| ▲ | Federal judge lifts administration halt of offshore wind farm in New England(apnews.com) |
| 212 points by zekrioca 13 hours ago | 96 comments |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] |
| "Just then they came in sight of thirty or forty windmills that rise from that plain. And no sooner did Don Quixote see them that he said to his squire, 'Fortune is guiding our affairs better than we ourselves could have wished. Do you see over yonder, friend Sancho, thirty or forty hulking giants? I intend to do battle with them and slay them. With their spoils we shall begin to be rich for this is a righteous war and the removal of so foul a brood from off the face of the earth is a service God will bless. 'What giants?' asked Sancho Panza. 'Those you see over there,' replied his master, 'with their long arms. Some of them have arms well nigh two leagues in length.' 'Take care, sir,' cried Sancho. 'Those over there are not giants but windmills. Those things that seem to be their arms are sails which, when they are whirled around by the wind, turn the millstone.'" |
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| ▲ | waltbosz 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The NIMBY argument is often one of aesthetics: windmills on the horizon will look ugly. I want to see a barge with one of these windmills anchored off the coast at the proposed install spot. So people can actually see what one would look like in real life. I know it's not representative of the array of windmills the projects seek to install, but it something. Also, I wonder if the same people who object to the windmills ever raise objections to the boats with giant LED advertisement screens that creep past the beach close enough to shore that you can smell their engine exhaust. |
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| ▲ | nar001 7 hours ago | parent [-] | | The issue is, people will complain even seeing the barge. But when they're installed, they basically forget about it, and get used to it. So it's just a pain either way |
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| ▲ | softwaredoug 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Shadow docket here we come. |
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| ▲ | add-sub-mul-div 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Context: > President Donald Trump has made sweeping strides to prioritize fossil fuels and hinder renewable energy projects. Trump recently called wind and solar power “THE SCAM OF THE CENTURY!” in a social media post and vowed not to approve wind or “farmer destroying Solar” projects. “The days of stupidity are over in the USA!!!” he wrote on his Truth Social site this week. |
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| ▲ | jacquesm 13 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's the 2nd installment of the years of stupidity so technically that is a little bit right. That 'scam of the century' is powering a good chunk of the USA grid but never mind the details. | | |
| ▲ | nielsbot 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Trump would have to have human empathy to look into the details. He doesn't have any. | | |
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| ▲ | dzhiurgis 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Wasn’t the actual change that they won’t give out subsidies for solar farms on of best farmlands (which wasn’t happening anyway)? |
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| ▲ | sandworm101 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| A youtube channel i follow made an interesting point. All these wind farms are covered by the jones act. So the associated ships to biuld them must be american (biult, crewed and flagged). It was hoped that this would revitalize US shipyards. But ship construction is so risk-adverse that no matter what a court says, everything is going to be put on hold for at least a few years. https://youtu.be/9ISZuW1JKkI |
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| ▲ | 2OEH8eoCRo0 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| My father hates this thing because the electricity it provides is above market rate. |
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| ▲ | lucb1e 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That's easy to say if you don't have to live with the consequences of cheap oil product burning, nor apparently have an idea of the current health impacts (people walking by a car don't fall over but, in aggregate, the lost number of healthy years due to this pollution is pretty upsetting) | |
| ▲ | hamandcheese 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | That seems like a great problem for the market to sort out. | |
| ▲ | ZeroGravitas 5 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In China offshore wind is cheaper than coal. The stop-start nature of US efforts, which isn't limited to this particular illegal stop work order, don't help with costs. | |
| ▲ | free_bip 6 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Given that electricity demand is projected to continue climbing for some time, I don't think that's such an issue. It probably won't be above market rate for long. |
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| ▲ | noncoml 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| SC is gonna shut it down. Anyone taking bets? |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Anyone taking bets? Polymarket is, at least for tariffs [1]. [1] https://polymarket.com/event/will-the-supreme-court-rule-in-... | | |
| ▲ | Tadpole9181 11 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I can't stand people posting this website on HN. Polymarket is a bunch of gambling addicts just throwing money at a wall - there's no market research or actual backing insight. It has such intellectual rhetoric as: > if you look closely, you can see DUMFUQ Sucks-His-Balls BUYING HIGH, then SELLING LOW! Dumfuq SUCKS-HIS-BALLS must have confused this for a Ceasefire market to trade like shit! | | | |
| ▲ | abduhl 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | So is everyone else invested in the stock market. |
