HN 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:<p>> 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<p>What's the deal with this lease deposit and how does "freeing it up" equate to the US govt "paying" TotalEnergies that amount?<p>Is this a situation where TotalEnergies put down a 1B deposit to lease the seashore from the government and the government is now canceling that agreement and giving them their money back? How does it relate to "subsidies"?
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."<p>Total waste of $1 Bil of taxpayer dollars. If the oil and gas industry want to shut down wind projects let them pay for it.
Why would they do that when they already paid for a corrupt new regime to do it for them?
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 all) and the project would be held up while untangling those.<p>My <i>assumption</i> is the company started getting upset at being toyed around and having their 1 billion investment completely stalled for so long. So the admin said we'll kill the wind if you do our fossil fuels instead. So shift your investment away from wind (we kill it and pay you back for what you investws) if you instead do fossil fuels. And that's what's being done.<p>So previously the company was spending 1billion on wind and getting some subsidies. Now they spend 2 billion, and get paid 1 billion from the tax payer. For them it's at best a wash, though likely a loss since I haven't heard they get subsidies with the fossil fules. And the tax payer instead of paying for tax credits or low interest loans or other subsidies that were part of wind power portion of the Inflation Reduction Act instead pay a full 1 billion dollars to the company.<p>> The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy.<p>1. <a href="https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climate-totalenergies-interior-092eeeacc5d09730d4e20a95d7df7de1" rel="nofollow">https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climat...</a>
You could go to the source and see[1].<p>> TotalEnergies has committed to invest approximately $1 billion—the value of its renounced offshore wind leases—in oil and natural gas and LNG production in the United States. Following their new investment, the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar, up to the amount they paid in lease purchases for offshore wind. Under this innovative agreement driven by President Donald J. Trump’s Energy Dominance Agenda, the American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.<p>> For its part, TotalEnergies will invest $928MM, on the following projects in 2026:<p>The development of Train 1 to 4 of Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas;
The development of upstream conventional oil in Gulf of America and of shale gas production.
Following TotalEnergies’ $928 million in investments in affordable, reliable and secure U.S. energy projects, the United States will terminate the following leases and reimburse the company<p>[1] <a href="https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-and-totalenergies-agree-end-offshore-wind-projects-lowering-costs-american" rel="nofollow">https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-and-totalenergies...</a>
Thanks, that's helpful. Pretty annoying the original article didn't link to its source given that it was just repeating the contents of a press release.<p>Anyone know what these "ideological subsidies" are that they're referring to? Were they part of the agreement that was just terminated? Or was that just a vaguely related talking point they inserted into the press release for political reasons?
"ideological subsidies" for this administration means any policy supporting non-thermal and non-battery (to a lesser extent, although their lobby has pretty successfully extracted them from previous renewable associations they relied on) generating units.<p>To get more specific, you could say everything rolled back from the IRA as part of the BBB.
We don't know some important specifics about the deal but (IMHO) that's on purpose and is telling, meaning you only end up obscure deal details because you have something to hide.<p>So I don't know what stage the project was at but by withdrawing from the deal or cancelling it, the government is going to have to pay a penalty. Is that penalty $10 million? Is it $500 million? We don't really know.<p>So it could be that TotalEnergies is still getting paid $1 billion but now they have to spend $600 million on some fossil fuel project. But in doing so the government has essentially paid a $400 million break penalty. You see what I mean?<p>I don't believe for a second that the government didn't lose money on this political cancellation. The fossil fuel project is just a way to hide that and save face (IMHO).
Not sure how it relates to subsidies, but it is what you said. The government is cancelling wind shore projects leased to TotalEnergies under the Biden admin for ~$930 million.<p>The Trump admin is paying them back with the understanding that TotalEnergies will reinvest the money into oil and gas operations in the US
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 the excuse for why the deal wasn't working out as originally planned.
