Posted by lode 6 hours ago
> We're partnering with TotalEnergies to unleash nearly $1 billion that was tied up in a lease deposit that was directed towards the prior administration's subsidies
What's the deal with this lease deposit and how does "freeing it up" equate to the US govt "paying" TotalEnergies that amount?
Is this a situation where TotalEnergies put down a 1B deposit to lease the seashore from the government and the government is now canceling that agreement and giving them their money back? How does it relate to "subsidies"?
Total waste of $1 Bil of taxpayer dollars. If the oil and gas industry want to shut down wind projects let them pay for it.
My assumption is the company started getting upset at being toyed around and having their 1 billion investment completely stalled for so long. So the admin said we'll kill the wind if you do our fossil fuels instead. So shift your investment away from wind (we kill it and pay you back for what you investws) if you instead do fossil fuels. And that's what's being done.
So previously the company was spending 1billion on wind and getting some subsidies. Now they spend 2 billion, and get paid 1 billion from the tax payer. For them it's at best a wash, though likely a loss since I haven't heard they get subsidies with the fossil fules. And the tax payer instead of paying for tax credits or low interest loans or other subsidies that were part of wind power portion of the Inflation Reduction Act instead pay a full 1 billion dollars to the company.
> The Trump administration will pay $1 billion to a French company to walk away from two U.S. offshore wind leases as the administration ramps up its campaign against offshore wind and other renewable energy.
1. https://apnews.com/article/trump-offshore-wind-energy-climat...
It's not hard to understand why, if you think about it one further step than your nose.
USA hardly has the same problem, and the current admin are frankly a bunch of low-brow vicious thugs, who in my view wouldn't know a genuine security problem from a large hole in the ground.
The Swedish government is not blocking all offshore wind, but it is blocking a lot of it, specifically wind parks in areas of the Baltic Sea that could cause trouble for trying to detect Russian military activities.
I don't know what the situation looks like for Finland.
They only get the money if they reinvest in oil and gas. It’s not just trying to kill wind, it’s actively trying to expand burning fossil fuels. We are being lead to our demise by idiots.
They aren't idiots, they are evil. They know what they are doing; enriching themselves and hoarding political power and resources. Claiming these folks are dumb rather than evil propagates the idea that we should give them some sort of leeway. In fact, we should have sent these clowns to prison 5 years or more ago.
> TotalEnergies has committed to invest approximately $1 billion—the value of its renounced offshore wind leases—in oil and natural gas and LNG production in the United States. Following their new investment, the United States will reimburse the company dollar-for-dollar, up to the amount they paid in lease purchases for offshore wind. Under this innovative agreement driven by President Donald J. Trump’s Energy Dominance Agenda, the American people will no longer pay for ideological subsidies that benefited only the unreliable and costly offshore wind industry.
> For its part, TotalEnergies will invest $928MM, on the following projects in 2026:
The development of Train 1 to 4 of Rio Grande LNG plant in Texas; The development of upstream conventional oil in Gulf of America and of shale gas production. Following TotalEnergies’ $928 million in investments in affordable, reliable and secure U.S. energy projects, the United States will terminate the following leases and reimburse the company
[1] https://www.doi.gov/pressreleases/interior-and-totalenergies...
Anyone know what these "ideological subsidies" are that they're referring to? Were they part of the agreement that was just terminated? Or was that just a vaguely related talking point they inserted into the press release for political reasons?
To get more specific, you could say everything rolled back from the IRA as part of the BBB.
Unless the subsidies being repealed explains why TotalEnergies seems happy to get out of the lease now even though they presumably thought it was a good deal for them back when they originally agreed to it. If that's true though then I don't know why neither the article nor the press release say anything about it other than in this vague allusion.
So I don't know what stage the project was at but by withdrawing from the deal or cancelling it, the government is going to have to pay a penalty. Is that penalty $10 million? Is it $500 million? We don't really know.
So it could be that TotalEnergies is still getting paid $1 billion but now they have to spend $600 million on some fossil fuel project. But in doing so the government has essentially paid a $400 million break penalty. You see what I mean?
