If Portugal Can Do It, Why Can't We ?

The Guardian has an interesting article on the rapid build-out of renewable energy generation in Portugal. The country seems to be determined to become free of dependency on fossil fuels as soon as possible, with the country's energy minister also sagely pointing out "When you have a programme like this there is no need for nuclear power. Wind and water are our nuclear power".

The country currently has Europe's largest solar power plant, is constructing Europe's largest wind farm and is on the leading edge of research into wave and tidal power. The obvious question is - if Portugal can do this, why can't we ? This applies more to Australia than New Zealand obviously...


From a distance the bizarre structures sprouting from the high Alentejo plain in eastern Portugal resemble a field of mechanical sunflowers. Each of the 2,520 giant solar panels is the size of a house and they are as technically sophisticated as a car. Their reflective heads tilt to the sky at a permanent 45 degrees as they track the sun through 240 degrees every day.

The world's largest solar photovoltaic farm, generating electricity straight from sunlight, is taking shape near Moura, a small town in a thinly populated and impoverished region which boasts the most sunshine per square metre a year in Europe.

When fully commissioned later this year, the £250m farm set on abandoned state-owned land will be twice the size of any other similar project in the world, covering an area nearly twice the size of London's Hyde park. It is expected to supply 45MW of electricity each year, enough to power 30,000 homes.

Portugal, without its own oil, coal or gas and with no expertise in nuclear power, is pitching to lead Europe's clean-tech revolution with some of the most ambitious targets and timetables for renewables. Its intention, the economics minister, Manuel Pinho, said, is to wean itself off oil and within a decade set up a low carbon economy in response to high oil prices and climate change.

"We have to reduce our dependence on oil and gas," said Pinho. "What seemed extravagant in 2004 when we decided to go for renewables now seems to have been a very good decision."

He expects Portugal to generate 31% of all its energy from clean sources by 2020. This means lifting its renewable electricity share from 20% in 2005 to 60% in 2020, compared with Britain's target of 15% of all energy by 2020. Having passed its target for 2010 it could soon top the EU renewables league.

In less than three years, Portugal has trebled its hydropower capacity, quadrupled its wind power, and is investing in flagship wave and photovoltaic plants. Encouraged by long-term guarantees of prices by the state, and not delayed by planning laws or government indecision, it has proved a success. Firms are expected to invest £10bn in renewables by 2012 and up to £100bn by 2020.

However, Portugal says it wants to develop a renewables industry to rival Denmark or Japan. When the government invited companies for tenders to supply wind, solar and wave power, it demanded they work with manufacturing companies to establish clusters of industries.

This is a great success, say regional governments. In northern Portugal, where the world's biggest wind farm, with more than 130 turbines, is now being strung across the mountainous Spanish border, a German firm employs more than 1,200 people building 600 40-metre-long fibreglass wind turbine blades a year. The turbines are earmarked for Portuguese farms first, but orders are being taken from Britain and other countries. Half the workforce are women who once worked in the declining textile industry.

It is Portuguese plans for wave power that are prompting the most interest in Europe. The world's first commercial wave farm is being assembled near Porto. Three "sea snakes", developed by the Edinburgh-based company Pelamis, will shortly be towed out to sea and will start pumping modest amounts of electricity into the grid later this year.

It is the start of a potentially giant global industry with Portuguese firm Enersis planning to invest more than £1bn in a series of farms that together would power 450,000 homes.

Pinho dismisses nuclear power. "When you have a programme like this there is no need for nuclear power. Wind and water are our nuclear power. The relative price of renewables is now much lower, so the incentives are there to invest. My advice to countries like the UK is to move as fast as they can to renewables. With climate change and the increase in oil prices, renewables will become more and more important.

Of course, the question has a fairly simple answer - Portugal doesn't have an economy dominated by coal, gas and uranium extraction industries, which is why we will probably remain on the lagging edge when it comes to moving towards a modern, clean energy supply as fossil fuels become part of history.

