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Basically, Lebanon had 30 years to figure out how to build basic infrastructure like a proper electrical grid and production (from 1990, the end of the civil wa

by anonu 4y ago

Basically, Lebanon had 30 years to figure out how to build basic infrastructure like a proper electrical grid and production (from 1990, the end of the civil war to present). Instead, crooks, thieves and fraudsters figured out how to bilk the nation of billions while leaving subpar services in their wake. My parents have had solar thermal collectors for hot water on their roof in Lebanon for 3 decades now... other than a few days in winter when you need to use the electric heater, its been a near perfect fit for purpose.

lucretian 4y ago
> Basically, Lebanon had 30 years to figure out how to build basic infrastructure like a proper electrical grid and production (from 1990, the end of the civil war to present). Instead, crooks, thieves and fraudsters figured out how to bilk the nation of billions while leaving subpar services in their wake. This is all true but it also did not help matters that Israel perpetually bombed power plants and related infrastructure in the country over the same period of time.
jraby3 4y ago
They do this in Israel too. The solar powered hot water heaters work wonderfully. However now with many more highrises being built they no longer are as popular and we are forced to use electric heaters.
- dotancohen 4y ago
  Unlike Lebanon, though, one cannot legally operate their solar panels to power a home while the electric grid is down in Israel. From what I understand, the Lebanese are used to working around the failings of their government in all aspects of life: work, shopping, now banking, and even education where possible. I don't know about water supplies or roads, but from what I heard the Lebanese view their government more as a siphon of their earnings and resources than as a provider of services and order.
  - fnbr 4y ago
    > Unlike Lebanon, though, one cannot legally operate their solar panels to power a home while the electric grid is down in Israel. That’s fascinating! Can you say more?
    - itsrajju 4y ago
      Not the parent. It's likely a safety issue in the case of grid-connected solar installations. These panels are designed to send excess electricity to the grid, and if the grid is down, the utility needs to make sure that busted cables are not carrying electricity... for the safety of the repairmen. https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/do-blackouts-affect-homes-with-solar-panels-sometimes/ https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/do-blackouts-...
      - nibbleshifter 4y ago
        Preventing backfeeding during an outage isn't a hard problem, technically speaking...
        zo1 4y ago
        It's a default feature in grid tied inverters from what I've been told.
        sgerenser 4y ago
        Yes, but the most common way they do this is just by shutting down completely and not accepting any input from the solar panels. You need to move up to more expensive models that support “islanding” to be able to use solar power while the grid is down. For some reason it appears that this type of inverter isn’t legal in Israel?
    - IcePic 4y ago
      In Sweden the same applies, at least if you have panels that can feed back excess into the grid for payment. In case the main grid goes off, your equipment is supposed to stop working so that it doesn't feed power backwards into the grid while some person is trying to fix whatever broke, so unless you have a battery/UPS and a large switch to flip, your solar panels "die" along with the grid. The alternative would be to have totally separated panels, but many opt in to selling excess back, since it gets more and more profitable as prices go up.
WeylandYutani 4y ago
My energy prices quadrupled thanks to Putin but at least the system has a 99.99% reliability.
toomuchtodo 4y ago
Are heat pumps common in Lebanon?
- oblio 4y ago
  My guess? Not. They probably have AC, but heat pumps are expensive and the lower the income the less interest in the "environment" or "pollution". People just use whatever's cheapest upfront.
  - DFHippie 4y ago
    Off topic, but... Why do you put "environment" and "pollution" in quotes? My guess is you don't believe, or mean to convey that you believe, that these are phony concepts or issues, but that lower income people treat these as someone else's concern. I find this linguistically interesting. Someone could write a paper about this. Perhaps someone has.
    - oblio 4y ago
      Because poor people don't care about them if their lives become worse. That's the sad truth. I mean, they do care about them, but their lives already suck a ton so distant doom is not really on their radar when faced with constant, present doom. Simple example: EVs are arguably less polluting. So there might be a need for a policy to ban ICEs, which are much, much less expensive monetarily. That would mean poor people wouldn't be able to buy and use cars, at all. So poor people will obviously vote against that. It both makes sense and it's sad at the same time. Oh, to clarify: rich people also pollute a ton and don't care about the environment, but they have the luxury of not caring if environmentally sound but more expensive policies are adopted (they can go "whatever" and do the right thing with no major personal loss for them). On top of that, it is the rich people's responsibility to find environmentally sound policies which are acceptable to everyone, since they're the ones with most of the power. Edit: Oh, you don't have to believe me. Go talk to 100 low income people (construction workers, cooks, waiter, nannies, agricultural workers, etc) about the environment, it will be quite eye opening for ivory tower folks.
ajcp 4y ago
"Lebanon had 30 years to figure out how to build basic infrastructure" "My parents have had solar thermal collectors for hot water on their roof in Lebanon for 3 decades now" For 30 years now your parents have circumvented the state. Welcome to Lebanon.
- alex_smart 4y ago
  Welcome to any third-world developing country basically.
ycombinete 4y ago
This is exactly the same situation in South Africa, where "solar power is [also] booming". We had world class infrastructure that not only wasn't updated, but has been looted, or left to rot. Now the water systems are also failing. Expect bore-holes and home-filtration to be "booming" in South Africa too in the near future.
- qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
  Seems the west exports state service failures as a privatization product.
  - rowtheway 4y ago
    South Africa’s infrastructure failures have little to do with privatization or “the West,” and far more to do with self-inflicted brain drain, a general lack of expertise and project management skills, theft, crime, and corruption: https://saice.org.za/downloads/SAICE-2022-Infrastructure-Report-Card.pdf https://saice.org.za/downloads/SAICE-2022-Infrastructure-Rep...
    - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
      Its not only south africa. Its england, its europe, the concept of failing state services via lobbyism, then privatization of basic services, seems to be part of the us colonial model. Cant argue with it being good for buisness, its just bad for the people living in such a society.
      - robertlagrant 4y ago
        You're imposing a completely inappropriate explanation. South Africa is not falling victim to US lobbying. Its problems in this area are as listed by previous poster. As for the other countries: it's very difficult to keep any state services running well. They have to constantly resist bloat; budget defence strategies; policies that make it impossible to remove low-performing employees; and they have little or not incentive to do any of those things. The only way they ever worked was when run by personally motivated leaders who wanted to run them leanly, or (more often) on fabulously wealthy economies that can afford them. Sadly those economies have taken huge strain for various reasons. There's no need to invoke silly anti-US conspiracy theories.

