US strikes $1.2bn deal to pay German firm to halt offshore wind projects
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76 replies
This is so incredibly stupid
America has become a torture chamber for smart people. Ooh the pain!
Good thing there are so few of those left there
I think it's just the USA, the other 29 countries in America aren't that bad
just so people are aware, this is FIFTH TIME the administration has done this: Source
Both countries have governments run by very stupid, selfish manbabies and their cronies.
Which "both countries"? This is about the US.
Hope that helps
They're paying the company to break the contract, not the country
I know. Im not OP. Just showed which two countries he meant.
what kind of county is a firm?
Whatever kind of country is a firm is also a person! Seems counterintuitive but the law is the law!
I wonder if that company earned more from being banned from making wind turbines or would be from selling electricity
From the article it looks like this wasn't just a carrot being dangled but also a stick being threatened. My guess is that they foresaw the path to completion would be too fraught under the United States government as it is and they don't see any point in fighting an unwinnable war when they can just get paid anyhow.
The long and short of it is that Germany and Europe as well as the rest of the world at this point sees no point in investing in America's future because we have none.
That company will just build elsewhere instead.
Well yes but they earned money from anti windmill administration and I wondered how long would this farm would need to work to earn it back
Levels of dumb never thought possible.
The US could switch off their nuclear powerplants to accelerate the transition to hydrocarbons.
Let's not give the idiots more ideas. haha.
They already know. Merkel saved their oil industry by making electricity for cars expensive.
Yeah but what if Germany were to be hit by a 9.1 earthquake followed by a huge tsunami and have the disaster cause the need for emergency generators that were flooded by the tsunami? We can't have that risk! Shutting down all nuclear reactors was the only option.
Won't make a dent either way. The entire climate situation basically depends on the death of capitalism, egotystical billionares taking fault(LMAO) and overhauling our entire way of life at this point.
Normally, I am very pro nuclear. The Trump Regime has proven itself to be utterly shit at wielding every form of power known to mankind, be it soft, wind, or kinetic. 😒
The day's not over yet!
Thank god we’re not paying costly subsidies
$1.2 Billion to make a project not happen sounds like a pretty costly subsidy.
They are being paid $1.2B to build gas power projects in the US. Whereas before they were being paid to build wind power in the US. They are not being paid to do nothing.
Thank god it’s not a costly subsidy though.
Are you sure? Because wording isn't clear, but pay out sounds like a .. pay out, not 'please, build something else'. 🤷
That's not what the article says.
Yes, which is not what you said before. RWE is getting paid for nothing to then invest its own money in other projects. The difference is ownership. The difference matters.
From what I can tell, RWE would have owned the wind projects before as well.
They wouldn't need to relinquish leases if the US was the owner and RWE was simply a contractor building stuff for them.
That's 1.2 billion - 900 million, and still a profit making venture. Paid by the US government to still make money. US capitalism.
Your interpretation doesn't sound like the only possible one. Do you have a source that is clearly stating these things?
No they aren't. They are investing in gas power projects, but the US government is not paying them the money to do that. The money is solely for breach of contract regarding the wind power project.
Especially not on fossil fuels!
Can I get paid a billion dollars to do nothing?
They'd already spent that billion on preparations. If they hadn't received their money back the shit would have hit the fan.
Only if you reinvest the sum into conventional gas projects, including $900m (£669m) in a liquefied natural gas (LNG) export terminal project in Louisiana.
This is incredibly stupid. While China and the rest of the world are leading the charge in renewable energy, the U.S. is set to remain in the Stone Age due to pure hubris and short-term profit gains.
Paying 1.2 billion to get rid of that technology is just ideologically short-sighted. It's simply stupid.
Exactly, European energy generation during an extreme summer has shown that renewables are the most reliable, until systems are in place for storage. The world can't rely on fossil fuels or even nuclear at the moment due to climate change.
I actually want to vomit from how stupid as fuck that whole country is to not have done anything to these people.
Why not use the $1.25bn and reinvest it into a wind park in the North Sea? Feels a little backwards to give in to the bully and revert to fracking gas, and then put in another $18bn own money?!
Yeah man, that’s the point. It’s backward as fuck. It’s absolutely, mind-numbingly idiotic.
Because the same brain rot makes the same kind of people go insane there, too, and then vote for corrupt "conservatives" that sabotage renewables for fossil fuels (read: for the juicy bribes the fossil industry pays).
