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US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects
- kingleopold 2mo agoEnergy lobby in the USA is incredible. Maybe the best one? They have direct power too
- petesergeant 2mo agoThat lets Trump off the hook by suggesting it's just run-of-the-mill corruption. It's not. He has a personal vendetta against wind power ever since a bust-up with Scotland about the views from his golf course getting "ruined". Today that cost Americans $4 each.
- yablak 2mo agoBarf
- dgellow 2mo agoClown administration, there is nothing else to say. It’s completely captured by grifters at that point
- saagarjha 2mo ago> Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement posted on X that Americans deserve an energy system built on common sense and not one dependent on "costly subsidies". I agree. This is why we are building offshore wind and not subsidizing fossil fuels, right?
- jeltz 2mo agoAll kinds of power generation are typically heavily subdized in some way. I do not think this "common sense" strategy exists.
- eastbound 2mo agoThat’s a perverse incentive against ecology, case in point. Hear me out. We take citizen’s money to subsidize energy so they can get their energy for cheaper (at marginal level - while still paying the subsidy’s taxes) so they can undertake industrial/residential projects that we wouldn’t do with less energy. In a word, we incentive people to consume more (in a consumerist sense), which is bad for ecology, because we can’t afford them, and neither can the Earth. Of course, leaving aside how petroleum is subsidized [through the department of defense]. While ecologists usually are in favor of subsidies, subsidies incentive people to consume more, which exhausts our Earth. We should develop less, i.e. we should develop in accordance with a higher facial cost of energy, which sometimes implies having a smaller home and fewer industries, which is what would happen if we didn’t sponsor solar or wind energy [or coal or fossil].
- master-lincoln 2mo agowon't happen with capitalism which has an emphasis on economic growth forever...
- victorbjorklund 2mo agoDoes the env work better in a communist country like North Korea? Or in the Soviet Union? Or are we gonna do no true Scotsman and say Soviet was always capitalist and had no connection to communism?
- microgpt 2mo ago[flagged]
- master-lincoln 2mo agoAbsolutely irrelevant derailing. No claim was made about communist countries...
- carlosjobim 2mo agoEconomic growth also comes from getting more for less. A company can increase their profits by growing and increasing both what they spend and what they earn. But a company can also increase their profits by reducing what they spend without decreasing what they earn. Almost all companies are constantly trying to do this.
- louiereederson 2mo agoWhile they pay a subsidy: > RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum
- rayiner 2mo agoIt's even dumber than that. Someone built a wind farm near Trump's golf course in Scotland and now he hates wind farms: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c15l3knp4xyo. He thinks they're ugly and noisy.
- prox 2mo agoIf this is true, this is the person some folks think is fit to lead a nation. One little thing not suiting his whim of the day? Lets hate something that helps with energy production. Welcome the world of transactional opportunism.
- rayiner 2mo ago[flagged]
- anonreplier 2mo agoHmm does this "aesthetic" include shrinking national parks?
- ChoGGi 2mo agoBirds get confused when they have to much greenery, you need more land strip-mined for coal to keep them safe while migrating.
- dofm 2mo agoThis is absolutely true. He has been angrily obsessed about this for years, and since he is a malignant narcissist with an ever greater need for narcissistic supply, his irritation has been manipulated by powerful lobbyists that tell him his instincts are brilliant and correct.
- deepsquirrelnet 2mo agoPeople called Don and irrational hate of windmills. Name a more iconic duo...
- shevy-java 2mo agoIt's even more hilarious than that because all nuclear energy is heavily subsidized by taxpayers already. People such as Doug just lie strategically. No surprise in that current government of liars.
- jeltz 2mo agoAll forms of power generation are heavily subsidized. Anyone complaining about a particular form being subsidzed is a dishonest liar. I am personally for building nuclear and compulimenting it with some wind and hydro, but that is not related to what things are subsidized but because nuclear and hydro has worked really well here in Sweden providing reliable power and while wind has a spottier record I think diversification is good.
- Danox 2mo agoI’m for Thorium research and development. The Chinese again seem to be moving ahead once again, they seem to be open to ideas that work. In the past when America was more of a can-do country the Chinese or Russian development of Thorium reactors (Oak Ridge tech) would have been a Sputnik moment. Today the reaction is pretty much silence and the same goes for useful infrastructure ie the rail system is pretty much 1950s technology across the United States. Is this the result of government by lobby?
- ghtbircshotbe 2mo agoAnd don't forget ethanol, probably the least efficient form of energy ever discovered
- usrnm 2mo agoWhat are you talking about, it powers a lot of people I know
- ghtbircshotbe 2mo agoDoes it do it efficiently though?
- rob74 2mo agoIt saves energy by making them feel warmer in the winter. If they overdo it and freeze to death, it saves even more energy.
- qingcharles 2mo agoIt's an anti-freeze. Ask the people that survived the Titanic in the water :)
- JohnTHaller 2mo agoAnd is a horrible use of land compared to solar.
- Marciplan 2mo agoInferior Secretary
- Kim_Bruning 2mo ago> not one dependent on "costly subsidies". While paying out 1.2 billion dollars.
- timacles 2mo agoOut country is ran by bunch of Lionel Hutz clones
- gyanchawdhary 2mo ago[flagged]
- josh_p 2mo ago[flagged]
- gyanchawdhary 2mo ago[flagged]
- jermaustin1 2mo agoMy guy, your account is nearly 10 years old, but your karma is only 36, and you are active on here... there is a reason. You are derisive, and abrasive, and your comments (specifically the ones that get downvoted to hell) are low-effort, and "troll-y". You seem like you've been successful in life, you didn't get that way being low-effort, so let's apply that level of effort toward this community that has brought so many people together for their love of technology.
- gyanchawdhary 2mo agoyou make some fair points .. and I respect you for making them openly (and taking the time to do so!) .. also that ur a real person standing behind your words .. and that carries more weight with me than karma ever will :) I can be abrasive .. but Id rather own my words including the unpopular ones .. than hide behind a pseudonym or tailor them for approval .. either way .. you seem like a good human. respect!
- tialaramex 2mo agoTo be fair offshore wind is relatively expensive. A brand new wind farm is probably cheaper than burning methane because Trump started another pointless war, but it's closer than for like Solar PV. Of course "common sense" ought to probably include "Not cooking ourselves".
- kwanbix 2mo agoIt might be more expensive to build/run, but is cheaper on the environment.
- SlightlyLeftPad 2mo ago> they say the noise causes cancer [1] I mean it’s common sense [1]: https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-trump-windmills-cause-cancer/4789848 https://www.c-span.org/clip/white-house-event/user-clip-trum...
- montagg 2mo agoLying bullshitters all. These people are not interested in coherent policy. They say whatever they want to justify it, we know it, and they know we know it. It’s an intentional expression of domination. Just another thing to prosecute and rebuild.
