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Hoover Dams For Lilliput: Does Small Hydroelectric Power Have a Future?
New submitter MatthewVD writes "Boing Boing's Maggie Koerth-Baker, author of Before The Lights Go Out, writes that the era of giant hydroelectric projects like the Hoover Dam has passed. But the Department of Energy has identified 5,400 potential sites for small hydro projects of 30 MWs or less. The sites, in states as dry as Kansas, represent a total 18,000 MW of power — enough to increase by 50 percent America's hydro power. Even New York City's East River has pilot projects to produce power from underwater turbines. As we stare down global warming and peak oil, could small hydroelectric power be a key solution?"
But they never pick up after themselves. How many of these projects do you see get made, and how many of them actually get maintained afterwards? You'd like to think that the two numbers would be closer together but they're not.
Small hydro is nothing new. The state of Georgia has something like fifty or sixty small hydro sites, and they barely make any electricity -- as those stated in the article. The problem is, however, that hydroelectric power -- even without dams -- is fairly ecologically disturbing. Not only that, but you have to maintain it. Why would you want to have to maintain 5400 power plants that each only make less than 30MW? Yes, it's about four or five thousand households, but that's also about a thirtieth of an average coal plant. There's no incentive to do this. Your ROI is low, your maintenance is high (and difficult)...particularly when chemical belchers like Plant Scherer can exist, which produce upwards of three and a half gigawatts. They aren't trendy, but I've yet to see a conclusive argument against breeder reactors.
When total energy required on the order of TWatts, you want to boast about 18GWatt being more than EVERYTHING already out there, hydro-wise?
No. Really. The ecological damage for that pittance of power just isn't worth it.
Until everyone realizes that the only short/medium term solution is nuclear, we'll need everything we can get that isn't fossil. Especially coal, but natural gas isn't much better.
Oil won't get much cheaper anytime soon, and will probably get more expensvie. If that happens, this kind of project will be much more appealing.
...and their environmental effect.
I suspect that, in a situation where fossil fuels are becoming scarce, you'd quite rapidly see people's interest in the environment shrink to one a simple question about every object around them: "Am I better off eating this or burning this?"
The age of massive hydroelectric power installations is only beginning. It most likely won't be dominated by Americans, but it will dwarf that which exists now.
-1 Uncomfortable Truth
I am a little surprised to see "could small hydroelectric power be a key solution" instead of "could small hydroelectric power be the key solution". Surprised, but happy! It makes me feel like I am reading something with thought behind it, instead of a supermarket tabloid.
I know of existing dams in the US - several on the Rock River (north-central Illinois, U.S.A.) - Rockton, Rockford, Dixon, Byron, Sterling/Rock Falls, etc. that were built years ago by Commonwealth Edison for min-hydro power. The dams are still there to provide floodwater control, but have been decom'd for electrical generation.
Last time I looked, the dam in Dixon station still had generators in operation. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_River_(Mississippi_River)
Now, I'm no civil engineer.. but if you already have a dam, and the environmental impact associated with it, why not us the head you have to generate some? Yea, your not getting the 200-300' head that you would like, but there is still a lot of potential energy to be captured out of the 20' 30' head out of one of these.
Dear editors/submitters for Slashdot stories:
Please eliminate the stupid leading/inflammatory/etc. questions at the end of the summaries. Anyone with an IQ higher than that of a grape has already mentally asked themselves far more insightful questions than the ones posed at the end of the summaries. You are just making yourselves look like idiots by asking them.
Sincerely,
An Old AC
I have found it amazing that so many small plants have been abandoned in this area (Western Oregon). Some were fish blockers some were not.
Energy produced = volume of water flowing * square of the distance drop, cut your vertical drop by 1/2, your power output drops to 25%.
Interesting corollary with the latest simulator findings on fusion power... it might break even at 26M amps input, it gets really interesting at 60M amps, and better and better from there. It doesn't work yet because we haven't made one big enough yet.
Pennsylvania is trying to decide which of the old small dams should stay and which should go --- focusing on the impact that such obstructions have on fish and eel spawning.
Sphinx of black quartz, judge my vow.
There are many places such as irrigation channels where you can place micro turbines that will have no ill environmental effect as these do not support aquatic life. It looks like this was not included in the report. For example see hydrovolts.com/ for a unique hydro generator that does not need a damn. These can even be placed in the outflow from some sewage or industrial plants. Not big power, but lots of places you can wedge these in to add distributed generation into the grid - often at the ends of branches where it is needed the most.
One of my biggest problems with the environmentalist "movement" (and, in fairness, it's really more a mish-mash of a bunch of somewhat different movements) is its propensity for embracing fashionable fads and then tossing them aside the second some new thing comes along. Hydro was once the darling of clean energy, but then someone started complaining about the poor fish not being able to spawn as good as before, and so it was tossed aside like some embarrassing stepchild--in favor of the current green stars-of-the-moment, wind and solar. This in spite of the fact that hydro has BY FAR the longest and most productive history of any of the green energy generators. There are still working dams out there today that have been generating electricity for close to a century (probably some over a century now).
Makes me wonder how long it will be before someone finds fault with wind and solar and those get tossed aside for some new fad too.
What political party do you join when you don't like Bible-thumpers *or* hippies?
One convenience of small hydro projects is that(if you are willing to accept lousy efficiency) they can be built with quite minimal technological resources. The hydraulic and mechanical side is classical era stuff and bolting on the electric half is 19th century physics and engineering.
Larger systems demand substantially greater architectural expertise, if you don't want them to collapse a lot...
Also, smaller dams means smaller, shallower reservoirs. Which in turn means that they tend to silt up pretty quickly.
Dams have a pretty spotty ecological track record, don't they? Makes it harder for fish to migrate, screws with water tables, and when they're end-of-lifed, nobody wants to pay to take them down.
My state government just spent millions removing dams, in order to restore the natural ecology of the streams and rivers, and protect the Bay. Now another distant government wants to put the dams back.
Grrrr. This could be titled, 'Politicians waste money tearing dams up, and then putting them back.'
My AC stalker: " I personally agree with your posts most of the time, but that won't keep me from modding you troll"
Sorry, I was wrong about the squared term (in hydro power from height, it's linear, but it is a product of the height * flow)... the fusion simulations did quote output varying as the square of the input current....