Total is also committed to expanding LNG - Total [0] and Oil India [1] are collaborating on a $20 Billion LNG extraction megaproject in Mozambique which was paused due to an Islamist insurgency during which Total-and-Oil India-funded forces allegedly committed massacres against civilians [2].<p>The US, France+India, and China have been competing over this project for decades.<p>These are businesses - no one cares about morals, only interests. And it is in France's interest to unlock these kinds of LNG projects.<p>[0] - <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mozambique-says-totalenergies-led-lng-project-relaunch-thursday-2026-01-29/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mozambique-says-tota...</a><p>[1] - <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-india-sees-restart-mozambique-lng-project-by-years-end-2025-09-18/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-india-sees-resta...</a><p>[2] - <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw119ynlxo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw119ynlxo</a>
I drive commercially.<p>There are no fully electric, or even hybrid, options for the type of vehicle I drive.<p>And even if there were, are you (tax payers) prepared to buy it for me, because I’m not due for an upgrade for about another 400,000 kilometres.<p>Can’t put wind generated watt-hours in my diesel tank.<p>Can’t put wishful thinking in my cars petrol tank.
> And even if there were, are you (tax payers) prepared to buy it for me, because I’m not due for an upgrade for about another 400,000 kilometres.<p>400,000 km is around two years for a commercial driver, isn't it?
It seems like you should want the types of vehicles that can avoid using fossil fuels to do so, to keep your own prices down?<p>What is with this attitude of reflexively interpreting the development of <i>alternatives</i> as if they are <i>mandatory</i> ?
This deal has zero to do with someone like you. This impacts our electrical grid. Now instead of harvesting renewable wind energy we will be burning LNG to power that portion of the grid.<p>I suppose there are still some diesel generators out there, so they might burn that instead. Of course, that only makes you worse off.
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The guy is unhinged, hellbent on denial, just to appease his base, who are going bankrupt because of his policies. Would he pay Sun as well to stop shining over the US?
The overrated and very annoying "sun", the so-called "star" that our planet goes around has been going unquestioned for too long! Many people have been asking for a long time, perhaps even before Obama, to remove the sun from the sky and replace it with our beautiful clean coal towers!
"Since the beginning of time man has yearned to destroy the sun" - Charles Montgomery Burns<p><a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LbxDZRgA4" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3LbxDZRgA4</a>
Thankyou for your attention to this matter!
Relevant power metal song:
<a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z769xf9ET5A" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z769xf9ET5A</a>
I had this big guy, very big guy with tears streaming down his cheeks asking me "Sir can you take down that woke star that keeps me awake"
<a href="http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html" rel="nofollow">http://bastiat.org/en/petition.html</a>
<a href="https://fee.org/articles/the-candlemakers-petition/" rel="nofollow">https://fee.org/articles/the-candlemakers-petition/</a> This feels relevant
> The guy is unhinged, hellbent on denial, just to appease his base, who are going bankrupt because of his policies.<p>In the middle of a war he started over war. No less. If his base wanted cheap gas, they are not going to get it.
It's even stupider than that, it's not even to appease his base, it's a personal grudge. Trump sued a wind energy company to prevent them from building an off-shore wind farm in view of his golf resort in Scotland. He lost that case badly and he has been railing against wind energy specifically ever since.<p>So far Trump hasn't done much to prevent solar farms from being built, it's only wind turbines that he's exacting his vengeance on like some sort of modern day Don Quixote.
Even Burns wasn't this deranged
If the government would like to pay me to also not build wind turbines, hit me up. I mean, I wasn't going to build any in the first place, but I think this makes me qualified to continue not building any.
> [Major Major’s father's] specialty was alfalfa, and he made a good thing out of not growing any. The government paid him well for every bushel of alfalfa he did not grow. The more alfalfa he did not grow, the more money the government gave him, and he spent every penny he didn’t earn on new land to increase the amount of alfalfa he did not produce. Major Major’s father worked without rest at not growing alfalfa. On long winter evenings he remained indoors and did not mend harness, and he sprang out of bed at the crack of noon every day just to make certain that the chores would not be done. He invested in land wisely and soon was not growing more alfalfa than any other man in the county….<p>Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
I think it’s in part returning money this company paid the government
I feel like Total could have pushed for more, much more.<p>It's very important that Windmills and 5G antennas do not spray Covid19 on proud patriotic americans
Do I have it right that the two projects that this deal kills off haven't seen any construction work yet? These aren't among the projects that the stop work orders were issued against in December, right?
My quick skim, I think you are right. This is getting them to halt new development, by buying them off with the equivalent of the subsidies the current administration cancelled.