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| ▲ | pm90 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| > Work on the nearly completed Revolution Wind project for Rhode Island and Connecticut has been paused since Aug. 22 when the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issued a stop-work order for what it said were national security concerns. The Interior Department agency did not specify those concerns at the time. Both the developer and the two states sued in federal courts. This administration is beyond stupid. |
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| ▲ | NewJazz 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | They bought their oil industry sponsors another month. This is just a district court ruling. Appellate and SC shadow docket are quite possibly going to quickly reverse the injunction. | | |
| ▲ | colechristensen 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't think it's corruption, I think Trump is just stupid and doesn't like windmills in the same way a five year old doesn't like green beans. | | |
| ▲ | idle_zealot 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | That seems to he true of him personally, but don't let his incompetence blind you to the powerful people and organizations whispering in his ear and directing the mad king to their benefit. | |
| ▲ | gpm 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | I think the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management issuing a stop work agency over bogus national security concerns when their actual desire was to gift Trump the lack of windmills is well within the definition of corruption. | |
| ▲ | throwaway173738 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | But who funded him? And why? | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | > I think Trump is just stupid and doesn't like windmills Trump doesn't like windmills because his base hates windmills. They hate windmills because libs like them. This isn't the five year old not liking green beans. It's the five year old seeing his sibling like them and then deciding--despite having no green beans on his plate, not being offered any--to spit in Mom's. There are also energy interests at play. But from all appearance, those aren't controlling here. Trump hasn't given the energy lobby what they want, not substantially. He has leaned over backwards to please his base. | | |
| ▲ | defrost 8 hours ago | parent [-] | | Trump has disliked windmills far longer than he has had a base. The Donald Trump who came to Scotland in 2006 to say he was building the world's greatest golf course was in many ways a different Donald Trump to the one now enjoying his second term in the White House.
~ https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c78nv0y89p6oWhat followed was a saga; * Some of the land he bought was under protection as a Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI). The shifting sand dune system along that stretch of coast north of Aberdeen was regarded as one of the finest examples of its kind in the UK.
* In 2012, he travelled to the Scottish Parliament to argue against a wind farm being built in the North Sea, within sight of his development.
He lost appeals against protection, he lost appeals against the "unsightly" wind farms, he was relentlessly mocked and protested against by the Scots, which hasn't ceased:Jig of Slurs: A Musical Record of Scotland’s Best Insults to Trump - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-NNWmZwObZc Cockwomble is a delight for lovers of the language. | | |
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| ▲ | ZeroGravitas 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Yep and Charlie Kirk just happened to believe that climate change was Marxism. And Putin coincidentally thinks wind power drives worms mad with vibrations. And Nigel Farage vowing to stop wind and solar. And AfD hating heat pumps. It's all just random personal dislikes and not the best funded misinformation campaign the world has ever seen. | |
| ▲ | fuzztester 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | nonsense. it's the exact opposite of what you think it is. you are either not reading the news enough or are not able to understand it. "Drill, baby, drill!" https://m.youtube.com/shorts/iF17bGH65gU from the description of that YouTube short: Trump to Starmer: "Drill, Baby, Drill’ in North Sea to cut energy bills; Calls Wind ‘Expensive Joke | | |
| ▲ | lucb1e 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | (Regarding that second sentence: attack the argument, not the person you're replying to.) |
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| ▲ | raydiak 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | On behalf of the actual majority who lost elections to gerrymandered districts, electorates, and blatant disinformation campaigns...yes this. Me too like an AOLer |
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| ▲ | djohnston 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| That sort of instability is so damaging beyond the boundaries of his term. Hopefully this restores a bit of confidence. |
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| ▲ | ascendantlogic 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The Supreme Court is determined to give him unfettered power to do whatever he wants so I'm sure once it reaches them they'll strike down whatever the lower court does to stop him. | | |
| ▲ | adrr 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Amazing how Trump gets unfettered power and Biden gets reeled in. Almost prevented Biden from rolling back a Trump EA when Biden was in power. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Biden_v._Texas | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Amazing how Trump gets unfettered power and Biden gets reeled in If we look at how often the justices voted in favour of each administration in emergency applications when the government was the filer, we get Sotomayor and Jackson favouring Biden with a 77-point margin (88 to 11 percent and 77 to 0 percent, respectively), Alito favouring Trump with a 77-point margin (95 to 18%), and Kavanaugh, Barrett and Roberts with 48, 26 and 21-point margins [1]. On the whole, Trump has been successful 84% of the time against Biden's 53%. But my point is that the partisan fracture of our court--on the level of individual justices--has been happening for a while. (The fact that we have (a) Alito, who's a hack and (b) a decadelong conservative majority is more explanatory than e.g. Barrett or Roberts having gone to the dark side.) [1] https://www.nytimes.com/2025/09/14/us/politics/supreme-court... | | |
