When I went to Bangkok last week, my plane
landed at midnight. I saw the huge, wide, extensive well-lighted areas of
Thailand, even hundreds of kms. away from Bangkok proper. Very very few dark
areas. They must have cheap and stable power sources.
This photo I got from the web, that's in Bangkok already.
Even outside Bangkok, there are just too many lights, they do not economize on
energy as electricity prices I think are cheap and affordable.
When electricity prices are high, like in the PH, aside
from bad economic repercussions, there are two major social problems when many streets
and roads are dark: More crimes and more road accidents. Criminals love darkness,
they can see their victims well while potential victims can hardly recognize
the criminals. There are many road accidents too.
Thailand heavily relies on natural gas, 68% of their total energy needs
as of 2011.
Source: ADB, Key Indicators of Asia and the Pacific 2014.
Is this "because of the oligarchs"? Well, almost all countries have their own oligarchs,
some even have monarchies on top of the business oligarchs. So, the answer is No. The
volume of power generation capacity matters a lot. See the above table, in 2011, TH
electricity output was 156 B kWh, vs PH's 69 B kWh, or more than 2x ours.
They are also less affected by the climate alarmism of
the WWF, Greenpeace, UN, Al Gore, etc. as they rely more on fossil fuel energy
like natural gas.
Darkness means more poverty and less business activities.
Darkness means more candles and more fires.
Darkness means more noisy
and expensive generator sets running on fossil fuel diesel.
Darkness means more crimes and more road
accidents at night.
The planet saviours and their hypocrisy think these are not
crimes to humanity.
Geothermal is still there, contributes about 10% or so in
total PH power supply.
Below are some reports how climate alarmism wants to kill any new fossil fuel power plant, they would rather have intermittent and unstable power, more expensive electricity, than have coal plant.
A friend commented that "bright nights are not always signs of better development and progress."
True, and if people want early darkness, no problem. They just turn off all lights in their house or office by 7pm and sleep early. Now some buildings, offices and houses need to have lights until 12 midnight, or 24 hours -- why should other people be penalized with frequent darkness, or expensive electricity?
Government should get out picking winners and losers via favoritism and energy cronyism.
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See also:
BWorld 15, The PH electricity market, August 15, 2015
BWorld 17, More on the Philippine electricity market, August 30, 2015
Energy 41, On low global oil prices, September 05, 2015
Energy 42, DENR's anti-coal alarmism and PH power demand realities, September 21, 2015
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