[HN Gopher] World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from indu...
___________________________________________________________________
World's darkest and clearest skies at risk from industrial
megaproject
Author : Breadmaker
Score : 230 points
Date : 2025-01-11 21:11 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.eso.org)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.eso.org)
| hackingonempty wrote:
| If you were wondering if there was any issue even less important
| to Americans than the lives of pedestrians and cyclists, it is
| dark skies.
| darthoctopus wrote:
| why is this downvoted? the specific cities (notably in Arizona)
| that have taken deliberate action on this are exceptions
| proving the general rule that light pollution is demonstrably
| less of a policy concern even compared to the notorious
| American disdain for walkable infrastructure.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| The telescopes are 8,000 miles south of America. Why does
| American policy matter?
| ggm wrote:
| Because the goods made will be sold to American consumers
| directly and indirectly and are priced to reflect all kinds
| of costs including EPA compliance in domestic markets.
|
| European markets also demand European norms to labour and
| health and environment are met, even if tokenistically. To
| some it is a form of protectionism.
|
| It's also the "why can't we make it here" reasoning. If you
| tried to make it in the US it would be white anted out by
| lawfare. That's what happened to BHP when they proposed
| metals and minerals processing plants on the Californian
| coast.
| bryanlarsen wrote:
| Ammonia and hydrogen are essentially energy export
| mechanisms. They'll be exported to energy poor places,
| aka Asia, not America. they can and are made in America
| without fanfare. You wouldn't have states fighting to
| exlude green hydrogen or ammonia plants, you'd have
| states competing on how many subsidies they could give
| them.
| ggm wrote:
| Arguably, very likely true. But the fertiliser (the other
| ammonia product, the one we do mostly now the others
| being somewhat futurological) will I am sure sell
| worldwide. I'm personally sceptical about the hydrogen
| economy I can't see it working. It's biggish in some
| Australian circles, both because of IPR around the
| processes and people in related fields looking at uses
| for surplus solar power. Twiggy Forrest was big in it,
| wanted the sun cable proposal to pivot over, its partly
| why the JV with Cannon Brookes fell apart.
|
| My comment was to the more general "why can't we have
| nice things" about industrial placement. I spent time in
| Culpeper and the number of "no more Datacentre" signs
| were amazing. Old folks who retired to the country don't
| want them build nearby. It's a large federal and private
| investment in tech services. And growing.
| a1j9o94 wrote:
| It's also an American company building the project. The
| cultural values of the US are relevant.
| hnmias wrote:
| I know the crowd here (mostly from USA) hates this kind of
| comment, but as a SOUTH AMERICAN, can I point out the
| absurdity of this kind of sentence? Chile is a South
| American country, in the American continent, and is 8000
| miles south of America somehow. I know the why's and the
| meaning intented, no need to explain. Wont stop pointing
| this out though, as it will always feel to me as a example
| of the general disregard USA has for its neighbours.
| broptimist wrote:
| Despite not asking for an explanation, I'll give one
| anyway since you seem not to have resolved your
| grievance.
|
| "American" is the correct adjective in English to
| describe the United States' people and government. There
| is simply no equivalent to the Spanish "estadounidense."
|
| Furthermore, North America and South America are
| considered to be separate continents, and if you want to
| refer to them both together, you say "the Americas",
| plural.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Americas
| losvedir wrote:
| > in the American continent
|
| I think it's worth pointing out that "the American
| continent" is not how geography is taught in the US.
| There's seven continents, one of which is North America
| and one of which is South America.
|
| So you're making a point which only makes sense in
| Spanish, in the context of your own education. There's no
| ambiguity in the US since the only thing "America" can
| refer to is the USA.
|
| I'm curious how it's taught for you about Europe and
| Asia. We learn those as separate continents, too, even
| though it's one land mass. For that matter, Africa is as
| connected to Asia as South America is to North America,
| but I'm almost certain you consider Africa its own
| continent, right?
| kortilla wrote:
| Disagree. Or at least it's a different set of people generally
| very supportive of dark skies.
|
| There are many dark sky communities in the southwest that are
| otherwise standard car centric unwalkable american towns.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| Which is too bad, because it takes a special kind of heartless,
| empathy-lacking ghoul to disregard such things that make life
| on this Earth worth living to so many people.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| Pretty fucked up to say that people that don't have dark
| skies even on their radar with everything going on right now
| are heartless and lacking empathy. It shows a gross
| misunderstanding of the average person today and really shows
| _your_ lack of empathy.
|
| I shoot astro, I love it. I wish skies were darker. But I
| certainly don't blame my comrades for not giving two fucks
| about how the sky looks when they are asleep after working
| two jobs to pay rent.
| otteromkram wrote:
| "...when they are asleep after working two jobs to pay
| rent."
|
| No one else sleeps or works, right?
