Trump Administration To Pay French Company $1 Billion To Stop Offshore Wind Farms (npr.org) 338
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy. TotalEnergies has agreed to what's essentially a refund of its leases for projects off the coasts of North Carolina and New York, and will invest the money in fossil fuel projects instead, the Department of Interior announced Monday.
The Trump administration has tried to halt offshore wind construction, but federal judges overturned those orders. Environmental groups denounced the TotalEnergies deal as an alternate way to block wind projects. President Donald Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says is the way to lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.
TotalEnergies pledged to not develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said in a statement that the company renounced offshore wind development in the United States in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees, "considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country's interest." Pouyanne said the refunded lease fees will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas activities, calling it a "more efficient use of capital" in the U.S. After it makes those investments, TotalEnergies will be reimbursed, up to the amount paid in lease purchases for offshore wind, according to the DOI.
The Trump administration has tried to halt offshore wind construction, but federal judges overturned those orders. Environmental groups denounced the TotalEnergies deal as an alternate way to block wind projects. President Donald Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says is the way to lower costs for families, increase reliability and help the U.S. maintain global leadership in artificial intelligence.
TotalEnergies pledged to not develop any new offshore wind projects in the United States. TotalEnergies CEO Patrick Pouyanne said in a statement that the company renounced offshore wind development in the United States in exchange for the reimbursement of the lease fees, "considering that the development of offshore wind projects is not in the country's interest." Pouyanne said the refunded lease fees will finance the construction of a liquefied natural gas plant in Texas and the development of its oil and gas activities, calling it a "more efficient use of capital" in the U.S. After it makes those investments, TotalEnergies will be reimbursed, up to the amount paid in lease purchases for offshore wind, according to the DOI.
Well cult followers (Score:5, Funny)
Let's hear your thoughts on this 4d chess move
Re:Well cult followers (Score:4, Insightful)
If you want to know the trigger-words, just watch fox news.
Alternate Energy is right up there with trans and woke on the "stop thinking rationally and follow the leader!" triggers
We will continue to have a large segment of our population behaving like triggered nut-cases as long as we tolerate these modern peddlers of yellow journalism
Frankly fox news has become successful to the point of soiling the world, and trump is the worst case manifestation of their tactics
Re: Well cult followers (Score:5, Informative)
The executive branch is currently being run by a reality-show star. The messaging is designed to distract, confuse, and either entertain or trigger you. The messaging is NOT meant to inform. Same goes for many so-called news sources that are actually entertainement designed to keep you scrolling. If you want to know whatâ(TM)s actually going on, you gotta actually pay attention to whatâ(TM)s actually happening, get your news from real sources, and ignore the circus.
Re: Well cult followers (Score:5, Funny)
Re: Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh you sweet babe in the woods.
You think the AI billionaire bros are going to pay for the infrastructure THEY need? That's what the rest of us are for - subsidizing their business model, which they will use to bleed you dry of every cent they can vacuum out of your wallet.
It's about control (Score:3)
I am very small handful of people who can afford the large capital expenditure and the periodic maintenance will put solar on their roofs to ameliorate all that. But the majority of people are going to be stuck on the grid and frankly the grade is just going to be more efficient than individuals putting solar on their roofs. Never mind that you're not going to be building a wind farm an
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Meanwhile, red blooded, conservative, Trump-loving, Fox-watching, Carlson-and-loomer-watching businessmen in Texas are quietly installing as much solar and wind energy as they can get their hands on. Because theyve seen the actual numbers and know that solar and wind are the best business proposition and the quickest ROI of all the energy sources.
It's worth noting that New York is run by the Democrats and North Carolina has recently been Democratic Party leaning. This is likely why they are targeted and Texas is ignored. Trump probably knows there is no real future in fossil fuels, but he'll be dead when nobody can deny that in the USA and his idiot sycophantic followers are huge "Drill baby, drill" people, so this plays well to their belief that solar and wind power are evil.
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That will only happen after putler croaks and this will take quite a while. Possibly decades.
