[davis]

It's also partially self inflicted due to the Jones Act which means boats to do the work need to be made by the US. A special boat that has legs that makes installation possible is required to do the work but we can't just use foreign boats which are already made and designed for this kind of thing.

https://www.wired.com/story/us-energy-offshore-wind-jones-ac...

[thinkcontext]

I remember for a previous wind project in US waters they were using a foreign vessel in construction. That made it necessary for it to go to port in Canada adding hundreds of miles and a ton of logistic problems.

[ianai]

Yes, and so much could be addressed and fixed if the US Congress could commit to some acts of representative democracy. Laws could be written, laws could be changed, and many or all the seeming impasses could be legislated away-through acts of representative democracy. Something, something, people should politely write their representatives and otherwise fulfill their civic duties.

[jeffbee]

Yep. You could have seen the towers of Vineyard Wind 1 in the port of Halifax recently.

[wcoenen]

There are a bunch of different types of special vessels needed to build and maintain offshore wind:

https://www.dco.uscg.mil/OCSNCOE/ORE-Support-Vessels/Types/

[patrick451]

This sounds like a good thing. If we had more laws like this, we likely wouldn't be in the current situation where national security is threatened by squabbles between China and Taiwan.

[edgyquant]

Yep. The jones act is likely the only reason America has any shipbuilding capacity left

[delfinom]

Nah, Congress keeps shipbuilding alive like any other too big to fail shit show, making the navy buy and maintain ships they don't want and at exorbitant costs because the ships are flawed from day 1.

All the Jones Act has done is increase shipping costs in the country as every shipper is forced to use trucks and rail freight instead. It impacts everything, even the costs to build homes because heavy bulk goods more or less end up on trucks over long distances.