|
| Plus, who knows why they work more than one job. Maybe they
| were "too smart" for school, found out later that they
| weren't, and now are grasping to close the gap due to
| hubris and ignorance early on in their life. No shame in
| making up for lost time/wages, but that's not our fault and
| we shouldn't have to constantly bend and bow in order to
| appease the LCD crowd.
| bongodongobob wrote:
| If you're surprised the night sky isn't top on people's
| minds today, you live in a very different world than
| most.
| bburnett44 wrote:
| This is a pretty crazy comment
| otteromkram wrote:
| I would say quiet.
|
| Every place I've moves to in recent years looks nice, but you
| can't enjoy it because passenger cars and trucks have gotten
| louder without restraint or consequence. This doesn't mean
| right next to a major freeway, either; half-a-mile (about a
| kilometer) or more away from most 4-lane roads isn't far
| enough.
|
| For an example, look up how many tickets in any given city have
| been issued for an improperly maintained exhaust system.
|
| Police only care about speeding tickets. So much so, that even
| if a noisy "sports" car is pulled over for speeding, they won't
| be issued a noise citation in concert.
|
| Why? ACAB.
|
| Cops probably drive around in noisy cars/trucks after work (and
| some jurisdictions have police cruisers with a throaty exhaust
| because of course they do), so ticketing those violations isn't
| in their own best interest.
|
| Anyway, noise is way more of an IDGAF issue for any city in the
| US.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| BANANAs in action, can't even build a green energy facility in
| the literal middle of nowhere without complaints.
| ok_dad wrote:
| It's an industrial plant with an attached power plant, it's not
| like families will be using this power.
| thereisnospork wrote:
| How is it you think families get power, goods, and services?
|
| Ammonia makes fertilizer - this plant will help feed
| millions, dropping food costs. Even if the power this plant
| is generating won't go _directly_ to families, it will be
| going into the things they eat and the things they buy in
| place of power they can use directly.
| exe34 wrote:
| is this the last place on earth to build that kind of
| industry?
| daedrdev wrote:
| I think its fair enough to not build it here, but
| everywhere there will be arguments made against all
| projects so it can get old fast
| saddat wrote:
| Again, not much use for the locals at this elevation .
| That's super dry area
| fnordpiglet wrote:
| It's nothing to do with the merits of the project itself but
| that it would destroy a singular planetary resource.
| fastball wrote:
| It's not "destroyed". If a dire need for dark skies arises,
| you can always... turn the lights off.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| Turn the windmills off too because turbulence.
|
| Actually turn the entire facility off because again being a
| hotspot causes turbulence.
|
| Why don't we build an all night biker bar next door to your
| home? It won't cause you any problems like noise or
| nuisance because they cal always turn off the music or keep
| closed all night?
| culi wrote:
| This isn't just about getting rid of the last place on earth
| you can sometimes get a truly dark sky. This is about progress
| itself
|
| > Since its inauguration in 1999, Paranal Observatory, built
| and operated by the European Southern Observatory (ESO), has
| led to significant astronomy breakthroughs, such as the first
| image of an exoplanet and confirming the accelerated expansion
| of the Universe. The Nobel Prize in Physics in 2020 was awarded
| for research on the supermassive black hole at the centre of
| the Milky Way, in which Paranal telescopes were instrumental.
| The observatory is a key asset for astronomers worldwide,
| including those in Chile, which has seen its astronomical
| community grow substantially in the last decades. Additionally,
| the nearby Cerro Armazones hosts the construction of ESO's
| Extremely Large Telescope (ELT), the world's biggest telescope
| of its kind -- a revolutionary facility that will dramatically
| change what we know about our Universe.
| modeless wrote:
| It's not literally the last place on Earth with dark skies.
| It's just one place with dark skies where they built a
| telescope. This isn't about protecting the sky and it's not
| about "progress", it's about protecting an investment of
| money in a telescope.
|
| The price of launching giant telescopes to space is set to
| plummet in the next few years with Starship and New Glenn
| coming online. IMO we should be focusing on that rather than
| blocking development on Earth to preserve previous
| investments in ground based telescopes.
| phinnaeus wrote:
| Launching telescopes is not a viable alternative to ground
| based telescopes. They are completely different scales. We
| would need large scale orbital construction facilities or a
| space elevator to bridge that gap. We don't need to develop
| every square inch of the planet to support humanity, we
| don't take up that much space.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| No, but it's one of three places on Earth that have dark
| skies this good.
|
| The fact you don't know Paranal host many more than "one
| telescope" doesn't surprise me, as your are obviously very
| ignorant of modern astronomy.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| 5 km from infrastructure critical to Chilean science isn't
| really "nowhere".
