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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 the whole country, and most of the time it's just sitting there doing nothing.

Being powered almost entirely by hydro means that the system is highly susceptible to droughts, so then they either have to spin up those oil plants from time to time or import electricity from abroad. 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. The country used to have its own oil power plant that it heavily relied on before that decision, which slowly produced less and less until it was shut down for good in 2007. Some images of it from 2019: https://www.oneman-onemap.com/en/2019/06/26/the-abandoned-po...

fun fact for Paraguay: the Itaipu Dam is one of the largest in the world located between Brazil and Paraguay, where each country gets 50% of the production. But 50% of that production for Paraguay, a country of 7 millions inhabitants, means that it cannot consume that much, so it's essentially reselling that energy to Brazil, a country with 30x more inhabitants. Paraguay only uses about 1/3 of its share (and thus resells 2/3 to Brazil).

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.

Well hydropower is the "easy" level of the decarbonization game. So it's not really surprising first countries to leave fossil fuels behind are also countries with mountains and rivers.

>So, the lessons for all other countries in the world is pretty clear: grow yourselves some mountains, dig yourselves a big river, and dam, baby, dam !!

It is a relief that Environmentalists have decided that hydro counts as "renewable" energy! When I was in school, hydro was considered really bad for the environment, and projects like the Hoover dam and Yangzie River dam were "not helping"

Or, more charitably: use the Strangler Fig method to modernize your systems, and start with low-hanging fruit.

Hydro electricity is also one of the most dangerous forms of energy production:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1975_Banqiao_Dam_failure

(This is the worst disaster, but could put Chernobyl to shame?)

Full list here:

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hydroelectric_power_st...

I guess if you're not allowed to use solar in the form of chemical potentials frozen long ago into carbon-y molecules buried underground, the second best thing is to use solar in the form of gravitational potential stored in water molecules that's constantly getting replenished because the planet just happens to work like that.

wasnt New Zealand also already far up beyond 90% renewable electricity a couple of years ago?

I'm wondering how this picture holds up if we include cooking and water heating.

They worked within the constraints of their own topography - good and bad - to make it work. That is too hard for everyone else?

> So, the lessons for all other countries in the world is pretty clear: grow yourselves some mountains, dig yourselves a big river, and dam, baby, dam !!

Came to say that, every time you'll see a country running on 100% renewables for an extended period, it's going to be hydro, because it's the only controllable supply among renewables (with geothermal as well, but it's been so niche so far I put it aside, but I hope it will change).

Unfortunately most of the hype and investments go to solar and wind power, which fundamentally don't offer the same capabilities. (Solar is fine as long as you're in q sunny place that is not in Europe though because it can be predictable enough to be relied on, but Solar in above 40° North and wind are borderline scams at this point).

Makes me wonder why solar is not on the list.. I thought all gore said that was gonna solve all energy problems. (Of course not, he's a politician, but I'd have expected to at least see it with some relevant percentage in the African countries) Or could it be that solar is distributed enough to not appear because it's set up directly by/with the consumer rather than the grid producer?

I think they missed Uruguay which is a similar case. They have also traditionally benefitted from a hydro able to cover 80-90% most of their needs but they made a concerted effort to fill the entire remaining gap with wind and solar.

Ultragrav (YC S27). We plan on generating the geographic tyranny of who has rivers and mountains and who doesn't by seeking to use ultrasonic audio to disrupt gravity so you don't have to hear it. We're hiring in Kansas city, KS.

In all seriousness, thereis of course a list on Wikipedia of countries by renewable electricity production [1]. China leads here but also has 1.4B people and still has significant coal usage and oil and gas imports. But they're working really hard to wean themselves off of fossil fuels while still rapidly industrializing.

China does have mountains and has built the Three Gorges Dam, which is just massive and produces ~22GW. They're building a dam that'll produce almost three times as much power, the Medog Hydropower Station [2], which is planned for ~60GW.

The part that annoys me about a lot of developed nations is that they engage in greenwashing by simply exporting their emissions to poorer countries eg [3]. Let's at least be honest about what fossil fuels we continue to use and the emissions we indirectly create.

[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable...