Hydro dams use a lot of DHMO which causes ecological disaster and is extremely dangerous if it spills.
STOP DHMO NOW!!!
Ridiculous.
i't dead easy to calculate whether it's worthwhile to set up a hydro plant. You measure the amount of water flow, the drop, and that directly tells you how much energy is available. You compare that to the costs of building a hydro plant there, taking into account the cost of construction, the cost of money, and the other costs, and come up with a clear-cut indication of whether the project will ever break-even.
That has been done, for every sizable stream, like 100 years ago.
There may be a few more sites that are practical now, given the lower interest rates and the desire to cut down on carbon pollution, but not a LOT of sites, and no large ones.
"Underwater turbines" are a large factor under break-even in almost every case. You need a significant drop to get enough energy to be worthwhile collecting.
We're surrounded by energy sources. When it's 30 outside my house, it's still 60 underground. When it's 90 out, it's still 60 under. With a heat pump, I can harness that energy differential. I've got sunlight for only a few hours a day, but it can make a bit dent in my usage through water heating and electricity. I could even use an electric pump running on excess solar to store water up on my hillside during the day then let it come down during the night for hydro power. Add in an efficient fridge, more insulation, and better heat sealing, and I'll reduce my outside power usage to a small fraction of its current level. Multiply that by a hundred million households and we'll really be getting somewhere.
lets not forget that when we harvest the energy, we're changing the flow. If you harvest enough energy for it to matter, you'll be slowing down the flows, which may have an even bigger impact on ecology than the fossils are having now.
Just look at the damage the big dams do.
Here in Norway we got more mountains and rain per square kilometer or per person the US could dream about - okay we have a cold climate too - but not even we are self-sufficient on hydro power or for that matter renewable power. Sure as fossil fuels run out they'll surely be built - just like wind, water, solar, geothermal, biofuel and everything else you can think of - but they won't add up to the current energy usage. This figure pretty much says it all.
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
I suspect that, in a situation where fossil fuels are becoming scarce,
Nice fiction Asimov.
In real life we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels left.
The problem with your assertion is that just like technology help us fend off anything like "peak population", technology also finds new ways to get at and find oil.
So in the U.S. alone we have way more than enough fossil fuel to last us until really good nuclear / solar sources become viable.
Like wind turbines, hydro power is kind of a dead end. It requires a lot of effort to maintain and only really makes much sense on the scale where you are really harming the environment around it.
Look at the history of any large dam and you'll see a trail of destruction behind it. How funny that more dams are being proposed as green...
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
1. dams collect sediment, and eventually become unusable, then must be removed. Typical lifespan is 50-100 years.
2. dams destroy fisheries
3. dams eliminate sediment deposition upon floodplains, making floodplain farmland less soil-rich
4. since downstream-of-the-dam water has low sediment content, it increases erosion downstream of the dam, eliminating sandbars, and scouring riverbeds.
5. dams greatly increase evaporation and water loss
6. dams built for "flood control" are usually built for normal springtime snowmelt flooding. they do little to control flooding from rain.
Hydropower is fine, so long as you do mini-hydro, or towed-array generation. Dam-based power generation is highly destructive, and carries substantial long-term hidden costs, such as the cost of removing the dam at the end of its life, along with the massive amount of sediment that was impounded by the dam.
Kansas isn't really all that dry, depending on the part of the state... eastern ks recieves more rainfall than most of new england.
technology also finds new ways to get at and find oil.
If that were the case, then the energy returned on energy invested would be increasing, instead of decreasing. It doesn't have to hit "1" to stop, either.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
The answer is no
Fracking, natural gas, and, if you have the political will, nuclear. That's the answer.
I'm sure these projects could have a benefit and will be fine. But they don't seem to be a key solution. Everything else can be in the mix, but we aren't moving away from fossil fuels unless we want to nuke up. And as we've seen with Germany and the general green resistance to nuclear, that's not happening.
But, sure, create a bunch of underwater turbines.
Except for ending slavery, the Nazis, communism, & securing American independence, war has never solved anything.
I apologize for the lack of clarity in my phrasing; but I was suggesting a hypothetical scarcity situation: Were fossil fuels to become scarce, you would see a marked decrease in environmental interest.
At present, such a situation does not exist. If, however, it did, I suspect that you'd find people trampling just about anything in the hunt for new sources.
So it turns out that Hydroelectric power is not as green as we once thought it was. hydro power damns are a huge barrier to migratory fish such as alewives, shad and salmon. Alewives and shad are enormously important to the ocean food chain and their decline has been linked to the decline in ground fish stocks such as cod, hake, haddock, and other fish. Ted Ames, a MacArthur Genius grant recipient and Maine fisherman has documented this decline:
http://www.penobscoteast.org/documents/C09-052.1GOMplan_001.pdf
Add fish ladders to the hydro dams? Sadly, fish ladders are grossly inefficient and event the newest ones only get about 30% over the dam.
There are many efforts under way to rid rivers of obstacles and barriers to the original wild life and bring the fish populations back:
http://mainerivers.org/about/advocating-for-free-flowing-rivers/
We had damn well better do it anyway or we're going to be much worse off than we could be. Anybody who can do arithmetic and use google should have figured out by now that the 160 exajoules added to the world's energy budget each year just by petroleum can't be replaced by "renewables." EVER. The numbers just don't work and can't be made to work (See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cubic_mile_of_oil). Our best bets are nuclear and thorium and even their numbers are lousy.
