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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

#261

Post by triceratops »

simonsarris wrote: post #253
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.

I hope you realize that China's coal and oil use for electricity is at an all-time high and increasing. They have installed more coal capacity since 2020 than the US has total. US coal usage peaked circa 2000 and has decreased for the last 2 decades. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-consumption-by-sou...

> They have installed more coal capacity since 2020 than the US has total

80% or more of new electricity generation in China is renewable. They build coal capacity but they don't use more of it.

This year their absolute carbon emissions decreased.

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45108292

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

#262

Post by Jtsummers »

pheggs wrote: post #207
Jtsummers wrote: post #179

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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…

it could very well be that it backfires. I guess time will tell. A lot of his actions seem to be trimmed into this direction, and it's not a new one. He left the paris climate agreement quite a while back as far as I remember. blocking offshore wind construction just fits this agenda, as supporting companies to manufacture these windmills would just make everything cheaper (more demand, rising production capacity etc…

> it could very well be that it backfires.

It's kind of hard to see the strategy you outlined as doing anything other than backfiring. Oil and other fossil fuels are consumables. Once burned, they're gone. For strategic reasons, most nations with any sense and the economic ability to do so are turning away from fossil fuels precisely due to this fact. European nations are not exceptional here, the US is actually the outlier.

Your suggested strategy is that the US wants European nations to buy more US oil, and in order to motivate them the US is demonstrating how bad oil dependence is. See Cuba (they depend on Venezuelan oil there).

How could a demonstration of the flaws of oil dependency possibly motivate the sale of US oil rather than hasten the move towards solar, wind, and other power sources?

This is why I said it's a terrible strategy. Only the non-thinking would go for it.

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

#263

Post by triceratops »

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]

> vast amounts of money on cultural programs for countries that didn't want them.

I don't understand. How do you give someone money if they don't want it?

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

#264

Post by Tostino »

consumer451 wrote: post #235
ta9000 wrote: post #215

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

It's the airport TV's and doctor's office waiting rooms that they are bidding for at this point.

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

#265

Post by llbbdd »

osn9363739 wrote: post #245
aqme28 wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

How many people actual think like this or are influenced by it? (I'm going to be disappointed aren't I)

Nobody at all, but isn't it scary to imagine? In fact we could imagine and invent all kinds of scary things if we think too much. Ahh!

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

#266

Post by aidenn0 »

derriz wrote: post #103
therobots927 wrote: post #9

All the more reason for me to invest in a personal windmill.

Sadly wind turbines don’t really scale down like PV panels. The energy produced by PV panels is a linear function of their surface area. For wind turbines, it scales with the square of the blade length.

Doesn't the area described by a turbine's motion scale with the square of the blade-length, so given a circular area covered by a turbine, the power will scale linearly with that area?

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

#267

Post by gardncl »

fasterik wrote: post #250
gardncl wrote: post #239

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 1…

I may have misinterpreted your original post as saying we should be going full renewables. I think we're basically in agreement about prices. We might just disagree about the percent of energy that should come from nuclear. I don't see nuclear as a distraction, I see it as a piece of the puzzle. We will always need a source of reliable, uninterrupted power. Whether that comes from natural gas, nuclear, geothermal, hy…

Yeah, my opinion on how much should come from nuclear is that current levels (~20%) are enough to fill the rest in with renewables.

I'd love to be France (~50%) but there is so much pushback against the technology due to accidents that happened decades ago with generation II plants (chernobyl + three mile island). We're now building tech for gen III+ plants and there is just almost no appetite to build them, we finished the vogles and now are completely pivoting to SMRs, which is fine.

SMR is probably what makes the most sense even if they're less efficient because until now the nuclear plants have not been very standardized which increases costs.

Why do I think nuclear is a distraction? Because I don't think it's a like-for-like replacement of fossil fuels and this admin knows that. They're willing to invest because it won't disrupt their biggest donors. The time horizon on nuclear is long, and there is a future (I hope) where we have nuclear plants hooked up to carbon capture technology and we pull these gasses out of the atmosphere. But until then what is the cheapest and most efficient path between current emissions and a massive cut in them? Renewables and battery tech (that's currently undergoing very dramatic cost reductions!).

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

#268

Post by ViewTrick1002 »

fasterik wrote: post #217
gardncl wrote: post #106

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

This comment is also misleading. First, $/watt is not how levelized cost of electricity is measured, you need to use $/watt-hour (or more commonly, $/MWh) over the lifetime of the project. By definition, levelized cost of electricity does not include storage. The cost is also affected by the percent of energy coming from wind+solar+batteries vs. from natural gas. Wind+solar+batteries are cheap when they are used to s…

First. $120/MWh for new built nuclear power is cheaper than any modern western reactors. Real costs are ~180-220/MWh when running at 100% 24/7 all year around. As based on Vogtle, FV3, HPC, proposed EPR2s, proposed Polish reactors etc.

The problem with these ”system costs” analyses is that they don’t capture the direct physical incentive structure of our grids.

Why should someone with rooftop solar and a home battery buy $180-220/MWh when they have their own electricity available?

Why should they not sell their excess to the grid cheaper than said nuclear power? It is zero marginal cost after all.

You can call it tragedy of the commons but new built nuclear power simply is unfit for our modern grids.

We need firming for near emergency reserves coming from production with the cheapest possible CAPEX without an outrageous OPEX.

Likely gas turbines running on carbon neutral fuels. But only if we determine that they are needed in the 2030s.

New built nuclear power simply doesn’t even enter the picture in late 2025.

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

#269

Post by Forgeties79 »

ericmay wrote: post #186
bayindirh wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> overregulation. Americans love to remove regulation to make things cheaper (and to enable capitalistic monopolies, but that's a different matter), then cry when people die (or worse). Some things needs to be regulated, esp. if mistakes are costly to the planet and/or people on the said planet. So yes, nuclear should be regulated, and even overregulated to keep it safe. We have seen what Boeing has become when it's…

There is room between under-regulation and over-regulation. Given that we are experiencing high costs and other barriers to construction, we can do at least two things: reduce red tape where it makes sense or where the risk is acceptable to help lower costs, or the US government can, through a variety of mechanisms ranging from basic research funding to direct subsidies, spend taxpayer money to try and alleviate cost…

With something as serious as a nuclear reactor, I am OK with over regulation.

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

#270

Post by padjo »

KaiserPro wrote: post #143
derriz wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sadly wind turbines don’t really scale down like PV panels. The energy produced by PV panels is a linear function of their surface area. For wind turbines, it scales with the square of the blade length.

This is true, but if you already have a battery, getting an extra 200-400w when the sun isn't shining is really useful. (for a UK based house. Not so sure about the USA.) The cost isn't as good as solar though. a 1kw turbine is expensive.

They also need regular servicing and proper locating away from turbulence. Micro scale wind makes absolutely no sense economically.
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