RE:RE:RE:What you won't read in WSJThanks fishfanatic, Yeah they're warning that Bogota may soon see rolling blackouts. 70% of Bogota's power comes from hydroelectric dams, which are running dry. 30% comes from fossil fuels. They've been importing LNG to offset the electricity not coming from hydroelectric.
I can just see Bogota with rolling blackouts. Talk about protests! Residents would wonder why more thermal (fossil fuel fired) plant capacity wasn't being installed.
The problem with renewables is not with generation. They've got that cost down to less than 3 cents per kiloWatt-hour. The problem lies in the high cost of storage. Batteries store 1/60th the energy per unit mass compared to natural gas. Hydrocarbons are already stored solar energy. Phytoplankton to kerogen to hydrocarbons. Nature has already figured out how to pack free electrons into the smallest mass possible. Run the nat gas through fuel cells and voila electricity, water and CO2. If they don't like the CO2 then grow more trees.
Anyway, if they do strand hydrocarbons in the ground then it's value will only increase over time as Colombia starts suffering energy scarcity. Some right wing government will get elected and open up the hydrocarbon industry again. Unless they come up with cheap battery storage with energy density equivalent to hydrocarbons. I've been following renewables since 2008. Nothing new so far.Check out MIT Technology Review as a good source for where things are at. Hasta pronto amigo! Sea Bass for lunch today!