Chile Forum

aside from the issue of how to generate electricity, i don't see any evidence of an environmental movement. there is no "green party", or any effective network to accomplish simple, basic things like a recycling program. what does exist is a kind of fuzzy generalization about energy production being bad for the environment. well...yeah....it is. every form of generating electricity has an impact on the environment. what we have seen up to this point is simply choosing the easiest, cheapest method, which also happens to be one of the worst options for the environment. it's hard for me to understand how people can be vehemently opposed to a geothermal plant on environmental grounds, for example, but they accept coal and gas fired plants without complaint and make no effort to recycle their own trash. it's inconsistent, and it's weird.

cali_chile48 wrote:aside from the issue of how to generate electricity, i don't see any evidence of an environmental movement. there is no "green party", or any effective network to accomplish simple, basic things like a recycling program. what does exist is a kind of fuzzy generalization about energy production being bad for the environment. well...yeah....it is. every form of generating electricity has an impact on the environment. what we have seen up to this point is simply choosing the easiest, cheapest method, which also happens to be one of the worst options for the environment. it's hard for me to understand how people can be vehemently opposed to a geothermal plant on environmental grounds, for example, but they accept coal and gas fired plants without complaint and make no effort to recycle their own trash. it's inconsistent, and it's weird.

It's often said that a point of view from the patagonia may not reflect how others perceive this country. The years-long battle over the new hidro-Aysen programme, and the ongoing challenges to the Pascua Lama project have resulted in millions of dollars of additional costs and long delays because of the efforts of the many environmentalist factions in Chile and their cohorts in the trendy-Socialist component of CL government. Their organisations are not given the sort of press that something like the US Sierra Club used to get, and no, there is no significant "Green Party." But neither is there such a party in the US, and one can hardly deny that environmental madness in that country has had costly impacts and economic curtailment, along with driving many industries offshore. We are now looking at a protracted and expensive and potentially disruptive series of challenges and worse over the reopening of coal mining on Riesco Island here in the patagonia, a point which I covered in earlier posts. There were several arrests of enviro demonstrators in Santiago over that issue just a few days ago. Their protest is futile under the current government, which would tend to support your thesis, but their variably dedicated adherents are legion.

Regarding recycling, there are programmes in place, hardly large scale, but consistent with third-world half-measures (doing the math, does that become a one-sixth measure?) There are also hazardous-material recovery programmes. The enviros were also instrumental in reducing the availability of effective pesticides for residential use (part of the reason that most houses down here are now infested by tijeretas during several months).

So what do we have for electrical energy generation in Chile? Iffy hydro this year due to low snowfall and reservoir depletion. Mini-hydro in Aysen. Gas-fired generation on mostly imported gas subject to cut-off at any time. A little experimental geothermal, but not much. Very little coal-fired anymore and anyway not much coal in Chile. Diesel-fired generators, also on imported and at-risk supply. A tiny bit of wind and photovoltaic. Anything else? A seriously vulnerable system on the basis of supply alone, without even opening the issue of energy grid distribution risks.

Even though the usual media don't make a big deal of the enviros and their shenanigans, there are a number of groups out there. They range from the Greenpeace Chile that most know about, to those with lower recognition to foreigners with national-level organisation and presence, such as the Red Nacional de Acción Ecológica (RENACE), Fundacion Terram, Chileambiente, Ecosistemas, CODEFF, Ecoceanos, and several dozen others. And there are additional dozens of regional enviro/greenish grouplings. Every university seems to have its own eco-action organisation. Down here we have Frente Defensa Ecológico, whose principal communication medium seems to be a brace of guitars. The infamous Asamblea Ciudadana de Magallanes, which recently paralysed this region with strikes that cost business more than US$14 million, began with a platform that included major regional environmental issues. So there certainly are a number of groups. Most are characteristically incompetent when viewed from a eurocentric perspective, but Chile's Socialist politicians have long had a large ear for the congenitally incompetent and the perennially whiny.

I talked to one of the Mercedes-driving former governors of this province about the Argentine coal-fired plant being built just a few kilometers from Puerto Natales, and questioned him on why this region in Chile does not support a coal-fired plant to diversify its energy production now that the available natural gas supply is disappearing. His answer? Coal burning is too dirty. No understanding of economic tradeoffs, just keep burning the natural gas until there is no more. No knowledge of the coal plant scrubbers and the fly-ash controls and how the civilised nations manage to produce energy efficiently using coal in more densely populated regions. Zero technical knowledge and all enviro propaganda. The consummate politician and the reason Chile can't develop a meaningful energy policy, but is willing to delay and "study" the issues to avoid confronting the greenies, until the country simply finds itself unable to produce enough electricity. As is the case this year.

BTW if you are interested in some of the Sgto efforts for recycling and hazmat collection, there are several sites that describe those measures. Here is one that popped up from 2009. Is it big-time? No. But Chile is done in half-measures or worse and we are all used to that. Just as the Chilean Post gets undeserved prizes for customer service, many of the "green" efforts in Chile are (as you perhaps suggested) a bit of a sham but a sham that gets similarly unmerited recognition.

http://www.tuverde.com/2009/03/reciclaj ... la-ciudad/
tire materials plant recycling in Chile http://www.thisischile.cl/Articles.aspx ... -&idioma=1 and so on