| Worse? An energy shortage is an opportunity to increase prices
| and make more money! Think about the hyuge profits!
| ekjhgkejhgk wrote:
| The reason is to own the libs.
| mullingitover wrote:
| This is a road to serfdom (and/or a road to 1789 France)
| situation with what's happening to energy prices in the past
| couple years[1].
|
| The price of new solar+battery and wind should be pushing fossil
| fuel energy prices off a cliff right now, unless you live in a
| petrostate.
|
| [1] https://fred.stlouisfed.org/series/APU000072610
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The UK has tons of wind power but prices there are
| exceptionally high. Offshore wind isn't as cost effective as
| solar, it's the poster boy for high-cost, low-value renewable
| energy
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| energy development is complex, but it cannot be your idea,
| which boils down to, "whatever is cheapest," especially for
| government policy. it would be cheapest to not use energy at
| all, which is the exact opposite of the mercenary POV you are
| talking about, without having to use the word environment at
| all.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| It would be cheapest, and 100% in our control, to construct
| coal plants. Coal is abundant. China builds insane amounts
| of coal plants to this day. That would provide bountiful
| cheap energy.
|
| But we don't do this. So all else being equal, I would
| suggest we reorient towards other types of renewable
| energy, especially nuclear, if we are longer worried about
| price
| doctorpangloss wrote:
| Why do you think your particular mercenary point of view
| does not prevail? Because people are stupid?
|
| I like nuclear. The funny thing about nuclear power and
| the mercenaries promoting their startups about it is, you
| will still have to convince democrats about it. Because
| occasionally they are in power, and nuclear, as is often
| criticized, takes a long time to build and a short time
| to turn off haha.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| The problem is you build all of these offshore wind
| turbines and none of them are lowering our bills. As a
| politician I would try and lower my constituents' bills
| mullingitover wrote:
| > It would be cheapest, and 100% in our control, to
| construct coal plants.
|
| Close, but one minor correction.
|
| Multiple studies have found that it would be cheapest to
| _DEstruct_ coal plants.
|
| Literally demolishing them and replacing them with
| battery + solar is more cost effective than continuing to
| operate them in 99% of cases.
| monero-xmr wrote:
| In New England, where the offshore wind is being shut
| down, there is very little sun right now. How will solar
| + battery help in New England?
| mullingitover wrote:
| Germany is mostly north of the 49th parallel and has
| deployed over 100GW of capacity. New England would do
| just fine.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It would be cheapest, and 100% in our control, to
| construct coal plants. Coal is abundant. China builds
| insane amounts of coal plants to this day. That would
| provide bountiful cheap energy.
|
| "Cheap" only if you exclude indirect costs due to
| emissions (both localized effects and less-localized.)
|
| > we reorient towards other types of renewable energy,
| especially nuclear
|
| nuclear is not renewable (it is low carbon, a feature
| that is also true of renewables in general, but it is
| not, itself, a renewable.)
| mullingitover wrote:
| > nuclear is not renewable
|
| It _can_ be effectively renewable for all practical
| purposes, but there 's an aversion to breeder reactors.
| Over 95% of the existing 'waste' could also be consumed
| by breeders.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| > It can be effectively renewable for all practical
| purposes, but there's an aversion to breeder reactors.
|
| Breeder reactors reduce long-term waste issues, but they
| don't make nuclear renewable.
| mullingitover wrote:
| They push the timeline out so far that it's _effectively_
| renewable. The sun will burn out at some point, too, but
| we don 't say solar is non-renewable.
| dragonwriter wrote:
| We don't say solar is non-renewable because using every
| single available bit of solar today has no impact on the
| solar energy available tomorrow. This is not true of
| nuclear, even if you increase the total quantity of
| available fission-derived energy by 50 or 100 or whatever
| the outer estimate is for breeder reactors compared to
| non-breeder fission.
| mullingitover wrote:
| Based on the math in this paper[1] there's enough uranium
| floating around to keep the planet running on the order
| of _hundreds of millions of years_ at modern energy
| consumption levels. The price of the material would go up
| compared to what it costs currently, but the raw material
| costs are a small fraction of bottom line anyway.
|
| [1] http://large.stanford.edu/publications/coal/reference
| s/docs/...
