54% of Portugal’s electricity is now generated by renewable energy

Technology@lemmy.world – 255 points – 1 years ago

54% of Portugal’s electricity is now generated by renewable energy::Since my last article regarding the successful harnessing of tidal power to generate electricity, I have been researching what progress Portugal has made...

As a Portuguese, I'm quite proud of this tho I think we can still do better (or at least find a way to not get price gauged).

I was in a week-long vacation in the island of Madeira recently and was shocked by how many solar and wind farms they had, no to mention the energy generated by the sea around it. It was astonishing and at least restored my faith in my countrymen, just a bit.

Portugal CRLLLLL 🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹🇵🇹

Siiiuuuuuuu fodasse caralho. Mas memo assim, those are rookie numbers. We gotta pump essa merda up!!!!

Here in Denmark we get 100% from wind some days, yet we still get gauged on those days.

Portugal and Spain are the best places for solar in Europe. It's why they are expanding so heavily and places like Germany are being forced to restart coal plants, despite investing heavily in renewables. Solar in Portugal and nuclear in Germany/France is the quickest way toward de-carbonizing the European energy grid.

It's something worth being proud of, but you are right, it's just a good start. Hopefully more nations learn from Portugal's example.

So good to see countries taking the out when it's there. That data was from 2019, how has it changed?

Question, the US has incredible amounts of shoreline, what is (other than oil and coal lobby) stopping it from doing wave and wind farms at sea?

Wave farms have yet to pan out and may not ever pending some technology leap. They just don't produce enough power for how much maintenance they require. Salty water full of debris and living stuff is a bitch.

As far as wind farms go, they are cheaper to put on land due to how much open space the US has, so therefore that is where they go. Building and maintaining the things are much, much cheaper when you don't need a boat to get to them.