Bottom line? It's a lower energy future. We need to put as much long-term, relatively sustainable, energy producing infrastructure in place while we still can. Ubiquitous, widely distributed, small scale energy production through dams, solar, wind, geothermal, nuclear and any other way we can think of is the way to do that. In 50 years, we won't have 24/7 electricity everywhere, but we may have enough to stay above the level of Somalia if we put enough infrastructure in place today.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
Want a solution, how about a little efficiency. Doubling efficiency is a no brainier. Every major energy driver has solutions to double efficiency. Wind and solar costs are dropping like a stone and utility scale energy storage is ready for deployment (see Gates' new gravity storage investment). We just need to build in high expectation for efficiency like we have for semiconductor technology. There is a drastic difference between coal and natural gas in terms of atmospheric impact. Gas also has the ability to spin up turbines in seconds so it needs much less wasted hot standby capacity than steam technologies (nuclear/coal). The way fracking is now done is a real issue, but there are cleaner solutions to that to bridge us to a renewable future. FWIW, tar sands are also a major disaster for the environment. It take a huge amount of energy to get the oil out so there are massive impacts to the atmosphere besides the ugly water and soil damage. Until nuclear is ready to pay their own way I'm not going to believe they have a mature technology. The nuclear industry does not buy insurance to cover their potential damages because they have a get out of jail card from congress. If your neighborhood nuke takes out your region, they only have to pay a tiny fraction of the cost because the industry has a strict cap on liabilities (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Price%E2%80%93Anderson_Nuclear_Industries_Indemnity_Act). That's right, if MegaNuke Corp blows a rainbow of toxic and radioactive crud all over your town you are totally out of luck. That tells me they know that their technology is not ready for prime time. Even wall street will not take the risk even given the high profits. That has to tell you something if those pirates find it too risky. And on the back end, who do you think is going to get stuck with the clean-up bill when these things are used-up? And who is going to get stuck with finding a home for this lethal crud for eternity?
In real life we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels left.
Sort of true. There certainly will be oil in the ground 200 years from now. It won't be easy to get, nor will it be inexpensive. The global taste for fossil fuels, especially liquid fossil fuels is truly enormous and growing (think China and India who are attempting to get to US per capita energy expenditures). The supply of fossil fuels isn't growing much at all (happy words from various US politicians notwithstanding).
What we have hear is a failure to communicate. Nice writeup on the concept of Peak oil and how we need to change a few things.....
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
You are seeing fossil fuels become scarce. You are seeing a marked decrease in environmental interest. Look at China and India. Yes, they're both attempting to reign in coal based pollution. No, they are not doing a very good job of it.
Faster! Faster! Faster would be better!
The good ones are running out; but there still seems to be enough coal, vaguely-bituminous-shale, frackable gas, and assorted other burnables sloshing around, if you are willing to ignore the smell... Which we are.
You are several decades behind. Fish ladders got much better when they let actual scientiest look at them. You lose a bit of energy when fish are migrating, but newer models to better predict fish movement (and looking at the whole river and not a single plant) make a lot of difference.
In Germany there are rivers where fish have to pass dozens of hydro plants, and there is almost no loss of fish.
James Howard Kunstler is a huge advocate of much more decentralized living -- essentially small town living with an emphasis on local agriculture, etc.
If you have people living in a town of 1000 people near a river, small hydro seems to make sense -- that size of a town could probably get by with 10MW, which assumes 10kW per person average consumption, which I'd guess is probably a little high.
The answer is a solid NO .
In real life we have hundreds of years of fossil fuels left.
In real life we have millions of years; because somewhere between 50 and 200 it'll become increasingly uneconomical to extract said fossil fuels such that alternatives are actually cheaper. The first it's likely to happen to is oil. In 50 years we're likely to let most of it sit in the ground because pulling it out is too expensive except for certain scientific testing.
Thus the 'peak oil' - at some point extraction cost will exceed the economic worth, and production will start dropping.
Nuclear is already viable in all but political arenas. Jump the price of power enough and people will hold their nose and select it. Of course, you can't exactly shove nuclear power into a car, and oil is mostly used for transportation. So you're looking at a BIG change if you're going to use nuclear power to provide transport. Something like vast electrification of rail lines, restoration of electric trolly car systems, etc... More dense housing where mass transit is viable.
Coal is more a competitor for Nuclear, and we have a lot more of it.
I don't read AC A human right
I've yet to see a conclusive argument against breeder reactors.
The reason against breeders is the wast amount of waste they produce. It shared the same problem with reprocessing used nuclear fuel: You multiplily waste for a very little gain.
The Frensh built a breeder, it was a desaster (mostly financially). Currently they are using it to destroy the plutonium generated by other normal plants instead of breeding new one.
Small scale hydro can make a heck of a lot of sense. I work with a small community high in the mountains of Washington State, where the primary power supply is a small scale hydro-electric generation system. The funny part is that this technology isn't "new"... The turbines and generators they're using have patent plates on them that read 10-04-86, and that's not 1986. Despite being easily 100 years old, the technology is still easy to maintain, and efficient. Based on the electrical output compared to the water flow, we figure this plant is about 80% efficient, which is pretty good.
In the summer, the system will generate upwards of 250kW of power, which is more than adequate for the community. In the winter, this does drop down to 30kW or so, but that is still more or less sufficient for the lower winter population.
The water supply for this system comes off a small creek flowing down the mountain, about 300' up there is a small diversion dam that the creek flows into. Water will either flow into the penstock, or continue down the creek depending on demand. As a side note, the water pressure is sufficient to push some of the water through the entire water treatment plant, and then into a storage tank, to supply the community's drinking water without the use of a single pump.
...si hoc legere nimium eruditionis habes...
So 5,400 sites to produce 18 GW of power over all of them. To feed a 3,000 GW domestic appetite for electricity. Assuming the 50% increase, that means hydro currently provides 36 GW. This would make it 54 GW total from hydro. What is the cost per MW installed for these 5,400 solutions?? Compared to other sources?
That also sounds like 5,400 cases of NIMBY.
Here in western USA, we have a number of reservoirs that do not have hydroelectric on them. These will most likely be modifed in the future to have that. Some of these will generate 100's of MW or more. In addition, it is a certainty that Colorado WILL build one large reservoir in the west. The reason is that if we do not, we will see Californa, Nevada, and Az contine to steal our water. It is a case of use it or lose it. That large reservoir (most likely 2-forks) will produce something close to a gigawatt or more.
I prefer the "u" in honour as it seems to be missing these days.
I totally agree, they'd never build anything that small these days!
We just finished building one far greater in china, and I suspect this is the new age of Super Dams
a) We don't use oil for producing power. We use oil, almost exclusively for transportation.
b) Coal is a fossil fuel. So is natty gas.
c) How the hell did this get modded +5 insightful?
The answer is yes, and the reason is http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pumped-storage_hydroelectricity to compensate for variable power sources, such as wind and solar.
Personally, I think the environmental problems of dams are overstated, and those of bio, solar, wind are understated.
