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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)

#91

Post by pfdietz »

ambicapter wrote: post #75
direwolf20 wrote: post #46

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And this is an expected problem with renewables that can be engineered around. It's unlikely the whole world has a drought at once during a calm night, so developing ways to transmit power long distances will be important.

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

Or just gradually taper off fossil fuel use until storage and renewables carry everything.

Exactly what "storage" means there is the key, especially at high latitude. Do not assume just batteries.

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

#92

Post by onlyrealcuzzo »

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.

> California: 83% renewable, dominated by solar

California's grid is pretty decently balanced. Solar isn't even close to 50% - so saying that it "dominates" is pretty misleading.

It's like ~30% solar, ~12% hydro, ~10% wind, ~10% nuclear, all other renewables ~8% (~70% renewable, including nuclear) -> ~30% fossil fuels.

Are you maybe only counting domestic production and not total consumption? Or are you looking at the best time of the year and not the full year?

Or am I looking at sources that are >1 year out of date and in one year they've jumped from ~70% renewable to ~83%?

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

#93

Post by jacquesm »

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.

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 improved it has not improved as much as it should have.

This is quite frustrating because it is blindingly obvious to me that we will need to do better but given the profit angle it remains to be seen if these private entities will now do what's right for all of us. So far the signs are not good. Instead of embracing small scale generation utilities are fighting netmetering laws where ever they can (usually under the guise of not everybody being able to have solar, which is true, but which is not the real reason behind their objections). They're dragging their heels on expansion and modernization of grid infrastructure and the government(s) seem to be powerless to force the now out-of-control entities to live up to their responsibilities.

Couple that with the AI power hungry data centers and the stage is set for a lot of misery. Personally I think privatizing the electrical grid was a massive mistake. The market effects have not really happened, all that happened is that the money that should have gone into new infra has been spent on yachts and other shiny rock goodies.

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

#94

Post by pfdietz »

leonidasrup wrote: post #10
darkwater wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

The Earth's heat content is about 1×10^19 TJ. This heat naturally flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 TW and is replenished by radioactive decay at a rate of 30 TW. These power rates are more than double humanity's current energy consumption from primary sources, but most of this power is too diffuse (approximately 0.1 W/m^2 on average) to be recoverable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_powe…

Heat is extracted at geothermal wells much faster than it is being replenished by the average rate of heat flow from the deeper Earth. It's effectively "heat mining". Granted, there's a lot of heat to be mined.

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

#96

Post by mentalgear »

What a great beacon of hope to consider that we are closer than we thought in the clean energy rollout ! I read somewhere, not sure though how it is assessed/how valid it is, that last year 50% world-wide came already from clean power, with countries like the UK around 50% in the middle and others like Spain far ahead.

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

#97

Post by pfdietz »

leonidasrup wrote: post #15
leonidasrup wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Earth's heat content is about 1×10^19 TJ. This heat naturally flows to the surface by conduction at a rate of 44.2 TW and is replenished by radioactive decay at a rate of 30 TW. These power rates are more than double humanity's current energy consumption from primary sources, but most of this power is too diffuse (approximately 0.1 W/m^2 on average) to be recoverable. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Geothermal_powe…

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.

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

#98

Post by pfdietz »

gus_massa wrote: post #12
darkwater wrote: post #7

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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

Geothermal is powered by fission Uranium and other heavy atoms deep in the Earth. Solar is powered by fusion of Hydrogen in the Sun. I'd use the same classification for both.

Almost none of it is from fission. Fission is a very rare natural decay mode of uranium and thorium. Most of their radioactive energy output is from ordinary non-fission radioactive decay.

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

#100

Post by KevinMS »

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.

Isn't that the list of high energy prices and blackouts?
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