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US moves to cancel one of the largest solar farms
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoWe honestly need the next administration to shut down our coal- and oil-fired power plants, and shut down our coal mines. Physically ensure they can't be restarted. With the precedents handed down from Trump, that could likely be concluded before the courts have a chance to weigh in. The owners will be entitled to cash damages. But the industries will have been politically destroyed. (Note: leave natural gas alone. It’s cheap and relatively clean. It’s also geopolitical export currency.)
- kayodelycaon 1y agoI don't think escalation and revenge is a good strategy for our country long term. This shit shouldn't be normalized.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> don't think escalation and revenge is a good strategy for our country long term I agree, but if the precedent is set it doesn’t go back in the bag because it skips an administration. Unilaterally disarming doesn’t work.
- lesuorac 1y agoEnding qualified immunity and letting people be prosecuted for stuff not authorized by the government would be enough. There's no reason ICE should be protected from the courts for arresting US citizens.
- JumpCrisscross 1y agoThis would still be ex post facto. We need to be able to put guys like Stephen Miller and the DOGE bros in jail based on existing violations. > no reason ICE should be protected from the courts for arresting US citizens Nor those in the military executing unlawful orders.
- coldpie 1y agoIt's not revenge, it's just good policy. It will be vastly cheaper for the US if we pay these industries to shut down and replace them with renewables. We could pay every person working at a fossil fuel job their full wage to do absolutely nothing until they die and still come out ahead. Climate change isn't a joke, it's going to be really, really, really, really expensive.
- themafia 1y ago> It's not revenge It's a kneejerk response designed to obviate a political problem. Historically these will be perceived as vengeful and undemocratic. > it's just good policy. It's good policy if you only consider _one_ outcome. Good policy is made from compromise. Yours explicitly denies that, to the point where I'm very sure there are _better_ policy choices available to us. > We could pay every person working at a fossil fuel job their full wage to do absolutely nothing until they die and still come out ahead. I'd like to see your math on this. > Climate change isn't a joke Then shipping manufactured items from China should be a huge concern. If you're not making the replacement equipment in the USA for the USA then you are just ignorantly displacing the problem. To the point where this all begins to look like a modern colonial strategy solving local problems at the expense of global outcomes.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> these will be perceived as vengeful and undemocratic They're vengeful. I don't think they're undemocratic. > Good policy is made from compromise Not always. Sometimes there is a correct answer. For energy costs and political stability, continuing to subsidise coal has turned into a corrupt and expensive mistake.
- themafia 1y ago> I don't think they're undemocratic. Fair; however, you do share this country with people who do not explicitly agree with all your decisions. Which is why I flagged this as a /perception/. Those still have actual consequences whether you agree with them or not. > For energy costs and political stability, there seems to be only one here. You're ignoring national security and resistance to natural disasters. There's the part of the argument you want to have; unfortunately, it explicitly touches on several other complicated ones. Ignoring them introduces unnecessary peril to your own stated goals. If climate change is that important then you should really be seeking to rationalize the common concerns surrounding this approach and working to address them through incorporation into your strategy. There's more than one thing to "get right" here.
- sixothree 1y agoSince when is sensible policy considered revenge?
- lesuorac 1y ago[flagged]
- nine_zeros 1y agoWhile in understand where you are coming from, I don't think we should completely destroy coal mines. They should be kept around as a backup. That said, I would be 100% onboard with a future administration applying a massive tax on the wealthy to fund solar plants, rooftops, and wind energy - 100% paid for by the wealthy who are profiting from this administration at the expense of our lives.
- JumpCrisscross 1y ago> I don't think we should completely destroy coal mines. They should be kept around as a backup Totally agree. I’m talking about taking out heavy machinery. Turbines. Elevators. Generators. I’d also argue for doing this on federal lands, or federally-permitted equipment, first.
- JuniperMesos 1y ago[dead]
- lovich 1y agoI have disagreed with you on a number of discussions, but I am 100% behind you on this.
- cmxch 1y agoOnly if you’re willing to have the environmental interests directly cut large salary-replacing checks to people in coal/oil heavy regions. Not government checks, but from the private industry that displaces coal/oil.
