In the New York Times, reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal writes of Portugal’s swift and remarkable energy transformation. In just five years, the nation has cut its dependence on fossil fuels dramatically, with nearly 45% of its grid electricity coming from renewable sources this year, up from 17% in 2005. How did it accomplish this? Major government-led initiatives, including privatization of former state energy utilities to create a new, more renewable-friendly grid, as well as cushy, partly-subsidized contracts for private companies. The results included a sevenfold increase in land-based wind power, as well as a massive increase in the use of electric cars.
Portugal’s efforts epitomize what a country can accomplish in an extremely short time if the political and public will is there. Granted, such rapid change isn’t without its costs:
Portuguese households have long paid about twice what Americans pay for electricity, and prices have risen 15 percent in the last five years, probably partly because of the renewable energy program, the International Energy Agency says.
Although a 2009 report by the agency called Portugal’s renewable energy transition a “remarkable success,” it added, “It is not fully clear that their costs, both financial and economic, as well as their impact on final consumer energy prices, are well understood and appreciated.”
Higher energy prices brought exactly the reaction from voters that you’d think they would: sharp derision and intense political pressure to lower those bills. But rather than bury the issue in deliberate obfuscation and/or avoid it for fear of political repurcussions, Portugal’s leaders put it all on the line in favor of effecting change. And paid a price for it — after a landslide victory in 2005, Portugese Prime Minister José Sócrates scraped by with a narrow win in the last election.
Granted, Portugal has a few things that make it uniquely suited for the transition to renewables — not the least of which are its large untapped resources of wind and river power. As such, according to government officials, the energy transformation required no increase in taxes or public debt, since the wind and hydro-power replaced natural gas, coal, and oil — most of which were imported.[SButtonZ button="digg"]
So where does the U.S. stand in comparison when it comes to likelihood of an energy metamorphosis? Well, for starters, we’ve got our grid — an antiquated mess that’s starting to resemble a ticking time bomb — as well as an embedded tradition of reliance on cheap fossil fuels and massive oil and coal industries that wield considerable political clout. All serious obstacles for any lawmaker, to be sure — but not hopeless. Plus there’s the possibility of the costs equaling out — as the price of renewable energy continues to drop, the costs of a shift to renewables now could mean a huge savings in the future. Though as with all “pay more now for savings later” policies presented, American voters rarely see the forest through the trees.
This article has several factual errors that make it somewhat misleading and I’m frankly surprised to see NYT, of all sources, insist in the stale propaganda that doesn’t convince most Portuguese nowadays:
1. Jose Socrates does not run a political coalition but only his own party
2. The source for the 45% of renewables figure is supplied by the gorvernment and has never been independently confirmed, many environmentalists challenge this propaganda message
3. The renewables program has been proven to be the pretext for rises in electricity for the privatized energy company EDP. The main offices in this company are occupied through political favour to reward former politicians their service to amintain the company’s complete monopoly of the portuguese electricity and natural gas market.
4. Not only the consumer does not “appreciate and understand” the highest energy prices in one of Europe’s poorest countries but investors as well, since high industrial electricity prices are driving exporting industries overseas.
5. There is no “opposition by the fossil industry” in Portugal. The main fossil fuel company is Galp which is, like EDP, an illegal monopoly created by the privatization of a state company. The main offices in this company are also given to former politicians and the richest man in Portugal became so after political contacts got him to buy state property at share values way bellow market prices during an “exclusive sale”.
6. During Socrates ministry programs that supported microgeneration and solar-heated domestic water were slashed and the goals established at the beggining were abandoned. After 8 years, the National Program for Energy Efficiency has never left the paper and is generally ignored when mentioned.
7. Environmentalists don’t oppose aspects of this renewables programs because of impact on birds or cork trees (!) but because the largest windfarm is planned to be on our only National Park (because no NIMBYs live there), the largest new dam is on a proposed UNESCO Heritage site and the rest of them will make Portugal one of the few countries without wild rivers and significant river aquatic life. These new dams would only increase electric capacity by 2% while on energy efficiency alone there is a potential for a 15% save.
A missed opportunity to adress gorvernment-level greenwashing…
Could our conception of democracy be partly to blame for not having better energy policies? Take this quote from last October, where Hans Voerknecht, described as a “Dutch bicycle activist,” had this to say to an audience in Portland, Oregon:
“You shouldn’t ask all the time, ‘Do you want to spend money [i.e., raise fuel taxes]?’ Of course they say no. The thing is, if people are so narrow-minded, you need politicians… Democracy is not about doing the will of the people; it’s about choosing the best men and women out of the people who make the wisest decisions.”
