Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

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

bbc.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

821–830 of 949 posts

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

#821

Post by Animats »

dathinab wrote: post #751
tedggh wrote: post #697

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in renewables in the US. The current picture is actually a lot more positive than people believe. But good news are usually boring at not good for click bait, so they aren’t covered by the media. There’s a lot of work on solar energy currently and the forecast is VERY good. We do have some issues like grid connectivity and shifting policies but the market economics are working extremely well. The fact is solar…

> fact is solar is too cheap and, unlike wind, very easy to deploy, so it doesn’t matter what your political views are, you will eventually support it this is my point, too renewables, especially solar, just have gotten very competitive to a point they will gain ground even if not subsidized and I believe we will see (and in some niches have already seen) this happening for electric cars, too. They are plain simple j…

California has only four really good wind sites, and they already have wind farms on them. The real US wind belt is from the Texas panhandle northward to Canada. Look at a wind map of the US.[1]

Grid-scale battery storage just keeps getting installed at an increasing rate.[1] 9.7 gigawatt-hours installed in Q1 2026.[2] It's not very visible. It's just shipping containers laid out on cement pads. It doesn't take up that much space. It can be placed anywhere there's good access to transmission lines. It's profitable if you can buy cheap solar power in the daytime and sell it at night. It's safe now that it uses lithium-iron phosphate batteries.

88 days to the midterm elections. Trump will still be in office for a while longer, but with less power to make trouble.

[1] https://energy.maryland.gov/SiteAssets/Pages/Info/renewable/...

[2] https://gcn.com/america-s-grid-batteries-strongest-first/204...

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

#822

Post by Incipient »

layer8 wrote: post #217
Incipient wrote: post #91

I fully understand why power generation is subsidised - however honesty I feel if the govt is subsidising it, they should get a cut of the profits too. I also believe in a free market, and power should be subsidised equally per MW (MWh maybe?) this takes the politics out of a structural necessity. If you want to push a political agenda - great - but do it on political topics.

This might make sense if power companies would bear the environmental costs, but they don’t. That’s one reason why it is a political topic.

But selective subsidising still doesn't really help that. Subsidise household rooftop solar, home batteries, EVs and a whole host of other ways that directly benefit the more average person.

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

#823

Post by jakeydus »

bryanlarsen wrote: post #589
perpetuallunch wrote: post #477

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Provide one example where solar and / or wind generation have penetrated a market to a level worth mentioning and electricity prices have come down or remained stable adjusted for inflation.

California has the lowest wholesale electricity rate in the country. It's retail electricity rate is the second-highest but that's a problem independent of electricity source.

It's almost like having a quasi-public utility instead of just, I don't know, a public utility? is a bad idea!

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

#824

Post by jakeydus »

icantevenhold wrote: post #327
RobotToaster wrote: post #278

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's basically become a thought terminating cliche https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thought-terminating_clich%C3%A...

It is what it is

I think you care way too much about this topic.

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

#825

Post by pibaker »

i5heu wrote: post #101
jeltz wrote: post #51

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All kinds of power generation are typically heavily subdized in some way. I do not think this "common sense" strategy exists.

"common sense" is common sense because it is not "specialised sense" or "expert sense" So if politicians base their decisions on "common sense", they confess to not being able to use experts that refine their knowledge and position about a topic. A "common sense" strategy is therefore what is most popular and on the basis of the understanding of laymen without deeper understanding or knowledge.

In practice "common sense" just means "things I learned from public TV when I was ten and never bothered to learn more about." Renewable used to be more expensive but that hasn't been the case for almost a decade. But you still see people, even on this "news" site for technologically curious people, claim that fossil fuel is the "obvious" cheap option.

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

#826

Post by RunSet »

oldsklgdfth wrote: post #542
whack wrote: post #370

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to self-interest. It sure looks stupid when you look at America or the Roman Empire as a whole. But when you look at the specific individuals doing these "stupid" things, and the individuals enabling them, it is perfectly aligned with their own best interests.

> Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to self-interest. Interesting. Sounds like a counter-point to Hanlon's razor: "Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity". I use Hanlon's quite a bit to explain nonsense I see day to day, but this is a better one in some ways. It shift the conclusion of "but if only they were shown the right way" to "they know what they are doing an…

The current administration has taken the edge off Hanlon's razor. Now I prefer saying "Any sufficiently advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice."

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

#828

Post by layer8 »

thelastgallon wrote: post #342
layer8 wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Its not stupidity though. The admin has a personal vendetta against renewables.

I’d still file that under stupidity.

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

#829

Post by bsenftner »

jfengel wrote: post #787
bsenftner wrote: post #459

Earlier quoted context omitted.

...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 analo…

It used to be taught, every high school and many early junior high and elementary schools had debate clubs, and the ability to hold complex and nuanced debate used to be intellectual entertainment for many. however, then the 60's youth rebellion saw the "debate stars" all on the youth side and arguing against the hypocrisy of the status quo. Soon, debate clubs were disbanded, and the formal rules of debate changed to allow for "cheap tactics" that destroyed the intellectual purity and allowed literal stunts, information overflow and diversion tactics to be allowed. That set the stage for debate and a pop culture intellectualism to die a quick death. Within a decade, the ability to discuss controversial topics without emotional outrage was lost. Now we are bereft.

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

#830

Post by estearum »

SubiculumCode wrote: post #669
estearum wrote: post #387

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"We" is referring to the US federal government, elected by the US population, and which has (and is using) massive levers to kneecap development of renewable energy sources. Some internet commentators may wish to unhelpfully point out that no matter the US federal efforts, renewable development will always be above literal zero , and so "we haven't stopped." But it's not a very useful contribution to the conversation…

I want to know whether Trump has legal authority to this money for this purpose. If it was money directed by Congress for clean energy, then no.

Yeah it's a good question, but unfortunately large infrastructure projects require a lot more than just formal legal protections of their funding and permitting.

If it takes just one retard at the top to disrupt a massive decades-long project, even in a way that eventually gets negated by a court, then ta-da, we just don't get any more big projects.

Post reply on HN