See http://conesteepark.com/history/a-lake-in-transition for what has happened to a 120-year-old dam in my neighborhood
“The Stone Age did not end for lack of stone, and the Oil Age will end long before the world runs out of oil.” - Sheikh Yamani
Prove anything by multiplying Huge Number times Tiny Number
I am from a tiny rural community in Alaska, one in that is isolated enough to make fuel quite expensive - I haven't visited in a while, but the last time fuel down in the "lower 48" was as expensive as it is now, gasoline was over $5.50 a gallon, not to mention diesel at almost $6.50. This was enough to make electrical bills quite painful, to the tune of about 75 cents/KWH (No, I'm not joking or exaggerating). A few years ago, a very small hydroelectric dam was installed at a local river in an effort to lower power costs and provide a source of energy cleaner than the old diesel generators that were then in use. Electricity still isn't the cheapest, but as soon as the dam's generators switched on, it dropped over 20 cents off of the hourly rate, and will most likely continue to drop as the project pays for itself. The town's small grid is now run entirely off of this one dam, with the diesel generators serving only as a backup. Now, I'm no expert, but this seems like progress to me. For a rural community accessible only by boat and plane, having a reliable power source that can run year-round without the need for shipping in expensive fuels, these kinds of projects are nearly priceless, and for any community, an interim alternative to hydrocarbon power is a positive thing. Now if only we can convince people that the word "nuclear" does not have to mean death and destruction...
In Big Sur one of the state parks has a Pelton Wheel on display. It was used to generate electricity early in the 20th century. That type of setup is good if you have a low flow but a high drop, which is exactly what you have there. In fact the terrain is so rough and beautiful that it has few remaining residents and is mostly parkland. The Pelton Wheel and its small housing did not detract much from the beauty although I suspect the noise of it actually operating might not be so pleasant.
I have also seen some property for sale with legal microturbines generating power for a single residence. If this can be done in California with such very restrictive laws it can be done everywhere. However, the guy might have been grandfathered in or gone through an awful lot of red tape and fees. That's the present.
The future? Yeah sure. It's just not going to be a huge percentage though. A few rural people can avoid the expense of the grid. A few municipalities will supplement their power. Small hydro, or any alternative source for that matter, cannot be the sole prime mover of a high energy society.
That could never work, because it would imply a multitude of energy-producing options, each region choosing what best suits it, rather than one simple, efficient system that fits everyone nationwide. Can't have that!
I apologize for the lack of clarity in my phrasing
There was no lack of clarity. It came through loud and clear. Kendall just ignored it and attacked. Happens all the time when dealing with zealots. Playing devils advocate, even if it's clear that you are, will make you a target of people who are governed more by emotion than reason.
FFS, we don't need more energy generation or storage. All such discussion is merely mental masturbation postponing the inevitable Malthusian Nightmare.
The only (ONLY) practical long-term solution is FEWER FUCKING PEOPLE (and fewer people fucking). This WILL happen one way or the other. Nothing can stop it.
If we grab it by the balls NOW and stop the ignorant (unaware that they are fucking the human species to death) from fucking-out 5+ children each and restrict everyone to ONE CHILD PER COUPLE, we can save the world and the human race.
If we don't do that, we fuck far faster than we THINK. Technology won't be able keep up with our demand for food and energy, leading to global resource wars, famine, and giant fucking calamity the SHTF'ers dream of.
You obviously haven't done the math. Pumped storage sucks.
http://physics.ucsd.edu/do-the-math/2011/11/pump-up-the-storage/
Bah, you call Hoover Dam a giant hydroelectric project? Now this: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Atlantropa is a giant hydroelectric project, building a dam across the Strait of Gibraltar, and lowering the Mediterranean sea by 200m in the process. :)
In general I agree with your point, but in fact hydroelectric ties with nuclear for currently having the lowest cost per delivered watt of power of all the extant methods of power generation. Wind is, as you point out, a dead end except for (possibly) solar updraft that is really a variant of solar, not a hillside of windmills. Solar PV has a Moore's Law that appears applicable, which predicts that by the end of this decade it will likely be break even compared to e.g. coal in amortized cost per delivered watt, without subsidy, and thereafter will become ever more economically profitable on a comparative basis.
Tragically, nobody wants to look at nuclear, especially new generation nuclear that is far safer or thorium that is both safer and not subject to nuclear arms proliferation concerns. Fusion is still on a distant horizon, but if/when it is realized everything else goes away.
With the possible exception of gasoline. Like it or not, it is difficult to imagine any other way of storing 35 kW-hours in the volume occupied by one gallon of gasoline, in a reasonably stable and safe way. Even if fusion is perfected, solar becomes secondary universal and coal goes away, we'll probably end up synthesizing gasoline (or an equally energy dense equivalent) simply because of that.
BTW, not all dams are evil, nor are their reservoirs. I'd guess most of them are more beneficial than not. But either way, that can be decided on a case by case basis -- it isn't reasonable to say "building dams is always bad" as people have built dams without worrying about generating power just to regulate flooding or facilitate irrigation or cheap transportation. Beavers build dams in the wild -- sometimes they are "good", sometimes humans go and tear them down as "bad" -- depending on where they are and what results from the dams.
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
Studies have shown that dams on rivers and streams severely impacts reproduction in fishes, particularly since it alters stream volume and sediment load that directly impact on suitable nest and spawning sites as well as more indirectly on feeding sites, not to mention creates barriers that make it impossible for fishes to move to these sites from up or downstream. With this many projects under consideration you can pretty well kiss most of the North American fish fauna goodbye if these are approved. Of course, this probably won't bother those who won't mind leaving the earth a sterile and uninhabitable wasteland if they think they can make a buck or get a kickback to the their campaign.
I see some increase in environmental interest in China.
See: http://www.china.org.cn/environment/2011-11/07/content_23843392.htm
Wan Bentai, the chief engineer for China's Ministry of Environmental Protection, said heavy metal from smelter chimneys, water run-offs and tailings has polluted in total about 10 percent of the countryâ(TM)s farmland, and the pollution levels have exceeded government limits, according to Southern Metropolitan Daily.
To me when they are even allowed to say and publish stuff like this it means the situation is so crap that the top are considering it a serious enough matter. And such announcements are made to help prepare the way for possibly draconian/drastic actions in the future.
They're also building more nuclear power stations.
As long as you don't mind massive habitat destruction. All the environmentalists will be fine with that, right?
There is no "-1 offended" or "-1 you don't agree with me" mod options for a reason.
after the last century and the start of this century, when do we now worry about environmental effects?
