US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects | Hacker News Reader

US strikes $1.2B deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects

bbc.com

910 pointsdefrost887 comments

> 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?

> not one dependent on "costly subsidies".

While paying out 1.2 billion dollars.

Mostly this is just about giving back the money RWE paid for the leases from the US government to build those turbines. Plus various fees. They could have went for suing for total profits too.

> RWE U.S. Offshore secured these leases from the U.S. government with a long-term commitment to develop offshore wind capacity in American waters and invested more than $1 billion toward the leases and the development of these projects. These leases provided legal rights to develop offshore projects and represented years of planning, investment, and partnership with federal agencies.

> After careful consideration, it was determined there is no path forward to permit these projects in the U.S. for the foreseeable future. The settlement resolves RWE U.S. Offshore’s legal claims and provides $1.22 billion in settlement funds.

https://www.rwe.com/en/investor-relations/financial-calendar...

Out country is ran by bunch of Lionel Hutz clones

Art of the deal: Pay $1.2B in exchange for a $900M investment elsewhere.

> > not one dependent on "costly subsidies".

> While paying out 1.2 billion dollars.

for nothing. to literally replace some energy with no energy.

Narrative is defined by ideology and the media machinery able to sustain it. Facts are woven in only when serving the desired reality.

If you and I listened to the propaganda on the regular basis, our intuitive knowledge would associate clean energy with isolated from reality snowflake liberals, hippies, abortion, subsidies, as opposed to fossil fuel energy associated with manliness, strength, common sense, “good old values”, military strength, and freedom.

Just like beef (“it’s what’s for dinner”) and a delicious juicy rare steak. See?

I recommend checking out George Lakoff’s work on the power of identity and metaphors. Look up his “moral politics” lecture on YouTube.

Oh that's not nearly the amount of fossil subsidies. Some say it's $31b/yr direct. If you factor in indirect costs like climate damage, health expenses, oil wars, etc, it's much higher. Renewables are much, much cheaper regardless of a little incentive, if there are any left.

https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2025/sep/09/fossil-f...

All kinds of power generation are typically heavily subdized in some way. I do not think this "common sense" strategy exists.

"common sense" is common sense because it is not "specialised sense" or "expert sense"

So if politicians base their decisions on "common sense", they confess to not being able to use experts that refine their knowledge and position about a topic.

A "common sense" strategy is therefore what is most popular and on the basis of the understanding of laymen without deeper understanding or knowledge.

There are too many interested parties involved in the energy sector. The only common sense I can think of is solar+storage at the single building level and interconnected through smart grids with neighbours.

But that leaves out the government and all those interested parties so we're never ever getting that.

Indeed. Energy is at the core of everything we do. Make it more expensive, you immediately make some people go hungry, and then you also make everything else in the economy a tad more expensive, slowing things down, and as market readjusts and contracts, this makes even more people go hungry.

There's a really strong incentive to keep energy generation cheap, because pretty much every social and political issue is downstream of it.

That’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].

Subsidies (via tax or lack thereof) on aeroplane fuel is one that really does get overlooked. Yet on the other hand, use a few gallons in a car and you're demonised as a climate villain in name and taxes. Nobody factors in life of the car, the cost to dispose and replace the batteries in electric cars, or the whole aspect that cars made today are less serviceable than cars of old that its gone from being able to rebuild the car in your garage to waiting for spare parts from a dealer as it's all just replace or scrap today. So much focus on the short term, without focus on the larger picture and impact.

And don't forget ethanol, probably the least efficient form of energy ever discovered

I 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.

Please 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.

It'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. He thinks they're ugly and noisy.

Lying 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.

> 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-trum...

While they pay a subsidy: > RWE said that it will now reinvest the sum

It'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.

Okay then - let's stop subsidizing gasoline, yeah?

I 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.

To 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".

It’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.

> 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.

Inferior Secretary

I 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.

Never attribute to stupidity what can be attributed to self-interest. It sure looks stupid when you look at America or the Roman Empire as a whole. But when you look at the specific individuals doing these "stupid" things, and the individuals enabling them, it is perfectly aligned with their own best interests.