| ▲ | wahnfrieden 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | Would you characterize the items they hand to the court as similarly extreme and unprecedented in both ways? If one side is providing milder work, then I would expect higher agreeability. Otherwise there is something fishy with both sidesing it. Obviously it is impossible to answer this without projecting some bias. But I don't think that makes it unanswerable. | | |
| ▲ | stinkbeetle 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | It's not unanswerable, but it is impossible to have a reasoned discussion about it even with otherwise reasonable people, sadly. I'm not American so I try not to wade into it too much. I think Americans and everybody is entitled to a basic human right of self-determination, holding, and voting for diverse political beliefs. They have a bunch of shit to sort out and are pretty divided sadly, but so is my country and many others. Now something that America has been known for is extraordinary renditions, extrajudicial executions, foreign "interventions", and that kind of thing. Again I don't say America is unique or even the worst at this by a long shot. Hell, France carried out a state sponsored terrorist action and murder against a civilians in a friendly democracy (New Zealand) within living memory. But America, being the biggest, most influential, and "leader of the free world" gets most of the focus. With those disclaimers out of the way, the presidential immunity ruling did not come as any shock to those outside America and slightly removed from the propaganda war. We've seen W start questionable wars and the whole CIA renditions, Obama's love of drones and his ordering extra-judicial execution of US citizens, their destruction of Syria and Libya and Iraq, etc. Presidential immunity was the defacto operating principle and most legal experts outside the fringe really agreed that an action like the killing of an American citizen abroad by the executive branch could not be prosecuted, despite it otherwise meeting all elements of the criminal statute for murder. I'm no legal expert, but the presidential immunity ruling from SCOTUS as far as I could see affirmed existing practice and understanding. If anything it actually restricted presidential immunity because it explicitly limited it to official actions and created some guidelines for how courts could decide how to make that classification. But the reaction online was literally that it made Trump a dictator and it meant he could go personally shooting opposing politicians, judges, and bureaucrats with no consequences! People who believed that of course will categorize that decision as extreme. But the reality seems to be the opposite, extreme (not as a value judgement but in terms of distance from status quo of both sides of mainstream politics) would have been to rule the other way and permit the prosecution of presidents for executive actions, because presumably then the DOJ would have begun cases against Obama, W, as well for their criminal and now prosecutable actions in office. | | |
| ▲ | intermerda 4 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > Obama's love of drones and his ordering extra-judicial execution of US citizens, their destruction of Syria and Libya and Iraq, etc. Good thing that you prefaced with that you're not an American and you try not to wade into it too much. Your have a good excuse for ignorance of drone strikes and are a great example of how manufactured consent works. "Obama" + "drones" eventually leads to "both sides" enlightened centrism without understanding policy nuances. Just one such example - https://www.jstor.org/stable/23526906?seq=8. > It's not unanswerable, but it is impossible to have a reasoned discussion about it even with otherwise reasonable people, sadly. You're right about that one. | | |
| ▲ | stinkbeetle 4 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Good thing that you prefaced with that you're not an American and you try not to wade into it too much. Your have a good excuse for ignorance of drone strikes and are a great example of how manufactured consent works. "Obama" + "drones" eventually leads to "both sides" enlightened centrism without understanding policy nuances. Just one such example - https://www.jstor.org/stable/23526906?seq=8. Not sure what you're getting at here or how it addresses the substance of my point. Seems like a pathetic attempt to strawman by attempting to nitpick a tiny irrelevant aspect of my comment, and even that failed badly for you because I never claimed other sides did not also use drones or that both sides were as good or bad as one another. Come on, pull yourself together, if you can't cope with talking about this like a normal person, just refrain from commenting. Do you deny that Obama ordered extrajudicial execution of a US citizen and relied on and was widely believed to be shielded by presidential immunity for that action? Or that it was not a controversial mainstream legal opinion before Trump that presidents operated the executive branch under presidential immunity? > You're right about that one. I know. |
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| ▲ | elcritch 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Obama's love of drones and his ordering extra-judicial execution of US citizens Yes, so many Americans forget about this or gloss over it. Even the fact you’re getting downvoted show how biased most folks are. Trump has in many ways done less than previous administrations. He just makes it very public and brash. > Presidential immunity was the defacto operating principle and most legal experts outside the fringe really agreed that an action like the killing of an American citizen abroad by the executive branch could not be prosecuted, despite it otherwise meeting all elements of the criminal statute for murder. Which leaves me with mixed feelings. The idea that the President basically gets to do whatever he wants as long as congress won’t impeach him is scary for the rule of law. However on the other hand, it does allow the President the power to do things that may need doing. It’s been that way since Thomas Jefferson sent the marines to fight Barbary wars without congresses approval. Perhaps earlier. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > the fact you’re getting downvoted show how biased most folks are "Please don't comment about the voting on comments. It never does any good, and it makes boring reading." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html (Happy to unflag once edited.) | |