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I'm waiting for them to complain about the word transistor.
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Dude. When you have more electricity, you have cheaper electricity. And even now, it's cheaper for most deliveries to use electric vehicles, and not by a small margin. The reason they use gas now is that's what they own. Small operators don't know how much they'd save with electric and are fearful, and buy new gas trucks. Most larger operators are buying a mix of gas and electric, and will move, as we have more cheap electricity to almost completely electric fleets. Kneecapping wind farms only slows s
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Well not by road that's for sure. So why on earth do you think this has any bearing on EVs?
FYI they are shipped by container ship which are massively efficient vehicles which go between major, well equipped container ports. It's not even that far as container transport goes, so when it goes electric for that trip you'll have to invent yet another stupid excuse as to why an EV could never work for you.
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Did you or did you not ask exactly this:
So I will ask you too.. how are pineapples shipped from Costa Rica without fossil fuels?
Yeah you did. You didn't like the answer so now you're asking a different dumbfuck question!
You clearly have a hate-boner for EVs and have decided that somehow rural Costa-Rican bulk farm produce shippers have some relevance as to whether an EV would work for you.
I mean you thought that container ship operators did to for a while...
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except that up until now I have just been trying to get through to you what 'productiom' means.
No, you haven't. You smugly asked a rhetorical question about transport only it turns out that pineapples come by sea. Not only is that completely irrelevant for road EV transport but the big container ship companies are working on electric cargo ships and ranges are approaching the Costa Rica-USA routes.
So naturally you switched gears to a completely new question without even acknowledging the answer.
And that's b
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Re:Well cult followers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well cult followers (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Informative)
My electric util pays me. Why? I have solar and push back to the grid. My neighbor was bitching about their $600 electric bill, I told him last month I got a credit. He was angry AF. So, your comment is bullshit and you know it. MAGA moron, you can't even log in so you're just a troll.
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Why are you talking about solar when this story is about windmills?
Round here, Finland, there are windmills. Electricity can be very cheap when the wind blows. When it doesn't much electric becomes very expensive. For example today 0.1 Euro per kWh. Last month 30.0 to 50.0 Euro per kWh. On top of that if I want to opt for 100% energy from renewable sources I need to pay more! Not less.
All this tells me that windmills not only destroy the beauty of the countryside they also don't work very well.
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That is quite rustic, but cute. Here in Germany we make flour using electrical grinders instead.
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Buy a treadmill and grind your own flour while offsetting the carbohydrates in the bread you're baking.
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
Electricity can be very cheap when the wind blows.
Which is why we want to put them offshore where there is almost always air moving. It's also why you combine it with solar and other renewables so they can compensate for each other. You can't just rely on one. Fossil fuels literally cannot be replaced with more and investing in them in a loser's game of diminishing returns. They WILL be forced to pivot away eventually - one way or another. The sooner they do, the better for everyone (including them if they divest correctly).
not only destroy the beauty of the countryside
Your subjective perception of beauty is irrelevant. And if it was actually important to you, you'd be against the fossil fuel industry constantly *actually* ruining nature by poisoning and killing it. Those industries are responsible for almost 90% of all CO2 emissions.
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Today whole day is ~2c/kWh. "don't work very well". vittu mikä palikka.
Re: Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
Would you rather be looking at windmills or oil pumps and refineries?
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Your system works providing only a minority of people do it. In literally every country where solar has become the majority there has been a push to not pay you for exporting power to the grid, and in some cases even charging you to do so. Your electricity bill goes to more than just being fed electrons. When you don't pay it, you start to end up with your infrastructure falling apart.
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"Your system works providing only a minority of people do it."
Is that a problem? Or just an entitlement?
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
If I have my own source of electricity not relying on the grid, then that is my decision. If it makes business sense, why should I forego it? If it satisfies me as a hobby project, why should I abandon it? If the utility wants to pay me for my leftover electricity, why not sell it to the utility? This is none of your concern.