><i>by buying them off with the equivalent of the subsidies the current administration cancelled</i><p>no, the billion that is being "paid" is a refund of what Total paid in for the leases. Total paid that into the US govt in anticipation of receiving returns on that investment in the form of "clean energy subsidies".<p>it is not clear from what is in the news story whether Total is being compensated for the would-have-been future subsidies, or whether Total simply expects to make decent profits from fossil fuels.<p>if one's interest is in the "clean energy" angle, then this is a "defeat". if one's interest is in reducing govt subsidies, this could be "a win", but it's not exactly clear.
What an amazing deal. We get nothing and the contractors we negotiated with get money for it!<p>Truly, the deals this administration crafts are nonpareil!
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These ones no construction had been started yet AFAIK.<p>If AI summery is to be trusted, a few other windparks got stopped that where almost done, but got completed anyway after a legal battle. Vineyard Wind 1, Coastal Virginia (CVOW), Empire Wind 1, Revolution Wind, Sunrise Wind.<p>Again, got it from AI, make of that what you want.
The feds have dropped their attempts to stop those from ongoing construction for now, but only one of those projects is complete.<p>CVOW is supposed to flow first power this month, but won't be done for ~a year, Empire Wind is also end of '26/early '27, Sunrise later in 2027.<p>Vineyard was completed this month, and Revolution is delivering power and targets completion over the next few months.
Serious question, but not entirely related to the topic - how are “smart” people in the US preparing for the next 20-30 years?<p>- Assume everything will be fine and America will remain a global economic superpower.<p>- Plan an exit to a more serious, stable country.<p>- Some option in the middle of the two to hedge your bets?
I'm investing in property in places that will allow me to get permanent residency without jumping through too many hoops.<p>You theoretically lose yield compared to the S&P average - but if you're hedging your bets against the US <i>possibly</i> going to shit - the S&P is unlikely to perform as well as its historic average <i>IFF</i> that scenario unfolds.<p>Seems like a better hedge than gold, but my crystal ball isn't working.
Smart people know that you can't predict or plan for anything on anywhere close to that time horizon. The only plan is be adaptable.
I don't know if I qualify for "smart" but my plan has been to keep one foot in the US and one foot in Europe.<p>I saw the writing on the wall long ago. I predicted all of this happening many years ago. I left the US back in 2015.<p>Currently in the UK, and I hope to eventually get dual citizenship. My partner is European, so that is possible too.
I live in iowa - all my electric comes from wind, and I drive an ev or bike. I'm not worried
I'd leave the US if the tech jobs didn't pay so much better here.<p>I mostly like the US but the years since Obama have been rough
D) Die. I'll reach my expected lifespan by then. If possible, move to a serious, stable country before then.
I'm somewhere in the middle and bought an ocean going sailboat.
Please list the more serious and stable country if America collapses.<p>I’ll wait.<p>On a serious note;<p>I’m looking at my billion dollar neighbors and they all just are citizens everywhere now. No allegiance to anything but their own pleasure.
> Please list the more serious and stable country if America collapses.<p>Chinahhhh.
Lol thats trivial if you actually know history and politics a tiny bit - Switzerland. 800 years of most free citizens in the world (lost that armed part but still valid for whole Europe with maybe Finland having similar numbers).<p>Salaries in tech sector still give you higher overall quality of life than most of US can ever offer. Then you have - extremely beautiful nature at your doorstep, more top notch destinations like Italy and France just at the border, very low criminality compared to US, very good free healthcare, very good free education including top notch public universities, very well functioning social programs. One doesn't have to be ashamed their taxes go to killing innocent civilians half around the world (although at this point US population including folks here seems fine with that). And so on and on and on.<p>Also, you don't spend your whole active life getting it and (almost) burning out for that, 40h/week and then you can live your life and chase dreams and passions.
Swiss people are quite rude and unaccepting of foreigners, even foreigners who grow up there. I don't think they have room for Americans wishing to leave.