I don't believe for a second that the government didn't lose money on this political cancellation. The fossil fuel project is just a way to hide that and save face (IMHO).
The Trump admin is paying them back with the understanding that TotalEnergies will reinvest the money into oil and gas operations in the US
The US, France+India, and China have been competing over this project for decades.
These are businesses - no one cares about morals, only interests. And it is in France's interest to unlock these kinds of LNG projects.
[0] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/mozambique-says-tota...
[1] - https://www.reuters.com/business/energy/oil-india-sees-resta...
There are no fully electric, or even hybrid, options for the type of vehicle I drive.
And even if there were, are you (tax payers) prepared to buy it for me, because I’m not due for an upgrade for about another 400,000 kilometres.
Can’t put wind generated watt-hours in my diesel tank.
Can’t put wishful thinking in my cars petrol tank.
400,000 km is around two years for a commercial driver, isn't it?
What kind of vehicle is it though? There are battery electric vehicles available now in almost all commercial vehicle segments in Europe.
What is with this attitude of reflexively interpreting the development of alternatives as if they are mandatory ?
I did try to make that clear in the comment you replied to.
The battery technology doesn’t exist.
For example I've got a tractor that burns diesel, for effectively homeowner use. I too am not going to be replacing this piece of capital equipment any time soon (even though electrical would actually be better in a lot of regards). But since trucking is reliant on diesel and quite demand-insensistive, the Epstein war recently made diesel prices jump 60%. Whereas the fewer economically-critical vehicles there are being powered by diesel (even just the short range ones), the less that price would have spiked.
Also “kilometers”? “petrol tank”? Thanks for holding three fingers up and letting me know you’re cosplaying as an American
I suppose there are still some diesel generators out there, so they might burn that instead. Of course, that only makes you worse off.
They're now being allowed to keep the money, and not build wind farms.
Title seems accurate? It's the clear intention of the administration's actions here.
In the middle of a war he started over war. No less. If his base wanted cheap gas, they are not going to get it.
So far Trump hasn't done much to prevent solar farms from being built, it's only wind turbines that he's exacting his vengeance on like some sort of modern day Don Quixote.
Catch 22 by Joseph Heller
Just look at it as America going back to the colonial ages and then everything that's happening makes sense. The bad news is that people were willing to put up with that for over 100 year so there's no guarantee anyone will do anything for a long time.
- Assume everything will be fine and America will remain a global economic superpower.
- Plan an exit to a more serious, stable country.
- Some option in the middle of the two to hedge your bets?
You theoretically lose yield compared to the S&P average - but if you're hedging your bets against the US possibly going to shit - the S&P is unlikely to perform as well as its historic average IFF that scenario unfolds.
Seems like a better hedge than gold, but my crystal ball isn't working.
I saw the writing on the wall long ago. I predicted all of this happening many years ago. I left the US back in 2015.
Currently in the UK, and I hope to eventually get dual citizenship. My partner is European, so that is possible too.
And that's exactly what the question was.
You seem to consider yourself in the "smart people" ranks, so what's your big plan for adaptability?
I mostly like the US but the years since Obama have been rough
I’ll wait.
On a serious note;
I’m looking at my billion dollar neighbors and they all just are citizens everywhere now. No allegiance to anything but their own pleasure.
Also, Canada. They're likely to withstand global warming better than most of the world, and would be comparatively easy to adapt to. If I didn't own a house, I'd already be working to move there, though I have recent ancestry that makes it a relatively more appealing option.
Salaries in tech sector still give you higher overall quality of life than most of US can ever offer. Then you have - extremely beautiful nature at your doorstep, more top notch destinations like Italy and France just at the border, very low criminality compared to US, very good free healthcare, very good free education including top notch public universities, very well functioning social programs. One doesn't have to be ashamed their taxes go to killing innocent civilians half around the world (although at this point US population including folks here seems fine with that). And so on and on and on.
Also, you don't spend your whole active life getting it and (almost) burning out for that, 40h/week and then you can live your life and chase dreams and passions.