- toomuchtodo 2mo agoAt least they’ll be out of office or age out eventually, we’ll just collectively as US taxpayers with a federal income tax burden (top ~40% of income earners, bottom ~60% have no federal income tax liability) have to pay back hundreds of billions of dollars in excess debt incurred because of this governance failure mode we experienced (or default on the debt, which is also an option). My hot take is: be ready to move fast when the winds shift and we can get back to building instead of harm reduction. ("Progress occurs one funeral at a time." -- Max Planck)
- Enginerrrd 2mo agoI’m not endorsing the current administration’s policy, nor do I think it would succeed, but I find this comment really perplexing since this action is PRECISELY in line with the 2025 National Security Strategy. [1] Also, for further insights on some of the unstated policy, I recommend reading the project 2025 document as well. [2] Perhaps by “coherent policy” you meant “sound” or “effective”? But as it stands it certainly is coherent. [1] https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-National-Security-Strategy.pdf https://www.whitehouse.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/12/2025-N... [2] https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042-project-2025s-mandate-for-leadership-the-conservative-promise/ https://www.documentcloud.org/documents/24088042-project-202...
- 1dontknow_ 2mo agoPlease do not forget the /s since there are young people here or those people who arent native English speakers and they might not catch the sarcasm given its an important topic, esp for the wellbeing of our future generations.
- shin_lao 2mo ago[dead]
- pxmpxm 2mo agoIt’s disappointing to see Redditesque room temp iq discourse in the comments. Has anyone mentioned the expected cost per Mwh of this project to get a sense whether this made economic sense, or are we talking Biden admin adjacent vanity political project paid by rate payers? Just for reference, the hopefully-cancelled Empire wind near me had a 20yr PPA of $155mwh, which makes Vogtle (-~$170mwh) look like a steal. More numbers and less foaming at the mouth, please.
- mandeepj 2mo ago> common sense and not one dependent on "costly subsidies". They say one thing and do another! Edit: I meant to say wrapping their stupid acts under the disguise of 'common sense' is a stupid act in itself.
- renegade-otter 2mo agoOkay then - let's stop subsidizing gasoline, yeah?
- epihelix 2mo agoI know it's not what you wanted to start here with this comment. But the silly, tangential, petty bickering in this thread goes a very long way to explain our failure to act to stop the catastrophe we've known was coming since the 80s.
- newfriend 2mo agoThat's exactly what this person wanted to start.
- ShinyLeftPad 2mo agoTo me it's a reasonable point. We tend to forget that subsidies go both ways. Maybe it's a bit too sarcastic but that's about it
- bko 2mo agoI wish there was more context as to what the deal actually was instead of a highlight reel of late 2000s era right wing slogans like "drill baby drill". It's framed as US government giving $1.2b to German company not to build something (which is weird in its own right). But after drilling into it (correct me if I'm wrong): RWE is a large German utility It paid $1.2b for development rights and invested a bunch of money. The US passed policies that made it impossible to develop the plan. So it's essentially a negotiated unwind of government-issued property/development rights. US changed the rules, made the lease ineffective and compensated the leasee. But the deal was that instead of RWE just taking the money they agreed to other development projects related to natural gas (better in my opinion). You might disagree with the policies that made these wind farms impossible or whether the buy out of federal leased land is fair to one party or another. But I wish articles actually cared enough to describe the situation clearly. Questions I would like mentioned in the article in place of Trumps rhetoric about "big ugly windmills" is details about the actual restrictions that made it impossible, history of it, impact, etc.
- ssl-3 2mo agoPlease always vote. Thank you. :)
- iammjm 2mo agoJust “voting” is not sufficient. In fact, voting for the “wrong” people got us here. This guy won because people voted for him. Twice! How about: please always vote for the person who seems the least likely to fuck up the present and the future for all of us
- exe34 2mo agoNah the people voting for the orange fuhrer are beyond reason. It's the third that doesn't vote that needs to decide which road they want us all to take.
- ssl-3 2mo ago>30% of people usually just don't vote, even in the presidential elections that happen every 4 years. It's of primary importance to motivate these folks to vote at all. Getting them to favor for a candidate who isn't batshit crazy is a secondary function. A person who doesn't vote can't be meaningfully swayed one way or another to begin with.
- hollow-moe 2mo agoPlease don't vote anymore, don't let the farce continue. Thank you. :)
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- xkcd1963 2mo agoAnd here I'm saying again NAFO peps live in a bubble
- iammjm 2mo agoWhat does NAFO have to do with anything here?
- redsocksfan45 2mo ago[dead]
- inigyou 2mo agoCan I also threaten to build an offshore wind project if they don't pay me $1.2 billion?
- londons_explore 2mo agoThese guys had already signed a deal to build - giving them permission and probably an agreed price - the money was to persuade them to give that up.
- Avicebron 2mo agoSo like a subsidy?
- rayiner 2mo agoNo, like a breakup fee in a commercial contract.
- Avicebron 2mo ago...the point being the hypocrisy of exercising that option in the name of removing subsidized power, not the literal financial mechanism.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- jaapz 2mo agoSo a subsidy to stop building, instead of a subsidy to start building
- rayiner 2mo agoNo, it's compensation for backing out of a deal. In contract law, once a deal is signed, you're entitled to the "benefit of the bargain" if you perform your end of the deal. A breakup fee allows one side to get out of the deal, while compensating the other side for sunk cost into the project, opportunity costs from not having pursued other deals, etc.
- hooo 2mo agoWe need more energy. We should be doing this, gas, nuclear, solar. Not either or.
- _heimdall 2mo agoWe also need to use less total energy, regardless of source. That number doesn't have to always go up.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- kingleopold 2mo agoThat number directly correlates with life quality in almost every country on earth. More energy per capita means higher life quality, without a doubt in every high quality place.
- backscratches 2mo agoOK some people should use less energy
- parkersweb 2mo agoYou say that like it’s an infinitely scalable proposition? It really isn’t.
- KronisLV 2mo agoWhat about quality of life per watt and just making having a certain standard of living more energy efficient? Simple examples: energy efficient lights seem to have no downsides, better insulation helps my apartment building retain heat, more efficient electronics mean that my homelab servers pull like 100 W total and public transport probably removes a bunch of cars from the road and increases air quality and decreases traffic jams (I can get everywhere I need that way, there’s literally train, tram and bus stops like 5-15 minutes away).
- 2mo ago
- juntoalaluna 2mo agoInsane. Over the last year, wind - mostly offshore - has generated more than 35% of electricity here. Gas is down to 27%. It's really, really good. And it looks cool.
- _joel 2mo agoNot great for the wildlife during drilling but it's better than the carbon rich alternatives.
- dschu 2mo agoGlobal warming is also killing wildlife. And by many magnitudes more than drilling some holes for offshore wind parks.
- _joel 2mo ago[flagged]
- virgildotcodes 2mo agoIs the game you're playing "see if I can be subtle enough to get away with undermining renewables through misleading statements on social media without people calling me out on it"? If so I think you're down 1 - 0 so far in this thread. Best of luck on the next round though, really cool and awesome game!
- _joel 2mo ago[flagged]
- Jumpstylish 2mo ago[flagged]
- carlosjobim 2mo agoThank you comrade for your alert senses! You correctly identified that anybody who pretends to be a "moderate" voice or utters any kind of even light criticism towards the Party program is always a detractor or enemy spy which is trying to sabotage and undermine our internal cohesion. The individual has promptly been dealt with and put in a reeducation camp. I will talk to your local commissar so that your brave act of psychological self defence in this message board is rewarded with +50 extra social credits.
