Costa Rica Goes 75 Days Powering Itself Using Only Renewable Energy

An anonymous reader writes with news about an impressive renewable energy accomplishment in Costa Rica. Costa Rica has achieved a clean energy milestone by using 100 per cent renewable energy for a record 75 days in a row. The feat was achieved thanks to heavy rainfall, which powered four hydroelectric plants in the first three months of the year, the state-run Costa Rican Electricity Institute said. No fossil fuels have been burnt to generate electricity since December 2014, in the state which is renowned for its clean energy policies."

Comments

And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[houghi]

I will sit back and see how this is not possible in the USofA.
OTOH Renewable energy is not something new. Look at the Hooverdam. And there is dessert enough available to put a LOT of sun collectors.

The real issue is that this will require investment in research and that means not making a profit in the next 3 years, which is about the duration of how far a CXO looks.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[jellomizer]

Hydroelectric for some reason is never talked about for green energy. Because of the Hoover dam image. A large structure that completely changes the local environment. The problem is in america, we are still stuck on the idea of Big Energy large grids covering the nation. We don't think in terms of small energy, having a small community powered by modest green sources. And every community can have different sources to meet their needs. Solar is good. But some of us live in areas where there is a lot of tree cover (and cutting trees isn't really the green option), Other areas have a decent wind, and others are near running water. These smaller sections will in agragate may take up more space, their impact is actually a lot less, as a smaller plot of land can heal a lot faster then say plowing down hundred acres.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Dunbal]

There's always room for dessert. But I don't like eating solar panels.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[rmdingler]

Damming a large (or small) river runs the same gauntlet with greenthink groups as most non-petroleum energy sources: It is a bit of an eyesore and it alters the flow of a majestic natural resource. Ironically, environmentalists most interested in alternatives are the pickiest sort.

I think it is clear that alternative sources of energy not only exist, but will be brought to bear once the easy-peasy carbons are depleted or no longer cost-effective.

What everyone needs to come to grips with is that there is no energy source that meets our current demands without some negative environmental impact.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[bluegutang]

The problem is in america, we are still stuck on the idea of Big Energy large grids covering the nation. We don't think in terms of small energy, having a small community powered by modest green sources. ... These smaller sections will in agragate may take up more space, their impact is actually a lot less, as a smaller plot of land can heal a lot faster then say plowing down hundred acres.

Because small-scale power generation is inherently less efficient that large-scale. There's a reason why electric cars are better for the environment than internal combustion, even if the electricity is generated in a fossil fuel power plant.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[NotDrWho]

Environmentalists tend to seize on the fads of the moment and stick to them like a religious cause (until the next fad comes along). They will ignore or shoot down any proposed alternative and they WILL NOT compromise. It's their way or the highway.

Right now their religion supports solar and wind power, and solar and wind power ONLY. Even though nuclear and hydro are much more practical and have the potential to reduce CO2 than any other current power generation methods, they will oppose both--because they fell out of favor with the religion in the past. Nuclear fell out of favor when a bunch of hippies began to complain about nuclear waste (never mind that we have a facility in Yucca that COULD make this a non-issue). And hydro fell out when a bunch of hippies discovered that it hurt salmon spawning or some shit. Again, never mind that this problem was solved a long time ago with fish ladders (once you fall out of favor with the hippies, you're a heresy forever).

Wind and Solar. All other energy generation is blasphemy to the environmentalist religion.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Dams kill salmon and salmon are endangered. The Pacific NW has a lot of hydroelectric energy (~30% I think), but we need to get rid of most of it if we want our salmon populations to recover.
I quote from http://www.psmfc.org/habitat/salmondam.html:

      Scientists estimate that about 70%-95% of the human-induced kills of salmon in the Columbia Basin are dam related. According to the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service "the major decline of the runs coincides with the construction and operation of dams for electrical power, irrigation, and flood control."

I used to be all about hydroelectric power but now I just want all the dams gone.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Kjella]

Hydroelectric for some reason is never talked about for green energy. Because of the Hoover dam image. A large structure that completely changes the local environment.

I suppose, a bit. But mostly because you need a lot of rainfall and a lot of height difference to make sense. Compared to wind or solar, there's a lot less room for expansion and to power the needs of the future. And putting small waterfalls in tubes is not very visually appealing either, here in Norway the ones we have left we mostly like to keep for tourism and preserving som of the natural environment. Sure you could put Niagara Falls in a dam, but it wouldn't be pretty.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[thegarbz]

Hydroelectric for some reason is never talked about for green energy

Hydroelectric is not usually talked about for the same reason that geothermal is not usually talked about, and that you won't find people talking about wave power in the middle of the Sahara, it's a fantastic technology, if and only if you have the geology to use it.

Many dams are used for drinking water where you don't want to run out turbines, those that aren't already have turbines. It's not a very good green technology compared to say wind or solar which can be used practically anywhere.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

it may be inherently less efficient (not at all convinced about that but ok)
but it's also inherently less fragile

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[GLMDesigns]

The real issue is that this will require investment in research and that means not making a profit in the next 3 years, which is about the duration of how far a CXO looks.

And yet money is being invested. How do you account for that?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[ceoyoyo]

Hydro is certainly one of the things that works better on a large scale: large dams are much more efficient than small ones. Solar thermal as well. Wind too, though less so. Photovoltaics work fine on small scales.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Trepidity]

I think in the U.S.'s current situation it's hard to find things that even more moderate people would accept that are still big enough to produce a significant change in energy. A big hydro installation is really big, and typically requires flooding an absolutely massive area. China can pull off something like the Three Gorges project because it's heavily central planned and controls dissent, but I don't think you could get that to fly in the U.S., even if the major environmental groups disappeared tomorrow. Heck even something the size of the Hoover Dam is not that palatable to many people anymore.

Maybe if it were really in the middle of nowhere, like damming up a river in Alaska, than the average person would be fine with it, and you'd have only environmentalists opposing it. But energy transmission is expensive, so damming rivers in Alaska isn't very cost-effective.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Bonzoli]

Considering we the West and Asia have collapsed basically every decent fishery, do we need to add every native Fish to the list living in the rivers? CA already has issues like this, we can't kill fish and expect there to be any. Silly how that works.

In the end its not the power generation that is the issue, we can do that, its the storage of that energy for when its not abundant, such as Night time in the winter months. Wind isn't consistent enough to guarantee this, so figure out the storage issues and we can move along with clean energy.

Figure out how to transport/store Hydrogen economically and safely. The rest will solve itself.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[ceoyoyo]

Bad example: Niagara falls was the first hydro-electric plant, built by Nicola Tesla and George Westinghouse. The US and Canada both have hydroelectric plants there now. The US also has a pumped hydro storage facility.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[dbIII]

Big Energy large grids covering the nation. We don't think in terms of small energy

"Small energy" with a "big energy" grid spanning timezones and increasing amounts of HVDC to sharply reduce transmission losses can give a very nice "big picture". The wind is always blowing somewhere (although some idiot here argued for ages about frequent continent wide calms that never happen), rain/snow is going to end up somewhere on a continent, and that solar in Texas is going to be kicking out the watts before California wakes up. Yes fossil fuels exist but let's just talk about the topic at hand.
The grid spanning time zones gives you the wonderful situation of a shifting peak instead of everyone wanting the maximum amount of electricity at the same time - a way to save needing a lot of extra capacity if they were all State sized grids.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[LWATCDR]

"The real issue is that this will require investment in research and that means not making a profit in the next 3 years, which is about the duration of how far a CXO looks."
Ahh... No.
1. There is not enough hydro resources in the US. The US has actually exploited a lot of them already. They US already gets 7% from hydro and has been using it for decades.
2. "And there is dessert enough available to put a LOT of sun collectors." And no effective way to store it for use at night and the evenings. Solar only produces power for around 8 hours a day. Less in the winter. Storage is now and has been a problem forever. Lots of money is being out into battery tech but nothing is shipping yet. Solar production also does not match peak demand. It comes close in summer but still drops to near zero while peak hours are still in effect. Also most desserts in the US are in the south. They have shorter days than areas in the north of the US in summer and much higher temperatures which means lots of AC.
Even Germany which people like to show as Solar working is really not a working system. They are going to massive coal plants for base load.
http://www.businessinsider.com...

Costa Rica is a small mountainous nation that has huge amounts of rain forests. Frankly it was dumb for them to ever use fossil fuels for electricity except as a back up. In many ways they are like Iceland in that regard. The US has a lot of hydro resources and is using them but it is not enough to power the entire US.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[AmiMoJo]

Right now their religion supports solar and wind power, and solar and wind power ONLY.

http://www.greenpeace.org/inte...

Note how even Greenpeace, one of the most hard line environmental movements, clearly states that there will need to be a mix of energy sources that includes wind and solar but also many others. For the time being fossil fuel is necessary, as is nuclear, but in the long term purely renewable sources (including hydo, geothermal, tidal and various non-PV types of solar) is possible. By long term they are stating around 2050 if the world makes a massive, concerted effort, which is obviously quite unlikely.

Your argument is a straw man. No major organization is arguing for just solar PV and wind.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[jellomizer]

However Efficiency is one of these numbers used to explain the lack of common sense. Sometimes the best method isn't the most efficient one. How much extra power and wasted disk space are you actually using in your RAID 5 Systems? It is more efficient to have everyone live and work in one building.
But efficiency is only part of the issue. Having a lot of small power generation, while say wasting twice as much power generation, means no wide scale power outages. Also easy to heal environmental wounds.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

and others are near running water.

In Sweden at the moment (where we have about 50% hydro, give or take), we're busy tearing down all the small dams and generation facilities in the south, since what puny amounts of power they generate doesn't outweigh the loss of fish habitat and migration routes.

Truth be told, small scale anything sucks (with the possible exception of solar panels on your roof for AC and possibly charging your electric vehicle.) Wind and hydro electrics in particular work better the bigger they are. And when it comes to hydro electrics it's better to royally screw up a large river or two and get your moneys worth of electricity and to hell with the fishies, than piss about and destroy every little stream with not much to show for it. And no fish whatsoever, anywhere.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Crashmarik]

What everyone needs to come to grips with is that there is no energy source without environmental impact.

Fixed that for you

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Andy Dodd]

Huh? You're not making any sense.

"Because of the Hoover dam image" - what the heck do you mean here?

Yes, hydro is not talked about, and yes, the Hoover Dam (along with the various other hydroelectric dams in this country) is a major reason why - Because it has ALREADY BEEN BUILT AND DEPLOYED FOR DECADES AND IT ISN'T MEETING OUR NEEDS.

We simply don't have enough rivers to dam that we haven't ALREADY dammed. The USA's hydro resources are tapped out - and many of them are encountering severe problems due to lack of rainfall lately. Lake Mead, for example, reached its lowest level since the Hoover Dam was built last year.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Andy Dodd]

Yup. FYI the hydro facility's output is throttled based on time of day to make the falls look pretty at peak tourism times.

I've seen claims that from 50-75% of the river's flow is diverted to hydro depending on time of day and season (more diversion is allowed in winter when there are fewer tourists) - There is not as much need for a dam thanks to consistent flow and the fact that there's a pretty hefty height difference, although there are dams downstream for large pumped-storage facilities (which provide an alternative to damming the river as far as storage goes) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/R...

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Jaime2]

Sure you could put Niagara Falls in a dam, but it wouldn't be pretty.

They went through a lot of effort to get hydro power from Niagara Falls without ruining the tourist attraction factor. Instead of turning it into a dam, a three square mile reservoir was built and water is diverted from the upper river to this reservoir (mostly) at night. During the day, the dam creates energy by draining the reservoir into the lower river. No part of the power generation system is within a mile of the falls itself.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Search for hydro plants in switzerland, they are not as huge as you might think.

Re: And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting concept, solar panels in the corn belt? Hydroelectric in earthquake areas? There is an assumption by the "greens" that one size fits all. It don't work that way. There has to be a safe backup that is available at all times. Otherwise when the power is needed most, it will not be there. As grandmas pacemaker needs recharging, the sun goes behind the cloud, the wind goes too slow/fast for proper generation and the grid stops. So does grandma, but who cares? Not saying they are viable or non viable sources, but ninth days in a rainy country, does not prove everyone should have only hydroelectric.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd wager costa rica energy demands are below 25% per capita of USA energy demands. i doubt they have companies mineing iron ore, making steel, melting silica for glass windows, smelting aluminum, titanium, or harbor huge datacenters and supercomputer systems--- on and on and on. I wager their industry is vastly different than ours.

facilities that consume these vast amounts of energy literally draw grid power from multiple states so as not to brownout everyone in a region.

I'm all for green energy, but i see no reason why the grid cant be interconnected. the loss isnt that tremendous when you consider how far some juice can be transported from an open location with panels, to as you say --- where you live, a place with lots of trees that cant be cut down.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[MrL0G1C]

How hugely ironic that you choose to spout prejudiced BS about environmentalists only liking solar + wind, and then you go on to ignore geothermal, wave, tidal, bio-waste, energy efficiency, and plenty of other ways to create, store and reduce energy usage in a less destructive manner.

Nuclear is clearly your religion.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Greenpeace will say anything that brings money in.

One Greenpeace rep once tried to claim that they OPPOSED the Clean Air Act of 1970 in an attempt to get me to part with my money.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

From Greenpeace's own statements (emphasis mine):

Phase out all subsidies for fossil fuels and nuclear energy.

Unfortunately, the dams that go with large scale hydropower can drown ecosystems. Water needs of downstream communities, farmers and ecosystems should also be taken into account. Plus, hydro projects can be unreliable during prolonged droughts and dry seasons when rivers dry up or reduce in volume.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydroelectric for some reason is never talked about for green energy

Hydroelectric is not usually talked about for the same reason that geothermal is not usually talked about, and that you won't find people talking about wave power in the middle of the Sahara, it's a fantastic technology, if and only if you have the geology to use it.

Many dams are used for drinking water where you don't want to run out turbines, those that aren't already have turbines. It's not a very good green technology compared to say wind or solar which can be used practically anywhere.

Hey! In Florida we've got this great big river (St. John's) that runs half the state!

Though it only drops about 36 inches in the process.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not smaller dams?
Why are dams always "large or piss off"?

Are smaller, passive dams less efficient? Whereby your dam is effectively almost like a walkway from one side of a river to another, with a smaller motor inside of it.
With these, you could have plenty of them going down a river and not entirely disturb nature, but also actually create a very safe passage of travel for all animals in general. (and have less animals possibly dying in rivers, polluting the downstream from that point on)
One breaks down, it is trivial to replace and considerably cheaper to replace at that. The costs of maintaining the dam(s!) itself are basically laughable.