I like these comparison with Roman Empire but it seems too simplsitic and Ive learned that usually means "its not so right actually".

Meaning for example, what about empires that actually survived or adapted? What did they do that we know exactly didnt the Roman Empire do that saved them? How does zeitgeist impact this in the sense that what ruined Roman Empire might save a nation today?

Not trying to be negative, Im jsut geniunley curios because then if I was in government, Id be "yeah I see the same. I mscared as fuck were messing it up, but then what should we do?" because you see, everybody is giving at advice with very diverse and extreme ideas on what should happen. Probably with most of them you and I wouldnt be OK with (do Dictatorships work? ...).

Or simpler, we all agree on the problem. What are all the solutions and how do we know theyre the correct ones? Thats what Im thinking about the last years.

Older generation has lead poisoning from all the leaded gasoline burned

It seems like checks and balances are collapsing so the corruption gets worse, just selling out nature, our health more and more for personal gain until something breaks.

It feels like the rate of stupid we have achieved in the last (checks watch) ~18 months has surely eclipsed anything that may have occurred during the roman empire. By sheer volume alone?

Also, two other characteristics of the fall of roman empire:

1. It struggled to remain "solvent" because it lost taxable provinces relative to the costs of wars, administration, etc.

2. It took years for it to eventually "fall". It didn't just magically disappear overnight.

I mean no disrespect, but if you're seeing a deep parallel between the Roman Empire's final days and what's going on in the US today, I would say you need to study Roman history more. It was in deep chaos that most people in the world today can't even imagine.

The Empire was relentlessly invaded by tribes like the Visigoths and the Vandals, and they even sacked Rome multiple times in the 400s CE. There was a huge amount of political corruption, and no, I don't mean anything like what's going on in the US. Military leaders and royal guards fought each other for power, leading to frequent civil wars and leaders who didn't last long. No one wanted to join the military and so it had to hire foreign mercenaries who didn't really have any loyalty. The Roman Empire eventually split right in half because a single ruler could not project power over the entire territory. The Western Roman Empire spoke an entirely different language from the Eastern Roman Empire (Latin vs Greek)!

I'm sorry, but I keep hearing these comparisons from people who seem to have a very shallow understanding of history and are looking for patterns because they read online that the US is crumbling. Maybe, maybe not, but it is not the same thing or even similar. The differences are far more than the similarities.

The US sure seems to be speedrunning the collapse though.

Also the Roman culture towards the end was increasingly concerned with recycling old works and turning them into ever more ridiculous and derivative new works. Sound familiar?

> opting for authoritarianism before eventually the center can't hold any more and it all collapses in on itself

It all depends on what you define as the collapse of the Roman Empire, but the earliest sensible candidate date would be about four and a half centuries after the population 'opted' for authoritarianism (which wasn't much of a choice for anyone btw).

People need to stop making senseless historical comparisons.

> I read up recently on the history of the fall of the roman empire

> eventually opting for authoritarianism

The Roman Empire was always authoritarian. You might be interested in the collapse of the Roman Republic, where the abuse of slaves and farmers for the indulgence of the middle class and elites led to a popular clamoring for the strongman general Julius Caesar to impose justice (through dictatorship) on their "republic" by force, because their republic had never represented the demos.

I'm reading two books right now: Stefan Zweig's World of Yesterday and Ulrich Gutmair's First Days of Berlin. The similarities to the current state of US are eerie as hell.

Yes, Britain pretty much went the same way after World War I, and went into acceleration downward after World War II. The final cap may have been Brexit.

The falcon cannot hear the falconer.

That redux of "Rise and Fall of Roman Empire" suggests a policy shift, and a media shift, for USA and globally.

* Smart Decisions can be celebrated

* Stupid Decisions can be "5-whys" root-cause analyzed

Shaming, and all that, can be left aside. And instead focusing on the possible Wins.

A success-oriented approach, of applauding and ranking The Most Smart Policies, could be a way forward. It's innately motivating.