- iammjm 2mo agoWow what a great value on those $1.2B for the taxpayers!
- theyeenzbeanz 2mo agoWe have totally not communism sending money to every other country in existence, but spending a single cent towards the betterment of your citizens is super duper evil communism. I would love to know the thought process of this administration because it feels like a fever dream.
- baggachipz 2mo agoThought process is: "me and my buddies get richer, fuck all of you"
- chewbacha 2mo agoParts of the world are literally on fire but the US is redirecting money to halt renewables and towards gas. The demand for energy is higher than ever due to AI data centers, but I guess the next model is more important than a habitable environment.
- spwa4 2mo ago[flagged]
- fundatus 2mo agoSeems like you read some misinformation there. Share of coal in the German electricity mix: 2021 30.2% 2022 33.3% (the year that nuclear was shut off) 2023 26.0% 2024 21.2% 2025 22.4% Complete phase out is scheduled for the 2030s.
- rcxdude 2mo agoThe argument I think is that the share could be lower if the nuclear plants were kept running (broadly, based on your numbers, it could be less than 20% in 2025). Whether that would have made economic sense (especially in terms of redirections funds away from renewables), I am not so sure of.
- atoav 2mo agoThis mixes several different things into one causal puddle. Yes, keeping the remaining nuclear plants running would have reduced emissions and electricity prices somewhat. A 2024 Energy Policy study estimates the 2022/23 extension lowered German wholesale prices by about €9/MWh. That's a real effect, but nowhere remotely close to "the nuclear phase-out doubled electricity prices." The huge price spike was primarily the European gas crisis. You know, the one for which LNG terminals had been built. Nor did Germany replace nuclear with coal. Coal generation subsequently fell to levels not seen in decades, while renewables grew substantially, so German emissions fell as well. Attributing the nuclear exit simply to "the Greens" is rather selective history. The original exit was SPD/Greens, but after reversing it in 2010, Merkel's CDU/FDP government legislated essentially the final phase-out schedule again in 2011. So basically: every party that was at the levers of power. You could make a perfectly reasonable argument that shutting existing nuclear before coal was bad climate policy in hindsight, because of the gas crisis. But I don't think you need to resort to the rather dubious claim that it doubled electricity prices as a singular cause.
- MariusGjerd 2mo agotake a look at what Spain is doing. diversifying the energy system is needed
- budsniffer952 2mo ago[flagged]
- throwaway7356 2mo agoYes, because comparing it to larger countries with more economic power like China would make the US politics look even dumber.
- firtoz 2mo agoIs the policy now to "harvest whatever we can ASAP" without any regard or consideration for the future or the environment?
- rf15 2mo agoOr, you know, the future bottom line. I wonder how much these people understand that if you kill everyone or put them under serious resource strain because of environmental collapse, there's no one left to pay anything to you. How hard is that to understand? Don't pull the trigger, because yes, right now you don't have a bullet in your foot, but in a few milliseconds...
- whatevaa 2mo agoMost of those people are old and don't care about the future. Not their problem.
- soco 2mo agoOnce you are a trillionaire or getting there, personal safety can be bought even without receiving future payments.
- tialaramex 2mo agoNah, this gets you the "How do I keep my bodyguards loyal?" problem. Of course they're typically not smart enough to have realised that first, but "I was too stupid to understand that I've doomed myself" doesn't mean you haven't doomed yourself.
- danans 2mo ago> s the policy now to "harvest whatever we can ASAP" without any regard Given the degree of corruption and criminality, a more appropriate metaphor might be "smash and grab".
- johnea 2mo agoLeave to the idiot cheato to be #1! Nobody else ever spent this much money to NOT have cheap power 8-/
- thelastgallon 2mo agoAlso, > The administration signed a similar $129bn (£96bn) agreement with Charlotte-based Duke Energy last month in exchange for the termination of the company's offshore wind lease in the Carolina Long Bay area.
- robbiep 2mo agoI had to check that, It is 129 million
- mark_something 2mo agoIndeed: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-announces-energy-agreement-strengthen-american-energy-security-and-lower https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-announces-energy-...
- wiether 2mo agoPutting aside the sycophantic wording around the orange leader and the total lack of details of how it's going to achieve what they are promising and what is actually going to happen, it's funny to see the distinction between gov officials and the Duke exec: Gov: valued at $129 million and reinvest that same amount in additional generating capacity Duke: will reinvest nearly $129 million in additional generating capacity, which may include
- eigenspace 2mo agoHopefully they take the money and use to to build more wind turbines in Europe I guess. Absolutely shameful what the USA has become.
- evan_a_a 2mo ago>RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, including $900m (£669m) in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Louisiana.
- morkalork 2mo agoThat kinda stinks, I wonder if getting the settlement was contingent on the re-investment.
- ambicapter 2mo agoIt was.
- morkalork 2mo agoSo RWE gets to save face by "winning a payout" but in actuallity the admin is just indirectly subsidizing O&G development in a red state. Wonderful.
- eigenspace 2mo agoYeah, they say that, but I wonder how much of it is just to make the Trump admin happy. Like, I don't doubt that they will go and build gas projects, and might even use some of this money to kickstart it, but presumably RWE was already pretty far along the pipeline of preparing this offshore buildout, and there's likely a lot equipment orders, staff, ships, etc that they'd rather not cancel, and would rather redirect into another project if they can. Maybe that's copium from me though, just sad to see a big wind project go to waste.
- 2mo ago
- phplovesong 2mo agoThe madness continues. No one else is to blame other than the american zeros who made this hell to continue this long.
- dudefeliciano 2mo agoDon't worry they are now starting to wake up and realize that Trump has been lying to them so they will vote for Tucker Carlson in the next election.
- phplovesong 2mo agoThe MAGA crowd is gone and lost. There is little difference to other religious nutjobs, no matter is muslim or christian. Afaiac MAGA is just a the white/dumb/uneducated version of jihad.
- satvikpendem 2mo agoMeanwhile China is becoming entirely energy independent and electrifying their economy. I don't understand how the US doesn't see that they won't be top dog forever especially in this multipolar age.
- 0xfedcafe 2mo agoThey still mostly rely on coal. Slightly more than half of electricity is generated by burning coal, whereas in the US, it's only 15%. The renewable energy share in generation is roughly the same in the US and China, but not for capacity.
- raverbashing 2mo ago> Slightly more than half of electricity is generated by burning coal, So this means, slightly less than half is other sources (hydro, solar, etc)
- cloudie78 2mo ago[flagged]
- MSFT_Edging 2mo agoChina is also ~4x the population of the US and accounts for 30% of the worlds manufacturing and energy production. The scale is so crazy that these numbers rarely make sense on their own.
- contingencies 2mo agoie. China is the future, US is the past.
- arcbyte 2mo agoWell, China is already "the past". They're past the Lewis turning point. We'll have to look somewhere else for "the future".
