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US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

arstechnica.com

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

#161

Post by the__alchemist »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #21

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 additiona…

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.

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

#162

Post by KaiserPro »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #21

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 additiona…

https://amt.copernicus.org/articles/14/3541/2021/

There is data on what wind turbines do to radar.

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

#163

Post by marknutter »

heavyset_go wrote: post #60
schmuckonwheels wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

Now do per capita emissions and consider where 90% of anything you buy is manufactured. The world launders its manufacturing emissions through China.

I'm sure the climate will be just fine because China's per capita isn't as bad as the US.

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

#164

Post by vablings »

bayindirh wrote: post #126
vablings wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 pow…

> 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…

> 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.

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

#165

Post by anigbrowl »

the__alchemist wrote: post #161
tony_cannistra wrote: post #21

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 additiona…

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.

It's not like they're moving around though.

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

#166

Post by watwut »

Herring wrote: post #92
JohnTHaller wrote: post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

We've been in the realm of intentionally doing damage for a while now. But we got these cool red hats.

[flagged]

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.

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

#167

Post by marcosdumay »

dlt713705 wrote: post #62

Next step is invade Venezuela and pump as much oil as possible

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.

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

#168

Post by alphazard »

tony_cannistra wrote: post #21

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 additiona…

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.

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

#169

Post by MandieD »

KaiserPro wrote: post #143
derriz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

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.

Wow, that would take care of our usual home office base load (Germany, not using electricity for heating)

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

#170

Post by watwut »

nailer wrote: post #149
andrewflnr wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Intentionally doing damage started with DOGE. So, roughly day 1.

[flagged]

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?
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