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > Offshore wind isn't as cost effective as solar, it's the
| poster boy for high-cost, low-value renewable energy
|
| Its not clear cut.
|
| Part of the reason why electricity is so expensive in the UK
| is that its tied to natural gas prices. some of it is CFD,
| but most of it is because a lot of our power comes from
| natural gas.
|
| We pay for gas on the open market because we aren't self
| sufficient for gas any more.
|
| Yes solar is cheaper to deploy, but its not as useful on its
| own. Wind is far far better in the winter.
|
| What we should be doing is getting nuclear plants built.
| Small ones ideally, but a few bigguns will do. Then we won't
| be so reliant on natural gas. We also need to get those extra
| transmission cables built.
|
| (note we could have built 10 nuclear power plants, well EDF
| at 2002 power prices, but the present government balked
| because nuclear is bad yo.)
| youngtaff wrote:
| Uk energy costs are high because the highest cost marginal
| producer sets the rate i.e. gas powered stations
|
| Many of the new wind farms get a fixed price for energy and
| when the wholesale price is about that the excess gets
| channeled into a fund that is used to reduce consumer prices
| cjs_ac wrote:
| UK energy prices are set by the most expensive energy source
| in the mix that contributes to the National Grid, which
| happens to be gas.
| Nextgrid wrote:
| Which also sets broken incentives where nobody (not even
| renewables) are actually incentivized to dethrone gas/etc
| as it would _reduce_ their own profit margin.
| jameslk wrote:
| That graph is not inflation-adjusted and basically says to
| avoid using it like this in the description:
|
| > Average prices are best used to measure the price level in a
| particular month, not to measure price change over time. It is
| more appropriate to use CPI index values for the particular
| item categories to measure price change.
|
| I'm not doubting that (inflation-adjusted) energy prices have
| gone up but this graph is misleading to represent it
|
| FRED actually has a blog post about how you would go about
| calculating an inflation-adjusted priced graph here:
| https://fredblog.stlouisfed.org/2022/11/fred-gets-real-unles...
| d--b wrote:
| Trump doesn't like windfarms since they built some off the coast
| of his Scottish golf club.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_International_Golf_Club_...
| josefritzishere wrote:
| I suspect this is the true reason. He is not known for being a
| strategic thinker.
| Surac wrote:
| i have the feeling the real reason is "drill baby drill". The
| actual administration does not hide it's love for carbon based
| energy
| alecco wrote:
| Occam's Razor: offshore wind requires a lot of rare earths for
| their magnets and whatnot. US military-industrial complex needs
| the little remaining global supply not under China's export
| controls.
| techgnosis wrote:
| This feels extremely plausible. I don't see anyone else saying
| this yet, well done.
| KaiserPro wrote:
| > offshore wind requires a lot of rare earths for their magnets
|
| compared to the general motor market in the USA? I think thats
| out by a few orders of magnitude.
|
| Radar shadow is vaguely plausible, if your radar is shit and
| needs replacing.
|
| it also requires your hydrophone network to not be working that
| well either.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Occams Razor: Trump openly hates windmills and green energy
| LgWoodenBadger wrote:
| It's to reapply pressure on Denmark with respect to Greenland.
| MisterBastahrd wrote:
| Reason is Donald Trump.
|
| He hates offshore wind production because it gets in the way of
| his ocean views at his resort.
| jeffbee wrote:
| haha, amateurs. California is way ahead of the game here. We've
| been blocking our own offshore wind fields for years, using our
| own environmental regulations, and we're going to keep doing it
| for the foreseeable future.
| metalman wrote:
| drones are invisible to radar.......or clearly russia(or ukrain)
| would not be dealing with strikes far from the front lines also,
| hypersonic missles are now a thing, and the hit faster than any
| radar or interceptor can register but yes if you were worried
| about Portugal trying a sneak attack, then clearly they would use
| the wind turbine shielding attack vector from weaponised shipping
| cans placed on container ships
| arghandugh wrote:
| This is because King Pedophile wants to destabilize the American
| power grid in order to enrich his donors.
|
| It was an explicit campaign promise that the tech industry
| completely endorsed and he is fulfilling it.
| exabrial wrote:
| I actually believe the radar surveillance excuse (on a
| technicalities only), if that's what this is going to come down
| to. The ocean is a big empty place and prime for picking up radar
| reflections as the background is pretty quiet.
|
| However... how on earth was this not identified like 10 years ago
| way before these projects were even started? Seems pretty obvious
| in hindsight.
| Retz4o4 wrote:
| Youre taking the bait.
| SamDc73 wrote:
| Yes, turbine blades can introduce radar clutter and affect
| certain military systems; but this has been know since the 1990s
| and has been engineered around for decades.
|
| China, the UK, Germany, and Denmark operate gigawatts of offshore
| wind in close proximity to military-grade and NATO air-defense
| radar without much issue...
| lm28469 wrote:
| Oh no! look Trump is doing exactly what he promised and everyone
| is shocked, again
|
| https://www.project2025.observer/en?agencies=Dept.+of+Energy
| mring33621 wrote:
| The Water Folk put the kibosh on that shit.
| DoctorOetker wrote:
| Is there a similar ostensible classified reason why OCO-2 and
| OCO-3 are requested to shut down operations? 700+ M invested in
| space based observatories with ~ 15M yearly operating cost. Just
| doesn't make sense to disable perfectly working observatories to
| save less than ~75M in a timespan of 5 years while losing a 700+M
| investment.
| frogperson wrote:
| Fascism is the reason. No need to analyze or debate any further.
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