| ▲ | stinkbeetle 7 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Trump has in many ways done less than previous administrations. He just makes it very public and brash. Maybe. My point wasn't that one was better or worse, and I did try to add some "balance" to that by including both W and O examples of presidential immunity :) Presidential immunity I just used as one (of many) issues where there are basically irreconcilable differences between people who are otherwise quite intelligent, sane, rational. There are equivalents going the other way too where conservatives think something is bad or wrong or extreme but it really isn't. I chose the example of this particular disconnect because of the context, it would not have worked going the other way. The assertion was that Trump / Trump cases are more extreme. And furthermore that may even be true, I do nothing to disprove that with my example, I just try to show show why as I see it, it is extremely difficult to judge something like that objectively or even for people to discuss it calmly and rationally. > Which leaves me with mixed feelings. The idea that the President basically gets to do whatever he wants as long as congress won’t impeach him is scary for the rule of law. All systems are flawed in some ways, but this seemed to make sense to me. Prosecutions are brought to courts by the executive branch, so having the executive prosecute itself has a fundamental problem. Having executive overseen by the legislature at least avoids that particular catch. Executive holds power to physically enforce anything of course so that's always a problem, but at least it's not hiding away behind "national security" or "prosecutorial discretion" or "ongoing investigation" or "lost the evidence", rather it makes the issue public and forces the executive to openly defy the representatives of the people and the states, and the people can then decide their next course of action much better informed. Which is about as best you can hope for I think, it's the people who are really the final arbiters of all this, so if they're kept informed then that's the best thing. Having the executive prosecute itself in some ways could be worse than nothing because it kind of delegitimizes the congressional impeachment process. Let's say if Trump colluded with Putin to hack the election and took power, then his DOJ prosecuted and carefully and secretly sabotaged the trial and he was found innocent in court, then congress came along and tried to impeach for the same crime and convicted him, where would that leave things? The executive and judicial branches found him not guilty, so it could appear that congress is defying the other two branches. That's all my own idle musings though, and way above my pay grade! |
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| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > Would you characterize the items they hand to the court as similarly extreme in both ways? It's really difficult to answer this separate from one's biases. I'd also note that Trump, then Biden, then Trump again escalated the use of the shadow docket way beyond historical norms [1]. This was a deliberate choice by both Presidents. > there is something fishy with both sidesing it Didn't mean to both sides this, at least not at the level of the Court. The Court has had a conservative majority for a decade; one could argue Jackson and Sotomayor are balancing the court by leaning against its centre of pressure. But it's not unexpected for the Court to be a bit more deferential towards a Republican President. We haven't been appointing and confirming neutral arbiters for a while. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_docket#Since_2017 | | |
| ▲ | matthewdgreen 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > I'd also note that Trump, then Biden, then Trump again escalated the use of the shadow docket way beyond historical norms [1] The President does not choose to use the shadow docket. The use of the shadow docket is controlled by the court justices, who (as you pointed out) have been a conservative majority for a decade. You are correct that the use of the shadow docket increased under Trump and then Biden, but this is consistent with the (somewhat obvious) explanation that the conservative justices began to use this tool as a partisan weapon for Trump and the GOP and then later against Biden's policies. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | > President does not choose to use the shadow docket. The use of the shadow docket is controlled by the court justices Oh wow, I didn't know this [1]. Thank you...what in the actual fuck. I'm having trouble parsing how the shadow docket relates to a party requesting emergency relief. Do you have a good source on this? [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shadow_docket#Procedure |
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| ▲ | bpodgursky 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Eh. They have broadly ruled with the admin on staffing decisions. I would not at all extrapolate that to unlimited regulation of economic activity; it would be something of a reversal of their known stances on regulatory authority of federal agencies. I'm not making bets either way. |
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| ▲ | LeoPanthera 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | It will take a generation for the reputation of the USA to be restored, even if we start right now. | | |
| ▲ | rootusrootus 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | You’re an optimist. I think we have lost a great deal of soft power that can never be regained. Because even if the next guy is normal, the citizens that decided this is what they wanted will continue to exist for decades after Trump is gone. There’s no reason for non-Americans to assume this is some kind of one-off anomaly and not a sea change in the culture of the US. |
