Seven countries now generate 100% of their electricity from renewable energy

3 comments

1. How far behind will America fall? So far we’re behind 1/2 of South America, 1/3 of African countries, Canada, Sweden and Norway. With idiots like Trump running for president we may end up behind the rest of the world in a few years.

2. Interesting. One thing the article doesn’t seem to mention is that, with the exception of Iceland, these are all developing countries where there are large proportions of the population who still don’t have access to reliable always on power, it would likely go off in the evening when solar panels aren’t producing or their battery storage runs out. And potentially some areas of these countries would be without any power at all.  

   Therefore it might not necessarily be a good example for western nations where we’ve been accustomed to having reliable and stable 24/7 power. Iceland seems to be a standout case however, I’d like to see more information on how they are supplying power there, what mixture of power generation they are using. Its likely not only wind and solar there’d have to be something else in the mixture here.

   Its potentially incongruous to say that a large developed country can operate upon only wind and solar electricity only. Most who have climate targets to meet are back stopping their power generation capacity and the electricity grid with gas, nuclear or coal generation. While 100% renewable power in theory is great, it is largely unworkable for western nations.

3. Meh. This list is just bizarre and I doubt most of them are to be taken as examples of engineering successes.

   I can talk about the case of paraguay: a single dam between brazil and paraguay is responsible for like 85% of the electricity of paraguay (and about 10% of brazil’s). In any case, the Paraguay’s grid is not known to be any good.

   Slightly relevant is that there are questions about the viability of brazil’s electricity in near-future given it’s reliance on hydro power and reservoirs being high enough. We had multiple electricity scares already IIRC.