5 ms·

Close to none. Most of the heavy industry products (e.g. cars) are imported from either Brazil or Argentina. There's a lot of agriculture tho.

by artyom 3y ago

filmor 3y ago
Yet, the per capita energy usage is much higher in Uruguay, according to these: https://www.worlddata.info/america/uruguay/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/uruguay/energy-consumptio... (3.4 MWh) https://www.worlddata.info/america/brazil/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/brazil/energy-consumption... (2.5 MWh) https://www.worlddata.info/america/argentina/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/argentina/energy-consumpt... (2.6 MWh)
- artyom 3y ago
  A couple heavy industries (e.g. literally two paper plants) coupled with a largely unpopulated country (one major city and a handful few towns) makes the "per Capita" metric high. Not bashing them tough. They're wonderful people and I love going on vacation there, but saying that very heavy industry reliant countries e.g. Germany can just imitate the model is misleading
phtrivier 3y ago
Which makes the title "Energy independent" and "100% renewables" all the more infuriating. (To the point where i'm wondering if it's not bait for people who have a clue about the topic.) If you have lots of mountains and lots of space to put solar panels / windmills, you can get a lot of your electricity from renewables sources, which is great for a lot of applications. (If you can have nuclear power, it's not "renewable" per se, but it's very low on carbon, which is useful in itself, whith the usual caveats.) But the "small" issue is that tractors in the fields and trucks moving fertilizers and chemicals and produces around are, at the moment, mostly relying on oil. So, at the moment, being "100% energy independent with renewables" means you have to make the small compromise of "not eat food." Where is the "Tesla of tractors" ? Which EV company is seriously addressing "freight" ?
- mcv 3y ago
  Every country has "lots of space to put solar panels". Except maybe city states that are all skyscrapers. But for now there's no shortage of space where you could put solar panels without them being in anyone's way. Put them on every roof, over every parking lot (where they help keep cars cool in summer), over ever bike path (where they help keep cyclists dry in the rain).
  - hef19898 3y ago
    That what interconnected grids are there for... No need to stop an electricity grid at a border.
    - phtrivier 3y ago
      Countries want (rather understandably) to produce some of the electricity they consume. I don't know how connected the Urugayan grid is to neighboors. If anything, this makes the "Energy independent" part even more dubious :D (really, apart from China - or maybe USA, I don't know which country could be "independent", given that you need both fossil deposits and the right metal mines to build an energy system...) We're almost all in the same boat, and we all have to do our best. Inter-dependence without over-concentration is a feature, not a bug :D
- Retric 3y ago
  If you want to consider the energy balance of food production then every country runs 99% on renewable energy as plants collect solar power at a scale that absolutely dwarfs everything else. Even a very low estimate of 1,549,600 km2 of crops * 1% efficiency from photosynthesis * 15% capacity factor is ~2,000,000 TWh / year vs 27,000 TW from electricity. Add in forests providing lumber, grass feeding cattle, and plankton feeding fish etc and the numbers get much larger. As such total energy balance isn’t a particularly useful metric. Instead we use subsets of total energy such as the electric grid and 100% renewable is perfectly valid in that context.
  - phtrivier 3y ago
repelsteeltje 3y ago
I think there is considerable paper industry (which is notoriously energy hungry). Also growing software industry, so data centers might weigh in? Cement maybe?
- artyom 3y ago
  There's a couple paper plants, not sure if you'll call that "considerable". Software there is growing but mostly as consulting. Also b/c of the tax breaks companies are incorporated there, but people works elsewhere. On the cloud side if someone needs edge stuff they use Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo in AWS. There's no region in Uruguay

Close to none. Most of the heavy industry products (e.g. cars) are imported from either Brazil or Argentina. There's a lot of agriculture tho.

by artyom 3y ago

Close to none. Most of the heavy industry products (e.g. cars) are imported from either Brazil or Argentina. There's a lot of agriculture tho.

filmor 3y ago

Yet, the per capita energy usage is much higher in Uruguay, according to these: https://www.worlddata.info/america/uruguay/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/uruguay/energy-consumptio... (3.4 MWh) https://www.worlddata.info/america/brazil/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/brazil/energy-consumption... (2.5 MWh) https://www.worlddata.info/america/argentina/energy-consumption.php https://www.worlddata.info/america/argentina/energy-consumpt... (2.6 MWh)

artyom 3y ago
A couple heavy industries (e.g. literally two paper plants) coupled with a largely unpopulated country (one major city and a handful few towns) makes the "per Capita" metric high. Not bashing them tough. They're wonderful people and I love going on vacation there, but saying that very heavy industry reliant countries e.g. Germany can just imitate the model is misleading

phtrivier 3y ago

Which makes the title "Energy independent" and "100% renewables" all the more infuriating. (To the point where i'm wondering if it's not bait for people who have a clue about the topic.) If you have lots of mountains and lots of space to put solar panels / windmills, you can get a lot of your electricity from renewables sources, which is great for a lot of applications. (If you can have nuclear power, it's not "renewable" per se, but it's very low on carbon, which is useful in itself, whith the usual caveats.) But the "small" issue is that tractors in the fields and trucks moving fertilizers and chemicals and produces around are, at the moment, mostly relying on oil. So, at the moment, being "100% energy independent with renewables" means you have to make the small compromise of "not eat food." Where is the "Tesla of tractors" ? Which EV company is seriously addressing "freight" ?

mcv 3y ago
Every country has "lots of space to put solar panels". Except maybe city states that are all skyscrapers. But for now there's no shortage of space where you could put solar panels without them being in anyone's way. Put them on every roof, over every parking lot (where they help keep cars cool in summer), over ever bike path (where they help keep cyclists dry in the rain).
- hef19898 3y ago
  That what interconnected grids are there for... No need to stop an electricity grid at a border.
  - phtrivier 3y ago
    Countries want (rather understandably) to produce some of the electricity they consume. I don't know how connected the Urugayan grid is to neighboors. If anything, this makes the "Energy independent" part even more dubious :D (really, apart from China - or maybe USA, I don't know which country could be "independent", given that you need both fossil deposits and the right metal mines to build an energy system...) We're almost all in the same boat, and we all have to do our best. Inter-dependence without over-concentration is a feature, not a bug :D
Retric 3y ago
If you want to consider the energy balance of food production then every country runs 99% on renewable energy as plants collect solar power at a scale that absolutely dwarfs everything else. Even a very low estimate of 1,549,600 km2 of crops * 1% efficiency from photosynthesis * 15% capacity factor is ~2,000,000 TWh / year vs 27,000 TW from electricity. Add in forests providing lumber, grass feeding cattle, and plankton feeding fish etc and the numbers get much larger. As such total energy balance isn’t a particularly useful metric. Instead we use subsets of total energy such as the electric grid and 100% renewable is perfectly valid in that context.
- phtrivier 3y ago

repelsteeltje 3y ago

I think there is considerable paper industry (which is notoriously energy hungry). Also growing software industry, so data centers might weigh in? Cement maybe?

artyom 3y ago
There's a couple paper plants, not sure if you'll call that "considerable". Software there is growing but mostly as consulting. Also b/c of the tax breaks companies are incorporated there, but people works elsewhere. On the cloud side if someone needs edge stuff they use Buenos Aires or Sao Paulo in AWS. There's no region in Uruguay