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Court orders restart of all US offshore wind power construction
- ggm 9mo agoposted this at ars forum: (it should be clear I think it was a stupid move by the WH, but I am trying to think what might have "informed" it) Steelmanning the risks, its the link to mainland as a weakness in supply chain of power, compared to onshore sources possibly. But, the construction is in close water, well inside the exclusive economic zone. You would think passage of a craft capable of causing a power shock with an anchor chain was raising hackles well before this, because it's hugely unusual for a warcraft of another nation to be that close without an explicit permit. Under the Jones act, all inshore commercial craft delivering goods to and from named ports have to be US badged, for international shipping it's clear from the baltic there's a concrete risk, but that's a matter of policing the boats, not banning the structures at risk. A second steelman might be some belief about the intermittency. Thats easily knocked over because the system as a whole is building out storage and continuity systems, is adapting to a mix of technology with different power availability throughout the day, and of all the sources of power, wind is one of the most easily predicted to a useful window forward. You know roughly when a dunkelflaut is expected inside 48h, if you don't know exactly when, or for how long. Thats well north of the spin-up time for alternative (dirty) sources of power, if your storage capacity isn't there yet to handle it.
- kentm 9mo agoI appreciate the sentiment behind steelmanning but Trump has had over a decade of publicaly, vocally hating windmills because some were built too close to his golf course. See https://www.npr.org/2013/07/01/196352470/thar-he-blows-trump-tussles-with-scots-over-wind-turbines https://www.npr.org/2013/07/01/196352470/thar-he-blows-trump... Its completely in-line with his personality to hold onto personal grievances for decades to the point that they become policy.
- ggm 9mo agoThe Judges appear to have responded to something specific. If it was made-up, they would have thrown the case out harder and sanctioned whoever submitted false evidence. So I assume somebody with an ability to legally bind intel into the right form was persuaded to say something.
- maxerickson 9mo agoIn the quote in the article there, the one judge responds to something specific by calling it "irrational".
- duskwuff 9mo agoPerhaps the objection started out with something fundamentally irrational or opinion-based, and someone was ordered to "reverse-engineer" an objection out of that which wasn't trivially refutable - e.g. "the noise from the turbines will keep our submarine sonar from working" or "reports say that human smugglers are hiding aboard the windmills" or whatever.
- ggm 9mo agoYes, I think thats very plausible. "inshore defense operations in an area of strategic importance will be excessively impeded by both development of this site, and future operations in ways which <REDACTED>" type thing.
- defrost 9mo agoThis is very much a root cause. Not just the fact that Scottish wind farms prevailed, also that he was relentlessly mocked, ridiculed, and protested against in unavoidably visible ways by the Scots. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NNWmZwObZc https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NNWmZwObZc ( Note: while a recent youtube clip, the anti Trump protests in Scotland date back to well before his campaign for his first term as POTUS )
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- CGMthrowaway 9mo agoTreating offshore wind like ports and pipelines from a security POV makes sense, it's exactly what we do with offshore O&G. The rub is that securing offshore wind installations is an order of magnitude more resource-intensive than securing a deepwater rig, bc you're talking about a perimeter than spans 100's of square miles, not a single platform with a limited # of risers
- ggm 9mo agoIf you wanted to defend an O&G field, wouldn't you need to consider a similar extent? per wellhead, yes. but the go to a concentrator for onshore feed don't they? or some kind of attached floating rig, which itself is a SPF. I thought fields had 100s of square km of extent too. The exclusion zone after nordstream is now pretty big, albiet "temporary" according to the web its 5 to 7 nm so 9 to 13 km so close to 100 km^2
- CGMthrowaway 9mo agoAll of which are continually manned. Not so w/ offshore wind
- rootusrootus 9mo agoDon't wind turbines get serviced a few times a year? I would bet that on any given day there will be people at the farms.
- defrost 9mo agoFrom an attack PoV that's hundreds of square miles to destroy or disable many structures Vs taking out a single target. ie. They can nibble a bit at an array before you're onto them Vs everything gets thrown at a point source target.
- anonymousDan 9mo agoWhat about some kind of mass underwater drone attack? Feels like it might be feasible in the not too distant future...
- janice1999 9mo agoUS wind farms are 30 miles from the coast at most? No country is attacking that under some plausible deniability and it not being seen as an act of war.There are more important power lines further from civilisation running through rural areas in the US. These are not fiber cables a 1000 miles from the coast. Gas generators can be spun up to provide megawatts in seconds btw. With less than a quarter of the grid being renewable, intermittency is not an issue. Grids are built with resilience in mind (or at least should be...).