The problem is getting so dire world wide that Portugal's 2020 target probably won't be enough esp. w.r.t. liquid fuels. I take it there are both sunny and rainy areas in which case hydro could possibly be used for energy storage. I thought the Iberian peninsula in general was drying out as shown by Spain's water imports.

Aside from Portugal it is by no means clear that either Denmark or Germany can shake off the coal millstone. Some claim those countries have hit a plateau of returns to wind and solar. By implication the same thing will happen to Portugal although I imagine their per capita energy use is lower. If they can crack 60% renewables others will follow. So the questions are:
Can they actually do it?
Will it be enough?
Will it send the country broke?

At times the Danes now generate more power than they use, from wind alone, with the rest going to elsewhere in Europe. They haven't gone broke and are now in an enviable position.

No doubt Portugal will eventually be the same.

The answers to your questions are:

1. Yes
2. yes
3. No

As far as economics go, the solar industry now believes it will reach grid parity with coal in less than 5 years - we'll be seeing a huge shift when this occurs - As energy costs soar, America looks to solar.

After decades on the fringe, solar power is closing in on America's mainstream as surging fossil fuel prices and mounting concern over climate change spur states, businesses and homeowners into a quickening embrace with alternative energy.

Panels bolted to roofs to convert sunlight into electricity are still too expensive in most regions to compete with cheaper, less environmentally friendly fuels like coal without generous subsidies. Solar's high costs have kept the resource out of reach for many residences and businesses.

But not for long, industry analysts and scientists say.

The tipping point at which the world's cleanest, most renewable resource is cost-competitive with other sources of energy on electricity grids could happen within two to five years in some U.S. regions and countries if the price of fossil fuels continues to rise at its current pace, they add.

"In the long run -- as in two to three years -- you should see competitiveness especially with the grid in a number of regions in the world," said Vishal Shah, an analyst who tracks the industry at U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers.

Tom Werner, chief executive of SunPower Corp, the largest North American solar company by sales, sees such "grid parity" for solar power in the United States and elsewhere happening in about five years, or possibly as soon as 2010.

"That's actually more aggressive than what we would say previously, and that's because the cost of electricity is going up faster than we had ever modeled," Werner said an interview at the Reuters Global Energy Summit on June 3. "It is becoming more and more clear it is a real possibility, and we believe, a reality," he said.

Richard Feldt, chief executive of U.S. solar panel maker Evergreen Solar Inc, calls grid parity the industry's "Holy Grail" and sees it happening in about five years. "It's not far away," he said in an interview.

Suntech Power Holdings Co Ltd, one of the largest of a growing number of Chinese solar companies, sees the same five-year timeline, thanks to increasing supplies of silicon that will help drive down costs.

Somewhat bizarrely, the Coalition is now greener than Labor - at least as far as solar PV goes - Solar industry faces bleak future: Hunt.

Mr Hunt says the Government can afford to support the industry. "So they've saved about $50 million a year," he said. "That's money which was budgeted for climate change, was in there for climate change, and was in there for a small visionary Australian industry. "That industry is facing a bleak future."

Mr Hunt says Environment Minister Peter Garrett should recognise the damage caused by the change. "This can be turned around overnight - Mr Garrett bought them to a cliff, he can bring them back from the cliff," he said. "Reversing the rebate decision right now will lead to an immediate change in the fortunes of the solar industry."

The means testing of the solar panel rebate performed a useful illustration when it comes to who will and can afford to pay for alternatives and who can't.

What we can see is that only the rich could afford solar power and if solar will only become cost competitive with coal becasue the price of coal rises so much, rather than solar becoming cheaper, then it is hard to see how the Average Joe is ever going to be able to afford as much energy as he currently uses, regardless of its source.

You are only looking at part of the equation - solar is getting cheaper.

We all have to become more energy efficient, but no one will find the lights going out because they can't afford renewables - unlike the long run outcome for being dependent on gas or coal.

I agree. See the Euan Mearns article on regular TOD today about North Sea oil. The question is not how much one type of energy costs relative to another but whether the average EROEI keeps the economy away from the edge of the 'cliff'. EM suggests 10 is the dropoff zone but the EROEI of photovoltaics is thought to be in the 10-30 range. Maybe that will improve. We need high yield energy sources just to maintain any semblance of business-as-usual.

