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US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

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Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#361

Post by myvoiceismypass »

forgetfreeman wrote: post #94
JumpCrisscross wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> if we keep telling them everyone believes in this stuff and your vote doesn't count and so on I don’t know if you can fix lazy. Turning out new voters basically happens once a generation. The rest tell themselves tales that their vote could never matter, and in doing that, subtly endorse the status quo .

Your comment is extremely reductionist and reverses causality for a large number of voters. Both political parties have multi-decade track records of aggressively supporting pro-corporate political agendas at the expense of their constituency. So in light of literal decades of watching prospects decline regardless of which party is currently in power many voters (correctly) conclude that their vote will not lead to m…

> So in light of literal decades of watching prospects decline regardless of which party is currently in power

Quick question: how many _months_ total in the last quarter century have the Dems had the Presidency, Senate, and House at the same time.

The answer is 47. Forty seven total months. Out of 300. We got the ACA (Obamacare) and the Inflation Reduction Act during those brief time periods, too.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#362

Post by myvoiceismypass »

angelgonzales wrote: post #102
rockooooo wrote: post #83

Earlier quoted context omitted.

the dollar cost he's talking about does not include the large dollar cost the externalities burning gas creates

Does the offshore wind energy costs include externalities of fabricating, assembling, shipping, installing, maintaining and decommissioning the turbines? Does it also include bird losses and whale harms?

The biggest harm to whales is indeed human-based, but more along the lines of being collateral damage from the fishing industry.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#363

Post by hedora »

thunfischtoast wrote: post #343
hedora wrote: post #313

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I really want to know how in the hell whales are getting stuck in wind turbine blades. I want to see a video of this happening. There's also the externality of paying for the natural gas, which is passed on to the consumer in the form of higher energy bills. It probably also makes sense to include the $800M we are burning per day right now on patriot missiles (assuming the stockpile hasn't been depleted yet).

The argument is that vibrations of the wind power plants at sea disturb the whales. Paying for the gas itself would not be an externality. Externalities are for example the worldwide damages caused by extreme weather which is caused by climate change, health problems caused by air pollution or the usage of clean water for cooling

Normally, I'd agree, but in this age of massive corruption, you need to be careful figuring out who the stakeholders are. The purpose of these new fossil plants is not to produce electricity. Their purpose is to line the pockets of the ultra-wealthy people building them, and of the politicians accepting bribes to get them built.

Fueling the power plant is an externality for the people building the power plant. You could argue that it increases their costs, but these things are monopolies, with prices set by bought-off politicians. The plant + fuel costs much more than renewables (so ratepayers get screwed), but I'll wager the plant without fuel is still a bit less than solar or wind construction.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#364

Post by Ajedi32 »

fastasucan wrote: post #350
Ajedi32 wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They could do some actual journalism, find out the answers to some of these obvious follow-up questions, and report on them. Or, failing that, link to the press report since it seems like as is they aren't really adding much beyond that. But my original complaint about editorializing was about the title the submitter wrote on HN, not the article title.

What if they couldn't grt an answer, should they just not publish in that case? And why would they link to the press release, they are not a propaganda office.

They could at least raise the questions in the article instead of leaving readers with the impression they didn't even try to find answers. Worst case, you write "the person we spoke to declined to comment".

> why would they link to the press release, they are not a propaganda office

Just reporting the contents of the press release as if it were your original reporting is worse IMO. At least reading a press release you know the source of the information and what their agenda is.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#365

Post by gwerbin »

renewiltord wrote: post #289
gwerbin wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

As much as I agree the longshoremen situation is "unappealing" from a policy perspective, it's not really a valid equivalence to compare a trade union trying to protect itself from being automated out of existence with a multinational corporation asking an historically corrupt government to let them use the $1bn that they were given for something other than its intended purpose.