Democratic Decline is real. Voter apathy is real. Gaslighting by power-focused politicians is real, and lack of a "service" mindset by those politicians, too. This is compelling stuff, obsessing over doom, and it's demotivating.

Celebrating The Most Smart policies is something I enjoy. E.g. on YouTube there is a Good News channel which lists "top 10 good pro-environmental / pro-social actions":

- https://www.youtube.com/@itsSamBentley

I think you are over centering on recency rather than reality. The stuff that killed the roman empire went on for centuries.

> make stupider and stupider decisions on ever larger scales

They found the right man for it. Cometh the hour, cometh the man.

Was it a book you read? In interested.

This is the endgame of encouraging everyone to vote. The theory was representatives would be motivated to address the interests of everyone as a whole. The reality is politicians are motivated to take advantage of the stupid and the fearful in order to gain and exploit power.

Republicans are in a personality cult and establishment democrats are stuck in the midpoint between expoliting people the same way and expecting to win because they're "right" and "deserve" victory without the real consent of the people, equally as self interested but worse at it. The quiet racism of establishment democrats might save us by marginalizing muslim democrats -- there are a few of them like Mamdani who aren't allowed in the club and are thus actually thinking for themselves beyond self-interest and the corruption of the establishment. They as a group might save us.

If you want someone to blame, target the DNC. In a time of dangerous foolishness they utterly failed to and are continuing to fail to provide an attractive alternative.

If you want to help, give money to David Hogg.

which book was that ?

Where did you read up on it? Any good sources you can recommend?

Parts 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.

> Parts of the world are literally on fire but the US is redirecting money to halt renewables and towards gas.

Parts of the US are literally on fire.

* https://firms.modaps.eosdis.nasa.gov/usfs/map/#d:24hrs;@-100...

* https://wfca.com/fire-map

* https://www.nifc.gov/fire-information/maps

It is important to keep the main issue clear. Failing to invest in renewables is an existential risk to humanity's future. Permanently shutting all Datacenters (not just AI) saves us about 1 year.

Fun tidbit:

Climate change is real, caused by humans, and the fires were seeing are absolutely exacerbated by the effects of the climate.

However this is the _least_ on fire the world has been for a while because it's usually Asian and Africa that are rampantly burning and they're improving land management techniques enough that it's tamping down on the worst of the burns.

Progress isn't evenly distributed

The statistics for the number of deaths from climate-based disasters is clear: fewer and fewer people are dying the richer the world becomes. In fact the decrease in deaths is very significant:

"Annual climate-disaster deaths averaged around 77,000 per year in the 1960s–70s, dropped to about 33,000/year in the 1980s–90s, and fell further to roughly 27,000/year in 2000–2019 even as the number of recorded climate disasters rose from about 1,171 to 3,656 to 6,641 across those same periods."

If you're optimising for human life, then "drill baby drill", as more energy = more wealth. More wealth = better infrastructure, health care, dealing with extreme weather conditions.

And coal, he loves coal; same as our idiot Premier.

If we all die, whom will they charge 100 Euros per 1M tokens I wonder. True dilemma right here.

Offshore wind can power the data center too. Your dichotomy is not relevant

Insane.

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.

This is the exact reason it's happening. Offshore wind is cheaper than gas /kWh and would therefore kill Trump's fossil fuel donor's profits. So kill offshore wind and the grid is forced to go to more expensive fossil fuel sources, which increased the grid price and means extra profits go to those companies. All this raises energy prices.

What's insane is that one person will cite something this in one place, but the rest of the people in the thread say "why aren't we building wind and solar????"

We are building lots. Of everything.

They know what they're doing. The next administration will give them 1.2bn to start deploying offshore wind. Money for nothing!

Utterly Insane. I mean the saying "Truth is stranger than fiction" is proven true by this US administration again, again and again. If you put this as a plot point in a novel, you would get a 1-star rating with readers complaining about lack of realism.

Not great for the wildlife during drilling but it's better than the carbon rich alternatives.

It doesn't look cool. We should use less energy. But the turbines make the cost of the energy too obvious, we'd rather keep pretending there is no cost.