- 0xfedcafe 2mo ago"RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, including $900m (£669m) in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Louisiana." "Trump has sought to boost government support for fossil fuels after campaigning for the presidency under the slogan "drill, baby, drill"." That's insane, even though half of Republican supporters believe in climate change, and almost all Democratic voters do too. I can understand cutting government spending on the transition to green energy when projects are unprofitable, but what is the point of cutting it for profitable ones? If I'm not mistaken, energy firms like RWE are even threatened with lawsuits if they continue building wind turbines. Other coal investments are even more insane.
- ChrisRR 2mo agoYou would think that the US would be all for energy that reduces its reliance on the far east, regardless of the climate change benefit
- letmetweakit 2mo agoExcept, it's not "the US", just some minority with direct financial ties.
- ulfw 2mo agoEvery single day it's getting stupider and stupider with the NewUSA
- seydor 2mo agoWe found trump's achilles heel. I demand a trillion to shut down my solar
- summarybot 2mo ago[flagged]
- defrost 2mo agoNot the North Sea, nothing to do with transmission in Germany. Bad summary, bot(?). German energy company RWE has said it will abandon its offshore wind projects in the US after reaching a $1.2bn (£892m) payout deal with President Donald Trump's Department of the Interior (DoI).
- mikkom 2mo agoThis is Dr. Evil level stuff
- CoastalCoder 2mo ago(looks at Secretary of the Treasury...) "SCOOOTTTTT !!!!!!"
- glaslong 2mo agoQuick! Back to the other thread! I've spotted somewhere DOGE could recoup $1.2B
- petesergeant 2mo agoOne of my guiltier pleasures is reading r/Conservative to see which knots they're tying themselves in today defending some of his more insance ideas. In the unlikely event this surfaces up beyond some rage-bait culture war story they've found on Breitbart, I will enjoy reading their thoughts on why this is 4d chess† †: in fairness to them, they are almost uniformly opposed to Trump's adventurism in Iran and mostly not supportive of the Jan 7th slush-fund, and will call out both when pressed
- kibwen 2mo agoThe US continues to cede the energy revolution to China.
- bsenftner 2mo agoThe USA is governed by evil people, and the people of the nation are too stupid and expecting someone else to stop them. Plain as day light.
- jfengel 2mo agoNo, we're not expecting someone else to stop it. We voted for this. The evil is not imposed on us. It is us. Not everyone, but a majority. The minority is looking for ways to stop it, but it requires getting literally everyone else to work together. Which means any disagreement among them results in a loss, and more of the same evil.
- zeezer0 2mo agoIt's not a majority at all. it's a manipulating minority.
- doublerabbit 2mo agoFraudulent minority too. Let's not forget Elon Musk was paying folk to vote for.
- burnto 2mo agoAnd a population that seems content being manipulated.
- jfengel 2mo agoIt was a majority of voters. If you include all of the non-voters as tacitly consenting to it, then it's an overwhelming majority. That's not entirely accurate; quite a few non-voters were prevented from voting in one way or another. But most non-voters chose not to vote. Quite a few were explicit about having some disagreement with the primary opponent and concluded that the two sides are equivalent.
- amanaplanacanal 2mo agoIt wasn't even a majority of voters, it was a plurality. It was 49.8%.
- numbers_guy 2mo agoWhy are they scared shitless of wind power? What's the deal? I don't get it. Like, they seem to be more determined to stop wind power than solar power. Why?
- NortySpock 2mo agoSee this comment https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49208635 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49208635
- shevy-java 2mo agoNow people understand why Merz is so obedient to Trump: USA always pays Germany handsomely. Canadians understood Trump being a problem. German taxpayers also understand this. It is german politicians who consistently act against the people in Germany here; Merz is just doing this very shamelessly and obviously, while also insulting germans as "lazy bums" (https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-07/friedrich-merz-zdf-sommerinterview-faulheit-arbeitsstunden https://www.zeit.de/politik/deutschland/2026-07/friedrich-me... - here he claims to never have insulted Germans as that, but prior statements contradict this). There is a reason why more than 70% (!!!!) of germans oppose Merz now. https://ip-quarterly.com/en/troubled-merz-faces-crucial-elections-september https://ip-quarterly.com/en/troubled-merz-faces-crucial-elec... Being so obedient to Mr. Trump, who in turn now faces allegation of being more involved than was previously already known with regards to Epstein's sexy islands, is a lose-lose situation Mr. Merz. USA paying german companies to abandon green energy plans, also ties into that. If Merz would have something called a spine he would not be so addicted to the money and instead reject the USA trying to influence Europeans and Germans negatively here. Because that money is ultimately bribery money for RWE. Shame on RWE as well.
- angry_octet 2mo agoMaybe read the article before leaping to conclusions.
- r0b05 2mo agoThis is beyond my understanding. They are actually paying to stop society from advancing.
- deleted 2mo ago[deleted]
- TrackerFF 2mo agoTrump holds a grudge against wind turbines, for no other reason than that they "ruined" the view at a golf course / club he owns in Scotland. He tried to get them removed, but lost that case in court. That's mostly it. Another factor would be Trump getting donations from the oil & gas industry.
- doublerabbit 2mo agoWhen I have drive past the course, I always have the urge to pee. One day I'll get out and take a piss on the green.
- lern_too_spel 2mo agoPool some money together to build a coal power plant next to Mar-a-Lago.
- fnordsensei 2mo agoTo be fair, this seems consistent with what they normally do, and arguably consistent with what their voters want.
- kuu 2mo agoBecause the money they are spending and the money they will be making comes and ends in different pockets.
- jfengel 2mo agoAs Republican commentator Bill Buckley put it, "A conservative is someone who stands athwart history, yelling Stop." The rest of the quote is actually about how it's meant to give people time to think, but it has clearly become an autonomic action.
- cloudie78 2mo ago[flagged]
- tmtvl 2mo agoSo what you're saying is instead of spending 1.2B to stop a firm from building wind, the government should leave the firm be so they can keep building wind and invest the 1.2B into building a nuclear power plant which will come online when the German firm has built roughly 1,000x the same capacity in wind turbines.
- cloudie78 2mo ago[flagged]
- throwaway7356 2mo agoNuclear isn't as cheap as you present it. It needs heavy subsidies for insurance and waste disposal. Most nuclear power proposals are just LARPing as "cheap" as they pretend subsidies don't exist. In addition you have to shut nuclear power plants down in summers due to lack of sufficient cooling. That means you need to plan alternative replacement power generation.
- rsynnott 2mo ago> 1.2B gives you a 1-1.5GW nuclear power station Er... That seems optimistic. Even in China, which is the current world leader and has significant advantages of scale, nuclear capacity costs $2-3bn per GW. The most recent US construction (Vogtle 3 and 4) took 14 years and cost $36bn for two reactors of 1.1GW each.
- TrackerFF 2mo agoThe challenge is that you're not dealing with rational people. The big dog in the White House is a imbecile of the highest order, and everyone is doing everything in their power to appease him. It is a unwinnable situation as long as Trump is POTUS.
- firesteelrain 2mo agoUS has absurdly large domestic energy resources like gas reserves, coal reserves, uranium, and thermal energy infrastructure. Then, there is the supply chain argument: the specialized turbines, components, vessels and manufacturing chains are manufactured overseas and imported to support Wind. RWE is itself German. It’s good to reduce dependence on foreign supply chains. Fishing and maritime was also cited as a concern. Onshore Wind is used (see New Mexico). Offshore Wind is a harder sell. Gas/nuclear/geothermal is a better investment for the US than Offshore Wind.
