Ben Curthoys
Ruben Bolling 🪲I wrote on Boing Boing about the physics professor who became Uruguay's energy secretary, and within five years had the country on 98% renewable energy.
NOT ONLY CAN IT BE DONE, IT WAS AN ECONOMIC BOON THE THE COUNTRY.
John GriffithMaybe having people grounded in physical reality making public policy is better than having so many lawyers in elected and appointed government positions?
numanumayeyunironically a good point.
SomeAnoTooter@breathOfLife @johndgriffith @rubenbolling and that misconception outs crushed by the knowledge that Merkel was a physicist.
As environment Minister she once said all the right things and talked about all our problems from Russia to climate change and add chancellor she did exactly nothing. Maybe that was the best one could have done as leader of a conservative party, but it is still very sad, that nothing better happened.
As environment Minister she once said all the right things and talked about all our problems from Russia to climate change and add chancellor she did exactly nothing. Maybe that was the best one could have done as leader of a conservative party, but it is still very sad, that nothing better happened.
Jimmy@johndgriffith @rubenbolling Making and enforcing the law is the government's business, it makes sense for people who know law to do that. I wouldn't hire an electrician to do my plumbing.
David Mitchell 
@rubenbolling @jhavok @johndgriffith
This is one of the most ridiculous comments I’ve read in a while…
Em 🏳️⚧️🇨🇦@emma @johndgriffith @rubenbolling Fuck Nozick, that fucking Republican apologist fake libertarian bullshit slinger. Read his defense of capital punishment and you can be done with him.
Simon Brooke@jhavok @johndgriffith @rubenbolling Making the law, you have to understand the issues you're making law about. Interpreting the law (which is what lawyers do) you don't.
Lawyers are precisely the last people you should trust with making law, because they will only make bad law.
@simon_brooke @johndgriffith @rubenbolling Reflex cynicism is so easy. No doubt Marjory Taylor Greene has written some wonderful law.
Neo Ehproque@jhavok @johndgriffith @rubenbolling no, but maybe you should have someone who's ever seen a pipe involved in plumbing regulations
Token Sane Person@jhavok @johndgriffith @rubenbolling The government also includes the rest of the executive, which does things like keeping the lights on. Government policy is not the business of lawyers.
@tokensane @johndgriffith Obviously the business of FoxNews hosts.
Dieu@johndgriffith @rubenbolling It's hard not to feel some empathy with Plato these days.
Peter KeelingThanks for writing this. I have been dimly aware of the Uruguay case for a while now, and have always been confused as to why it isn't used as an example more often by renewable advocates.
Duncan Bayne@PMKeeling @rubenbolling One reason is because Uruguay is atypical; they have particularly good baseline generation (and in its own way, storage) in plentiful hydro power.
Pointing to Uruguay as a renewables success story immediately raises the objection: what do we in, say, Australia, use as an equivalent?
A good point. But I think it's compelling enough to kick a conversation off with. Especially when the public discourse so rarely seems to discuss concrete examples. 'This is how they did it, what can we learn?'
@PMKeeling @rubenbolling Or, another angle: look at the graph of Uruguay's $ / kWh for industry. How can we replicate that here?
Havyhh2@rubenbolling ...that's the real "energy independence" you want to achieve
Adrian Cockcroft@rubenbolling Excellent story. Thanks for sharing it!
Osteopenia Powers ,@rubenbolling
Uruguay already pays less for energy, has created clean jobs and it’s insulated against market swings!
"The economic impact has been profound. The total cost of electricity production decreased by roughly half compared to fossil-fuel alternatives, and the country attracted $6 billion in renewable energy investments over a five-year period—equivalent to 12% of its GDP. About 50,000 new jobs were created in construction, engineering, and operations, roughly 3% of the labor force.”
meejah@rubenbolling that will never work! think of the economy! etc!
Brian Tatosky@rubenbolling It's such an inspiring story.
StillIRise1963"Galain believes that once structural advantages given to fossil fuels by governments are removed, and renewable energy sources can compete fairly, they can become the cheapest option. And it's not just revoking oil and gas subsidies. Galain had Uruguay 'move to long-term capacity markets, providing investors and utilities with predictability while removing the bias that favored fossil fuels.'"
