In October Trump canceled the largest solar project in the United States. Known as Esmeralda 7, the project planned in the Nevada desert would have produced enough energy to power nearly two million homes.
https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/10/trump-interior-depa...
Did you make this up? HN user base wasn’t going to change that fast in a year. And given that HN was left-leaning before Trump, I’d say it to be neutral at most now.
oh look, lying about national security concerns again. It's funny that the only thing this administration does is destroy things, lie, and make our lives measurably worse.
It sounds like “national security” is the legal justification they’re using to do an end-run around Congress, just like the justifications they’ve used to implement tariffs and which underpin a bunch of their EOs.
It's about time a US administration is brave enough to tackle real national security concerns: windmill cancer, completing the White House ballroom, and Antifa! /s
"Radar interference risk" is the cited reasoning. It took them the entire year to use anything other than a conspiracy theory to justify shutting these down.
It’s unfortunate many people are able to see through this to the blatant corruption. Energy independence and national security is renewable energy. All sorts of diverse energy sources are good. But we don’t like that.
Let’s look at the economics instead of emotionally. Wind turbines (real rough back of the napkin) CapEx break even is estimated 7-10 years. They can consume thousands of liters of lubrication oil, and estimated break-even just on energy to produce the unit is 5-8 months (energy required to build it). Then you have the issue of how ugly (in my opinion) large farms look.
You know who looks at the economics of wind turbines? Companies that build wind turbines. The fact that these farms were all under construction means they pencil out just fine.. there's such bizarre strains of concern trolling on clean energy topics.
You say economics instead of emotion, but your last sentence is emotion.
If capex is your concern, explain the purpose of canceling an almost-complete farm.
If energy breakevens are your concern, explain how this breakevens compares against, e.g. oil liquids.
I live near both wind turbines and oil/gas fracking sites in Colorado. The wind turbines are far less obtrusive. Fracking sites produce a lot of noise and they try to hide them with these giant walls that look like a post-apocalyptic fort. On top of that, because they don't disclose their fracking fluids you always kind of have ground water contamination near your home on the back of your mind.
I'm not even against fracking but the alternatives to wind and solar are more a public nuisance to live around.
I love to look at the economics. The payback periods don’t look terrible. More importantly the market should decide what is good or not. I am all for removing subsidies but let the market decide the best path forward.
I live near one (no-USA) and honestly it doesn't bother me. It's a small price to pay to avoid ever-decreasing foreign-sourced oil/gas and insanely over-budget/over-schedule nuclear.
I do not understand why people think it’s exciting to drop into the comments and pointlessly lie to defend their favorite dictator. We know and you know that you didn’t think wind farms were ugly until it became necessary to defend Trump’s obsession; what do you hope to gain by pretending otherwise?
No one cared about the looks of wind turbines until they built some near Trump's golf course in Scotland. He hates them, and by pure and total chance, his base/cult now does too.
Nobody can predict the future, but there are several possibilities, including impeachment and death in office. The man really doesn't look very good, I don't expect him to last out his term.
Not only that, but the president can only do what Congress allows him to do. Look for a blue wave next year.
I have seen no indication that any of those 3 wouldn't. And in general the GOP is pretty virulently against wind power, take the false stories about them causing whale strandings or the Texas winter power outage. Its true no one has had quite the sustained, obsessive, demented hatred that Trump has ("windmills cause cancer"). But would you be willing to bet $Bs on them being any better?
They aren’t leaving until someone forces them to do so. They aren’t going to accept any election results that they don’t like they have already proven that.
Related: US halts work on almost finished wind farm because national security (117 points, 4 months ago, 83 comments) https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=45002747
In October Trump canceled the largest solar project in the United States. Known as Esmeralda 7, the project planned in the Nevada desert would have produced enough energy to power nearly two million homes. https://www.politico.com/news/2025/10/10/trump-interior-depa...
Should be far, far larger news, to be honest.
Why is this flagged?
You did not noticed HN is 100% MAGA now? Everybody here thinks they are a new Peter Thiel. What other reason could be?
Did you make this up? HN user base wasn’t going to change that fast in a year. And given that HN was left-leaning before Trump, I’d say it to be neutral at most now.
oh look, lying about national security concerns again. It's funny that the only thing this administration does is destroy things, lie, and make our lives measurably worse.
It sounds like “national security” is the legal justification they’re using to do an end-run around Congress, just like the justifications they’ve used to implement tariffs and which underpin a bunch of their EOs.