- gnabgib 1y agoSome other discussion: An Immense Solar Project Just Got Canceled Under Trump (11 points, 5 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45542159 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45542159 Trump administration has killed a massive solar power project in Nevada (15 points, 8 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45540426 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45540426
- xutopia 1y agoWhat is the reasoning behind such a move? Is it just pure corruption (ie: Qatari plane and base) or is it something else?
- nine_zeros 1y agoOil, gas, and coal lobby had lined up republican pockets prior to last election. This is their return on that investment.
- aworks 1y agoI can't speak for oil and gas but for the coal industry, it's screwed no matter what lobbyists spend. No value judgement implied...
- ZeroGravitas 1y agoAn industry being screwed and the oligarchs that run that industry getting government handouts are two different things.
- specialist 1y agoYes and: I assume incumbents have been demanding compensation for their "stranded assets". eg All their "known" reserves of oil, heavily inflated, propping up their market caps. Biden Admin's IRA had boondoggles (for incumbents) like carbon capture, hydrogen fuel, and e-fuels. I assume it was mostly plausibly deniable pork. I know that you already know: Yes, we need to massively to fund R&D for All The Things, for the draw down. Even the moonshots. No, none of that moonshot nascent stuff will be mature enough to help us reach net-zero. It takes decades to progress from research to industrial build out. (Govt now has a technology readiness model to better guide investment. Sorry, I forget its official name.) What the skeptics (eg of the rainbow colors of hydrogen) didn't grok is that climate crisis is a hostage negotiation. Pretending these unproven techs were mature is just laundering the extortion payouts. Hilariously, IMHO, the incumbents were getting a better deal under the Biden Admin. All those execs have gone full Gordon Gecko, snatching a better (short-term) deal for themselves, to the detriment of shareholders. Oh, the irony. Assume we get another Democratic Admin. Prospects for another hostage release deal are much dimmer. Renewable will be that much further along. And after the incumbents burned all their goodwill by sabotaging the prior payout deal, methinks the Dems will want some scalps. Coal will be fully dead. Accelerating deployment of solar + battery, despite the roadblocks, will moot grid related permitting reform. Consumers will demand much cheaper and better electrified products. Etc, etc. Today, only natural gas generation is cheaper than solar + battery, and only because of subsidies and tariffs. At best, the current Admin is just delaying the inevitable. At worst, they've completely obliterated USA economy, manufacturing, GDP, etc for a generation.
- perihelions 1y agohttps://archive.is/uk5pq https://archive.is/uk5pq
- FridayoLeary 1y agoSounds like a technical reason. It's apparently 7 projects combined and the Biden administration let them file one enviromental impact assessment instead of 7 sepearate ones. That sounds banal to me, so maybe other people could explain why (if) it's important. It makes sense that Biden would cut a lot of red tape for something that's percieved to be good for the enviroment (a bit ironic in this case) but the Trump administration, who is skeptical about the claimed benefits of renewables are not so impressed. I hope some knowledgeable people can expand on it because some technical and economic analysis would be appreciated. Just for the record i know Trump is corrupt, a felon, impeached etc etc. and it's pointless to attribute any decisions he or his minions make to reasons any normal person would describe as "rational" or anything other then serving his own interests. So please don't bother mentioning it again thank you. There, now i've cut the discussion thread by 75%.
- jandrewrogers 1y agoFrom what I can tell by reading the BLM and related documents, this is not canceling the solar farm. That misrepresents the situation. The project was given preferential treatment by Biden, allowing them to skip environmental review process required for other energy projects on BLM land in Nevada. This is canceling the preferential treatment, forcing them to do the environmental review to the same standard as other energy projects in Nevada, with the costs implied. Geothermal energy projects in Nevada have been buried in endless environmental reviews by Democrat administrations for decades. It smells a lot like patronage to selectively waive environmental review requirements for preferred energy projects. There may be an "own the libs" aspect to it but that isn't the story. If the normal environmental review process doesn't serve a real purpose or makes these energy projects infeasibly expensive then we should be reducing and reforming the environmental review process, not letting administrations decide which energy projects are subject to it.
- myvoiceismypass 1y ago> There may be an "own the libs" aspect to it but that isn't the story. This administration has literally stated this goal out loud. Anything that Biden did, anything that Obama did = bad. That’s it. That’s all.