And the alleged problems for bird life are about the same than each single tree on the landscape. Yes, birds sometimes hit trees, because either they have misjudged their trajectory from the start (birds can be clumsy too), or because a sudden gust of wind blew them away. I sometimes find birds knocked unconsciously on our terrace, because they flew against the wall. Shit happens. To make this a problem of wind turbines is just arbitrarily and selectively projecting blame.
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Cats are by far the biggest killer of birds, followed by buildings. There is a problem with wind killing bats, which is fairly easy to mitigate by detecting the migrating bats and slowing down the turbines. End up lowering production by a percent or so.
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Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Informative)
"...the difference between solar and wind known problems..."
What are these "known problems", let's hear it.
"...you will then understand why you sound like an uneducated libtard infected with TDS."
And there it is, MAGA rah rah. It's funny how a "libtard" always sounds like you, according to you.
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Well, TDS is real - the fanbois of the orange shitgibbon are indeed usually deranged.
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
Well, TDS is real - the fanbois of the orange shitgibbon are indeed usually deranged.
Well, in this case the funniest thing is that Trump is absolutely making the case for both solar and wind and the wierd ranting just brings more attention to that fact. China has been much more insulated from the New Gulf War than other nations because of their huge amount of renewable energy. China is rescuing Cuba by supplying them with solar panels.Other places are getting into trouble basically in inverse proportion to how much of their energy is renewable and so on.
Having energy supply systems that don't need fuel turns out to be a huge advantage in war or otherwise unstable times.
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When you understand the difference between solar and wind known problems, you will then understand why you sound like an uneducated libtard infected with TDS.
Learn something today instead. I dare you to understand how wind turbine challenges have fuck all to do with your solar example.
Large scale wind is a way better choice than solar for the grid and well worth extra maintenance costs.
Re: Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
Yes, because oil has never had any catastrophic failures in it's 100 year history, has it?
Can we talk about "least harm principle" for a second?
When a wind turbine fails, there is a single prompt concern about flying debris, according to you.
When a oil tanker or offshore drilling rig fails, there is a months-long ongoing destruction of an entire ocean ecology.
I'd rather dodge the incoming turbine blade than pollute miles of coastline and kill untold numbers of birds and fish. But that's just me.
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Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Interesting)
Plus, why were we paying a French company in the first place?
Well, we WERE paying them to generate electricity for us. But thanks to the stable genius that is Trump, we will now pay them to NOT generate electricity for us. Man, I sure am tired of all this winning!
Re:Well cult followers (Score:4, Insightful)
Hey Magat dipshit, we used wind power for literal centuries before deciding to torch the planet instead.
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
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Since all 21st Century turbines require a shitload of fossil-grade oil to lubricate them,
So? 21st century wind turbines are fucking huge. The "shit load" as you so deceptively put it is a tiny drop in the bucket compared to the amount of oil needed to match the power output of the turbine.
as well as being made out of materials too costly to recycle.
Fossil fuel advocates suddenly all worried about recycling? Haha pull the other one.
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Personally, I like sea birds and sea life. I don't know what you have against them. Plus, why were we paying a French company in the first place?
Bravo on that perfect parody of a MAGA, in the first part, there's the wildly exaggerated nonsense about wind turbines that ignores reality. Then, in the second part, there's some hatred of the French, combined with the standard confusion about what Trump is actually doing where they condemn what Trump is actually doing because they're confused and think he's doing the opposite. Perfect!
Wind power doesn't really work anyway. They recently had to tear down a bunch of giant wind turbines near where I live because they failed after a couple of years. The whole thing has been a giant boondoggle.
Then there's the dubious personal anecdote that, even if here's some basis in truth, is clearly misrepresenting what actua
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Informative)
You're *still paying* a French company to build power infrastructure, you gibbering fuckwit, it says so right in the story. You're paying them a refund and then paying them to build an LNG plant and then you'll pay other countries for the fuel. You will pay and pay and pay to other countries for this and similar decisions.
Re: Well cult followers (Score:2)
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Personally, I like sea birds and sea life.
And they'll be fine.
Plus, why were we paying a French company in the first place?
They *were* paying *us*.
