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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

#131

Post by yoyohello13 »

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…

I relate to the feeling. I am extremely cynical. I fully believe the world is fucked and we are in for a very turbulent 50-100 years. I still work to improve myself and the world because WTF else are you going to do? At least doing something feels better than doing nothing.

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

#132

Post by fsckboy »

0cf8612b2e1e wrote: post #21
gmueckl wrote: post #12

Do I have it right that the two projects that this deal kills off haven't seen any construction work yet? These aren't among the projects that the stop work orders were issued against in December, right?

My quick skim, I think you are right. This is getting them to halt new development, by buying them off with the equivalent of the subsidies the current administration cancelled.

>by buying them off with the equivalent of the subsidies the current administration cancelled

no, the billion that is being "paid" is a refund of what Total paid in for the leases. Total paid that into the US govt in anticipation of receiving returns on that investment in the form of "clean energy subsidies".

it is not clear from what is in the news story whether Total is being compensated for the would-have-been future subsidies, or whether Total simply expects to make decent profits from fossil fuels.

if one's interest is in the "clean energy" angle, then this is a "defeat". if one's interest is in reducing govt subsidies, this could be "a win", but it's not exactly clear.

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

#133

Post by mikkupikku »

hatthew wrote: post #123
mikkupikku wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Anthracite burns clean enough to use in a pizza oven. If your neighbor told you he was going to install a new furnace and offered you the choice of it burning wood pellets or anthracite, from a smell standpoint you should absolutely choose the anthracite. Anthracite, in these regards, is very different from bituminous coal.

And both are very different from not burning anything.

Undoubtedly. Doesn't change the fact that one kind of coal burns smokeless with a clean blue flame while the other will cover everything for miles in a film of soot and tar.

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

#134

Post by mothballed »

nxor2 wrote: post #119
kakacik wrote: post #80

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

Swiss people are quite rude and unaccepting of foreigners, even foreigners who grow up there. I don't think they have room for Americans wishing to leave.

Americans have a twisted outlook because despite muh racism USA has allowed more foreigners in than any other country, a quite sizeable chunk of them via overstay or illegal immigration, so we think we could do the same thing and just as an average person up and move somewhere else because we see that it can be done and most of the time it is at least possible to get away with it unless you have bad luck or do something stupid.

Argentina and Brazil are about the only other countries where you can almost get away with this and legalize your existence (Argentina in particular has constitution that says essentially if you survive 2 years, you are basically citizen) , although most of Africa wouldn't bother to enforce it (South Africa in particular has almost as much illegal immigration per capita as USA although with a wide band of possible error in estimates, and they can't meaningfully enforce it).

Otherwise you need investments (usually 50k+), permanent pension, top-tier education, a professional job offer, cultural/family ties, or connections with the political apparatus. Switzerland in particular is on extreme hard mode for a non-EU citizen to get citizenship.

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

#135

Post by speedgoose »

Total doesn’t greenwash anymore.

Perhaps they try to please the US government. A previous total CEO "maintained complicated relations with the United States". He died in a plane crash accident. Was it an accident or a murder, perhaps the current Total CEO prefers to be safe than dead.

https://www.france24.com/fr/20160714-margerie-deces-enquete-...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unijet_Flight_074P

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

#136

Post by standardUser »

Ajedi32 wrote: post #71

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" equ…

They are taking money committed to a wind project and redirecting it towards burning fossil fuels - because what other lesson can we take from a global energy shock other than to increase our exposure to the next one? The company itself (France's Total) had already committed to the wind deal, so now the Trump admin is letting them off the hook, and using Trump's irrational refusal to issue licenses for wind power as the excuse for why the deal wasn't working out as originally planned.

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

#137

Post by kube-system »

mikkupikku wrote: post #128
kube-system wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Anthracite burns clean enough to use in a pizza oven. Yeah, so does wood, which is horribly polluting.

The smell of wood might be nice for flavor, but that's beyond the point of anthracite being clean. That particulate pollution from wood burning is severe compared to the smoke you'll get off anthracite, which is virtually nonexistent.

Regardless of how good it might be at being the cleanest dirty thing, it's not what the US trope of "clean coal" refers to anyway. Anthracite is not used in the US to generate power because it is too expensive.

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

#138

Post by thunfischtoast »

angelgonzales wrote: post #102
rockooooo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the dollar cost he's talking about does not include the large dollar cost the externalities burning gas creates

Does the offshore wind energy costs include externalities of fabricating, assembling, shipping, installing, maintaining and decommissioning the turbines? Does it also include bird losses and whale harms?

The project life cycle cost: yes. The birds and whales: no. But neither do the fossil power plants.

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

#139

Post by jmward01 »

softwaredoug wrote: post #129
BigTTYGothGF wrote: post #38

I'm reminded of Reagan taking down the White House solar panels.

IIRC those were solar hot water heaters. More of a curiosity than something legitimately powering the white house.

The symbolism, and the stupidity, was there though. As time has gone on it has been more clear every year how intelligent Carter's administration was and how terrible the following administration was. Investing in/promoting solar was just one of many smart moves by Carter that were attacked purely to gain political points that only harmed us in the long run.

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

#140

Post by Ajedi32 »

cwal37 wrote: post #98
Ajedi32 wrote: post #71

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" equ…

You could go to the source and see[1]. > TotalEnergies has committed to invest approximately $1 billion—the value of its renounced offshore wind leases—in oil and natural gas and LNG production in the United States. Following their new investment, the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar, up to the amount they paid in lease purchases for offshore wind. Under this innovative agreement driven by P…

Thanks, that's helpful. Pretty annoying the original article didn't link to its source given that it was just repeating the contents of a press release.

Anyone know what these "ideological subsidies" are that they're referring to? Were they part of the agreement that was just terminated? Or was that just a vaguely related talking point they inserted into the press release for political reasons?

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