- bob1029 9mo ago> Gas generators can be spun up to provide megawatts in seconds btw Only if they're already spinning and everything is hot and ready. Non-spinning reserves can take hours to bring online. Cold power plants cannot be brought up quickly. The simplest designs can ramp within a few minutes, but these are generally not intended for any kind of continuous operation due to efficiency concerns.
- lovich 9mo agoWeird how these security risks only show up to tank projects in blue states
- wattso 9mo agoThe pretext for the suspension was radar noise.[1] [1] https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/trump-offshore-wind-leases-pause-rcna250513 https://www.nbcnews.com/business/energy/trump-offshore-wind-...
- aqme28 9mo agoI think that wind farms dotted along the entire US coast would be a bad target for crippling US power compared to a few coal/gas/nuclear mega power plants.
- cosmic_cheese 9mo agoEven if there were legitimate concerns surrounding defense of the wind farms, it makes more sense to instead de-risk with redundancy elsewhere, which is increasingly cheap and quick to do thanks to the combo of solar+batteries. That’s what we should be doing anyway if AI data center energy requirements are to continue to increase.
- pjdesno 9mo agoIn the 70s the oil companies were furious that Venezuela (if my understanding is correct) revoked their leases and forced them to abandon their equipment investments. That's basically what the administration was trying to do here, under a legal system which (unlike Venezuela in the 70s) is very keen on protecting corporate investment. It seems like a classic "takings" case.
- unyttigfjelltol 9mo agoIf the concern is the control module of the wind turbine— that’s not a nationalization and confiscation program. It might look similar in the near-term to participants, but that’s simply because they are functioning as instruments of the control module supplier, extending the inference, which isn’t a legitimate owner of the wind farms or US electrical grid anyway, and is quite unlike the fossil fuel companies in Venezuela of the 1970s.
- fsckboy 9mo agothe Venezuelan oil leases you are talking about was 1990s, not 1970s. for Venezuelan oil leases to be comparable to wind farms you'd have to have the Venezuelan govt say "we are taking the leases away because we don't want any more offshore oil production", rather than "we are taking these leases away because you are rich and we want to pump the oil ourselves" the cancelled Venezuelan oil leases were a taking, but that word is less useful in the case of wind farms. I would imagine firms with wind farm contracts would be made whole (i.e. get back lost investment, but not get back potential profit) but it's not a case of the wind farms being given to somebody else or those areas being put to some other use. if you are "environmental" you might think it's a great loss not to pursue the wind approach, or that it's a great idea to shut down offshore drilling, but that's political not property ownership/taking.
- bruce511 9mo ago>> I would imagine firms with wind farm contracts would be made whole Wait..what? Made whole by whom? Has this happened before? (I'm genuinely curious, I've not seen this brought up before...)
- 9mo ago
- einpoklum 9mo agoJudge: "Why were these projects put on hold?" Government lawyers: "Uh, well, we could tell you, but then we'd have to kill you." Now, I would point out how the US is making itself into a joke, but I'm afraid the joke's on us, because carbon output is not decreasing dramatically like it must, and the effects of global warming will, slowly but surely, become worse with every passing year. I live in a region where warming is predicted to be near twice the global average, so I'm particularly worried about what it's going to be like when I'm old, or in the generation following mine.
- IhateAI 9mo agoOffshore windmills legitimately do interfere with some of these military radars monitoring the coastline that are probably top secret, or so I'm told by people that would know. However, I doubt that's the only reason of course.
- softwaredoug 9mo agoIf these projects ultimately end up canceled they’ll be the largest “mostly done” infrastructure projects to be cancelled. A huge waste. And a monument to US incompetency.
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoWell, judicial checks and balances should protect them until regime change, which is coming.
- Waterluvian 9mo agoI dunno. The Americans stuck their hand in a blender for four years and then four years later needed to try it again. Alas, Stumpy McNubs remains long on limbs but short on memory.
- actionfromafar 9mo agoDon't look into laser with remaining eye! (Unless it's really shiny, and red?)
- Waterluvian 9mo agoScience demands rigour and repeatability.
- toomuchtodo 9mo agoI have similar concerns, but the evidence so far is encouraging. https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1puwkpj/democrats_overperform_by_double_digits_in_south/nvrz8lo/ https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1puwkpj/democrats... https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1qu6vyu/trump_calls_into_dan_bonginos_first_show_and/o381fkj/ https://old.reddit.com/r/politics/comments/1qu6vyu/trump_cal... https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5716988-democrats-score-upset-texas/ https://thehill.com/homenews/campaign/5716988-democrats-scor... https://www.npr.org/2026/02/01/nx-s1-5695678/democrat-taylor-rehmet-wins-texas-state-senate-seat https://www.npr.org/2026/02/01/nx-s1-5695678/democrat-taylor...