Quite a few swiss residents would be happy to have this (or at least some more cost control).
There's mandatory health insurance with preexisting condition coverage, but it's not free (tho it's partially tax supported, depending on location and income).
Argentina and Brazil are about the only other countries where you can almost get away with this and legalize your existence (Argentina in particular has constitution that says essentially if you survive 2 years, you are basically citizen) , although most of Africa wouldn't bother to enforce it (South Africa in particular has almost as much illegal immigration per capita as USA although with a wide band of possible error in estimates, and they can't meaningfully enforce it).
Otherwise you need investments (usually 50k+), permanent pension, top-tier education, a professional job offer, cultural/family ties, or connections with the political apparatus. Switzerland in particular is on extreme hard mode for a non-EU citizen to get citizenship.
It’s amazing how poorly you understand their financial situation. They are possible the most privately leveraged entity on the planet by ratio
Their banking systems against their gdp is at 600%.
You couldn’t pick a worse place
Uh, anywhere that hasn't collapsed?
Chinahhhh.
no, the billion that is being "paid" is a refund of what Total paid in for the leases. Total paid that into the US govt in anticipation of receiving returns on that investment in the form of "clean energy subsidies".
it is not clear from what is in the news story whether Total is being compensated for the would-have-been future subsidies, or whether Total simply expects to make decent profits from fossil fuels.
if one's interest is in the "clean energy" angle, then this is a "defeat". if one's interest is in reducing govt subsidies, this could be "a win", but it's not exactly clear.
Truly, the deals this administration crafts are nonpareil!
If AI summery is to be trusted, a few other windparks got stopped that where almost done, but got completed anyway after a legal battle. Vineyard Wind 1, Coastal Virginia (CVOW), Empire Wind 1, Revolution Wind, Sunrise Wind.
Again, got it from AI, make of that what you want.
CVOW is supposed to flow first power this month, but won't be done for ~a year, Empire Wind is also end of '26/early '27, Sunrise later in 2027.
Vineyard was completed this month, and Revolution is delivering power and targets completion over the next few months.
https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/carter-white-hous...
America: throws a decades-long, ongoing tantrum
It’s fairly reductive… but still kinda true.
A lot of the methods of subsidizing things were also quite incompetent, e.g. Solyndra. If you want to subsidize something like this you do it on the consumer side, e.g. 75% tax credit for every US-made solar panel you install, which drives demand for US-made solar panels without opening you up to scandals like that or the usual corruption where the money goes to the administration's buddies.
It's very important that Windmills and 5G antennas do not spray Covid19 on proud patriotic americans
The energy part is incidental.
Point them north and you'll increase Earth's axial tilt.
The White House’s Bet on Fossil Fuels Is Already Losing - https://www.bloomberg.com/opinion/articles/2025-10-28/white-... | https://archive.today/vpvch - October 28th, 2025
Gas-Turbine Crunch Threatens Demand Bonanza in Asia - https://www.bloomberg.com/news/newsletters/2025-10-07/gas-tu... | https://archive.today/z4Ixw - October 7th, 2025
AI-Driven Demand for Gas Turbines Risks a New Energy Crunch - https://www.bloomberg.com/features/2025-bottlenecks-gas-turb... | https://archive.today/b8bhn - October 1st, 2025
(think in systems)
(i track global fossil generation production capacity as a component of tracking the overall rate of global energy transition to clean energy and electrification, but some of my resources are simply an excel spreadsheet)
Thus far, it is incredibly expensive, at a time when solar and wind generation is cost-competitive with fossil-fuel plants which don't employ CCS. It is simply a dead end. You can generate more renewable energy, and store it, for far less than it takes to equip and operate CCS in conjunction with a fossil-fuel-fired plant. Only direct government subsidy makes it viable for a vanishingly small amount of GHG emissions.
[0]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carbon_capture_and_storage
Also "clean coal" is not a type of coal being burnt (although that does matter too) but pollution control systems added to coal plants.
Anthracite, in these regards, is very different from bituminous coal.
Yeah, so does wood, which is horribly polluting.