[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medog_Hydropower_Station

[3]: https://www.vox.com/energy-and-environment/2017/4/18/1533104...

For some it's an eye-opening experience when they compare the states which are the most vocal about going solar and have a look onto the solar map of the world.

Or then they talk about how some countries have miraculous levels of an energy independence and social services and then look at their total population.

California is not anywhere near 83% renewable for total electricity generation. [1] Are you just adding up nameplace capacities without capacity factors?

1. https://www.eia.gov/todayinenergy/detail.php?id=66704

> 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%?

California is a huge success story at a massive scale. Looking at Casio right now it’s 92% clean energy. For a state of 39 million people! And batteries keep getting deployed faster and faster

2022 - 48% gas power on grid

2025 - 25% gas power on grid

What insane progress.

> 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 energy usage.

Where can I look up this numbers? (Just curious)

good hilights! but - and i mean this kindly - you are starting to talk like an AI: "overshadowing real wins" "There's real momentum happening".

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

Well yes, hydro and geothermal are the easiest (and earliest perfected) renewable sources to provide consistent base load. It would be odd if the first countries to achieve fully renewable power weren’t making use of those technologies.

Other countries will have to be more reliant on interconnects, diverse renewable mixes and batteries. Luckily this is now almost always cheaper and more secure than fossil fuels and the trend lines point towards that continuing to be more and more true over time.

>at such as scale

Not to downplay the positive steps that are being taken but we are conveniently skipping over the denominator here at least in the case of Ethiopia and DRC who both have a grid that is only serving their full population at a fraction of the level needed to make this story one about geographical lotteries and abundance instead of one about poverty preventing them from access to the traditional carbon power generating routes to server the rest of the population.

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

Also, many of these countries are tropical or subtropical, with optimal conditions for solar energy year round. Nepal and Bhutan are relatively far from equator, but have many days of unobstructed sunshine.

Well, when geothermal stops being renewable there will be no humans around to need energy generation.

You are still technically correct, which is the best kind of correct.

But if we follow that rationale, in a long enough timeline, solar and wind is also not renewable.

Or just trains

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?

King Canute Trump trying to order back the tide.

Worse, the summary article makes claims using 2022 data which is so out of date to be useless

It makes me sad - most of them are fairly poor and so don't use much energy. I want those people to have the wealth to consume as much energy as me. (My city is also 100% renewable but since I live in the us we don't show near as well on the charts overall.

Yeah UK's currently going through the biggest rollout of renewable energy ever, the pace is insanely high. Theres new rules to allow plug in solar coming into effect too with kits already available for renters and such.

At present, those tandem cells are still experimental. Nobody is manufacturing them on gigawatt scale like for other solar cell technologies.

> the common usage connotation of “renewable energy “ today is “wind and solar”

Hydro, wind and solar. Hydro is often even more important because it runs more steadily than the other two.

Geothermal and nuclear are neither fossil nor renewable, they are their own category.

It's contrary to what most people think, but the later a country modernized, the better the infrastructure (generally). You basically get to skip the innovation stages where you have a hodgepodge of systems that eventually coalesce into one and all the upgrading required to bring it up to the newest standard. If you have a lower population and smaller geography, it is often easier to upgrade as well.

Albania: 90% Hydropower, $12150 GDP/person

Bhutan: 99% Hydropower, $ 4700 GDP/person

Nepal: 23% Imported $ 1381 GDP/person

            rest Hydropower  (2/3 of energy: firewood etc.)

Iceland: 99% Hydry/Geo, $90000 GDP/person

Ethiopia: 88% Hydropower, $ 1350 GDP/person

DR Kongo: 98% Hydropower, $ 760 GDP/person , 13% of country has electricity

Not sure how this is applicable (and in many cases: desirable) for countries that do not have significant hydropower potential or maybe want a GDP greater than $760 per person per year.

Those "countries in the sticks", one report says that the DRC only has at most 20% of the households on electricity. This report says only 10% https://www.trade.gov/country-commercial-guides/democratic-r...

On the other hand, balcony solar power will be a game changer for the world, provided your neighbors won't steal the panels like they do the catalytic converters in my neighborhood.