Americans have a twisted outlook because despite <i>muh racism</i> USA has allowed more foreigners in than any other country, a quite sizeable chunk of them via overstay or illegal immigration, so we think we could do the same thing and just as an average person up and move somewhere else because we see that it <i>can</i> be done and <i>most</i> of the time it is at least <i>possible</i> to get away with it unless you have bad luck or do something stupid.<p>Argentina and Brazil are about the only other countries where you can almost get away with this and legalize your existence (Argentina in particular has constitution that says essentially if you survive 2 years, you are basically citizen) , although most of Africa wouldn't bother to enforce it (South Africa in particular has almost as much illegal immigration per capita as USA although with a wide band of possible error in estimates, and they can't meaningfully enforce it).<p>Otherwise you need investments (usually 50k+), permanent pension, top-tier education, a professional job offer, cultural/family ties, or connections with the political apparatus. Switzerland in particular is on extreme hard mode for a non-EU citizen to get citizenship.
> very good free healthcare<p>Quite a few swiss residents would be happy to have this (or at least some more cost control).<p>There's mandatory health insurance with preexisting condition coverage, but it's not free (tho it's partially tax supported, depending on location and income).
Switzerland would likely be one of the first to collapse financial institutions due to a US fallout.<p>It’s amazing how poorly you understand their financial situation. They are possible the most privately leveraged entity on the planet by ratio<p>Their banking systems against their gdp is at 600%.<p>You couldn’t pick a worse place
Switzerland?
I'm reminded of Reagan taking down the White House solar panels.
Here is a summery and where the panels ended up.<p><a href="https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-house-solar-panel-array/" rel="nofollow">https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-hous...</a>
IIRC those were solar hot water heaters. More of a curiosity than something legitimately powering the white house.
The symbolism, and the stupidity, was there though. As time has gone on it has been more clear every year how intelligent Carter's administration was and how terrible the following administration was. Investing in/promoting solar was just one of many smart moves by Carter that were attacked purely to gain political points that only harmed us in the long run.
Carter: “This energy crisis shows us how vulnerable we are to foreign autocrats. We should work toward energy independence via renewable energy and waste reduction, to lead the world away from this risky and unsustainable fossil fuel market and secure ourselves a brighter future.”<p>America: <i>throws a decades-long, ongoing tantrum</i><p>It’s fairly reductive… but still kinda true.
We truly live in the bad place
Fortunately, fossil fuels are a stable and geopolitically risk-free source of energy.
They're a relatively stable and risk-free source of money for a certain kind of politician.<p>The energy part is incidental.
They are also organic, all-natural, and fat-free! And renewable on geological timescales.
This will not be a learned more robustly in the US until one or both of the only two (edit: major) gas turbine manufacturers in the world (GE Vernova, Siemens Energy) suffer a tail risk event causing their failure. Backlog for new gas turbines is ~7 years, as of this comment. Continued production capacity is a function of how fragile those two companies are.<p><i>The White House’s Bet on Fossil Fuels Is Already Losing</i> - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-28/white-house-fossil-fuel-bet-is-losing-to-green-energy" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-28/white-...</a> | <a href="https://archive.today/vpvch" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/vpvch</a> - October 28th, 2025<p><i>Gas-Turbine Crunch Threatens Demand Bonanza in Asia</i> - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-07/gas-turbine-crunch-threatens-asian-lng-demand-bonanza" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-07/gas-tu...</a> | <a href="https://archive.today/z4Ixw" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/z4Ixw</a> - October 7th, 2025<p><i>AI-Driven Demand for Gas Turbines Risks a New Energy Crunch</i> - <a href="https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-gas-turbines/" rel="nofollow">https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-gas-turb...</a> | <a href="https://archive.today/b8bhn" rel="nofollow">https://archive.today/b8bhn</a> - October 1st, 2025<p>(think in systems)
And clean. Really, really clean. Just look at coal. A no-brainer. Go for it.
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The US (with Canada and Mexico) is self-sufficient with fossil fuel energy.
It's awesome the US hasn't destabilized one of those neighbors and alienated the other one by declaring it the prospective 51st state. Soft power really is America's super power.
> The US (with Canada and Mexico) is self-sufficient with fossil fuel energy.<p>Oh boy can't wait for the reenactment of third reich intervening peacefully in czechoslovakia, for their own safety and wellbeing of course, and not at all for the resources they're hoarding, the filthy hoarders.
Unfortunately, we share the planet and the atmosphere with it.
I’d wager the US is self sufficient also in terms of renewable energies.
It didn't look like that at the gas pump today.
But it gets traded globally. That means if the price goes up in Asia, it also goes up in NA.