- exabrial 1y agoI’m surprised people are up in arms about this here. First, there has been huge protests about the selling, er “leasing”, of BLM land to millionaires. Do they even realize what was happening here? The headline would be better written as “some rich guy no longer gets to skip normal environmental procedures for permanently occupying public land”. Public land should remain that way, forever. Stop selling our children’s future for profit, no matter the cause.
- nozzlegear 1y ago> Stop selling our children’s future for profit, no matter the cause. This sounds quite ironic when juxtaposed with the fact that the cause in question is solar power.
- exabrial 1y agoSo... fricken... what...? "XYZ" [solar] at the cost of what? Allowing one rich guy to permanently occupy a section of public land? Without ever compensating the public for the immense wealth he'd extract from a public resource? This is basically giving the land to him permanently without ever paying for the billions the land is worth? If were a 99.999% revshare (meaning he keeps 0.001%) and a giant fund for the inevitable environmental cleanup were established I might think differently, but lets not play imagination here. The previous generations destroyed public lands with dumping, dams, mines, etc in the name of progress or whatever, and the people that extracted the wealth packed their things and left the public with the mess to clean up. These procedures were established to sort of roadblock that, but even then it's still wrong. It's time to learn from the past. Decimating and absolutely destroying public land is something that shouldn't be on the table by alleged environmentalists.
- tempestn 1y agoIn what way will the solar array destroy the land? Do you feel it's superior to destroy ecosystems with global warming, vs devoting land to clean energy? If so, why, and if not, why do you see the trade-off differently?
- jauntywundrkind 1y agoJust for scope, I really really enjoyed seeing this NYT article & photos, on the 16.2 GW Talatan solar install in Qinghai China. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/business/china-solar-tibetan-plateau.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/business/china-solar-tibe... The 6.2 GW here would have been significant.
- partomniscient 1y ago>"The American president has called renewable energy projects a “scam”." The rest of the world considers Trump and his administration 'a scam', and aren't falling for it. The side effects of all the bullshit they've pulled and continue to pull is that the rest of the world is playing together more nicely with one another, and the US is screwing over their own economy for the longer term.
- dzonga 1y agolying to get voted for might be fashionable. but at a certain point in time -- there are facts you can't dispute. utility solar is one of the cheapest forms of energy there is. & a massive plus when you consider places like arizona. so what's trump admin endgame ?
- renewiltord 1y agoOnce again the environmentalists and conservationists have won.
- greenavocado 1y agoWhere can I buy those used panels for pennies on the dollar?
- anon291 1y agoSolar may be intermittent but tons of electrical usage can be made intermittent thus freeing capacity for non intermittent uses. I'm so tired of these arguments. Trump claims to want to bring back manufacturing. Manufacturing is material inputs plus labor or automation. American labor is expensive. The only way to compete is automation. Time and time again studies show that energy cost is the main determinant of factory output and manufacturing capacity. Cheap energy equals more stuff. That's basically it. Anyone who is canceling energy projects is not brining back manufacturing.
- nomel 1y ago> but tons of electrical usage can be made intermittent I'm not familiar with large scale electrical. Do you have examples?
- ezfe 1y agoA good example: training AI models can be scheduled to occur when electricity is cheaper (aka solar power is active). That is just one example, but many things can happen throughout the day when power is cheaper.
- legitster 1y agoAluminum refining from bauxite is a pretty classic example. It's very power intensive and will literally be done wherever and whenever they get the cheapest electricity. Bitcoin mining is a more unfortunate one but also pretty typical.
- don_neufeld 1y agoExample: EV charging is largely schedule based (mine charges overnight only - because rate plan), and can be made demand based pretty easily.
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- phil21 1y agoThe issue is capital expense. Buying a bunch of expensive equipment and operating it 10 hours a day vs. 24 hours a day is usually not economical. The uses where this make sense are quite rare. For example training AI models is often cited - but when you're buying $1B of GPUs to stuff in a datacenter that have a 3 year useful lifespan - you are effectively cutting your amortization schedule in half. It would require some really expensive energy to make that pencil out. Energy storage of various types are probably the currently best bet, but those also have the same problem. Vehicle charging is a clear win, but also a low hanging fruit that is already well in play.