I have to say that this view of democracy sounds wrong to my American ear. The idea that democracy is “not about doing the will of the people,” but instead about electing someone “smarter” to make “better” decisions seems paternalistic and elitist. But if this conception of democracy holds sway in Europe, then perhaps it has some benefits. If they really do elect people to do the unpalatable, to put through programs that are expensive now but beneficial later, then maybe an elitist form of democracy works, at least for some purposes. Our gasoline tax policy certainly seems stuck because no politician has the guts to touch it, because polls show it’s unpopular. Do we really want to run our energy policy based on the pocketbook of the electorate?
To: Nom_de_Guerre
I would invite you to actually visit Portugal and ask to “normal” people like me and most of the young generation with education, that hate the oil lobby and all the dirty industries like coal, and actually support Jose Socrates programme on clean renewable energies.
Don’t speak on behalf of the Portuguese, it looks ridiculous! Plus people didn’t vote for Socrates in the last elections not because of the electricity prices increase (in fact, people understand that it’s a small price to pay to release Portugal’s old dependence on fossil fuels), they didn’t voted for him because of all his troubles with the media and a stupid outlet built in the wrong place when he wasn’t our pri minister
Wait another couple of years and you’ll see the portuguese driving seamlessly electric cars which are recharged everywhere in the country, the infra-structure is being built as we speak, even though these cars (Nissan) are more expensive than the normal ones. Again, it’s a small price to pay, we like our country clean and independent of fossil fuels
@ Luis
I’m actually Portuguese and I suppose I’m still what is considered “young” and being an environmentalist working professionally on urban planning I’m the last person to disagree with you on oil and coal dependency.
Just because I support renewable energy doesn’t mean I’m going to turn political partisanship into a voluntary blindfold to any criticism. There is a right way to do things and we are far from it.
And I noticed you haven’t addressed any of my claims, except to reinforce the illusion that the average driver on a 600 euro income is going to afford one of the new electric phallacies.
Efficiency first.
Americans won’t embrace it because it’s a sham, something thought up by ivory-tower green weenies in Europe and big East/Left Coast cities. Real energy comes from coal, oil, and gas, and maybe nuclear. Americans like our cars, and they run on petroleum and always will, no matter what some environmentalists would like. Electric cars are a non-starter, no pun intended. They don’t have the range or speed needed by Americans, so they’re useless. Who buys one, except as some type of statement about their “green” ethos?
If “green energy” were viable, it could compete and win in the free market. The fact that it always needs massive government subsidies to “work” proves it’s nothing but a sham.
The truth is we have enough fossil fuels to last us another 500 years. If we need another energy source by that time, the market will lead and one will be developed by an enterprising person (probably in his garage or basement), and not by a government-subsidized university scientist.
Nom de Guerre: but surely an electric assist bicycle is a good fit for most Portuguese people.
Not really Omry. For starters there was never a tradition of bicycling in portugal (one of the reasons probably being that our capital and it’s metropolitan area, home to 2.5 million people – a quarter of the country’s population, is quite hilly and very spread out). Also, Portugal is very car-friendly (We have one of the highest rates of highway kms per habitant in the EU).
Bicycling here is used mostly for leisure purposes. Given the fact that 40% of the population lives in the metropolitan areas of lisbon and oporto we would be better of by continuing to invest in expansions to their mass transit systems and also investing in creating or expanding transit systems in the smaller cities and towns where it may viable to do so.
Our rail system is also one of the least developed in western europe in terms of freight, regional and intercity travel (commuter rail is reasonably developed though) and could use some improvement. Although i’m in favor of the high speed rail projects from lisbon to oporto and madrid i believe there are more pressing needs for rail.
These improvements would be far more beneficial. The electric car hype in portugal is due to the fact that industrial investments would be made in return for us being a test ground for the nissan leaf.
As for the investment in renewables i also dispute the 45% figure (i believe it has more to do with installed capacity, not with actual power generated, given the large variations in output of wind power) but i do agree with continued investment in renewables on a large scale, except for hydro power, which is already extensive in portugal and any new dams have serious environmental effects relative to the benefits provided. I believe we should invest more in solar given the fact that we are the european country with more solar resources. Other renewable sources like wave power where the government has invested have only marginal effects in the power mix and are more research projects than anything else.
Nuclear could also have a role but for the time being there’s no political will to go that way.
I work for a electric utility in southwest desert of west Texas and southern New Mexico. We’re private owned and pursuing a lot of efficient alternatives and even renewables on our own. We’re making investments in smart grid technology that goes beyond a meter bolted to a house.
Beyond our contributions there are other private entities creating large wind turbine fields and solar plants in our area. We are actually upgrading transmission services to these locations to handle the new supplies.
I’m a fan of helping, instead of coersing people to do things….taxing people (for example) to make them do something thats deemed better for them is just going to create angry people.