In the comments on my CSP post, Chris (mdsolar) estimated the EROEI for solar thermal in the 30-45 range. IIRC wind is in the 20-40 range as well.

These are the sorts of things we should be building out as fast as possible (in order to get economies of scale kicking in) so we don't disappear down an EROEI sink by depleting our fossil fuels so quickly we don't have easy alternatives without having to drastically restrict day-to-day energy consumption...

To answer the headline question there are hints http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Portugal#Energy.2C_transportation.2C_commun...
that powerful friends may be supplying relatively poor Portugal with the necessary capital. I'm wondering if the EU's Clean Development policy is somehow creating 'credits'. If so that source of finance is not available to Australia.

Re solar upsurge I don't think it will come from polycrystalline silicon with amortised energy costs of 35c per kwh. It will have to come from a cheaper form with distributed storage such as UPSes or car batteries. I also think governments and power cos should foot more of the bill.

Solar is becoming equivalent in cost to coal and gas fired power for 2 reasons :

1. The silicon supply bottleneck is easing, and hence prices are falling.
2. Gas and coal supplies are finite, and prices are rising.

Australia is a rich country - Europe isn't significantly wealthier than us per capita. There is no reason we can't do the same - we have better solar, ocean and wind resources than Portugal does...

Also, what Portugal is doing is to build a local manufacturing industry and promoting exports of its manufactures.

We don't want any of that commie nonsense here in Australia! Dig it up, sell it overseas, and invent new tax regimes to keep the accountants busy sipping lattes! Nothing else is possible!

Where's Ben Chifley when you need him.

Of course, the question has a fairly simple answer - Portugal doesn't have an economy dominated by coal, gas and uranium extraction industries, which is why we will probably remain on the lagging edge when it comes to moving towards a modern, clean energy supply as fossil fuels become part of history.

Portugal doesn't have a government with its coffers full of coal money either. Its very, very hard for an Australian government of any flavour to bite the hand that feeds it.

Exactly right.You will always use the cheapest and easiest form of energy available to you first, and toexpect Australia to behave with more wisdom than any other peopleon earth is asking a bitmuch. Portugal is paying import prices for its FF while we in Oz have been getting gas and coal very cheap inded. If Sir Rudd has his way, we will haveto pay a lot more in the not too distant future.

However, LNG exports and now bringing gas prices in line with international market prices (just ask WA consumers - and east coast ones as soon as those CSM LNG plants at Gladstone commence operation). Coal is starting to go the same way (and will continue to if we further expand export port capacity).

So the idea of "cheap" domestic energy supplies is increasingly just a fantasy (one that Barry O'Farrell and Marn are also prone to I'll admit) - we'll pay the same market price as everyone else, including the Portuguese, and thus have the same incentives to switch to clean energy.

If gas (GTL,CNG) is our best option for keeping essential transport going perhaps foreign customers should get second priority. As they say charity begins at home.

Telling the Chinese, Americans, Japanese and South Koreans that we won't be supplying them with gas may not be as simple as just saying "sorry - we need it"...

The Chinese would probably say, "You and whose Army???!" ;-)

Meanwhile, Japan has been eyeing off our fixed-price long-term LNG contract with China, and they'd like one too!

Japan Relationship is Fine - Rudd

"...Mr Rudd plans to resume talks on a free trade agreement, and the Japanese want a guaranteed supply of liquefied natural gas to underpin any such agreement...."

I think we are on the same page as far as what is likely to happen with local energy prices. Where we differ is the response of the market to meet the challenges. I'm not against alternatives, in fact I've spent most of my life working with electricity so I'm keenly aware of what is involved in actually generating it at the industrial scales we do. These undertakings require masssive amounts of capaital that typically only governments actually do them.

Large scale renewable power generation will require the same level of massive capital investment but it will be doing so in a credit and oil constrained world.