- legitster 1y ago> The Interior Department in a statement Friday afternoon said that the solar developers and BLM had “agreed to change their approach for the Esmeralda 7 Solar Project in Nevada. Instead of pursuing a programmatic level environmental analysis, the applicants will now have the option to submit individual project proposals to the BLM to more effectively analyze potential impacts.” What does this even mean? Why the hell does it have to be so hard to get anything done in this country? > “Friends of Nevada Wilderness is thrilled that this poorly sited project is dead,” said Shaaron Netherton, the group’s executive director. “In the push to get this particular project through, the BLM ignored the importance of this region’s cultural significance, biological significance and the fact that it is one of the most intact landscapes remaining in Nevada,” Netherton added. I will also save some ire for these people. This is literally desert wasteland sitting alongside a freeway. It's hard to believe that someone spent time and money on this cause.
- dpe82 1y agoNIMBYs are everywhere.
- api 1y agoIf you look deeply into it, it would not surprise me to learn that some kind of natural gas industry group bankrolls these activists. Of course maybe I’m overthinking it and assuming a conspiracy where stupidity is a simpler explanation. There were climate activists protesting wind farms in Germany.
- zdragnar 1y agoPeople will protest literally any use of land at all. They imagine the current conditions are pristine perfection, "unspoiled", and see any human activity upon it as something to be opposed to.
- hdseggbj 1y agoSolar companies fund the initiative, so it being funded or by whom is irrelevant. Everyone involved is motivated by self interest.
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- jauntywundrkind 1y agoFollow-up to this recent submission. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45553487 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45553487 6.2GW is huge. What an incredible sad loss. Meanwhile there is a beautiful article showing in photos China's recent 16.2GW solar install Talatan in the Qinghai Province. https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/business/china-solar-tibetan-plateau.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/10/10/business/china-solar-tibe...
- nextworddev 1y ago[flagged]
- viraptor 1y agoHow much? And do you mean relative to some other sources, or just in general?
- alexose 1y agoOkay, how much pollution was caused creating it? How does that compare to the expected lifecycle of other power plants?
- Loggias 1y ago[dead]
- feyman_r 1y agocan you attribute a source for this loss? Since its not talked about, can you share from a credible source?
- nextworddev 1y ago[flagged]
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- aauchter 1y ago“The BLM did not cancel the project. During routine discussions prior to the lapse in appropriations, the proponents and BLM agreed to change their approach for the Esmeralda 7 Solar Project in Nevada,” said an Interior spokesperson in an email Friday. “Instead of pursuing a programmatic level environmental analysis, the applicants will now have the option to submit individual project proposals to the BLM to more effectively analyze potential impacts,” the email continued. https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2025/10/13/trump-nv-solar-project-canceled/86674450007/ https://www.rgj.com/story/news/2025/10/13/trump-nv-solar-pro...
- cjensen 1y agoOne of the consequences of being part of administration that lies constantly is that it is very difficult to trust they are telling the truth. Since this is based on the Interior Department saying something very different than the company, I'm disinclined to give the benefit of the doubt to the Interior.
- Gibbon1 1y agoRead a guy talking about Iraq's nuclear weapons program. The one they didn't have. He said when a source is known to lie the proper weight to apply to anything they say is 0.0.
- two_handfuls 1y agoThat's just canceling with extra steps. The journalists have it right in the article you link when they say: > On Thursday, the Bureau of Land Management (BLM) canceled an environmental review of the Esmeralda Seven Solar Project
- paraboli 1y agoA tragedy. Killing this and Revolution Wind are some of the most consequential acts of the Trump administration. We are now unable to do large scale grid-connected energy projects and won't be able to take advantage of the incredible advances in efficiency renewables provide. With data centers causing the first increase in per-capita energy usage in decades there's a good chance we have an actual power crisis and the administration's other priorities like reshoring manufacturing become impossible.
- alexose 1y agoYep. It has massive ripple effects for manufacturing, especially as more industry transitions away from fossils for heat generation. Energy accounts for around 40% of the opex for steel manufacturing, for instance. Zero chance we build more steel mills if the cost of electricity continues to skyrocket. The Chinese have the right approach: Bringing the cost-per-watt down using massive deployments of renewables and ultra high voltage transmission. We were already in the backseat, and now we're not even in the same car.
- alltheseas 1y ago[flagged]
- sirtaj 1y agoPresented to us by the same people who gave us the film "Climate Hustle" [1] 1. https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/climate-hustle-wants-you-to-believe-you-just-cant-trust-climate-science/ https://arstechnica.com/science/2016/05/climate-hustle-wants...