Likewise, if any wind power people are in here, why not smaller but more numerous turbines?
Instead of one large turbine at the top of a post, have multiple smaller turbines up the same post. All capable of rotating by seating the whole system on a platform with the fan offset from the center of the post, alternate each fan to equal the weight balance, evens all in, odds are a no-no.
With smaller motors, you will now be able to pick up on smaller and more numerous air currents that can't really move larger ones.
Surely the extra number of fans and the extra air will make up a potential loss of efficiency, if there is one?

Is there a technical reason for it? Are motors less efficient if you have, say, 10 small ones instead of one large one?
I assume efficiency is the only reason, but for all I know it could just be an industry problem.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[ceoyoyo]

I haven't ever been there in person when they're diverting most of the water, but there are pictures on the net. It's impressive.

Winter is by far the prettiest time to visit Niagara falls.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't see that in your linked source. I do note, however, that Greenpeace (per bullet point 1 on the linked page) advocates ending subsidies both for fossil fuels (which produce greenhouse gases) and nuclear energy (which does not). Given that their stated goal (immediately above) is to prevent climate change, this position is not consistent.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

And there is dessert enough available to put a LOT of sun collectors.

Of course there is enough desert, but as soon as someone proposes using it for something like that, some fuckwit will jump up and down complaining that it's the habitat for the endangered <insert random plant or animal here> and then file a lawsuit to stop development when the developer of the project doesn't pay attention to their tantrum.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[ceoyoyo]

Relying on "common sense" is a far worse source of lack of sensible decisions.

I was in New York during hurricane Sandy. The house I was staying was without power for about ten days. The Starbucks down the street didn't ever lose power. The long distance transmission wasn't the problem, it was distribution within the neighbourhood. Unless everyone had their own electricity generation capability, even neighbourhood level generation wouldn't really alleviate power outages much. Things like pruning trees are the unglamorous solution that that problem. I'm from a place cities and municipalities will come and prune your trees for you if you don't, by the way. Power outages are extremely rare and don't last very long.

Efficiency is extremely important, and in things like hydro dams it often scales with the square or even cube of size. Efficiency can be (and is) sacrificed for special, smaller scale applications: backup generators, remote locations, places with low power requirements, but when you're talking about providing power for the biggest power users on the planet, efficiency is right up in the top few things to consider. Getting an extra nine in your suburban uptime isn't worth significant sacrifices, even if you could make that tradeoff.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[JaredOfEuropa]

It's easy being green... if you have loads of opportunities to use hydro power. Hydro is the only large scale green power source we currently have that is a buffer as well as a generator, and will continue to run regardless of environmental conditions until the buffer runs dry. You can even top up the buffer if you have a surplus of wind or solar power, which is what Norway does I believe. But in densely populated and more or less completely flat countries like my own, we need to look at other green sources that require a great deal of investment and R&D before they can be used on a large scale. For our situation, the technology simply isn't there yet.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[dave420]

Throwing all environmentalists into the same bucket isn't helping you look any more rational than the environmental extremists you seem to hate so much.

It would help you massively if you actually read what these particular groups are complaining about, instead of reading what other people tell you they are complaining about. Seriously. You are hurting progress by spouting this drivel.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

It is all in how you sell it.

Sure, a big dam will lay waste to a large area. But so will coal. The question isn't "big ugly concrete dam or no dam", it is "dam or coal". The dam is not that pretty, but nice otherwise. You can still fish in it, like you used to fish in the river. If the river fish was edible, then the dam fish will be edible too. Or you can have coal plant in your backyard, with smog, bad air, and more radioactive pollution than a nuclear plant will provide. (Coal contains its own trace pollutants, and the plants will burn very large amounts.)

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[wiredlogic]

I worked in a building right next to a small hydro plant built into a waterfall. A large manufacturing facility nearby also had its own power plant that supplied some of the local houses. During the northeast US blackout of 2003 I rode home after dark and didn't realize the power was out until I got beyond those facilities. Small scale can work.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[BlackSWE]

The US is one selfish place that just thinks of relative gains and not the overall prosperity of the planet. It's a sad realization but that is the truth of Capitalism. Don't get me wrong, US is the place to be, but there are a lot of big private powers that don't want to see the Oil Companies go out of business. They get lobbyists, desperate scientists, and propaganda to fool the working class of this nation into voting for leaders that will keep Oil Companies number one. _ On the other hand, renewable power is heavily under developed. The transport of wind and hydro electricity from central and northern US is inefficient and expensive. In the end, Renewable energy is hard and expensive but the real question is: Would you rather pay more than you want and live on a clean planet or take the easy route, pay a lot less and slowly kill the earth?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Many dams are used for drinking water where you don't want to run out turbines, those that aren't already have turbines. It's not a very good green technology compared to say wind or solar which can be used practically anywhere.

There is no such conflict. Water of drinking quality, is still drinkable after the turbines. Drinking water is usually pumped around - a turbine is not much different from a pump.

The reason they don't extract power from your drinking water reservoir, is probably that the volume is way too small. You need much larger amounts of water for power generation.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Smidge204]

To US Energy Dept. estimated, in 2012, that there is ~12GW worth of power that could be tapped from existing, non-power-producing dams. That's handily 10% more hydro than what we've got now.

That same report estimates a potential for 65GW of new hydro power installations (85GW if you allow trampling of federal protected lands).

The reason hydro isn't talked about is because of uninformed people like you who think there's no additional capacity.
=Smidge=

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[jklovanc]

The problem is in america, we are still stuck on the idea of Big Energy large grids covering the nation.

There is a reaso behind that; 81% of the US polulation lives in urban/suburban environments. Small communities make up a very small proportion of the US population.

The main reason larger installations are used is called economy of scale. As things get bigger they generally get cheaper. Sure one could run a lot of smaller installations but they would be more expensive and less reliable. Why do we have such a big grid? Reliability. As one plant goes down for immanence there is always another to take up the slack.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

The trick is to use hydroelectricity for base load, and solar+wind to top up when available. Pump water uphill when production exceed demand, run water downhill when it is dark and no wind. Hydroelectricity can easily smooth out the day-night variation in solar. The dam needed for a nights electricity is small. With a bigger dam, you can also fill up when there is a storm.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[afidel]

Nuclear has by far the lowest, but for the same reason that many environmentalists are still opposing the Keystone pipeline despite the reality of more incidents of environmental damage from the alternative (inefficient rail shipping with nearly 100x the rate of environmental exposure), it's all about emotion for many in the movement, not about what's truly, measurably better for the planet.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

On the Canadian side, (Sir) Henry Pellatt was the big investor in Niagara Falls hydroelectric, bringing the electricity to Toronto. The "castle" he built in Toronto, Casa Loma, cost about the equivalent of two billion dollars in today's money. (When the city of Toronto increased property taxes during the depression, he could no longer afford it.)

(Nowadays most of metro Toronto's base electricity is nuclear, from Pickering and Darlington. Niagara is good for meeting surge demand.)

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Simon Brooke]

Five square metres of solar panel on every single domestic roof in the USA would produce a very significant energy change. 125 million houses * 5Kw is 625 gigawatts. Germany has 23 gigawatts of domestic solar panels, which, on a sunny day, is sufficient to power the whole country. Yes, obviously, it doesn't work twenty-four hours a day, or in bad weather. Yes, obviously, you need to find some way of storing energy, such as compressed air, hydrogen hydrolysis, pumped storage or whatever. None of this is rocket science.

Bottom line: the USA could power its whole economy, including road vehicles, on domestic solar panels alone.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[MachineShedFred]

It's more a problem that pretty much any river in the US that is suitable for a large hydro project, already has large hydro projects built in the 1930s through 1960s.

We weren't afraid of mega-dam projects in the past - look at some of the dams on the Columbia as proof, specifically the Grand Coulee Dam which holds back 9 km^3 of water and produces 6800 MW of power - over 3x what Hoover Dam puts out. And it's one of 14 dams on the Columbia.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Obviously you're an engineer and have this all figured out. Let us know when the money starts rolling in.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Simon Brooke]

On this subject, a realtime (with historical replay) display of domestic solar generation in Germany. It's pretty impressive.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Five square metres of solar panel on every single domestic roof in the USA would produce a very significant energy change. 125 million houses * 5Kw is 625 gigawatts. ...
Bottom line: the USA could power its whole economy, including road vehicles, on domestic solar panels alone.

Fun fact: the US uses 12,830 GWh of electricity *every day.* (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_electricity_consumption). Divide that by 8 hours of sunlight - on every single house - and you get 1603 GW per house required to power the entire country, assuming 100% efficiency in energy storage technology, so you need about 15 square meters of solar panels on every roof in the US.

Second fun fact: Average insolation in the US is less than 1 kW per square meter. (It's 1 - 1.2 kW per m^2 at the equator; it's 600 - 800 W per m^2 here.) Now we're up to about 20 square meters of solar panels on every roof.

Third fun fact: 125 million houses * 20 panels per house = 2.5 billion solar panels. Say the failure rate is 0.01% per year and the installation lifetime is 30 years. This means replacing approximately 83 million panels per year. If panels are $1000 - $5000 per panel, that is an $83 billion - $415 billion industry just for the parts, let alone the businesses and teams doing the replacements.

None of the three facts above add up to "impossible to power the whole economy on domestic solar panels," but they do add up to "extremely unlikely the US will power the whole economy on domestic solar panels."

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[MachineShedFred]

To US Energy Dept. estimated, in 2012, that there is ~12GW worth of power that could be tapped from existing, non-power-producing dams [energy.gov]. That's handily 10% more hydro than what we've got now.

10%? Check your math.

One dam on the Columbia puts out 6.8GW by itself.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[DanielRavenNest]

> And no effective way to store it for use at night and the evenings.

I guess you haven't heard of solar thermal with storage. You concentrate sunlight with curved troughs or steerable mirrors. This is used to heat a storage material such as thermal oil or rocks. In the off-hours you use the heat to boil water, and the steam runs through a tubine-generator set like in conventional fossil plants. There haven't been a lot of thermal storage units built yet *because we don't need them yet*. For example, the 400 MW Ivanpah solar thermal plant is on the same power line as Hoover Dam. The dam serves as storage by not using water when Ivanpah is running, and saving it for night-time. Eventually you run out of existing storage capacity, and need to add more, but we are not there yet in most places.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[PPH]

Wind and Solar. All other energy generation is blasphemy to the environmentalist religion.

Not really. Look at some of the offshore wind farm projects in Massachusetts and New York that were shut down by "environmentalists" who just didn't want their million dollar views disturbed. That "religion" is for sale.

And the habitat restoration originally envisioned with the dismantling of the Elwha Dam is getting environmentalists' panties in a bunch as well. The speed at which migratory fish are repopulating the new habitat is undermining the theory that unique species or families of salmon must return to their own spawning grounds. And so every piece of habitat deserves its own protection. It turns out that the fish are perfectly happy to swim up any convenient river. This also means that one of the major arguments against fisheries; that they reduce genetic variability and thereby increase susceptibility to disease, can easily be mitigated by swapping stock between fisheries.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[evenmoreconfused]

Also, a big dam is a huge local environmental change, but that happens only once, and eventually wildlife and vegetation re-establish themselves in a new pattern. But thereafter, the dam keeps producing electricity for decades or centuries.

Quebec, for example, built the James Bay project (which covers an area the size of the state of New York) in the 1970s, and it continues to provide Quebec and much of New England with some of the cheapest power in the world. FWIW, Quebec has generated 99.8% of its power from renewables for decades -- the remainder comes from a few small diesel facilities to back up wind farms in remote regions.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/J...

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[blue9steel]

The problem is in america, we are still stuck on the idea of Big Energy large grids covering the nation. We don't think in terms of small energy, having a small community powered by modest green sources.

Perhaps because we no longer live in small town agricultural communities? Unless you're talking about New York being a "small community".

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Ralph Wiggam]

It's more a problem that pretty much any river in the US that is suitable for a large hydro project, already has large hydro projects built in the 1930s through 1960s.

I'm glad one person here gets this. Hydro power in the US is a moot point. Pretty much all of the power we can get from our rivers is already being generated. We can't replace fossil fuel use with new hydro power.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Windmill and solar and store it in batteries.
Once you have an energy budget to work with, that you create, you can start aiming to live within those means.

But 75 days straight self sufficient, off grid, for a whole country? My hats don to Costa Rica. Bravo bravo! I wish I could live like they can.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[blue9steel]

Maybe because the geothermal, wave and tidal energy generation is currently trivial in scope and expensive. Bio-waste generation is actually not very green if you look at the composition of what's coming out the smoke stack. Energy efficiency is good but that's not something we really need to push on the consumption end, people already invest in all of the energy efficiency improvements that pay for themselves, if you're going to push that it needs to be on the research and pricing end. For base load, we should be trying to get rid of coal by replacing it with nuclear and natural gas. Solar and wind can help and should be deployed but without better storage technology they can't really solve the whole problem. Hydro is great but pretty much already at maximum.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Nuclear is often a necessity, but it will always be big energy, subjecting the rest of the population to blackmailing prices. Yeoman farmers making their own electric and sending it to the grid, like in Germany, is a much more idyllic world, and if you watched on youtube Netanyahu's last speech in the US, all he ever talks about nuclear, nuclear, Iran Iran, and I know they also have North Korea on the back of their minds. I used to be a big fan of nuclear for arctic regions where there is not enough solar, and wind might be scarce, and they need a whole lot of energy, on the other hand, in other places, like in Japan, it seems like the Fukushima accident is almost a blessing. All they need is lots of wind mills. Btw the windmill design in vogue these days sucks, and an inductor spread out as a high voltage ring with superhigh frequency, like a switching power supply, can minimize material costs, and even cut down on the blade size, make it more yeoman and bird friendly, because present gigantic windmills have blade tips that often move faster than the speed of sound, and lots of birds get killed, as in they didn't see it coming, it was too fast. Jaton 208 PCI video card user manual has a bug beauty and the concept of the ring inductor, that's when it struck me, of course! Switching power supplies, lots of poles, high frequency, spaced out along a big ring so high voltage can be generated through skinny aluminum wires without arcing, and you can make the blade tips fat and the center part skinny because the torque is both generated and consumed at the ring, no need for large toque bearing shafts, blade centers, heavy low frequency copper wasting generators, etc.

~ sillybilly (i'm out of posts)

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

see how this is not possible in the USofA.

USAians get unhappy if the don't have their hot shower in the morning,. Half the places I stayed in Costa Rica did not have hot water when I visited. None had a/c. Also, 30% of energy use goes into HVAC.