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| Would it be unthinkable to just NOT have bright lights pointed at
| the sky all night? Could they still do this project with severe
| restrictions on light emissions? If there's some reason it
| absolutely must include hundreds of outdoor sodium vapor lights
| then build it somewhere else.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| > Would it be unthinkable to just NOT have bright lights
| pointed at the sky all night?
|
| That's possible, and directed/shielded lighting is commercially
| available.
|
| However, the project's critics have already said that no plan
| the project comes up with will be good enough - "Even if [AES]
| do a perfect job, using perfect lights that probably don't even
| exist and perfect shielding, there will be an impact and that
| will be significant [0]
|
| [0] https://www.science.org/content/article/chilean-energy-
| megap...
| aragilar wrote:
| The plan of "don't build a major industrial centre 5km from
| the best site for optical astronomy in the world, build it
| somewhere else" seems like a perfect viable one to me.
| WorkerBee28474 wrote:
| So that would be Mauna Kea. I don't believe there is any
| industry being built near there.
| aragilar wrote:
| I'm happy to be proven wrong, but I though Paranal beat
| Mauna Kea (and some basic google searches aren't throwing
| up anything that makes me question it, e.g.
| https://www.eso.org/gen-
| fac/pubs/astclim/espas/espas_reports..., though that's
| from more than 20 years ago, so site quality has likely
| changed since then). There's also the issue of northern
| vs. southern sky.
| oefrha wrote:
| Well, local people probably care about economic development
| and don't give a rat's ass about astronomy. So the question
| becomes, who's going to compensate for the loss of economic
| development? (By local I don't mean strictly local, in case
| of counter arguments along the line that there are no/very
| few local people to begin with.)
|
| Disclosure: I'm a former physicist and I have personally
| operated an optical telescope with a 15' dome, as well as a
| 60' radio telescope, which probably puts me among 0.01% of
| world's population. So I do know a thing or two and care
| about astronomy.
| aragilar wrote:
| My understanding is ESO uses local labour where possible
| (e.g on building the ELT, maintenance, catering,
| transport), so it's not like it's one guy in a shed,
| there are jobs and economic benefits. That's why this
| seems so confusing to me, I can't see why you can't have
| both?
| throw5959 wrote:
| Do you mean that the economical output of astronomy and
| this industrial project is comparable?
| kahirsch wrote:
| This is in the middle of the desert at high altitude.
| There are basically no local people who aren't associated
| with the telescopes.
|
| https://maps.app.goo.gl/cWgWx1RKjEUjavPn8
|
| Whether the facility is built there or 50 km away, it's
| going to have to draw people from more than a few km
| away. The entire Taltal district only has about 11,000
| people.
| Enk1du wrote:
| At Las Campanas, most of the staff from the cooks to the
| techs and a number of the researchers were all local. I
| found quite a bit of interest in the country as a whole
| as it's a source of national pride being the best
| location for astronomy.
|
| Allowing this to proceed will affect _all_ future
| astronomy projects in Chile. No one is going to splash
| out on a shiny, new 100m optical telescope (OWL) if
| anyone can come along and park a city's worth of light
| just down the road.
|
| https://www.eso.org/sci/facilities/eelt/owl/
| est31 wrote:
| If most of the local people are going to move to that
| location, they could also move to a different location
| which is a bit further away from where it's planned now.
| cubefox wrote:
| > That's possible, and directed/shielded lighting is
| commercially available.
|
| Given the size of the site (over 3000 hectares), even lights
| purely pointed at the ground will still create large amounts
| of bounce lighting. The ground reflects light up in the sky.
| ungreased0675 wrote:
| It's possible to go more restrictive than shielded lights.
| What if all outdoor lights must be turned off from 9pm to
| 5am? If the conditions were something like that, would the
| developers still want to build?
| II2II wrote:
| I suspect the real concern is there would be a push to
| relax the restrictions once the industrial facility has
| been built. Astronomical observatories have faced such
| problems in the past, to the point where research goals
| had to be fundamentally altered or where they ceased to
| be research facilities.
|
| That said, if the goal is to reduce the lighting to the
| point where it has no impact, one has to ask: what is the
| point of having lighting at all? I suppose lighting could
| be restricted to indoor use only, but most commercial
| operations will expect some outdoor lighting.
| justlikereddit wrote:
| Have you ever seen a heavy construction site involving
| land preparation? Like a new road being built?
|
| Dust everywhere. Backhoes with 360 light coverage that
| makes a lighthouse envious. Trucks, trucks everywhere!
| Floodlights! String lights! Crane lights! Temporary light
| poles! Service lights! Warning lights! A dictionary of
| lights!
|
| Can they work in the dark without producing so much dust?
| Can a tiger be a vegan?
|
| Also the development is part wind power, this alone
| causes wake turbulence. So even if regulation demanded
| complete blackout after sunset on the penalty to of death
| the observational quality is still permanently degraded.