It is too simplistic to say the market will provide it simply because it becomes cost competitive. There will be competing priorities for the capital required to build massive renewables projects, public transport springs to mind, and much political pressure applied to subsidise the poor as prices rise. We can already see a groundswell happening to eliminate petrol excise and prices aren't even that high yet.

All of these things will play a part in determining the speed at which these alternatives can be rolled out. There is a risk that a great deal of economic and political damage will be done before the renewables sector can reach critical mass.

Of much more immediate importance will be the altenative strategies and adjustments required for dealing with high oil prices. That will start to increasingly occupy the national agenda and the only alternatives being discussed will be CTL and GTL. It will be an interesting few years.

(Termoil)
I am glad that Australia's new government is supporting a range of alternative energy initiatives,even at the fairly low level, but the really big big issue for Australia is going to be the shortage of liquid fuels for transport. There are many very expensive solutions( CTL,GTL) to make more fuel available, or to replace some vehicle use( mass transport, expanded rail), but the biggest impact is relatively inexpensive; ensuring that the 1million new cars per year have much higher fuel efficiency and or are duel fuel, either PHEV, petrol/LPG and especially petrol/CNG.Long term PHEV will be a big part of the solution, but is the most expensive option ( and not really available yet) but why not petrol/CNG in a big way.
The present government could start by legislating all vehicles getting less than 10L/100km, to be petrol/CNG capable(or other alternatives). Even a limited range of <100km on CNG just like a limited battery range on PHEV's will cover most daily commuter use. If prices keep rising drivers will ensure that they re-charge with NG every day. If they don't like the performance, or NG is not available, they can stick to petrol( if available) and pay the price.

I recall a Kiwi poster said here why CNG fell from grace a few years ago. There are other problems such as the size and weight of the tanks which I think need a burst strength of 220 bar as opposed to 15 bar for Autogas. At present carbon fibre tanks are too expensive. Therefore it might best suit heavy diesels such as trucks, trains and buses (as in Brisbane). That would free up a lot of diesel if there were also incentives for engine conversions and filling stations plus a guaranteed low excise.

For dual fuel compact cars maybe a fibre CNG tank with a 100km range could work out. If it takes up too much boot space for long trips put luggage on a roof rack and drive slower. We need a life cycle analysis to verify this. I picture the Syd-Melb Hume Hwy crammed with small cars driving in the slow lane under heavy roof racks. Top up with either petrol or CNG where you can get it and it could work out cheaper than flying.

Ferguson must work on this before flogging off all our gas to the northern hemisphere.

the really big big issue for Australia is going to be the shortage of liquid fuels for transport

It shouldn't be.

In crude oil, Australia produces about 500,000 bbl/day, and consumes about 875,000 bbl/day. So if we reduce our consumption by 43% we can be self-sufficient in oil.

Australia's transport mix is about 85% of trips by private cars, 10% public transport, and 5% walking/cycling. By comparison, countries like Denmark and the Netherlands manage 33/33/33, and Germany 40/40/20. Let's be unambitious and go for a German level - 40% cars, 40% public transport, and 20% walking/cycling.

Ignoring the fact that PT can be electric and use renewable energy, buses use 9% the fuel and trains 6% per passenger-km - that's in Australia with our low use of PT. But let's be nasty to public transport and say it's only ten times as efficient. So moving 10% of trips to PT drops fuel use by 9%, and 10% of trips to walking/cycling drops it by 10%.

Thus, going from 85/10/5 to 40/40/20 would make our fuel use go from 86 units to 44, a drop of 49%. We could then be self-sufficient in crude oil.

As I write recently, ABS figures show that about two-thirds of car trips are discretionary or can be rearranged for efficiency, and WHO figures tell us that "More than 30% of trips made in cars in Europe cover distances of less than 3 km and 50% less than 5 km."

So if we have a shortage of liquid fuels, it's only because we waste so much of them. If you want to drive 1km to the shops for a bottle of milk, then you're going to have to pay the price for that in expensive petrol.

Setting aside issues of climate change, if we were not so stupidly wasteful with our fossil fuels, we could happily burn them for centuries.