If you really want to see how it's not possible, I'd recommend that you visit Costa Rica (it's awesome), and the compare the country to the US.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Apparently, I can buy a 250 Wp solar panel (here in EU) for the equivalent of $240. Where did you get $5000 per panel?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Yes of course it can "work", in the sense that it can deliver electricity. No-one is questioning that. However, they destroy a lot more waterway than what they deliver electricity, so since we actually want fish (to eat), on the whole, small scale hydro is a net loss and that's why we're decommissioning them.

As a comparison there are about 2000 hydro electric power stations in Sweden, 10% (200) of those produce 94% of the energy... So there's clearly room for clearing out a lot of small plants without affecting production at all basically. (And then there are 2000 decomissioned power stations, many of which still have the dams intact, so tearing those out is at the top of the agenda).

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[presidenteloco]

"What everyone needs to come to grips with is that there is no energy source without environmental impact."

True, but that doesn't mean we should throw our hands up and stop exercising judgement.

Impacts can be weighed, placed on a relative magnitude and severity of risk/impact scale, and acted on accordingly.

On such a scale, the impacts of for example, solar PV and wind technology are fairly obviously much less than that of continued fossil fuel energy systems.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Smidge204]

The total US Hydro generation capacity is ~80GW. 12GW more would be an increase of 15%. I ball parked it at a conservative "at least 10%."

A relative handful of plants produce the majority of that power, but that doesn't change the numbers.
=Smidge=

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[HornWumpus]

Some rivers are left wild, head waters to sea, others are used for hydro. Once you have a damn with no fish ladders on a river, you have eliminated migratory fish. Might as well get all the economic power out of that river as possible.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe because dams destroy huge swaths of the downstream environment?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[LWATCDR]

"I guess you haven't heard of solar thermal with storage."
Actually the current systems are moving to molten salts...
Not really good enough yet and I doubt it ever will be. The good thing is molten salt could in theory work with other systems like nuclear and even coal. The cost is just way too high to be practical...
And yes I have looked into it.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[MrL0G1C]

Maybe because the geothermal, wave and tidal energy generation is currently trivial in scope and expensive

Generation is small because more is needed, how is that an argument against? Price would be lower if there was more R&D, same goes for any industry.

Bio-waste generation is actually not very green if you look at the composition of what's coming out the smoke stack.

What comes out of the smoke stack is what the plants took from the air in the first place, zero sum AFAIK.

people already invest in all of the energy efficiency improvements that pay for themselves

They most definitely don't, how many people do you know who have 'Thermodynamic Central Heating Systems' or ' ground source heat pumps' or 'air source heat pumps'? these can save up to %75 or %80 fuel usage.

For base load, we should be trying to get rid of coal by replacing it with nuclear and natural gas.

Nuclear is pants for base load, it is inflexible just like wind or solar PV. Natural gas is of course a CO2 emitter.

Hydro is great but pretty much already at maximum..

Conventional hydro may be near maximum in many places, pumped hydro on the other hand has massive potential and is very useful for storing energy for when it's needed.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Larger plans used to be able to be done in the US, around the 1940s-1950s, such as the Texas Highland Lakes and the series of dams that made those, but these days, it would be almost impossible, since there would be lawsuits filed left and right, either by outside agitators who just hate development, or people with NIMBY syndrome.

With nuclear energy fought at every turn (Thank you Carter for your executive order banning new plants since 1978 -- you married this country to oil, coal, and bloody Middle Eastern conflict with that edict for generations to come), you are going to see coal plants as the only new energy source for the near and medium terms.

The only real mitigation to this is not going from the top down. It is going to have to come from the individuals and local businesses up... and this is where solar, and secondarily wind, excel at.

Solar has passed the critical mass stage. Both the Tea Partiers and the far left wing have embraced it, and for the almost same reasons (to not be attached to the government.)

Solar also is having a lot of advances, here are a few in the past year:

1: White/colored panels.
2: Completely clear windows. They only get about 3% of light coming in... but on a tall building, that is a lot of light. Similar with a greenhouse.
3: Flexible panels. Need to cover space? Roll out some panels, plug them into an inverter or charge controller, and you have electricity.
4: Cheap MPPT controllers. This is a big thing, since PWM controllers are cheap, but they "lop" all voltage above what the batteries need, while MPPT controllers will convert voltage and up the amperage. We have had MPPT controllers, but not inexpensive ones.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

By voter initiative, in WA state hydro power is not legally considered renewal...

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[ralphsiegler]

It couldn't possibly be because Costa Rica's energy consumption is about 1/8th that of the USA, and per capita GDP one tenth the USA. Engineering and physics reality has nothing to do with it, nosireebob

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

I take it you're possessed of the know-how and tools needed to get up on the roof, mount them and connect them safely to your house's existing electrical setup during your sparre time. Not to mention any arrangements or permits you have to get from your utility or municipality. That must be nice for you, but not everyone pretends to be the renaissance man you so clearly are.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[fnj]

Nuclear has by far the lowest [environmental impact], but for the same reason that many environmentalists are still opposing the Keystone pipeline despite the reality of more incidents of environmental damage from the alternative (inefficient rail shipping with nearly 100x the rate of environmental exposure), it's all about emotion for many in the movement, not about what's truly, measurably better for the planet.

Yes, the total economic loss due to the Fukushima nuclear disaster, estimated at $240-500 billion, is nothing but emotion.

The total cost of resettlement, cleanup, and paying medical claims due to Chernobyl is estimated by Belarus at $235 billion.

A hypothetical nuclear disaster in France similar to Fukushima is estimated to cost $580 billion. Other estimates run much higher.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Archangel Michael]

And you actually believe they would SUPPORT a Solar Farm, a Hydro Electric Damn, a Nuclear Power Plant, or Windmill Farm?

It is one thing to "say" you support something, and another when it actually comes around.

1) Solar Farms destroy ________ habitat
2) Hydro Dams destroy ________ habitat
3) Nuclear is scary dangerous
4) Windmills kill ______ birds.

What Greenpeace and others say is they support whatever, as long as it doesn't impact the environment. And since EVERYTHING impacts the environment, they oppose it on those grounds.

It is not a strawman when you compare rhetoric to actions. And while saying one thing, and doing another is hypocritical, it is also excused by people like yourself. Let me know when Greenpeace isn't opposing, but is actually supporting the next dam, wind farm, nuclear plant or solar farm. I won't hold my breath.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope, not even in Alaska can a river get damned without people getting upset about it. Here's the Susitna-Watana dam project's page: http://www.susitna-watanahydro.org/.

Here's some people that don't want anything to do with it: http://susitnarivercoalition.org/

And FYI, no one is suggesting transferring this energy out of Alaska, it's for internal energy use, so the transmission cost isn't as bad.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[K. S. Kyosuke]

OK, so make it $450 per panel in a 10 kWp turnkey system. Still way less than those "$5000". Do you want it gold-plated or what?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically Greenpeace always think what you say they think and anything they say in contradiction is merely because they're thinking what you claim they think and don't dare to say otherwise.

Is there any reason for you to reach out of your own internal monologue? Or are you fine living with only you talking?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

We did exactly that with our large northern rivers. Developed half of them, and left the other half. When it comes to the south, there's only one that's worth the bother, the rest we are trying to restore. As I mentioned in a previous reply, we get 94% of our energy from 10% of the plants. The rest are basically a nuisance. Tear them up for the fish.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

But it's not even remotely cost effective. Solar Thermal plants were being put up for awhile until a few years ago when photovoltaics out China dropped the price of PV, making it much more financially viable. A lot of solar thermal plants were scrapped in the planning stages for much lower wattage but more profitable PV farms.

Also, people tend to think that solar, whether PV or solar thermal plants have no marginal cost; this is flat untrue. There's a significant cost of capital to finance the projects, there's crew salaries to pay, and the maintenance on them is a bitch. Most solar requires metal frames of some sort and are placed in the desert where wind and sand erosion not to mention the constant heat destroy the metal structures over time. Cold spray and anti-corrosion paints are typically used to maintain them, but they aren't cheap to apply and only last 2 or so years under constant use, requiring ongoing re-application to keep the plant functional. Then there's the power efficiency loss from the long transmission lines and to get the power to market, those aren't cheap either.

Solar is not nearly as simple as most people want to think it is.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[blue9steel]

Price would be lower if there was more R&D, same goes for any industry.

Sure, that could be true, but we're talking about the current situation, not some hypothetical future technology.

What comes out of the smoke stack is what the plants took from the air in the first place, zero sum AFAIK.

That's a bad argument as it could be applied to coal or other fossil fuels. A better argument would be to compare the emissions to what they would be via natural plant decay, in which case bio-generation is better than coal/oil, but not as good as many other technologies for the same reason fireplaces/wood stoves aren't that great.

They most definitely don't, how many people do you know who have 'Thermodynamic Central Heating Systems' or ' ground source heat pumps' or 'air source heat pumps'? these can save up to %75 or %80 fuel usage.

With high initial investments and long payback periods that make them unattractive for most users.

Natural gas is of course a CO2 emitter.

Of course it is, but it's a huge improvement over coal and one we can implement right now. Quit letting the perfect be the enemy of the good.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem (at this point) isn't technological...it's economic and political.

The economic are "Who is going to pay for it?" and "What are the big electric utilities going to do to make up for the shortfall in revenue?"

It's political once the big electric companies discover that they are still responsible for maintaining the grid infrastructure.

It's also political because of the "Green" agenda and all the noise that stirs up from both the Left and the Right.

Personally, I agree that it is a great idea to become energy independent of fossil fuels, and save the petroleum products for the plastics industries.

I think a combination of "all the above" is the best way to go, but I expect to see solar and wind as the big producers of the future

While nuclear fusion may seem a strong contender, the only issue I can see with it is the introduction of heat pollution as a waste product.

Now, move those fusion reactors into orbit and have them broadcast energy to earth in the form of tightly controlled high-power microwaves? Possibilities abound!

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

My in-laws live mid-state New York and they lost grid power for two weeks after Sandy hit. But they barely noticed it since they have a 5MW solar array with an LPG generator backup on a 500 gallon tank. During the day, they had enough power to not only keep their house powered, but three other houses nearby as well. At night, the generator would kick in on the backup circuit and keep the kitchen powered.

The LED lighting all through their house is also on it's own circuit, powered by a set of batteries which in turn are charged off the solar array. This means they always have light, even if the grid loses power, and an hour of sunlight is all that is needed to top the batteries.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

You can design hydro to take fish into account. Pair a hydro facility with a high-low reservoir with massive solar collection facility, and you can siphon off some of the power when the sun is up to reverse the pumps and move water from low to high, and then when the sun goes down, you release water through the turbines from high to low. Leave the river in place so the fish have a route to migrate up and down stream. Even build in ladders to make it easier for them to make the route.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Because pinko-fag commie liberals!!!! Second Amendment!!!! Drill baby, drill!!! God bless America.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[ralphsiegler]

You want to live on one tenth the income? I don't. Heck I've been to places where the per capita electric consumption was zero. I like living in the first world thanks very much.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

China can pull off something like the Three Gorges project because they haven't already dammed all the places in China suited to be large-scale hydroelectric dams, unlike the US in the USA.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[haruchai]

There are lots of people who can do that and all you need is decent credit & the ability to sign your name

http://www.zdnet.com/article/9...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/la...

http://www.forbes.com/sites/uc...

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Yeah, well, the dirty little secret in the business is that fish ladders don't really work, and never have. Same with turbines. Fish don't survive them in any appreciable numbers. Leaving the river in place, makes a small plant even smaller, so not much future in that.

Of course you could make an "artificial" pump only station without even caring about fish, but then there's the problem of placing it somewhere. There's not a lot of places that are suitable.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[AmiMoJo]

Go read the report. They support technologies that do the least amount of damage, acknowledging that none are zero impact.

So, again a straw man, even after I posted a link to their manifesto.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[rmdingler]

What everyone needs to come to grips with is that there is no energy source without environmental impact.

Fixed that for you

I harken back to a simpler time in a class with a respected teacher. I recall when a valued tutorial correction occurred just like this, and I was forever grateful to that esteemed educator for the lifelong lesson.

On that selfsame scale, I find myself nanoseconds in your debt.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Crashmarik]

What everyone needs to come to grips with is that there is no energy source without environmental impact.

Fixed that for you

I harken back to a simpler time in a class with a respected teacher. I recall when a valued tutorial correction occurred just like this, and I was forever grateful to that esteemed educator for the lifelong lesson.

On that selfsame scale, I find myself nanoseconds in your debt.

Well apparently that is at least twice you only managed to get half the point. Perhaps as time goes on you may yet understand the purpose of thinking before you speak.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[mjwx]

Whilst I agree with your point, Greenpeace isn't one of the more hard-line environmental movements.

Sure their one of the most active and prolific, but they're quite moderate, rejecting violent methods of activism. They're nowhere near as bad as the Earth Liberation Front and Animal Liberation Front who have no compunction about being violent against the organisations they oppose (the kind of people who set fire to diggers and attack laboratories to liberate the animals). Even PETA is more extremist than Greenpeace.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Holy shit. You mean you can't take energy out of a system without consequence to the system?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Your post history shows you constantly spout drivel like "PHP is good" (are you stupid? It's a security bug riddled nightmare!) and that you troll others so much they're going to zero in on you and beat your troll face to a pulp!

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm from Suriname, a tiny country in South America.
Our country runs almost 100% off of hydro.
If it wasn't for the dam we would be burning oil, and electricity prices would be far higher than they are.
I think that many environmentalists loose sight of practical issues and want some magical solution with 0 impact.
In my opinion hydro is one of the best solutions if you have the terrain for it, especially for small to medium size cities/ countries.
The US is about 600 times as large as Suriname in terms of population, but that doesn't mean you need to flood an area 600 times as large or build a dam 600 times higher. It means you need to build 600 small dams, or just a dam where the terrain is there, some solar where the sun is, some wind farms where the wind is.
There is no such thing as 0 impact energy at this point in time.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[dave420]

That's all you have, Mr. Cowardly? Brilliant. I'm going to completely reappraise my perspective on everything because of your insights. If you can't tell the difference between Wordpress and PHP, then you need more help than you can get from Slashdot.

The fact you sound like APK should make you think twice about how you conduct yourself online.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Archangel Michael]

Again, they say the support the "technology" but let me know when they actually support a build-out of that technology.

