Elizabeth Rosenthal of the NYT has a good feature out which I just found although it's a day or two old.
(We're way too busy with fieldwork these remaining summer days, trying to measure Maine's winds. I'm looking forward to fall teaching because it will be a nice rest, in comparison.)
Anyway, the article is on Portugal's achievement with renewables.
Reading the comments with some interest -- well over 90 percent seemed favorable, and there were only one or two denialist-type arguments, I followed this link to the DOE's CO2 tracking center and found the Portuguese emissions record graph shown.
Of course, some of this reduction is the recession. All things being equal you'd expect an emissions drop more or less proportional to the drop in economic output.
I also notice a rise in the use of natural gas, so they're probably substituting gas for oil and coal in power production, and that's part of the reduction in CO2 emissions.
Makes sense, if you can do it. Gas is cheap right now.
Still, according to the article, forty-five percent of their electricity this year will come from in-country renewable sources.
Most of the recent additions to their renewable portfolio are from land-based wind, which they've increased by a factor of seven in the last five years.
Wonder how much wind measuring they had to do? By the time you've measured the wind properly in enough places, you don't have to measure any more. There are whole European countries where anemometric reports are no longer required for turbine placements. Models and more sophisticated maps do the work for you.
We're not there yet in Maine. Although I'm starting to think there are a few areas, such as these mid-central hills in Lincoln, Waldo, and Somerset counties, where I can guess with some accuracy what the wind speeds will be on measurement.
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