Unaccountable leaders are masters, and unrepresented people are slaves. How do US and EU fare?
sure reservoirs increase the efficiency of hydro electric generation, but I don't see why we can't do hydro without them. run-of-river projects should be no problem, and have a tiny environmental footprint. back to the old days of waterwheels, no reservoirs flooding land, no dams impeding fish...
Can anybody point to any actual accidents in the US Navy nuclear program that did not involve somebody shooting at a sub??
(note http://www.arlingtoncemetery.net/rlmckinl.htm does not count due to it being a suicide)
this is how you do "safe" nuclear.
Any person using FTFY or editing my postings agrees to a US$50.00 charge
Speaking of narrow minded, cliche' engineering concepts, there's no reason for dams at all. Another way to get power out of a river is with a distributed array of low head turbines throughout the length of a river. The system is robust (no one failing turbine takes out the whole system), can be built out incrementally over time, and does not require the overhead of a dam. Admittedly, other maintenance is required, and you lose the advantage of flow control of the river, but these are not mutually exclusive solutions. At some locations, a dam makes sense. At others, turbines are a better solution.
Quantitatively, this will never be a substitute for coal, gas and oil. Nothing is, but in the long run, it's probably things like this or nothing at all.
Please do not read this sig. Thank you.
As an 80%+ correct statement.
Oil makes transportation.
Coal with some Hyrdo and Nuclear makes Electricity.
Natural Gas makes home heating.
Until most cars a electric cars (>15yrs), Hydro can only replace Coal and Nuclear.
Nuclear is already viable in all but political arenas. Jump the price of power enough and people will hold their nose and select it. Of course, you can't exactly shove nuclear power into a car, and oil is mostly used for transportation. So you're looking at a BIG change if you're going to use nuclear power to provide transport. Something like vast electrification of rail lines, restoration of electric trolly car systems, etc... More dense housing where mass transit is viable.
You're right, and this is also why the pure electric car isn't viable yet. Our current infrastructure is designed around the idea that I put energy into my car and drive it until it is almost gone... then put more in and keep driving with no down-time. Whatever solution we come up with has to fit this or it is a step backwards. For this reason I'm a big fan of hydrogen fuel. Electric drivetrains have already proven to be successful in a number of vehicles. So lets start building hybrid vehicles... and I don't mean the battery-laden type like the Prius. Think more along the lines of locomotive style hybrids. Small efficient engines powering an electric motor. By making the drive-line standard we will have a platform which we can swap in the most cost efficient energy source available at a given time.
Then if Nuclear is widely adopted we use excess electricity to generate hydrogen fuel.
My Public Utility District is building several small hydro projects and updating others. They also have applied to the FERC for a license to build tidal power.
-- I have a private email server in my basement.
> ...and their environmental effect.
I think you missed this part:
"produce power from underwater turbines"
These are called "run of river" systems. Instead of a dam that creates an artificial height difference, they are based on using natural changes in height of the landscape. What you do is dig a tube between two points on the river, and the difference in height between the two provides the power.
Although everyone things of dams, run-of-river systems are very common. Niagara Falls is a good example. This project has little visual impact, and none of the detrimental effects normally associated with hydro. The failure modes are also quite benign, generally loss-of-power, not loss-of-life.
I've never seen a good argument not to build these where possible. Except for financial, of course.
Many, perhaps most, medium sized hydroelectric installations fail to use a lot of the energy available to them. The plants are sized to be able to run all year, and when storage is exceeded the excess water runs through a spillway or over the top. Resizing such plants might not be cost-effective, but less power would be wasted, and it would be easier for power companies to maintain than a horde of small plants.
In my opinion, small plants are best for an ambitious streamside property owner as supplemental power and a hobby. And nothing beats the rustic charm of a water wheel.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
For example see hydrovolts.com/ for a unique hydro generator that does not need a damn.
Good, because I sometimes have trouble giving one.
Please stop damming our fscking rivers. Dams are arguably the most eco-unfriendly source of power in existence. I swear the Army corps of engineers also won't be happy until every river in this country has been turned into a lake.
Here is the location for one that I've seen USGS and TVA surveying for sometime now. When I asked the guy what they were doing, they said they were looking into how easy it would be to slip a hydro-electric generator here.
As you can see, it already is dammed so I'm not sure what ecological effects adding a generator would add, but I doubt that it would be any worst that the current situation of algae bloom happening every five to six weeks at the location.
I'm wondering what destruction you see behind the Glenn Canyon (Hoover) dam?
Or maybe you are talking about the lack of destruction from the Colorado river not flooding downstream communities.
When Fascism comes to America, it will call itself Anti-Fascism, and tell you to give up your guns.
Glen Canyon and Hoover are separate dams; Glen Canyon Dam is upstream of the Grand Canyon and Hoover (which spans Black Canyon acc. to WP) is downstream of it. So far as the destruction goes (and I am not one to harp on such things, but this answer seems obvious), I suppose everything that is now at the bottom of Lakes Powell and Mead (respectively) could count. Cf. the former Maine plantations of Dead River and Flagstaff.
Save Maine's economy: write stuff down. All comments are exclusively my own, not my employer.
bah, fischer tropsch can and has made gasoline from coal, peat, your dead grandma, poplar trees, crop residue and your poop for $80 bbl oil equivalent or about $3.00/gal. The only problem is that you have large capital expenditures -like military grade expenditures! No one is willing to spend a dime in this country because we're in decline. Same reason we don't put solar in the ground although it is cheaper than a hundreds of GW of existing capacity in the US. Why invest in a declining empire?
Yes, they're both attempting to reign in coal based pollution. No, they are not doing a very good job of it.
Actually, China does reign in coal based pollution. But that might be something different from what you were probably attempting to say.
Ezekiel 23:20
In general I agree with your point, but in fact hydroelectric ties with nuclear for currently having the lowest cost per delivered watt of power of all the extant methods of power generation. Wind is, as you point out, a dead end except for (possibly) solar updraft that is really a variant of solar, not a hillside of windmills. Solar PV has a Moore's Law that appears applicable, which predicts that by the end of this decade it will likely be break even compared to e.g. coal in amortized cost per delivered watt, without subsidy, and thereafter will become ever more economically profitable on a comparative basis.