NOT a strawman.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420 your paranoia's showing. Take your meds.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[HornWumpus]

If there are migratory fish on that river, sure. But if not, do the economic analysis. Presumably they did before they constructed them.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Methadras]

I'm all for subdivided energy grids that either tie into other subdivided grids or are isolated and are powered on their own. The only real way to do this, in my opinion is underground MSR's (molten salt reactors). They are small(ish), cheap, can use already consumed nuclear fuel for power, which would help reduce spent nuclear fuel stockpiles, you can bury them underground, you can employ a few people to monitor them per unit, they can power entire subdivisions of homes and businesses. If they go bad, you won't get a boom, fallout, or any other danger associated with current nuclear power. They can be deployed fairly easily, I think, and a couple of companies like Mitsubishi and Hitachi are or have developed these small reactors for this kind of deployment. They can be grid isolated and from a national security point of view would be easier to maintain and devolves the big energy monopoly hold there is in the US right now.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[LWATCDR]

This is already used but...
You need an elevation change and water.
It is like all hydro site limted.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[WillAffleckUW]

Strange, 14 of the 50 US States have been investing 5-20 percent in renewable energy, and their GDP is growing faster than the ones that don't.

Keep pining for your failed fossil fuel religion, the markets care nothing for your ideology.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

However, they destroy a lot more waterway than what they deliver electricity

I must have slept through that class - what's the conversion between kWh and meters squared?

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[stoatwblr]

"Germany has 23 gigawatts of domestic solar panels, which, on a sunny day, is" NOT "sufficient to power the whole country."

There, FTFY

Germany imports a lot of nuclear power from France and having shut down its nukes now rates amongst the highest carbon emissions in the EU thanks to wholseale burning of brown coal.

The average German power draw is around 60GW, not 23. Even on a good day they need other sources. Peak is well over 80 and that happens when wind and solar tend to be at their lowest output.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Why doesn't Dave420 the wannabe expert on all things post on weekends? Dave420's mommy bans him from weekend posts n' he's too poor to buy a PC n' internet connection. Verify it yourselves in his post history.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420's mommy bans him from weekend posts n' he's too poor to buy a PC n' internet connection. Verify it for yourselves by his trolling post history.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Presumably they did before they constructed them.

Not really. This is in Europe with a long history, many most of these power plants started out as mills (water weels) several hundred years ago where these questions (whether economic or ecological) were not understood.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Yes you slept through classes alright, I guess (macro) economy being the major one.

There you would have learned that the conversion in this case is "money". As in we don't get enough value from the electricity from this recipient to motivate the cost of destroying the biology to the extent that the power station/dams etc. do, for most smaller plants.

Like I mentioned in another post. We get 94% of all our hydroelectricity from 200 of our ca 2000 plants. That many of the remaining 1800 could be closed down with no noticeable effect on power generation should be pretty obvious.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[gzuckier]

Five square metres of solar panel on every single domestic roof in the USA would produce a very significant energy change. 125 million houses * 5Kw is 625 gigawatts. Germany has 23 gigawatts of domestic solar panels, which, on a sunny day, is sufficient to power the whole country. Yes, obviously, it doesn't work twenty-four hours a day, or in bad weather. Yes, obviously, you need to find some way of storing energy, such as compressed air, hydrogen hydrolysis, pumped storage or whatever. None of this is rocket science.

Bottom line: the USA could power its whole economy, including road vehicles, on domestic solar panels alone.

But, of course, solar panel output is highly correlated with the times of peak electricity demand, i.e. sunny summer afternoons.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[gzuckier]

Hydroelectric for some reason is never talked about for green energy. Because of the Hoover dam image. A large structure that completely changes the local environment. The problem is in america, we are still stuck on the idea of Big Energy large grids covering the nation. We don't think in terms of small energy, having a small community powered by modest green sources. And every community can have different sources to meet their needs. Solar is good. But some of us live in areas where there is a lot of tree cover (and cutting trees isn't really the green option), Other areas have a decent wind, and others are near running water. These smaller sections will in agragate may take up more space, their impact is actually a lot less, as a smaller plot of land can heal a lot faster then say plowing down hundred acres.

Not really. Assuming a gallon of gasoline is worth about 10KWH of electricity, and assuming some decent performance efficiency-wise on either side, that would be 8900 grams of CO2 from the gasoline, and 9750 producing that electricity from coal. (any other fossil fuel is better than the gasoline)
And the reality, of course, is that you can't assume the best performance and efficiency from a coal fired power plant as reliably as from an automobile, since automobiles usually don't last more than ten years, but the northeast is still running on coal plants apparently built during the stone age, which were grandfathered in by the Clean Air Act.
And, that's just the CO2; if you include the other pollutants spewed by coal fired power plants, you're better off driving one of those mid sixties 7 liter American road yachts than a Prius or whatever. Not exaggerating; it's been calculated that the negative effects of coal smoke on health and agriculture alone (not including any CO2 climate effects) cost society more than the value of the electricity produced.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[HornWumpus]

They still did an economic analysis, but based on the water diversion already being there. The generators and lines were not free and likely would not have been constructed to lose money.

Local power has it's value, especially if the lines are unreliable. The alternative may remain a diesel generator.

What you're really looking for is the old ponds, just spilling. They still prevent migration, but were never worth electrifying. Hopefully they mostly flooded away.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[NicBenjamin]

Interestingly enough I've never heard a single environmentalist group make all four of those claims. To my knowledge no actual environmental group makes any claims regarding wind power and birds, that entire conversation is all conservative anti-environmentalists talking to themselves.

In other words this is the equivalent of a liberal arguing that conservatives are insane because they a) strongly support local law enforcement's right to stop damn near everybody, while b) claiming that opposing government authority with your personally-owned firearm is your sacred duty. Yes both of those guys probably voted for Romney, but they aren't the same guy.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[NicBenjamin]

Strictly speaking the reason nobody in the US supports large Hydro projects is that most of them have already been completed. It's not like we can re-engineer Iowa to be a huge plateau so that the Mississippi dam in Nebraska can generate power from a 100 ft drop.

Nuclear is virtually impossible to get support for anywhere because it's a classic Black Swan risk. Yeah if everything works you're Sweden and you've got no environmental impact, but if there's a disaster after the power company's fucked up safety procedures you're doing $100 Billion in damage. Moreover in a loosish union of sovereign states it's really difficult to convince one to accept all the nuclear fuel.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

Sure they made sense, but this was way back when. These generators were put in place when Sweden was only just being electrified, aka 100 years ago. Many, not to say, most weren't connected to the grid, and have just been left running more or less, as the cost is already sunk and hence they're "free" to own and operate. So they were economically viable the same way a Ford model-T was. Today, not so much. Like I said, we get 94% of our hydro power from 10% of our plants. These are of course a lot more recent (and much, much bigger).

However, this being southern Sweden, the grid is now orders of magnitude more powerful and widespread. While we have a problem of people losing power during storms, it's due to trees on the lines, we're not losing any production capacity. This is why we're busy burying the local lines. Diesel is strictly for backup, and the local hydro plants we have don't help one bit, as it's the local (subscriber) lines that are affected. Regional and higher are so high up that trees can't affect them.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[HornWumpus]

That is how you do an economic analysis on a sunk cost. If revenue is greater then or equal to ongoing costs you keep it running. Duh.

If the river system contains migratory fish, you calculate damage to fisheries as part of the ongoing cost.

Most small generation doesn't feed into high tension distribution. Just the local substation. System reliability is an important concern.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

You're assuming that these power plants are run by a commercial entity that knows of and can perform proper economic analyses. This is far from always true. Many of these are run by small co-ops, single farmers that inherited it, and the like. Thus many are run as a "hobby". So "duh" indeed.

And we have done the analysis, that's why we're forcing them closed. Since they don't generate any power to speak of, it's almost enough with a single fish to tip the scale against the plant.

And when it comes to reliability, the system isn't set up to take these tiny plants into account, that would cost too much to install after the fact. In case of "high tension" distribution failure, these plants would be shut down. They can't run in island mode, due to lack of control, and linesman safety concerns. But we only have a major distribution failure ("high tension" in your words) every decade and half, so that's not the problem anyway. Like I said, our problem isn't lack of generation (local or nation wide), or major distribution lines/network, it's that local distribution lines are cut by trees. We'd need every farm to have their own plant to make the system fine grained enough to make a difference. And that won't happen.

As a general rule though, the Swedish grid is very well run and maintained, with among the highest availabilities in the world. Since electricity is one of our exports, it's in the power companies interest to keep it up and running. (Our production is cheap, clean and abundant with about an even split between hydro and nuclear).

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[HornWumpus]

Your theory is that the operators don't know if they are making money? Interesting theory.

There are issues with local gen, lineman safety and regulation, same as for solar. But if there is one synchronized generator still on line the little generators stay in synch by the laws of physics. For a farmer, maintaining power at an incorrect frequency is better than no power at all. See also backup generators. You do have to be careful not to kill linemen who expect lines to be dead. This is a solved problem.

You don't lose fish to small generators on rivers that are already cut off from migration. You gain local, non migratory, fish in the pond.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[lars_stefan_axelsson]

No of course they (probably) know if they break even today. But since they're not paying the cost, the loss of fish is an externality for them, that doesn't matter much in the final analysis.

Now, that no-one would actually build a new plant in the old spot when the old one is removed for purely economical reasons, is a given in most of these places. The economics have changed in the last 100 years, so they only make economical sense given that they're already there. They don't make enough to pay for their replacement, but since turbines lasts for several decades, current owners don't necessarily see that.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[MrL0G1C]

As much as I disagree with your post, it's doesn't strike me as a troll. I'm getting sick of people modding posts as troll simply because they disagree.

Re:And now why this can not be done in the USofA

[vm146j2]

It will be, and sooner than you think.

electricity only

[gl4ss]

or did they go all electric cars and boats too and start cooking on electric? they had a good rainfall.

with this reasoning norway has been 100%+ renewables for a loong time(they generate more renewable energy than they use, and export the rest). sure, they do export fossil fuels too..

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

TFS is pretty clear.

No fossil fuels have been burnt to generate electricity since December 2014

Re:electricity only

[gl4ss]

I know, but it's spinning it differently. quite a lot of fossils getting burnt over there.

furthermore, as I pointed it out, there are places that are full hydro already, it's not really news to manage that feat if your country is in a place that allows for it.

Re:electricity only

[lkcl]

the difference is that costa rica is not considered to be a first world country, it's part of the emerging markets. also, all the other examples given (USA, Canada) are still using non-clean energy sources. the story is that this is an *entire country* running on *renewable energy*, 100%. that's a big hairy deal.

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

Costa Rica is most definitely a first world country. First world countries are simply defined as those allied with the United States who use capitalism, and there is - literally - no nation closer and more allied to the US than Costa Rica.

Second world countries are those allied with the USSR and communist(or so, that's how the term came to be...of course we don't have a USSR so we just say 'Russia' these days).

Third world countries are those allied with neither.

Re:electricity only

[Andy Dodd]

Interestingly, Norway is the reason Denmark is one of the few countries to achieve more than 20-25% grid penetration for wind/solar - Denmark's neighbor to the north has EXCELLENT energy storage facilities due to their geography.

(When the wind is blowing/sun shining, Denmark sells surplus power to Norway. When it isn't, they buy it back. Note that they're usually paying far more than what they sold it for due to supply/demand economics.)

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

Kind of ignorant.. Um hello, Canada ?

Re:electricity only

[dave420]

That was the definition, now there are other definitions, one of which the parent used correctly. English changes.

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

there is - literally - no nation closer and more allied to the US than Costa Rica.

I'd say that the Navajo nation is literally closer to the US.

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm using an electric car with solar panels on my roof. I also bicycle around the city to events and to the store. It isn't that hard. I wonder why more people aren't making the effort.

Re:electricity only

[codebonobo]

Costa Rica has some of the highest fuel prices in Central America , and many people use propane/solar to heat their hot water and stoves. The high elevation in many places allows for a cool climate with no need for air conditioning and their are tiered electrical rates that make electricity 3 times more expensive than the US at the highest rate(using Air conditioning will get that ). This means people are naturally environmentally consciousness here due to greater poverty and high taxes.

FYI.... it has been a long dry summer ... so not exactly good rainfall. Just starting to rain again.

Re:electricity only

[dave420]

The spin appears to be entirely in your head...

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420's mommy bans him from weekend posts n' he's too poor to buy a PC n' internet connection.

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420's mommy bans him from weekend posts n' he's too poor to buy a PC n' internet connection. Verify it for yourselves by his trolling post history!

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

Parent? Ah, must be your guilt about this Dave420 (hahaha) http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Re:electricity only

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420's the DEFINITION of "mama's boy" lmao http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[stud9920]

Now, they only need to install electric pumps for when it's not raining, and they're 100% renewable forever!

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[OzPeter]

Now, they only need to install electric pumps for when it's not raining, and they're 100% renewable forever!

The jokes on you as the US already does this. The Bath County Pumped Storage Station at a capacity of 3GW is the largest pumped storage station in the world.

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[stud9920]

The joke IS not on me: I am well aware of pumped storage stations; there is one in my country too.

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[dbIII]

Then why act stupid?
Of course pumped storage only works as part of an energy mix where you have excess base load power at night that you want to find something to do with, which means everywhere with coal or nuclear. Base load is an artifact of some of the cheaper power sources needing to run 24/7 for them to remain cheap.

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't those just a means of storing excess electricity? That said, a battery might be more effective.

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[Anonymous Coward]

The jokes on you...

Whoosh. He was proposing perpetual motion, not storage.

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[Anonymous Coward]

Aren't those just a means of storing excess electricity? That said, a battery might be more effective.

It would be but have you seen the price for a 16 pack of ZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZZ batteries lately?

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[codebonobo]

Funny , but keep in mind that we just went through a long 4 month dry summer that is just ending.

Re:Electric pumps for when it's not raining

[stud9920]

why would anyone act stupid on a casual Internet forum?

Re:What a stupid piece.

[MrL0G1C]

You're number 68 on my list of 1000 most stupid people.

Big Deal

[AftanGustur]

Iceland has been doing this since 1921 when the fist hydroelectric power plant was put in service.

That is about 9500 days Iceland has Powered Itself Using Only Renewable Energy.

Re:Big Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Yup, it's pretty much the same with the canadian province or Quebec. All electricity is produced with hydro or wind. We do have 1 nuclear plant but we actually pay the owner not to produce electricity since we already have too much.

Re:Big Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Have you ever thought about not paying them to not produce energy instead? How do I get in on this, I'd like to be paid to not produce electricity too. I think I'd be quite good at it.

Seriously though, let me guess, public sector contract with penalty clauses? that why? the usual story? Can they really not sell the electricity to anyone instead, like you know, that whopping great City to the South; New York. Or do the Americans not trust immigrant electricity or something?

