Portugal Gets A Clean-Energy Makeover
[A]ggressive national policies to accelerate renewable energy use are succeeding in Portugal and some other countries, according to a recent report by IHS Emerging Energy Research of Cambridge, Mass., a leading energy consulting firm. By 2025, the report projected, Ireland, Denmark and Britain will also get 40 percent or more of their electricity from renewable sources; if power from large-scale hydroelectric dams, an older type of renewable energy, is included, countries like Canada and Brazil join the list.
The United States, which last year generated less than 5 percent of its power from newer forms of renewable energy, will lag behind at 16 percent (or just over 20 percent, including hydroelectric power), according to IHS.
Obama's plan has the US getting 20-25 percent of its power from renewable sources by 2025. Weak. Portugal went from getting 17 percent to 45 percent of its power from renewable sources in 5 years.
At some point, there will be head-scratching here at home, as we watch the rest of the world move forward on this, and we continue to belch about how it can't be done, it's unrealistic, blah blah blah -- the usual propaganda of assimilation lines we hear. At some point, even here, the critical mass will be achieved, right?
If the United States is to catch up to countries like Portugal, energy experts say, it must overcome obstacles like a fragmented, outdated energy grid poorly suited to renewable energy; a historic reliance on plentiful and cheap supplies of fossil fuels, especially coal; powerful oil and coal industries that often oppose incentives for renewable development; and energy policy that is heavily influenced by individual states.
Indeed, the powerful lobbies are likely to be the biggest obstacle, as it's probably always been, once Big Oil and Big Coal got in the driver's seat on our country's energy policy.