Germany is just working on new legislation to prevent renewables where the grid isn't build up to handle it while also providing zero reasons for grid providers to build up the grid. Then they complete the package with no guaranteed feed-in compensation anymore.
Which obvious leads to a "sure you can build renewables, but a third party benefitting from fossil fuels has total control over your ability to sell your product"-situation were exactly noone will ever invest in renewables anymore. (PS: storage was also blocked by insane double taxation for years before a different government fixed that, and so instead the CEO of the record-holder in burying applications for connecting storage to the grid in red-tape -literal years for a process that should take a few days- was awarded with a job as Minister of Economy and Energy...)
They are doing exactly the same bullshit, they are just not as obnoxiously loud and boastful with their insanity as the orange moron is.
I took a boat ride between wind parks in the north sea
pretty huge
the guys you have that are stopping this suck at stopping it because the wind farm are there anyway
The advantadge of a more fragmented continent. Just because Germany's government has subscribed to the fossil fuel insanity (not surprisingly given their connections to MAGA, Heritage Foundation etc...) doesn't mean that Denmark or the Netherlands don't build some in the same coastal regions.
Enter the interconnected grid between countries and now the cheap electricity Germany doesn't want to build is sold to them at a surplus. Then they cry about their higher costs, lie that it's caused by renewables and double down on building expensive power generation instead.
See: in the end they pay money so they can pay more money for their electricity. Exactly like the morons in the US do. Conservativism is a cult that brain-washes people into voting against their own interests so the handful of people actually paying our politicians can get even richer.
Germany is 3rd in the world for wind in the sea
you're in some kind of hole
I mean it's not exactly the same bullshit in the extent of it.
Sad thing is: We used to be on the right track. Not nearly fast enough, but at least we were headed the right direction. As of today, my energy meter shows each sunny summer day, we have like 120% of Germany's energy demand met by renewables. We now need a bit more of it, plus storage, plus the grid to make it work during the morning, evening, night and winter. But then we got an incompetent government, politicians said we now have other things to do and becoming more right-wing is more important than continue to fix the energy situation... Also doesn't help how we now spend a lot of taxpayer money on war machinery instead of useful stuff. It's a shame.
Hey America, I am going to build an offshore wind park. Please pay me to stop.
I want you to shoot yourself in the foot. How much?
Depends if I am an american or not. Hospital costs factor into this if you live in the home of the fee.
As a non american? I don't know $500K or so? I mean it would suck but not the worst thing to be paid for.
I want your optimism
That would probably leave me with a lifelong harm. My body is important. I'd only start considering it at $100 million.
art of the deal...
This just seems so dumb and stupid on all kinds of levels. What does Trump think he's gaining from this in the end? I just don't see it.
Is he just getting paid by his friends with oil companies? Is that it?
Delays in becoming independent of oil at the expense of the taxpayer (not of oil companies).
A Shame
1.2 billion of free money to not do work. Wow the trump administration sure knows how to waist money.
If I was president I would order every new wind turbine be planted out side every trump golf course in the United states. 6 per golf course and tackey hotel
What a spectacularly stupid waste of money!
dj is serving the oil companies, not the people
So it's not just the american "business" people that are corrupt, it's "business" people everywhere, throughout the land. Time to go back to hunting and gathering methinks. /s
What the heck? Why would they care if Germany is generating power?
Im THIS close to throwing my phone into an open fire
The US was paying them to build wind power projects in the US, now the US is paying them to build gas power projects in the US.
Ohh that makes a lot more sense, i skimmed across the article
No, they paid a German company that was building massive off-shore wind power production in the US to cancel the project and reimbursed them for voiding the lease on those off-shore areas.
Basically the US pays to keep economically viable wind power financed privately away, then pays again for the subsidies to get economically non-viable fossil fuel power generators build instead. All while screaming how they don't want to take part in that renewable scam that only works because of subsidies.
It's so stupid, you would be laughed out of the room if you brought up such an idea in serious fiction...
If in doubt, click link, read first sentence.
Anything to keep money out of the hands of working Americans.
They are getting paid $1.2B to build other power projects in the US. Not to simply do nothing.
That is a false statement. The US government paid them money for breaching the contract for the wind power project. The company is then investing some of that money in other projects in the US (which seems like a stupid decision, considering the unreliability of the country, but that is capitalism for you).
But they restarted this morning again since the deal didn't say when to restart lol.
Wow, that surely will attract business in the US if they start paying to not do something! Art of the deal indeed.
Well I also can NOT build offshore whatever and I'll not do it for half the price!
Remedial.
We should post these in guess the country format