I agree whole heartedly that we need to change the way in which we create and use power….but it will take time to achieve it efficiently and affordably.
If you talk to a person who lives in the farm lands of Kentucky or Indiana or even the wide open ranchland of west Texas you’ll find that they have no trust for politicians, especially democrats. As I said before, forcing someone to change will not be effective unless you convince them to change.
[...] EntryPortugal: 45% renewable energyThe Infrastructurist has an article up called Portugal Has Embraced Renewable Energy, So Why Can’t We?. Money quote:“In the New York Times, reporter Elisabeth Rosenthal writes of Portugal’s [...]
@Tomás and Omri
While Tomas is right when he says there is a widespread disinterest in sustainable transportation in particular (and sustainability in general), like bycicles and Rail in Portugal I agree with Omri that despite our cultural shortcomings there is absolutely no reason why electric bycicles shouldn’t be a popular transportation mode in our urban environment.
The main argument we hear against cycling over here is our supposedly hymalaian topography, even though this never stopped Barcelona and Bogotá from becoming two of the most-known bicycle friendly cities and a growing number of people from using it here daily, including a brand new pedal-powered delivery service in Lisbon.
So yeah, I think electric bicycles would be one of the good choices for us even though the current government mysteriously created a very generous tax rebate for “sustainable vehicles” but excluded bicycles from this definition, despite protests and the fact our country is Europe’s second largest per capita producer of bicycles, employing almost 8000 people that export 90% of production.
I guess they prefer to sponsor Nissan imports, go figure!
The potential energy savings by widespread use of mass transit and more bicycle/foot traffic would surely dwarf any sort of residual benefits from turning a conventional car-based society into an electric car-based society.
Nom_de_Guerre,
You will need to a lot provide more than evidence-free rhetoric if you want to discredit this report.
Given that it is very easy to confirm Portugal’s renewable energy program over the last ~10 years, I’m more inclined to trust the NY Times report than some anonymous commentator on the internet.
[mangled first comment - try again:]
Nom_de_Guerre,
You will need to provide a lot more than evidence-free rhetoric if you want to discredit this report.
Given that it is very easy to confirm Portugal’s renewable energy program over the last ~10 years, I’m more inclined to trust the NY Times report than some anonymous commentator on the internet.
@DavidC
And as a NYT reader myself I agree that you are prudent to do so if you coherently demand references for all your sources.
Nevermind the various factoids the article got wrong about the energy providers, political landscape, proposed and achieved government goals, etc, etc – you can always start with the articles claim that 45% of electricity comes from renewables- this percentage refers to government reported INSTALLED capacity, not PRODUCTION (not independently assessed, mind you since the utilities monopolies are a corporate extension of the two main parties and resist even fiscal scrutiny).
The difference is the same as between something potential and something actually being done. It does not take into account the losses in transportation, storage, off peak production, etc. – just the potential maximum of each equipment. The real figure for production being used? Nobody knows.
Don’t get me wrong, I know that Portugal’s potential for renewable energy is huge and there’s already enough political goodwill to get things going to make the country more energy independent yesterday but this will never justify overlooking greenwashing, lack of transparency and opportunism.
Portugal can easily be a world example in energy policy without cooking numbers for publicity.
[...] Buckell just posted about Portugal’s push into renewable energy. He links to an article claiming that 45% of Portugal’s grid electricity now comes from renewable sources, and that [...]
The article in the NYT seems to correlate a 15% rise in the price of electric power in Portugal with the increase in renewables, but here in New Jersey we still rely on the same old power system and prices have increased a lot more than 15% recently.
Eric E.: I can’t tell if you’re just being a troll, or are actually serious.
If you’re being serious, it’s clear you simply don’t have enough information.
“Americans won’t embrace it because it’s a sham, something thought up by ivory-tower green weenies in Europe and big East/Left Coast cities. Real energy comes from coal, oil, and gas, and maybe nuclear. ”
Energy comes from many sources. People throughout the country, including significant portions of the central us, midwest, etc. have been using alternative sources for decades if not hundreds of years. Wind and water powered (non electric) processes have been used for hundreds of years, especially by rural types, farmers, mills, etc. for all manner of things from running machinery to pumping water from wells.
After the advent of solar photovoltaics, solar pv is used by many many farmers and ranchers, as well as back-to-the-land folks to run electric fences, keep remote cabins and houses powered and off the grid, etc.
“Americans like our cars, and they run on petroleum and always will, no matter what some environmentalists would like. Electric cars are a non-starter, no pun intended. They don’t have the range or speed needed by Americans, so they’re useless. Who buys one, except as some type of statement about their “green” ethos?”
Electric cars have been made and used for decades and do have the range and speed needed by Americans. For the most part, most people just use their vehicles for their daily commute which is often a relatively short distance. (Electric car history actually dates back to the 1890s. Fossil fuel vehicles won out because oil was extremely cheap, and due to the lack of electric infrastructure.)