It's about time a US administration is brave enough to tackle real national security concerns: windmill cancer, completing the White House ballroom, and Antifa! /s
I think Swedish right-wingers pioneered this particular form of anti-renewable propaganda last year.
Trump was anti offshore wind farms since before his first term. He claimed they caused brain cancer or something foolish like that.
And promotes conspiracy theories about harm to birds and underwater sea life
"Radar interference risk" is the cited reasoning. It took them the entire year to use anything other than a conspiracy theory to justify shutting these down.
They could've cited "owned the libs" and it wouldn't have made a difference. Republican congress tacitly supports all of this.
It’s unfortunate many people are able to see through this to the blatant corruption. Energy independence and national security is renewable energy. All sorts of diverse energy sources are good. But we don’t like that.
Isn't citing "US administration" incorrect? Trump should be given credit.
Let’s look at the economics instead of emotionally. Wind turbines (real rough back of the napkin) CapEx break even is estimated 7-10 years. They can consume thousands of liters of lubrication oil, and estimated break-even just on energy to produce the unit is 5-8 months (energy required to build it). Then you have the issue of how ugly (in my opinion) large farms look.
You know who looks at the economics of wind turbines? Companies that build wind turbines. The fact that these farms were all under construction means they pencil out just fine.. there's such bizarre strains of concern trolling on clean energy topics.
You say economics instead of emotion, but your last sentence is emotion. If capex is your concern, explain the purpose of canceling an almost-complete farm. If energy breakevens are your concern, explain how this breakevens compares against, e.g. oil liquids.
I live near both wind turbines and oil/gas fracking sites in Colorado. The wind turbines are far less obtrusive. Fracking sites produce a lot of noise and they try to hide them with these giant walls that look like a post-apocalyptic fort. On top of that, because they don't disclose their fracking fluids you always kind of have ground water contamination near your home on the back of your mind.
I'm not even against fracking but the alternatives to wind and solar are more a public nuisance to live around.
What alternative powerplant would you recommend that has a shorter breakeven, doesn't consume oil, and is attractive to look at?
OTOH I think wind farms are pretty and pump-jacks are ugly.
Our biases shine through.
I love to look at the economics. The payback periods don’t look terrible. More importantly the market should decide what is good or not. I am all for removing subsidies but let the market decide the best path forward.
> CapEx break even is estimated 7-10 years.
> estimated break-even just on energy to produce the unit is 5-8 months
Those are really good numbers, a good argument for why they're being built.
I live near one (no-USA) and honestly it doesn't bother me. It's a small price to pay to avoid ever-decreasing foreign-sourced oil/gas and insanely over-budget/over-schedule nuclear.
> CapEx break even is estimated 7-10 years
I don’t think this is unique to wind farms.
> thousands of liters of lubrication oil
That's 202,884 teaspoons!
I was Landman, too. Good show.
I do not understand why people think it’s exciting to drop into the comments and pointlessly lie to defend their favorite dictator. We know and you know that you didn’t think wind farms were ugly until it became necessary to defend Trump’s obsession; what do you hope to gain by pretending otherwise?
And these talking points are always framed as if coal mines and oil wells occur naturally and there is nothing unsightly or unhealthy about them.
No one cared about the looks of wind turbines until they built some near Trump's golf course in Scotland. He hates them, and by pure and total chance, his base/cult now does too.
Likely just a temporary pause. This administration won't be around that much longer.
I feel bad for ruining someone's dreams, but you really have no idea how wrong you are.
Everybody can see that climate change is real. Relying on fossil fuels is just the last gasp of a dying industry.
They're stuck there for four year terms, and in the case of SCOTUS life, are they not?
Nobody can predict the future, but there are several possibilities, including impeachment and death in office. The man really doesn't look very good, I don't expect him to last out his term.
Not only that, but the president can only do what Congress allows him to do. Look for a blue wave next year.
Even if a Dem is elected in '28, who is going to make a multi-year investment with the chance that JD Vance/Trump Jr/MTG could be elected in '32?
Do you think they will necessarily have the same hardon against wind that Donald Sr has?
I have seen no indication that any of those 3 wouldn't. And in general the GOP is pretty virulently against wind power, take the false stories about them causing whale strandings or the Texas winter power outage. Its true no one has had quite the sustained, obsessive, demented hatred that Trump has ("windmills cause cancer"). But would you be willing to bet $Bs on them being any better?
They aren’t leaving until someone forces them to do so. They aren’t going to accept any election results that they don’t like they have already proven that.