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Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

arstechnica.com

301–310 of 446 posts

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#301

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The thing is that wether the ruling party is right or left there are limits to what they can do based on the real world we live in. For example there is a limit to how much they can lower or increase the tax. There is a limit to how much they can save on one thing and invest in another. Often when a new party takes power, no big real changes are seen as it is not so easy to implement considering the real world. They…

Disagree. There are effective strategies for creating more sustainable economies and societies. Affordable housing, education, universal healthcare will make us all happier and healthier. We know how to fix lots of problems, and money is orthogonal to the issue. Sentences like "They have to go down..." are really a symptom of a static "there is no alternative" view.

> Affordable housing, education, universal healthcare will make us all happier and healthier.

Everyone would like that, but it is easier said than done.

> We know how to fix lots of problems, and money is orthogonal to the issue.

Great that you have the answer, so how do we fix it?

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#302

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>Its going to take decades to recover from the whims of the US population (the plurarity of whom voted for this) What does "recover" even mean? Are we supposed to back to the good ol' days when the could hold a press conference announcing some grand new plan with key person and standing in the background smiling because they know their people ghost wrote it to their benefit and the press would unanimously gush about…

> What does "recover" even mean? Get back to the rule of law.

Yes, let's go back to when BigCo just removed mountains to get at coal, Dick Cheney's friends all got rich in Iraq and the Sacklers sold us all pills because they had convinced the relevant agencies that doing so was in accordance with the laws, rules and policies and well, the rest is history.

All this crap has been happening forever. It may very well be happening more now (probably is, IMO), but it's happening in the open. It's all being litigated. Every capricious decision that would have sailed right over the heads of the non-thinking morons with a simple stamp of approval, maybe a small lawsuit in particularly offensive cases, is now being scrutinized and seriously litigated, because the agencies and other "legitimizers" involves have burned through their stored trust, and now everyone is watching everything they do.

I see that as a huge improvement.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#303

I am all for green energy, but these windfarms were designed years ago. Since then, solar has progressed in leaps whereas wind has not. Im not so sure that fighting the olds over wind farms is the fight worth winning. Let them cancel the wind farms if that means a free hand to develop solar.

Wind is just concentrated solar if that helps you feel better

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#304
post #162

If a country changes course every four years, how can the success of a long-term project be ensured? And what of its negotiating credibility? How can the other side trust that an agreement will hold in the future? This is not a critique, but a genuine curiosity, because there's an obvious drawback with a system with opposing world views. Unless, of course, something still unites them in the first place, with acceptab…

Which is largely why presidencies do not mess with the order they inherit too much (subjective statement I know). Most institutions and projects are not stressed and the government branches just keep doing what they always did. The current administration is an outlier, but we all know that.

More to the point, it's why our political system does not give unilateral control over most of this stuff to the executive branch. That's the reason why the courts are regularly ruling against the administration -- they're pretending to legal authority they don't have in the first place.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#305

> ...the Department of the Interior settled on a single justification for blocking turbine installation: a classified national security risk. To speculate on what this risk is, the two obvious risk I can think of would be: - Susceptibility to seabed warfare[0]. A rival nation can sabotage the infrastructure and maintain deniability, like we have seen with the Nord Stream sabotage[1]. - Potential interference with pas…

> A rival nation can sabotage the infrastructure and maintain deniability, like we have seen with the Nord Stream sabotage. We didn't see that with Nord stream. It was not a rival nation, but an allied one unfortunately. And Germany did nothing. Zero.

Sometimes, not to do something can be the right (morally, technically, economically, ...) thing to do.

You don't always need to present the other cheek to do right. Neither do you always need to retaliate.

Nord Stream finally made it clear to Germany that "convenience" isn't a durable energy market strategy.

It's not correct though that Germany has done "nothing". The suspects are pursued by Germany, https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-poland-blocks-extradition-... so there's that.

If you mean though whether there's a will in Germany (nevermind a commitment or funding) to rebuild Nordstream ... you're right, nothing has happened

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#306
post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The US occasionally has mayors & governors who spitefully or corruptly trap their successors contractually in long-term commitments with private parties which are obviously bad financial decisions. I argue that we have a reasonableness standard we can apply here - "Lack of consideration" is what might void a contract indenturing a 20 year old idiot in an unpaid MLM scheme. Consideration of the public is a factor. > "…

I am getting the feeling that Americans love "leadership without oversight". In my country we have a parliament on the national level whose single job is to make life miserable for whoever is in power and on the local level there are city councils who do the same.

The pattern I’ve observed throughout the US is that we have all those same things as well as citizens who can go to speak at various council meetings.

People are ignored, councils seem to rubber stamp things and the tactic at higher levels is to make a terrible decision and then attempt to use courts to delay any attempt to stop whatever the decision was. When it’s finally stopped, it will be done again slightly different and restart the lengthy court process.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#308

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Disagree. There are effective strategies for creating more sustainable economies and societies. Affordable housing, education, universal healthcare will make us all happier and healthier. We know how to fix lots of problems, and money is orthogonal to the issue. Sentences like "They have to go down..." are really a symptom of a static "there is no alternative" view.

> Affordable housing, education, universal healthcare will make us all happier and healthier. Everyone would like that, but it is easier said than done. > We know how to fix lots of problems, and money is orthogonal to the issue. Great that you have the answer, so how do we fix it?

>Affordable housing, education, universal healthcare will make us all happier and healthier.

The past ~100yr of state policy has made a lot of economic winners out of people in these industries by putting it's thumb on the scale in their favor.

Any reversion to a "natural market state" or perhaps beyond, where the government weighs in to the advantage of those who do not make money on housing or healthcare would necessarily make loser out of all the people who right now benefit from the government having its thumb on the scale where it is currently positioned and they will fight tooth or nail to prevent this.

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#309

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nothing is really stopping other countries from doing the same, to be honest. People are just scared to give legitimacy to what China has done for their citizens in a very short amount of time, because that would be against their own beliefs and morals. I'm not saying China is the best and whatever, just saying they've proven every "China is about to fall" headline that has been circulating around for the past 15 yea…

Debt is not fundamentally bad. But the financing has to be justified by positive return, be it in the service itself that makes money back to pay off the debt, or as a public good, returns in the form societal benefit as a result of the service. When you have massive buildups with no hope of returns, it's a a bad financial decision and the public carries the debt burden.

What is this debt? You didn't answer my question. Who's buying it and what choice do they have, and to whom is it owed ultimately?

Re: Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction

#310

I am all for green energy, but these windfarms were designed years ago. Since then, solar has progressed in leaps whereas wind has not. Im not so sure that fighting the olds over wind farms is the fight worth winning. Let them cancel the wind farms if that means a free hand to develop solar.

The notion that wing turbines have not advanced in recent years is absurd.
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