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| ▲ | potato3732842 11 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| Don't get too exited. This is a fight that's been happening for over 20yr now. Whoever is throwing the political football of any given wind project or who is receiving it in the end zone is just a name. They'll be gone in a few years. The institution of fighting over off shore wind farms in the Boston to NYC area was there before them and will be there after them. Regardless of the pretext of any given action the the way things generally are is that the people who have a view they want to protect, the tourism industry and the hippie/nature/biology types are on the no-wind side and the climate types, green energy people, domestic energy and big business types are on the other. Sometimes one side wins, sometimes another side wins. But nobody ever gets a win streak long enough to bring anything to fruition. The area is well suited to wind power but the area but it's also chock full of rich people and moneyed interests that can afford to fight it, likely to the long term detriment of the region, but like locusts they will be gone and cashed out by then so they don't care. That's probably when these things will finally get built. I'd love to see some wind turbines go up but I'll believe it when I see it. And even then, I bet they'll find some way to make everyone's bill go up instead of down because of it. Sincerely and with the utmost disrespect, A cape wind proponent. |
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| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 9 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | I have a pet theory that the secret to getting energy projects online is faster deployment methods. Make all the turbines/reactors/whatever in a factory so that all you have to do on-site is plop them out and plug them in. MONDAY: The lower court has denied the NIMBY injunction against installing any more wind turbines. MONDAY NIGHT: Thousands of wind turbines are hurled off the back of a container ship with a catapult and automatically drop anchor and start generating power. TUESDAY: The appellate court has reinstated the NIMBY injunction against installing any more wind turbines. ..but they're already all installed. | | |
| ▲ | throwaway173738 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | Energy projects are just a variation of a real estate project. As you might know, a lot of the difficulty in mass producing buildings isn’t making the parts but preparing the site to receive the parts. There’s probably 5 or 10 companies in your vicinity that can ship you prefabricated walls and floors for a house. But you still have to have the plans engineered for the exact piece of land you plan to put it on. The same will be true for every windmill and solar farm. Studying the site and planning the build are unique to each building and limit how fast you can go anyway. | | |
| ▲ | potato3732842 2 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | >But you still have to have the plans engineered for the exact piece of land you plan to put it on. >The same will be true for every windmill and solar farm. No, you don't. That's purely a figment of how successful the civil engineering lobby was at regulatory-capturing their way into the process. The people who build buildings and windmills know what kind of foundations they need. If you have even a ballpark estimate of your site conditions they will happily tell you approximately what you'll need to do. An extra inch of concrete here or there or a foot less of pile spacing or an extra few passed with the dozer costs basically nothing. The only reason you see people designing things to the bare minimum is that when you're being forced to pay a engineer to punch in numbers either way it makes sense to take advantage of that and make them tell you what the bare minimum is so you can at least save a bit on actual construction costs. You think you hate crony capitalism or the micromanaging nanny state or whatever you want to call it now. Just wait until you engage in any kind of project that doesn't benefit from all the exemptions that residential does. | | |
| ▲ | AnthonyMouse an hour ago | parent [-] | | And this is why partisanship is such an own-goal. Partisan Democrats want wind turbines instead of coal, but to get them they'd have to admit that the thing standing in their way is these excessive rules impeding the construction of anything, which is contrary to the precept that regulations are good and getting rid of regulations is bad. Whereas if you put aside the dogma you might notice that giving the other team what they want in this case and getting rid of some regulations would actually be good and allow you to do the thing you want to do. |
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| ▲ | AnthonyMouse 8 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Sounds like a racket. | | |
| ▲ | potato3732842 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | Racket that's spread out over enough people and processes that any one point of it is defensible with a mild enough amount of "lying, but with plausible deniability" that the common man can be hoodwinked. The best kind of racket really. |
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| ▲ | kibitzor 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Also a cape wind proponent here, I got carried away with my comment below reminiscing about the "just one more year" feeling for cape wind for the past 20 years. My wind energy professor[1] assigned everyone the task of arguing against cape wind as one of our assignments (and later, for it). Of course, we found a few valid arguments for and against, but enormous reasons for it. The professor had a despondent take on utility scale wind, even though it was environmentally + economically viable, partially from the decades of fighting against the often irrational public perception. Example homework: "Wind turbines will block our sunset" > no, dune grass will block more of the sunset for you, many turbines won't even be visible (insert math) "Wind turbines will be too loud" > no, they're so far away from shore that even your breathing is louder (insert math) "They won't make energy cheap enough to reduce costs" > no, even using conservative payback plans and limited life, it still works (insert math) "The native's sunset ritual will be ruined by the wind turbines" >no, see above, are you serious?
