Not to downplay the positive steps that are being taken towards using renewable energy worldwide, but one must point out that all those countries except one are almost exclusively using hydroelectric power, whose availability at such scale is a geographical lottery. As for Iceland, which also relies mostly on hydroelectric power but not in such great a proportion, it makes up for it thanks to easy and abundantly available geothermal power (which, though environmentally friendly, is arguably not technically renewable).
Geothermal is renewable.
That is not the case for geothermal. It could in theory be cooled down if exploited at a massive scale.
Saying geothermal is not renewable is not an indictment nor a criticism. Geothermal is great and we should use it more. It's just technically not renewable, but that doesn't matter.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Solar_irradiance#On_Earth's_su...
Solar is powered by fusion of Hydrogen in the Sun.
I'd use the same classification for both.
Most of the radiogenic heating in the Earth results from the decay of the daughter nuclei in the decay chains of uranium-238 and thorium-232, and potassium-40.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radiogenic_heating
Potassium is more or less distributed in the body (especially in soft tissues) following intake of foods. A 70-kg man contains about 126 g of potassium (0.18%), most of that is located in muscles. The daily consumption of potassium is approximately 2.5 grams. Hence the concentration of potassium-40 is nearly stable in all persons at a level of about 55 Bq/kg (3850 Bq in total), which corresponds to the annual effective dose of 0.2 mSv.
https://www.nuclear-power.com/nuclear-engineering/radiation-...
Geothermal hotspots do not reheat by fission or otherwise at the same speed that we extract their energy (if they did we'd be in trouble if we weren't extracting it!).
As I mentioned in another comment, build a Dyson sphere of solar panels around the Sun and it will last just as long. Build an all-Earth geothermal plant and the heat will be depleted.
This is because using it cools the hole slowly and after a few decades (depending on how quickly ground water can dissipate heat gradient) a new hole need to be drilled a distance away.
However, given that there's no downsides to cooling down a hotspot other than, well, no longer being able to extract energy from it, geothermal is a bit of an honorary "renewable".
Actual renewables ultimately all come down to recent[0] solar energy, which will never deplete their source however much they are used. All the energy in wind, hydroelectric and biofuels has recently originated in the Sun.
[0] I say "recently" because fossil fuels are all also derived from the Sun, but their rate of regeneration is a bit too slow compared to the speed at which we use them.
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.
The only countries with <100 g CO2/kWh and >10TWh/y are using nuclear. Large scale batteries are exciting for the future but need more development. The 2 biggest battery investments in the world are being made in Australia and California, yet still produce 4x the g CO2/kWh of France.
Why is it that those are reserved for ultra-big utility companies and I cannot buy those for my home or even my balcony?
One state is considered to be fully 'renewable' if the means of transport (excluding Airplanes since I can't find a suitable alternative ) for land is done via electric cars
saidnooneever•1h ago
giantg2•30m ago
readthenotes1•24m ago
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.