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US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

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Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#71

Post by Ajedi32 »

HN title (currently reads "US govt pays TotalEnergies nearly $1B to stop US offshore wind projects") is editorialized and it's unclear to me whether it's accurate. The article says:

> We're partnering with TotalEnergies to unleash nearly $1 billion that was tied up in a lease deposit that was directed towards the prior administration's subsidies

What's the deal with this lease deposit and how does "freeing it up" equate to the US govt "paying" TotalEnergies that amount?

Is this a situation where TotalEnergies put down a 1B deposit to lease the seashore from the government and the government is now canceling that agreement and giving them their money back? How does it relate to "subsidies"?

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#72

Post by tsunamifury »

paxys wrote: post #65

Serious question, but not entirely related to the topic - how are “smart” people in the US preparing for the next 20-30 years? - Assume everything will be fine and America will remain a global economic superpower. - Plan an exit to a more serious, stable country. - Some option in the middle of the two to hedge your bets?

Please list the more serious and stable country if America collapses.

I’ll wait.

On a serious note;

I’m looking at my billion dollar neighbors and they all just are citizens everywhere now. No allegiance to anything but their own pleasure.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#73

Post by tdb7893 »

tasty_freeze wrote: post #27
harmmonica wrote: post #17

I know this US government is fully-committed to fossil fuels and about as rabidly anti-renewables as can be, but I'm still shocked to see things like this. And I'm fully aware of Trump's Scotland experience and how that contributed or directly led to this, but, still, shocked. And then I'm also shocked because I know that at least half, if not a good bit more, of US citizens are in agreement with this strategy. Not s…

I'm always gobsmacked when Trump says things like, "We need to get rid of all the wind turbines! They are killing all the birds! Look at the foot of any tower and you'll see nothing but dead birds!" Is there a single person who things Trump gives a single damn about the birds? It is obviously just a pretext.

Wind turbines are also miniscule compared to issues like pollution, land use, windows, and cats. Also you can track migration and turn them off at key times if it's a huge issue (this is part of the motivation for research I'm going to do later as part of my master's dealing with tracking hawk flocks via weather radar).

Wind turbines are an issue but approximately 0% of the 30% decline in US birds since the 1970s

Edit: to be specific to Trump, funding for bird conservation has been an issue under his administrations and he's weakened things like migratory bird treaty act. Obviously he doesn't care about birds and the bird community is very frustrated with him

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#74

Post by leonidasrup »

harmmonica wrote: post #17

I know this US government is fully-committed to fossil fuels and about as rabidly anti-renewables as can be, but I'm still shocked to see things like this. And I'm fully aware of Trump's Scotland experience and how that contributed or directly led to this, but, still, shocked. And then I'm also shocked because I know that at least half, if not a good bit more, of US citizens are in agreement with this strategy. Not s…

Don't underestimate the power of money spend by the U.S. oil,gas,coal industry. For example:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_network#Climate_change_an...

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#75

Post by bluGill »

toomuchtodo wrote: post #5
adriand wrote: post #2

Fortunately, fossil fuels are a stable and geopolitically risk-free source of energy.

This will not be a learned more robustly in the US until one or both of the only two (edit: major) gas turbine manufacturers in the world (GE Vernova, Siemens Energy) suffer a tail risk event causing their failure. Backlog for new gas turbines is ~7 years, as of this comment. Continued production capacity is a function of how fragile those two companies are. The White House’s Bet on Fossil Fuels Is Already Losing - h…

Both of those are big wind tubine manufactres as well.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#76

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

paxys wrote: post #65

Serious question, but not entirely related to the topic - how are “smart” people in the US preparing for the next 20-30 years? - Assume everything will be fine and America will remain a global economic superpower. - Plan an exit to a more serious, stable country. - Some option in the middle of the two to hedge your bets?

I'm investing in property in places that will allow me to get permanent residency without jumping through too many hoops.

You theoretically lose yield compared to the S&P average - but if you're hedging your bets against the US possibly going to shit - the S&P is unlikely to perform as well as its historic average IFF that scenario unfolds.

Seems like a better hedge than gold, but my crystal ball isn't working.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#77

Post by JumpCrisscross »

tombert wrote: post #61
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we keep telling them everyone believes in this stuff and your vote doesn't count and so on I don’t know if you can fix lazy. Turning out new voters basically happens once a generation. The rest tell themselves tales that their vote could never matter, and in doing that, subtly endorse the status quo .

This is kind of why I ultimately find cynicism to be inherently lazy. This is coming from a very cynical (and often lazy) person. It takes no effort to be cynical, I can tell myself "everything sucks and I shouldn't care because nothing matters anyway" and justify not doing anything I want. I can justify not voting, I can justify not helping someone if I see them struggling on the street, I can justify not even impro…

Agree. And look, being cynical and just minding your own matters is fine. It means the system is working well enough for that person that doing anything isn’t actually worth it. But those people are also electorally—and more broadly, politically—irrelevant. So if you’re trying to do something, betting on them tends to be a losing pitch.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#78

Post by margalabargala »

skywal_l wrote: post #64
MikeNotThePope wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They are also organic, all-natural, and fat-free! And renewable on geological timescales.

Contrary to windmills, which slows down the rotation of the earth.

Doesn't that depend whether you point them east or west?

Point them north and you'll increase Earth's axial tilt.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#79

Post by angelgonzales »

This seems like a good thing considering the “TotalEnergies CEO Pouyanné said offshore wind was "not the most affordable way to produce electricity" in the US, which he identified as being natural gas-fired power plants.”

Not sure why we’re building offshore wind plants when land based gas plants provide cheaper energy. We need to be reducing the cost of living for working people and not raising it. Our goal should be to reduce people’s cost of living and we should align our actions towards those goals.

Most people are cost sensitive!

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#80

Post by kakacik »

tsunamifury wrote: post #72
paxys wrote: post #65

Serious question, but not entirely related to the topic - how are “smart” people in the US preparing for the next 20-30 years? - Assume everything will be fine and America will remain a global economic superpower. - Plan an exit to a more serious, stable country. - Some option in the middle of the two to hedge your bets?

Please list the more serious and stable country if America collapses. I’ll wait. On a serious note; I’m looking at my billion dollar neighbors and they all just are citizens everywhere now. No allegiance to anything but their own pleasure.

Lol thats trivial if you actually know history and politics a tiny bit - Switzerland. 800 years of most free citizens in the world (lost that armed part but still valid for whole Europe with maybe Finland having similar numbers).

Salaries in tech sector still give you higher overall quality of life than most of US can ever offer. Then you have - extremely beautiful nature at your doorstep, more top notch destinations like Italy and France just at the border, very low criminality compared to US, very good free healthcare, very good free education including top notch public universities, very well functioning social programs. One doesn't have to be ashamed their taxes go to killing innocent civilians half around the world (although at this point US population including folks here seems fine with that). And so on and on and on.

Also, you don't spend your whole active life getting it and (almost) burning out for that, 40h/week and then you can live your life and chase dreams and passions.

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