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Federal judge lifts administration halt of offshore wind farm in New England

(apnews.com)
224 points zekrioca | 2 comments | 22 Sep 25 22:45 UTC | HN request time: 0s | source
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marcus_holmes ◴[23 Sep 25 02:15 UTC] No.45342085[source]▶
The argument I've seen on Mastodon that seems to make sense to me, is that the US Dollar is the currency used in oil trading. That brings a lot of foreign currency to the USA, because people need to buy dollars to buy their oil. If the world moves away from oil, then the US economy will stop benefitting from this trade.

Of course, if the rest of the world moves to renewables, which it is, and just the USA remains reliant on oil then that also destroys this benefit. But the USA refusing to help implement renewable energy will definitely slow it down.

It's the only rational argument I can see for this policy. Of course there's the irrational to consider ("real men burn stuff" as Cory Doctorow puts it), and that may be the more important consideration.

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1. csomar ◴[23 Sep 25 03:06 UTC] No.45342389[source]▶
How does this court ruling slow down renewable around the world? Renewable and solar are happening around the world because of price and there is nothing that can change this direction, short of a war with China.
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2. marcus_holmes ◴[23 Sep 25 08:50 UTC] No.45344462[source]▶
Specifically, Swanson's Law [0] that says the more solar we make, the cheaper it gets.

The price of renewables is also being driven down because we're getting better at making them. So it's a virtuous cycle; the more we make, the cheaper it gets, and the cheaper it gets, the more demand there is, so the more we make.

If the USA is not demanding renewables, the effect is less and we don't get as good at making them

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Swanson%27s_law