We keep going down the wrong direction. We need more energy self-sufficiency. More investment in solar and wind.
US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
271–280 of 411 posts
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#272I 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.
> Is there a single person who things Trump gives a single damn about the birds? It is obviously just a pretext.
This can be seen by the changes to the interpretation of the 1918 Migratory Bird Treaty Act (MBTA) his administration made in 2017 during his first term.
Briefly, they said it only prohibited intentional killing of birds. So say I wanted to pave over some wetlands that are a crucial nesting grounds for some birds that are covered by the MBTA to build a parking lot.
Before, the near universal interpretation of the MBTA by nearly everyone in any of the countries that are a party to the treaty (US, Canada, Mexico, Japan, and Russia) was that I can't put my parking lot there.
Under the Trump interpretation as long as I'm not building my parking lot there to intentionally kill the birds I can do it.
This was overturned in court in 2020. Just before leaving office in 2021 they tried to again make that the interpretation.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#273I'm investing in local energy - solar on my roof and electric cars in my garage. Maybe it doesn't make financial sense for everyone to do this, but the more people who do it, the less demand will exist for fossil fuels. This is a free market opportunity. Over 7 years, the solar should pay for itself, and then it's pure profit.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#274Earlier quoted context omitted.
No, the criticism isn't because people get caught up about CO2 -- it's because "cleaner than other coal" is a very low bar to meet to be calling something "clean" full stop. Also "clean coal" is not a type of coal being burnt (although that does matter too) but pollution control systems added to coal plants.
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.
Considering the mercury and arsenic in all coal, wood is preferred in ovens.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#275Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pay may be numerically less in the eu, but rather than me trying to convince you, try on youtube: 'why I left the USA for europe'. There are very many.!
And oddly enough plenty the other way.
Now let's look at how each of them is trending over time.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#276Earlier quoted context omitted.
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.
Even if the insanity stopped right this second, it's likely that the EU will be actively working to step out of the US's economic and military shadow in the next couple decades. For anyone not in tech, most of the EU is already better than most of the US. The same is also true for many people in tech (most outside NYC/SF/Seattle). Also, Canada. They're likely to withstand global warming better than most of the world,…
> Even if the insanity stopped right this second, it's likely that the EU will be actively working to step out of the US's economic and military shadow in the next couple decades.
It's not likely at all if you've looked at the polls for France, Germany, the UK and Spain, and how those have been trending over the last decade.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#277Earlier quoted context omitted.
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…
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We can have and use electricity even if that's not what you put in your tank. We can have both things. This is the US government actively trying to eliminate one of them.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#278HN 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…
NY Times phrases it as a reimbursement to TotalEnergies for relinquishing wind leases that they paid for. The US made the reimbursement contingent on them investing in fossil fuel projects. "The deal is an extraordinary transfer of taxpayer dollars to a foreign company for the purposes of boosting the production of fossil fuels." Total waste of $1 Bil of taxpayer dollars. If the oil and gas industry want to shut down…
The companies don't give a rats ass what kind of energy project it is as long as it is profitable. Wind energy, gas, cow farts, it's all the same to them. Your framing makes no sense.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#279HN 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…
https://arstechnica.com/science/2026/03/trumps-latest-anti-w... They only get the money if they reinvest in oil and gas. It’s not just trying to kill wind, it’s actively trying to expand burning fossil fuels. We are being lead to our demise by idiots.
> We are being lead to our demise by idiots.
Unfortunately it is malice and greed, not ignorance (though Trump in particular is clearly mostly just a useful idiot puppet being lead around by others). They know climate change is real and serious impacts are imminent, this is why the US has shown interest in "taking" Greenland and Canada.
Trump being the impulsive egotist he is gave the game away too early wanting to take credit for these land grabs while still alive, but there's no way there isn't some overall plan in place as the predictable results of climate change accelerate and the world has to geographically realign through mass migrations (some of it likely to result in wars) to deal with it.
A lot of what they are doing now is to profit off the opportunities of the chaos that they themselves are accelerating.
Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects
#280I'm investing in local energy - solar on my roof and electric cars in my garage. Maybe it doesn't make financial sense for everyone to do this, but the more people who do it, the less demand will exist for fossil fuels. This is a free market opportunity. Over 7 years, the solar should pay for itself, and then it's pure profit.
That's great that you're doing that, every deployment of renewables is a net positive. But local deployments in the burbs won't be enough to power out factories, office buildings, data centers, etc. also some people (A LOT of people actually) live in apartments or condos, so it's not just a financial barrier, they physically don't have the space.
We still need these large scale deployments to make meaningful progress in decarbonizing.