Sure, if we build out refining capacity for the next ten years. Then we're golden until we run out of the <i>finite well</i> of combustible dead algae. So if you think we can revitalize American manufacturing and resource processing starting now, and you're okay with those investments being worthless in a few decades, and you don't give a shit about rendering the planet significantly less habitable to human life, then yeah, we're totally self-sufficient with fossil fuels.<p>Or we could, you know, pull energy out of the air and sun, a strategy which will be viable until our star dies.
Alberta tar sands have hundreds of years worth of reserves. They're also expensive and incredibly dirty to extract and emit significantly more CO2 during processing than a light oil well will. (The tar is usually melted by heating with natural gas).<p>I'm quite confident cheap renewable alternatives will make the tar sands inviable far before they run out.
another option is not to shit on all countires who do have resources driving the prices up for everyone.
I do find the slow Sovietization of America funny, both mentally and economically. The year is 2050, autarky on energy has been established, the markets cut off, politics in the hands of erratic and geriatric leaders. Americans proudly drive 30 year old Fords the way people used to drive Ladas, while China exports green energy, cars and infrastructure to the world.
Ireland during the famine was self sufficient with food production but that didn't stop people from sending food to the highest bidders abroad.
The US is unable to implement export controls so consuming less than it creates doesnt mean theres enough since producers will export if international prices are better
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Total doesn’t greenwash anymore.<p>Perhaps they try to please the US government. A previous total CEO "maintained complicated relations with the United States". He died in a plane crash accident. Was it an accident or a murder, perhaps the current Total CEO prefers to be safe than dead.<p><a href="https://www.france24.com/fr/20160714-margerie-deces-enquete-mort-petrole-total-russie-france" rel="nofollow">https://www.france24.com/fr/20160714-margerie-deces-enquete-...</a><p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unijet_Flight_074P" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Unijet_Flight_074P</a>
Total doesn't care.<p>They've funded massacres in 2021 [0] in order to unlock the $20 Billion Cabo Delgado LNG deal [1] in Mozambique. Greenwashing is the least of their worries.<p>I've found French business culture to be extremely refreshing compared to their DACH peers - French business norms tend to be much more pragmatic, and will try to maintain strategic autonomy by hook or by crook.<p>[0] - <a href="https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw119ynlxo" rel="nofollow">https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c4gw119ynlxo</a><p>[1] - <a href="https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mozambique-says-totalenergies-led-lng-project-relaunch-thursday-2026-01-29/" rel="nofollow">https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mozambique-says-tota...</a>
If this is accurate the US is making itself look unreliable for major energy investment
I 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 sure how I can still be shocked but here I am.<p>And I say that not as some rabid renewables person. Just the insane binary thinking, regardless of the dollars and cronyism at work. There's zero room for nuance, which I guess is my biggest complaint about the world at large.<p>Aside: people who think climate change will be the death of us all, and sooner than later, I get it, and I fully appreciate you pushing for a cleaner and more livable world. At this point I'm just going to sit in the corner and hope you, and China, figure it out and then it spreads quickly to the rest of the world, which I think at this point is pretty much a foregone conclusion barring a nuclear war (will refrain from commenting about how the likelihood of that has ticked up the past couple of weeks in an area teeming with (sarcastically shocked this time!) fossil fuels).
Don't underestimate the power of money spend by the U.S. oil,gas,coal industry.
For example:<p><a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_network#Climate_change_and_use_of_fossil_fuels" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_network#Climate_change_an...</a>
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!"<p>Is there a single person who things Trump gives a single damn about the birds? It is obviously just a pretext.
True Bird Lovers only care about bird fatalities from windmills. Oil spills, buildings, and cats don't register.
Wind turbines are also miniscule compared to issues like pollution, land use, windows, and cats. Also you can track migration and turn them off at key times if it's a huge issue (this is part of the motivation for research I'm going to do later as part of my master's dealing with tracking hawk flocks via weather radar).<p>Wind turbines are an issue but approximately 0% of the <i>30%</i> decline in US birds since the 1970s<p>Edit: to be specific to Trump, funding for bird conservation has been an issue under his administrations and he's weakened things like migratory bird treaty act. Obviously he doesn't care about birds and the bird community is very frustrated with him
And whales, don't forget the whales <a href="https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/26/trump-whale-wind-turbine-renewable-energy-misinformation" rel="nofollow">https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2023/sep/26/trump-whale-...</a><p>and the noise causes cancer
Never thought about it, but that's a great point and comparison. From quick Google search: 365 million and 988 million birds die every year from window collisions (that's US alone). Windmills/turbines: 140,000 and 679,000. Then if you do per windmill vs. per building obviously the windmills are going to "win," but it's the absolute that would seem to matter in this case.<p>As you said, that has nothing to do with the actual preference for fossils vs. turbines, but a great point nonetheless.
