I agree. This is why we are building offshore wind and not subsidizing fossil fuels, right?
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].
There's a really strong incentive to keep energy generation cheap, because pretty much every social and political issue is downstream of it.
Welcome the world of transactional opportunism.
I am personally for building nuclear and compulimenting it with some wind and hydro, but that is not related to what things are subsidized but because nuclear and hydro has worked really well here in Sweden providing reliable power and while wind has a spottier record I think diversification is good.
Thank you. :)
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).
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.
I would love to know the thought process of this administration because it feels like a fever dream.
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.
Nobody else ever spent this much money to NOT have cheap power 8-/
> 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.
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 includeAbsolutely shameful what the USA has become.
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.
So this means, slightly less than half is other sources (hydro, solar, etc)
The scale is so crazy that these numbers rarely make sense on their own.
"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.
Large offshore turbines and military/radar might be at-odds here... Could be a contributing reason.
Hamburg would benefit, but getting that electricity to less-windy parts of Germany transmission would require more grid capacity.
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).†: 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
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.
That's mostly it. Another factor would be Trump getting donations from the oil & gas industry.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Efficiency is good, but this isn't true. Decades into LED-ification we still suffer shit-tier PWM strobing, poor dimming, disruption to wildlife and human life, and streetlights turning purple en masse.
(The last two are installation and quality issues, but when driven by lowest-bidder compliance with simplistic "efficiency" mandates that's what you get).
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?
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.
It'd be very reasonable to assume "this" means wind here.
Is "Texas" the plural of "Texa"?
Compared to coal plants, which are _extremely_ cool-looking. /s
We are building lots. Of everything.
That said, renewable sources are so cheap and consequently economically appealing that not even the incredibly dumb Trump admin can stop them.
yablak•44m ago