[Yes, this was proposed- https://www.mysanantonio.com/news/environment/article/tribes... ] It's less about a conspiracy against renewables, you start to feel this conspiracy for pro foreign fossil fuels in the Boston area.
The iconic Citgo sign, core to Boston's image [2]-> maybe
The iconic Rainbow tank for liquid natural gas[3] -> maybe maybe
The fact that Boston receives tanker ships of LNG from Russia[4]-> maybe maybe maybe [1]I have a Wind Energy Certificate from my university education, but this was not my focus [2]https://www.texasstandard.org/stories/how-century-old-citgo-... [3]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rainbow_Swash [4]https://www.aei.org/carpe-diem/why-is-lng-coming-4500-miles-... | | |
| ▲ | potato3732842 2 hours ago | parent [-] | | I don't even think it's that there's a conspiracy in favor of foreign energy. It's that the area is rich enough to indulge in stupidity. They can literally eat cake. Because there's no actual impetus to "not suck" all sorts of stupid emotional "but the seagulls" arguments that would normally not stop anything resonate. And of course the foreign energy interests are happy to fan those stupid flames. Maybe $300+ energy bills (also a result of short sighted let them eat cake policies) will be what finally does it. |
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| ▲ | marcus_holmes 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] |
| The argument I've seen on Mastodon that seems to make sense to me, is that the US Dollar is the currency used in oil trading. That brings a lot of foreign currency to the USA, because people need to buy dollars to buy their oil. If the world moves away from oil, then the US economy will stop benefitting from this trade. Of course, if the rest of the world moves to renewables, which it is, and just the USA remains reliant on oil then that also destroys this benefit. But the USA refusing to help implement renewable energy will definitely slow it down. It's the only rational argument I can see for this policy. Of course there's the irrational to consider ("real men burn stuff" as Cory Doctorow puts it), and that may be the more important consideration. |
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| ▲ | hollerith 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | The problem with that argument is that the dollar is just as important in the international trade of other goods like solar panels and batteries as it is in the trade of oil. | | |
| ▲ | marcus_holmes 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | If I want to buy solar panels, I'm probably buying from China, and there's a range of currencies I can use for that. USD is definitely one of them, for sure, but it's not the only one. |
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| ▲ | jeffbee 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | People have been varying this theme for decades. Search "Tehran Oil Bourse" if you want. Theories about the petro-dollar are standard fare among the people who also discuss the meaning of gold fringes on flags and magic words you can write on a check. | |
| ▲ | pm90 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | There isn’t a rational argument for this policy. Trump has an irrational hatred of wind energy in particular. His minions are implementing his commands. | | |
| ▲ | sandworm101 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | It isnt irrational. He golfs. He believes golf with an ocean view to be the highest and best use of land, the ultimate expression of wealth. The sight of windmills on the horizon providing power to the poors is like seeing a honda civic parked in the members-only lot. It isnt an irrational hate. It is simple nimby elitism. | | |
| ▲ | komali2 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | It's irrational long term since his golf courses will eventually be underwater or turned into refugee camps. |
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| ▲ | csomar 9 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | How does this court ruling slow down renewable around the world? Renewable and solar are happening around the world because of price and there is nothing that can change this direction, short of a war with China. | | |
| ▲ | marcus_holmes 3 hours ago | parent [-] | | Specifically, Swanson's Law [0] that says the more solar we make, the cheaper it gets. The price of renewables is also being driven down because we're getting better at making them. So it's a virtuous cycle; the more we make, the cheaper it gets, and the cheaper it gets, the more demand there is, so the more we make. If the USA is not demanding renewables, the effect is less and we don't get as good at making them [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law |
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| ▲ | unmole 9 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | > The argument I've seen on Mastodon Is guaranteed to be some utterly deranged crackpot nonsense which some reason otherwise intelligent people find plausible. |