by anonu 4y ago

lucretian 4y ago

> Basically, Lebanon had 30 years to figure out how to build basic infrastructure like a proper electrical grid and production (from 1990, the end of the civil war to present). Instead, crooks, thieves and fraudsters figured out how to bilk the nation of billions while leaving subpar services in their wake. This is all true but it also did not help matters that Israel perpetually bombed power plants and related infrastructure in the country over the same period of time.

jraby3 4y ago

They do this in Israel too. The solar powered hot water heaters work wonderfully. However now with many more highrises being built they no longer are as popular and we are forced to use electric heaters.

dotancohen 4y ago
Unlike Lebanon, though, one cannot legally operate their solar panels to power a home while the electric grid is down in Israel. From what I understand, the Lebanese are used to working around the failings of their government in all aspects of life: work, shopping, now banking, and even education where possible. I don't know about water supplies or roads, but from what I heard the Lebanese view their government more as a siphon of their earnings and resources than as a provider of services and order.
- fnbr 4y ago
  > Unlike Lebanon, though, one cannot legally operate their solar panels to power a home while the electric grid is down in Israel. That’s fascinating! Can you say more?
  - itsrajju 4y ago
    Not the parent. It's likely a safety issue in the case of grid-connected solar installations. These panels are designed to send excess electricity to the grid, and if the grid is down, the utility needs to make sure that busted cables are not carrying electricity... for the safety of the repairmen. https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/do-blackouts-affect-homes-with-solar-panels-sometimes/ https://www.cnet.com/home/energy-and-utilities/do-blackouts-...
    - nibbleshifter 4y ago
      Preventing backfeeding during an outage isn't a hard problem, technically speaking...
      - zo1 4y ago
        It's a default feature in grid tied inverters from what I've been told.
        sgerenser 4y ago
        Yes, but the most common way they do this is just by shutting down completely and not accepting any input from the solar panels. You need to move up to more expensive models that support “islanding” to be able to use solar power while the grid is down. For some reason it appears that this type of inverter isn’t legal in Israel?
  - IcePic 4y ago
    In Sweden the same applies, at least if you have panels that can feed back excess into the grid for payment. In case the main grid goes off, your equipment is supposed to stop working so that it doesn't feed power backwards into the grid while some person is trying to fix whatever broke, so unless you have a battery/UPS and a large switch to flip, your solar panels "die" along with the grid. The alternative would be to have totally separated panels, but many opt in to selling excess back, since it gets more and more profitable as prices go up.