| dheera wrote:
| I did a bunch of astrophotography in the Atacama desert last
| year, it was an absolutely phenomenal place. There are a lot of
| celestial objects you cannot image from the northern hemisphere
| and there aren't many other places in the southern hemisphere
| with weather conditions that good (maybe Namibia but it doesn't
| have the altitude advantage).
|
| The only thing I wish is that some of the parks would be open
| after dark to shoot landscapes. Most of the parks closed before
| sunset, so I had to mostly image from roadsides, which was kind
| of sad.
| rexarex wrote:
| I think there's ways to get out there at night. I know people
| host 'clandestinos' aka parties out there.
| dylan604 wrote:
| It's not just industrial sites. My "local" (4 hours away) dark
| sky spot is constantly battling light pollution. There's an
| industrial complex that's made an agreement to turn their lights
| off at midnight. They've made deals with the county to replace
| the lighting to be dark sky friendly, but they still have private
| land owners that refuse to cooperate and replace their lighting.
| I have many images of the Milky Way with ranch lights dotting
| horizon.
| kortilla wrote:
| Headline is dramatic but misleading. Essentially the entire 7/10
| of the planet in the ocean has skies as dark as this. Clarity
| significantly reduces the footprint, but there are massive chunks
| of mountain ranges untouched by human development in both
| hemispheres that would be just as clear as here.
|
| If clear skies are important enough to block a new development,
| they should just unlock some land in the Himalayas or Rockies to
| replace this observatory.
| niccl wrote:
| who pays for moving the observatory?
| adriand wrote:
| > they should just unlock some land in the Himalayas or Rockies
| to replace this observatory
|
| That "just" is sure doing a lot of work in this suggestion.
| tw04 wrote:
| Who is paying for this move and all the requisite supporting
| infrastructure? You aren't just dropping it from a helicopter
| and calling it a day.
| seattle_spring wrote:
| I recommend reading up on why these observatories and
| telescopes are where they are in the Atacama. It's not just
| about the lack of light pollution, it's a specific geography
| that "smoooths out" the air. Something about the high elevation
| prominence coming up directly from the coast creates a unique
| situation that allows for longer exposures, something that is
| less possible out in the open ocean. The only other comparable
| place are the high peaks of Hawaii, but these are mostly off
| limits due to native protections.
|
| Destroying an aspect of the dark skies in Chile will absolutely
| hurt astronomy. No, they would not just be able to move their
| operations out onto a different mountain range or into the open
| ocean.
| gmueckl wrote:
| This spot in the Atacama desert isn't special for it's lack of
| light pollution alone. The sky is rarely, if ever covered in
| clouds or haze. And the temperature gradient in the air has a
| shape that prevents random atmospheric distortions that would
| make long term exposures blurry. This combination of properties
| is exceedingly rare on Earth.
| Tepix wrote:
| This place has an elevation of 5000m and the air is super dry.
| rad_gruchalski wrote:
| Who's "they".
| exe34 wrote:
| could you move the industry there?
| Oarch wrote:
| Sure. But building a stable platform out there?
| 8bitsrule wrote:
| Not sure this would be affected:
|
| The Vera Rubin scope, which cost $600+ million, will see first
| light this July. It's capable of creating a map of the entire
| available sky every few days. Containing 40B objects, several
| times more than all previous sky surveys combined.
|
| Half of those images are already threatened by constellations of
| comm satellites. Another concern is spy satellite imaging.
| https://archive.is/RzCNI#selection-779.4-779.14
|
| So what compels AES, a US power company, to build a facility
| there, in all the world ... which would pump out that much
| pollution?
| aragilar wrote:
| No, the Vera Rubin Observatory is on Cerro Pachon
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vera_C._Rubin_Observatory)
| rather than Cerro Paranal
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Very_Large_Telescope), the maps
| on the right hand side show the difference (~6deg latitude).
| Similarly I wouldn't expect
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/La_Silla_Observatory to be
| affected, but
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Extremely_Large_Telescope would
| be I expect (noting that I haven't seen anything beyond the ESO
| press release).
| Daub wrote:
| When I lived in the Welsh countryside, there were occasional
| nights where I could not see my hand in front of my face. The
| requirements were that it was new moon, and that there was slight
| fog. We also lived deep in a valley, which helped. I had great
| fun navigating my way to the local pub in complete darkness.
|
| The odd thing is that when I recount that experience, some people
| refuse to believe me. Of course they are all city dwellers.
| m463 wrote:
| peril-sensitive sunglasses wouldn't help!
| madaxe_again wrote:
| I live that experience daily. I live in a very remote corner of
| Portugal - we are between bortle 2 and 3 - in the bottom of a
| deep, steep valley.
|
| And yes - when it's a new moon and the haze from the river
| blots out the stars, the experience is quite akin to having
| gone blind. In fact, it's so dark I've used some of those
| nights to develop film at the outdoor sink.
