“with wind the single-biggest contributor… Power production costs have declined “by almost half” … And the clean energy sector has created 50,000 new jobs… Ask me what was the impact on the electricity sector in Uruguay after this tragic war in Europe — zero.”

254 points

I actually never thought of it like that, if you’re not partaking in the trade of fossil fuels, you are removing yourself from a lot of potential conflicts and “who support who” ordeals.

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78 points

One of the main reasons the big players want (or even need) as many people globally to remain dependent on it as possible - control.

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38 points

That and petrolheads in politics. Who is so slow in renewables? USA and Germany.

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33 points

Carter tried to show the US the future but then he got replaced with Bad Human 1.0 Ronnie and it was all trashed.

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16 points

Germany has the most renewables per capita of any European nation and have been heavy investors for a long time now.

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4 points

Ironically it’s the US and German subsidies that kickstarted solar and brought costs down.

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1 point

Yep, lock the victim nations into a petroleum payment plan

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60 points

Yes, I think that one of the side effect of the war in Ukraine will be a big increase of renewables energy in Europe.

European countries started to realize how fragile their energy supply is and how dangerous it is.

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8 points
*

Sadly, in the meantime it also mean a surge of imports of fossil fuels from other countries and reopening extraction sites in EU. Reducing fossil fuel dependency really is the top priority of EU, not only for ecology but also for peace and for the economy.

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40 points

Wait until we have our first Wind War.

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65 points
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That’s what we call it after eating beans all day

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6 points

We call it Aladdin’s revenge. Turning the blanket into a flying carpet and all that.

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1 point

We’ll control the wind and rain. It was a saying in soviet block during cold war and elites really thought they would. By spraying chemicals in clouds etc. Disgusting.

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6 points

Cloud seeding? That’s very much a real thing, although its effectiveness is disputed.

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8 points

…Except China, where most renewables are produced.

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11 points

Except once you have the turbines and panels, you don’t have to keep importing resources to run them. Sure, you might need parts for maintenance, but if things go south it’s a lot easier to reverse engineer parts than to find new oil suppliers.

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9 points

Only because they produce them the cheapest and in the largest quantities (which goes hand in hand).

Basically any country can produce solar panels and wind turbines. Both technology and resource wise.

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1 point
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Deleted by creator
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79 points

We’ve been at ~95% renewable for years actually, but now we’ve reached 100%

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2 points

How do you cope when there is cloudy without wind?

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30 points

They also have hydropower which provides a constant base load, and basically they have just heavily optimised their distribution of power to be very efficient. In emergencies they are also able to import power from neighbouring countries.

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11 points

There are ways to store the power generated by renewables.

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-11 points

There are, but none is feasible today when it comes to mass storage. Or is there one?

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3 points

How often is there no wind anywhere?

How cloudy does it have to be so you can’t generate power?

Is it possible to store power?

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49 points

Looks like that’s just the grid? I’m sure there’s more to go for transportation and eliminating the need for generators and gas, but this is a great start!

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59 points

does anyone ever assume that it’s anything other than the grid when it comes to some article like this?

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12 points

electricity is’t the majority of the energy consumed in nearly any country.

it’s a easy way to keep confusing less vigilant people by calling electricity as energy.

Just call things the way they are.

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30 points
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You’re right; 2/3 of worldwide energy is actually waste heat.

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-energy-still-comes-from-oil-2015-10

Here’s the chart from 2007: Waste heat / losses are in the top right, although it doesn’t show the transport sector losses which are higher than for coal generation.

What this means is that when we fully electrify all sectors, by using renewable energy such as wind and solar, our total energy generation capacity will only need to be about 1/3 to 1/4 of what we currently produce today to fulfill our current energy needs. That’s huge.

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9 points

Electrically independent doesn’t have the same ring to it

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4 points

I mean I doubt any reasonable person would think that literally every household in Uruguay has replaced their gas stove with an electric/induction stove and that they use only AC/heat pumps and everyone has switched to an electric car and every bus has been converted to a trolley and or Battery/Hydrogen Electric

and a bunch of other stuff.

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-10 points

Too bad it’s far too late.

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48 points

Well done Uruguay.

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48 points

Meanwhile in South Africa, we’re having blackouts while being almost completely dependant on coal.

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18 points

I remembered reading many years ago about large solar plants in SA and I wondered what happened to that. Apparently Zuma happened: From a world leader in renewables, to years behind, thanks to Zuma and his cronies.

https://martinplaut.com/2022/07/14/how-zuma-and-his-cronies-destroyed-plans-for-south-africas-renewable-energy-revolution/

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13 points

But I bet the companies make a lot of profit on that, so all good \s

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6 points

Yep they kick back to the politicians so perfectly to plan

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7 points
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You know you need a lot of sun and wind for renewable energy?

Pretty sure South Africa has too little of it unlike those sunny and wind torn countries like, don’t know… Germany?

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5 points

Plus coal is more expensive power.

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