Belo Monte Dam approved :(

[applejuice]

Originally Posted by auroraglacialis

Indeed. And let them all scream "Communism" and "Socialism" if they want - I don't care, a solution that works is needed despite ideologies. I do not know what will work, clearly just keep consuming and grow in energy desires will certainly not work together with "green" energy - other things have to change too, but certainly as long as there is that stupid government around and collecting and spending money (on wars mostly), it could at least do something productive.
And in a sense - that kind of project in the end would be one that comes from the people,because it is after all the peoples government and money.

It is more likely that private entrepreneurs will come with a solution. Government institutions are too regulated to let money go into projects that may or may not be successful. Private entrepreneurs will risk their money in such projects, no matter what the outcome would be.

Indeed! That idiotic distorted idea of democracy or "the comfort of the many is higher valued than the livelihoods of the few that happen to stand in the way" makes me sick. It is one of the messages of Avatar and of the repreated indigenous struggle that this idea is crap - that the powerful and privileged have no right to use that argument to displace or exploit minorities just because the benefit from that serves more people than will suffer from it. This is unetical.

Actually, the message was to let people take their own decisions, not to intervene in foreign matters.
Are you suggesting that the needs of the few outweigh the needs of the many? You've gone to the beginning of the French Revolution, where the King (and nobility) had all the decisions made to their needs leaving an entire country in famine while they feasted for weeks!
The number of affected people (the indigenous) in the worst case is thousands, without power, the number will rise to hundreds of thousands, and considering the growth of Brazil, easily millions without affordable power. How unethical is that?

This is like domestic imperialism!
This is like domestic imperialism?


That has nothing to do with oil. We all know that the need demand desire for energy especially in the "developing countries" is rising anyways, so all kind of sources will be use, more dams, more solar panels, wind, nuclear plants, coal, oil gas - whatever is available because more energy means more growth and more production and more industrialization and more exports...
Also in the most cases, oil is not really used so much for electricity, it has become too valuable already compared to other options. Hydropower is the cheapest energy ever, so it is used for the most wasteful processes like Aluminium smelters. I think one can bet that the construction of that dam will be followed by the creation of local bauxite mining and smeltering or other high-energy industries. Only a fraction of it will actually go to serve households.

Actually, more than two thirds of the power that will be generated in the dam are going to be used in cities and houses, the other third will go to industry. You have to consider that by next year, there will be one computer per every two persons in Brazil. And the World Cup and Olympic games are quite near. SO, that's a lot of power.