|
| One thing I've noted is that wildlife needs to see just as much
| as we do - I mean, obvious, right? - but those nights are
| always dead silent. No birds, no insects, no rustles of this
| that or the other in the undergrowth. Every little noise one
| makes seems an affront to the cloying, thick darkness. Perhaps
| it's the same instinct at play.
|
| My place in wales used to have dark skies, even fairly recently
| - but LED street lighting along rural roads has put paid to
| that. I earnestly don't understand why a lane that sees zero
| foot traffic and perhaps one car during darkness hours needs a
| streetlamp every ten meters - while waste collections only
| happen every six weeks.
|
| Ah, I have become a grumpy old astronomer.
| zeristor wrote:
| I looked up bortle and Portugal, and Google gave my a light
| pollution map. I still don't know what bortle means...
|
| https://www.lightpollutionmap.info
| bastih wrote:
| https://www.handprint.com/ASTRO/bortle.html
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| I've experienced that once in a simulated environment; there's
| a museum in Nijmegen that has an indoor setup to simulate being
| completely blind, you get a stick and a guide and have to
| navigate a living room and the like. Can recommend if you're
| interested in accessibility and the like!
| chrisandchris wrote:
| In Switzerland, there are two restaurants called "Blinde Kuh"
| (blind cow), where it's completely dark and you'll get served
| by blind/visually impaired people. There even work visually
| impaired people in the kitchen (besides "regular" seing
| people). It's a fascinating wxperience.
| 55555 wrote:
| There's a similar experience at Tochoji Temple in Fukuoka
| city.
| liamwire wrote:
| Highly recommend the experience, it was darkness unlike
| anything I'd ever seen before. Excuse the phrasing.
| chasd00 wrote:
| During a new moon parts of West Texas out in the chihuahua
| desert are like this. If you wait a solid 45 min with no light
| for your eyes to adjust it's amazing how much you can see in
| the sky.
| watersb wrote:
| On another piece of the electromagnetic spectrum, the ALMA radio
| telescope is also in the Atacama desert, north east of Paranal.
|
| The government agreed to a radio quiet zone in the areas
| surrounding ALMA.
|
| But now there's Starlink and other satellite constellations
| coming on line at an unprecedented pace.
| Dylan16807 wrote:
| Are those satellites broadcasting while over those areas? I
| don't see the connection here.
|
| In fact it looks like there's extra effort to let them keep
| running without causing problems
| https://public.nrao.edu/news/astronomers-satellite-internet-...
| cwillu wrote:
| https://www.aesandes.com/en/press-release/aes-andes-submits-...
| markvdb wrote:
| A cynic would read this as as "I can't believe our (AES) luck.
| There's a good chance we can squeeze the Europeans for lots of
| money. We'll gladly share some of the proceeds with the new US
| president's cronies for having them do the haggling."
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| You want a real conspiracy theory? How about this: some rich
| Thirty Meters Telescope patron saw the peril the project has
| been in and set out to sabotage the ELT!
|
| Of course, the ELT is proper funded, so the best he can do is
| making it useless by ruining it's sky for a decade with
| construction dust and light.
| astrolx wrote:
| I like that conspiracy ! They should be careful about
| retribution if the TMT lands on the Canary Island, sombebody
| could conspire to put another industrial facility next to it
| yummybear wrote:
| The skies may be brightening, but it seems the world is turning
| darker.
| SiempreViernes wrote:
| A local story about it:
| https://radio.uchile.cl/2025/01/11/proyecto-inna-la-iniciati...
| senorrib wrote:
| Definitely a hard choice between an industrial complex generating
| thousands of jobs and a glorified camera.
| frereubu wrote:
| Difficult to tell the economic / geographic context from a
| short article like this, but they mention the possibility of
| relocating the project. If possible that's a win / win, no?
| Sounds like it may just be the case that the dark sky aspect of
| this wasn't taken into consideration.
| jazzyjackson wrote:
| Gee, mapping every object in the observable universe (and
| possibly saving us from catastrophic meteor strikes) or pumping
| out a few more tons of ammonia?
|
| Framing does an awful lot of work.
| vasco wrote:
| Exactly, this sounds like when europeans and americans go to
| africa to keep the local people from using their resources
| under the guise of protecting wildlife. There's plenty of local
| sources about it but a documentary that does a great job for a
| foreign audience and really made me think is 'Black Mambas'
| https://www.imdb.com/title/tt18351318/
|
| If us Europeans and Americans want to look at the sky
| undisturbed, why don't we build telescopes at home? We can
| expropriate or block businesses in however big of a radius we
| want. Or we can buy up all the land around the site we are
| using in a foreign country instead of keeping the development
| of the land of the local people. It feels like exploitation.
