this post was submitted on 19 Sep 2023
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The thing with hydro is that it is limited by the hydrography of the country.
Once you've built all damns it was possible, that's it. And that usually only covers a just small portion of a country's energy needs.
That applies to availability of fossil fuels too, though. Everyone acts like it's never gonna run out, but the number one producer of oil and gas in the world is literally causing thousands of miniature earthquakes and poisoning groundwater in a desperate effort to get to the worst quality fossil fuels.
That's true about fossil fuels. But it seems you're interpreting my comment as if I was defending the use of fossil fuels.
What I'm pointing out here is that the fact that hydroelectric energy production (although very clean) is not really an alternative for many countries as a substitute for fossil fuels. It is not a matter or decision lack of attention or investment. Many developed countries actually have most of their potential capacity installed, yet that accounts for very little of their electric demand. Take Germany as an example:
Source: Hydroelectricity in Germany
Of course, there's exceptions (% of total domestic electricity generation): Canada (59.0%), Norway (96%), Paraguay (100%) or Brazil (64.7%).
Actually, from what I can tell, hydro seem to be so convenient (it can be ramped up/down on-demand, used for storage, cheap) that most countries that can afford it tend to maximize their installed capacity to the extend their hydrography allows them to.
@racsol @Viking_Hippie, Eliminating oil is not so simple and must start with stopping manufacturing SUVs and Supercars, eliminating continental flights and changing maritime traffic. That is where it fails, what's more, on top of that the politics and lobbies promote them. They limit themselves to raising the prices of gasoline and diesel, making life impossible for transporters and consumers who see food prices, instead of skyrocketing instead of subsidizing fuel and ecological vehicles.