- brookst 2mo ago> It’s good to reduce dependence on foreign supply chains. Huh? That’s quite a whopper to drop as if it’s an obvious truth. It’s good to diversify supply chains. Eggs-in-one-basket is bad for many reasons, even if it’s your own domestic basket. Trade interdependence is good for competition, reduces risks from disasters, and creates disincentives for war. And the market apparently thinks offshore wind is a good investement for the US, to the point where the government has to pay companies not to do it.
- firesteelrain 2mo agoSee 1. https://www.energy.gov/cmei/systems/securing-us-supply-chain-wind-energy-industry https://www.energy.gov/cmei/systems/securing-us-supply-chain... 2. https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/84710.pdf https://www.nrel.gov/docs/fy23osti/84710.pdf 3. https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-107769 https://www.gao.gov/products/gao-26-107769 4. https://www.energy.gov/cmei/wind/articles/report-outlines-supply-chain-needs-achieve-offshore-wind-2030-goal https://www.energy.gov/cmei/wind/articles/report-outlines-su...
- windyoil 2mo agoDo you know if it would be easier to get fully domestic supply and manufacturing chains for solar or for wind, if a way is found to prevent corruption undermining setting up fully domestic production?
- 2mo ago
- Incipient 2mo agoI fully understand why power generation is subsidised - however honesty I feel if the govt is subsidising it, they should get a cut of the profits too. I also believe in a free market, and power should be subsidised equally per MW (MWh maybe?) this takes the politics out of a structural necessity. If you want to push a political agenda - great - but do it on political topics.
- cicko 2mo agoThere is no such thing as a free market, the way you refer to it.
- askvictor 2mo agoA free market that avoids externalities like climate change?
- layer8 2mo agoThis might make sense if power companies would bear the environmental costs, but they don’t. That’s one reason why it is a political topic.
- Incipient 2mo agoBut selective subsidising still doesn't really help that. Subsidise household rooftop solar, home batteries, EVs and a whole host of other ways that directly benefit the more average person.
- newswasboring 2mo agoSo in short a company was servicing power demand in a low pollution way. Then American government gave them money so they can instead service the same demand while causing more pollution. Just... Why? To protect a few hundred jobs in America? They could have just given a small portion of that money to these workers and they would stop complaining about job loss. 1.2 Billion is a big number.
- phonon 2mo agoBecause Trump hates wind power for "ruining the view". That's it. https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uyLiON_f5c0 https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uyLiON_f5c0 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetland-35106581 https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetl...
- newswasboring 2mo agoI think I don't want to believe this. I believe it in my brain but not in my heart. This kind of power just cannot be in such irresponsible hands. It makes me wanna scream.
- metalman 2mo agomy guess is that this project will be quickly relocated somewhere else in a double loose for the US, but then may very well prove to illegal in any number of violations of US law, triggering further confusion and unplanned costs for US tax payers. it's a triumphalist celebration of anti logic
- Havoc 2mo agoCan the US please keep their bad decisions within their borders...
- dathinab 2mo agois it just me or does that seems to be a decision driven fully by a personal dislike of wind energy without having actually run the numbers, or in other words the art of a deal isn't that like yes there was binding commitment to RWE getting some level of subsidies, hence he had to "pay them of" around the amount of profit they have likely list, and probably more but... compared to not paying that much more in subsidies _and_ getting more electricity out of it which the US seem to currently be quite tight one this seems to be a terrible bad deal --- EDIT: Sorry for the rant below, it's just pretty annoying how dishonest non fact based politics has been becoming where I live: furthermore you can stop future subsidies, so if wind energy is as "fake" as he claims this is something RWE would be stuck with not them, even if it drive them bankrupt it wouldn't be a USA problem (and more a German one) so the only way this deal makes sense is if you a) hate wind energy and want it cone irrationally b) know it actually works and as such would "stay around" for sure (or if you really really really care about birds, no way this is true for Trump) (And also practically it already has proven that off shore wind farms can work profitable, so b, isn't really a question. But I guess if you have a president who says all the wind farms in China are fake for show while China produce roughly as much wind energy as all of the EU together then sure you can't except logic). In general the amount of nonsense you hear when it comes to the topic of renewable energies is pretty crazy both in how people "proof how bad it is" .. based on early technology from well over 20+ years ago, systematically ignoring relevant components of a complete solution, pretending certain already in-use technologies don't exist and don't make sense etc. To ignoring issues with whatever technology they favor and often comparing wrongly calculated "non subsidized" renewable prices with "highly subsidized" non renewable prices. Don't get me wrong it also is done the other way around. But at least where I live, that direction of propaganda isn't really relevantly used while the other direction is spread everywhere non stop (while also pretending that any honest calculation is supposedly "faked" because it doesn't fit their world view).
- glaslong 2mo agoThe art of the deal is historically mostly losing, flailing and bankruptcies
- 2mo ago
- davexunit 2mo agoCan't have wind power. Can't have bike lanes. Can't have trains. Can't have healthcare. Love this country!
- yunwal 2mo agoAt what point is the correct response to just stop paying federal taxes?
- botanrice 2mo agobeen thinking that for awhile now
- db48x 2mo ago[flagged]
- glaslong 2mo agoWas there a good reason not to build there? It seems at a glance like we should have just built the turbines, not paid off or stiffed them. Since we seem to desperately need more energy, currently expanding with every other short term high polluting source we can.
- db48x 2mo agoThat’s a separate issue, and irrelevant to the issue of cancelling the lease early.
- glaslong 2mo agoI'm confused then. Cancelling the lease early is unrelated to the decision to build the turbines or not?
- db48x 2mo agoNo, it's merely a separate decision. Given that they have decided to cancel the lease, for good reasons or bad, the question then is what they do with the lease payments. I am pretty sure that you would not be happy if your landlord wanted to evict you and also wanted you to keep paying rent.
- christkv 2mo agoOffshore wind projects when you have tons and tons of empty land always seemed weird to me. The cost, logistics, reduced life of the installations, disruptions to the ecosystems and potential production issues with winter storms and other extreme weather events.
- mekdoonggi 2mo agoThe empty land doesn't produce power, wind does, and offshore it's stronger and more reliable, and it's in a location near big demand. All of the environmental issues are considerations for any power plant. Offshore wind would have been better in many aspects than alternatives, and profitable.
- softwaredoug 2mo agoTo be clear, this isn’t wind power currently under construction. It’s proposed future wind power with leases being planned. Trump has largely failed to stop the nearly complete projects in New England, New York, and Virginia. Still short sighted and stupid, of course.
- titaniumrain 2mo agothis is the stupidest thing ever. literally this administration cancels the contract and compensates german company... omg
- sensanaty 2mo agoIt's just so blatantly and absurdly evil for literally no reason. It's a cartoon villain type of plan, the absurdity of it leaves me at a true loss for words
- layer8 2mo agoNever attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.
- thelastgallon 2mo agoIts not stupidity though. The admin has a personal vendetta against renewables.
- layer8 2mo agoI’d still file that under stupidity.