Where is “here”?

What's more mental you talk to any Germans about deprecating their Nuclear power stations they will bang on about their plan for renewables and then you read these sorts of headlines.

What the hell is happening over there? Why can't they get 'energy' despite being a scientifically literate nation. France has a far superior energy policy so it's not like you even have to travel beyond a few miles to see a wildly different price for electricity. At this rate French electricity will be half the price in a few years compared to German electricity. Germany is making mistake after mistake on energy. From Russian dependence to Nuclear scepticism to now accepting money to not build renewables.

Meanwhile 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.

As a proportion of total energy use, the US is ahead of China in moving away from fossil fuels by about 5 full percentage points. Most of the "energy independence" that China has is just based on burning coal.

https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/energy-mix?tab=stacked-di...

This is the second time this week I have seen this website misrepresenting data using this same trick.

Primary energy is not total energy generated its total energy in the fuel used.

On average coal / gas plants are only ~35% efficient so the graph does not correctly represent the useful energy generated as percentage.

The graph is basically putting actual energy generation of solar and wind next to actual energy generated by coal and gas multiplied by 3.

If they want to be even close to representative of reality they should multiply the solar power generated by 4. The same has to be done for the wind energy but I am not sure what the efficiency of that is.

From their page:

> Each source is measured by its physical energy content: fossil fuels and biomass by the heat released when they are burned; nuclear and geothermal by the heat they produce; and wind, solar, and hydropower by the electricity they generate.

This graph is far more representative of reality: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-mix?tab=stack...

China is still behind in percentage but by only 1-3%

Wanna know a great way to lose a race? Check your rear view mirror and see how far ahead you are and then let off the gas. Or worse, start braking.

We see a lot of competing views on the modern right and the most dominant one is the sort of peace through strength dominate the world stance, but I think one that doesn’t get talked about as much is that actually being the global hegemon and competitive in the world shifts power away from traditional power structures like the church.

So losing to China is a feature not a bug. I think This explains Republican obsession with countries like Russia and Hungary that are certainly a few steps down the economic ladder from us.

They 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.

You can look at current levels, or look at trends. China has stopped increasing coal. They're building a small number of new coal plants, but this is outstripped by the coal plants being underutilized or decommissioned

China is really only building new renewables, almost 100x as much net renewable capacity per year compared to nuclear.

This is misleading, because China has no gas, and they use coal power as dispatchable source with lower capacity factor (similar to gas elsewhere).

Coal+gas electricity is basically the same fraction in China than in the US.

But countries like Germany or Spain are significantly ahead in this regard, with much higher fraction of electrical energy coming from solar/wind.

See: https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/electricity-prod-source-s...

China 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.

The direction of travel is clear though. China is making massive investments in renewable energy (and dominating sectors like solar in the process) while the US seems hell bent on going the other way.

Slightly less than half now as of the most recent figures.

https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/china-generates-less...

> That [coal] share was well down from 65.5% in 2016, previous NEA figures showed.

> Renewable energy's share grew to 41.2% — topping 40% for the first time — and of that wind and solar accounted for 24.6%, Xing added. Wind and solar's share was up from 9.7% in 2020.

GP was talking about energy independence. They use domestic coal not imported coal, so the goal of energy independence is still achieved.

On the other hand only 3% of China's electricity comes from natural gas whereas 43% of US electricity does.

When combined coal and gas provide about 62% of China's electricity and 58% of US electricity. (Sources differ slightly on percentages. When you add in all fossil fuel electricity sources, China and the US get about the same percentage of electricity from them).

It is this way because China has plenty of coal and very little natural gas, whereas the US thanks to fracking has a lot of natural gas and it is much cheaper than coal so since then gas has rapidly replace coal.

That's the static picture. Now look at the first derivative. China is not just massively ahead at building renewables, they are massively ahead at building support infrastructure.

Look at UHV transmission lines for example: China has 60 000 km, quite a bit ahead of the 0 km in the US.

Things are changing. Look at starting points and direction, not just things as they currently are.