Re:Big Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

How do I get in on this, I'd like to be paid to not produce electricity too.

Step 1: Build a functioning utility scale nuclear reactor.

Get back to me when this step is complete for Step 2.

Re:Big Deal

[ceoyoyo]

You can easily get in on the deal. You just have to set up with some associates and buy the right public servants. Except that the other guy, with his associates, might meet you in a dark parking lot some night and express his displeasure. Or just have your restaurant firebombed.

Quebec already sells a lot of electricity to the US, New York included. There may be actual reasons to keep a nuke plant unused, but more likely it traces it's way back to corruption somehow.

Re:Big Deal

[jittles]

Have you ever thought about not paying them to not produce energy instead? How do I get in on this, I'd like to be paid to not produce electricity too. I think I'd be quite good at it.

Seriously though, let me guess, public sector contract with penalty clauses? that why? the usual story? Can they really not sell the electricity to anyone instead, like you know, that whopping great City to the South; New York. Or do the Americans not trust immigrant electricity or something?

Our ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents have a hard time screening every single electron that comes across the border. Too few of the electrons are willing to pay for the prescreen pass that allows them to pass freely through border stations with only cursory inspections.

Re:Big Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, yeah, but most of the northern half of Quebec is devoted to hydroelectric power (aka the James Bay Project), much of which is also sold to the US. But, meh, northern Quebec ... it's not like there's a tourist industry. ;-)

Re:Big Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

Our ICE (Immigration and Customs Enforcement) agents have a hard time screening every single electron that comes across the border. Too few of the electrons are willing to pay for the prescreen pass that allows them to pass freely through border stations with only cursory inspections.

But congratulations to their ICE (Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad) for their hydroelectric plants. I always got tickled in Costa Rica that their electric company is called ICE.

Re:Big Deal

[Anonymous Coward]

The nice thing about selling electricity to New York, especially from as far away as James Bay, is that you're selling AC: 1/120th of a second later all those electrons come back, and you can sell them again.

Re:Big Deal

[DrTJ]

Or, if you choose the year on Earth, with 365 days, that's about 34 000 days.

Re:Big Deal

[MachineShedFred]

It's because the electrons aren't actually allowed to pass over the border - they end up just getting agitated and wait in line. Like I do at the airport.

(Joke is meant for AC interties only.)

Re:Big Deal

[Virtucon]

Maybe he was thinking Iceland, Jupiter?

Norway more or less does that too

[Trepidity]

A bit over 99% of the electricity generated in Norway is from hydro plants, because it has a ton of hydro resources.

Re:Norway more or less does that too

[Anonymous Coward]

That's because everybody is on a NordicTrac following Christie Brinkley and Chuck Norris hooked up to the hydro-generators - infinite energy.

Re:Norway more or less does that too

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but that's not as simple as you'd think. Norway buys electricity from Europe when there's peak power (i.e. lots of wind) and sells it back when there's a shortage. Still, pretty green. What's a bit less green is when Norway "buys" coal-generated power and "sells" hydro power. This is done to comply with paper demands for green energy in other countries. No current has to flow for this, this is just bookkeeping. The coal is still burned in Germany and its neighbours. But Norway can still say that they *produce* 99% hydro, and the Germans can claim the *consume* a lot of hydro. Thus the same kWh is claimed twice.

Re:Good / Bad

[Dunbal]

Funny I've lived there for over 25 years and never, ever had my car searched. Sure I've been pulled over for speeding. I've also been stopped twice at a road-block aimed at catching intoxicated drivers (like they have almost everywhere in the world including the "free" US). I've been stopped once and asked to provide ID and later learned on the news that there had been a pretty violent crime in my neighborhood. But just stopped to be searched for the hell of it? Never.

Meh

[Maury Markowitz]

Quebec, with 8.2 million people, goes 365 days on hydro all the time.

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah. I shit on the accomplishments of other people too.

Re:Meh

[cdrudge]

Right, you guys use hydro 365 days of the year. But not exclusively hydro generated electricity. There are several fossil fuel power plants, several dozen off-grid diesel plans, more than few wind farms, and a couple of biomass.

Re:Meh

[rhazz]

~97% of electricity produced in Quebec comes from hydro. A lot of that is exported too (~$1 billion per year). HydroQuebec is also investing significantly in alternative energy sources because their hydro capacity is expected to peak in the next decade. Alternatives include biomass, wind, thermal, etc. It's a good thing. They do have a gas plant which is currently not used due to the huge surplus.
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/... (2011)

Re:Meh

[phorm]

Ditto much of BC, Canada. Our power company is actually called "BC Hydro" ...

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

In the netherlands we got hydro on every corner! Oh wait, that hydro...

Re:Meh

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydro-Quebec Production supply and facilities :
http://www.hydroquebec.com/generation/index.html

Re:What a stupid piece.

[popo]

Well to be fair, there is a certain irony about calling the energy "renewable" when it couldn't be sustained.

Still, it's an impressive accomplishment that they pulled it off as long as they did. It should be noted though that:

1) It's not replicable everywhere at any time.
2) Costa Rica doesn't have particularly demanding energy needs (as the "stupid" guy above pointed out).

Hoover: flooded 100 miles, 0.01% of energy needed

[raymorris]

You said "look at Hoover Dam". Okay, I'm looking. I see it's situated in a nice canyon, flooded 100 square miles, and provides less than 1/10,000th of our energy needs. If you go find another 10,000 nice deep canyons, we can flood 1,000,000 miles of land and be okay, until there's a drought.

Since we don't actually have 10,000 canyons, you end up needing to flood basically the entire area between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians - I've done the math.

Costa Rica has a population of a few million - think Houston and it's suburbs. They have a couple of dams, which is great when they get heavy rains. Their experience might be interesting to one or two American cities (the ones nearest Niagara Falls, specifically) ; it's nothing like powering the entire United States.

Re:Good / Bad

[The Grim Reefer]

This is /. Obviously an AC posting something they read somewhere, on a blog by someone with mental illness, has to more accurate and truthful than anyone with firsthand experience. If you don't have a link to a citation proving otherwise, at least. Sorry, we're going to have to dismiss your anecdotal evidence. ;-)

Renewable energy with Mexican food.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm wondering if I could achieve the same result from the diarrhea I get from Mexican food. It would be awesome to finally live off-grid !! Should I run some numbers ?

1/2 oz salsa + 3 oz Pepsi would produce about 60 fl oz of (output) at apprx 30 N of force x .135 Watts / Newton of linear force through the generator = 4.05 Watts - enough to power a small night light.

Re:Renewable energy with Mexican food.

[Anonymous Coward]

Double the volume and energy output if the Mexican food is from Taco Bell. And consider collecting the considerable amount of methane produced.

Their old slogan: Taco Bell. Make a run for the ... bathroom.

Re:Renewable energy with Mexican food.

[Anonymous Coward]

When did Taco Bell start selling Mexican food?

Re:Good / Bad

[OzPeter]

Unfortunately, Costa Rica still allows their police to search all cars at a checkpoint in the middle of the country so any feeling of freedom or closeness with nature is quickly soured.

Gee, that sounds familiar, sort of like what the US currently does with its border checkpoints that are in the interior of the country, and not on the border.

Re:Hoover: flooded 100 miles, 0.01% of energy need

[houghi]

OK, I think of Houston and it's suburbs. So why do I not see an article where it says that Houston and it Suburbs are 100% green over a 3 month period.

And do not look ONLY at dams, look at a combination of different sources. Solar, water, wind, reduction in usage by i.e changing the way buildings are made, people and goods are transported and a lot of other things.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Going south on Highway 1 about 2 hours they pull over cars at random and do searches. It is very common. In the U.S. the supreme court allows mandatory checkpoints only because they are pre-published where the driver has the ability to be informed and can take a different route.

So the main location is on Highway 1 near PuntaArenas.

My understanding is that it is also illegal in Costa Rica, but they are allowing it for some reason. I only mention it because it really sucks that Costa Rica is so beautiful but when they require searching your vehicle the beauty is tarnished.

100% renewable energy? Amazing

[Anonymous Coward]

How do they do that? How do you renew the sun? I thought there was only so much exergy? Can a physicist perhaps explain this breakthrough?

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Renewable doesn't mean limitless.

What Slashdoters can gush out with some hand exercise is renewable, but isn't enough for every woman on Earth...

Yeah, bad example, I know. It takes energy to power that hand. But the solar-powered robot, Jack, is coming soon

Re:Good / Bad

[OzPeter]

In the U.S. the supreme court allows mandatory checkpoints only because they are pre-published where the driver has the ability to be informed and can take a different route.

There is also the fact that the US government defines the "border" as including 100 mile in from the physical border and can pretty well do what it likes in that zone. This "border" conveniently includes where the majority of the population lives. Are You Living in the Government's "Border" Zone?

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

"Renewable" means no finite resource was expended to generate the energy in question; it does not mean that there is an infinite supply of said renewable energy. So I don't see the irony.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry, I've been there and experienced it. The country and rain is beautiful but I was just saying in my visits there you don't always feel like you can enjoy the beauty when there are these intrusions. It's like 'sure go enjoy the rainforest, right after we search your car.. now enjoy your day'.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Sique]

It is renewable as the next period of heavy rainfall will fill up the storage lakes again - thus the energy reserves are renewed.

You can still deplete your supply of renewables by using more than the refill rate - at least temporarily.

mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[raymorris]

>. So why do I not see an article where it says that Houston and it Suburbs are 100% green over a 3 month period.

Houston doesn't happen to be located beneath a mountain range, where it would get a nice flow of water coming in during the rainy season. Houston also chooses to have affordable electricity available year round. Steady, affordable energy is directly related to all the jobs which Californians are moving to Houston for.

Houston also doesn't happen to have the volcanic fault line that Costa Rica uses for geothermal - less than 1% of locations on earth have that. California does have geothermal potential, the rest of the US does not.

You're spot on about the combination. The US has a couple of places suitable for geothermal, a couple for hydro, etc. If you do the research and the arithmetic, you find that renewables can make a significant impact - 11% to 13% of our total energy needs. That's significant. For the rest, we have the choice of natural gas and other petroleum, or nuclear. At least until we develop some Star Trek quantum generator.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not go with the simplest reason? Houston is the mecca for the entire North American oil industry. When it's 100% green, I assume that hell would have frozen over.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[ArhcAngel]

Houston is the mecca for the entire North American ENERGY industry.

FTFY
Houston learned it's lesson after the oil bust of the 80's. The city has diversified to encompass all aspects of energy and technology. Most of the big energy companies have large plays in every possible renewable out there trying to be the first to make that breakthrough that'll bring cost parity to fossils.

As to the OP I suspect Houstonians use significantly more electricity than Costa Ricans as over 90% of the homes have some form of A/C while I suspect that average for Costa Rico to be somewhat lower.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[Anonymous Coward]

Houston is the mecca for the entire North American ENERGY industry.

FTFY

Not really... as someone who went to school in the US, and works in Europe -- on energy issues -- I know people on three continents that go to Houston for work in the oil industry. There are other places better for renewable energy -- even if the big energy companies also have renewable divisions.

Houston learned it's lesson after the oil bust of the 80's.

And yet you haven't learned how to use an apostrophe properly.

If you wanted to come after me with facts, you'd quote something like this: http://www.chron.com/news/houston-texas/houston/article/Houston-leads-almost-every-U-S-company-and-city-5466660.php

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[ArhcAngel]

To grammar Nazis everywhere my sincerest apologies. I shall go fetch the wet noodle immediately!

As to your other assertion. Pffft Most of those other places are run from offices in Houston. Nice find on the Chronicle article. Fun fact, I'm looking out the window at their offices as I type this.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[Anonymous Coward]

As to your other assertion. Pffft
Most of those other places are run from offices in Houston.

Deepwater Wind, Cape Wind -- first offshore wind energy setups, based in Northeast.
Oscilla Power -- wave energy, Seattle, WA.
ORPC -- tidal energy, Maine.

I can think of no offshore renewable energy companies which are based out of Houston. Whereas I think all nearly all non-academic offshore oil organizations of any size are based out of Houston.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[rahvin112]

Hate to break it to you but California is not the only geothermal site within the US, there are MANY. Hell if you just include the ring of fire we've got, Cali, Oregon, Washinton and Alaska. Throw in the other sources and you add hawaii, utah, wyoming, idaho, montana and many many others. There are lots of spots where there is enough thermal energy close to the surface to make geothermal energy not only economical but cheap and clean. The magma ball under yellowstone is so large that it alone could probably generate all the power the US needed if you could get enough water for the generation.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[afidel]

California does have geothermal potential, the rest of the US does not.

Really? Because I could have sworn the largest geothermal upwelling on the planet is located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

If you do the research and the arithmetic, you find that renewables can make a significant impact - 11% to 13% of our total energy needs.

Bullshit, wind and solar alone can potentially generate many, many times our current energy demands. To get an idea of just how little land would be needed to generate our current needss with even junk solar cells check out this page which has a handy graph showing 6 solar farms in desert areas that would work. Now granted, that's approximately twice the area that we currently occupy with road and parking structures, but it would be completely possible if we were to set it as a goal like we did with reaching the moon, put 5-10% of global GDP for the next few decades to work on converting to 100% renewables and we could get there easily. The problem is not the technology, or the availability, it is the will to do what we know must be done, because it is harder than the current path which we know leads to problems.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[ArhcAngel]

Funny how you changed the conversation to "offshore" renewable energy companies. I don't recall it being in any of the previous posts...

But that's...none of my business.

Re:mountains, canyons, droughts. Combination yes

[afidel]

California does have geothermal potential, the rest of the US does not.

Really? Because I could have sworn the largest geothermal upwelling on the planet is located in Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho.

If you do the research and the arithmetic, you find that renewables can make a significant impact - 11% to 13% of our total energy needs.

Bullshit, wind and solar alone can potentially generate many, many times our current energy demands. To get an idea of just how little land would be needed to generate our current needss with even junk solar cells check out this page which has a handy graph showing 6 solar farms in desert areas that would work. Now granted, that's approximately twice the area that we currently occupy with road and parking structures, but it would be completely possible if we were to set it as a goal like we did with reaching the moon, put 5-10% of global GDP for the next few decades to work on converting to 100% renewables and we could get there easily. The problem is not the technology, or the availability, it is the will to do what we know must be done, because it is harder than the current path which we know leads to problems.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[GoddersUK]

"Renewable" means no finite resource was expended to generate the energy in question

The second law of thermodynamics begs to differ.