- sandworm101 9mo agoI am all for green energy, but these windfarms were designed years ago. Since then, solar has progressed in leaps whereas wind has not. Im not so sure that fighting the olds over wind farms is the fight worth winning. Let them cancel the wind farms if that means a free hand to develop solar.
- Rapzid 9mo agoWhether or not these wind farms are economically viable sounds like something for the companies building them to work out.
- monero-xmr 9mo agoThey are 100% not viable without tax dollars
- bronson 9mo agoNeither is petroleum, nuclear, or the highway system. What's your point?
- monero-xmr 9mo agoWind is the worst of all, otherwise the UK would have the cheapest energy in the West, instead of the highest
- deathanatos 9mo agohttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Levelized_cost_of_electricity
- triceratops 9mo agoOr maybe if not for wind their electricity would be even more expensive. See? Anyone can make kill-shot arguments when there's no data.
- petcat 9mo ago3 more years. I don't know who the Dems can elect to go against JD Vance, maybe Tim Walz, but they need somebody.
- actionfromafar 9mo agoA wet towel could go against JD Vance, but what if Vance shutters polling stations in blue districts? Because "terrorism".
- carefulfungi 9mo agoWeird to see this so downvoted on the same day that Trump asked republicans to "Nationalize" elections in 15 places. Whatever that means. > “Republicans should say, ‘We want to take control of this. We need to take control of voting in at least 15 places.’ Republicans should nationalize voting,” [Trump] said on the podcast of former FBI deputy director Dan Bongino, which was relaunched on Monday.
- rootusrootus 9mo ago> Whatever that means It means Trump is sucking the oxygen out of the room. Again. I wish we would quit reacting to every stupid thing he says.
- b00ty4breakfast 9mo agoWhen a guy with a gun says he plans on shooting you, you take him deadly serious.
- rootusrootus 9mo agoYes, but this is not taking him seriously, it is panicking over every idle provocation he utters. Taking him seriously would be the right way to approach it, and we are not.
- array_key_first 9mo ago
- aussieguy1234 9mo agoTrump banning offshore wind projects is why oil and gas workers vote for him. The only way they can keep their jobs working on vastly inferior, dangerous technology is to ban new, safer, better technology.
- defrost 9mo agoThe reality, of course, being that wind farm construction is big on labour, specialist transport machinery, crane operating, jacking, bolts, working to weather extreme thresholds, etc. Different as from a distance but still a lot of applicable skill and team work experience transfer for many workers.
- chmorgan_ 9mo ago[dead]
- firejake308 9mo agoI mean, we need all the electricity we can get to run all of these datacenters, right? So I think this might be one of those things that the Republicans quietly allow to continue so that the corporate interests can maximize electricity production
- WatchDog 9mo ago> ...the Department of the Interior settled on a single justification for blocking turbine installation: a classified national security risk. To speculate on what this risk is, the two obvious risk I can think of would be: - Susceptibility to seabed warfare[0]. A rival nation can sabotage the infrastructure and maintain deniability, like we have seen with the Nord Stream sabotage[1]. - Potential interference with passive sonar systems, the turbines are likely to generate a fair bit of noise, which could potentially make it harder for SOSUS[2] to detect rival submarines. [0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabed_warfare https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seabed_warfare [1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nord_Stream_pipelines_sabotage [2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SOSUS
- eclipticplane 9mo agoIf the latter were true, the permits would have never been granted. The permits took years of back and forth, public and government commentary. The former is a threat vector but one that can be priced into the ongoing maintenance costs.
- 4gotunameagain 9mo ago> A rival nation can sabotage the infrastructure and maintain deniability, like we have seen with the Nord Stream sabotage. We didn't see that with Nord stream. It was not a rival nation, but an allied one unfortunately. And Germany did nothing. Zero.
- fch42 9mo agoSometimes, not to do something can be the right (morally, technically, economically, ...) thing to do. You don't always need to present the other cheek to do right. Neither do you always need to retaliate. Nord Stream finally made it clear to Germany that "convenience" isn't a durable energy market strategy. It's not correct though that Germany has done "nothing". The suspects are pursued by Germany, https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-poland-blocks-extradition-of-suspect-to-germany/a-74395861 https://www.dw.com/en/nord-stream-poland-blocks-extradition-... so there's that. If you mean though whether there's a will in Germany (nevermind a commitment or funding) to rebuild Nordstream ... you're right, nothing has happened
- igorramazanov 9mo agoIf a country changes course every four years, how can the success of a long-term project be ensured? And what of its negotiating credibility? How can the other side trust that an agreement will hold in the future? This is not a critique, but a genuine curiosity, because there's an obvious drawback with a system with opposing world views. Unless, of course, something still unites them in the first place, with acceptable disparity on each side turning it into an advantage of flexibility and adaptability while keeping the focus on long-term ideas and plans.
