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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 suppl

by alecco 10mo ago

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.

techgnosis 10mo ago
This feels extremely plausible. I don't see anyone else saying this yet, well done.
KaiserPro 10mo ago
> offshore wind requires a lot of rare earths for their magnets compared to the general motor market in the USA? I think thats out by a few orders of magnitude. Radar shadow is vaguely plausible, if your radar is shit and needs replacing. it also requires your hydrophone network to not be working that well either.
bongodongobob 10mo ago
Occams Razor: Trump openly hates windmills and green energy
platevoltage 10mo ago
This could very well be the excuse they're using. The reality is almost certainly more petty than that given the great one's irrational hate of wind power.
hristov 10mo ago
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 (other than solar) will require about the same amount of rare-earths. And lets face it, Trump is doing his best to hamstring solar as well. He has cancelled all solar subsidies and has hit solar with major tariffs. I think Occams Razor would lead to a very different conclusion.
- cesarb 10mo ago
  > 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.
  - immibis 10mo ago
    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).
cr1895 10mo ago
So, let's halt projects for which most fabrication of components is already completed?

by alecco 10mo ago

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.

techgnosis 10mo ago

This feels extremely plausible. I don't see anyone else saying this yet, well done.

KaiserPro 10mo ago

> offshore wind requires a lot of rare earths for their magnets compared to the general motor market in the USA? I think thats out by a few orders of magnitude. Radar shadow is vaguely plausible, if your radar is shit and needs replacing. it also requires your hydrophone network to not be working that well either.

bongodongobob 10mo ago

Occams Razor: Trump openly hates windmills and green energy

platevoltage 10mo ago

This could very well be the excuse they're using. The reality is almost certainly more petty than that given the great one's irrational hate of wind power.

hristov 10mo ago

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 (other than solar) will require about the same amount of rare-earths. And lets face it, Trump is doing his best to hamstring solar as well. He has cancelled all solar subsidies and has hit solar with major tariffs. I think Occams Razor would lead to a very different conclusion.

cesarb 10mo ago
> 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.
- immibis 10mo ago
  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).

cr1895 10mo ago

So, let's halt projects for which most fabrication of components is already completed?