NationStates Jolt Archive

Hydropower. Cheap. Easily refueled. Why aren't we all using it? It sounds like the perfect idea to me. Flaws? Point them out, I see only one. Water used as fuel. Hydropower has had the least accidents since 1986 says a good friend of mine. Geothermal power. Water vapor pulled from the center of the Earth, and used as power. Also cheap, maybe not as cheap as Hydropower with the extractions, but, why not try it anyway? Should these types of Power be put to the test AGAINST nuclear power? Let's find out.

Hydropower. Cheap. Easily refueled. Why aren't we all using it? It sounds like the perfect idea to me. Flaws? Point them out, I see only one. Water used as fuel. Hydropower has had the least accidents since 1986 says a good friend of mine. Geothermal power. Water vapor pulled from the center of the Earth, and used as power. Also cheap, maybe not as cheap as Hydropower with the extractions, but, why not try it anyway? Should these types of Power be put to the test AGAINST nuclear power? Let's find out.
Ok. Go use them. We'll continue to use safe, efficient, tried-and-tested methods of energy production.

The "good friend of mine" line is so throwaway, I'm inclined to think this is deliberate trolling. But giving you the benefit of the doubt: what's your point? We already have a ton of alternate energy proposals. Angling to fling yet another shackle round the shoulders of developing nations?

Hydropower. Cheap. Easily refueled. Why aren't we all using it? It sounds like the perfect idea to me. Flaws? Point them out, I see only one.

Displacement of the population to make way for reservoirs. Methane generation (adding to global warming) by drowned vegetation rotting underwater. Silt collecting in the reservoirs, instead of being deposited downstream where it would be more useful. Evaporation from the reservoirs (in hot areas) reducing the amount of water available for eventual release downstream.
See the passed resolution 'Mitigation of Large Reservoirs'...

Hydropower has had the least accidents since 1986 says a good friend of mine.

OOC: How carefully was that date selected? Did it, perhaps, draw the line just after a major RL disaster? Also, look at the potential fatalities if any of the major dams that China's been building along the Yangtze gives way...

Geothermal power. Water vapor pulled from the center of the Earth, and used as power. Also cheap, maybe not as cheap as Hydropower with the extractions, but, why not try it anyway?

Not from the centre of the Earth, just from inside the crust: 'Bad science'' on your part, which doesn't encourage me to take your ideas seriously.
Only some areas are geologically suitable for this, and in some of them there's only a quite finite amount of water down there although in some cases pumping more water down to replace that extracted (less efficient, because it uses up some of the energy produced) would be feasible.

Should these types of Power be put to the test AGAINST nuclear power? Let's find out.

How? Give us more specific suggestions of how you'd run such a "test"?

OOC: How carefully was that date selected? Did it, perhaps, draw the line just after a major RL disaster? Also, look at the potential fatalities if any of the major dams that China's been building along the Yangtze gives way...



A few accidents I've found, put the numbers to
1975: 2000 (China)
1979: 1500 (India)
1980: 1000 (India)
1983: 163 (Colombia)

So probably since 1984 would be a better timepoint, hehe.

Not to mention that hydroelectric dams have significant impacts on fresh/salt water migrating fish populations that normally would have migrated up those rivers to spawn. Hydroelectric resolutions should almost always be "At the expense of industry" in this case the fishing industry. (Which I believe is actually called the trout industry, but I could be wrong.)

Geothermal is one of those great jokes. Any place that is good for geothermal is probably too dangerous to long term live in. (earthquakes, volcanoes, and the lot from molten lava, techtonic activity) I'd much rather live on a very geothermal unfriendly part of the world, thank you very much.

Hm. The RL Icelanders seem to be doing okay, and use alot of geothermal power.

Iceland is a major exception on the planet. There are not many land masses placed in areas where the continential plates are slowly moving apart with little or no friction involved. Most geothermal sites involve plates moving sideways or one plate moving under another plate.

All quotes from http://www.lonker.net/nature_geology_3.htm

Iceland lies over a plume of hot material upwelling from great depths and the Mid-Atlantic Ridge, the boundary between the North American and Eurasian tectonic plates where new crust is being created on the order of 45 cubic km per 1000 years. The island nation is one of the few places on earth where you can see an active spreading ridge above sea level with the two plates moving apart about 1 to 2 cm per year.

On the other hand, it's not all that peaceful.

As a result, there is volcanism from well-known volcanoes like Hekla, Krafla, and Surtsey and from enormous fissure eruptions like Eldgjá (Fire Chasm, ~934AD) and Laki (Skaftar Fires, 1783-1784) as well as earthquake activity.