Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

bloomberg.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

61–70 of 168 posts

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#61

Post by vamur »

Laforet wrote: post #58
vamur wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be a disaster? The plants would be built and operated by an outside company - e.g Areva, Rosatom. And hydro power they have today is not reliable. So they would need to use coal or natural gas. And both of these pollute compared to nuclear.

Nuclear power stations require a high initial capital input. AFAIK nothing of this sort has been happening since Chavis became president. They have essentially starved their own energy industry of necessary reinvestments to get a quick buck. This is of course, ignoring the risks that the government claiming that they will take over the nuclear plant and put a high school dropout in charge.

Venezuela had a mostly positive balance of trade last 10 years. So they had enough money to ask for financing for a nuclear plant (usually 5-10bln) to stabilize their grid. Instead they wasted money on the ridiculous gasoline subsidy, creating a huge smuggling industry.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#62

Post by saint_fiasco »

vamur wrote: post #54
saint_fiasco wrote: post #49

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's a good idea in the general case, but in the case of Venezuela would lead to disaster. Actually in Venezuela every power plant ends in disaster but disasters in nuclear plants have much more severe consequences.

Why would it be a disaster? The plants would be built and operated by an outside company - e.g Areva, Rosatom. And hydro power they have today is not reliable. So they would need to use coal or natural gas. And both of these pollute compared to nuclear.

>The plants would be built and operated by an outside company

What are you, a capitalist? That won't work in Venezuela's current political climate.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#63

Post by amazon_not »

Laforet wrote: post #55
malbs wrote: post #40

Here in Tasmania we're not at the shut down stage yet, but it's something no one wants to talk about. They're not asking residents to shutdown yet, but if things continue the way they are, who knows. The major companies/power users are currently being rationed (Aluminium smelters, paper mills etc) The state relies on hydro-electric power, and last year sold off a lot of its "excess" power to Victoria via the Basslink…

Thanks for sharing tue situation with us. I live just across the ditch in New Zealand and somehow managed to remain oblivious about it. The developments makes me feel somewhat uneasy since NZ is highly reliant on hydroelectric power and we have been shutting down thermal plants because they are no longer required. Whilst there is excess capacity now we have had problems during the droughts in 2004 so the risk of anot…

The power cable contains a fiber optic cable within itself. This fiber cable was a major fiber route for Tasmania.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#66

Post by the_af »

rafaelm wrote: post #45
lucio wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Really? After 90 days of govt.? "in a profound unpayable debt"? Compared to Kirchner's administration, Macri's waaaay better. This is a sample of Kirchner's gov: http://www.eltrecetv.com.ar/telenoche/impactante-video-el-hi... You can see in the video, the son and the accountant of a major contractor from Kirchner's Administration. They're counting corruption money, and drinking a scotch to celebrate afterwards. Looks…

Yeah, same thing is happening here in Venezuela. Chavistas now want the new Assembly to fix what chavismo has been destroying here (still is) for 18 years.

I'm not very familiar with Venezuela's history (I have a vague notion of events like the "Caracazo", but not too much). What was there before the rise of Chavismo, and was it successful and good for the country?

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#67

Post by voltagex_ »

malbs wrote: post #40

Here in Tasmania we're not at the shut down stage yet, but it's something no one wants to talk about. They're not asking residents to shutdown yet, but if things continue the way they are, who knows. The major companies/power users are currently being rationed (Aluminium smelters, paper mills etc) The state relies on hydro-electric power, and last year sold off a lot of its "excess" power to Victoria via the Basslink…

http://isbasslinkfixed.com/

I feel very sorry for you people down there. There's really no other way to route traffic that has enough capacity for the whole state. It's a great/terrible example of the part of the National Broadband Network that no one talks about - Australia simply doesn't have enough backhaul because we're so far away from everywhere.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#68

Post by 15charlimit »

saint_fiasco wrote: post #62
vamur wrote: post #54

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why would it be a disaster? The plants would be built and operated by an outside company - e.g Areva, Rosatom. And hydro power they have today is not reliable. So they would need to use coal or natural gas. And both of these pollute compared to nuclear.

>The plants would be built and operated by an outside company What are you, a capitalist? That won't work in Venezuela's current political climate.

Political climates tend to shift when people figure out that idealism won't fill their bellies or keep a roof over their heads.

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#69

Post by gozur88 »

saryant wrote: post #34
AI_Overlord wrote: post #25

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Caused by Fraudulent Enron employees. Not because of lack of supply.

Because of the world's dumbest attempt at privatization. Forcing utilities to buy power regardless of cost was destined to fail from day one.

It was no more, or less, "privatised" than the previous arrangement. It was just a change of regulation. A stupid change, as you noted.

Preventing utilities from hedging... how could that ever work?

Re: Venezuela to Shut Down for a Week to Cope With Electricity Crisis

#70

Post by kafkaesq »

thebmax wrote: post #13

A real life Ayn Rand story.

Here's another:

https://www.vice.com/read/atlas-mugged-922-v21n10

The eagerness of a different (but overlapping) libertarian cabal to court favor with the notoriously corrupt (and murderous) regime in Honduras to build their own version of paradise on the northern coast of that country (at the expense of the local Garífuna community) is also quite telling.

Her legacy would seem to cut both ways, we might say.

Post reply on HN