Wes Consin had never been to South America and was having a great time touring the capital city. One day a friendly chap, Monte Video,* invited him to share his sidewalk café table. They hit it off right away and had a lively chat.
It turns out that Wes’s state and Monte’s country are about the same size. While Wes’s state has almost twice the population of Monte’s country, they still have a lot in common. Take energy for instance. Neither has any fossil fuel resources. No coal - no petroleum. “Whoa! That used to be a huge, expensive problem for us,” Monte admitted.
“No kidding,” Wes groaned. “We shell out $14 billion dollars every year to fuel our state. Wait a minute; did you say you used to have a problem? You don’t anymore?”
Monte shook his head, smiled and told how his country became 98% fossil fuel free. Just 17 years ago in 2008, Uruguay faced a problem common to many developing countries. The economy was growing, but they didn’t have enough electrical energy to fuel the growth. Blackouts resulted and energy rationing was implemented while electricity costs continued to rise. That stubborn dependence on fossil fuels undermined his country’s autonomy. But today, a mix of hydro, biomass, solar and wind has squelched their reliance on imported fossil fuels.
“Holy Cow!” Wes exclaimed. “We should do that! And you know what? We could. We recently learned that if all ‘solar suitable’ roofs in my state added solar panels, we could generate 2/3s of our energy needs. That’s not even counting utility scale renewable energy resources. Not only that, we grow a ton of corn for ethanol. But solar farms produce100 times more energy per acre than corn ethanol. At that rate, if we added solar arrays on less than 1/3 of the current land area being used to grow corn for ethanol, we could meet our carbon free goals by 2050.”
“Go for it!” Monte encouraged. “If a small developing country in Latin American can rid ourselves of fossil fuel dependence, surely a hard-working state in the U.S. can do it too. You’d save billions besides doing your part to slow the damaging effects of climate change. After all, it’s your state and everyone’s Earth to protect because we’re all forever… Earthbound.”
* Uruguay Capital - Montevideo
It turns out that Wes’s state and Monte’s country are about the same size. While Wes’s state has almost twice the population of Monte’s country, they still have a lot in common. Take energy for instance. Neither has any fossil fuel resources. No coal - no petroleum. “Whoa! That used to be a huge, expensive problem for us,” Monte admitted.
“No kidding,” Wes groaned. “We shell out $14 billion dollars every year to fuel our state. Wait a minute; did you say you used to have a problem? You don’t anymore?”
Monte shook his head, smiled and told how his country became 98% fossil fuel free. Just 17 years ago in 2008, Uruguay faced a problem common to many developing countries. The economy was growing, but they didn’t have enough electrical energy to fuel the growth. Blackouts resulted and energy rationing was implemented while electricity costs continued to rise. That stubborn dependence on fossil fuels undermined his country’s autonomy. But today, a mix of hydro, biomass, solar and wind has squelched their reliance on imported fossil fuels.
“Holy Cow!” Wes exclaimed. “We should do that! And you know what? We could. We recently learned that if all ‘solar suitable’ roofs in my state added solar panels, we could generate 2/3s of our energy needs. That’s not even counting utility scale renewable energy resources. Not only that, we grow a ton of corn for ethanol. But solar farms produce100 times more energy per acre than corn ethanol. At that rate, if we added solar arrays on less than 1/3 of the current land area being used to grow corn for ethanol, we could meet our carbon free goals by 2050.”
“Go for it!” Monte encouraged. “If a small developing country in Latin American can rid ourselves of fossil fuel dependence, surely a hard-working state in the U.S. can do it too. You’d save billions besides doing your part to slow the damaging effects of climate change. After all, it’s your state and everyone’s Earth to protect because we’re all forever… Earthbound.”
* Uruguay Capital - Montevideo
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