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US blocks all offshore wind construction, says reason is classified

arstechnica.com

341–350 of 585 posts

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

#341
post #72

I looked into this a little because I was curious. I guess the ostensible "national security" rationale (which clearly is not the only reason!) for this is that turbines severely degrade the utility of radar surveillance along the coastlines. This is particularly relevant for low-altitude incursions and drones. Now, other large governments (UK) have resolved this in several ways, including the deployment of additiona…

Seems like "national security" has become a phrase that can be used to circumvent many laws, facts, and balance checks. Just like the word "terrorist." It seems like if these ever get challenged to the Supreme Court the current judges will rule with something like it being at the president's discretion. So obviously the government can spend some of that $1T military budget on fixing their coastal radar. I thought Mas…

Don't forget "war on" something that isn't a nation state.

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

#342

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…

> We have seen what Boeing has become when it's effectively unregulated. I think this is vastly overstated by the media. Boeing is still heavily regulated and has a pretty good safety record compared 20 or 30 years prior. The biggest disaster of recent times (MCAS) was because of the tight regulations around type certification and trying to avoid costs to carriers > Some things need to be regulated, esp. if mistakes…

> The biggest disaster of recent times (MCAS) was because of the tight regulations around type certification and trying to avoid costs to carriers

Lost me right here, MCAS may have been motivated by losing type certification (as it should), but everything they did was not a result of regulations. Including upcharging to make the system actually redundant. Had they actually engineered the MCAS properly, they would have never gotten caught in the first place.

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

#343

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…

> We have seen what Boeing has become when it's effectively unregulated. I think this is vastly overstated by the media. Boeing is still heavily regulated and has a pretty good safety record compared 20 or 30 years prior. The biggest disaster of recent times (MCAS) was because of the tight regulations around type certification and trying to avoid costs to carriers > Some things need to be regulated, esp. if mistakes…

> Nuclear is this big scary monster because its invisible death machine.

Yup: It really is big, it really is scary.

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

#344

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…

Nuclear is insane levels of expensive likely due to overregulation. It is important for base load power and overnight power and should always be the backing of the grid frequency. Total loss of grid frequency is much more difficult to recover from with synthetic inertia. A healthy grid should have all of the following - Nuclear base load that keeps the grid stable and pick up from low solar - Gas plants for surge pow…

Is there a comparison of how much nuclear costs versus the number of cities destroyed per year? Say, if we allow 1 meltdown per year does it become comparable to solar or does it require 10 meltdowns per year?

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

#345
post #107

Occam's Razor: offshore wind requires a lot of rare earths for their magnets and whatnot. US military-industrial complex needs the little remaining global supply not under China's export controls.

Any electricity produced by turning generators will require rare earths. This includes, every current non-trivial electricity source with the exception of solar. Gas, oil, coal and nuclear all work by heating steam and running it through a turbine that turns a generator that makes electricity. For hydro, the falling water turns the turbine/generator. So any source of electricity that may replace these wind turbines (…

> Any electricity produced by turning generators will require rare earths.

AFAIK, not all kinds of rotating generators require rare earths; IIRC, induction motors don't need any permanent magnets.

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

#346
post #72

I looked into this a little because I was curious. I guess the ostensible "national security" rationale (which clearly is not the only reason!) for this is that turbines severely degrade the utility of radar surveillance along the coastlines. This is particularly relevant for low-altitude incursions and drones. Now, other large governments (UK) have resolved this in several ways, including the deployment of additiona…

Seems like "national security" has become a phrase that can be used to circumvent many laws, facts, and balance checks. Just like the word "terrorist." It seems like if these ever get challenged to the Supreme Court the current judges will rule with something like it being at the president's discretion. So obviously the government can spend some of that $1T military budget on fixing their coastal radar. I thought Mas…

>It seems like if these ever get challenged to the Supreme Court the current judges will rule with something like it being at the president's discretion.

Given that this is the same Supreme Court that ruled Biden (or Trump) could have them all shot[1], it seems near-certain that you're correct.

1. https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/23pdf/23-939_e2pg.pdf (JUSTICE SOTOMAYOR dissent, pages 29-30)

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

#348

I looked into this a little because I was curious. I guess the ostensible "national security" rationale (which clearly is not the only reason!) for this is that turbines severely degrade the utility of radar surveillance along the coastlines. This is particularly relevant for low-altitude incursions and drones. Now, other large governments (UK) have resolved this in several ways, including the deployment of additiona…

Result first (kill anything not carbon-based), find rationale later. Same applies to how this admin forced layoffs at the green energy (hydro + nuclear) behemoth BPA [1] (which was funded entirely by ratepayers, not the federal government) then claimed an energy emergency to keep open coal plants serving the same geographies, coal plants that were already uneconomical and planned for shut down (or re-tooling to gas i…

Boggles my mind a bit given much of the oil companies own the new renewable tech too. Why not keep investing in the future.

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

#349
post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Sure. We can always imagine an excuse to avoid dealing with the obvious reality. I don't think it's productive though.

A conspiracy is not the obvious reality.

Project 2025 is a conspiracy that is obvious, is reality, and includes blocking windmills

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

#350
post #345

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Any electricity produced by turning generators will require rare earths. This includes, every current non-trivial electricity source with the exception of solar. Gas, oil, coal and nuclear all work by heating steam and running it through a turbine that turns a generator that makes electricity. For hydro, the falling water turns the turbine/generator. So any source of electricity that may replace these wind turbines (…

> Any electricity produced by turning generators will require rare earths. AFAIK, not all kinds of rotating generators require rare earths; IIRC, induction motors don't need any permanent magnets.

AFAIK, modern wind turbines use types of induction motors because it allows them to adjust the rotation speed by applying a counter-rotating stator field (which is a very neat trick) - older turbines had to rotate at a fixed divisor of 3600 rpm (grid frequency).
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