WeylandYutani 4y ago

My energy prices quadrupled thanks to Putin but at least the system has a 99.99% reliability.

toomuchtodo 4y ago

Are heat pumps common in Lebanon?

oblio 4y ago
My guess? Not. They probably have AC, but heat pumps are expensive and the lower the income the less interest in the "environment" or "pollution". People just use whatever's cheapest upfront.
- DFHippie 4y ago
  Off topic, but... Why do you put "environment" and "pollution" in quotes? My guess is you don't believe, or mean to convey that you believe, that these are phony concepts or issues, but that lower income people treat these as someone else's concern. I find this linguistically interesting. Someone could write a paper about this. Perhaps someone has.
  - oblio 4y ago
    Because poor people don't care about them if their lives become worse. That's the sad truth. I mean, they do care about them, but their lives already suck a ton so distant doom is not really on their radar when faced with constant, present doom. Simple example: EVs are arguably less polluting. So there might be a need for a policy to ban ICEs, which are much, much less expensive monetarily. That would mean poor people wouldn't be able to buy and use cars, at all. So poor people will obviously vote against that. It both makes sense and it's sad at the same time. Oh, to clarify: rich people also pollute a ton and don't care about the environment, but they have the luxury of not caring if environmentally sound but more expensive policies are adopted (they can go "whatever" and do the right thing with no major personal loss for them). On top of that, it is the rich people's responsibility to find environmentally sound policies which are acceptable to everyone, since they're the ones with most of the power. Edit: Oh, you don't have to believe me. Go talk to 100 low income people (construction workers, cooks, waiter, nannies, agricultural workers, etc) about the environment, it will be quite eye opening for ivory tower folks.

ajcp 4y ago

"Lebanon had 30 years to figure out how to build basic infrastructure" "My parents have had solar thermal collectors for hot water on their roof in Lebanon for 3 decades now" For 30 years now your parents have circumvented the state. Welcome to Lebanon.

alex_smart 4y ago
Welcome to any third-world developing country basically.

ycombinete 4y ago

This is exactly the same situation in South Africa, where "solar power is [also] booming". We had world class infrastructure that not only wasn't updated, but has been looted, or left to rot. Now the water systems are also failing. Expect bore-holes and home-filtration to be "booming" in South Africa too in the near future.

qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
Seems the west exports state service failures as a privatization product.
- rowtheway 4y ago
  South Africa’s infrastructure failures have little to do with privatization or “the West,” and far more to do with self-inflicted brain drain, a general lack of expertise and project management skills, theft, crime, and corruption: https://saice.org.za/downloads/SAICE-2022-Infrastructure-Report-Card.pdf https://saice.org.za/downloads/SAICE-2022-Infrastructure-Rep...
  - qikInNdOutReply 4y ago
    Its not only south africa. Its england, its europe, the concept of failing state services via lobbyism, then privatization of basic services, seems to be part of the us colonial model. Cant argue with it being good for buisness, its just bad for the people living in such a society.
    - robertlagrant 4y ago
      You're imposing a completely inappropriate explanation. South Africa is not falling victim to US lobbying. Its problems in this area are as listed by previous poster. As for the other countries: it's very difficult to keep any state services running well. They have to constantly resist bloat; budget defence strategies; policies that make it impossible to remove low-performing employees; and they have little or not incentive to do any of those things. The only way they ever worked was when run by personally motivated leaders who wanted to run them leanly, or (more often) on fabulously wealthy economies that can afford them. Sadly those economies have taken huge strain for various reasons. There's no need to invoke silly anti-US conspiracy theories.