|
| It's easy to make this about science vs business and I hate
| light pollution just as the next guy, but it feels gross to
| shame the local population for wanting to do what we've done
| with our land already when we can do it at home as well, or pay
| them to be worth their while to not develop around the site.
| They should not have to keep their country pristine just
| because we want to be "pure" with other people's home when
| we're not with our own. Or pay them enough if it's so important
| (it is).
| concordDance wrote:
| Hampering industry that will bring prosperity to thousands to
| avoid having to wait to do some specific types of astronomy until
| Starship is working doesn't seem like a good trade-off.
| topspin wrote:
| I'm noticing that the reporting on this, including the ESO press
| release, is vague on exactly what this "industrial megaproject"
| happens to be. Ordinarily, there is no hesitation to disclose
| this, unless it's a military matter. Or a sacred cow.
|
| A sacred cow, indeed. It's a green energy operation powered by
| both wind and solar to generate hydrogen, electricity and
| ammonia. Here[1] is the AES Andes press release about this
| project, if you care to read the opposing spin on this matter:
|
| "AES Chile submitted an Environmental Impact Assessment (EIA) to
| Chilean permitting authorities for a proposed industrial-scale
| green hydrogen project called Inna. The project, which is in
| early-stage development, could include a variety of solutions,
| including green hydrogen for export or domestic consumption,
| aligned with Chile's National Green Hydrogen Strategy."
|
| [1] https://www.aesandes.com/en/press-release/aes-andes-
| submits-...
|
| Land use. It's not just a fossil fuel shill talking point.
| 55555 wrote:
| The article says "It includes constructing a port, ammonia and
| hydrogen production plants and thousands of electricity
| generation units near Paranal."
| jordanb wrote:
| Everyone I know in environmental activism hates hydrogen and
| sees it as green-washing the petrochemical industry.
| est31 wrote:
| I understand it if you look at the receiving end. Say in
| Germany they built natural gas plants shortly before the war
| under the premise that they must be Hydrogen ready, aka right
| now we use natural gas but promise in a few years when
| Hydrogen production is there, we'll switch to Hydrogen. That
| can be very easily criticized as green washing of the gas
| plants (although a gas plant is much better than what it
| would have replaced, brown coal). Now with the war and the
| pipelines destroyed, Germany went a different route and
| instead runs the coal plants for a longer time.
|
| But if you look at the production side, they are building a
| solar power plant. How is that green washing? There is no way
| to use a solar power plant other than to collect renewable
| energy. Either it is operational and collects renewable
| energy, to send it to various places, or it is not
| operational, but then it's been a bad investment for the
| investors. Now, maybe it could be part of some greater scheme
| where one uses this plant as the "source" of a multiple of
| the ammonium it can actually produce, and sells ammonium from
| fossil sources as made by Chilean sun. But that should then
| be addressed on its own, and not hamper the project itself
| (although of course a different location would be better that
| doesn't risk the operations of scientific instruments worth
| billions).
| kbolino wrote:
| They may feel that way, but that seems emotional rather than
| rational. The choices for small-scale energy sources are:
| batteries with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away
| lots of arable land from food/textile/etc production, or fuel
| cells which can still involve petrochemicals (but don't have
| to). There are no perfect options, and strapping enough solar
| panels or wind turbines to a vehicle (car, bus, train,
| airplane, etc) to make it drivable is just not even remotely
| feasible.
|
| No doubt the petrochemical companies want to continue
| existing, but shifting the transportation infrastructure away
| from directly burning gasoline and natural gas is a net win
| even if in the short term there are still hydrocarbons
| involved. Going all in on electric vehicles only is not
| diversifying the solution space enough.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _choices for small-scale energy sources are: batteries
| with all their dirty mining, biofuels taking away lots of
| arable land from food /textile/etc production, or fuel
| cells_
|
| Storage also includes flywheels and pumped hydro. Hydrogen
| is mostly a farce.
| kbolino wrote:
| The key adjective there is "small-scale". There are many
| more alternatives when size is not an issue. Flywheels
| are very useful but their energy density is too low to be
| the primary power source for a vehicle.
| Workaccount2 wrote:
| The dirty mining and manufacturing of batteries is the
| dumbest red herring there is. It's like saying we need to
| get rid of toilet paper because it cuts down so many trees.
|
| Hydrogen on the other hand clearly is pushed by fossil
| fuels since it leaves the door open for them to be a major
| player.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Hydrogen/syngas right now is the only way forward for
| long distance sea or plane travel, since batteries are
| too heavy.
| koverstreet wrote:
| We're going to get a 4x energy density improvement from
| lithium sulfur batteries, just as soon as production
| ramps up.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| Wikipedia lists the energy density of kerosene as 9.7k
| Wh/L, and lithium sulfur at 550 Wh/L, which is not great.