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| ▲ | esseph 13 hours ago | parent | prev [-] |
| My theory is that he wants to use the sale of US fossil fuels to pay off the debt. Maybe that's bogus, just my uneducated opinion! (I also think it's incredibly shortsighted) |
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| ▲ | WaltPurvis 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | Exporting fossil fuels nets the government <$150 billion per year, while the federal government's debt is >$37 trillion (and growing by trillions per year). It's impossible to expand the sale of fossil fuels enough to make any kind of noticeable dent in the debt. | | |
| ▲ | roamerz 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | While 150 Billion isn’t going to solve our deficit issue it will help. By comparison that is almost 3 times the total $$ of military assistance we have provided to Ukraine since the invasion began. | | |
| ▲ | jjk166 10 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | This illuminates how little has been provided to Ukraine more so than the benefit of increasing government revenue by such a modest amount. | |
| ▲ | plorg 8 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | It wouldn't cover half of the deficit he's added just this year. | |
| ▲ | codezero 11 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | [dead] |
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| ▲ | margalabargala 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | In terms of being able to pay off a debt, having more resources (power from wind and fossil fuels) is strictly better than less (just the fossil fuels). So that's not even remotely economically sound or logical. In conclusion you're probably right. | | |
| ▲ | bawolff 12 hours ago | parent [-] | | I suppose hypothetically if he significantly increased royalties/export fees/whatever and joined OPEC to manipulate the price of oil, it might help. Obviously that would be crazy. | | |
| ▲ | JumpCrisscross 12 hours ago | parent | next [-] | | > if he significantly increased royalties/export fees/whatever and joined OPEC to manipulate the price of oil, it might help Joining OPEC would subject the United States to production quotas. We're the world's largest oil producer. But we're also the largest consumer. | |
| ▲ | margalabargala 10 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | But, like, even in that eventuality, it would be better for the US to have a bunch of wind power so we can export more oil. | | |
| ▲ | esseph 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | I agree! I'm just brainstorming at this point but it's basically like guessing in a game of Texas Holdem. |
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| ▲ | phkahler 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | >> My theory is that he wants to use the sale of US fossil fuels to pay off the debt If that were the case, he should be happy for alternative energy projects to free up some fuel for sale. | |
| ▲ | TinkersW 10 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | He passed a major bill that drove up the debt massively recently, he clearly has zero interest in reducing the debt, just convincing rubes that he does. | | |
| ▲ | thrance 9 hours ago | parent [-] | | He doesn't even have to convince his rubes of anything anymore. He can just go "the debt is fixed" and they all instantaneously believe it is. Straight out of Orwell's. |
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| ▲ | nick49488171 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | The only debts he want to pay off are those in his personal accounts. | |
| ▲ | Tostino 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Why would hamstringing a domestic clean energy project be a good idea in that case? The less gas we use domestically, the more we can sell on the international market. | | |
| ▲ | detourdog 13 hours ago | parent [-] | | Eliminating funds for bike paths doesn't make sense either but it's policy. | | |
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| ▲ | guelo 13 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | If he cared about the debt he wouldn't have added $4 trillion extra to the debt with the ridiculous One Big Beautiful Bill. | |
| ▲ | dzhiurgis 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-] | | Which would mean US need to consume less so there’s more left to export… | |
| ▲ | nielsbot 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-] | | Don't overthink it. I'd bet people in his admin and adjacent to it benefit from the existing fossil fuel regime and will do anything to stall progress on renewables Trump is a monster who would throw his own children into a furnace if it made him richer. | | |
| ▲ | macintux 10 hours ago | parent [-] | | > Trump is a monster who would throw his own children into a furnace if it made him richer. While I agree in broad details, his kids seem to be the only people to whom he has any sense of loyalty. Everyone else is expendable. |
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