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US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

arstechnica.com

101–110 of 585 posts

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#101

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.

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America is still the largest historical polluter by a mile and China has already hit peak emissions. They are doing much better than America on this front. At this rate they’ll hit net zero before we will

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#102
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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.

on the nuclear front, the administration has cut investment and reduced action in exchange for cheap promises. judge actions, not words.

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#103

All the more reason for me to invest in a personal windmill.

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.

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#104

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

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

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.

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#105

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 ad…

Sure. We can always imagine an excuse to avoid dealing with the obvious reality. I don't think it's productive though.

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.

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#106
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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.

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.

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#108
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 i…

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.

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.

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#109

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.

> 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...

Re: US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

#110
post #102
post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

on the nuclear front, the administration has cut investment and reduced action in exchange for cheap promises. judge actions, not words.

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
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