Clean Power

[BulBob]

The cleanest power is electric received directly from wind or water powered generators. No batteries and No solar cells.
Mass produce small cheap generators and connect them to small cheap plastic paddlewheels and windmills and put them all over the country because they are totally environmentally safe. There will be few outages because your line is being supplied from many directions. The generators can be made to only engage when power is required. Even small streams and slow winds can make a wheel turn.
Using more efficient electrical appliances and even all electric vehicles tied to the grid of wires placed in the road and you have freed yourselves to plant gardens.

I do not know if the technology there yet. Everyone always wants to do BIG things when small may be better.

[membruce]

Yes you can get small water paddle wheels. With a strong current you may get 5 watts out of them. They are pretty inefficient. Small scale water turbines are more practical. There are environmental impacts for them though. You need enough flow or pressure to produce enough power to be practical.

Environmental concerns on wend power mainly center around birds colliding with the blades. Small wend plants do work. To displace enough wend to have a large impact on fossil fuel consumption you need a lot of big turbines though.

Solar photovoltaics is practical for remote villages. Enough energy can be produced to run a 2 way radio and some nighttime lighting for example.

Transport with power lines over the road have been around since the end of the 19th century. Hear in Philadelphia, we have electric trolleys and light rail.

For people on the grid, I strongly agree that conservation is by far the first option.

Bruce

[J D Sauser]

I am ccurrently using Rumanian workers on my building sites in Spain. We discuss things and the subject (electricity) came up. It would seem the technology is arround and I am trying to look into it as I am somewhat obsessed with the issue in the DR.
As I am told they are manufactuing "small" hydraulic generators around 100KW and up.
Still, I believe that these should only be looked at as solutions for remote locations and such and small to medium manufacturing which could be encouraged to locate itself around water power.
I am failry convinced that the DR should move agressively towards a total hydraulic solution, having several dams built and operated under a limited time liscense by the building companies or a foreign insvestor consortium to supply 100% of the needed power.
Burning fuel has not only proven ineficient (apagones etc.) and environementaly wrong but has also been a major force in accelerating the external debt spiral.

... J-D.

[Mirador]

Originally Posted by J D Sauser

... I am failry convinced that the DR should move agressively towards a total hydraulic solution, having several dams built and operated under a limited time liscense by the building companies or a foreign insvestor consortium to supply 100% of the needed power. ... ... J-D.

Pipe dreams! you can't get private capital markets interested in such ventures. In the DR, dams and hydraulic energy are not cost effective. The initial high capital outlay and the low average hydraulic head from seasonal draught conditions (most current hydraulic plants in the DR sometimes work at less than 15% design production capacity for many months during the year) make for negative return. Currently, you can't get international public lenders (e.g., World Bank, IBRD, etc.) interested in these project, and going the route of a public bond issue, impossible.

[membruce]

There is also a huge environmental cost to dams. The head water causes a huge amount of land to be flooded. This changes the local ecology more quickly then it can adapt. Even the stream life can't adapt to the lake environment. It will have to be stocked to develop an eco system.

Wend power takes decades to produce a positive ROI and can only be used in limited regions. I would think that the DR would be able to use it but you would have to balance the investment against projects like education. As I said in another post. There is nothing more damaging to the ecology then poverty.

There is no free power. I don't like it eater but fossil fuel is currently the cheapest power around. It's also highly concentrated can be easily stored and is portable. It will be with us for a while.

Bruce

[rogerindr]

How many are there?

[Keith R]

Originally Posted by rogerindr

How many are there?

By which you mean electricity-generating dams? 20 plants installed, with 534 MW power generation "available" (but rarely fully utilized). For some more background, check out our recent Green Team blog on renewable energy sources and potential in the DR at this link.

Keith R

[samiam]

Originally Posted by membruce

Wend power takes decades to produce a positive ROI and can only be used in limited regions. I would think that the DR would be able to use it but you would have to balance the investment against projects like education. As I said in another post. There is nothing more damaging to the ecology then poverty.

I don't agree. Wind power's ROI is actually much faster than you think. Roughly 50% of the operational cost of a 1MW fuel powered generator goes up in smoke. With wind power you eliminate half of your operational cost right away(not to mention that there are much less moving parts that need to be changed wvery so often which means less costs of spare parts and less downtime!).
Also take into account that today 1MW of wind power is very close to the cost of 1Mw in heavy fuel oil.
I think that countries like the DR carry with the burden of investing in energy unnecessarily. Governments should leave that to the private sector, all they need to do is provide the legal framework under which they will operate, in this case the renewable energy law.

Can you imagine how much good the $600-700 million dollars being invested in these dirty coal plants by the government would do to the educational system here?