That said, renewable sources are so cheap and consequently economically appealing that not even the incredibly dumb Trump admin can stop them.

> Slightly more than half of electricity is generated by burning coal,

So this means, slightly less than half is other sources (hydro, solar, etc)

China thinks long-term, the US administration, especially the current one doesn't.

And who is to blame them (or to hold them accountable)? Some won't live long-term... I mean, being 80 and fat, what are the chances...

China thinks, the US administration doesn’t.

The US is the biggest oil producer in the world. Consumption does exceed production, but obviously this changes the calculus around energy independence.

It is the third largest coal producer, behind India and China.

Oh great. You've summoned the Sinophobes. You literally cannot say anything positive about China without these people coming out of the woodwork with their tired talking points.

The people running the government literally do not care. They only care about evading responsibility for decades of crimes by smashing all accountability mechanisms, disabling all oversight so they can loot the government, increasing dysfunction, feeding the culture war to keep us fighting each other over wedge issues instead of rising up, and flattering some utterly insane religious freaks so they have an immutable core of cult members. They're financed by America's arch enemies, easily manipulated, vain, and stupid. To them, America is a golden opportunity for naked theft of power and money.

Yes. Where is this money coming from anyway? If it was from the clean energy legislation, then surely this will be overturned

The US government is undoubtedly aware that renewables are the future.

I assume they're still cooking up a backup plan to the petrodollar system and it will be business as usual until they have one.

Expect the US to double down with weird gestures like this and to find ways to remind the world that oil is relevant for some time.

US is rich in fossil energy so it doesn't have the same incentives as China does obviously.

Someone who is "rich" in a consumable asset and therefore chooses to just consume that instead of investing in a renewable or compounding asset is colloquially known as "a dumbass."

> US is rich in fossil energy so it doesn't have the same incentives as China does obviously.

China isn't rich in fossil energy? That's news to me.

They are the world's largest coal producer and still create over half of their electricity from coal. The difference to the US is that China seems to realize that this strategy isn't a long term solution.

The 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.

No, 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.

In the USA's defence, the system that put these gangsters in charge also gives it a shot at changing course in a couple of years.

Honestly, despite having a wife from the US (not an US citizen anymore), I agree with you.

It is really weird to me that such a thing as lobbying can be legal. Or the fact that you can donate to an election campaign so that they have more money to influence people.

And it is even more surprising that the vast majority of US people don't even question these things. I have the theory that American exceptionalism hinders their critical thinking when it comes to these kind of subjects. Ie "If we decided to do it like this, it means is the best way possible".

149 days until Jan 3, when new representatives are seated.

I'm baffled why Germany would allow this, you'd think they and the rest of Europe would understand the importance of energy independence at this point.

It really is. “This is bad. When will someone stop us?”

Not evil, just dumb.

Hopefully they take the money and use to to build more wind turbines in Europe I guess.

Absolutely shameful what the USA has become.

>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.

That kinda stinks, I wonder if getting the settlement was contingent on the re-investment.

Yeah, 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.

This is beyond my understanding. They are actually paying to stop society from advancing.

Because the money they are spending and the money they will be making comes and ends in different pockets.

Trump 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.

When 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.

Pool some money together to build a coal power plant next to Mar-a-Lago.

To be fair, this seems consistent with what they normally do, and arguably consistent with what their voters want.

And because I love the game of explaining direct costs: every single taxpayer just paid $10 for this.

Of course, since our government is flat broke, it's going to be more from interest on the debt.

As 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.

The epitome of conservatism.

Welcome to American conservatism.

Situation 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.

What about the several other projects in progress? What about the ones that were completed? They all had risk factors.

why was the venture risky?

I 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.

As well as all the other species.

More and more it seems like we're trying to do a speed run of killing our planet (or rather a planet worth living on).

Yes 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.

Can I also threaten to build an offshore wind project if they don't pay me $1.2 billion?

These 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.

Only if you are willing to be harassed by Trump for as long as he and his sons live.