This might surprise you, but only a minority of eligible voters vote. So while it looks like 50% of people believe this is a good strategy and we should do it based on the percentage of people who voted for Trump, in reality a minority of people in the US believe this is good. The problem is that few of those people vote.<p>So in all seriousness, if we could get a significant fraction of the young people who are negatively impacted by these policies to actually vote against the people enacting them we could see real change. But if we keep telling them everyone believes in this stuff and your vote doesn't count and so on then nobody will do anything about it until it's too late and we're shooting at or throwing rocks at each other.
> <i>if we keep telling them everyone believes in this stuff and your vote doesn't count and so on</i><p>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 <i>status quo</i>.
This is kind of why I ultimately find cynicism to be inherently lazy. This is coming from a very cynical (and often lazy) person.<p>It takes no effort to be cynical, I can tell myself "everything sucks and I shouldn't care because nothing matters anyway" and justify <i>not</i> doing anything I want. I can justify not voting, I can justify not helping someone if I see them struggling on the street, I can justify not even improving myself.<p>In the last couple years I have been trying my best to override my cynical tendencies because ultimately I think that they are bad for me. I vote in every election I am able to because even if it's infinitesimal, I at least tried to do <i>something</i> to avoid whom I deem bad people getting into office.
Agree. And look, being cynical and just minding your own matters is fine. It means the system is working well enough for that person that doing anything isn’t actually worth it. But those people are also electorally—and more broadly, politically—irrelevant. So if you’re trying to do something, betting on them tends to be a losing pitch.
I relate to the feeling. I am extremely cynical. I fully believe the world is fucked and we are in for a very turbulent 50-100 years. I still work to improve myself and the world because WTF else are you going to do? At least doing something feels better than doing nothing.
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 meaningful change.
> <i>in reality a minority of people in the US believe this is good.</i><p>I'm not convinced. The reason why many of these people don't vote is because they don't think Trump is that bad. They probably don't agree with everything, but that's true no matter who is in office.
63.45% voted last time. Thats not a minority.
<p><pre><code> > I know this US government is fully-committed to fossil fuels and about as rabidly anti-renewables as can be,
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Don't fall for the political narratives, they are designed to distract you while the theft is taking place. The sponsors of the circus are rabidly cynical and pro-selfish. They are spreading the narratives, not believing in them. There is certainly a few conservatives in power who hold that the earth is only 6000 years old, who see no other option than burning down the town as a way to escape confrontation with progress and emancipation. But this is mainly what kleptocracy looks like.<p>The narratives work though, that is the sad reality. News anchors and the public are stuck in a loop about "children being forced to change sex, woke, climate hoax, but her e-mails, but Biden, ...", anything but what is happening at the crime scene.
People voted in repeatedly a visibly primitive person (plus quite a few other things but lets not go there now), then they get primitive behavior.<p>An honest question - what the heck did you expect? Some sophisticated rational discussions instead of dumb ego tantrums?
Simply insane.
The president - in his personal capacity - hates windmills. That is probably the entire reason this happened, in addition to hurting blue states.
> "TotalEnergies CEO Pouyanné said offshore wind was 'not the most affordable way to produce electricity' in the US, which he identified as being natural gas-fired power plants. [...] So it was a win-win dialog," he said."<p>Pouyanné is only 62 years old. If, as I hope, there are criminal trials in the future for those responsible for recklessly endangering life on this planet, then I hope that he is still alive and that statements like this form part of the prosecution. Unfortunately Trump will almost certainly be long dead by then.
How about Equinor? They are suing the US govt for stopping the wind projects.
At least it doesn't seem like a direct payoff. So in that sense the title is clickbait.<p>> redirect those funds towards fossil fuel production [...]
> US interior secretary [says] the deal was worth "nearly $1 billion<p>The rest of the comments here... yep.