Wind power doesn't really work anyway.
Yes, it does.
They recently had to tear down a bunch of giant wind turbines near where I live because they failed after a couple of years. The whole thing has been a giant boondoggle.
Your city and/or the contractors who installed them are at fault, not the turbines themselves. Mismanaged companies are still mismanaged companies no matter what sector they're in.
Turns out power sources that have worked for over a century continue to work to this day.
Except that they're dirty, finite, and they aren't efficient enough. If we plopped a small personal household wind turbine (along with solar roof panels) on every single house/business in the world, we would generate more electricity than the current global demand.
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"Plus, why were we paying a French company in the first place?"
We weren't, they were paying us. Dipshit.
"Wind power doesn't really work anyway."
There ya go. This is what Putin's money pays for now. Even SuperKendall won't put his name on it.
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Funny)
JD Vance is a lot of terrible things, a "wholly unqualified minority woman" is not one of them.
"No. I’m not going to bother asking why."
That would require intellect and curiousity, neither of which you demonstrate.
"Go figure."
Go figure what? What have you ever figured in your life?
Re:Well cult followers (Score:4, Insightful)
Tell me, was it intellect or curiosity that cast your vote for President Autopen
Trump uses the autopen all the time. Here he is admitting it. https://www.newsweek.com/donal... [newsweek.com]
and Vice President Word Salad, Open Border Czar?
"Look, having nuclear — my uncle was a great professor and scientist and engineer, Dr. John Trump at MIT; good genes, very good genes, OK, very smart, the Wharton School of Finance, very good, very smart — you know, if you're a conservative Republican, if I were a liberal, if, like, OK, if I ran as a liberal Democrat, they would say I'm one of the smartest people anywhere in the world — it's true! — but when you're a conservative Republican they try — oh, do they do a number — that's why I always start off: Went to Wharton, was a good student, went there, went there, did this, built a fortune — you know I have to give my like credentials all the time, because we're a little disadvantaged — but you look at the nuclear deal, the thing that really bothers me — it would have been so easy, and it's not as important as these lives are — nuclear is so powerful; my uncle explained that to me many, many years ago, the power and that was 35 years ago; he would explain the power of what's going to happen and he was right, who would have thought? — but when you look at what's going on with the four prisoners — now it used to be three, now it's four — but when it was three and even now, I would have said it's all in the messenger; fellas, and it is fellas because, you know, they don't, they haven't figured that the women are smarter right now than the men, so, you know, it's gonna take them about another 150 years — but the Persians are great negotiators, the Iranians are great negotiators, so, and they, they just killed, they just killed us, this is horrible."
The long-TDS outbreak containment team is finalizing the character traits to be studied further. Seems that joking after a loss that impactful, has triggered more than a mere curiosity about sanity.
To clarify, it’s the insanely unaccountable mentality that ironically elected President Trump again. Talk about the ultimate double-down.
* golf clap *
You're a step away from downing that kool aid.
Re:Well cult followers (Score:5, Insightful)
The current President can't even stay on topic while talking about the war he started - he drifts to talking about his stupid fucking ballroom that literally nobody but him cares about, other than being pissed that he tore down half the White House without any process whatsoever. But do go on talking about voting for a man suffering dementia and a wholly unqualified person to be VP.
Have you even seen what this pair of chuds are up to?
- Illegally levying taxes on the public without constitutional authority.
- Illegally starting wars without a vote in Congress, or even as much as a briefing of the "Gang of Eight"
- Illegal recisions of spending laws
- Illegal meddling and tampering with voting systems and ballots, when the federal executive has absolutely no authority in state elections
- Illegal redaction and concealment of files pertaining to the investigations of Jeffrey Epstein, under the law Trump himself signed
- Suspension of oil embargos against Russia and Iran because of their own super predictable strategic fuckups when adversaries do exactly what they say they will do, and have the capability to do
- Constant lying to even the MAGA base:
- where are the prices that would be lowered on "day 1" ?
- where is the end of the war in Ukraine that was promised on "day 1"?