| zardo wrote:
| Hydrogen isn't so great either.
| Galaxeblaffer wrote:
| hydrogen definitely not the only way for long distance
| sea, nuclear would just make so much more sense. and for
| place travel it also such the same as batteries, first of
| all its an explosive gas and second we only get less than
| 20%. hydrogen is just not a good solution to anything
| other than being a byproduct in the natural gas industry.
| kbolino wrote:
| Though it may never prove viable, hydrogen from
| electrolysis of water creates no emissions other than
| oxygen. While large ships may be able to use nuclear
| power directly, the risks of a tenfold increase in small
| floating nuclear reactors in civilian hands are not
| trivial. Hydrogen provides a way to keep power generation
| centralized, secure, and efficient while also
| distributing it where needed. But this assumes an extreme
| excess of power, something only possible with nuclear or
| large-scale renewables, which may never come to pass in
| sufficient quantities or without even bigger problems.
| post-it wrote:
| Nuclear would not make sense at all for long distance sea
| travel. Naval reactors require highly enriched fuel in
| order to be compact enough, so they could never be
| widespread on civilian ships for fear of proliferation.
| They're also extraordinarily expensive and require a
| specialized crew, and their power output is overkill for
| a cargo ship (but they can't really be scaled down much
| further).
| sva_ wrote:
| > It's like saying we need to get rid of toilet paper
| because it cuts down so many trees.
|
| Better not to trigger the bidet crowd.
| epistasis wrote:
| What dirty mining for batteries? Please be specific. This
| story was always a PR drive that focused on the "dirtiness"
| of batteries but never compares it to the dirtiness of all
| the other parts of competing technologies.
|
| And talking about the "dirtiness" of batteries but not
| every other single part of our industry (steel for
| everything, all the nasty stuff for electrolyzers, etc.) is
| all part of prioritizing emotional over rational. Public
| discussion of our energy system is definitely more
| emotional than rational, and I would argue that the
| emotional side of things means that we do a lot more fossil
| fuels and dirty tech, whereas a more rational approach
| would have us on far more solar and storage than we
| currently are, or plan to do.
| cosmic_cheese wrote:
| There's a lot of pressure for batteries to become cleaner
| too, which has resulted in a lot of money going into R&D
| of more effective chemistries comprised of more readily
| available materials. It's difficult to express the sheer
| momentum we have in this field right now and it would be
| a shame if cold water got dumped on it by negative public
| perception, cooling investments. It'd be a textbook
| example of letting the perfect being the enemy of the
| good and of squandered potential.
| kbolino wrote:
| Batteries require specific minerals that are largely
| unique to them. The amount of lithium, for example,
| needed for all other purposes combined is dwarfed by the
| amount used to make batteries. Of course all industry and
| mining is dirty, the question is of unique costs to each
| solution. You don't need to mine nearly as much lithium,
| even if you account for all the infrastructure and
| logistics, to make and distribute biofuel. But then you
| need to dedicate a lot of arable land, which will have
| other effects. The point is not to remove batteries from
| the discussion but to include all solutions.
| coldpepper wrote:
| Mining affects a limited local area. CO2 emissions affect
| the whole planet.
| epistasis wrote:
| There's two types of hydrogen: 1) ammonia for fertilizer
| production and perhaps other industrial decarbonization, and
| 2) fantasies of energy storage, fuel, etc.
|
| Environmentalists know of the necessity of ammonia, but push
| back hard on the second.
|
| Michael Liebreich's hydrogen ladder is fairly good at
| summarizing an honest assessment of where hydrogen will be
| useful:
|
| https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/hydrogen-ladder-
| version-50-mi...
|
| And you'll see that it gets pushed in lots of very
| inappropriate places.
|
| It's funny how much benefit of the doubt is given to really
| bad tech, like hydrogen and large nuclear reactors, despite
| decades of data showing that they always underperform
| expectations and that people who implement them always
| overpromise and underdeliver. It's a stark contrast to solar
| and wind and storage, which always seem to underpromise and
| overdeliver, and these technologies face huge amounts of
| undue skepticism not only from decision makers but also the
| press and the public. There's a lot of decision making in
| energy that is extremely disconnected from data and reality,
| and most of hydrogen decision making these days is
| disconnected from reality.
| Galaxeblaffer wrote:
| you are right that hydrogen is a fantasy.. but wait.. what
| is this solar and wind plus storage you speak of that
| overdeliver, specifically what storage are you talking
| about? the wind industry has heavily been pushing hydrogen
| as this storage at least in Germany and Denmark and as far
| as i know there's absolutely zero success here despite
| maasny years of trying
| legulere wrote:
| You state that energy storage is a fantasy, liebreich puts
| Long Duration Grid Balancing as a B on the hydrogen ladder.
| Sure it's going to be extremely expensive, but I don't see
| any cheaper alternative for countries without dark winters
| where also the wind can sometimes be not enough.
|
| I agree though that it gets pushed in lots of inappropriate
| places, where better alternatives exist.
