Garen Mouths Off
Energy in Armenia
Let’s start the year off with some good news in an all-important aspect of daily life, energy. But you’ll have to read through the important buildup to appreciate the importance of the actual news.
Recently, a few items have appeared in the news that suggest the Republic of Armenia is on the right track in the field of energy, that is going with renewables (solar, wind, and hydro-electric). Keep in mind that this realm is fraught with hazards, starting with what threatens the entire balance of life on our planet, climate change.
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This article contains a number of technical mistakes (e.g. the comparison between Metsamor and Chernobyl being the most glaring one).
But most importantly it’s misleading to talk about renewables without addressing their major weakness – intermittency.
Intermittency was addressed in that batteries for mass storage are in worldwide demand and are therefore being developed rapidly to supplement the existing solar tech.
Of course there are drawbacks with renewables although nothing too major that we know of. An incremental approach would allow for the most flexibility in dealing with unforeseen consequences. It’s probably best to keep electricity sources diversified if RoA wants to establish itself as an avenue for electricity, although environmentally responsible infrastructure should be cost efficient, especially in a nation that is geographically primed for renewables.
All these renewable energy talks around the globe are just talks for very rich nations with lots of taxes to spare. So far nuclear has proven to be the cleanest and safest bet for any energy source.
Perhaps it would be better to publish a deep investigative article about the cons of renewables both in immense cost of not just building but maintaining them (where do all the batteries go from the solar panels? and how about the fact that solar panels for instance are non recyclable material and you need a whole island full of them to power mere megawatts.
While we would all love to have pure clean safe energy, I think there is too much talk and no real educative information to raise awareness to the general public about that cost.
Has anyone asked how much Armenians would be forced to pay for “Renewables” VS what they pay now for Nuclear and gas? It would be costing far far more just like it costs more in various countries when they shut down their nuclear power plants, take Germany, California as examples to start with. Armenia is nowhere near in a position to afford such a switch.