Oh boy can't wait for the reenactment of third reich intervening peacefully in czechoslovakia, for their own safety and wellbeing of course, and not at all for the resources they're hoarding, the filthy hoarders.
Wouldn’t do anything to the prices of imported products since the entire intl supply chain would be subject to even higher prices, but would reduce pressure at the pump
Or we could, you know, pull energy out of the air and sun, a strategy which will be viable until our star dies.
I'm quite confident cheap renewable alternatives will make the tar sands inviable far before they run out.
Fossil fuels were already an inferior energy source when oil was $60/barrel. Electrification has been moving fast and accelerating, even at the pre-energy crisis prices.
Now? Current events are likely to take fossil fuels out back and give 'em the Old Yeller treatment with surprising speed.
So, how many billions of newly printed debt is Trump willing to throw at the problem to keep those subsidies up so that he can be sheltered from the scary windmills?
And I say that not as some rabid renewables person. Just the insane binary thinking, regardless of the dollars and cronyism at work. There's zero room for nuance, which I guess is my biggest complaint about the world at large.
Aside: people who think climate change will be the death of us all, and sooner than later, I get it, and I fully appreciate you pushing for a cleaner and more livable world. At this point I'm just going to sit in the corner and hope you, and China, figure it out and then it spreads quickly to the rest of the world, which I think at this point is pretty much a foregone conclusion barring a nuclear war (will refrain from commenting about how the likelihood of that has ticked up the past couple of weeks in an area teeming with (sarcastically shocked this time!) fossil fuels).
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Koch_network#Climate_change_an...
Is there a single person who things Trump gives a single damn about the birds? It is obviously just a pretext.
Wind turbines are an issue but approximately 0% of the 30% decline in US birds since the 1970s
Edit: to be specific to Trump, funding for bird conservation has been an issue under his administrations and he's weakened things like migratory bird treaty act. Obviously he doesn't care about birds and the bird community is very frustrated with him
and the noise causes cancer
As you said, that has nothing to do with the actual preference for fossils vs. turbines, but a great point nonetheless.
So in all seriousness, if we could get a significant fraction of the young people who are negatively impacted by these policies to actually vote against the people enacting them we could see real change. But if we keep telling them everyone believes in this stuff and your vote doesn't count and so on then nobody will do anything about it until it's too late and we're shooting at or throwing rocks at each other.
I don’t know if you can fix lazy. Turning out new voters basically happens once a generation. The rest tell themselves tales that their vote could never matter, and in doing that, subtly endorse the status quo.
It takes no effort to be cynical, I can tell myself "everything sucks and I shouldn't care because nothing matters anyway" and justify not doing anything I want. I can justify not voting, I can justify not helping someone if I see them struggling on the street, I can justify not even improving myself.
In the last couple years I have been trying my best to override my cynical tendencies because ultimately I think that they are bad for me. I vote in every election I am able to because even if it's infinitesimal, I at least tried to do something to avoid whom I deem bad people getting into office.
Someone only tuning into general elections and making this complaint is either not intellectually there or plain lazy. Very few places in this country have zero competitive elections on the ballot. And none exist where calling electeds and showing up to advocate don’t move the needle. Doing those things takes effort, however, and I concede that for a lot of people that effort isn’t worth it since they’re comfortable enough—personally—with the status quo.
The flip side is that leaves a lot more room for everyone else. It’s genuinely surprising how accessible power in America is once you start wielding it. That sucks when nobody is watching but a few paid interests. It gets interesting when you find yourself, repeatedly, as the only person in the room with the levers.
I'm not convinced. The reason why many of these people don't vote is because they don't think Trump is that bad. They probably don't agree with everything, but that's true no matter who is in office.
> I know this US government is fully-committed to fossil fuels and about as rabidly anti-renewables as can be,
The narratives work though, that is the sad reality. News anchors and the public are stuck in a loop about "children being forced to change sex, woke, climate hoax, but her e-mails, but Biden, ...", anything but what is happening at the crime scene.
An honest question - what the heck did you expect? Some sophisticated rational discussions instead of dumb ego tantrums?