@StillIRise1963 @rubenbolling True. Oil shills will tell you that industries that need subsidies shouldn't survive, as if that was true of renewables, and of course never once mention the billions poured into fossil fuel poison every year.
@jhavok It makes me really angry.@rubenbolling
Looking for explanations…For years now scientists have been saying that Australia is in a position be a world leader in renewables, but time & time again we’ve failed to rise to the challenge. The costs to our economy, in the past & yet to come, must be enormous.
Su_G@rubenbolling
Great story! Thanks so much for sharing. 😁Telling precursor: “One of the most important factors in Galain's success was that his strategy was backed by the entire Uruguayan political system, which meant it would not be disrupted by changing administration. With this buy-in, he was able to modify the country's entire energy system: infrastructure, regulations, and market design.” 🤔
I love it that he now runs a non-profit & hopes to share the success in another 50 countries. 😁
Ficcus@rubenbolling Lucky them. The Harvard trained physics professor my country got during Covid, who was supposedly going to do something spectacular across the government, instead embezzled a bunch of money then fled the country. Not so far from Uruguay.
Fat_Farang@rubenbolling US media says the only energy experts are CEOs from the fossil fuel industry. Putting a scientist in charge of energy sounds as crazy as putting a doctor in charge of health.
@rubenbolling Good article. It was fun to see this post, as I attended Ramón’s classes a few years ago (which are available here: https://open.fing.edu.uy/courses/f1-2022/1/). :)
Virginicus@rubenbolling This is great news, but I have to admit the most startling line in it was, “An article by Ken Silverstein in Forbes…” The world has really changed.
@rubenbolling This is why oil shills work so hard to poison the narrative against renewables. They are currently blaming increased energy costs on renewables, instead of on the increased cost of fossil fuels.
@jhavok @rubenbolling And inflating the so-called "AI" bubble, to increase energy demand.
The Stage Rabbit (he/him)@rubenbolling Great article from what I could glimpse through the torrent of adverts popping up, around, and in-between the text. I don't remember Boing Boing being this bad for ads.
DonCC@rubenbolling don't show this to anyone in the Alberta government. They'll have a shit.
Laurent Cimon@rubenbolling the technocrats were right
LenkaUruguay's industrial sector is primarily based on agro-industry and natural resource processing, rather than traditional heavy manufacturing, which accounts for a relatively small portion of its GDP.Ok.
Franz Graf@rubenbolling what's really special about the article is that the summary can be "it's cheaper". That's the argument that's totally missing in my country.
Chris Vest@rubenbolling absolutely love it!
Luca Salgarelli@rubenbolling Amazing how having competent people in the right positions can turn anything around. I wish this was circulated to wider audiences.
doragasu@rubenbolling Why solve the energy problem when you can dig your grave deeper betting everything to an ultra wasteful technology that is showing very limited success.
Fazal Majid@rubenbolling the US had an actual Physics Nobel, Steven Chu, as Energy Secretary under Obama 2009-2013, and still did bupkes.
Qole@rubenbolling
It seems like a big deal that Uruguay's poverty rate has dropped from 30% to 8%, thanks to renewable energy. Why is nobody talking about this?!
It seems like a big deal that Uruguay's poverty rate has dropped from 30% to 8%, thanks to renewable energy. Why is nobody talking about this?!
Frans Super 🇺🇦🇵🇸🍋 FKNZS🔻@rubenbolling And this great news is heard hardly anywhere in the world. It's the orange menace that takes up so much space in the outlets and he plays it out, such that there seems to be no positieve news anywhere.
bovaz@rubenbolling Qualcuno può avvisare i politici europei?
Could someone notify European politicians?
Could someone notify European politicians?
Julio J.@rubenbolling since there seems to be so much interests on the Uruguayan electrical grid, shameless self promotion, @BigBo_Energy posts daily graphs with the sources of energy generation in Uruguay.
decapitae@rubenbolling At least there are some out there, unswayed by fossil fools money and propoganda from the rich. 👍
@rubenbolling Effienct On Resources And Good For The Economy, As Well As Being The Ethical Choice(Safe For The Enviroment). Who Wouldn't Implement This
Pete Gontier
die uckermärkische graswurzel@rubenbolling How beautifully we sang in 2018 in the Hambach Forest: “Water, wind, and sun! Coal in the trash.” (It rhymes nicely in German) It's great that there are countries that are taking action!