Hacker News Reader

Comment by averagewall | Hacker News Reader

Come on. Pakistan has an energy crisis which is ruining the country. You want to hold them back economically in the name of the environment? This really is on western countries to pay for them to get clean energy if that's what they really want.

Malawi? Don't develop electricity generation in Africa! You might make them less poor!

View on HN

Agree. We could use anything to have uninterrupted power for 24 hours. Although coal plants are being build but current government is also investing in hydel, solar and wind farms. I think coal will be a short term fix while we sort out economy and then focus more on renewables.

Totally agree. As a citizen of a not (so) developed country I saw all this complains as hypocritical thinking from the developed nations that for centuries did the same but now that the rest of the world tries to catch up start crying.

Don't forget that some of the developed nations developed by establishing rule (by force) over other places and stripping them of resources before granting them independence.

This is where inequality and different stages of society are going to make environmentalism and nature conservation a pain in the ass.

As you said, the developed nations did the exact same thing (including to less developed ones they also stole resources from), and now they expect the rest of the world not to do the same?

People won't give up on a 'modern' lifestyle or better conditions just because it's bad for the environment. Even less so because a bunch of people living in better conditions say it could be bad for them in the distant future.

The only fix is to figure out how to make renewable energy cheaper and easier than non renewable energy worldwide. So it wins on a financial level rather than a moral feel good one.

I believe that renewable is the solution, more so now that the price has become viable. My country for example went from being oil dependant to produce energy to be almos 100% renewable in less than 5 years by building hundreds of eolic turbines.

But we have a small population and our economy is stable, there are other places where we can not expect to do this.

Societies don't have to reinvent every single step of development. It's not unreasonable for developing countries to skip some steps.

Right. At the time the Western nations were developing fossil fuel energy, they didn't know about global warming, and there wasn't any renewable energy tech besides hydro.

Now it is all changed. Oh, and by going for coal now, developing nations are going to make their electricity more expensive for the next 40 years than it would be if they went with renewables. Is that smart for economic development. And besides that they are going to be promoting climate changes that will be very damaging, including economically, to their own countries.

In fact, I wouldn't be surprised if the developing countries are buying all these coal plants from China at least partly because the people making the decisions got bribed. From what I understand, that is the norm when it comes to China.

What happened to solar becoming cheaper than coal? I thought we were close.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-06-01/cheaper-s...

Natural gas is cheaper than coal in the US:

https://www.usnews.com/opinion/economic-intelligence/article...

Two words - "base load". In developing economies, sufficient base load power doesn't exist. Solar and Wind do nothing at scale when a stable base load power supply doesn't exist.

SolarCity is experimenting with batteries powered by intermittent power supply in small islands but nothing at scale really exists a practical proven tech.

Natural gas requires high security LNG terminal infra if you're not a producer

I imagine it's much harder to quickly prop up solar generation than it's to build a few coal plants.

You would need some backbone before you can add solar on top (e.g. what happens at night?)

It's only cheaper in the very short term. In the long term Pakistan's society will pay more for healthcare and energy as coal becomes unable to compete with solar and other sources.

Building a powerplant that is supposed to operational for 50 years when it may only be economically viable for 5 or 10 leads to a warping of the per-unit economics, even before taking into consideration public health and environmental damage.

Pakistan should ask the west for a zero interest after inflation loan to install green alternatives.

While I agree with you regarding zero interest loans for green(er) alternatives...

What makes you think coal only has a 5 to 10 year viable economic life span? If the world starts moving toward green(er) alternatives won't coal become cheaper?

Investment will descrease which will decrease supply making what is still dug up more expensive.

The less important coal becomes on a global scale, the less infrastructure and expertise that will be maintained for extraction and processing. This type of lack of supply should drive up prices as well. Consider the ease of buying and maintaining a horse vs a car.

It probably will become cheaper, since as volume goes down mines that are only marginally profitable now will close, leaving only the most efficient.

There is a absolute limit on the cost of coal: What it costs to get it out of the ground and into the powerplant. Even if the price of coal per unit weight goes down to 0 it will still have a cost to transport it. I think that in the medium term that is what coal is up against; a solar alternative that is cheaper in the long run.

What's the point of them achieving economic "success" if the world is too screwed to survive in? They're in an area of the world that will be heavily impacted by climate changes. I think your comment seems a bit loaded to be frank.

That's a valid point, but it's not all about western sensibilities. If the increase in global warming makes events like the 2010 floods a regular event, it's not clear that the plants will be a net benefit to Pakistan itself. Especially considering that there are decent alternatives to coal nowadays.

Which decent uninterrupted power alternatives to coal ?

Solar + gas?

In any case, even if there aren't any, the question still stands. Being poor is no defense against the effects of climate change.

if you don't produce gas, you need really complex and expensive LNG terminals that are also a security nightmare.

Coal is non explosive, easily carted around safely

Pakistan is a gas producer, though.

Solar + gas costs at least twice the cost of coal alone.

And being poor means that my primary problem is "What will I eat tomorrow". So "What might happen in 50 years" is really secondary. I'll solve it after solving my primary problem.

I don't think people in the first world really understand the importance of this point. There are countries where a small increase in prices causes starvation at the margins. You are not going to get those people interested in AGW until they feel more secure in the present.

>Solar + gas costs at least twice the cost of coal alone.

But Pakistan is borrowing money for coal plants that will be used for 40 years, while solar+gas will be cheaper within a decade.

Being poor is no defense against the effects of climate change.

But being wealthy is a fairly good defence against the effects of climate change. Reliable affordable electricity is a prerequisite to wealth.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com