Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "How To Turn The Ocean Into A Battery | Answers With Joe" video.

  1. Brazilian here. Don't get me wrong, I think the concept is awesome and all, but I can tell you why it wouldn't catch in Brazil (for now), and surprisingly enough, it's not only because we're poor (which we are). On the energy front, we already have big reliance on... hydroelectrical power. My hometown is where the Itaipu dam is located, it provides power for the southern and southwestern region in Brazil where most power hungry capitals are. As some will know, it's second only to 3 Gorges Dam in China. Of course, we also have a huge mix of other power plants including nuclear, coal, gas and whatnot, as we also have other hidroelectrical power plants, a few solar and few wind turbine based ones. Like the US, Brazil is a huge country. Point being, government is unlikely to invest in new tech for power, given that we have far bigger problems to solve. It also doesn't help that we've been going on decades long stints of governments that puts technology, research and education as far bellow in the priority list as they can, seemingly. It's not only a problem of lack of government funding, it's part of culture and society too unfortunately. Brazil can't see itself as a progressive technological country. Instead of looking forwards, you still see a huge overreliance of base primary sector. Banana republic. We export cheap raw materials, and pay our asses for imported consumer goods. It's held back by all these factors, a governmental protectionist agenda that makes everything tech from outside the country cost double or more for brazilian citizens and businesses, so it's always an uphill battle. The few people who get a chance to excell in research and tech areas often moves out of the country to further develop in their respective area, because they feel abandoned in a country that doesn't value it. Insurmountable ammount of taxes, bureaucracy, historical lack of funding and resources, all gets in the way of whoever is trying to innovate in these areas here. I've heard so many tales of people feeling defeated and giving up that it's no wonder for me anymore. As for the other element, potable fresh water, Brazil is lying on top of some of the biggest fresh water reserves on the planet. Which as you can imagine, is both a blessing and a curse. It has developed into a culture of excess and disregard for water. With climate change, what has been happening in recent years is that several cities are facing water shortages during summer months. But it's not because we don't have enough fresh water - it's because infrastructure is limited. Large metropolitan areas highly dependent of only a few reserves that have been intermitently drying up during hot summers leaving tons of citizens without water. It could be solved without desalinization plants or something like this ocean thermal energy plant, just by tapping other reserves, but it's not done because infrastructure is costly and our government is too corrupt, too poor and too fucking dumb to effectively do something about it. Politicians are only thinking of how to empty our coffers for their own benefit, and how to re elect themselves to keep milking this cow. Our current president, for all the idiotic pandering to military dictatorship times he talked about, is ending up to be as corrupt and as unproductive as his predecessors. To be fair, despite all of the military dictatorship horrors brazilians had to endure, it was in the early days of it that most big infrasctructure projects happened in Brazil. Major roads, Itaipu dam, and several major infrastructure projects happened during the dictatorship. But nowadays, politicians are mostly worried about getting their fat checks, stealing as much as they can during their term, and then trying to go for a repeat or occupy some lesser public job so they can keep sucking the blood out of public coffers... you end up having zero major infrastructural projects because they don't have immediate returns, and in rare instances they happen, it is so likely that these projects will get derailed by corruption and bad management, that it's often just not worth the hassle. So there you go... it's a very interesting idea, but like Joe said, the location limitation is kind of a self defeating factor... well, at least in Brazil's case. We have a whole list of problems to solve before getting to that point, unfortunately. There is so much we could already be doing better..
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