Huge Megadam planned! not in South America or Asia but in the USA
 

http://www.newscientist.com/article/...-40-years.html
http://www.newscientist.com/data/ima....700-1_300.jpg
This is triple crazy.
For once - seriously? another megadam even though it is all known that these do not play well with wildlife?
Then - that very project was already declared ecologically disruptive in the 1970ies, a time when environmentalism was just beginning to take hole in government policies and now they just hink it has become benign?
And lastly Sarah Palin? Really? I mean was she not one of those climate change deniers? What made her look into reneables - I guess it must be that they can make a renewable energy project that is just as devastating as coal mining - also probably a lot of $$ signs in the eyes looking at how much heavy industry will come to Alaska to smelter metals and do all the other stuff that take so much electricity.

Anyways - I guess now is the chance for US citizens to get active against this - they dont have to go to Brazil or Asia or Chile and cannot claim that there is little they can do because the problem is happening outside their country. This is in YOUR country, folks.

So, my first thought was that one episode of the Simpsons where Mr. Burns tried to be an environmentalist with Lisa Simpson and failed utterly.

Thats the point about Renewavble Energies I meant. It seems to be good, but has sideeffects which cause massive enviromental damage.
And these forms of Energy Supply Systems remind me the most of the scene in Avatar where the giant machines roll and destroy the nature.
Its the same about solar cells, wind turbines in mass.

How does solar power cause massive environmental damage?

Rare earth mining for all the electronics?

I wouldn't exactly call that massive, unless you are Dustin, terrible terrible damage, Browder.

Wind is cheapy cheap and easy. If maintenance is the worst of the issues, I still vote wind :D

If we talk about replacing nuclear-/gas-powerplants then i mean in case of solar-power-plants areas like the following example
http://www.flagsol.com/flagsol/cms/c...9fd9b6b138.jpg

Mining is used for ALL energy technologies. Thats a given - if you want electricity you need mining and space. This is why I think we need to radically reduce energy demand.
But about solar energy - I made a calculation here a while ago about solar power space needs and came to about a 3-4m diameter circle for each person including industrial energy needs (in Europe weather conditions). Here is now a study showing how it is for New York. It seems that by using just the rooftops, they could fill 1/6 to 1/2 their energy needs. And that is of course a city with plenty of skyscrapers - cities with lower population density could have 100%.
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/16/sc..._r=1&ref=earth

One constant is always that people put these megaprojects somewhere distant - on someone elses ground - where the lives of those who profit will not be impacted directly.

You don't think, you know it's the only viable option, but that's easier said than done, as you probably already know.

Why is it that people never seem to understand this option?

Hydro can also of course be done very ecologically.

The town I live in (Juneau), in Alaska, runs on 100% Hydro. But instead of dams; our main hydro plants are run from "tapped lakes" .. that's natural lakes where they have drilled a tunnel up into the bottom of (like a bath drain). The lake acts as a natural reservoir, though the water level does of course fluctuate. But they are deep lakes with a small footprint in harsh mountains and have very little environmental impact.

One of the backups if a partially tapped creek that has some water captured for hyrdo before returning to the ocean next to where the rest of the (un-captured) stream empties.

The other backup hyrdo is from a small dam; that again is a deep water, small-footprint, dam up in the mountains that is also used to supply drinking water for the city locally without long-distance pumping.


If all that lot fails, then we use Diesel generators for backup. But they run only very rarely.


The hydro power even supplies local mines; and in the summer cruise ships when they are docked so they don't have to keep their engines running.


Hydro can be done "right", responsibly. And building huge dams and flooding massive areas isn't the best way.

- Mikko

In China, the true cost of Britain's clean, green wind power experiment: Pollution on a disastrous scale | Mail Online

It's the daily mail, so obviously there's an agenda as with most papers, but you still can't exaggerate something like that much :(. It talks primarily about wind, but the same rare earth industry is critical to solar too.

Renewable power is often just as destructive as fossil fuel or more so, and things like this are the only way for people to realise that. More sustainable versions of hydroelectric are necessarily small-scale, especially if it isn't going to interrupt a river's flow. It's possible, but needs a lot more design and engineering for a lot smaller return.

While obviously, ever single thing needs some resources mined, the type varies, as does the degree of processing required - of course, people sometimes just go for the cheapest option when more expensive ones would have a lower impact.

Today I got a NEW book from the library, I mean its from 2010 and from a Professor Doctor and established Renewable Energies Expert, and you know the funny thing that I saw when i watched some pages was a picture of the "itaipu dam" and a lot of praisings about how its good for the environment.
HAHAHA!!
Just look what they talk about
http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-PmCjlD35nD...dam-itaipu.jpg

OK guys, this is coming from an aerospace engineer. There is not one single method of generating power that is totally clean and without side effects.
Let's say that the powers that be, stop that dam from being built. What's left?
Solar? At that latitude, the footprint would be HUGE.
Nuclear? Where are you going to store the waste? Are there any seismic problems?
Wind? Perhaps IF there enough "wind days" per year, and then you have "Bird Strikes".
WHATS LEFT? Diesel, and God Forbid, Coal.
They need the power, and they are going to GET the power, one way or the other.
The ONLY way to reduce our footprint, is to DRASTICALLY reduce DEMAND, and the ONLY sure fire way to do that, over several generations, is NEGATIVE POPULATION GROWTH, on a TOTAL Global scale. Good luck with THAT.
ALL the other answers will involve side effects, we need to pick the "littlest Demon" and harness it as best we can.