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Environmental activists have their own biases and blind
| spots.
| fsh wrote:
| I doubt that "land use" is a big issue in one of the least
| densely populated countries on earth. Surely one could find a
| place for an industrial site that is not within 5 km of the
| world's prime telescope site. Using the existing infrastructure
| probably makes it slightly cheaper though.
| JumpCrisscross wrote:
| > _Surely one could find a place for an industrial site_
|
| Has anyone proposed one?
| psychlops wrote:
| I thought space was the the world's prime telescope site.
| whimsicalism wrote:
| think that might be stretching the definition of "world" a
| bit far
| IncreasePosts wrote:
| Not really, due to the costs and constraints of space-based
| telescopes
| lukan wrote:
| But I could always tell if a space picture is from
| Hubble, or some lowly earth based one. In other words,
| with the fallen costs on rocket launchs, I do hope for a
| ton of new space telescopes.
|
| Till then we have to balance things out. Space research
| is important. But so is investment in green technlogy as
| climate change is speeding up. It is not specially
| mentioned - but I believe the project is basically about
| transforming sunlight into liquid fuels on scale. Not the
| worst industry project by itself. (even though it might
| mainly exist, to greenwash conventional cars)
| MostlyStable wrote:
| The omission of this information is partly why I'm suspicious
| of the article. A well written article would have included
| things such as the above information about what the project
| was and additionally why it was being proposed for the given
| site. Omitting any information on the other side of the
| equation, and talking _only_ about the impacts it will have
| on the observatory sure sounds like activist propaganda to
| me.
| undersuit wrote:
| Unless the article has been updated there is no omission.
| topspin wrote:
| > I doubt that "land use" is a big issue in one of the least
| densely populated countries on earth.
|
| All evidence to the contrary, apparently.
|
| One report I found cited "50 km" as sufficient separation.
| Applying this as a radius you get 7854 square kilometers of
| land.
|
| > Using the existing infrastructure probably makes it
| slightly cheaper though.
|
| "it", here, could mean either the "green energy" operation or
| the observatory site.
| kurthr wrote:
| To be fair, green hydrogen in a fossil fuel shill talking point
| (so that they can sell more blue/grey). Hydrogen shipping and
| end-end efficiency are terrible. Make ammonia instead, if
| you're into that sort of thing.
| topspin wrote:
| > green hydrogen in a fossil fuel shill talking point
|
| I'll stipulate that. None if this is my sacred cow.
|
| Apparently, however, your view isn't operative among
| establishment Powers That Be. Otherwise "they" wouldn't
| hesitate to name it, and instead employ euphemisms like "huge
| industrial complex" and "industrial megaproject." If this
| were some evil, no good, very bad mining operation or gas and
| oil field, it would be featured prominently in all of the
| reporting. And you know it.
|
| Instead, we get euphemisms. One report I read about this
| specific matter used the term "electrical generation units."
| A coal plant? Nat gas? Nuclear? No. If it were any of those
| things "they" would say so, in clear, bright terms everyone
| would be eager to hate on. But it's wind and solar, so "they"
| carefully demur, and straightforward terms like "solar
| panels" an "wind turbines" are deliberately avoided.
|
| It's not any sort of conspiracy, mind you. Everyone just
| somehow knows that wind, solar, hydrogen, whatever, is sacred
| and must be spoken of with only the greatest deference,
| adopting however much linguistic gymnastics seems necessary.
| kurthr wrote:
| I can really understand. It's quite clever marketing and
| non-experts (media and politicians) are quite easily drawn
| in. Then of course, they can't admit they're wrong so
| they'll build a multi $B boondoggle with little to show at
| the end.
|
| And maybe they'll destroy the dark skies while they're at
| it. Lot's of horrible outcomes are just stupid mistakes
| that profit no one. If they CAN discredit solar for a while
| longer then more money for them.
| saddat wrote:
| Pair this with impact of mega constellations with 10k+ satellites
| , which not only destroy optical imaging, but also interfere with
| radio-astronomy
| sobellian wrote:
| On a longer time horizon, we need to figure out how to conduct
| astronomy without holding large regions (countryside, LEO, etc.)
| as test articles to control. Constellations like Starlink have
| already blown through that roadblock and rather than backlash we
| now see various governments / firms following them. LEO will only
| become more crowded.
|
| In a more extreme case we have planetary protection where entire
| celestial bodies like Mars should remain sterile to preserve the
| possibility of their further study. It is easy to advance that
| policy while those bodies remain remote, but _if_ we obtain the
| capability to develop the inner solar system then, much like LEO,
| we will do it regardless of the difficulty it imposes on
| xenobiologists.
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