On the surface, it looks like he knows what he's talking about. However, ask a subject matter expert [myself] and it's clear he's spouting nonsense. Maybe some collection of facts that were true at some time... But let's examine them now.
1. Wind is a dead end?
Except for having the largest project pipeline of any energy conversion technology. FYI, it will remain the largest pipeline until solar eclipses it. These industries will grow to 10 - 100x at current economics without hitting storage walls and without improving economics. I can not consider how a 10 - 100 fold increase in production and 6 - 13% of global production (at the storage wall) can be considered a dead end
2. The application of Moore's law to PV
No. The barriers to PV production have been varied, most reasons are are not related to semiconductor production. Historically it was the cost of production of high purity polysilicon because they competed with semiconductor industry (nothing to do with transistor count). We can make cheap solar grade 6-9N poly now. Slow technological advances have decreased wafer costs and increased wafer efficiency. Cell/Module production costs have scaled well with production capacity (standard manufacturing learning curve). Equipment costs are cheap enough to compete with coal / nuclear. We might see another 50% drop in silicon module asp (due to ~19-21% quasi-mono cells displacing mono) PV in the next few years, but for all intents and purposes they are cheap enough. BOS will go down by a factor of 2 - 3 with cheaper inverters from China or microinverters. All that's left are to tackle ridiculously disproportionate installation costs, which are a relic of the tortuous development of the industry. Large firms will swallow up the crappy downstream industry we now have, prices will/are drop/dropping and install costs will find a home at less than 1 $/Wp. Again, nothing to do with Moore's law or anything like it... Utility scale projects are already approaching $3/Wp installed ! because they can efficiently minimize these ridiculous human costs. There will be utility installs at 1.50 $/Wp in 2012. These utilities will run these plants for 30-40 years and produce electricity at 0.03-0.04 $/kWh. Nothing will come close except high capacity factor natural gas.
3.break even with coal by 2020
There is no magic coal/solar price point. Historically $1/Wp module ASP has been a target that approximates coal grid parity. We achieved this in Q2 2011. Otherwise solar beats coal in some places and solar will never beat coal in other places. Presently, module ASPs are less than 0.9 $/Wp and will probably be less than 0.8$/Wp by the end of 2012. Furthermore, coal is no longer the target. Coals prices have been steadily increasing for 15 years, while quality steadily decreasing for decades. Natural gas is the cost leader at present day prices, mainly due to fracking. Solar may never catch up to gas, but a solar / gas grid is already more flexible and cheaper than nuclear or coal.
4. nuclear and coal are the cheapest
Yeah yeah, let's stop comparing the cost of generating fully-depreciated 40 year old equipment with new solar plants. Solar is cheaper than both today. There are plenty of issues with solar (e.g. less than 0.25 capacity factor), but raw economics is no longer one of them. W'ere pr
There are EROI figures around that place the 1:1 Oil EROI point at around 2030 to 2050. An EROI of 3:1 is needed for society to function supposedly, hard to separate Oil from other sources of energy though.
Here is a paper regarding the projected Oil EROI.
www.mdpi.com/2071-1050/3/10/1796/pdf
Je me souviens.
Everyone pretty much understands that ecological environments are destroyed when dams are built... but why don't many people think further then that? Life exists in all parts in the world, a giant lake above a dam isn't going to be automatically devoid of all life. An environment will be destroyed, but a new one will pop up. There are ways that both the environment and people cope with change like this. The environment will readjust on it's own and people can do things like install fish ladders.
I don't understand why people throw up a red flag and seem to think that as soon as a dam is put in it eradicates all life within a 10 mile radius and prevents any sort of life from coming back. There is a regenerative factor here that should be considered as well. You can't step on any part of the world without being ecologically damaging, heck just being alive is ecologically damaging.
Like wind turbines, hydro power is kind of a dead end. It requires a lot of effort to maintain and only really makes much sense on the scale where you are really harming the environment around it.
Not true.
This may be true for the larger hydro installations around the world, but it it is by no means true of them all. I know it's true for the Three Gorges dam in China (partially due to how they operate it, but that's China for you), and may be true for other dams, such as Hoover which has a very high flowrate at its spillway, through the tail water.
Yes, constructing and initiating a hydroelectric dam will be 'destructive' to the environment around it. It doesn't harm the environment, though: it changes it. It's arguably much less destructive than a naturally occurring spillway. You may know them as waterfalls.
Additionally, dam construction can help environmental diversity. It doesn't necessarily hurt it. A river prone to seasonal flooding and land destruction (as occurred annually prior to the construction of the US dam system along the Missouri and Mississipi) can have the spring surges regulated to reduce the number and frequency of actual flooding along its length. Those dams can be converted to produce hydroelectric power where they are not already doing so - and there are quite a few of them which are still just dams.
Ecological benefits (change, not destruction) from dams is pretty significant. It creates more marshland acreage (always a diverse habitat of wildlife), provides more variety in waterways, reduces river-length erosion, and so on. The hydroelectric potential of a dam is almost all a bonus. Dams are a good idea if you want to live anywhere near a major river or have periodic seasonal flooding of any sort.
Consider, for a second: the New York Reservoir System has something close to a trillion gallons of water. These are all resevoirs - man made lakes on natural water sources (natural springs, rivers) which have been in use for over 100 years at this point. They don't (as far as I know) harness hydroelectric, they've just got a dozen or so spillways per lake (depending on size). That is a lot of wasted power which, while not significant on the grander scale, would help none the less.
There are many areas which would benefit substantially from hydroelectric power, simply because it would provide them with the excuse of derming their rivers and making a reservoir with a dam they could seasonally regulate - which happens to produce hydroelectric.
Hydro-electric is, per kWh, very cheap. The majority of the state of South Dakota is powered by a the 4 hydro dams on the Missouri river, the Oahe being the largest. We pay half (or less) the power rate of places like California. As of 2011 it was still something like .06$ per kWh (it's gone up a bit due to being sold out of state, I believe). While the initial construction of a dam is surely very expensive, it's a very wise long-term investment.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Whatever solution we come up with has to fit this or it is a step backwards.
I somewhat disagree. Right now it's 'drive it until it's more than half empty, then drive to a fill up station and pay to spend several minutes pouring flammable liquid into it'. There ARE negatives to the way gasoline filling works. Thus, moving away from this model can be a advantage, if done right. One such possibility is inductive charging for EVs.