Hi Neil

Toyotas announcement today that they are going to build a hybrid in Victoria is a start on the way to PHEVs. It was interesting that this was couched in terms of its carbon reduction ability rather than being sold on its fuel saving ability. The reason I think for that is that the economics of hybrids still don't stack up against buying a small fuel efficient ICE car and just filling it with petrol. The pollies really don't want you to do some hard ass analysis of the total cost of ownership as no-one would buy them.

CNG still has some problems as Boof points out and the price of NG to consumers is about to go up dramatically anyway.

Kiashu is on the only track that really makes sense - reduce the total amoujnt of petyrol used by using the exisitng vehicle fleet more efficiently. This means loading the car with passengers or freight every time it is taken out; asking if the trip is really necessary anyway; seeing if foot or pedals or PT can do the same job; learning to accept that the slow road might yield other delights that you miss out on in the car i.e physical exercise, social intercourse; and palnning to construct your lifestyle around a low energy, locallly sustainable strategies.

The problem for most of the population is that it is simply unthinkable to promote such heretical plan. Barnaby Joyce certainly seemed to think so the other night on the telly when he poo-poohed the idea that bicycels and scooters had any serious role to play against continuation of driving muscle cars everywhere. This is the problem, the politicians don't understand that BAU has actually ended already. The manure has already been launched and is mid flight towards the large spinning blades. My guess is that $175 /bbl is the point of contact.

It seems unthinkable, but really people do respond to bold challenges. WWII had its rationing and "victory gardens", Melbourne has reduced its domestic water use by about a quarter and Brisbane by a half, smoking has halved over the past two decades, and so on.

1. Tax the undesired behaviour to buggery
2. Make regulations about who can do the undesired behaviour, and where they can do it
3. Offer options so that people have some useful choices instead of just "this, or nothing."
4. Advertise publicly the reasons for the change.

That works.

Take for example cars over public transport. As the PTUA reports, however you want to ask the question, most (ie "more than half") people want more money spent on public transport even at the expense of roads spending, and most people will use public transport if it's a frequent, reliable and pleasant service.

If public transport is infrequent, unreliable and unpleasant, people will avoid using it. In this PT is like any other business, but this simple fact has eluded generation after generation of politician and PT operator.

This is where the "options" part comes in: people aren't going to stop using their cars if they have crap PT, and if biking is suicide. But improve the PT service and make roads bikable, and they'll do it.

It's not that people are reluctant to change, it's that government and corporations are reluctant to change. So when you say that the "problem for most of the population is that it is simply unthinkable to promote such heretical plan", and then go on to talk about Senator Joyce, you are mixing things up. It's all quite thinkable for people, it just boggles the rather limited minds of our political and corporate leaders.

Hi Kiashu,
There is no doubt that taxing changes behavior, but it can take a long time(50 years for smoking). Public transport is both expensive to expand infrastructure, takes time and not necessary very efficient. Good for moving masses of people between locations. A city like Sydney has people traveling in all directions kids to school, shopping, to and from work. Based on Big Gav's post above, work related trips may only be minor %of travel, so even if 90% traveled to work via electrical driven mass transit still would require considerable liquid fuel use.
Replacing petrol with CNG has the advantage that there lots of NG in Australia, it does not require major changes to vehicle manufacturing so can be implemented quickly. If all new vehicles had to be duel petrol/CNG could make savings of 5-6% per year in petrol( replacing 7% of the fleet per year). This would at least buy time to improve mass transit where practical, could start by removing all free car spaces at shopping centers, and replacing with shuttle buses from railway stations, and other public transport nodes, as older, pre-Roselands(1960) shopping centers were all built.If fuel does become rationed or really really expensive, the "Westfield type shopping centers" will be begging for help.

There is no doubt that taxing changes behavior, but it can take a long time

That's why I said,

1. Tax the undesired behaviour to buggery
2. Make regulations about who can do the undesired behaviour, and where they can do it
3. Offer options so that people have some useful choices instead of just "this, or nothing."
4. Advertise publicly the reasons for the change.

