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‘Energy independent’ Uruguay runs on 100% renewables for four straight months (theprogressplaybook.com)
submitted 2 years ago by to c/technology@lemmy.world
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"with wind the single-biggest contributor.... Power production costs have declined “by almost half” .... And the clean energy sector has created 50,000 new jobs.... Ask me what was the impact on the electricity sector in Uruguay after this tragic war in Europe — zero."

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[–] 30 points 2 years ago* (last edited 2 years ago) (2 children)

You're right; 2/3 of worldwide energy is actually waste heat.

image

https://www.businessinsider.com/most-energy-still-comes-from-oil-2015-10

Here's the chart from 2007: Waste heat / losses are in the top right, although it doesn't show the transport sector losses which are higher than for coal generation.

image

What this means is that when we fully electrify all sectors, by using renewable energy such as wind and solar, our total energy generation capacity will only need to be about 1/3 to 1/4 of what we currently produce today to fulfill our current energy needs. That's huge.

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  • [–] 5 points 2 years ago (3 children)

    Correct me if I'm wrong, but electrifying a process doesn't automatically make it not produce waste heat, right?

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago (2 children)

    The reference to waste heat could include the heat from burning fossil fuels that isn't turned directly into work. Which is a lot.

    So you're right, there will still be some waste heat and the reduction in production needs won't be that drastic. But it's still a significant chunk of the total!

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  • [–] 2 points 2 years ago

    Yes of course, but a lot of energy is currently also used for heating things in cooking steel, chemical industry, concrete, etc. Those processes need energy as heat and directly produce waste heat. I agree it's probably still significant. It's just wrong to reduce energy consumption to "making things move".

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago

    Converting energy to power will always produce at least one of heat or light (also radiant heat) in the process.

    There is no 100% efficient power.

    But, electric is the closest you could get. Especially compared to any petroleum products

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  • [–] 1 point 2 years ago (1 child)

    Changing your energy generation from burning something to turning a turbine with wind power, hydropower or geothermal power. Or just using solar, means that you have no waste heat for electrical generation.

    Waste heat is only created when you burn a fuel to boil the water.

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  • [–] 3 points 2 years ago

    that's not quite right and mixes couple things

    you have production losses and transmission losses. then you have waste heat used for household and industrial heating.

    now you would also have to produce that portion electrically.

    For instance in winter heating requirements of a typical house are 2x that of the electricity used.

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