Stage 1: Recharge at home via cable. Let's say that it takes 10 minutes, on average, to navigate a gas station and fill up, once every two weeks. 260 minutes spent at the gas station. As long as it takes you less than 42 seconds to hook up the charging cable 365 times over the year, you're saving time.
Stage 1.5: Add capability to recharge at work/restaurant/mall/parking lot via cable. Takes a bit more time, but you're more likely to be topped off for any long trips. If batteries are still a significant issue, allows you to make the battery smaller, as you're charging more often.
Stage 2: Recharge at home via induction: You simply park in the designated spot. Newer induction systems are more capable than ever at non-perfect alignments and longer distances. Time savings: Significant.
Stage 2.5: Recharge at work/restaurant/mall/parking lot via induction - I view induction systems as less likely to be damaged and more universal(you can always play with how the loops are connected to vary voltage). It's also faster.
Stage 3: Induction systems placed in roadways provide charge while driving. It might not be able to 'keep up' at highways speeds, but if it takes care of 50% - that takes a 300 mile charge to 600, effective. Worst case you slow down.
For this reason I'm a big fan of hydrogen fuel.
I'm not a fan of hydrogen because while it's the highest energy fuel by mass, it's about the lowest by volume. It also tends to leak. By the time you're storing a significant amount in a space small enough for a car, you're looking at pressures high enough that it ends up heavier than LiIon batteries for the energy contained. Making hydrogen is also inefficient - though processes have improved significantly, it's still much more energy efficient to charge batteries up. It's bad enough that NG is a better solution, and we even have fuel cells that work with it.
A big reason that the prius is as efficient as it is is still because of the battery - the ability to store the stopping energy and use it for the subsequent start saves a lot of energy. Still, one could do the same thing with a much smaller amount of super-capacitors. Besides, LiIon killed a lot of the advantages fuel cells had over batteries.
Personally, if you ask me my vision of a future where fossil fuels either don't exist or are not used, I see a variety of fuels being used. Electric for in-city short range use, and big things like trains have a continual tap. For vehicles that have to leave the area of the grid or just drive that much - it varies from hybrids fueled by algae based fuels to NG.
I don't read AC A human right
You are seeing a marked decrease in environmental interest. Look at China and India.
You're not exactly helping your cause there, buddy. Do we also have rare earth, iron, salt, etc. shortages? No, not really. This is, well, China and India we're talking about, here. China and India are using those, too. What we have is a shortage of cheap oil, which is a significantly different situation largely because China and India are ramping up their industrialization.
And, again, it's China and India, home of the largest slave/slum/underclass populations in the world for the past several millennia, where disposal of human waste in the streets is still common and accepted.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
In real life we have millions of years; because somewhere between 50 and 200 it'll become increasingly uneconomical to extract said fossil fuels such that alternatives are actually cheaper. The first it's likely to happen to is oil. In 50 years we're likely to let most of it sit in the ground because pulling it out is too expensive except for certain scientific testing.
And in 50 years, they will cap the wells they are using un-cap the previously capped wells which weren't producing as rapidly as they had, and start using them again for another 50+ years. There are more wells capped (which will likely produce again at higher yields than previously) today than there are wells in use.
~/ssh slashdot.org ssh: connect to host slashdot.org port 22: too many beers
Run-of-river has it's own set of problems. In BC they've had big problems, include de-watering creeks and fish-kills. DFO complain about how they kill fish.
http://www.globaltvbc.com/run-of-river+projects+are+killing+fish+according+to+foi+documents/6442599542/story.html
Thus the 'peak oil' - at some point extraction cost will exceed the economic worth, and production will start dropping.
That's not peak oil - that's the end of oil, when nobody bothers extracting it because it's not worth the effort. Peak oil is when production stops increasing and starts to decrease: because the amount of oil that's worth extracting is smaller this year than last year.
There's always the slim chance that humans will mature and realize that the environment is more important than their lavish unnecessary lifestyles.
Don't complain about syntax, grammar, or spelling. There is no.hell like input on android.
Yes, but the easily accessible, usable and transportable liquid oil is being used up. Coal is cheap but not as easy to use on a small scale. Changing coal to oil or even oilshale to oil adds a lot of extra expense, and while plenty of gas (gas as in propape, butane etc not gasolene) is available it's relatively difficult to transport and store in comparison.
So while fossil fuels are not running out the cheap and easy stuff is.
I see now, you are pretending to be the joke economist in a crashing plane waiting for someone to sell him a parachute. It's not a simplistic curve that goes up forever - real geological structures that contain oil under a lot of real rock are finite and not infinite, and as the cheap and easy stuff is used up it gets a lot harder to find or expensive to drill down to the other stuff. There is no instant technological fix for things like getting oil out of shale - real physics gets in the way (volume increase during oil extraction - so the stuff needs to be dug up as if it is much harder coal only producing less energy per tonne).
It's also odd that you are describing the cheapest form of power per MW as a dead end which makes we wonder why you thought you knew enough about this topic to be able to add anything to the discussion. The price per MW decreases with scale for hydro, but at small scales where it is not directly cost competive it is still used due to the rapid startup time (typically less than a minute instead of several hours for any thermal solution) so that it can be brought on or offline rapidly as needed. That's why there is a lot of mini-hydro sometimes coupled with pump storage to cover peak loads.
Why invent a new personal definition of peak oil? Just look it up instead of making shit up, but at least you had the decency to list your own personal definiton.
Also, sadly, you got your description of Nuclear backwards for now (but hopefully not for long) - it is only viable in political arenas - Japan with the short term energy independance goal in case they get blockaded for a year or two, a cover for a weapons program (Egypt, Pakistan, Indonesia, North Korea, South Africa etc) or with France etc a not yet fully viable spinoff of a weapons program with a lot of tax money propping it up. Please keep reading before you call me names. There has been a lot of progress and reactors such as pebble bed (built) and accelerated thorium (under construction) are showing a lot of promise, and reactors such as the AP1000 (under construction) could come close. So while the fanboys of 1970s nuclear technology will tell you that it's already perfection and only stopped by those hippies and their dog, there it is instead still an evolving new technology that needs a few more pilot plants before committing to a lot of reactors that no bank on earth is going to finance at this point anyway. With all the exotic technology involved with nuclear reactors you need to build them big (or a lot of little ones in the same place) to compete with other technologies. The edge nuclear power has over coal and oil is much higher steam temperatures - that advantage comes with a cost in materials which becomes less important as the scale increases. At this time financial (not political) constraints along with the technological ones are preventing the construction of much in the way of nuclear reactors - in fact it's a political action to override that and get one built. Private enterprise alone is not going to build a reactor anywhere at this point. Give it a few years (and some government funded R&D) and that may change. For now Westinghouse et al spend more money per annum on lobbying than they do on R&D so it's going to have to be government money.