- whh 2mo agoTake that $1.2bn. Invest it. When this moronic administration is gone, use it to build more renewable energy infrastructure.
- KSteffensen 2mo agoWhy does Doug Burgum need to underscore the fact that the RWE investment is 'voluntary'?
- tiberius_p 2mo agoBig Oil getting what they paid for.
- klamann 2mo agoRWE is the biggest producer of energy from lignite in Germany, which causes massive emissions even when compared to burning black coal, oil and gas. Lignite used to be really important for Germany because it has almost no reserves of oil and gas that can be accessed with traditional methods, but Germany has huge natural gas reserves that can be accessed with hydraulic fracturing. Of course, fracking is illegal in Germany, so we keep burning lignite instead, which is so much worse. Mind you, I'm not arguing that fracking is the future, we need to decarbonize the entire energy sector, but we could do so much better with the cards that we were dealt. So the lignite-burning energy dinosaur from Germany accepting a billion dollar bribe to divest resources from clean energy into fossil fuels is totally in character for that company. Shame on them.
- neuronic 2mo agoAs a German I am highly confused by US actions. America is sabotaging its own economic future, demonizing independent renewable natural energy sources (you don’t need to import wind or sun) and Mr. „art of the deal“ is even paying us for it.
- dudefeliciano 2mo agoWith Herr Merz at the helm this should hardly be confusing for a German. Let's not take the high ground here, we don't deserve it.
- ebri 2mo agoI wish I had not read this. I am not kidding when I say this is ruining my day thinking about. One thing is they ruin our times. But they are in the game of ruining the rest of time for humankind, too.
- niek_pas 2mo agoAs well as all the other species.
- flyingjoe 2mo agoMore and more it seems like we're trying to do a speed run of killing our planet (or rather a planet worth living on).
- glaslong 2mo agoYes as everyone loves to retort, the planet will survive! We might not, the current ecosystem wont, no one and nothing we love or care about or cherish is likely to. But a very lovely species of bug may at some point look down and marvel at the beautiful new world they've conquered. And I guess we've collectively decided we're happy to give them that.
- KyleTheDev 2mo agoI bet we're gonna end up with so many cool ant species. It totally isn't going to end up with just a few trillion fire ants ruling the planet, right? Right????
- sajithdilshan 2mo agoIsn’t everyone and everything we love or care about gonna die or go away in 100-500 years anyways? Also hasn’t earth already survived many mass extinctions and came back stronger? Maybe this is just the next mass extinction event and the cycle repeats. It’s quite arrogant to think that everything on earth revolves around humans don’t you think?
- 2mo ago
- blondie9x 2mo agoWe are outraged. We know we are nearly the climate abyss. We see the changes all around us. What are we going to do to collectively to change course? To right the ship? I wrote a book on the issue. I think the next best thing we can do is work together to amplify our voices to the point ignoring us is no longer politically convenient. https://sustainedminimalist.com/book https://sustainedminimalist.com/book
- mrguyorama 2mo agoTens of millions of Americans, including republican leaning voters who claim to believe in climate change, demonstrably reject the reality in front of their eyes. The same generation who groused about how bad snow used to be (Up to rooftops!) and make fun of people who struggle in what little snow we get right now are the same people who are posting in comments sections "Earth has always changed temperature"
- dmje 2mo agoLiterally setting fire to the world because the US government is rammed full of corruption and oil cronies. Meanwhile everything is fine for the handful of billionaires who benefit from this shit. Absolutely sickening.
- ck2 2mo agoNovember can't come soon enough, this administration is beyond disgusting They are literally a non-stop crime-spree against humanity But if the Dems don't get 52 in the Senate absolutely nothing will change and might get even worse, likely much worse
- vehemenz 2mo agoTrump was elected because of rural/exurban white insecurity and white cultural decline. An election wasn't the cause of all this--it was more of an effect. In other words, even if there's a feedback loop, an election won't magically fix everything.
- micw 2mo agoI wonder how Americans feel to see that their elected president takes tax money to forcefully destroy the planet and our kid's future :-(
- baggachipz 2mo agoFully one third absolutely love it.
- DangitBobby 2mo agoThis one hurts. Lots of bad news flying around here but this one hit a bit different.
- qsera 2mo agoHow much wind power can we extract before we disrupt the global wind circulation and thus the climate regulation by winds? Is no one worried about this?
- niek_pas 2mo agoProbably a lot: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC526278/ https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC526278/
- lkbm 2mo agoIt's occasionally mentioned, but the answer appears to be "roughly 1000x current global electricity production", so we don't worry about it too much. Energy is much higher than electricity, of course, but we're not planning on replacing all energy [or all electricity] with just wind. We'll hit other constraints long before that happens. There may be some local effects. I think the main one is one cluster of wind turbines effecting the output of nearby clusters (and effects within a cluster). Pretty sure they account for this when engineering wind farms, with the effects actively being studied.
- linux2647 2mo ago> dangerous to wildlife Is this claim substantive at all?
- lgl 2mo agoYes, if a turbine breaks it's possible it may hit the water and kill some fishes. If a flock of flamingos or geese are doing a low pass it's possible they get shredded by them. If Godzilla tries to get out of the water near them it's possible it gets hit in the head. Also he may destroy them since Godzilla is, as we all know, a nuclear energy proponent.
- padjo 2mo agoDo you think the Trump administration really gives a damn about wildlife? There is of course some danger to wildlife but compared to things like planes, cars and boats its pretty minimal and can be managed.
- jjice 2mo agoIs there any way to view our consistent destruction of green energy products in the last few years as anything other than hostile towards the majority of people purely to have a handful of people profit on cost of gas?
- ModernMech 2mo ago"US strikes..." Oh God, what now, we've finally bombed Cuba? "...$1.2B deal to pay..." Oh thank God! "...halt offshore wind projects" God damn it.
- minraws 2mo agoWait halting energy projects when energy is so scares for data centers? Couldn't US just have handed it over to some US Big Tech? I am not in US but why pay to "not" do something like building infra.
- zmmmmm 2mo agoI read up recently on the history of the fall of the roman empire and it was fascinating how eerily similar it was to the current state of the US. Overwhelmed by corruption and wars they make stupider and stupider decisions on ever larger scales, ever more frequently. And the population grows ever more cynical, eventually opting for authoritarianism before eventually the center can't hold any more and it all collapses in on itself. Funnily enough, the most striking part was the pure stupidity of a lot of it - seems so strange, but every day it seems I hear another really stupid story and think ... huh, maybe it really can be like that.
- bakies 2mo agoOlder generation has lead poisoning from all the leaded gasoline burned
- runarberg 2mo agoI hate this theory. It is extremely condescending, offers nothing, has no proof, but sounds plausible enough that many people believe it. It is much more likely that our economic system rewards hostile behavior and that money has outsized influence in politics and a criminal justice system which lets rich people get away with crimes. That money correlates more with hostile behavior then lead, Instead of blaming lead, blame capitalism. Just think about all the people who put lead in the gasoline in the first place, did they go to prison for their crimes, or did they make a bunch of money and retire in luxury.
