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US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

bbc.com

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Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#781

Post by syspec »

> German energy company RWE has said it will abandon its offshore wind projects in the US after reaching a $1.2bn (£892m) payout deal with President Donald Trump's Department of the Interior (DoI). > > RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, including $900m (£669m) in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Louisiana.

Why not just give that 1.2bn to those "conventional gas" projects they want in Louisiana so bad?

Not that I agree with creating mroe "conventional gas" projects, I don't. Even just the idea of paying a company NOT to do a green energy project is completely stupid. We need more energy period.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#782

Post by tencentshill »

radu_floricica wrote: post #707

Situation is quite different than the article paints it. The venture was risky to begin with, and already dead in 2026. Subsidies are gone, GE didn't produce their new 18MW turbine, interest rates and construction costs went up etc. State bureaucracy is its own quagmire, the fact that federal admin turned hostile was just the cherry on top. Current deal is pretty clean and a win for both parties. US gov won't be draw…

What about the several other projects in progress? What about the ones that were completed? They all had risk factors.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#783

Post by Flere-Imsaho »

chewbacha wrote: post #18

Parts of the world are literally on fire but the US is redirecting money to halt renewables and towards gas. The demand for energy is higher than ever due to AI data centers, but I guess the next model is more important than a habitable environment.

The statistics for the number of deaths from climate-based disasters is clear: fewer and fewer people are dying the richer the world becomes. In fact the decrease in deaths is very significant:

"Annual climate-disaster deaths averaged around 77,000 per year in the 1960s–70s, dropped to about 33,000/year in the 1980s–90s, and fell further to roughly 27,000/year in 2000–2019 even as the number of recorded climate disasters rose from about 1,171 to 3,656 to 6,641 across those same periods."

If you're optimising for human life, then "drill baby drill", as more energy = more wealth. More wealth = better infrastructure, health care, dealing with extreme weather conditions.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#784

Post by Jumpstylish »

alex_duf wrote: post #229
Jumpstylish wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The threshold isn't measured in windmills, it's measured in co2. If we emit more than 0, then we're in trouble. Needless to say, we're in a lot of trouble.

So, your cellular respiration is the problem? Got it. Have you looked into Heavens Gate or Aum Shinrikuo? That might be interesting to you.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#785

Post by tzs »

0xfedcafe wrote: post #56
satvikpendem wrote: post #37

Meanwhile China is becoming entirely energy independent and electrifying their economy. I don't understand how the US doesn't see that they won't be top dog forever especially in this multipolar age.

They still mostly rely on coal. Slightly more than half of electricity is generated by burning coal, whereas in the US, it's only 15%. The renewable energy share in generation is roughly the same in the US and China, but not for capacity.

On the other hand only 3% of China's electricity comes from natural gas whereas 43% of US electricity does.

When combined coal and gas provide about 62% of China's electricity and 58% of US electricity. (Sources differ slightly on percentages. When you add in all fossil fuel electricity sources, China and the US get about the same percentage of electricity from them).

It is this way because China has plenty of coal and very little natural gas, whereas the US thanks to fracking has a lot of natural gas and it is much cheaper than coal so since then gas has rapidly replace coal.

That's the static picture. Now look at the first derivative. China is not just massively ahead at building renewables, they are massively ahead at building support infrastructure.

Look at UHV transmission lines for example: China has 60 000 km, quite a bit ahead of the 0 km in the US.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#786

Post by skybrian »

myrmidon wrote: post #389
skybrian wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Burning natural gas instead of coal should result in about half as much carbon emissions theoretically, although methane leaks will narrow the advantage.

Absolutely. Gas is a lot less problematic than coal. But my point is that it fills (in China) a very similar role for the electric grid and countries don't get to choose what fossils are in their soil. The US using relatively more gas than coal is not any kind of laudable achievement, it's simply whats cheaply available. Norway does not get any credit in my book for being full renewable either (because they have "fre…

Maybe they should get some credit for taking full advantage of whatever assets they have? It's better than not using them.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#787

Post by jfengel »

bsenftner wrote: post #459
jfengel wrote: post #142

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No, we're not expecting someone else to stop it. We voted for this. The evil is not imposed on us. It is us. Not everyone, but a majority. The minority is looking for ways to stop it, but it requires getting literally everyone else to work together. Which means any disagreement among them results in a loss, and more of the same evil.

