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Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

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Re: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

#41

Post by 7952 »

jfaucett wrote: post #28
jackmott wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

nature is inherently violent yes, but the effect of humans on the rest of the species on the planet is equivalent to extinction events that are rare on geologic time scales (already!) and some people want to keep making that worse so we can populate the world with even more sheeple who have even more iphones.

"...some people want to keep making that worse so we can populate the world with even more sheeple who have even more iphones." That sentence is horrible. We're talking about living, breathing, thinking human beings not "sheeple". And to equate people who have dreams, hopes, and aspirations to a lot of mindless animals whose only desire is to destroy the planet and play on iphones is an egregious misrepresentation of…

Ecological protection is not necessarily mutually exclusive with human development. And human beings are massively reliant on those ecosystems in subtle and important ways. Your point seems like a false dichotomy. We just need to approach problems in an environmentally literate way.

Re: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

#42

Post by masklinn »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #30
celticninja wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Mosul is hardly an example of a well engineered dam though built in 1984 and falling to pieces. The Hoover Dam was built in 1933 and is not in need of pulling down.

If maintenance were interrupted (social upheaval) then Hoover too would fail. It take maintenance to keep it running - in particular mussels would foul and stop the turbines in a few seasons.

> If maintenance were interrupted (social upheaval) then Hoover too would fail.

Probably not in your lifetime let alone in a generation. Mosul's an issue because the substrate is not suitable for dam building (it's soluble gypsum, so it just keeps eroding because dam foundations kind-of tend to be around water) so the dam has to be continuously grouted to prevent it from failing.

Re: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

#44

Post by crdoconnor »

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #17

" its per capita electricity consumption is about one-quarter of, say, France or Belgium." Its in the bottom quartile worldwide I believe. Also the recommendations for the USA are way off. The "only way" to reach this goal is apparently to build lots of wind and solar. No mention whatsoever of nuclear, which is by far the more practical solution. And far less ecologically damaging.

>No mention whatsoever of nuclear, which is by far the more practical solution. And far less ecologically damaging.

The UK's new Hinckley point power plant is both more expensive than solar/wind and puts the UK's energy generation in Chinese hands.

There's a reason why Angela Merkel (relevant: probably the only physicist head of state) decided to shift to wind and solar.

Re: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

#45

Post by ptaipale »

taneq wrote: post #37
millettjon wrote: post #29

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In Chile, the mining companies in the North use a disproportionate amount of energy. They are located in one of the driest deserts in the world and could easily supply their power needs from solar with minimal impact. Instead they continually fight to build dams in pristine temperate rain forest in the South.

So why are they fighting so hard to build hydro dams when they could so easily and cheaply run off solar instead?

I bet it is because they want to operate mines also when it is dark. I'm interested if millettjon has any other explanations.

Re: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

#46

Post by ptaipale »

geff82 wrote: post #7
masklinn wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What landscape did Fukushima waste? Are you confusing Fukushima and the Tōhoku earthquake? Hell, if Chernobyl is any indication, nuclear accidents tend to save landscapes more than they waste'em. Or do you mean "waste" in the sense that humans can't wring them dry?

They are inhabitable zones for humans now and have a bad effect on a lot of other organisms. I think humanity has done harm to the whole ecosystem (including humans themselves) by beginning to use atomic energy.

Not really. They're uninhabitable only because of not-always-rational fear of radiation. People were fleeing from Japan because of Fukushima, and when doing so some of my countrymen returned here, where the natural background radiation is higher than in the affected area they ran away from.

When coming here, they went to an airplane which was high up in the sky and momentarily gave them an even higher dose of radiation.

Fukushima exclusion zone is a social phenomenon created by human fear, not physiological created by radiation.

Re: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

#47

Post by ThomPete »

millettjon wrote: post #27
jfaucett wrote: post #19

Notice this is because 80% of the energy obtained was from Hydroelectric power, which is a great energy source because it is reliable - unlike wind and solar which in this case provided 7% and 0.01% respectively and are not reliable. It frustrates me that so many environmentalists are still against hydro because it alters ecosystems when nature itself is inherently violent, dangerous and in a constant state of flux.…

Unreliability of wind power generate can be largely mitigated by interconnecting disparate wind farms spread over a large area.

Which requires large areas which isn't always possible.

I don't think this will be properly solved until we have proper fuel-cells

Re: Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity

#49

Post by goodcanadian »

millettjon wrote: post #29
jfaucett wrote: post #19

Notice this is because 80% of the energy obtained was from Hydroelectric power, which is a great energy source because it is reliable - unlike wind and solar which in this case provided 7% and 0.01% respectively and are not reliable. It frustrates me that so many environmentalists are still against hydro because it alters ecosystems when nature itself is inherently violent, dangerous and in a constant state of flux.…

In Chile, the mining companies in the North use a disproportionate amount of energy. They are located in one of the driest deserts in the world and could easily supply their power needs from solar with minimal impact. Instead they continually fight to build dams in pristine temperate rain forest in the South.

I would caution that deserts are some of the most sensitive ecosystems in the world. Covering up large areas of a desert with solar panels may be more harmful than you realize.

That said, I am a strong solar advocate; I simply believe we should start with the roofs of warehouses. These are huge areas of relatively flat space where the ecological damage has already been done.

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