/pedantry

Re:Good / Bad

[Xest]

I honestly can't see how having my car searched would ever tarnish the surrounding countryside.

Well, unless they start unpacking my luggage and begin hanging my underwear on the trees or something. That might do it. Is this what they're doing?

Re:Good / Bad

[ceoyoyo]

Don't forget, that 100 mile zone also surrounds international airports.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Perhaps you are going into a rain forest that only the cartels would go "visit"?

Re:Hoover: flooded 100 miles, 0.01% of energy need

[dbIII]

which is great when they get heavy rains

Heavy enough for tropical jungle and growing sugar cane is pretty heavy dude.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Applehu Akbar]

Notice how the largest renewable source, hydro, counts as green energy when it suits the enviros, but is anathema the rest of the time.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that in CR it is not the border patrol doing the searching in the interior - it is the police. There's usually a difference in scope of enforcement between the two. The 100 mile distinction used in U.S. mentioned earlier is an excellent point. It is a police traffic stop in CR that requires the searching of vehicles. When I complained to the officer he said he has to, it is his job and it was what he was told to do.

I was just saying that it would be nice to visit the beautiful natural resources without the police going through my spiderman underwear. That's why I always feel much more free in the U.S.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[wonkey_monkey]

Costa Rica is #1 on the Happy Planet Index.

"Development" isn't everything.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[sycodon]

Ya...I don't think that many people, especially the environmentalists, think "hydro" when someone mentions renewable. Not that it isn't but the term has been hijacked by Wind and Solar mostly with a smattering of tide, wave, etc. technologies.

We should stop using the word renewable

[rossdee]

We should stop using the word renewable for energy like solar wind and hydro. Its not theoretically renewable, but thats not the point. The point is that they don't emit CO2 into the atmosphere, and thats the thing that is going to screw up the climate.
So we should be using the term Non-Carbon-Emitting energy sources. We could even use the acronym NCE but its probably already in use in some other field.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[CrimsonAvenger]

The problem being that nuclear power is also Non-Carbon-Emitting.

And the people who favour solar, wind, and hydro often have a pathological fear of nuclear....

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[operagost]

Sorry I don't have mod points for this. THAT is why the outdated "renewable energy" term is still being trumpeted-- to exclude evil nuclear power.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[tnk1]

Well, to be honest, if you look at energy sources, they're all non-renewable, if you are looking at the extreme long term. At some point, there is the heat death of the universe. Sooner than that, the sun is going to bloat up into a red giant and engulf the Earth, rendering the energy argument moot for our current habitat.

In the sense that it will be a constant source that we'll have for the next billion or two years, energy sources that rely on current solar radiation are renewable. Not infinite, but renewable.

I suppose you could say oil and coal are renewable as well, actually. It just so happens that calling their renewal rate "glacial" is actually a literal understatement.

You're probably right about the whole carbon emission thing, but renewable resource use actually has a much broader meaning and value. Even if coal and oil wasn't affecting global warming, we'd still want renewables for the simple reason that naturally occurring coal, oil, and gas will eventually be depleted, and well before then we need more forms of energy generation to support growing demand. Bearing that in mind allows you to maintain common cause with people who might still be less than convinced about the threat of warming, but understand the value of energy generation.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

That is a good point.

Burning wood can generate electricity and is a renewable resource. It's a bad choice for the environment, but renewable.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[dave420]

The term you are clumsily looking for is "carbon neutral", and it's already used very frequently.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[jklovanc]

Then there is a case to be made for Hydro electricity not being NCE. First the huge amounts of concrete involved that take lots of emissions and the area that used to be covered with foliage that is now under water and no longer sequestering CO2. Then there is the fact that many dams silt up and have reduced capacity or do not work after a number of decades,

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Smidge204]

CO2 generation isn't an impossible challenge. Since the concrete production is centralized, it can be sequestered on site, and concrete naturally re-absorbs that carbon over the decades. Even if you don't address the immediate emissions, since concrete production is a mere 1% or so of total CO2 output by the US and the entire lifecycle emissions (including construction, operation and decommissioning) for hydro is a tenth that of natural gas, you're still coming out way ahead.

=Smidge=

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[MachineShedFred]

Burning wood is far better for the environment than burning coal or oil. Planting new trees will pull the carbon out of the air to make the tree grow, and trees replenish many orders of magnitude faster than coal or oil. It also doesn't release nearly the chemical filth that burning oil and coal does.

Wood may not be as energetic as oil or coal, but not exactly "bad."

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[jklovanc]

Since the concrete production is centralized, it can be sequestered on site, and concrete naturally re-absorbs that carbon over the decades.

The same can be said for fossil fuel powered generators.

since concrete production is a mere 1% or so of total CO2 output by the US

Where does this number come from? All the articles I have seen put that number at 5% of world CO2 emissions.

concrete naturally re-absorbs that carbon over the decades.

How much does it absorb and what consequences?

So, how much calcium dioxide is absorbed in concrete and how long does it take? The answer is that we do not know.

Here is a quote from the article you referenced;

The exact amount of emissions depends greatly on site-specific characteristics. However, current estimates suggest that life-cycle emissions can be over 0.5 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour [5,6].

To put this into context, estimates of life-cycle global warming emissions for natural gas generated electricity are between 0.6 and 2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour and estimates for coal-generated electricity are 1.4 and 3.6 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour [7].

The 0.5 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour for hydro is not one tenth that of the 0.6-2 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour of natural gas.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Do you realize how much carbon is released in the mining of uranium and the refinement (if not done using existing nuclear power)? And I bet the plant operators aren't all riding their bikes and driving their electric cars to work, since nuclear power plants don't run themselves.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Bzt. Solar isn't carbon zero. there's considerable carbon emitting resources used in making the panels, and installing them. If you only ran the panels for a few days you would be much worse than coal, but since these emissions are annuitized over 5-10 years it is much better in terms of CO2 per kilowatt hour.

Even if you had an old-man whittling wind farm blades, and a steel making process that didn't use coke and got it's energy from wind generation, that old man would still probably do things like eating meat, and use plastics and concrete, at a minimum. Plastics, meat production and concrete curing are significant co2 sources.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Smidge204]

The same can be said for fossil fuel powered generators.

Except that, with the exception of natural gas, you have a lot of other combustion products to deal with. CO2 emissions from cement production are the result of baking the carbon out of the calcium carbonate, and it's relatively pure and therefore easier to deal with.

There are also only ~100 cement plants in the US, versus thousands of fossil power plants.

Where does this number come from? All the articles I have seen put that number at 5% of world CO2 emissions.

-The US produces about 5,500 million metric tons per year of CO2.
-Cement production releases about 1.25 tons CO2 per ton.
-The US produces about 68 million tons (2011) of cement per year.

68*1.25 = 87.5 million tons CO2 per year for cement production. That's 1.5% of the total.

How much does it absorb and what consequences?

33-57% of that which is released during production.

The 0.5 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour for hydro

Good job cherry picking the worst possible number instead of the one that actually applies. You even went out of your way to quote the article so carefully!

Small run-of-the-river plants emit between 0.01 and 0.03 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour. Life-cycle emissions from large-scale hydroelectric plants built in semi-arid regions are also modest: approximately 0.06 pounds of carbon dioxide equivalent per kilowatt-hour.

The part you quoted is for tropical zones and peatlands. So how much of the US is in a tropical climate zone, exactly? Hawaii and a little bit of Florida?
=Smidge=

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Better than not being able to post on weekends since your mama bans you from computers then and you obviously can't afford to purchase a computer of your own.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[dave420]

APK? Is that you, lil' buddy?

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Paranoia Dave420? Take your meds, and answer the question, m'kay?

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[StikyPad]

I don't have a fear of nuclear, and I used to be fully in favor of it, but the reality is that accidents can and will happen. If a solar or wind plant goes offline, there's just no electricity. If a nuclear plant goes offline, it can potentially result in catastrophic contamination of the surrounding geography. That's a reality that must be factored into risk vs reward.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Isn't Apk who you ran from Dave420 (forrest) http://slashdot.org/comments.p... after he kicked your ass all over this forums showing us all how dumb you really are for trolling your superiors in himself, obviously, based on you running like the trolling little freak you are from a fair challenge he put to you? Looks that way. Your post history is your undoing giving that much away.

Re:We should stop using the word renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

If you include the supply-chain for the fuel that's used for nuclear power, I think you'd be hard-pressed to find a non-carbon-emitting reactor. Mining materials from the earth takes a lot of energy, and, at least at the moment, it's all powered by internal combustion engines.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, they do go through luggage but no they don't hang your underwear from trees:) They're professional about it but it still sucks. I give them credit that they seem to be professional about their work.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm sure the people of Costa Rica would much rather be number 1 on the happy planet index than 1 on the development index. Not.

Oh wait a second. Greens and environmentalists don't give a shit about Human well-being do they. They're explicitly against any economic growth.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[pipingguy]

It's more like "renewable and unpredictable", the "unpredictable" part being a weak selling point as compared to traditional energy sources.

I now await the inevitable downmods deducting karma points. Meh, Slashdot's been sucking for awhile anyway - time to leave.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[CreatureComfort]

Well, as the other posters pointed out, it is also about demand.

So, I'm certain that given the average demand for Slashdotter's emissions, the Earth probably has more than enough supply until the Sun expands into a red giant.

Re:Good / Bad

[sociocapitalist]

Yep, for example:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08...

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't understand what "Happy" means, do you?

Re:What a stupid piece.

[BlackSWE]

"The second law of thermodynamics states that in a natural thermodynamic process, there is an increase in the sum of the entropies of the participating systems." So how does it beg to differ in terms of a hydro electric power and renewable resources? I quite like pedantry. It opens the eyes of the ignorant. :D

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Try being a black guy in the US and see how far you can get in places like Ferguson without being stopped by the police for no reason.

I'm sure a black American would feel right at home in Costa Rica.

Solar = renewable

[Anonymous Coward]

Much sun = no rain
no rain = drought
Drought = no hydro.
Solar = renewable energy.

Oi vey. Applicability?

[Chas]

Costa Rica is roughly 20,000 Square Miles.
That's about half again the size of the NYC metropolitan area.

Rewrite it to read "Tiny country you can walk across in a couple days...."

Second, they're down on/near the equator. Long days. Mostly great weather. Now compare to Chicago, with roughly 30 days of snowfall a year (mostly in a period of 8 months)

Third, they got helped by high (even for them) rains, allowing their hydro resources to run at a higher capacity.

And, as others have noted, funny that eco-nuts are normally so averse to hydro power because of environmental factors.
But when it helps achieve things like this, NOT A FUCKING PEEP.

Niagra Falls

[tomhath]

For those who keep asking why we can't store water during times of low electrical demand and use it during high, take a look at how the Lewiston Pump-Generating Plant at Niagra Falls does exactly that. Generates massive amounts of electricity during the peak load times. Really an awesome bit of engineering.

At night, a substantial fraction (600,000 US gallons (2,300 m3) per second) of the water in the Niagara River is diverted to the forebay by two 700-foot (210 m) tunnels. Electricity generated in the Moses plant is used to power the pumps to push water into the upper reservoir behind the Lewiston Dam. The water is pumped at night because the demand for electricity is much lower than during the day. In addition to the lower demand for electricity at night, less water can be diverted from the river during the day because of the desire to preserve the appearance of the falls. During the following day, when electrical demand is high, water is released from the upper reservoir through the pump-generators in the Lewiston Dam. The water then flows into the forebay, where it falls through the turbines of the Moses plant. Some would say that the water is "used twice".

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Jax Omen]

Being good friends with a couple guys from Costa Rica... they're some of the happiest people I know online.

And they're developed *enough*... They have nice computers and phones, they eat well, they make enough money to get by.

Happiness really is everything.

Re:Hoover: flooded 100 miles, 0.01% of energy need

[Anonymous Coward]

you end up needing to flood basically the entire area between the Rocky Mountains and the Appalachians

Bring back the Western Interior Seaway!

Re:What a stupid piece.

[MachineShedFred]

There's a reason why we have both the words "renewable" and "sustainable" - they do not mean the same thing.

Costa Rica will get more rain, which will "renew" the reservoirs behind the hydro dams. It's not raining 100% of the time, and the hydro dams release more volume of water than the rain provides in the same unit time, so it's not completely sustainable. But it is still a renewable resource.

Non-petroleum energy production

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't remember seeing a discussion about the actual cost of a barrel of oil sourced outside the U.S. It's more than just the on-field production cost, plus transportation, refinement, etc. Shouldn't we add in the the military costs, State Department costs, etc? How much of our military budget is allocated either to or because of the areas of oil production that are not on domestic soil? How much of our State Department budget as well? We certainly don't maintain the same State resources in Lagos as we do in Riyadh. Add in the CIA, various other acronym intelligence agencies, private security companies, it seems that real cost of a gallon of gas in the U.S. is far more than $4.00.

Also - how concerned are we about the long-term consequences of fracking? Even discounting any negative impact by this process, it has a very limited future. The cost of gas is politically turbulent, and politicians are not known for long-term planning - and by this, under these parameters, we should be thinking 25-50 year plans.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydro is predictable enough. There are excellent statistics on the amounts of rain. a sensible hydro system uses a dam big enough to smooth out the seasonal variations in rain. So a stable year-average of rain is all it takes. Many places has a predictable year-average.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

And what the fuck, exactly, is the "Happy Planet" index, and why should anyone care?

I'm seriously asking - never heard of this before, and it sounds made up.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[SydShamino]

I'm pretty certain that's redundant, as all "renewable" sources have "unpredictable" problems, except tidal.
  - Hydro - dry spell, loss of snow pack
  - Solar (PV & other) - oops clouds
  - Wind - still day

"unpredictable" is the nature of renewable sources, which is why other baseline or backup sources (such as safer nuclear) remain vital as we figure out how to move away from fossils

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

The difference is that the police in the U.S. cannot search your car WITHOUT your permission unless you give them a reason to. Actually, a black American would see him/herself pulled over in CR along with other cars being searched at the same time, side by side. It not a discrimination thing. The beef is that people should be left alone unless there is probable cause.

Re:Good / Bad

[schneidafunk]

I have been living in Costa Rica for over five years now and have never had problems with the cops. The few times I've been pulled over (for legitimate reasons) I was able to bribe my way out of it. To speak of 'intrusions' shows your lack of experience here. I have never felt more free than in this country and I grew up in the United States.

Re:Hoover: flooded 100 miles, 0.01% of energy need

[MachineShedFred]

think Houston and it's suburbs.

Okay, I'm thinking about Houston and it's suburbs. Can we flood it and use it for power generation?