Any one of those alone does very little. #2 and #4 were done in Victoria for water, and reduced use by a quarter; #1, #2 and #4 were done in Brisbane for water, and reduced use by half.

For smoking, for thirty years there was only #1, and not much happened, the big changes came when they added in #2, #3 and #4.

No single measure is going to have much effect worth mentioning; a combination of measures will have a strong effect.

Bravo.

Yes we need to cahnge the world and we need better politicians. Why is it that the morons always get elected? Joyce represents a constituency of rural Queenslanders and if you want to have your argument in a Longreach pub about public transport options, be my guest. I'll send the ambulance for you.

I had an astounding conversation with a 50+ colleague yesterday who couldn't understand why we all don't just move to LPG because "Australia has plenty of gas, don't we?". He understood much better about my car pooling idea as a way to save fuels and money and thought it was great for "the young ones" but he was too old and needed his own car. He thinks public transport needs improving too, for everyone else.

Polling can also be misleading. It's called the Alexander affect where people lie to pollsters because it is the politically correct thing to agree with a proposition and it feels OK. Their actions in the voting booth however (or on the roads) are a different thing altogether. If I was asked "Would you travel on the bus to work, if it left right outside your door and could get you there on time with a hot latte and paper on the way would you take it?" My answer would be "of course". However I actually do have that option but can't use it becasue of what happens in the rest of my day which requires a car, but I like the idea. I'm not about to cahnge jobs just so I can catch the bus. I supect that there are plenty like me who like the idea of public transport far more than the reality.

I haven't seen the full details of the agreement with Toyota, but the Hybrid better be a plug-in.

We need massive spending on MT, and we need it right now. QLD still subsidises petrol, in this 'CO2-aware' world of ours, and Capt'n Bligh now wants developers to build another half million homes in the south-east corner. All McMansions, of course. No TOD for us Queenslanders!

The cognitive dissonance is stunning.

They can just carbon tax it to buggery. This will increase the coal money in government coffers.

I mean, if we're talking about manufacturing or something you can understand the government being leery of annoying them. They might send jobs overseas.

But it's not like they can just decide to dig up coal in Fiji instead. Where it is, that's where they have to dig it up.

And I guess if energy costs go up there is a chance that manufacturing becomes marginally more competitive here... maybe.

RE Melbourne traffic.
Although I never cycled that regularly, when living in Melbourne, cutting thru the back streets on your bike though marginally longer was safer from the traffic point of view. Also a change of scenery.

RE Melbourne Public Transport.
Compared to say Japan, the amazing thing about Melbourne's system is that the trains, buses and trams do not adequately complement each other, and appear at times to be in competition.
I lived in Japan for a few years. In the city I lived in (Sapporo), at the time, the subway system formed a north south transect and an "east west" system, the main railway was also "east west" but 1-2 km (parallel) from the east west subway. Most subway stations served as a feeder station for the bus network which then fanned out into the gaps between the system. IE there were fewer bus routes into the city.
I third line was being built to go between two quadrants... now complete (below is the subway system).

The distance between stops is about 1-1.5 km. Walkable.

A stylised map including rail and tram can be found here

Close to the subway stops became localised shopping precincts... where people could pick up some groceries on the way home.

This is a sensible way to do it.

I've done a master's thesis on Pelamis in NZ waters, and the commercial potential is almost there. Not quite yet given we haven't the slightest in incentives for commercial scale renewables, but it's real. The biggest obstacle is an ideological aversion to interfering in the market. (Except where easily hidden externalities are concerned, and then we'll socialise as many costs as possible)

I dread the thought of our local natural gas industry getting tied to the international price (as our oil industry is), but until gas prices rise, NG thermal electricity will be cheaper than Pelamis. Geothermal, at the moment and without subsidy, is already cheaper than NG thermal, but can we convince our NG generators to stop building? no. We barely have a hope of a more renewable future, and we have everything we need right in front of us. We are much better placed than Portugal. Go figure!

Indeed.

That master's thesis sounds interesting - let me know if you'd like to do a guest post on it - either a summarised version or the whole thing with a brief intro on what it would take for ocean power to be competitive in NZ...