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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)

#271

Post by AnthonyMouse »

gpm wrote: post #256
belorn wrote: post #251

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Lets put down some Swedish numbers. During the coldest winter month, solar energy produce (as per statistics from the solar industry in Sweden) somewhere around 3-7% of the amount produced during the warmest month. Households also consume around 2-4 times the amount of energy during the coldest month compared to the warmest month. Sweden is a country where only a small minority have air conditioning installed at home…

Yeah but: 1. Sweden is just about the worst case, there's very few countries/people that far north. 2. There's this genius invention called "wires". HVDC has transmission losses on the order of 3.5% per 1,000km. You don't have to colocate the solar.

> Sweden is just about the worst case, there's very few countries/people that far north.

Sweden is worse but it's still a significant issue in e.g. New York or Paris or Auckland.

> There's genius invention called "wires". HVDC has transmission losses on the order of 3.5% per 1,000km. You don't have to colocate the solar.

It's more than 1000km from the places that get cold to a part of the world where it isn't winter.

Suppose we ignore that it's winter in the US Northeast and Southeast at the same time and run HVDC 2000+ km to Florida because it gets an extra hour of sunlight. Long distance transmission can't be used to counter seasonal output and regional weather at the same time because one requires the generation to be spread everywhere and the other requires it to be concentrated closer to the equator. If we concentrate the solar in Florida to mitigate winter in New England then we're screwed when Florida is overcast.

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

#273

Post by thrdbndndn »

teamonkey wrote: post #152
bopjesvla wrote: post #110

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> The Netherlands: 86%, dominated by solar & wind The Dutch bureau of statistics reports 50%, of which a plurality (one third) is biomass. The Netherlands is also famously gas-dependent. Natural gas isn’t converted to electricity for heating and many industrial applications. Can’t quickly find stats on production here, but renewables are only 17% of total energy usage. Renewables without biomass are ~12% of total ene…

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

I failed to find the "86%" figure. The total energy mix shows "66% renewable".

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

#274

Post by krupan »

Mordisquitos wrote: post #14
darkwater wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why geothermal is not renewable? Earth is not going to cool its magma soon enough

Only as a technicality. If you find a geothermal hotspot and start to extract energy from it, the hotspot will eventually cool down faster than if you hadn't (which of course depends on the size of the hotspot and how much heat you're pulling out). However, given that there's no downsides to cooling down a hotspot other than, well, no longer being able to extract energy from it, geothermal is a bit of an honorary "re…

We can make oil from biomass by heating it up in a kiln, and we can do it quickly. Oil is totally renewable. It's weird to me that we are fixating on renewable when the problem is carbon gas, isn't it?

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

#275

Post by [deleted] »

buzer wrote: post #254
jdlshore wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't let you generate power with solar in July and then use it in January. That’s not necessary. Solar panels are so cheap that you can massively overprovision for winter and still come out ahead of nuclear.

I selected random date in July 2025. During that time Finland produced about 10GWh of solar. I selected random one from February 2025. During that Finland produced about 0.5GWh. February also actually doesn't have shortest daylight hours, mid-December situation is even worse. Christmas Eve 2024 produced about 0.05GWh. You sure overprovision factor of 200x is still cheaper? This is when looking at the peak generation.…

[deleted]

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

#276

Post by krupan »

seanmcdirmid wrote: post #64
Mordisquitos wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Only as a technicality. If you find a geothermal hotspot and start to extract energy from it, the hotspot will eventually cool down faster than if you hadn't (which of course depends on the size of the hotspot and how much heat you're pulling out). However, given that there's no downsides to cooling down a hotspot other than, well, no longer being able to extract energy from it, geothermal is a bit of an honorary "re…

A lot of hydroelectric depends on snow pack and glacier runoff that is being adversely affected by global warming. Solar and wind are the only robust hedges against a warm up that might ultimately severely curtail river flow. We have a lot of uranium and nuclear is fairly renewable at least in the span of a few centuries. The waste issue is a problem.

Nuclear waste is not a huge problem. It's mass is tiny, and it can be contained safely in very small areas

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

#277

Post by krupan »

LastTrain wrote: post #160
lateforwork wrote: post #72

Meanwhile the US is spending billions to cancel renewable energy. https://www.nytimes.com/2026/03/23/climate/offshore-wind-gas...

Blows me away that energy policy is so political, and that somehow self-styled libertarians who don’t say a peep about oil subsidies are deeply offended by renewable ones. It you consider yourself libertarian can you at least be forward-thinking enough to see that shifting to renewables is also a step towards decentralization?

Hi! How is it decentralization if it's subsidized by the government?

And which libertarians are in favor of oil subsidies? I'd like to have a talk with them

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

#278

Post by kalleboo »

belorn wrote: post #251
jdlshore wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> It doesn't let you generate power with solar in July and then use it in January. That’s not necessary. Solar panels are so cheap that you can massively overprovision for winter and still come out ahead of nuclear.

Lets put down some Swedish numbers. During the coldest winter month, solar energy produce (as per statistics from the solar industry in Sweden) somewhere around 3-7% of the amount produced during the warmest month. Households also consume around 2-4 times the amount of energy during the coldest month compared to the warmest month. Sweden is a country where only a small minority have air conditioning installed at home…

The nice thing is Sweden has lots of hydro, which works as natural long-term energy storage. Every bit of solar you generate means water is kept in the dam for use later in the year.

You also can't ignore wind power which should be part of any plan to "overbuild".

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

#279

Post by dyauspitr »

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.

You’re a bit off on the California numbers. It’s off my about 10%. Either ways, what a state. It’s basically a country on its own.

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

#280

Post by gpm »

AnthonyMouse wrote: post #271
gpm wrote: post #256

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yeah but: 1. Sweden is just about the worst case, there's very few countries/people that far north. 2. There's this genius invention called "wires". HVDC has transmission losses on the order of 3.5% per 1,000km. You don't have to colocate the solar.

> Sweden is just about the worst case, there's very few countries/people that far north. Sweden is worse but it's still a significant issue in e.g. New York or Paris or Auckland. > There's genius invention called "wires". HVDC has transmission losses on the order of 3.5% per 1,000km. You don't have to colocate the solar. It's more than 1000km from the places that get cold to a part of the world where it isn't winter.…

> it's still a significant issue in e.g. New York or Paris or Auckland.

No it isn't.

Wires still might be worth it, but these are all close enough to the equator that you can just over provision locally without issue if you prefer.

> It's more than 1000km from the places that get cold

Solar panels work better in the cold. The issue is with how far from the equator Sweden is, not how cold it is.

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