- alltheseas 1y ago[flagged]
- specialist 1y ago
- breadwinner 1y agoSaudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman has bragged he had Jared Kushner "in his pocket." Oil-producing middle-eastern countries, having made significant contributions to Trump family's wealth, have enormous influence over him. If you were the ruler of an oil-producing country and have enormous influence over Trump, what would you have him do for your country? If it was me, this is what I would have him do: Pull out of the Paris climate accord, cancel renewable energy projects, cancel EV tax credits. Trump has done all that. In fact Trump went a step further: Trump is using tariffs to pressure other countries to relax their pledges to fight climate change and instead burn more oil, gas and coal. See: https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-international-pressure-climate-oil.html https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/27/climate/trump-internation...
- deleted 1y ago[deleted]
- darksaints 1y agoMohammed bin Salman and Trump are in each other's pockets. One of Trump's first acts in his first term was to approve the sale of military equipment to Saudi Arabia for the first time. At the time, MBS was the defense minister, and was not the Crown Prince. Almost all western open source intelligence on the matter will state that this act alone was what convinced King Salman to remove Muhammad bin Nayef as Crown Prince, and install MBS in his stead. The deal closed in May, and MBS was made Crown Prince in June. MBS literally owes his role as future King to Donald Trump. Trump would later brag about protecting "our guy" after the whole world condemned him and wanted to cut ties to Saudi Arabia for killing Khashoggi. When MBS did his now infamous 2017 purge of Saudi Billionaires, imprisoning them in a hotel and confiscating their wealth or securing their loyalty, he was likely doing it with CIA-sourced intel, hand delivered by Kushner [0] who had finally received the necessary security clearances which the Trump administration directly intervened in issuing [1]. In October 2022, literally a week after meeting Putin for the first time, Elon Musk started mirroring Russian propaganda [2], even though he had been a staunch supporter of Ukraine until that point. A week later, he would announce that he had secured funding to buy Twitter. Immediately, he reversed course on his "Free Speech Absolutism" and started pumping out right wing propaganda. Not long after, he would announce that he was leaving the democratic party, and not long after that, he would endorse Trump, and then not long after that, he would begin campaigning with trump and becoming his single largest donor and chief election meddler. When Musk was forced to disclose his investors, the list [3] included: * the sovereign wealth fund of Saudi Arabia * several Saudi hedge funds, including those owned by billionaires that miraculously survived the 2017 purge with their wealth intact. * several Silicon Valley VCs who had recently announced raising significant funding from Saudi Arabia, including one that had just hired the sons of sanctioned Russian Oligarchs in Putin's inner circle [4]. * several individuals with ties to Saudi Arabia or Russia. * (unrelated but hilarious and unsurprising) P Diddy, who knew he was in future need of a presidential pardon. TL;DR: Mohammed bin Salman owes his position as Crown Prince to Donald Trump, and Donald Trump owes his second term to Mohammed bin Salman. [0] https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-crown-prince-jared-kushner-relationship-2018-3 https://www.businessinsider.com/saudi-crown-prince-jared-kus... [1] https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437292-kushners-security-clearance-was-denied-due-to-concerns-of-foreign/ https://thehill.com/homenews/administration/437292-kushners-... [2] https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126714896/elon-musk-ukraine-peace-plan-zelenskyy https://www.npr.org/2022/10/04/1126714896/elon-musk-ukraine-... [3] https://finance.yahoo.com/news/x-investors-helped-elon-musk-172847548.html https://finance.yahoo.com/news/x-investors-helped-elon-musk-... [4] https://www.aa.com.tr/en/science-technology/x-shareholders-links-to-russian-oligarchs-raise-questions/3313912 https://www.aa.com.tr/en/science-technology/x-shareholders-l...
- zoklet-enjoyer 1y agoThis doesn't surprise me. Doug Burgum is very friendly with oil companies.
- clarionPilot11 1y agoYou can't bring back manufacturing with expensive energy, and you can't get cheap energy by canceling solar projects.
- frogperson 1y agoYou can not take republicans at their word. Their actions are all that matter. Their actions are all toward fracturing and weakening the US.
- IT4MD 1y ago131% this. I'm still aghast when someone holds up Republican words as a counter to a point, as if their words had any meaning beyond the instant they said them.
- tempera 1y ago[dead]