A new report from the International Energy Agency
(IA) and the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA) highlights seven countries that are now generating over 99.7% of their electricity from renewable sources.
The champions of renewable energy include Iceland, Norway, Paraguay, Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, and the Democratic Republic of Congo. Their reliance on geothermal, hydro, solar, and wind power showcases the immense potential of these clean energy sources.
What are your views on larger and more populated countries trying to do the same?
https://the-nexus-now.beehiiv.com/p/intels-hala-point-teslas-q1-7-nations?utm_source=the-nexus-now.beehiiv.com&utm_medium=newsletter&utm_campaign=intel-s-hala-point-tesla-s-q1-and-the-7-nations
Source: Alphaplop
2 Comments
there’s no real proof that renewables can support modern economies on a large scale, even the countries that have been listed down are smaller nations with a relatively tiny population. When it comes to the US or china, i dont think such large scales renewables would work long term even though they claim it will, although this is just my opinion
Albania – 99% hydro < 1% solar.
Bhutan – 100% Hydro
Paraguay – 100% Hydro
Nepal – 98.5% hydro, 1.5% solar+Wind
Ethiopia – 96% hydro, 4% wind, trace solar.
Democratic Republic of COngo – >99% hydro, trace solar.
Iceland – 70% hydro, 30% geothermal, trace wind.
Seeing a trend here? These countries are all heavily cherry picked examples, that don’t show anything about the viability of renewable energy at larger scale. They all have extremely high renewable penetration because of the high availability of hydroelectricity resources compared to their population’s electricity demand (with iceland supplemented by geothermal). That’s not something you can graft onto the rest of the worlds population at all.
Also, you can see that solar and wind make up a negligible fraciton of the electricity production for these 7 countries, so claiming “Their reliance on […] solar and wind power showcases the immense potential of these clean energy sources” is foolish. Solar and wind should not even be in that conversation: All these countries example shows is that if you have excellent hydro & geothermal sources, you can generate lots of electricity from them without relying on fossil fuels.
If you want to point to countries suggesting the viability of variable renewables at scale, point to countries like Denmark, Portugal, Uruguay, who each have under 25% reliance on fossil fuel for electricity, with greater than 40% solar+wind reliance. Those are far better indicators that this transition is probably possible, then are these handful of outliers that have huge hydro dams.