That was indeed a very interesting article. Never knew that was going on.

It seems like taking all the bad stuff and hiding it where we don't see it, which is very sad.

I think the same, that all of these means to "generate" power produce destruction in some way.

I do however keep saying that the statement "they/we NEED the power" is wrong. The power "we/they need" is actually a lot less, the majority is power that "we/they" WANT. This may not look like an important difference, but it is one. Of course people seem to be willing to defend their perceived need to power as much as if it would be a real need, defend their "right" to have TVs and electric light and icecream machines and air conditioning as much as if it would be about food, water or warmth.
Which leads to the next point on how to DRASTICALLY reduce energy demand. Your option of negative global population growth is a possible one, but it will happen only over many decades while action is required now. Also population is not really the issue but consumption is - population of course drives consumption but even if we'd cut the world population in half by tomorrow, the demand for energy would rise way beyond what happens now - because of the inertia of population and technologcal assimilation.
But I agree that we need to drasically reduce energy demand. But we cannot afford to wait for population decline to solve this. We can cut down demand very rapidly, because as I said, most of it is a WANT and not a NEED. So in the end it is not about needing the energy but to wanting all the stuff - and people will only consider the options that reduce demand but do not affect their lifestyles in the slightest. That is impossible.
I do not want to choose the "lesser evil" - I think we cannot afford even the lesser evil because that lesser demons also will eat our souls in the end. So this is not really an option.

People keep asking me about this issue in particular - asking me if I am against nuclear I have to be for coal and if I am also against coal I have to be for wind and solar (but they cannot work, right?). The assumption of all of these options is that energy output has to increase or at least be stable whatever happens. That is the limitation in the degrees of freedom of this social system - the fence that this culture put down and from that it cannot move away. So if you are on a road that leads into disaster in both directions you can travel, maybe its time to leave the road and find a new path....

I should have placed "they need the energy" within quotation marks, denoting the fact that those words were what the people and State Government believed.
Ateyo le Syaksyuk and I live on 80 acres out in extremely remote Hudspeth County Texas, where there are only six paved roads, (one of them being Interstate 10 running through the extreme southern section) of the second largest in land mass, yet least populated County in the State.
I am typing this on a nuclear powered notebook. It is nuclear powered, by a fusion reactor that is 93 million miles away, which powers both our solar panels, and our wind generator.
Our wind generator has never killed a bird out here, nor have any of the six wind generators that I know of that power the homes of my neighbors. The reason id that each of us runs a wind plant that uses props that are between
2 1/2, and 6 feet in diameter, NOT the huge ones that are used in the white forests of them in the commercial wind farms.
THAT is what I believe that we, as a nation should do, as much as possible, EACH of us disconnect from the grid, and generate our OWN power, in a manner that is as environmentally neutral as is practical, given their monetary ability.
Our place is 100 percent energy self sufficient, and we do that just from my V.A. disability checks, so I know that you DON'T need to be wealthy to do it,
you just need to be WILLING to do it.
I may be returning to Samoa, bringing ma yawnetu with me for her first view of Pandora on earth. We moved out to this incredibly poor County with one of the lowest population densities in the entire lower 48 states, only to have a government sponsored company find RARE EARTH METALS underneath three mountains in the County. The are starting exploratory drilling under the mountains this coming Spring.
There is a particular lizard that lives in the area, that is endangered, and we will try to USE this fact to shut down the mines, but were already told that because this is practically the only known deposit of the R.E.M.'s, NONE of the Environmental laws will apply as these mines "Are in the interest of National Security".
Well there are only 3,000 people living in the county of 8'000 square miles, and 2,000 of them live in Fort Hancock, which is at the extreme southwest corner of the County. The rest of the County has a population density of one person per 7 square miles. Most of these people speak little or no English, and are Very poorly educated, dirt poor, and have ZERO ecological sensibilities at all. This is one fight that "RGA" will win.
In THIS fight, Eywa will NOT come to our aid, and ANY use of force on the part of whatever few people in this area will be viewed as "Eco Terrorism" and put down quickly with whatever force is viewed necessary by the Government.
A good Tsamsiyu knows the fights that they can win, and avoids the ones where they would be both throwing their lives away, AND strengthening the public relations hand of their enemy.
We will probably be in Samoa late next year, NEVER to return. I speak the language, and have many connections on the islands.
Niri Te (known as Tai Tae Ao in Samoa)

Fair enough if you've got an almost transhuman ability to make people think what you want them to, but I doubt that. I don't think significantly reducing energy demand is a viable option at all; you need to be able to spread the idea far, far, far more effectively than even the best PR firms have been able to do. It's functionally impossible, hence the next best thing being to generate tons of power as economically as possible.

