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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

#231

Post by Tostino »

nailer wrote: post #153
dboreham wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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.

[flagged]

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.

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

#233

Post by aqme28 »

pheggs wrote: post #174
linuxhansl wrote: post #29

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.

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 - be…

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

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

#235

Post by consumer451 »

ta9000 wrote: post #215
consumer451 wrote: post #180

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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!

I don’t even know liberals that watch CNN. It’s already irrelevant.

If it was truly irrelevant, then there wouldn't be billions being thrown at it.

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

#236

Post by jopsen »

Jtsummers wrote: post #179
pheggs wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 - be…

> 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…

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.

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

#237

Post by salynchnew »

gardncl wrote: post #106
gregbot wrote: 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.

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…

> 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.

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

#238

Post by [deleted] »

jandrewrogers wrote: post #115
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…

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 deca…

[deleted]

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

#239

Post by gardncl »

fasterik wrote: post #229
gardncl wrote: post #224

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 $3…

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.

Agreed. I misunderstood your comment and got too hot-headed. Sorry about that.

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).

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

#240

Post by osn9363739 »

coryrc wrote: post #226
gardncl wrote: post #205

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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/…

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.

Couldn't this also be solved with transmission from other parts of the country? or is that what you're saying?
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