There are always signs and portents about all sorts of things, some are distant and vague, some are close and sharp

Here we have a radioactive red blaring klaxon saying "the #USA is a country in decline":

"The #Trump administration announced it will pay nearly $1 billion to French #energy giant #TotalEnergies in exchange for the company abandoning plans to build offshore #windfarms in the Atlantic Ocean and instead pursue #fossilfuel projects in the #US"

https://edition.cnn.com/2026/03/23/climate/trump-totalenergies-offshore-wind-cancellation

#dystopia

Trump administration will pay a French company $1 billion in taxpayer funds to not build wind farms

The Trump administration announced it will pay nearly $1 billion to French energy giant TotalEnergies in exchange for the company abandoning plans to build offshore wind farms in the Atlantic Ocean and instead pursue fossil fuel projects in the US.

CNN

@benroyce Why do we need the French to build wind farms or drill for oil? We can do all of the above, but we also have plenty of natural gas.

I assume there was something in the deal that says if the contract is cancelled they get compensated?

Contract never should have been signed on EITHER side. The French should have been aware that political winds change.

@mike805

mike we need off fossil fuels. it funds insane regimes and climate change

that it's french company or not is a red herring. they would do the same with an american company

they are locking you into a dependency you don't need. fossil fuels are a plutocrat scam. if you've been to the gas pump lately you might have noticed a price increase? because of their murderous nonsense in iran

there's no reason for any of that to be part of our lives

except the plutocrats want it to be

@benroyce We have domestic oil and gas in the USA. With fracking, more than we need. Ban exports. The drillers will gripe but they're making bank and will keep drilling.

Get the hell off imported oil, yes.

There is no good reason not to have solar covered parking and rooftops everywhere. Unlike wind, no huge structures required. We will still need combustion fuels, and the USA has plenty.

I am in CA so I know all about gas pumps.

@mike805

mike do you fucking know what climate change is?

you're worried about solar panels?!

...

EDIT

rest of comment removed:

mike is not worried about solar panels, i blew my top. my bad

@benroyce Above I wrote > There is no good reason not to have solar

Which means there should be solar! We have solar parking at work, and those are always occupied first. If I had a place to charge it, I'd buy a used Tesla and keep my gas car as a spare.

Offshore wind OTOH requires a HELL of a lot of structure for a couple hundred MW.

Repeal the Jones act (which encourages imports) and restrict fossil fuel exports and build solar. I am worried about the USA looking like Cuba does right now.

@mike805

alright, sorry for going off on you

but we should be deploying wind/ solar/ etc like maniacs right now. stop funding putin. stop climate change. stop abusing people's wallets. etc

and we're not

there's no place for fossil fuels in consumer transportation anymore. no excuse. and that the usa can't do it, simply because we are under the plutocrats' thumbs, keeping us in the past to keep their unnecessary parasitical income, is a grand farce. we're all going to suffer for it

@benroyce > alright, sorry for going off on you

No problem, I did have a double-negative in there and if I had been hating on solar I would have had it coming.

> there's no place for fossil fuels in consumer transportation anymore

Airplanes are going to use combustion fuel for the foreseeable future. Ground transport, ten to twenty years transition time I suspect.

For electricity, LiFePo4 or sodium batteries will solve it over a similar time frame.

Until then, USA should be fuel independent

@benroyce What worries me is 1) Germany. They completely screwed themselves (well, they got screwed by a Communist) by trying to go too fast and not retaining good backup options.

And 2) Cuba. If that's what carbon neutral looks like I'll take global warming.

USA needs to be energy self sufficient, in both electricity and combustion fuel.

War will also be dominated by combustion fuels and Haber process propellants/explosives for the foreseeable future.

@mike805 @benroyce Germany here. We’re not really screwed. Energy prices soared because we were dependent on Putin’s gas and NOT going solar/wind quicker – and that was a political choice by a previous government to slow down the energy transition and extend the gas dependency (Nordstream). Right now renewables are above 60% of the electricity supply.
The Iran crunch is heavily felt at the gas stations, but nowhere else (yet).

@axeln @benroyce Why are all the car makers there in trouble? The news here claims it's because Merkel blew up all the nuclear plants and electricity is wildly expensive.

Yes getting dependent on Russian gas was the previous round of dumb decisions.

@mike805 @axeln

mike, i think it's kind of silly to go off on germany while the usa is busy shooting itself in the head. whatever germany's problems, we make them look like amateur hour in the self-destruction by bad decisions dept right now

@mike805 @benroyce Nope. The carmakers are in trouble because they did not manage to adapt to changing markets (loss of export to china, no cheap EVs,…) Porsche incurred heavy losses this year because of a pivot back to ICEs (facepalm).

The gamble on Russian gas had a political aspect as well: create peace through trade interdependency. In hindsight, this did not work out.

As for prices, feel free to compare https://euenergy.live/country.php?a2=DE

⚡️ Electricity prices in Germany

@axeln @benroyce https://english.elpais.com/economy-and-business/2024-11-23/germany-is-kaput-why-the-economic-model-no-longer-works-in-the-proud-country-of-automobiles.html#?rel=mas Gernany Is Kaput. Here's a good article on the subject.

Of course the Right blames loss of nuclear and over-investment in underperforming renewables. The Left blames BMW VW and Merc for not going fully electric.

I blame the ugly plastic grille covers they are putting on the front of the electric BMWs and Mercs. 😆

Germany is ‘kaput’: Why the economic model no longer works in the proud country of automobiles

The Volkswagen crisis is just the tip of the iceberg of a larger problem. Europe’s old locomotive has stalled and must overhaul its industrial system, based on cheap Russian energy and exports to China

EL PAÍS English
@mike805 @axeln @benroyce Perhaps you have to question your news sources. Energy proces in Germany went um in 2022 because of the Russian invasion of Ukraine and they are going up again because USA and Israel decided to bomb Iran. Both events are connected to oil and gas, not renewables.