- graceful6800 2mo agoIt's spelled lead, and it has been proven beyond a shadow of a doubt to cause brain damage. There is no safe level of lead exposure, it causes neurological damage at any level of exposure and it stays in your body permanently. You're wrong on every count and simply spreading disinformation. Please don't do that.
- runarberg 2mo ago
- gyanchawdhary 2mo ago[dead]
- kashnote 2mo agoI thought I misread the title at first. I assume we're going to pay labs to stop doing cancer research next?
- mekdoonggi 2mo agoDon't give them any ideas...
- phyzix5761 2mo ago> Interior Secretary Doug Burgum said in a statement posted on X that Americans deserve an energy system built on common sense and not one dependent on "costly subsidies". Isn't the $1.2B deal a subsidy for conventional gas?
- shrubble 2mo agoThey bought back the leases; how much did the lease cost originally, and how much work was done on the project? Those are the only important questions
- greenleafone7 2mo ago> "We welcome RWE's agreement and voluntary investment in projects that strengthen our nation's energy security,". We do live in a dystopia don't we?
- ChoGGi 2mo ago> Days after his return to office, he said "we're not going to do the wind thing" and called them "big, ugly windmills" that were dangerous to wildlife. And coal?
- lionkor 2mo agoWe shouldn't pretend that he's making a real point. I would like to see 1.2B invested to save wildlife, but that's not happening, so that's almost like a "figure of speech".
- pickleglitch 2mo agoThis is so colossally stupid, even by MAGA standards. We're literally spending billions to make things worse, because apparently any form of renewable energy makes the frogs gay or some stupid shit.
- segmondy 2mo agoYou can't make this ish up. In the era of AI when we need as much energy as possible, this admin is pulling this ridiculous stunt. Yeah, I'm not wagering that USA wins the AI race.
- wg0 2mo agoMan - What exactly are these people?
- jklowden 2mo agoThe next time, your libertarian friend mutters “Solyndra”, tell him at the most Solyndra cost the federal government 1/2 billion dollars, not the many billions Trump is spending to cancel wind projects.
- darkstar999 2mo agoCan a lawsuit stop this absolutely ridiculous deal?
- bluGill 2mo agoMaybe. Check with a lawyer. I would for starters be looking at the angle that Congress needs to approve spending money, and I doubt this was in any budget. There also needs to be a conversation of if the executive branch should even have the powers to stop this. A a YIMBY person I believe their power should be limited to verifying the permits were filled out correctly (and I believe in reducing paperwork for them), that is they cannot say no to this if the process was followed.
- rsynnott 2mo agoThis is, I suppose, what you get when you elect a guy who went bust running a casino. So much winning.
- Gabrys1 2mo agoI conducted a fun experiment. Prompted an AI this: It's year 2005, and you're an AI on an alien planet. you get a piece of news from the future from a planet called Earth. Tell me what you understand from the text and what you think about it: (then pasted the article text)
- Gabrys1 2mo ago[flagged]
- lorreyfum 2mo agoOffshore wind kills the jet stream and creates climate change.
- ericyd 2mo agoAt least we finally answered the Mad Max question "Who killed the world?"
- wookmaster 2mo agoIt's really depressing to know my own taxes are going to shit like this and feel so helpless to stop it.
- glaslong 2mo agoMany such cases..... this is up there. But I gotta say, the one that really got to me was watching videos of people from my old neighborhood getting dragged into the street, disappeared and murdered, by government agents paid from my taxes. But there are truly so many options to choose from which add up to more and worse still. Maybe we'll put our heads together and discover something to stop it eventually.
- pvaldes 2mo agoPunishment for US will continue until more jail improves.
- sri9s 2mo agowhat will replace the wind projects?
- pvaldes 2mo ago> what will replace the wind projects? Poverty. 1.2B less On the other hand, the economical support of US politicians to some ideological groups in Germany is concerning. How do we know that this is not just laundering and justifying to move billions from US to the "right (far right) people" in Germany?
- alsetmusic 2mo agoI can't believe how stupid the world has become. At least my young niece and nephew will have terrible air to breathe after I'm gone. Next, let's pay people to detonate nuclear bombs next to our homes.
- hnd9q09qk4 2mo agoHa, been there
- cestith 2mo agoIdiot president of a country where over 10% of power generated in 2025 was with wind says any country with wind turbines (he calls them windmills) is a loser country. Film at 11.
- bluGill 2mo agoIf you are in the US make sure you write your congressman about this. Elections are coming up in a couple months and if they see this as an issue they will ensure something happens. There is already suspicion that the Democrats will win the house (which doesn't take too many districts to turn - this commonly would happen anyway), even a republican in a "safe seat" is scared.
- gehsty 2mo agoWe need to be careful in not throwing the babies out with the bath water - the fees paid for the leases for these projects were so high that the projects would not be economically viable in the first place. The developers are probably doing back flips behind closed doors that they have exited these positions without major financial impairments. This does not mean that renewables or offshore wind should not be built it just means that the regime around how sites are awarded, and how power purchase contracts are made need to be reworked. A lot of the world is struggling with this (recently UK re-tendered for Mona lease area with much more favourable conditions than r4 initial lease). Generally speaking I think the best approach would be to have almost zero / nominal lease fee, then have a competitive auction around a two sided CFD - if the market price is below the strike price the state makes up the difference, if the market price is above the strike price the excess goes back to the state.
- Supermancho 2mo ago> the fees paid for the leases for these projects were so high that the projects would not be economically viable in the first place. Can you explain where you got your information from? * The leases were already paid for (in total) in 2022-2023 for $1bn. * The expected output would have been 7gigawatts annually, which is a 5-7x return per year on paper. * The sale of the lease is due to a regulatory blockade, not a traditional cost benefit analysis.
- gehsty 2mo agoI’m not sure what I need to cite but logically when you’ve paid 1B for a lease up front, you’ll want to recoup that through the money you get paid for the electricity you generate. The project accounting probably includes a return on that similar to CAPEX (could be as high as 10%), so its impact grows every year as well. My feeling is that these projects would require offtake costs so high to be viable that they would not be appealing to the states that awarded the leases. The blockade from trump is a very appealing exit ramp for projects that are dead in the water. You can see in Germany / UK projects awarded with high lease costs failing (Mona already went pop in uk, I imagine any r4 lease not awarded cfd in AR8 will be returned, Total not moving forward with German portfolio…) I’ve worked on debt financed offshore wind projects for the last decade, the whole project viability hinges on devex/capex balanced against offtake and resource.
- qwertytyyuu 2mo agoDo they hate green energy that much?
- cyanclouds 2mo ago[dead]
- addaon 2mo agoI am available to not build wind turbines at a substantial discount.
- WarmWash 2mo agoJust a hypothetical... Building new infra will extend beyond trumps term, so it's possible they do "planning" for 2 years, new admin comes in, and they abandon the plan and go back to putting the money in wind.
- jrflo 2mo agoThank you for this, I'm going to just accept this theory and close the thread because it makes me so upset, lol
- botanrice 2mo agoI have either learned to tune it all out or have been worn down of all the terrible news. But of all the terriblew news to come from this administration, this kind of thing guts me the most :( There is really no way around this, no silver lining. After years of working to get these programs implemented, to have the admin just willy-nilly spend money (what money!?!) to have them STOP. It hurts man.
