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US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

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

#191

Post by bell-cot »

blahedo wrote: post #28

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 quest…

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?

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

#192

Post by NewJazz »

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]

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.

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

#193

Post by Retric »

vablings wrote: post #121
gardncl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cheapes…

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…

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.

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

#194

Post by moomoo11 »

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…

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.

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

#196

Post by josefritzishere »

d--b wrote: post #91

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_...

I suspect this is the true reason. He is not known for being a strategic thinker.

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

#197

Post by amanaplanacanal »

vntok wrote: post #83
jimt1234 wrote: post #40

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> 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.

I'm thinking maybe they shouldn't have done that. Unfortunately they are all incompetent.

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

#198

Post by stuffn »

ToucanLoucan wrote: post #154
bayindirh wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

> 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.).

[flagged]

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

#199

Post by AnthonyMouse »

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…

> 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.

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

#200

Post by toomuchtodo »

cyberax wrote: post #182
gardncl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 cheapes…

> 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 g…

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).

Citations:

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...

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