Wind and Solar Power Fuel Over One-Third of Brazil's Electricity For First Time (apnews.com)
- Reference: 0179166588
- News link: https://news.slashdot.org/story/25/09/11/1721238/wind-and-solar-power-fuel-over-one-third-of-brazils-electricity-for-first-time
- Source link: https://apnews.com/article/brazil-wind-solar-power-electricity-renewable-energy-13eef596389803e8b801f26e7888fb97
> The clean energy sources accounted for 34% of the country's electricity generation last month, producing a monthly record of 19 terawatt-hours (TWh), enough to power about 119 million average Brazilian homes for a month, Ember told The Associated Press.
>
> That surpassed the previous high of 18.6 TWh set in September 2024. The milestone came as hydroelectric output, Brazil's dominant power source, fell to a four-year low. "Brazil shows how a rapidly growing economy can meet its rising need for electricity with solar and wind," said Raul Miranda, Ember's global program director based in Rio de Janeiro.
[1] https://apnews.com/article/brazil-wind-solar-power-electricity-renewable-energy-13eef596389803e8b801f26e7888fb97
Weirdass article (Score:1)
Why does hydro not count as renewable? It's basically solar with extra steps.
Re: (Score:2)
Who said to doesn't count as renewable?
=Smidge=
Define "green" energy (Re:Weirdass article) (Score:1)
> Why does hydro not count as renewable? It's basically solar with extra steps.
Hydro is considered renewable. The thing is that hydro doesn't have to prove itself as profitable, reliable, or useful like wind and solar because hydro has been providing reliable and low cost electricity for at least 100 years. Before that hydro has been providing useful mechanical power for milling grains, sawing lumber, and so much else long before that.
Here's a question I'd like answered, why isn't nuclear considered a "green" energy source?
I was looking for a source on the EU declaring nuclear fissi
Re: (Score:2)
> All energy is "solar with extra steps" if taken back far enough.
Not really. Uranium was not created by the sun. All power is nuclear if taken back far enough.
> why isn't nuclear considered a "green" energy source?
Because there are "green" issues other than climate emissions. Producing permanent lethal radioactive waste being one of them. Producing low level radioactive contamination from mining and processing uranium is another. Presenting the danger of widespread lethal radioactive contamination from accidents is another.
But the more practical problem is not that nuclear power isn't gree, its that it has proven itself exp
Wouldn't it be funny (Score:2)
if they were cutting down the rainforest to make room for wind and solar.
Not "ha-ha" funny, obviously.
Re: (Score:2)
Most of Brazil's energy comes from hydroelectric plants, mostly built in forested areas.
Wind power, on the other hand, comes almost entirely from offshore or coastal plants. Solar power comes from industrial/residential panels and (still few) plants being built in remote and arid regions.
Since the Brazilian coastline is immense, building wind and solar plants in forested areas is not economically viable, at least for now.
Land use (Re:Wouldn't it be funny) (Score:1)
If land use is a problem then how seriously has Brazil considered nuclear power?
[1]https://ourworldindata.org/lan... [ourworldindata.org]
I can recall reading about people cheering that tobacco farmers in the southwest USA were covering land used for growing tobacco previously with solar panels. That's some kind of "win" for the environment? They could not used that land for growing cotton, wheat, strawberries, or any other crop that could be used for food or clothing fiber? Solar was the best option they had?
Where I live, in Mi
[1] https://ourworldindata.org/land-use-per-energy-source
Re: (Score:2)
Most of the deforestation is for farming meat products and lumber, both of which are exported in large quantities. If we stopped buying it, they wouldn't be motivated to destroy so much rainforest.
Not that the government isn't trying to stop them.
Amazon (Score:2)
Maybe when they are done clear-cutting the Amazon rainforest they will have plenty of room to put up solar panels.
Re: (Score:2)
Yeppers... those dumb trees don't do anything except take up space!
Aside from preventing soil erosion and producing oxygen and absorbing CO2... and potentially being home to the cures for some of the worst diseases.
Climate change is killing Venezuela (Score:3, Interesting)
I know that America likes to get in a tizzy because they're a dictatorship which is funny given that we love Saudi Arabia and we have only recently started complaining about China (and I've never heard anyone complain about China's dictatorship except sneering about them being communist which is hilarious because they have an American style healthcare system...)
But the reason Venezuela is hurting so much is because it's a small country and they were literally getting all of their electricity from a huge dam. Climate change basically caused a drought and there wasn't enough water to power the dam turbines. They have a lot of oil but they need to be selling that to fund the rest of their country because they have heavy duty sanctions.
Venezuela though doesn't have those sanctions because of their dictatorship, obviously if that was a thing Saudi Arabia would be on the chopping block.
If you look at their history it's literally because Hugo Chavez had a bunch of super rich landowners that were sitting on land doing nothing with it and he seized it and gave it to Farmers. He did it in the most hilarious way possible too. He didn't just seize the land, he demanded back taxes because the landowners were under reporting the value of the land to avoid paying taxes on it.
When the landowners came to him and said the land wasn't worth that much and they shouldn't have to pay the taxes he just triggered eminent domain and paid them what they were declaring the land was worth. Which was nothing because they didn't want to pay taxes. They could of course have said the land was not actually worthless like they were telling the tax man but have they done that they would have been on the hook for all those penalties and fees and possibly even lying to the government in tax documents.