Everyone always has a story to tell for why they deserve the Rolex and the other guy doesn’t. And nothing is equivalent except perhaps fundamental particles in each class. That’s the nature of reality. I’m not this guy or that guy. I’m just a victim of both of them. And both of them are happy to conspire against me. So until they’re willing to give the rest of us Rolexes for sitting at home I don’t see much of a diff…

I'm not saying that the longshoremen deserve Rolexes. I'm saying that if you had to choose between a handful of longshoremen with Rolexes and a Captain Planet villain with a Rolex and private jet and a bunch of new fossil fuel projects, I think the latter is clearly a worse outcome overall. False equivalence is a propaganda tool to confuse priorities and deflect.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#366

Post by micromacrofoot »

gausswho wrote: post #284
micromacrofoot wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is an absurdly large rush of americans applying for canadian citizenship because canada recently allowed anyone with ancestry, multi-generations back, to qualify

Wasn't that revised to a single generation?

no, it used to be single generation but now people as far back as 4-5 are getting citizenship — I'm helping others go through the process myself but it's taking months longer than it used to due to the influx

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#367

Post by micromacrofoot »

hedora wrote: post #307
micromacrofoot wrote: post #267

Earlier quoted context omitted.

there is an absurdly large rush of americans applying for canadian citizenship because canada recently allowed anyone with ancestry, multi-generations back, to qualify

I frequently see billboards in the SF Bay Area encouraging professionals to move to Canada. My main concern is that it might not be far enough away.

I don't plan on moving, but I already have dual citizenship and it helps me sleep better at night knowing that if things got so bad to restrict US passports I have an alternative.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#368

Post by Ajedi32 »

BoiledCabbage wrote: post #173
while_true_ wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

So TotalEnergies agreed to invest 1 billion is offshore wind during thr last Administration. The current Administration doesn't want any investment in renewables so they attempted to block it. A judge said the attempted block was unlawful. So then immediately the admin said something new and that instead there were "national security concerns" with building wind plants - (Which doesn't pass the smell test to me at al…

This seems plausible. Though I find "pay a full 1 billion dollars to the company" to be a very confusing way to frame this if this just returning a deposit the company put down in the first place. Would be more accurate to say the company spent 1 billion, canceled that and were refunded the 1 billion, then spent that billion on a different U.S. project instead.

Though it's still a significant impact to the tax payer if the new thing they're spending 1B on is private industry and not a government-owned lease.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#369

Post by Ajedi32 »

yanhangyhy wrote: post #319

This is the core flaw of the democratic system. Once a person gets elected, democracy effectively ends. Many of their policies may be harmful to the country, and their promises may not be fulfilled, but there is no punishment mechanism. As long as they step down from office, the media may criticize or mock them, yet no one really cares about the damage they caused. Leaving aside the fact that offshore wind power is a…

> This is the core flaw of the democratic system. Once a person gets elected, democracy effectively ends.

That's an intentional feature of representative democracy, not a bug. Letting voters micromanage every individual decision would be direct democracy.

> there is no punishment mechanism

In the next election voters can and will exact a punishment if they don't like the direction things are going. Politicians live in constant fear of this.

It is true that term limits reduce the effect of this threat somewhat, but in a system with shared governance not everyone gets term limited at the same time so there's still a strong collective effect. The issue in this case is just that too much power has been concentrated in the hands of one term limited person; the executive branch was not designed to wield this much unilateral power over domestic policy.

Re: US and TotalEnergies reach 'nearly $1B' deal to end offshore wind projects

#370

Post by lobsterthief »

ineedaj0b wrote: post #300
paxys wrote: post #65

Serious question, but not entirely related to the topic - how are “smart” people in the US preparing for the next 20-30 years? - Assume everything will be fine and America will remain a global economic superpower. - Plan an exit to a more serious, stable country. - Some option in the middle of the two to hedge your bets?

They seem to be buying a nice house/condo in a good area and having kids. Investment wise they are doing well. They often own multiple homes. They are not “smart” if they think a civil war will go down.. that’s poorly read people imo, sentiment pushed by the group that lost elections. And sooo context unaware. Could these people name any politics outside the US? Nope. Clueless, which is why they lost the election. So…

People believe X can’t happen there until it happens. Tale as old as time.
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