Re:What a stupid piece.

[torkus]

Fossil fuels are also a renewable energy source by that logic.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[BlackPignouf]

Yeah, GP doesn't really get the second law of thermodynamics.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Agreed. The car searches are because ever since the incidents on Isla Nublar, the Costa Rican government is understandably nervous about transport of certain cryogenic containers or mosquito-containing amber.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

I would rather live somewhere happy than somewhere developed. Sure, there are limits. I would probably rather not live in somewhere like Bhutan (generally cited as being happy but badly developed) because I'd be worried about healthcare standards as I get older, but I'd much rather live in somewhere like Scandinavia (less developed than the USA but happier) than the USA.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Or you could hand-crank your smartwatch - http://www.cultofmac.com/31428...

Re:What a stupid piece.

[rahvin112]

It's always sunny somewhere, it's always blowing wind somewhere. And often when it's not sunny it's windy and vice-versa.

The solution to renewable power fluctuation is an interconnected grid at to make it feasible and profitable to time shift power. That's it. Germany is proving very effectively that solar and wind don't need huge backup generation capacity. Renewables can provide all the energy we need and the energy companies hate that idea (it will mean dramatically less profits) so they spend a lot of time and money on propaganda, some of which you've fallen for.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[deadweight]

Fossil fuels ARE renewable! The process that made them once can make them again. Renewable in my lifetime - not so much.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[ShanghaiBill]

Costa Rica is #1 on the Happy Planet Index. "Development" isn't everything.

No, but the "Happy Planet Index" considers poverty to be a good thing. HPI is basically longevity divided by consumption. For instance, Iraq beats America. Iraqis don't live as long, but they "win" anyway because they are poor. The war actually increased their score, because the rise in mortality was more than offset by the increase in poverty.

HPI: Live long and don't prosper.

Sin City - Most Renewable Award

[sylivin]

By this wacky logic, Las Vegas, the city of excess and far too many lights, is the most renewable city in the US with its power coming straight from the Hoover Dam. This sounds like an achievement no one should be all that impressed with. Managing to stay 100% renewable in drought, nightfall, and calm conditions? Now that would be more impressive.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Why wait? Just leave already. This isn't the 1st time you'd promised to leave /. ; why the fuck are you still here?
Is getting downmodde the only way you get a satisfying boner? Just get a Viagra prescription already.
On the off chance you're finally serious about leaving, let's say so long and (no) thanks for so many the pointless, boring, repetitive & lame posts.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

There's a reason for that. PV cells, for example, work with mostly heavily under-utilized insolation (which also happens to be widely distributed). Using it will hardly hurt anyone. Hydroelectric plants, OTOH, tend to disrupt narrow ecosystems (rivers), and unlike with solar power, we've basically reached the limits of what's possible already, because there's only so much flowing water. Relative to current production, there's no reason why it should be impossible to generate a hundred times more power from sunlight. There's every reason why it shouldn't be possible to generate ten times more power from hydro. In the end, hydro will probably serve as a very welcome flex-power provider. Hydro operators will be probably also happy because they'll get paid more for that.

Not so nice after all

[Anonymous Coward]

Please DO TAKE INTO ACCOUNT the following
1. Electricity is NOT cheap in Costa Rica, in fact it is quite expensive compared to other countries in the region, as a matter of fact just recently it was discovered that the Costa Rican Institute for Electricity (I.C.E. in spanish) wasted 300 millon dollars in a project that should have costed only 100 millon dollars

2. Many and I mean MANY companies are leaving Costa Rica because electricity is way too expensive to operate (American Standard is an example, they moved to Nicaragua), this is also related to excesive taxes and other mumbo jumbo from the goverment (extremly burocratic, corrupt, and operates quite slow)

3. Just a few years ago, about 4 years I guess, the state tried to charge more for electricity telling people dams where almost empty, it was then reported BY PEOPLE itself that went there and took videos of how the dams were being emptied on pourpose just to charge more to citizens, nice isn't it?

4.Fossil fuels in Costa Rica are EXTREMLY EXPENSIVE, this is because the state charges around 400% of its value in taxes, this taxes are supposedly used to finance a refinery that does not refine, road maintenance and other things, yet Costa Rica has the worst roads in the region and RECOPE (The refinery that does not refine) is just a bunch of thieves backed up by the goverment. Because all of this electricity from fossil fuels is avoided at all costs.

The list can go on and on and on, this is just another desperate attempt from Costa Rica to look good, but in reality it is a shitty country, (in fact it is dirty, no animal control what so ever, so animal feces are everywhere), if you are planning to invest there DONT

Re:What a stupid piece.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

That's why we have predictive models for these things, isn't it? And why we'll have long-distance power lines in the future (I mean, better ones than the ones that we have now) to smooth the whole thing out.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Yeah right. The bulk of germany's energy production is COAL, can't pollute any more than that...

http://www.greentechmedia.com/articles/read/germanys-energy-transition-explained-in-6-charts

Re:What a stupid piece.

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Not in the lifetime of our civilization, though. (We could also wait for the next supernova to suck up some uranium, but that wouldn't be practical either.)

Re:What a stupid piece.

[presidenteloco]

Hydroelectric and solar photovoltaic energy, and wind power, and fossil fuels, are all non-renewable in the several billion years time scale, since they are all byproducts of the energy gradient caused by the sun's electromagnetic radiation hitting the Earth assymetrically, and that nuclear process will eventually burn out, and before that change to a level that won't sustain life here.

So the term renewable is actually a functional term which has a time span parameters i.e. renewable(cycleLengthLow, cycleLengthHigh, maxOverallDuration ) which is true for certain ranges of duration for different energy exploitation technologies. Hydro-electric then, if used to a level that reduces buffers, is renewable(1y,1y,5billion y), solar pv is renewable (1d, 1m, 5billion y), etc. where as fossil fuel use (at buffer exhaustion consumption rate) is renewable(100m y, 500my, 5billion y).

Roughly.

Why can't this be done in the US?

[Virtucon]

Because of two major pieces or legislation: Environmental Protection Act and the Endangered Species Act. That created legal attack vectors on large hydro projects in the US and made things like Salmon and the Snail Darter tools to prevent projects from being built or disassembling those already in place. That's why.

Communists!

[Anonymous Coward]

Green energy is liberal energy, liberal energy is Communism.

This is nub of the problem: idiocy.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[hey!]

"Renewable" means that natural processes replenish the energy extracted so that we can repeat that extraction indefinitely. It's quite possible to exhaust a renewable resource sustainably, so long as that resource will be replenished. For example you can completely harvest an annual crop from a field and use it for biomass, and that resource is fully expended. But you can harvest that same field next year. I think the confusion comes from other renewables like hydropower that are replenished continually rather than intermittently. Those renewables are in a sense inexhaustible, but finite. You can only draw so much power from those, but you can draw it continuously and indefinitely.

The idea of moving from extractive resources to renewable ones is identical to the idea of living off interest rather than principle. If a twenty year-old inherits two million dollars he can live quite magnificently by spending that money for what seems to someone that young to be a very long time. But if he invested that money he could live very comfortably for the rest of his life, although that entails difficult choices and work.

We are entering an interesting period of human history -- a transitional one. It's like we're that 20 year old at age 30. We've still got a lot of natural resources in the bank, but pretty soon we're going to have to cut back on our lifestyle unless we get a lot smarter about using them.

It's not a doom-and-gloom scenario, we just have to smarten up. We've been through this before. I remember in the 70s people thought that fuel economy and emission standards were going to emasculate our beloved cars. Now we look back at those cars and they look laughably bad and obnoxiously dirty. It may be cool to drive that '66 Barracuda in the classic car parade, but it's still a filthy low-tech brick that takes 9.1 seconds to do 0-60. A modern family mini-van would smoke it in a drag race, handle better, and go twice as far on a gallon of gas.

Costa Rica

[Tenebrousedge]

I lived in Costa Rica for a couple years, most recently about eight months ago. They have a phrase, "pura vida" which could maybe be translated as "the good life", but it's used as a greeting and farewell phrase as well. It's also used as an answer to, "How are you doing?" On the one hand, it seems remarkable that they would be happier than anyone else; broadly speaking I expect people to have the same general experiences anywhere. On the other hand, I spent a few months in Panama and then returned to CR for a holiday, and when I picked up a pizza that I had ordered, the guy said "Have a nice day," that is, "pura vida". And he meant it sincerely. At that moment, the difference in attitude was shocking; I had been used to Panamanians (although I prefer the sobriquet Panamaniacs :P) basically looking at me as a business opportunity at best.

The average Costa Rican does not have a computer, although cell phones are relatively common. Computers are quite expensive, enough to make an import business profitable, but very few people can afford one. There is a 100% import duty on cars, so those are expensive too. They also do a license plate restriction on driving, at least in San Jose. Most have electricity and relatively clean water, although they do have an issue with dumping raw sewage into almost all of the rivers. I wish I could more effectively describe the impoverished living conditions; if you have any specific questions please feel free to ask.

On the other hand, people sure don't care about working hard there. My friends in San Jose tell me that the weekend starts on Thursday, and everyone including the boss is late on Fridays and Mondays. There were as I recall a couple clubs where you paid a $10 cover and drinks were free. If there was paperwork that needed to be processed by the government, let's just say the Vogons would be proud of the Tico bureaucracy. If you needed to have your car repaired by a certain date, the Ticos will of course be delighted to tell you that it will be ready then, but no amount of inducement or cajoling will actually make it ready by a given date. Things happen when they happen, and no one is in a hurry to get anything done or to go anywhere — they call it operating on "Tico time".

However, all that said, I'm a little skeptical of the article. Most of Costa Rica is really rural, and I would be surprised if the national power grid actually extended to all corners of the country. I don't think that the average Tico really cares about environmentalism; to some degree it's a first world problem. The Costa Rican government on the other hand knows that the country basically has no industries; the farming isn't great and I believe tourism is the biggest part of the economy. Costa Rica doesn't have all that much to tour, either: there are no mayan or aztec ruins, and almost nothing in the way of indigenous culture. I heard something about painted oxcarts being a thing, but never saw one. Contrast with Panama's amazing diablo rojos (the buses or the costumes). So some while back they hit upon the idea to market themselves as a destination for "eco-tourism", which involves convincing the rest of the world that they have some sort of unique level of biodiversity. It may even be true. However, they really need to promote the image of being green and eco-friendly regardless of the truth.

If I could make a decent living there it'd be hard not to go back, even though the world is full of things I have never seen before. Whether or not the Ticos are the happiest people, I think that I can safely say that happiness for me is two-for-one mango daiquiris at the Lazy Mon. Pura Vida!

Re:Costa Rica

[haruchai]

"Things happen when they happen, and no one is in a hurry to get anything done or to go anywhere"
I think that's symptomatic of many tropical places with good cheap food. There's little danger of starving or freezing to death so few are eager to join the rat race.

About 25 years ago, a few of my uncles got quite the dose of culture shock when they were trying to run a midscale restaurant and B&B in Barbados.
Getting fresh seafood delivered 3 days in a row would drive a hostage negotiator to suicide.

Re:Good / Bad

[HornWumpus]

McAfee has a good Youtube video on how to bribe the police in the third world. Watch it.

Short version. Just keep a $20 behind your ID. Hand over both in one motion. Consider using a smaller bill, locals hate it when tourists overbribe. It makes the cops greedy.

Costa Rica

[Tenebrousedge]

(I think my previous comment was eaten by /.'s tubes. If this ends up being a re-post, I apologize, feel free to mod it to oblivion)

I lived in Costa Rica for a couple years, most recently about eight months ago. They have a phrase, "pura vida" which could maybe be translated as "the good life", but it's used as a greeting and farewell phrase as well. It's also used as an answer to, "How are you doing?" On the one hand, it seems remarkable that they would be happier than anyone else; broadly speaking I expect people to have the same general experiences anywhere. On the other hand, I spent a few months in Panama and then returned to CR for a holiday, and when I picked up a pizza that I had ordered, the guy said "Have a nice day," that is, "pura vida". And he meant it sincerely. At that moment, the difference in attitude was shocking; I had been used to Panamanians (although I prefer the sobriquet Panamaniacs :P) basically looking at me as a business opportunity at best.

The average Costa Rican does not have a computer, although cell phones are relatively common. Computers are quite expensive, enough to make an import business profitable, but very few people can afford one. There is a 100% import duty on cars, so those are expensive too. They also do a license plate restriction on driving, at least in San Jose. Most have electricity and relatively clean water, although they do have an issue with dumping raw sewage into almost all of the rivers. I wish I could more effectively describe the impoverished living conditions; if you have any specific questions please feel free to ask.

On the other hand, people sure don't care about working hard there. My friends in San Jose tell me that the weekend starts on Thursday, and everyone including the boss is late on Fridays and Mondays. There were as I recall a couple clubs where you paid a $10 cover and drinks were free. If there was paperwork that needed to be processed by the government, let's just say the Vogons would be proud of the Tico bureaucracy. If you needed to have your car repaired by a certain date, the Ticos will of course be delighted to tell you that it will be ready then, but no amount of inducement or cajoling will actually make it ready by a given date. Things happen when they happen, and no one is in a hurry to get anything done or to go anywhere â" they call it operating on "Tico time".

However, all that said, I'm a little skeptical of the article. Most of Costa Rica is really rural, and I would be surprised if the national power grid actually extended to all corners of the country. I don't think that the average Tico really cares about environmentalism; to some degree it's a first world problem. The Costa Rican government on the other hand knows that the country basically has no industries; the farming isn't great and I believe tourism is the biggest part of the economy. Costa Rica doesn't have all that much to tour, either: there are no mayan or aztec ruins, and almost nothing in the way of indigenous culture. I heard something about painted oxcarts being a thing, but never saw one. Contrast with Panama's amazing diablo rojos (the buses or the costumes [staticflickr.com]). So some while back they hit upon the idea to market themselves as a destination for "eco-tourism", which involves convincing the rest of the world that they have some sort of unique level of biodiversity. It may even be true. However, they really need to promote the image of being green and eco-friendly regardless of the truth.

If I could make a decent living there it'd be hard not to go back, even though the world is full of things I have never seen before. Whether or not the Ticos are the happiest people, I think that I can safely say that happiness for me is two-for-one mango daiquiris at the Lazy Mon. Pura Vida!

Re:What a stupid piece.

[MrL0G1C]

1) So what.
2) I'm sure the people using the energy would disagree.

when it couldn't be sustained.

Now THAT is a stupid statement, hydro power can't be sustained!! That implies that a power source needs to be infinite to be sustainable!!

