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aleccoyesterday at 8:49 PM5 repliesview on HN

Occam's Razor: offshore wind requires a lot of rare earths for their magnets and whatnot. US military-industrial complex needs the little remaining global supply not under China's export controls.


Replies

KaiserProyesterday at 9:09 PM

> offshore wind requires a lot of rare earths for their magnets

compared to the general motor market in the USA? I think thats out by a few orders of magnitude.

Radar shadow is vaguely plausible, if your radar is shit and needs replacing.

it also requires your hydrophone network to not be working that well either.

platevoltageyesterday at 11:00 PM

This could very well be the excuse they're using. The reality is almost certainly more petty than that given the great one's irrational hate of wind power.

hristovyesterday at 11:27 PM

Any electricity produced by turning generators will require rare earths. This includes, every current non-trivial electricity source with the exception of solar. Gas, oil, coal and nuclear all work by heating steam and running it through a turbine that turns a generator that makes electricity. For hydro, the falling water turns the turbine/generator.

So any source of electricity that may replace these wind turbines (other than solar) will require about the same amount of rare-earths. And lets face it, Trump is doing his best to hamstring solar as well. He has cancelled all solar subsidies and has hit solar with major tariffs.

I think Occams Razor would lead to a very different conclusion.

show 1 reply
techgnosisyesterday at 8:54 PM

This feels extremely plausible. I don't see anyone else saying this yet, well done.

bongodongobobyesterday at 9:13 PM

Occams Razor: Trump openly hates windmills and green energy