Ties with nuclear? Where is that magic nuclear plant? What's it's name? Where do I find the total for capital and operating costs for that plant?
Sorry kid, you've been conned by a very audacious lie. Watch out if somebody tries to sell you a bridge. Nuclear has it's place but you've been fooled by a very wild claim.
Thus the 'peak oil' - at some point extraction cost will exceed the economic worth, and production will start dropping.
The United States hit domestic peak oil production in 1970.
Assume two lakes with a water level difference of 2 meters (a bit over 6 feet).
20000 watts = mgh
Where m = kg/s, g=9.8, h=2m
Solving for m gives 1000 kg/s (1000 liters sec - about 400 gallons/sec)
So 100% efficient needs one tonne water per second. That size about 50% efficient.
That's a pretty big turbine. 2 tonnes of water a second. A NS a lot of water.
I should say that hydroelectric ties with nuclear for (both) plants built a long time ago. There is almost no new nuclear construction, but I agree that levelized costs for new nuclear are higher (hopefully because they are spending more making them safe). Current levelized costs are also inflated for new coal and gas because of the "need" (for better or worse) for carbon scrubbers and so on to meet new emissions standards.
Otherwise hydro still has an advantage over nearly anything except perhaps NG in new construction. No fuel, established, straightforward technology and engineering, low operations and maintenance.
However, this just emphasizes the point I was trying to make, which is that hydro isn't stupid (where it works), it is actually brilliant -- almost the cheapest possible power. Another day we can debate the relative merits of nuclear, and whether new nuclear costs would diminish if anyone were to start to actually build new nuclear plants in the US at a rate of more than 4 at a time on a good year. Suffice it to say that cost estimates are highly volatile and have varied by as much as a factor of two in the last six or seven years (depending on who is doing the estimates and what their motivation and alignment is).
This volatility (part of which is indeed related to uncertainties in fuel price and long term supply) is actually something that further favors fuel-free electricity (or, in nuclear, the development of Thorium based plants). Much-maligned onshore wind ranks pretty high in http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_of_electricity_by_source. But look for levelized cost of PV to drop as the technology advances, both the up-front capital cost, fixed O&M (currently absurdly high compared to what it will become), and transmission costs. A drop in total cost by a factor of 2 over the next decade (quite plausible given Moore's Law for the actual cells plus economies of scale realized with larger scale implementation) makes it competitive with everything, especially if one allows for the gradual increase in fixed (fuel) O&M for most generation methods. A second factor of 2 over the following decade will make PV cheaper than everything but -- perhaps -- hydro.
IMO -- gazing into a cracked crystal ball, perhaps -- by the mid 2020's we will see a strong run on PV solar construction, sooner if certain key problems (such as power storage in advanced new batteries or a quantum leap in constant cost efficiency or a quantum drop in constant efficiency cost) are solved. I have a lot of faith in the science and engineering here -- it's just a matter of time before they figure out solar cells that cost $0.25/watt instead of $2.25/watt (which is roughly their current cost at consumer retail, although around half of this in volume). There is also a lot of room to drop the cost of manufacture and installation of plant-ready units.
A lot of fun to speculate about (and eventually in) actually...
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
You didn't name the plant. Nobody ever does. I wonder why?
Sorry kid, you've got some good points there but that was not one of them. I've been hearing that shit since the 1980s and nobody can ever name the magic plant that can even break even. You've been conned.
Wow, so all those companies that build nuclear power plants, they must be run by really stupid people who like to lose money! I never knew. I thought Shearon-Harris (about 15 miles from where I'm sitting in NC) was profitable, but now I see that it is a loss leader or something. Thanks for opening my eyes!
rgb
Even when the experts all agree, they may well be mistaken. --- Bertrand Russell.
I have no doubts they'll uncap some of the wells, that they'll get at least a few more years out of them. However, most of the older capped wells were always too low capacity - they're more likely to drill new ones in the same area that go deeper. Even then, they're unlikely to get 50 years out of one.
I don't read AC A human right
They don't lose the money. The "stupid person" is you if you are paying taxes. Your ignorant attempt at sarcasm simply shows you are unaware of that, thus know next to nothing about the subject but still want to make a noise and it probably says a bit about your education system being insufficient to prepare people to operate as informed citizens :(
Why do you think that wind is a dead end? We have it all over Oregon mixed throughout farmland and it is working quite well. For the rest of the country with little farmland, what is wrong with floating offshore wind farms? There are numerous examples of offshore wind farms working. And currently under development are deep ocean wind farms, 100+ miles offshore. We have way more water area than land area.
And cheap, non-rare material batteries are close to commercial existence. http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/liquid-batteries-0214.html .
I've seen this stated twice now, that wind is a dead end. Why?
Oregon has 7% (up from 1% 12 years ago) wind power now, and climbing. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wind_power_in_Oregon
MIT is really close to large scale power storage http://web.mit.edu/newsoffice/2012/liquid-batteries-0214.html
There are numerous examples of offshore wind farms that appear to be working well. We have way more ocean space than land space. I listened to an NPR story about large scale 100+ mile offshore wind farms under development right now.
Sure, it may only be a slice of our total for the foreseeable future, but wind certainly seems like we should keep pursuing it.
From a Harvard study http://www.pnas.org/content/106/27/10933.full.pdf
In the lower 48 states, the potential from wind power is 16 times more than total electricity demand in the United States, the researchers suggested
Actually, I think that what they're attempting to do is achieve Western/ First World levels of living standards. As a consequence of that, they are very likely to increase their per capita energy consumption, but you'd have to search long and hard to find a third-world person who actually gave a real shit about their energy consumption, compared to the huge shit that they give about their standard of living.
Birds are not dinosaur descendants;birds are dinosaurs, for all useful meanings of "birds", "are" and "dinosaurs"