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

Leave to the idiot cheato to be #1!

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

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

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?

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.

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

Barf

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 the flying fuck are we still LARPing with toy projects like this shit?

1.2B gives you a 1-1.5GW nuclear power station that runs at 90% capacity 24/7 365 (minus occasional maintanance and refuling) day or night, wind or no wind.

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

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

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.

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).

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.

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

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.

In medieval times we used tiny amounts of energy on lighting and everyone sat around in the dark, however the energy used per lumen and indeed the carbon impact per lumen was far higher than it is today

Do you think we should return to medieval heat and light?

Pack your stuff and go to a country that uses less energy and leave the rest of us alone with the degrowth.

This is absolutely true. He has been angrily obsessed about this for years, and since he is a malignant narcissist with an ever greater need for narcissistic supply, his irritation has been manipulated by powerful lobbyists that tell him his instincts are brilliant and correct.

It's not a "whim." Trump has a whole aesthetic. The wind farm thing is a dumb manifestation of that aesthetic, but the aesthetic is one of the things people voted for. Trump is the closest person in the U.S. pushing something like the Singapore model of keeping public spaces nice for average people by fixing them up and jailing the small minority of people who create most of the ugliness and disorder. (As opposed to progressives who say they want nice public spaces in theory, but seek to do that by throwing money at the people causing problems instead of throwing them in jail.)

You don't have to like the policy, but it is a policy choice, guided by an overarching aesthetic and ideology. Trump's aesthetic is one of the reasons I think he and outgoing D.C. mayor Bowser low-key got along. She's been big on renovating parks, youth curfews, etc. (instead of "fix the root causes" and whatnot). DC hasn't looked this good in decades.

I'm sure you would welcome a data center in your backyard

Trump is either going to break the US, or the Republican party. Either way, we're in for a long period of one party rule and chaos.

And a population that seems content being manipulated.

Fraudulent minority too. Let's not forget Elon Musk was paying folk to vote for.

Putting aside the sycophantic wording around the orange leader and the total lack of details of how it's going to achieve what they are promising and what is actually going to happen, it's funny to see the distinction between gov officials and the Duke exec:

  Gov: valued at $129 million and reinvest that same amount in additional generating capacity


  Duke: will reinvest nearly $129 million in additional generating capacity, which may include

I somehow missed the "this", that makes way more sense, thank you for pointing it out.

Are you saying that wind farms think you are ugly and noisy?

We don't need to "think" if they are noisy. We can measure that. So how noisy are they?

I've never been particularly intrigued by the climate disaster angle. Not that it isn't an issue, but that it shouldn't be a prerequisite for a person to consume less by choice.

If I have to convince someone that 1) the climate is changing beyond historical patterns 2) I know the chemical/mechanical processes at play and 3) we caused it just so they turn off the TV when they leave the house or enjoy their current car a few years longer, its a situation that will never be resolved.

Atmospheric capture of CO2 seems to me to be one of the things pushed by the fossil fuel industry.

It is clearly not really feasable (at least not now). To me it just seems like the fossil fuel industry is doing the tobacco industry playbook of pushing stuff that doesn't actually work so people don't even try the stuff that does work: using less energy, and using less carbon intensive energy.

We really can move to less carbon intensive energy, there's lots of options all around us. Yes it means a systemic change - which is exactly what the fossil fuel industry doesn't want.

Plus they are building coal plants as backups for when other sources fail.

Your "growth at all costs" mindset is going to kill everyone, including yourself, so it's not as simple as just moving elsewhere.

Texae surely

They sure aren't

I've never seen one here, which makes sense because we don't use much coal. I suppose if they were 200m high and scattered across half the state I'd have a similar opinion.

Is all of their energy consumption met by domestic production?

And it's called "dutch disease".

We did it with gas. Now look at Norway. We could've been like Norway.

I'm not a huge fan of their aesthetic in its own right, but it beats the aesthetic of fossil fuel infrastructure any day in my view.

I don’t understand what pot of money this is coming out of. Has Congress authorized taxpayer money be used for paying energy companies to halt projects?

I’m thinking you mean that nature does not possess the ability to care at all.

Ironically, we are also moving to more capable / faster models that use less power. DeepSeek V4 Flash 0731 is so extreme capable and comparability to a lot of models cheap to run.

We are seeing stuff like AMD buying Taalas, with their Llama 3 8B on a chip, being able to push 17.000 tokens / second.

https://chatjimmy.ai/

Generated in 0,033s • 14.212 tok/s ...

People need to understand, that even AI companies do not like to build datacenters and the high energy needs. It cost them money and they are also looking at ways to develop better hardware / solutions that gives them more inference for cheaper (what means less power draw / heat generated).

In Idiocracy, President Camacho recognizes that someone has scientific skills and expertise* he doesn't and puts them in charge to help his people. * even if it's just "feed plants water, not Gatorade."

From that angle, Idiocracy is notably BETTER than our current situation.

It's a cliche now to say we're past that as in Idiocracy they listened to the smartest person to solve their problem.

We're now onto Captain Planet baddies. Ridiculously childish cartoon carictatures of greed and evil are now in charge

They'll certainly continue wind projects, just not likely in the US and not with this money.

> falsify election results

This is something that is extremely hard to accomplish in the US. It would be akin to all of Europe voting on the same day and trying to falsify an election in each country. The logistics of this means that you need a lot of participants, and someone is going to blow it (and the whole thing unravels).