- where is all the prosperity that was promised from the illegal tariffs being paid by Americans, and not foreign countries? I got a bill from FedEx for the tariffs on a pillow case the other day - care to explain that?
- why are we claiming poverty and closing hospitals, and then requesting $200B to drop bombs on people?
You should probably sit down before talking about dementia and unqualified running mates.
Say, what qualifications does JD Vance hold that Kamala Harris doesn't?
They both have law degrees.
They both served as US Senators.
One served as a prosecutor and a state Attorney General. The other wrote a book and was a TV news talking head.
Oh, one is a non-white woman, and the other is a white man. I think we know what your "qualifications" are.
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From the looks of it, you actually voted for a man suffering from dementia
Both major candidates were obviously suffering from mental decline. Trumps decline being far more advanced than the other candidate. Trump was better at hiding it because he is a simpleton like a pull string doll / Eliza chatbot. He just keeps repeating the same handful of loaded phrases over and over again and is unbounded by facts or reality.
and a wholly unqualified minority woman, to lead a country.
Trump is a wholly unqualified fat senile geezer with CVI who incoherently rambles and falls asleep at his own meetings.
No. Iâ(TM)m not going to bother asking why. We already have enough field data to begin the psychological trials for long-TDS
Humans value integrity, trust and reputation
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If the off-shore wind farms are such an obvious win, then they don’t need that billion.
They're not getting subsidies to build wind farms. They're getting a cool billion to not build wind farms.
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What "subsidies" ?
They were paying US to build this. Now we are paying them not to.
I don't care if you post anonymous or not. You are a fucking idiot. And you know you are a fucking idiot which is why you are choosing anonymous posting.
Incredible (Score:5, Interesting)
Only 1/200th the cost of starting a war in the middle east! https://apnews.com/article/ira... [apnews.com]
Re:Incredible (Score:5, Insightful)
Re: Incredible (Score:4, Funny)
Relax dude, you are losing the war.
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As inept propaganda efforts go, paying to not get supplied with energy at $1B is sure cheaper.
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Re:The full context (Score:4, Insightful)
America's doing such a good job at being the little bitch boy to Iran... "ooooh we had productive talks".
there are no talks going on. two times in a row usrael attacked treacherously during negotiations while talking about "productive talks". there is no way iran can trust anything usrael says anymore, nor can any other country in the world for that matter. this is why iran has clearly stated that there will be no talks whatsoever until after their demands have actually been met: guarantees to not attack again, lifting of sanctions, reparations. since trust isn't an option and the us regime clearly (and openly) expresses contempt for international law the only way those guarantees can be met is by the us effectively pulling out of the region. the closest thing to any "talks" is that iran has acknowledged they got a proposal from the us communicated via a "third party". don't get any hopes.
trump's lies about any talks going on are just to mitigate the growing damage on the stock and energy markets they can't avoid anymore. it worked ... for a few hours. the current "5 day deadline" just 24h into the previous "48h deadline" threatening attacks on energy production is likely just another ruse because more time is needed to prepare for those. if recent history is any indication expect those attacks by surprise a couple of days before the deadline hits. (israel already started these attacks just yesterday, the umpteenth time forcing trump into action because they don't give a shit about the us or world peace or armageddon).
Oh wait, that's right, he ended the prohibition on Iran's oil, so America is actively funding Iran's war against itself.
temporarily, to prevent oil prices from spiralling out of control. the inconvenience of allowing iran to make some money is more than offset by mitigating the global economic catastrophe this whole clusterfuck has unleashed. that's actually about the only sensible and rational decision he has made for a long while. still, that will only offset the coming shitstorm for a short while, not avoid it.
Re:The full context (Score:4, Interesting)
"The deputy speaker of Iran’s parliament ruled out negotiations with Trump. Fars quoted Ali Nikzad as saying Iran would not negotiate “with someone who is a liar and in whom there is no sign of honor, humanity, or conscience.” from https://finance.yahoo.com/news... [yahoo.com]
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Yep. Still registering all the payback from 1953.
