Costa Rica has gone 76 days using 100% renewable electricity • Hacker News Board

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

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Post by sethrin » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:02 PM UTC

melling wrote: post #147

JoeAltmaier wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Consider: earth may well be the only habitable planet in our galaxy. In that case its nearer the truth to consider it a gift just for us.

Consider that the galaxy is 100,000 light years across so even if there are a couple of other habitable planets out there, we aren't likely to get there for millennia.

Without invoking abuses of either relativity or the rocket equation, current physical understanding more-or-less limits us to long-term 'generation ships'. There is some potential argument about cryogenic freezing/revival, but it may be more accurate to talk about human-descended life forms walking on exoplanets rather than homo sapiens sapiens per se.

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

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Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:03 PM UTC

chki wrote: post #158

mhurron wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Dams are an ecological disaster, just as much as burning fossil fuels. Dams have directly caused or are causing the extinction of several species around the world, that is not counting all the permanent environmental impacts a dam creates. Hydro is a green energy source if you define green as simply not burning fuel.

But the big difference is that the effects are almost completely local and not anywhere as threatening on a global scale compared to burning stuff and causing everything to heat up. This is actually a decisive point because whoever builds the dam will also lookout for the effects it causes and be more reasonable. On top of that I think that the extinction of species is really not comparable to global warming, which w…

Salmon, as an example, turn out to be a major component of nutrient transfer mechanisms returning fertilisers from sea environments to littoral watershed regions.

http://www.inforain.org/reports/salmon_decline.html

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

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Post by jcranmer » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:04 PM UTC

honkhonkpants wrote: post #310

jcranmer wrote: post #289

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Uh, no. Chicago Midway happens to fit very nicely inside 1 mi² = 2.56 km². Its main runways (5 of them) with feeder ramps collectively take up at best ½ the space, so a single runway itself is not 1 km² but more like .2-.3 km².

Midway is an airport for ants. 10/28 at SFO is 2 sq km, and there are two of them, and 1/19 are 1.5 sq km, and there are two of them. Then you also have OAK and SJC. Point: a square kilometer to generate 1GW peak of electricity would be an obviously excellent trade off, well within the cost parameters that humans are willing to spend on far less useful endeavors like runways and parking lots.

Wikipedia says that 10/28 is 3.618 km. For the runway itself to be 2 km², it would have to be 0.552 km wide. A quick glance at an aerial map indicates that a width of 0.552 km gives approximately the width of both runways, relevant taxiways, and the surrounding ground. Wikipedia says that the runways are in fact .061 km wide, for a total per-runway size of .221 km².

I picked Midway because it's a very conveniently sized airport, being almost exactly 1 mi² in a square-shaped with obvious meter marks (due to surrounding grid system).

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

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Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:06 PM UTC

taneq wrote: post #39

Objection: Geothermal technically isn't renewable.

Geothermal, as with solar power, taps into an extant energy flux, rather than, as with fossil fuels and nuclear fission, stocks which are depleted with time.

There's a long discussion of this, dating to the late 18th century, though it's long been ignored and/or suppressed within mainstream economics. You'll find a healthy discussion in ecological or environmental studies circles, however.

Vaclav Smil in general does some of the better quantitative treatments of the problem.

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

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Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:10 PM UTC

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.

The risk in the case of Mosul is failure of the dam face itself. Not merely the generating equipment.

Hoover faces no threats of similar magnitude.

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

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Post by r00fus » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:16 PM UTC

hguant wrote: post #72

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I sometimes think they reject the idea that the whole point of existence is human flourishing and happiness. Yes, many people reject this idea. As a matter of fact, this is the first time I've ever heard anyone express this idea.

It's actually a really old idea. Sadly, not one that gets a lot of press, as it's not very sexy to talk about dead Greeks (except to reject them). https://orwell1627.wordpress.com/2013/06/30/aristotles-purpo...

Maybe it'd get more clicks on HN if we link the Alpha Centauri technology achievement:

http://alphacentauri2.info/wiki/Eudaimonia

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

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Post by totony » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:17 PM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #253

nixos wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we could do that without hurting a single other human? Absolutely. Actually, we did that a few years back with Smallpox. True, there's a debate if viruses are alive, but I have no doubt we'd do the same if it was a bacteria (and possible to obliterate).

Wiping out a species to save a single life is monstrous and absurd. I hope you're not serious.

If there is no consequence for humans then I would find it perfectly normal. It isn't monstrous nor absurd.

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

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Post by dredmorbius » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:17 PM UTC

hjnilsson wrote: post #254

jbrun wrote: post #48

Quebec has gone about 50 years.

As has Norway. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Energy_in_Norway Main problem with hydropower is it's geographical dependency. Denmark could never do what Norway is doing for example.

Well, it could. But it would have to dig a hell of a hole....

Denmark is utilising a resource it has in some abundance: wind. Part of a renewables strategy is using what you've got, not what you wish for.

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

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Post by clock_tower » Fri, Sep 09, 2016, 11:41 PM UTC

r-w wrote: post #248

maratd wrote: post #227

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't think that's true at all. They could have easily over-fished, exhausted the land through improper farming, or cut down all the trees in a particular area. And they had a very good idea that they could do this and screw over future generations.

I don’t think that model takes ignorance into account. You would be unhappy if you knew you were doing a disservice to future generations, but you might accidentally do something stupid that screws things up for generations to come.

That sounds intuitively plausible; Aristotle's systems in general tended to be bad about modeling human ignorance.

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

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Post by clock_tower » Sat, Sep 10, 2016, 12:00 AM UTC

astrodust wrote: post #253

nixos wrote: post #235

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we could do that without hurting a single other human? Absolutely. Actually, we did that a few years back with Smallpox. True, there's a debate if viruses are alive, but I have no doubt we'd do the same if it was a bacteria (and possible to obliterate).

Wiping out a species to save a single life is monstrous and absurd. I hope you're not serious.

I'd personally agree with the view that small, simple life-forms which prey on humanity -- or on other large, complex organisms -- can be destroyed with impunity.

The Green Party's original manifesto rejected this view; their position has some logical consistency, but I don't think that the continued existence of smallpox and rinderpest, or Guinea worms, or mosquitoes (http://www.nature.com/news/2010/100721/full/466432a.html), or Dutch elm disease (which doesn't really harm humans, but elm trees certainly suffer), is worth the suffering and premature death they cause.

So, I guess I could reduce my position to saying that if a species can only exist by causing harm or premature death to something more biologically complex than itself, it shouldn't exist. Do you think that this is reasonable?

I'd add two corollaries: that predation is natural enough that we shouldn't kill all predators; and that a species should only be wiped out if it has to cause this sort of harm in order to live -- if it's parasitic or infectious, or possibly (as with mosquitoes) if it's an extremely serious disease-carrier. And I'm not at all interested in driving mostly-harmless species to extinction for purely economic benefits...