Quick! Back to the other thread! I've spotted somewhere DOGE could recoup $1.2B

I 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.

I have to say, being able to find the silver lining in 6 years of fascist policy before this is impressive.

Also,

> 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.

I had to check that, It is 129 million

Indeed: https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-announces-energy-...

RWE 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.

Energy lobby in the USA is incredible. Maybe the best one? They have direct power too

That 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.

You would think that the US would be all for energy that reduces its reliance on the far east, regardless of the climate change benefit

Except, it's not "the US", just some minority with direct financial ties.

> 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?

Just 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.

Thank you for this, I'm going to just accept this theory and close the thread because it makes me so upset, lol

Why 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?

Please always vote.

Thank you. :)

Just “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

Please don't vote anymore, don't let the farce continue.

Thank you. :)

It's really depressing to know my own taxes are going to shit like this and feel so helpless to stop it.

Many 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.

"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.

Wow what a great value on those $1.2B for the taxpayers!

We 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.

Thought process is: "me and my buddies get richer, fuck all of you"

Is the policy now to "harvest whatever we can ASAP" without any regard or consideration for the future or the environment?

> 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".

Or, 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...

Is 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?

I 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.

Wait 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.

I am available to not build wind turbines at a substantial discount.

> "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?

If 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.

I wonder how Americans feel to see that their elected president takes tax money to forcefully destroy the planet and our kid's future :-(

This one hurts. Lots of bad news flying around here but this one hit a bit different.

Fully one third absolutely love it.

We found trump's achilles heel. I demand a trillion to shut down my solar

This 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.

You 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.

Can the US please keep their bad decisions within their borders...

Why 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?

See this comment

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49208635

We 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

Tens 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"

So 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.

Because Trump hates wind power for "ruining the view". That's it.

https://www.youtube.com/shorts/uyLiON_f5c0

https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-scotland-north-east-orkney-shetl...

I 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.

This is, I suppose, what you get when you elect a guy who went bust running a casino. So much winning.

Offshore 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.

The 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.

Rolling out data centers all over the place and they're paying billions for LESS energy supply.

Geniuses.

"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.

As 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.

With 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.

At least we finally answered the Mad Max question "Who killed the world?"

Clown administration, there is nothing else to say. It’s completely captured by grifters at that point

We need more energy. We should be doing this, gas, nuclear, solar. Not either or.

̶W̶e̶i̶r̶d̶ ̶t̶o̶ ̶n̶o̶t̶ ̶m̶e̶n̶t̶i̶o̶n̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶d̶ ̶i̶n̶ ̶y̶o̶u̶r̶ ̶l̶i̶s̶t̶ ̶(̶e̶v̶e̶n̶ ̶o̶u̶t̶s̶i̶d̶e̶ ̶o̶f̶ ̶t̶h̶e̶ ̶c̶o̶n̶t̶e̶x̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶a̶t̶ ̶t̶h̶i̶s̶ ̶e̶n̶t̶i̶r̶e̶ ̶a̶r̶t̶i̶c̶l̶e̶ ̶i̶s̶ ̶a̶b̶o̶u̶t̶ ̶w̶i̶n̶d̶)̶.̶ (Edit: apparently I can't read today)

In most locations, unless you have extremely stable weather, it's ideal to have a nearly even mix of wind and solar capacity, since wind is rather strongly anticorrelated with sunshine.

We also need to use less total energy, regardless of source. That number doesn't have to always go up.

Where 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.

At what point is the correct response to just stop paying federal taxes?

been thinking that for awhile now

In 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-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-t...

Let'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

> 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?

We 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".

Fascinating 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.

Punishment for US will continue until more jail improves.

They 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

Take that $1.2bn. Invest it. When this moronic administration is gone, use it to build more renewable energy infrastructure.

I thought I misread the title at first. I assume we're going to pay labs to stop doing cancer research next?

Don't give them any ideas...

my 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

Why does Doug Burgum need to underscore the fact that the RWE investment is 'voluntary'?

Big Oil getting what they paid for.

Leave to the idiot cheato to be #1!