Re:The full context (Score:5, Insightful)
There is no way anyone is freeing 90 million Iranians. That is delusional. The USA's history of bringing freedom and democracy to such places is dismally poor.
Re:The full context (Score:5, Interesting)
The USA's history of bringing freedom and democracy to such places is dismally poor.
It's somewhat worse than dismally poor. Iran was a free democracy until America and the UK stepped in because of oil and installed the Shah.
Re:The full context (Score:5, Informative)
That's not even wrong. The Iranian people will eventually remove the ayatollahs from their misery on their own given the increasing frequency of their eruptions against that regime. The only problem is that then la Presidenta cannot claim it as a "win".
Let's list some of la Presidenta's wins, shall we:
1. The Big Dumb Bill locking in eye-watering deficits far into the future and thus jeopardizing the stability of the U.S. as a nation.
2. Tearing health care from millions of Americans so he could pay off the rich folks.
3. Industrial scale grifting for he and his family.
4. Screwing up foreign aid which was minuscule in the Fed. Budget thus essentially poisoning millions of people world-wide.
5. Building a private army of thugs stealing people off the street and now infesting the nation's airports.
6. Razing science budgets, especially mRNA research, which is a promising technology to counter cancer and other diseases.
7. Sending NASA off on some dumb mission to populate the moon for no particular reason.
8. Canceling the Kennedy Center.
9. Turing the U.S. government into a pay-for-play enterprise.
10. Reducing the U.S. Dept. of Justice to the point where they lost over 7000 lawyers (they couldn't put up with the increase in vomiting) and where judges across the country tell the DoJ they do not trust them any longer.
11. Weaponizing the DoJ doing exactly what he accused the Biden Administration of doing.
12. Dragging the U.S. standing in the world to below that of Russia.
13. Sucking up the Putin.
14. Throwing the Ukrainians under Putin's bus.
15. Blowing up boats in the Caribbean for no valid reason other than he likes to see them go boom.
16. Starting a needless war thus emptying U.S. stockpiles of munitions putting the U.S. at risk for defending itself and whatever friends it has left, and then causing the gas price to increase by a third, and then asking Congress to help that idiot pay for the war to the tune of $200 billion dwarfing the $34 Billion in heath care he took away.
17. Spreading lies about migrants voting when the numbers of illegal voting are vanishingly small.
18. Demonizing migrants and blaming them for all the troubles his Nazi sympathizers cause.
19. Stealing migrants and shipping them off into foreign prisons, don't forget, we're a fucking Christian nation.
Damn, life is too short but I could go on quite a while.
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Maybe they will overthrow the ayatollahs, but probably not since the revolutionary guards are willing to kill as many people as necessary to suppress dissent.
This is why the orange shitgibbon is deluded if he thinks he can overthrow Iranian regime.
Re:The full context (Score:4, Interesting)
There's potential payback in freeing 90 million Iranians, grinding out Iran's worldwide terrorism, and eliminating Iran's support of totalitarian regimes.
Trump doesn't give a flying fuck about anyone or anything. He literally wants "the oil".
"It's all about installing someone like a Delcy Rodriguez in Venezuela that we say, We're going to keep you there. We're going to not take you out. You're going to work with us. You're going to give us a good deal, a first deal on the oil"
https://www.politico.com/news/... [politico.com]
Your tax dollars at work (Score:5, Insightful)
Paying more taxes and creating more debt to have less infrastructure and less proof against global petroleum market instability. From the brilliant mind of a Wharton School economics graduate.
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Not that I like the decision, but it's cleverly done. The headline is misleading. the company will get reimbursed for their purchased licences for the offshore development, and build some natgas facility instead with the same money. It's money-neutral for everyone involved, and it develops some sort of energy infrastructure.
Of course it is only a dilatory move that has no perspective of enduring a change of political leadership, but that's not the issue today.
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Are you ignoring the obvious fact that coal has to be mined constantly manually,
I am against burning coal and definitively want more windmills in my neighborhood. My point is only that this is not a case of "more taxes and creating more debt to have less infrastructure". They were more clever than that in the design of their evil plan.