Idiocracy
Sorry, I do not know how else to say this:<p>Well hopefully when Trump is gone NY remembers this and tells Pouyanné to screw when they put out bids to restart the project.
Trump wrecks the global energy economy and his next move is to increase our dependence on it? They don't make enough dimensions for the type of chess this brainiac is playing.
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Kidnapping the leader of a sovereign nation to put them on show trial and plotting to steal the country's natural resources. Blockading and strangling an island country to the point of economic collapse. Opining out loud about annexing their northern neighbours. The list goes on and on..
The United States has already been destroyed. It is no longer in question, or in the future tense.
>The US, should it survive this administration<p>This level of doomerism is absurd. Of course the US will survive this administration. I blame the news for making every breathe by whichever opposition seem like the next WWIII.
Pax Americana is doomed. What the USA looks like post-hegemony is TBD.
The land will be there. (most of) people will be there. What parent probably meant is losing everything good and positive United States of America represented in past 80+ years, internally and globally.<p>That is gone my friend, with the wind like a sulfuric fart, for good. US is becoming a global terrorist and enemy #2 of free world and certainly whole Europe (right after its biggest and only 'friend', russia which coincidentally keeps trying to make you a thing of the past). This comes from somebody who strongly believed in your role in global hegemony despite your numerous well documented fuckups in the past. All on the whims of one visibly mentally sick man, with absolutely nobody standing up to him despite nobody really believing in any of that bullshit. No principles, just plain greed and firm fuck-the-rest approach. Right now, if Europe needs a strong big ally it will be #1 China, and then... nothing.<p>The fact you voted him in, and he still has massive support, and there has been 0 overthrow attempts of the biggest traitor to US in its history tells me and everybody else in the world many things, but nothing positive. Even if next election, if they will happen, will have 98% win of the democracts with that ridiculous unfair and undemocratic system of yours, it won't change a permanent shift that started and keeps happening. US has no real allies, in same vein russia or China has no real allies.<p>Empires rise and fall, inevitably, there was never a reason to think US would be an exception.
The US is dead; it is now a Trumpian shithole.
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This was a known risk for decades on every coastal wind project, and would have been a part of the earliest risk assessments for this project. The people building these projects are generally not as stupid as the administration trying to tear them down.
IIRC it does not. There has been some discussions by folks around it, but so far no evidence has pointed to it being a primary motivation.<p>The evidence we <i>do</i> have is that republicans have had a party vendetta against clean energy for decades, and their current leader has had a personal vendetta specifically against wind turbines, also for decades.
It doesn't.
It’s not as big of a deal as it sounds.<p>Theses wind farms have not even started construction yet. Once Don Quixote is out of office, some future administration undoubtedly will start wind farm construction.
This seems like a good thing considering the “TotalEnergies CEO Pouyanné said offshore wind was "not the most affordable way to produce electricity" in the US, which he identified as being natural gas-fired power plants.”<p>Not sure why we’re building offshore wind plants when land based gas plants provide cheaper energy. We need to be reducing the cost of living for working people and not raising it. Our goal should be to reduce people’s cost of living and we should align our actions towards those goals.<p>Most people are cost sensitive!
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?
Does the gas turbine include externalities of fabricating, assembling, shipping installing, maintaining, and decommissioning oil drilling rigs? And of shipping, storing, and burning the gas? And the climate change caused by gas leaks? And the harms to humans, the fishing industry, and bird losses and whale harms by oil spills (I know you really care about those)?
The project life cycle cost: yes.
The birds and whales: no. But neither do the fossil power plants.
Yes.
Wind and solar are consistently the cheapest forms of new energy generation. Pouyanné knows that. He is being a politician here, saying what he knows will play well with the current administration. When in Rome...
Uhm, I dunno if you just time travelled here from the 60s but there's this thing called global warming.
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In 2026 utilities will install 86 GW of new generation, of which only 6 GW will be natural gas. The other 80 GW will all be solar, wind and battery storage. Utilities are doing this because of economics. Environment is secondary. Even oil and gas rich Texas has been aggressively adding solar, wind and battery.
Coal is not cheap. At least support oil/gas if you're going to push this cost sensitivity schtick
Wind is one of the cheapest sources of electricity available. Even if you are a completely brain-dead climate change denier it makes sense from a financial perspective.