Nobody else ever spent this much money to NOT have cheap power 8-/

If they want to pay me to not build wind farms, I'll not build them for half that.

We 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-admini...

Anti wind farm rethoric is common among pro-Russian politicians in Bulgaria too.

take a look at what Spain is doing. diversifying the energy system is needed

This is Dr. Evil level stuff

(looks at Secretary of the Treasury...)

"SCOOOTTTTT !!!!!!"

Every single day it's getting stupider and stupider with the NewUSA

Trump administration’s latest buyback of offshore wind leases brings total to nearly $4 billion: https://www.bostonherald.com/2026/08/06/trump-offshore-wind-...

so 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

This administration just flushes taxpayers dollars down the toilet.

I 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)

Great article for April 1st! No, wait. It's August 7th. Wat.

everyone 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.

Energy independence still remains a rich mans hobby. Neighborhood sized micro-grids are the future.

The US continues to cede the energy revolution to China.

> 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.

Can a lawsuit stop this absolutely ridiculous deal?

Maybe. 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.

> dangerous to wildlife

Is this claim substantive at all?

Yes, 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.

Do 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.

One 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

Do they hate green energy that much?

Man - What exactly are these people?

2028, everyone. Hang in there.

did the onion just take over the BBC, what's going on right now ?

America first! Somehow?

Can't have wind power. Can't have bike lanes. Can't have trains. Can't have healthcare. Love this country!

To 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.

Beyond idiocy.

Ha, been there

November 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

Trump 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.

what will replace the wind projects?

> 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?

Idiot 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.

It'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

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity.

Barf

The madness continues. No one else is to blame other than the american zeros who made this hell to continue this long.

Don'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.

Now 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-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-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.

Maybe read the article before leaping to conclusions.

Just 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.

this is the stupidest thing ever. literally this administration cancels the contract and compensates german company... omg

Literally 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.

The 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.

The 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.

Dumb, Dumb Dumb….

is 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).

A refresh related to one of your points: Statista says for the US: Birds killed by wind turbines: about 140,000 to 680,000 birds per year. Bats ~ over 1 million bats killed per year in North America (~926,856 bats in the U.S. in 2023 and ~85,841.6 bats in Canada in 2020, totaling ~1,012,697 bats). Europe: ~780,000 total bat deaths per year across the USA, Germany, Canada, and the UK. And finally: ~7 bats per year per MW of installed capacity. This is one of the prices for collecting an extremely dilute form of energy. The latter statement is not put forward as an argument at all; merely a statement of fact. We shrug our shoulders and say - 'we'll live with that'. Others can detail the immense contribution of bats to the Agricultural Industry.

The art of the deal is historically mostly losing, flailing and bankruptcies

And here I'm saying again NAFO peps live in a bubble

What does NAFO have to do with anything here?

Offshore wind kills the jet stream and creates climate change.

The jetstreams are kilometers above sea level, no WEC is that high

In 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.

Don't make excuses for this destructive policy.

A visualization of turbines at different distances: 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-woul...

https://www.boem.gov/renewable-energy/state-activities/humbo...

Nice 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.

Exactly 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.

How 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?

It'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.

Probably a lot: https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC526278/

I 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.

There is no such thing as a free market, the way you refer to it.

A free market that avoids externalities like climate change?

This 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.

We 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.

> 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.

Wind 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.

US 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.

While these arguments are valid, you’re missing the forrest for the trees. Renewable energy has better long-term ROI because it doesn’t require constant purchase of fuel. Renewable energy plants also produce far, far less CO2 that goes into the atmosphere and endangers our biosphere (yours and mine).

>It’s good to reduce dependence on foreign supply chains

The fact that we're still basically entirely reliant on the middle east and other foreign producers for our domestic fuel supply suggests this isn't really that big of a deal. Even in the middle of a war that is generating massive profits for the oil industry, no one is suggesting they should add refinery capacity or convert existing ones to use domestic oil.

This move is about the president's personal vendetta against offshore wind and satisfying his financial backers in the fossil fuel industry.

Do 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?

> 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.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com