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.
a) Finland needing fast & accurate RADAR tracking across their 50km gulf and restricting activity in the gulf as a result. Not just wind farms, other commercial activities are restricted in the Gulf of Finland including shipping.
b) USA restricting wind farms on it's east coast (NC and NY/NJ) where the nearest land is thousands of km away and no other commercial activities are meaningfully restricted.
(If the US can't field a RADAR for early warning off the east coast that can handle wind farms on the coast, we have other problems)
Offshore wind farms have been stopped by the Finnish and Swedish military in many parts of the Baltic sea which aren't the gulf of Finland.
If wind farms are a problem for radars in the US, then it's quite a small price to pay to block them offshore. Especially since the country is gigantic and has plenty of room inland.
Any attack on the US will be through sea or space. Both are voids and very difficult or impossible to surveil. There's a historical example in Pearl Harbor.
So why you are bringing up nearest land I have no clue? The point is that the US is exposed to the oceans.
Atlantic ocean: thousands of miles to the nearest land from the NE coast; unrestricted commercial activity
Baltic sea: Belligerent nation on the coast (Kaliningrad Oblast) ~100 miles away; heavily patrolled and monitored commercial activity
> If wind farms are a problem for radars in the US
I’m asserting they are not because they magically weren’t 2 years ago and the airspace on the NE coast of the US has some of the largest and most aggressive ADIZ in the world since 2001. If wind farms were a problem for RADAR/early warning systems we would have heard about it in the last 25 years.
> So why you are bringing up nearest land I have no clue? The point is that the US is exposed to the oceans.
Er yes... I’m sure the military groups responsible for early warning didn’t just realise that in 2025. 10 years after offshore wind farms in the area were fully operational.
Edit: I want to say that learnings from recent conflicts (especially around drones) would be a compelling argument for why we only just realised these issues, but no one has articulated that or why it’s an issue on the Atlantic coast.
If the radars that the USA uses are so great, then why don't Finland and Sweden purchase these systems instead of blocking almost all offshore wind farms? These are two countries that have very strong political agendas in favour of wind power.
Maybe there are new threats that neither you or I are aware of or understand? Secrecy is how the military operates. New and emerging threats is the exact reason which has been given by the US Department of Interior.
As for drones, at least in Finland they are investigating if land based wind power mills can be equipped with drone warning systems.
I don't buy into the hacker double think, where everything is great and glorious and rational when Europeans do it, but it's the opposite if America under Trump does it.
> If the radars that the USA uses are so great, then why don't Finland and Sweden purchase these systems instead of blocking almost all offshore wind farms?
Are you deliberately not trying to see the difference?
Early warning systems need all the help they can get when you only have 100km to your threats (ie. the baltic sea); when you have the entire Atlantic you don’t need that.
US early warning systems are great because they have 1000s of kilometers of space.
As other commenters have already pointed out to you, the Nordic countries do allow wind farms in:
And they don't allow wind farms where they are exposed to the open baltic.
What does those three seas you mentioned have in common? They have Nordic coastline on both sides. Meaning that nobody can hide in radar shadow, because they'll be seen from the other coast.
> US early warning systems are great because they have 1000s of kilometers of space.
Not if there is a disturbance in the way. You know how signals work. Everything behind the disturbance will be in shadow, stretching for as far as you please. The ocean is a giant dark void, and your enemy can be anywhere and go anywhere.
The Swedish defense minister has specified the threat to be cruise missiles in their decision to ban and block offshore wind farms. I wouldn't be surprised if the US has the same reason for their national security concerns. With a cruise missile you have to get close before launching, as compared to ICBMs which have no limits in range.
And just out of curiosity: Why don't they build these wind parks inland in the great plains? Too much energy loss from distance to consumers?
(This is why my stance is "bad faith" on the "national security" claim, if that wasn't clear; I know plenty on how RADARs work and it doesn't pass the sniff test)
