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Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

the-independent.com

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Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#181

Post by raptor99 »

leonidasrup wrote: post #179

The article cites research publication by Stanford University professor of civil and environmental engineering Mark Z. Jacobson, very famous 100% wind, water, and sunlight (WWS) advocate. His past research was already cited by Leonardo DiCaprio on Sept. 23 2014, during opening of the UN Climate Summit. “The good news is that renewable energy is not only achievable but good economic policy,” DiCaprio told the more tha…

Whew, very glad that a leading scientific voice like DiCaprio is speaking of this to world leaders. Solid foundations.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#182

Post by lxgr »

ZeroGravitas wrote: post #79
jacquesm wrote: post #31

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And have either a small population or a very low per-person energy budget. But: 7 isn't the number that matters, what matters is that next year it will be 8 or 9. That would be worth documenting.

With modern tech, these 100% renewable electricity countries have effectively overshot. Many other countries would be better off getting to 85% and then shifting to focusing more on EV and heat pump uptake to get the best bang per buck.

Don't you need even more than 100% (of your prior consumption) to remain renewable if you also switch to EVs and heat pumps? Why would 85% be enough?

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#183

Post by lxgr »

Flere-Imsaho wrote: post #120
phtrivier wrote: post #27

> Albania, Bhutan, Nepal, Paraguay, Iceland, Ethiopia and the Democratic Republic of Congo produced more than 99.7 per cent of the electricity they consumed using geothermal, hydro, solar or wind power. Let's head to electricitymaps.com ! Albania ( https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/AL/live/fifteen_min... ) - On 2026-04-12 16:45 GMT+2, 22,67% of electricity consumed by Albania is imported from Greece, which gen…

Hydro electricity is also one of the most dangerous forms of energy production: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure (This is the worst disaster, but could put Chernobyl to shame?) Full list here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st...

Sure, if you consider only local dangers and don't care at all about regional or global externalities.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#184

Post by derriz »

jacquesm wrote: post #93
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #79

Earlier quoted context omitted.

With modern tech, these 100% renewable electricity countries have effectively overshot. Many other countries would be better off getting to 85% and then shifting to focusing more on EV and heat pump uptake to get the best bang per buck.

Quite a few developed countries have privatized their electrical grids. The effects - predictable - were rent seeking behavior without the necessary investments to remain future proof. This is now catching up with us in a big way, the electrification is going to lag behind considerably on account of this. I wrote about that in 2016, https://jacquesmattheij.com/the-problem-with-evs/ , and even though the situation has…

> In a world where all the cars and trucks are electric you’re going to have to roughly supply your average highway with infrastructure comparable to the energy consumption of the cars on that highway (or the cities around it)

This is not true. Worldwide, typically about 80% of the energy used to charge EVs globally comes from a private connection. And the vast majority of that energy is drawn from the grid off-peak when transmission systems etc. are underutilized. You article reflects a mindset that envisages EVs working like ICE based transport.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#185

Post by NoLinkToMe »

runako wrote: post #57

Pushback against the outliers of small + blessed with hydro and geothermal is overshadowing real wins: - California: 83% renewable, dominated by solar - Spain: 73%, dominated by solar & wind - Portugal: 90%, dominated by wind & solar - The Netherlands: 86%, dominated by solar & wind - Great Britain: 71%, dominated by wind & solar There's real momentum happening.

Are you just drawing from today's figures? Or annual figures?

I just checked for NL and in the past 12 months it's 50/50 for electricity (fossil/renewable), with about 10% of the renewables being biomass which isn't particularly renewable.

For NL for example we import wood pellets from North America and then burn them. Yeah, not great. Essentially it's releasing emissions by burning 30-40 years of American forests, which might be replanted, and will have soaked up the Co2 around 2065. Therefore it gets to count those emissions as zero (renewable), despite having a full effect on climate change in the next half century which is critical. Not to mention there's a 15% roundtrip loss from logging, shipping etc.

Agree there's real momentum but these are misleading figures.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#186

Post by NoLinkToMe »

bopjesvla wrote: post #154
teamonkey wrote: post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/NL/12mo/monthly

That’s just a random website. Dutch bureau of statistics: https://www.cbs.nl/nl-nl/longread/rapportages/2025/hernieuwb...

It's not just 'a random website' and it aligns with CBS numbers.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#187

Post by NoLinkToMe »

bopjesvla wrote: post #157
IshKebab wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is just goalpost moving. Only a couple of decades ago we were at a solid 0% everywhere.

> The Netherlands: 86%, dominated by solar & wind The Netherlands: 50%, of which one third is biomass. As someone living in the Netherlands, I would love to live in energy utopia, but stats reported by people who can’t read Dutch government reports are usually wrong.

Nah about 5% of electricity is from biomass, not 33%. The 33% figure is regarding gross energy production, not electricity. Otherwise agreed.

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#188

Post by lxgr »

pfdietz wrote: post #97
leonidasrup wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

In comparison, averaged over the year and the day, the Earth's atmosphere receives 340 W/m^2 from the Sun. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#On_Earth's_su...

This leads naturally to "artificial geothermal", where solar energy is used to heat rocks or soil, and the heat is later extracted. It doesn't have to be anywhere near as deep as ordinary geothermal, which had to accumulate that heat over many thousands of years. Just ~10 meters is about enough.

That's not where natural geothermal energy is from. It's residual heat from planetary formation and some natural radioactivity.

This form of storage also unfortunately only yields heat (via heat pumps or directly), not electricity, as the temperature difference is much too low in comparison to meaningfully run any heat engine from it.

Great if you need to heat houses; not so great if you were hoping to store the solar energy for a rainy, or rather cloudy, day (or night).

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#189

Post by lxgr »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #150
Tepix wrote: post #131

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it unnecessary burden? We've had major nuclear accidents despite regulations and that was before 9/11 and dron wars.

What's the fatality rate per GWh of civilian nuclear power in the US vs. other forms of power generation?

Are you rhetorically or actually asking? I'd guess significantly lower than coal and gas, and in the ballpark of (but still higher than) solar and wind combined (in the expected value, i.e. probability of a Chernobyl-like disaster times the death toll of that).

Re: Seven countries now generate nearly all their electricity from renewables (2024)

#190

Post by zekrioca »

ZeWaka wrote: post #170
sesm wrote: post #165

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Nuclear is not renewable though, those isotopes were created when some past generation star collapsed as supernova.

Solar will no longer be renewable in 5 billion years as well.

But it is today
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