This year’s U.N. climate summit, COP30, has just ended in Brazil. There were 1,600 fossil fuel lobbyists in attendance, a bigger delegation than any other country, other than host Brazil. They managed to strip talk of a permanent transition from fossil fuels from the final agreement.
But they are only delaying the inevitable. Most countries want a permanent end to fossil fuels, and the action to make it happen is happening outside of structures that the fossil fuel industry can't subvert.
Uruguay is another sign that this is happening. They used to say near-100% renewable power grids were impossible, but they were wrong. Some will say it still can't happen in big countries with heavy industry, but they'll be proved wrong, too.
Uruguay’s Renewable Charge: A Small Nation, A Big Lesson For The World
Uruguay has built a power grid that is 99% renewables—at half the cost of fossil fuels. The physicist who led that transformation says the same playbook could work anywhere else.
byu/lughnasadh inFuturology
4 Comments
Still 25% is biomass and hydro at this scale is not available in most locations.
So albeit Uruguay is great success it is not 100% clean and applicable everywhere.
Even blue collar workers are done with the stinky messy fuels. The only folks that still want it are business men in suits.
“Anywhere else”
How?
20% of electricity comes from single hydroelectric dam, and another 10% comes from 4 more dams.
And momentary hydro generation sometimes approach 45%.
In most countries if You build dams in ALL possible locations it wouldn’t even approach that 1/3 , so how can they do the “same”?
Is the physicist a liar or are they stupid? 50% of Uruguay’s power is hydro. That obviously can’t work anywhere