I dare you to try any of that in Scotland. :P

It's easy in low population density areas, but not anywhere else. It's also HUGELY elitist to say 'make your own power' because most people can't afford to... and here's a hint: As long as anyone can't afford to, someone will maintain a grid and sell them power generated at a fraction of the cost via economies of scale.

I Never meant to be Elitist ma tsmukan. Those of us out here in the toolies have each put together our systems on each of our Military Pensions. NONE of us is an elitist, but you may be right, that in the cities, it might be viewed as intellectual elitism.

I wasn't saying you were, but more that it's easier in hot and/or windy areas than it is for the majority of the population, who get far less sunlight per day and different weather. It doesn't work for everyone, even before costs are considered.

Oh I know how you meant it ma tsmukan, I just said that so that others who have never met me yet, might not form an initial opinion that I am an intellectual, or environmental elitist.

I agree, and its still all about the MONEY!!!!
No money, no solar panels!
You know i would like it so bad, LIKE IT SO REALLY BAD to try playing around and testing or even using some small , really tiny solar or wind machines.
But tell me how can I finance this??
Where to get the money? A few thousand dollars or euros?

Renewable energy sources are "artificially" expensive, because the materials themselves to construct them is not what makes them expensive, but the fact that they are a competing form of energy production on a huge financial market that is strictly controlled.

So nanotechnological electronics and highly engineered dynamos and windmills are, in reality, cheap? :P

Come on Clarke, you are smarter than to nitpick like that.

I would not know Dognik, it has been decades since I lived in Germany. Here we don't have the Tuv, and as a result, I built my 750 watt wind plant for a total of only 425 dollars. I bought the ultra efficient, carbon fiber, six blade prop for 110 dollars, (remember, no Tuv), and a single wire alternator for a Lincoln continental from the local auto parts store for 93 dollars, and the "tail". and prop hub cost me a total of 95 dollars, and the rest was spent on the load diverter, and materials for the 50 foot high tower.
Niri Te

Oh I am very sorry for that! So you picked a place where you "sit on sh!t that others want". I guess I would probably also be a bit of a person trying to avoid trouble and fights and retreat - if I had the possibility. You may still have that possibility by going to Samoa - unless they will start mining there nex, then where will you go? Thats the problem - in the end, they will mine everything everywhere and there is no place to go anymore. Already there is basically not a single place that is not affected by nitrogen pollution, almost no place in any country that is not affected by noise or pollution and of course climate change.
Of course fighting back by any means is tough and before it really happened, none of the NA'Vi would have thought that Eywa would come to the rescue - they still fought as best as they could. I understand that in the US it seems that even sitting on the ground in protest will get you peppersprayed and that speaking in public and say that "it is needed that people will use civil disobedience" will get you jailtime in some states. That is awful - I guess the US has reached a level of fascism that makes it already very hard to resist in any overt ways, so that unless you are planning to be a George Hayduke and secretly "blow sh1t up" you have diminished options.I encourage you however to get together with as many people in your locality and resist. Educate yourself about the impacts of REE mining and then educate all the people around you and tell them that it is up to you to defend that land. Maybe civil disobedience is not the thing for you and you are better in filing lawsuits, digging through legislature or even helping out with technical advice - a group resisting these a$$holes could probably use all kinds of help and certainly someone who "calls the clans". Maybe people will feel powerless or actually think that they can make some money to get out of poverty by working for the "RDA", but I think it has been proven countless times that those living on a land that gets exploited never make a good profit in the long run. Do they want to give their kids cancer for a job? A job ripping apart the land they live on at that?

Yeah, there are some advantages of living in the US after all. Here in Germany you can forget any such thing. Self constructed wind turbines are with near certainty illegal if they are large enough to actually do anything significantly, and building a 50' tower to mount that thing on top of that is guaranteed to be illegal. No way this is allowed. So for Germans the only option for the DIY department is photovoltaics and those are the most expensive alternative energy. I think a regular paid worker with his own house can affort it - a couple of 1000 € - and after some years the finances are even in the positive again... but most people here do live in rented homes (which obviously makes a difference when it comes to investing into fixed improvements and also one needs to consult with the landlord), there are plenty of laws and regulations on what, where and when you are allowed or most of the time denied to build. People have been denied permits to build solar panels on the roof because it supposedly harms tourism or the reflections disturb neighbors! There are still options - none that give 100% self sufficiency, but at least they can help. Smallscale, movable photovoltaics mostly. Or solar thermal water heaters. I'd like to finally see if they start selling these solar motors...

Oh, I am not afraid to fight at all, but there are no "clans" out here, we are 80 miles east of the largest Army base in the lower 48 states, and all that would be accomplished, is that any future movement would be branded with the label terrorists like the nut job years ago.
I am retired Army, and my "Martial Skills" list, (and history), has me being periodically checked up on, just to see who my friends are.
Now if this Country ever descended into total anarchy, and lawlessness, I would probably wind up being a local War Lord.
Niri Te

Hmm - sad to hear that you cannot find any allies. I was thinking if people live there and they learn about what is done to the land, they might in some way resist that. By whatever means appropriate - if it can be done by lawsuits or blocking roads with tractors. But of course if there is no one living there and no one cares for the land, its sad.