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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)

#171

Post by watwut »

littlestymaar wrote: post #148
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.

The definition of “major accident” used in nuclear is orders of magnitude more strict than in any other industries though, which distort the picture. The worst nuclear accident involving a nuclear plant (Chernobyl, which occurred in a country without regulation for all intent and purpose) killed less people than the food processing industry cause every year (and I'm not counting long term health effect of junk food,…

I am pretty sure we dont need to evacuate large areas and keep sarcofag over former food processing plants.

The chernobyl was poisoning Russian soldiers by the start of Ukrainian invasion when they were dumb enough to sleep there.

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

#172

Post by flakiness »

Japan used to have many dams for the electricity but then scaled them down (or not scale it up) due to environmental concern. I'm not sure it was a right call given the limited availability of options there. They are also strong anti-nuclear sentiment which I have some sympathy. However you need something you have to make a call.

This map says hydro share is like 8%. https://app.electricitymaps.com/map/zone/JP/live/fifteen_min...

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

#173

Post by bartvk »

graemep wrote: post #145
input_sh wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess somewhat of a fun fact: Albania has rented(!) two floating(!) oil-powered power plants near the city of Vlöre that are there in case of emergency. The last time they were really needed was in 2022 (if I remember correctly), but these days they're not turned on any more than they need to be to make sure they're operating properly. That very expensive backup system is basically the only non-renewable source in…

Sri Lanka used to rely on hydro, with oil as a backup, and has added a lot of coal. I wonder how many other countries are increasing non-renewable output?

Not increasing but cancelling plans on phasing out. Here in The Netherlands, an absolutely minuscule country of ~18 million people, two coal plants will remain online that previously would've been phased out.

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

#174

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

input_sh wrote: post #41
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…

I guess somewhat of a fun fact: Albania has rented(!) two floating(!) oil-powered power plants near the city of Vlöre that are there in case of emergency. The last time they were really needed was in 2022 (if I remember correctly), but these days they're not turned on any more than they need to be to make sure they're operating properly. That very expensive backup system is basically the only non-renewable source in…

> I think it's also worth pointing out that nothing really changed because of climate change, the decision to rely on hydro was made in the 90s.

Why do you think it is worth pointing this out?

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

#175

Post by znkynz »

colechristensen wrote: post #90
ambicapter wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Or just use nuclear as base load, and battery storage as much as you can.

You don't need battery storage if you've got hydro. You need solar. Make hydro the backup, fill reservoirs as your reserve and sell extra energy when they're nearly full.

There are two types of hydro - run of river, and ones with large lake storage. You need the ones with large lake storage, rather that the ones with a lake to build a head.

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

#176

Post by yownie »

amarant wrote: post #111

Honestly surprised Iceland doesn't rely more on geothermal, the entire country is a volcano! I had expected a 70-30 split in the other direction

most people from abroad do, but most of that geothermal goes to home heating and not power generation too.

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

#177

Post by PaulDavisThe1st »

sumea wrote: post #164
ZeroGravitas wrote: post #73

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Finland has electricified 40% of primary energy which is pretty much world leading (Sweden and Norway are 50%). European average is 19%. Largest chunk left is transport which can mostly be electrified now. Industrial and home heat too. There are hard to electrify sections in both but overall it's fairly obvious what to do next. And the easy parts eliminate 3 or 4 units of primary energy for every one they replace, so…

Yes, ground transport (except long distance trucks) can be electrified now. In principle, most homes could be heated with electricity if we had means to store all the "excess" wind energy or waste heat from e.g. datacenters and use it in district heating. The technology for heat storage is mostly ready but the capacity is not. But would it be easy or obvious what to do next? Absolutely not. Everything is simple if yo…

> In principle, most homes could be heated with electricity if we had means to store all the "excess" wind energy or waste heat from e.g. datacenters

Most homes are hundreds or thousands of miles from a datacenter.

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

#178

Post by nicoburns »

realo wrote: post #24

Perovskite Tandem are the best , according to the graph. Why is it that those are reserved for ultra-big utility companies and I cannot buy those for my home or even my balcony?

They're much more expensive than traditional silicon cells, they often use toxic materials (lead, cadmium, etc), and IIRC their lifespans aren't as long. Unless you have significant space constraints it's usually better just to get twice as many traditional panels.

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

#179

Post by leonidasrup »

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 than 120 world leaders assembled. “New research shows that by 2050 clean, renewable energy could supply 100 percent of the world’s energy needs using existing technologies, and it would create millions of jobs.”

https://cee.stanford.edu/news/what-do-mark-z-jacobson-leonar...

The 100% renewable papers by Mark Z. Jacobson were subject to strong criticism. Jacobson filed a lawsuit in 2017 against the Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences and Christopher Clack as the principal author of the paper for defamation. In February 2024, Jacobson lost the appeal and was required to pay defendants more than $500,000 in legal fees.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mark_Z._Jacobson

Jacobson is also very strong critic of nuclear energy. In calculating CO2 emissions from using nuclear energy, he includes carbon emissions associated with the burning of cities resulting from a nuclear war aided by the expansion of nuclear energy and weapons to countries previously without them.

Jacobson assumes that some form of nuclear induced burning that will occur once every 30 years.

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

#180

Post by littlestymaar »

watwut wrote: post #171
littlestymaar wrote: post #148

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The definition of “major accident” used in nuclear is orders of magnitude more strict than in any other industries though, which distort the picture. The worst nuclear accident involving a nuclear plant (Chernobyl, which occurred in a country without regulation for all intent and purpose) killed less people than the food processing industry cause every year (and I'm not counting long term health effect of junk food,…

I am pretty sure we dont need to evacuate large areas and keep sarcofag over former food processing plants. The chernobyl was poisoning Russian soldiers by the start of Ukrainian invasion when they were dumb enough to sleep there.

> I am pretty sure we dont need to evacuate large areas and keep sarcofag over former food processing plants.

If we only tolerated the same long term risk level for food, you wouldn't be be eating anything but organic vegetables. The fact that we put a sarcophagus to prevent material from leaking is just the reflection of the accepted limits. Flint water crisis was much more dangerous than leaving Chernobyl without the latest sarcophagus but nobody cared for a decade.

> The chernobyl was poisoning Russian soldiers by the start of Ukrainian invasion

The stories of acute radiation poisoning have been debunked repeatedly, there simply isn't enough radioactive material left there to cause such symptoms (it's still a very bad idea to eat mushrooms or the meat of wild animals living there, you'd risk long term cancer, but nothing close to acute radiation poisoning, it's simply not possible from a physics standpoint).

And again, we're talking about an accident that happened in Soviet Union on a reactor absolutely not designed with safety in mind and with a Soviet party member who threatened the engineers into bypassing safety mechanism in order to operate outside of the design domain of the plant. And the resulting accident was nowhere near close to the Bhopal catastrophe.

Chemical site have deadly accidents every other years and nobody seems to care but they'll obsess about nuclear ones even when they barely kill anyone. And chemical plants accident do leave long lasting pollution with durable health effect, but we don't permanently evacuate the places because we tolerate the risk.

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