“If “green energy” were viable, it could compete and win in the free market. The fact that it always needs massive government subsidies to “work” proves it’s nothing but a sham.”
If this is the case, then all the other energy producing methodologies are also a sham. Nuclear, fossil, etc. etc. They all get HUGE government subsidies and have for decades.
“The truth is we have enough fossil fuels to last us another 500 years. If we need another energy source by that time, the market will lead and one will be developed by an enterprising person (probably in his garage or basement), and not by a government-subsidized university scientist.”
Interesting that you want to rely on government for one thing, but not for another. That 500 years figure was from a statement from a government report, I believe from the 70s. The statement said: ‘At current levels of output and recovery these American coal reserves can be expected to last more than 500 years.’ So then what you’re saying is that if we have absolutely no growth, then it can last 500 years. What you’re forgetting is that we grow, and that if we’re going to run out (or at least reduce the amount we have available significantly) of one fossil fuel (crude oil) then we’re going to have to replace it with other forms of energy. A good video to watch on this is: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQd-VGYX3-E (note, it starts out discussing oil before it gets to discussing the 500 year figure.)
The 45% figure is for production (although the figure is debatable), not for installed capacity.
By end of April 2010, Portugal had 9275MW of renewable installed capacity and a little less than 8000MW of non-renewable installed.
@Ricardo B
The European Union (through Eurocid) and the Association for Renewable Energy beg to differ and put the figure on 26%, therefore almost half of what the government says. (sorry no english links):
http://www.eurocid.pt/pls/wsd/wsdwcot0.detalhe?p_cot_id=3961&p_est_id=9147
http://www.apren.pt/dadostecnicos/index.php?id=94&cat=
It’s already an impressive number but we could achieve 45% without inflating our chest for the foreign press, lest someday we statiscally produce 145% for self consumption!
Doesn’t it seem odd to you that the 45% number came from an “internal correction of data” because of drought during 2007 and 2008 that made the average production jump from the consensual 26% to almost double… on an election year?
The data for installed capacity was the alibi for this figure ( and official justification after accusations of propaganda), not verified production.
We don’t need to give excuses like these to the oil lobbies to prove the potential for renewables…
Eric is a conservatard troll. I can’t believe he types his garbage with a straight face.
The government doles out tens of BILLIONS a year to the fossil fuel industry in direct subsidies and favorable tax laws.
Americans don’t “like” their cars. They have no other choice in most places and have often voted to increase their taxes to pay for mast transit- see Seattle, Los Angeles, and St. Louis for recent examples.
Guys, go to the back pages and look at the older comment threads. You’ll see a pro-highway, anti-environment commenter named Eric F., who Eric E. is clearly spoofing.
But even if you don’t know about Eric F., Eric E.’s attacks on electric cars are a dead giveaway. Most people today who are seriously pro-highway and anti-environment like electric cars, because they let them say that cars are no less green than mass transit.
@Nom_de_Guerre
The first first link you posted has 2005 data.
The second link second link has 2008 and 2009 data.
2009 data adds up to 34.3% renewable sources, already way above the 26% figure you mention.
45% is, IIRC, a 2010 prediction. Which, as I mentioned, is a debatable figure…
However, it has nothing to with installed capacity. In terms of installed capacity, renewable already accounts for some 55% of the installed capacity, as of April 2010.
@Ricardo B
I am aware that existent data is not from 2010, so I ask again for the references for the 45% figure, which would be a truly explosive increase not explained byincreased river capacity/construction of new windfarms.
45% is not 34% but indeed a “prediction”. Are predictions supposed to be addressed by the NYT as consumate facts? How was this prediction made and by whom?
The DGED, who supposedly is the origin for the 45% number ( who knows?) has not updated the graph shown earlier from 2007 on its website becaused it hasn’t updated the calculation method for renewable energy according to the new methodology proposed by the 2009 EU directive (which I believe is why the extremely optimist average for hydro production originated the famous 45%).
http://www.dgge.pt/
I want to learn more but for that I need the reference for the 45% number (let alone the 55% you mention). I still haven’t found it outside of government press realeases from the Minister Pinho’s era.
I wish electricity consumption in Portugal was 100% from renewables YESTERDAY but I want it to be real, not make-believe.
A very biased story. For a portuguese interpretation, please see my reply at http://ecotretas.blogspot.com/2010/08/portugal-new-york-times.html
Ecotretas
In 2009 the US Gov subsidize clean energy with 3.8 billion dollars
While the fossile fuel are making huge profits and still get from the US Gov 18 billion dollars.
I am not happy to be subsidising these fossil fuel CEO yachts or the houses that can not remember that have.