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There is absolutely no way this is actually money-neutral for the US government. That would require a degree of executional competence that is patently well beyond them.
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> It's money-neutral for everyone involved
Not only will the LNG plant absolutely cost more than $1B by the time it's all said and done.
Not only is LNG something that needs to be paid for in perpetuity, unlike wind, which means an ongoing expense that will be paid by utility customers.
Not only is the price of that LNG linked to global markets which are, for lots of reasons, more expensive and volatile now and will be for the foreseeable future.
But the LNG plant will be built in Texas, and does not generat
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The USA could have kept the billion dollars, allow Total to build the wind turbines, and still find a builder (whether it's Total or someonelse) to make a LNG export plant in Texas.
It's not as if the two projects couldn't be done in parallel. What matters here is that Trump gave $1B to a corporation to prevent it from building wind turbines. Most likely the fossil fuel lobby at works here who didn't want competition from renewable electricity producers.
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My guess is both are correct. Your government gave away a billion dollars in fees to lease land on your maritime domain; now moving to Texas they still need to lease or purchase land from someone to whatever is the current market price.
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Says "OrangeTide"
Re:Economic Sanity (Score:4, Informative)
Correct, offshore wind energy is far more expensive than onshore wind, although it does have a slightly higher capacity factor. Floating offshore wind is a factor of two (at least) more expensive again.
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Correct, offshore wind energy is far more expensive than onshore wind, although it does have a slightly higher capacity factor. Floating offshore wind is a factor of two (at least) more expensive again.
Interesting. You were just down-modded for a purely factual statement.
Double checking facts (Score:5, Informative)
Double checking, the "at least double" and "slightly higher capacity factor" might be considered inaccurate enough to downmod.
Onshore vs offshore wind energy: types of wind energy, difference and cost [freen.com]
Suggests a 43% price increase per MW, but capacity factor goes to 38% from 24%, a 58% increase.
So if we take $3.13M per MW divided by .24 = $13M per capacity factor adjusted continuous MW for onshore. .38 = $12M per MW adjusted.
$4.49M per MW for offshore divided by
This makes offshore slightly cheaper.
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It's true that Texas has fantastically cheap onshore wind due to its geography. But that isn't true in the north east of the US, where the geography is much less favourable (and also insolation). The costs of a distribution network to take meaningful amounts of net new power from Texas to New York would be enough to swamp the LCOE benefits of Texan wind. So offshore wind is actually more financially compelling than onshore for these places
It doesn't seem that bad (Score:2)
Double checking, the "at least double" and "slightly higher capacity factor" might be considered inaccurate.
Onshore vs offshore wind energy: types of wind energy, difference and cost [freen.com]
This site suggests a 43% price increase per MW, but capacity factor goes to 38% from 24%, a 58% increase.
So if we take $3.13M per MW divided by .24 = $13M per capacity factor adjusted continuous MW for onshore. .38 = $12M per MW adjusted.
$4.49M per MW for offshore divided by
Though NREL 2024 [nrel.gov] has levelized cost of energy for offsh
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It is far more expensive, but there are also some other benefits. Energy production is more reliable because of more dependable wind velocities at sea. There are also fewer issues with available space in some regions (but I guess not really Texas).
Congress is the one with the purse (Score:5, Interesting)
I think this should be ruled unconstitutional. It is congress that has the power of the purse, Trump shouldn't be able to pay anything for something like this without their approval.
If he does cause it to be paid, it should come out of his own personal finances.
Re:Congress is the one with the purse (Score:4, Interesting)
Donald Trump's personal finances include the government's money. SCOTUS said so with the absolute immunity decision. Donald Trump is immune from law.
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Remember when the Supreme Court ruled Biden's idea to forgive or "refund" people's student loans was unconstitutional?
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Remember when the Supreme Court ruled Biden's idea to forgive or "refund" people's student loans was unconstitutional?
That's an... odd... definition of "refund".