...and this inability to get people to work together is architected, designed, and reinforced constantly. Fact: no where in any general education within the United States are people taught how to discuss issues with disagreement. This is strategic: the lack of this education creates easily emotionally swayed non-intellects that fall for cons over and over. The US is a conman paradise.

Do any other countries teach it? I'd be curious to know how such a curriculum works.

I have dark suspicions that it would be difficult to implement in the US, because of existing divisiveness. One side or the other would likely see such a course as biased against them, and step in to prevent it (or bias it for them). Even if it studiously avoids discussing politics, it will be easy to step into something easily analogized to politics.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#788

Post by gs17 »

lesuorac wrote: post #640
jfengel wrote: post #464

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Democracy is only ever choosing between two evils. You will never agree entirely with either candidate. In order to reach a majority, you will have to reach some kind of compromise with people with goals you hate. As has been famously stated, democracy is the worst system, except for all of the others. I think people often underestimate just how bad it is.

You should never need to pick between just two candidates though. The need for any sort of alternative system to first-past-the-post should've been plainly obvious in the '00 election. The problem is the people that could change that were elected under a first-past-the-post system and don't want to lose their current advantage.

Sadly, the biggest group pushing for an alternative is FairVote, who exclusively push RCV/IRV, which doesn't fix most of the issues of FPTP and introduces new ones. I'm bombarded by their ads, where they outright lie about its properties ("RCV ends the spoiler effect", "RCV means no more voting for the lesser evil").

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#789

Post by Jumpstylish »

estearum wrote: post #200
Jumpstylish wrote: post #174

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

The goal is not to "gain better control" over the earth's temperature, it's to stop actively throwing the temperature out of control. Worth scrolling through this if you have been midwit-pilled into thinking humans have no levers of control on this question: https://xkcd.com/1732/ Please explain your alternative hypothesis.

“midwit-pilled”? Is this a “How do you do, fellow kids” rhetorical ploy? You’ve got it backwards. The average American and European thinks the Earth will be destroyed in current year + 5 years, and modern sumptuary laws or ersatz-religious rituals around recycling or performative bicycling have a material impact on climatic fluctuations that take thousands of years.

If XKCD is your source, you’re not on the right side of the bell curve. Sorry, friend. It’s not your fault. It’s just cruel statistics to be average. We can smugly scoff at how religions exploited the gullible for their own empowerment, and yet be oblivious to how it’s happening to them. Wow, an eschatological crisis? Guess I better vote how I’m told and self-flagellate.

Re: US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

#790

Post by samspot »

IAmGraydon wrote: post #662
zmmmmm wrote: post #310

I read up recently on the history of the fall of the roman empire and it was fascinating how eerily similar it was to the current state of the US. Overwhelmed by corruption and wars they make stupider and stupider decisions on ever larger scales, ever more frequently. And the population grows ever more cynical, eventually opting for authoritarianism before eventually the center can't hold any more and it all collapse…

I mean no disrespect, but if you're seeing a deep parallel between the Roman Empire's final days and what's going on in the US today, I would say you need to study Roman history more. It was in deep chaos that most people in the world today can't even imagine. The Empire was relentlessly invaded by tribes like the Visigoths and the Vandals, and they even sacked Rome multiple times in the 400s CE. There was a huge amo…

Your comment is shockingly low in the rankings. Anyone who upvoted the parent is being absolutely ravished by confirmation bias. Yes the US has big problems, but that doesn't mean anyone should unthinkingly approve of any thought that's critical of it.

HS history is more than enough dispel any notion that this is anything like the Roman Empire.

Very dissapointed in the HN community in this moment.

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