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Comment by dboreham | Hacker News Reader

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dboreham·

So do many populated places.

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And often those places are islands, meaning their grid are isolated.

well, java is island but the island have BIG populations

Great for them, I guess. I live thousands of miles away from Java. You? The point isn’t “there are 1500 active volcanoes on the planet”, the point is is “there are many places not in the proximity of one of 1500 active volcanoes”.

I live in Martinique, in the Caribbean and there is a somewhat inactive [0] volcano. To generate electricity, we are importing oil/biogaz from Europe. Solar is ramping up but it makes sense to use volcano heat if: - the associated risks are low (earthquakes, just got a 4.8 30 minutes ago [1]) - tropical climate does not make maintenance too costly

Even if it's not the cheapest option, if it can provide some backup, that could be an option. Because solar panel and hurricanes are not best friends.

[0] that kills 30k people in 1902 : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1902_eruption_of_Mount_Pel%C3%... [1] https://www.emsc-csem.org/Earthquake_information/earthquake....

I'm currently in the Caribbean with our sailboat. We spent almost a month on Martinique (St. Anne, Anse Mitan, St. Pierre), and were wondering a bit about the low amount of renewables being used.

Theory was that both wind and solar are too risky due to the frequent hurricanes. But maybe there's more local nuance? Too cheap diesel?

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