That is not the same as interfering: Jackboots at the polls, screwing with the mail, ID requirements.

These two things are NOT the same.

Funny how at this point election fraud is a bipartisan issue, everyone seems to believe it's happening or will happen!

ie. China is the future, US is the past.

Does it do it efficiently though?

Oh it shouldn't be a political issue at all. We don't need the government forcing us to reduce energy use, we need people to do it for themselves.

No, like a breakup fee in a commercial contract.

More like a bribe.

won't happen with capitalism which has an emphasis on economic growth forever...

What about quality of life per watt and just making having a certain standard of living more energy efficient?

Simple examples: energy efficient lights seem to have no downsides, better insulation helps my apartment building retain heat, more efficient electronics mean that my homelab servers pull like 100 W total and public transport probably removes a bunch of cars from the road and increases air quality and decreases traffic jams (I can get everywhere I need that way, there’s literally train, tram and bus stops like 5-15 minutes away).

There must be a cap where quality of life is good enough though, right? Or do you propose it should go up indefinitely?

Air conditioning is quite nice if you find yourself living in a hot environment, for example. But do we really all need smart watches? Or cameras everywhere? Or LLMs, for that matter?

You can do more with less energy, if you use it more efficiently, which sometimes may be more cost effective compared to producing more. Electricity consumption peaked in Germany in 2007 and is down 15% since then while GDP grew by 50%.

Also energy consumption per capita is more than 2x higher in the US compared to Germany, while quality of life should be roughly similar. (In my personal opionion quality of life is better in Germany).

OK some people should use less energy

You say that like it’s an infinitely scalable proposition? It really isn’t.

While I do not know if the following is relevant for the Carolina Long Bay area, and while neither Republicans nor Democrats can be trusted, it is not without precedent for offshore wind turbine projects to be disallowed due to radar concerns.

https://www.defensenews.com/global/europe/2024/11/11/why-swe...

> Why Sweden nixed new wind farms for fear of missing Russian missiles

> BERLIN — Sweden’s government this month blocked the construction of 13 offshore wind farms over concerns that they would shorten the country’s early-warning window for a Russian missile attack.

> ...

> That is because wind farms can interact with radar signals, reducing the quality of the situational air picture or even outright blocking out parts of the sky.

Other possibilities than radar concerns is that the stopping of the project here hinders corruption, or is corrupt itself, or it moves corruption around (as in both the old project and new project was corrupt). Whatever the case, a way to avoid corruption would be helpful. Perhaps like making it market-driven and contest-driven as much as possible. Solar and wind is already significantly cost-efficient and market-driven despite their significant drawbacks like not producing energy consistently and on demand. If the main challenge is creating domestic production of wind turbines and solar cells instead of being reliant on other countries and without state support ending up being mired in corruption, perhaps some bidding and contract process that moves the financial risk onto private companies, such that the government never pays in advance, could work.

I agree with posts here saying that a mosaic or plethora of energy sources should be used. Wind, solar, fossile, nuclear (for big countries like the USA at least), geothermal, etc. In general, energy companies should not be focused on just one kind, but lots of kinds.

And in the winter in the North people are just supposed to freeze?

That leaves a lot of free energy sources untapped - especially hydro.

> The only common sense I can think of is solar+storage

Even in Texas/California photovoltaic output in the winter is measly, anywhere more to the north and it's effectively inexistent. Solar+storage requires massive overprovisioning, to the level that it's cheaper to burn literal money.

Windmill farm outputs tend to dip during summer and peak over winter. With a given minimum power output windmills + photovoltaics + storage is massively cheaper per unit of yearly energy. Of course, if you value any semblance of network stability.

Solar+storage is clear path towards either guaranteeing reliance on fossils or brownouts. The smart energy meter you got that encourages running the washing machine during cheap hours will ensure that you voluntarily go dark during undersupply as the cost will skyrocket.

For at least a few years, "common sense" has been hijacked by populist politicians, now it just means whatever simplistic idea that fits their worldview, even when it's not complicated to see that said idea is clearly misguided. The original meaning seems lost to me.

"common sense" is common sense because it is the "sound and prudent judgment based on a simple perception of the situation or facts" (1).

Maybe what you meant to say is that the position isn't, in fact, "common sense", that it is neither sound or prudent?

(1) https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/common%20sense

"Common sense" might also mean "do the simple thing" which, given how cheap it is to invest in renewable energy sources like solar farms, and how much room we have to build daytime capacity that way without large scale storage, might mean installing a lot more solar.

Don't pretend the current US admin is anything but corrupt and stupid.

In politics, "common sense" just means that they don't have a real justification. You can just apply it to anything and your base will accept it.

You dont need deeper understanding of knowledge for everything. Ask Grandma whether she needs a chemical engineering degree to bake apple pie.

Then there is the Theory of Bounded Rationality which tells us expertise may exist but resources, time, energy, info, attention etc etc may not therefore bounds and limits of expertise alone must be recognized and solutions reached are satisficable rather than optimal. Aiming for optima when other factors havent been sorted just creates new problems.

Common sense is the sense of commoners. The entirity of science if a fight against common sense.

In Poland the closest phrase to "common sense" is "na chłopski rozum" which means "according to villager's mind/smarts".

Right. Gentle reminder that tuna has dangerous amounts of mercury in it specifically because of humans burning coal, not because the ocean was always so polluted.