- dozerly 2mo agoI have to say, being able to find the silver lining in 6 years of fascist policy before this is impressive.
- Devasta 2mo agoIf they want to pay me to not build wind farms, I'll not build them for half that.
- mike_hock 2mo agoGreat article for April 1st! No, wait. It's August 7th. Wat.
- aslkalska 2mo agodid the onion just take over the BBC, what's going on right now ?
- neom 2mo agoIn case anyone is wondering why he hates wind so much, it stared in 2011: Donald Trump pledges 'any legal means' fight against windfarm. US tycoon saying proposed offshire turbines will 'compromise' golf resort – and ruin his sea view: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/05/donald-trump-legal-fight-windfarm https://www.theguardian.com/world/2011/aug/05/donald-trump-l... Donald Trump continues to battle Scottish offshore windfarm plans. In his second letter to Alex Salmond, the businessman said the turbines would have a negative impact on Scottish tourism: https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/28/donald-trump-scottish-offshore-windfarm https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2011/sep/28/donald-t...
- bekimbacaj 2mo agoWind turbines were never meant to produce electricity but to bankrupt the world economy. Back in 2K one turbine installation cost was 2 million euros. That one turbine can never generate that much electricity so to pay your investment. Not counting the maintenance astronomical costs.
- ttul 2mo ago2028, everyone. Hang in there.
- Danox 2mo agoDumb, Dumb Dumb….
- dzonga 2mo agoeveryone on this board - is now aware the US gvt is working against your interest unless you're sama & crew. invest in your own solar, or other forms of renewable energy - get an ev.
- tencentshill 2mo agoEnergy independence still remains a rich mans hobby. Neighborhood sized micro-grids are the future.
- dzonga 2mo agoI just learnt about Virtual Power Plants using big batteries i.e 40Kwh+ - so yeah that could work.
- throwaway613746 2mo ago[dead]
- ThomW 2mo agoBeyond idiocy.
- IceHegel 2mo agoIn my opinion, it was always crazy to build a wind farm in the most scenic part of the Pacific coast. The neo-industrialist in me thinks it would have been cool to see that driving the 1. But you can hardly call dredging and filling all that open ocean habitat conservationist.
- mrloopex 2mo agoNice goalpost shift. Wonder what source provides your propaganda. If you look at the entire picture, you’re doing far far more benefit for the environment by reducing fossil fuel dependency. But go ahead and cry for the birds.
- freeplay 2mo agoExactly this. I know HN is obviously a very pro tech, pro science demographic, but I can't believe there's so little opposition to having our coasts littered with wind turbines. I don't care how energy efficient it is. It's dystopian and depressing.
- tencentshill 2mo agoDon't make excuses for this destructive policy. A visualization of turbines at different distances: https://archive.nytimes.com/green.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/03/offshore-wind-farm-approved-in-new-jersey/ https://archive.nytimes.com/green.blogs.nytimes.com/2008/10/... Turbines are all but invisible at 21 miles out, the minimum distance the california RWE project would have been installed at. Beyond that, they are hidden by the earths curvature. https://www.northcoastoffshorewind.org/post/how-visible-would-the-proposed-humboldt-offshore-wind-farm-be-from-the-coast https://www.northcoastoffshorewind.org/post/how-visible-woul... https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/humboldt-wind-energy-area https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/humbo...
- SubiculumCode 2mo agoWhere is this money coming from? They can strike a deal, but the money has to come from somewhere and if it came from money directed at wind energy, then this will be illegal, I'd venture to guess.
- reddguard 2mo ago[dead]
- jhack 2mo agoRolling out data centers all over the place and they're paying billions for LESS energy supply. Geniuses.
- radu_floricica 2mo agoSituation is quite different than the article paints it. The venture was risky to begin with, and already dead in 2026. Subsidies are gone, GE didn't produce their new 18MW turbine, interest rates and construction costs went up etc. State bureaucracy is its own quagmire, the fact that federal admin turned hostile was just the cherry on top. Current deal is pretty clean and a win for both parties. US gov won't be drawn into a lengthy trial, RWE gets their money back, US gets a similar value investment, RWE gets a safer investment and a likely friendly government. US made some 40mil from the deal, or more likely 1-200 mil considering inflation; on the other hand RWE didn't lose their whole investment.
- nielsbot 2mo agowhy was the venture risky?
- tencentshill 2mo agoWhat about the several other projects in progress? What about the ones that were completed? They all had risk factors.
- _ink_ 2mo agoFascinating how a country can dismantle itself. Historians will have a field trip in analyzing this. Just sad that the current population will suffer from this.
- wnevets 2mo agoWe have $1.2B to prevent wind power but not to feed starving kids [1]? [1] https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/18/trump-administration-usaid-doge-cuts https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2026/apr/18/trump-admini...
- ratelimitsteve 2mo agoso as my energy bill is going up 50% we're giving people my tax dollars in exchange for them not making more energy to ease demand? winning winning winning winning winning winning winning winning
- bigblind 2mo agoLet's start a $1.3bn goFundMe, and invite all billionnaires with a conscience (do they even exist?) to put some money in. + an extra $20 in postage to mail a turd to donny
- darkhorn 2mo agoAnti wind farm rethoric is common among pro-Russian politicians in Bulgaria too.
- anigbrowl 2mo agoWhy are we spending billions of taxpayer dollars to appease the aesthetic whims of this dysfunctional moron? It takes years of planning and investment to build something like a new power plant, but we're giving this up because the President is still seething over the perceived insult of having to see wind turbine from the slopes of one of his golf courses? Does this sound rational to anyone besides our resident conservative apologist?
- duxup 2mo agoThis administration just flushes taxpayers dollars down the toilet.
- thraway3837 2mo agoJust so that people are aware. From the article: German energy company RWE has said it will abandon its offshore wind projects in the US after reaching a $1.2bn (£892m) payout deal with President Donald Trump's Department of the Interior (DoI). RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, including $900m (£669m) in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Louisiana. They are not paying Germany to prevent a German firm from building offshore wind projects on German shores. They are paying so that the German firm does not do it on US shores. Terrible either way, but I think a lot of comments here are simply commenting after reading only the terrible title.
- syspec 2mo ago> German energy company RWE has said it will abandon its offshore wind projects in the US after reaching a $1.2bn (£892m) payout deal with President Donald Trump's Department of the Interior (DoI). > > RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, including $900m (£669m) in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Louisiana. Why not just give that 1.2bn to those "conventional gas" projects they want in Louisiana so bad? Not that I agree with creating mroe "conventional gas" projects, I don't. Even just the idea of paying a company NOT to do a green energy project is completely stupid. We need more energy period.
- m-s-y 2mo ago[flagged]
- lumba88 2mo ago[dead]
- lumba88 2mo ago[dead]
- fuckinpuppers 2mo agoAmerica first! Somehow?
- thelastgallon 2mo agoTrump administration’s latest buyback of offshore wind leases brings total to nearly $4 billion: https://www.bostonherald.com/2026/08/06/trump-offshore-wind-deals/ https://www.bostonherald.com/2026/08/06/trump-offshore-wind-...