Hacker News Reader

Comment by nerdponx | Hacker News Reader

It's not NIMBYism because it's not my backyard. It's an attempt at environmentalism and cost-benefit calculations. It might turn out to be net positive, but you can't know that unless you consider the negatives first.

View on HN

That's a stretch. We're literally talking about arid almost-wasteland. A few sq miles is a small portion, yet will provide clean power. The cost benefit is abundantly clear.

But like, it is someone else's country. They just may not like the look of it and that would be the end of the story, maybe move on to ocean based solar+current hybrid power generators?

What’s wrong with a country exporting their solar resources? An arid resource less desert can become an economic boon.

Why are you asking me that as if I made that claim?

Morroco is the one pushing for it, in this case. It's not like the nation state in question is being forced into it. They see it as a major opportunity to export energy, a famously lucrative enterprise for countries.

I didn't dispute that, i just said the value of it is not the only consideration, you still need to test it out before deciding, regardless of who pushed for it.

Also the possible political leverage is substantial one. At least in short term.

They should into becoming a low cost synth hydrocarbon exporter. They would take over using current infrastructure.

The article discusses this. Egypt are apparently starting to produce a lot of green hydrogen for export to Europe.

Green hydrogen is definetly not a hydrocarbon.

I urge you to pick up and read Desert Solitaire[0] and reconsider your 'wasteland' statement.

Benefit/cost might be there, but for a project costing 22B it would be sensible to study and quantify.

[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Desert_Solitaire

As depressing as it is, better destroying that env than the more rich env

IMO as a planet we should try to move beyond that sort of colonialism. Yes the UK is a richer country, but that doesn't make their ecosystem inherently more valuable.

I would say more diverse because the weather allows it

One could argue that the environment in UK is already destroyed, why protect that instead of something that is still relatively untouched?

Given the benefits involved, the chance of it being net negative are basically nil. It's not worth delaying. Probably not even worth the money and time to investigate.

It might not be worth the delay to investigate, but it is certainly worth the time and money. If it is an easy win in one case, how do you identify the hard wins?

Perhaps more importantly, you learn the biggest hurdles so that you can address them. For instance, the UK doesn't want its power to be at risk from political instability (more than it is already). That risk can be addressed in part by working with the local population: perhaps you allow for co-located grazing so you're not displacing herders. Perhaps encourage joint projects that also provide local power so that Moroccans benefit from the project (beyond just the ones in power).

What about security? It seems a bit concerning if 8% of UK's power can be knocked out in a single attack. How would you address that?

You keep existing fossil fuel generation facilities available. They will only be used at most a few days a year--or in situations like this where 8% of UK's power is knocked out in a single attack.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com