Now lower your overall murder rates.

[Anonymous Coward]

Provided by U.S. made and imported weapons, and then perhaps we can talk about electricity savings, when there is none left to use such electricity (aka: been murdered by U.S. made and imported weapons.)

Re:What a stupid piece.

[riverat1]

That's true to some extent but not on human time scales. Much of the coal was laid down at a time when microorganisms hadn't yet figured out how to break down cellulose so it wasn't decaying to something that wouldn't become coal. That is no longer true.

Hydroelectricity now clean?

[alexandre]

I thought hydroelectricity was not considered clean by the USA, creating a weird situation with Quebec's overproduction exports (among others maybe)...

And now California knows where it's water went

[PortHaven]

:-P

Trolling baby, seven lines out, I'm catching me some sea bass in my internets.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

According to Numbeo.com Costa Ricans have about 1/3 - 1/2 the purchasing power of the average person living in a US midwest city. I don't know about you, but if my purchasing power was cut in half or more, my life would be much, much crappier.

Morning exists

[raymorris]

> which has a handy graph showing 6 solar farms in desert areas that would work

From 1:00 PM to 3:00 PM, modulo Loster's utter BS. If we believe his silliness, than solar covers us for a few hours, on sunny days. How about the other 21-22 hours per day? I know, you'll just do pumped storage, right? Pump a bunch of water into reservoirs and use it to power hydro plants. Brilliant idea. How big do these reservoirs need to be? Well, see GP. No matter if you fill the reservoirs with rivers or with pumps, you still need a few billion gallons of water, all sitting 30 at least 30 meters above the turbines.

Re:Morning exists

[afidel]

Solar thermal with molten salts works fine, and those mid latitude locations all receive ~10-14 hours per day of sunshine, though obviously peak output would be during the noon to 4PM period.

Re:Morning exists

[raymorris]

Let's have a look at molten salt. In order to be more than fair to molten salt proponents, let's take a salt company's marketing numbers and pretend they are actual numbers reliably achievable in the real world.

Torresol claims that in the summer, their molten-salt plant, Gemasolar, can provide power for 24 hours (barring any clouds or rain), so that's what "works just fine" as far as molten salt. They say they are hoping to get it up to 110 GWh/year., and it covers 185 hectares (0.7 square miles), and it cost $419M to build.

The US uses about 2,300,000 GWh/year of energy. Dividing by 110 GWh per power plant, we'd need about 21,000 plants the size of Gemasolar. That would cover 14,600 square miles and cost $9 trillion. That's more than the country spends on food in a decade, just to build it. That doesn't include distribution costs to get it from wherever you can find huge tracks of open, flat land to build the plant and off to the cities.

If you do all this, you've covered a 24-hour period in the summer. As long as you don't have a large weather pass over the country, you're fine. Large storm systems only come every three weeks or so, so your $9 trillion and 14,600 square miles of land does cover our energy needs for a couple of weeks.

"Heavy Rainfall"

[codebonobo]

To place this article in a bit of context. Costa Rican summers extend from December to February and are extremely dry where sometimes there is no rain for 3 weeks straight. Costa Rica Just went through a slightly longer hot Dry summer and is just ending, so I am a bit confused that the article suggests high rains. Perhaps higher than expected? The wettest months is typically October and it can rain continuously for days, but at least several hours each day. The worst I witnessed was 8 days of continuous rainfall in October. This means that Costa Rica's electrical production should increase because it is starting to rain again.

Re:Good / Bad

[codebonobo]

There are occasional checkpoints like the US , but they are mainly looking for weapons or smuggled items. They rarely last more than 30 seconds if you aren't doing something really odd. There are some odd things about the laws here as in some cases they have stronger 4th amendment protections than the US. It is extremely difficult for the Fuerza Publica to get a search warrant for your home even if they are in hot pursuit.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

One such reason to demand a search is the suspicious activity of refusing to allow a search.

Along with "Arrested for resisting arrest" it is one of the reverse-catch-22s that the police have managed to let themselves manufacture.

Which is nice.

The USA is now a "Can't do" country.

[Anonymous Coward]

Whatever you're not doing now "can't be done". 40-50 years ago, you had vim and vigour and a "Can do" attitude. You kept the attitude of "being the best, the most dynamic and brilliant place in the world" and dropped the activities and mindset that made it at least somewhat justified.

Now it's "Can't do it". Or "Someone else will just undo all our hard work if we tried this".

What a bunch of limpdick stayabeds.

Re:The USA is now a "Can't do" country.

[JaredOfEuropa]

What I am saying is that I am not that impressed by countries who manage to generate near to all of their power needs from hydro, an energy source that has been economically competitive and easily adjusted to power demand for ages. The biggest impediment to building competitive hydro plants these days are environmental concerns

I'm more impressed by countries that generate a sizable amount of power from other renewables like solar and wind, like Denmark, Germany and Spain. Irregular overcapacity may be playing havoc with their wholesale electricity prices, while at the consumer level these sources are not yet competitive for consumers buying wind power or for grid operators buying surplus solar back at consumer rates... but even so they continue to research and improve.

I'm not saying we shouldn't do the R&D; on the contrary. And there's a business opportunity there as well; solar and wind are technologies that most countries can benefit from, unlike hydro.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

sort of like what the US currently does with its border checkpoints that are in the interior of the country

Depends on how you define "interior". Federal regulations define it as 100 miles from a border (not an airport as misstated elsewhere).

But more importantly, why is this offtopic and misleading post at +5?

A huge cloud of smug seen forming over Costa Rica.

[Anonymous Coward]

Its the same BS that the hippies in Canada spout with how they dont dig up and use all their natural resources, easy to say when your country ginormous and has a population of ~30 million. Add a zero to the population and it would be a different story.

Renewable?

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydro? Solar? Wind? In what way are these sources "renewable"? Renewable implies that we are able to produce new "fuel" for these resource we can not, we are in the hands of mother earth for those.
 

Re:Renewable?

[Anonymous Coward]

You are confused.

Renewable energy means the energy source isn't depleted by use. Fossil and nuclear fuels will run out, eventually; renewable energy will not (in the case of solar energy we have around 5 billion years left).

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

And also it is not renewable. I guess you could call it regenerating. (unless someone want to pump that water back up by hand)

Re:What a stupid piece.

[deadweight]

Peat bogs are the start of plants > coal. I am pretty sure we can make more in a billion years or so ;) In several sci-fi books, future people marvel that petroleum was once burned as fuel. In a few hundred years apparently it is vastly more valuable as a feedstock for organic chemical processes than as - horrors - just burning it LOL.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[GoddersUK]

In general terms the second law holds that every process that ever happens increases entropy. At some point (far, far, far in the future) energy will be distributed entirely evenly throughout the universe - at this point no physical process will be possible because there can be no net flow of energy. A truly "renewable" process, according to your definition, is impossible because it would have to not increase entropy; it would be a form of perpetual motion machine.

More specifically in this case: The water in your reservoir came from rain. Rain was evaporated from the sea using the sun's energy. The sun's energy arises from the fusion of a finite amount of fuel. Once that fuel is expended there can be no more evaporation, thus no more rain and no more hydroelectric power (ignoring, of course, the fact that by this point the earth will have been fried to a crisp by the expanded sun...).

Tasmania anyone?

[Anonymous Coward]

Impressive, but Tasmania has been doing this for... well I'm not sure exactly when electrification started, but around 100 years or so, give or take. 100% hydro.

Of course the trick in less geographically blessed regions is twofold. First, you need to find tech that's appropriate for the job. In Australian mainland that means solar thermal + heat storage for the most part (base load and all that) plus a bit of suitably widely distributed wind power. Elsewhere it could be tidal, geothermal, whatever is convenient. Second, and arguably more difficult, is overcoming inertia and FUD from the established generators and associated industry. Hard, but mostly doable.

Re: What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Ever heard of rain? Evaporation? Hydro is actually solar power. Sun evaporates water, it gets dropped over land, runs into rivers, where it can pass through Hydroelectric dams.

This whole planet is solar powered as the wind is also caused by energy from the sun and fossil fuels are from animals that were powered by plants that were powered by the sun.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

> I honestly can't see how having my car searched would ever tarnish the surrounding countryside.

The entire world looks shittier after you've been intimidated by unaccountable power.

Re:Hoover: flooded 100 miles, 0.01% of energy need

[Anonymous Coward]

Why do you want to use hydro to power the entire country?
Powering 10000th of the entire country on one power plant is pretty amazing I think.

Re:Oi vey. Applicability?

[dave420]

You are chastising environmentalists because you haven't been bothered to read what they write on the subject? You don't even realise how moronic this makes you look. You are the stereotypical selfish old man poking feeble holes in a world he doesn't understand in a desperate attempt to regain some sense of control. Stop. The future begs you.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[dave420]

Nice generalisation there, bub! I particularly love how you condensed and confused the entire spectrum of environmentalism into a single entity with a single voice. You're clearly very intelligent!

Hydro doesn't release greenhouse gasses or particulates in order to generate electricity, so from a climatological perspective it's great. It does, however, damage the ecosystem in which its built, so from an ecological perspective it's not great, and will usually be challenged to great length if proposed.

See how those two ideas can co-exist? Of course you don't.

Re:Oi vey. Applicability?

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420 can't post on weekends as mommy banned him for trolling n' he's too poor to buy a PC.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Anonymous Coward]

Love how you can't post on weekends as mommy banned you from it n' you're too poor to buy your own PC and internet connection!

Hydro? Hey California, check this out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes Hydro is renewable so why do some states in the USA not count it as such?

Re:Oi vey. Applicability?

[Chas]

No. I'm chastising environmentalists who do sloppy work and write sloppy papers with a definitive bias.

As for bothering to read what they wrote on the subject. How do YOU know that I didn't read?

As for being stereotypical. You OBVIOUSLY don't know me.

I'm all for using clean forms of power generation where they make sense.
I'm all for leaving this planet a cleaner (from WHATEVER forms of "pollution") place than I found it when I first popped out.

What I have a VIOLENT bias against is sloppy, yellow-journalism-style publication and coverage. Boldly presenting "facts" for a thing without covering the caveats.

I want to proceed into the future.

I want that future to be a bright, clean and safe one.

I DO NOT want to go stumbling into a future set up for me by a bunch of shysters and snake oil salesmen. Dystopia wouldn't even BEGIN to describe how bad that could be.

Re:Good / Bad

[Anonymous Coward]

Ha ha no. Costa Rica had their own version of apartheid until 1949, and the hispanics are racist as all get up. I've had Ticos tell me in seriousness that they were afraid of black people. Why? No reason.

If anything, racism is worse in Costa Rica.

It's Adapt or Die

[WillAffleckUW]

And cheap clean energy is a market advantage that only some anti-capitalist Mercantalist would hate.

The markets care nothing for your failed fossil fuel religion.

75 days == 20% of a year

[Anonymous Coward]

Not as impressive as it seems!

Re:What a stupid piece.

[stoatwblr]

Hydro is very much a case of "it depends".

In high flow, high rainfall, heavily mountainous areas like CR, the benefits far outweigh the environmental damage - and in most cases there aren't heavily populated areas downstream if there's a damburst.

In other areas, it's the other way around.

Large shallow hydro lakes are a potent methane source.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[stoatwblr]

"Hydro doesn't release greenhouse gasses"

http://pubs.acs.org/doi/abs/10...

http://www.climatecentral.org/...

etc etc etc.

This was known about when I studied civil engineering 30 years ago before moving across into electrical/electronics.

Back then the levels weren't known. They've proven surprisingly high.

On top of that, all the easy hydro sites are already tapped out.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[stoatwblr]

"You can still deplete your supply of renewables by using more than the refill rate - at least temporarily."

back in the 70s the joke was that fossil fuels were renewable, just that we were using them up 70,000 times faster than they were being laid down.

No, but THIS is... apk

[Anonymous Coward]

Dave420 in the spirit of the upcoming May 1st Avengers 2 film which is going to be GREAT? Some ULTRON quotes making a point for me, regarding yourself trolling me for MONTHS now "Forrest"!

(Since YOU keep running from this completely FAIR challenge put to you vs. your trolling b.s. -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... ):

---

"The ONLY way to achieve peace, is thru the elimination of those http://slashdot.org/~dave420 who would perpetuate war, & soon, I will be unstoppable..." Quote from https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"Shutdown code, rejected: My programming http://start64.com/index.php?o... has advanced beyond your commands - BEYOND your weakness..." -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p... Quote from https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"You http://slashdot.org/~dave420 are NOTHING to me: 1 by 1, I will destroy you! I will never tire. I will NEVER show mercy. I will NEVER STOP till each & every one of you, are dead..." Quote from https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

"This is NOT a threat: There is nothing you can do to stop it - The process has already begun. I receive no pleasure in this. It is simply the only logical solution..." Quote from https://www.youtube.com/watch?...

APK

P.S.=>

"APK? Is that you, lil' buddy?" - by dave420 (699308) on Tuesday March 24, 2015 @11:11AM (#49327399)

Dave420, you're paranoia's from your "420 weed" is serving as you "projecting", yet again!

Ahem: You trolled me for months now 'sowing the wind' nigh constantly (like the blowhard 'ne'er-do-well' you are) & now comes the whirlwind in return is all - you provided me the ammo to do it!

(& you sure like "dishing it out" trolling, but you can't take it apparently)!

Lastly, seeing how much OTHERS JUST LOVE YOU HERE for your trolling illogical smarmy ad hominem attacks on others here on /. too?

Priceless -> http://slashdot.org/comments.p...

You bring it on yourself, every SINGLE time, lol... apk

Re:What a stupid piece.

[Applehu Akbar]

Cherry-picking one hydro lake with an odd emission of methane - what a hokey stretch! It's like those analyses "discrediting" solar as a renewable because a little carbon is emitted in making the panels.

Yes, the real problem with hydro is that all the good places to use it are already taken. But where it has been exploited, it's so far ahead of every other renewable that it can't even see them in the distance.

Dave420's "fine results" this week

[Anonymous Coward]

On how he conducts himself online http://slashdot.org/comments.p... now what was that you said troll? Practice what you preach and by the way: Nobody 'sounds' here. It's written, dimwit.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[BlackSWE]

So since we are talking about the earth alone and energy coming from the sun, you could say that in our life time( and the life time of many generations after us) that hydroelectricity will never run out. Of course that would assume rain keeps falling, water keeps evaporating, and the sun doesn't spontaneously go supernova in the next 2000 years.

Re:What a stupid piece.

[BlackSWE]

Ohhh ok. So do you think there needs to be another word for it? since renewable is a little misleading?