Not that Chavez doesn't have his problems that's for sure. Again dictatorship. And dictatorships are bad news.
But the reason he was so popular and the reason his successors are much less popular with the people is because Chavez did actually take care of the general public.
As for Brazil the thing about wind and solar is you don't have to worry about drought. The more of it they get the more independent they can be.
They do need to be careful that we don't send some freedom down there. Although the last couple of times my country has tried to destabilize the South American government they caught it and stopped us. It took him a long time to learn what we were doing but they did eventually learn and develop countermeasures...
I am worried that my country is going to invade South America and Mexico has our economy collapses from mismanagement and we look for Nations to loot. If you know history then you know that's what failing empires do.
And then the collapse comes when the failing empire overextends itself... From what I understand that's more or less what happened to rome. Economic mismanagement over decades if not centuries.
It does take a while to happen though so if you're reading this you'll probably be dead. Your kids are going to have to deal with it though. As is mine.
Re: (Score:2)
> I am worried that my country is going to invade South America and Mexico has our economy collapses from mismanagement and we look for Nations to loot. If you know history then you know that's what failing empires do.
Are you sure that you aren't describing a problem specific to relatively young dictatorships? When Argentina invaded the Falklands, it was because the military dictatorship was falling apart along with the economy (and hardly an empire).
Empires in a state of collapse tend to have stopped ex
So we haven't seen an empire collapse (Score:1)
In a long time. The last one we saw was Britain but the key difference there is Britain's military collapsed before the empire dead.
The problem with America is that our economic empire is going to collapse before our military empire does. With Britain it was the reverse where they couldn't keep up the military expansion and that meant they lost out on the economic benefits of the empire.
United States is both an economic and a military empire and the economic side is collapsing. Not the military side
Re: (Score:2)
> When Argentina invaded the Falklands, it was because the military dictatorship was falling apart along with the economy (and hardly an empire).
In contrast, Trump's starting out smaller, invading (destroying) a boat carrying, apparently, innocent, people. We'll have to wait to see what he goes after next ... /PoliticalRant
[1]People killed in US boat strike were not Tren de Aragua, Venezuela minister says [reuters.com]
> "They openly confessed to killing 11 people," Interior Minister and ruling party head Diosdado Cabello said on state television. "We have done our investigations here in our country and there are the families of the disappeared people who want their relatives, and when we asked in the towns, none were from Tren de Aragua, none were drug traffickers ."
(To be honest/fair, I don't know how trustworthy this guy, or the Venezuelan government, is but have a pretty good idea how (un)trustworthy Trump and his minions are - or, at least, how challenging our President finds the truth, especially truth
[1] https://www.reuters.com/world/americas/people-killed-us-boat-strike-were-not-tren-de-aragua-venezuela-minister-says-2025-09-11/
So Trump is using Venezuela (Score:2)
To expand his military authority under the 2001 post 9/11 military authorization.
Basically he's trying to see what he can get away with and how much power he can grab.
That said I don't think we should pursue it because we're just going to lose to Trump in the courts because the courts are hopelessly corrupt. I hate to say it but the best thing to do about Trump killing innocent Venezuelans is let it Go and do everything you can to take over Congress during the midterms so that somebody can reign him
Re: (Score:2)
> we're just going to lose to Trump in the courts because the courts are hopelessly corrupt.
Well... SCOTUS anyway. The lower courts seem to be (mostly) ruling against him -- you know, following the Constitution -- then SCOTUS literally makes up something in his favor, or simply allows it w/o any explanation "for now" with a stay from the shadow docket. I'm sure they'll get around to banning his behavior going forward when a Democrat is/will be in charge. /cynical
Re: (Score:2)
> ...and I've never heard anyone complain about China's dictatorship ...
You're not paying much attention, then.
Oh I've heard the complaints (Score:1)
But I did qualify that with, I have not heard anyone complain about their dictatorship without referencing communism.
America is perfectly okay with a dictatorship we just don't want a communist dictatorship.
The funny thing is China couldn't be further from communism if they tried. I mean they literally have a private fucking healthcare system. And they have a fully capitalist economy. Just because the state intervenes does not make it communist.
I don't think you can actually get to communism. Co
Re: (Score:1)
The funny thing is China couldn't be further from communism if they tried. I mean they literally have a private fucking healthcare system. And they have a fully capitalist economy. Just because the state intervenes does not make it communist.
Ah, here it is, the "No true Scotsman" fallacy of Communism. So close to almost accepting that Communism doesn't work. Oh well, if the state owns 99% of the means of production is that communist? What if it owns 66%, or 51%? How little does the state's share of the mea
Re: (Score:1)
> How little does the state's share of the means of production have to be and still called communist?
Apparently 10% as President Trump was called a communist and dictator for a federal purchase of 10% of Intel.
Re: (Score:2)
China has had private ownership since Mao died. It's something like 60% of GDP, whch is similar to Denmark.
Note that ~40% GDP in the US is public spending.
Re: (Score:1)
A story about Brazil gets hijacked talking about the USA, China, Saudi Arabia and Mexico.
Are you drunk?