- pwarner 9mo agoI'm not advocating their system, but here's one pro for China obviously.
- SecretDreams 9mo agoDictatorships work as long as they're benevolent, much like democracies work as long as they aren't bought.
- dominicrose 9mo agoIt depends what you mean by work. Technology - among a myriad of other things - enables the worst dictators to stay in power, even if the country as a whole doesn't work.
- SecretDreams 9mo agoWork in my post was "work for the people".
- chongli 9mo agoChina doesn't have flip-flopping like this with its attendant massive waste. Instead it has endemic corruption which siphons off funds all over the place, perhaps with the exception of the big projects that command the full attention of central leadership.
- maxdo 9mo agoPeople mix up freedom and dicatorship here: 1. Freedom — free markets, minimal regulation Early USA had both political and economic freedom. Modern China has only economic freedom (plus heavy protectionism). 2. Dictatorship of a certain group Modern USA and the Western world have a dictatorship of lawyers, regulators, and ideological enforcement. Communist China has straightforward political dictatorship. As you can see, it's not black and white. China struggled when they had both economic and political dictatorship, but thrived once they introduced economic freedom. 3. It's always a race, freedom of the past is not enough. What the West should do is focus on better planning, less politics, more economic freedom, and a dictatorship of data-driven decisions instead.
- deleted 9mo ago[deleted]
- flumpcakes 9mo agoThis must be the best example of why China will overtake the US as the world's number 1 super power before 2050. I would link you to a white house press briefing from Biden https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases/2022/05/27/remarks-by-president-biden-at-the-united-states-naval-academys-class-of-2022-graduation-and-commissioning-ceremony/ https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... but it has been taken down by Trumpists. Another irony. It's a shame that the US is being actively sabotaged by Republicans and Trumpists and people will continue on because saying that is apparently a capital-p Politics and not an objective fact.
- stainablesteel 9mo agolooking at wind as objectively as I can, it doesn't look like a good investment, and the environmental problems caused by putting these in the ocean are tragic to wildlife
- jibal 9mo agoThen apparently you have a very limited ability to be objective.
- stainablesteel 9mo agofeel free to present the arguments rather than just name-calling the post i replied to didn't present any substance either there's serious ecological problems with these turbines, the materials cant be recycled, and their uninstallation is incredibly costly they just don't seem like a great source of energy
- eigenspace 9mo agoGP was mocking you (not calling you names) because your comment was just a classic uninformed (some would even say stupid) opinion, and was presented as you "looking at wind as objectively as I can" Maybe if you look at the comment context a little more objectively, you'll agree there's some thing quite funny about it. _______________________________ Putting that aside though, lets look at your claim: > there's serious ecological problems with these turbines, the materials cant be recycled, and their uninstallation is incredibly costly First of all, it's only one subset of the materials (the fiberglass in the blades) that are difficult to recycle, the vast majority of the actual material is highly recyclable steel. The blades in a modern offshore turbine usually weigh around 80 metric tons at the high end. Your typical modern offshore wind turbine has rated output of around 15 MW of power, with a yearly capacity factor of around 40% at the lower end, so an average output of around 6 MW. Multiply that by the more or less standard 25 year rated lifetime of the turbine, that means you can expect the turbine to produce around 1300 GWh of electrical energy over the course of its life. How much energy is 1300 GWh? Well, to get 1300 GWh of electricity out of a high-efficiency (i.e. 50% efficiency) natural gas power plant, you'd need to burn around 175,000 tons of natural gas, (dumping all of the waste product into the gigantic open sewer we call our atmosphere). That's about 3 orders of magnitude more mass in natural gas that will need to be burned (and don't forget, natural gas is non-recyclable!!1!!1) than the blades weigh. This means that you went and tossed a thousand wind turbine blades in an incinerator for every turbine you actually install, you'll still break even on the amount of non-recyclable material So forgive me for not taking your complaints very seriously.
- aucisson_masque 9mo agoUSA was already extremely, laughably, backward on renewable energy. At least with Trump, there is no more pretending. It's gas, gas, gas and pollution.
- 0xTJ 9mo ago* gas, gas, coal, clean beautiful coal, and oil, don't forget about oil, drill, baby drill.
- elzbardico 9mo agoTrump is mostly correct. Offshore wind is a costly and inefficient scam.
- padjo 9mo agoHow is it a scam? Does it not actually produce electricity?
- jibal 9mo agoProvide evidence for any of these (radically false) claims.
- array_key_first 9mo agoAh but it's more fun if you don't!
- 1970-01-01 9mo agoImagine a world where Biden blocked construction of oil rigs and you can see how crazy this all looks to the rest of the world. Oh wait he did. It's tit for tat politics and nothing else. The downside is we have to play along until the courts fix it.
- fleroviumna 9mo ago[dead]