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The Department of Interior is refunding fees
The DOI has stated that it will refund the fees 'after the investments have been made'. Whether it actually does so, remains to be seen. It would not be out of character for the payment never to be made.
Does anyone know who buys energy from Total Energy (Score:2)
You might wish to consider whether or not to buy from those who buy from total energy.
If anyone knows who their customers are, please share.
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If anyone knows who their customers are, please share.
A really large bunch of people and industries are their customers. They're world's #6 largest oil company, and world's overall #35 by revenue https://companiesmarketcap.com... [companiesmarketcap.com]
Aiding and Abetting (Score:4, Interesting)
How's that working out so far? It's seems likely that the current situation in the middle east, resulting in increases worldwide (including the US) in fossil fuel energy prices is going to accelerate the uptake of renewables and a decreased dependency on the oil in the rest of the world. The major beneficiary of that is China - solar panels, heat pumps and world-leading EVs.
It's bribes (Score:2)
And threw it all somehow he still has a 40% approval rating because, oh Jesus Christ I can't even come up with a stupid witty comment here what the hell is wrong with this country?
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That 40% approval rating tells you that 40% of the population (well, more than that) understand absolutely nothing. Not good.
Thank Trump for DOGE! (Score:4, Funny)
So short sighted, and dumb.. (Score:5, Insightful)
President Donald Trump has gone all in on fossil fuels, which he says is the way to lower costs for families, ...
And how does *also* allowing non fossil-fuel energy, like wind and solar, hurt any of that? More sources increases availability, reliability and total capacity. The only way banning renewables helps would be if one is heavily invested in fossil fuel power and you don't want competition - oh, wait... Is he going to ban nuclear plants too?
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You ask: "And how does *also* allowing non fossil-fuel energy, like wind and solar, hurt any of that?"
Answer: intermittency. Adding wind and solar to the generating system just adds cost for no benefit.
If you want detailed case histories of this look at the UK, the usual canary. You will find that the useless intermittent supply from wind and solar comes in, on the bids, far higher than conventional. Regulation is needed to force utilities to buy it. And that is for an intermittent supply. There is
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Lots more on costs, subsidies and constraint if you explore the site. The political consensus in the UK seems to be turning against the so called energy transition. The situation in the Gulf is clarifying minds. The absurdity of the idea that moving to intermittent wind and solar is either possible or is going to increase energy security or reduce energy prices is becoming obvious.
Funny—I’d actually say the opposite is happening. When people keep hearing of how well insulated China’s transport sector is from the ongoing oil crisis, how far ahead it is in the energy transition, and how quickly it continues to ramp up that transition, the picture they form is quite different.
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Fossil fuels are also "intermittent", the answer for them is also "intermittency". To overcome an empty tank you have to build infrastructure, fossil fuels "just add cost for no benefit".
Made that back manipulating the stock exchange (Score:5, Interesting)
With his fake peace negotiations with Iran.
Perfect timing! (Score:3)
What with oil heading for $200/bbl, now couldn't be a better time to abandon renewables! What a masterful move!
Trump just has a grudge against wind turbines (Score:4, Informative)
The reason for why this happened is very simple: petty and childish.
In 2006, Trump started developing a golf course on the coast of Aberdeenshire in Scotland. Then a project started to build a wind farm consisting of 11 wind turbines off the coast. .... And then the turbines were built.
Trump opposed the project for the only reason that they would be visible from his golf course.
He appealed, lost, appealed and lost in court and had to pay legal fees
And that is why Trump holds a grudge against wind turbines.
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Apparently this is what our collective tax money is going towards...
The money is a refund of lease money the French company paid the U.S. earlier. Not taxpayer money.
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1. The balsa trees were largely from plantations, not wild balsa trees
2. There are about 390 billion trees in the Amazon
3. The plantations covered about 10k hectares out of the 700m hectares of the Amazon basin
4. About 4.5m hectares of Amazon basin are lost annually, mainly due to deforestation and fires, and climate change is a force multiplier for both of those
Here you are talking about forests, and you can't see the wood for the trees