Megan Hall: Welcome to Possibly, where we take on huge problems, like the future of our planet, and break them down into small questions with unexpected answers. I’m Megan Hall.
In past episodes, we’ve talked about the need to transition our electric grid to renewable energy. So today, we’re looking at a small South American country that’s already managed to do that. Juliana Merullo from our Possibly team is here to tell us how.
Juliana Merullo: Hiya Megan!
Megan Hall: So where are you taking us today?
Juliana Merullo: We’re going to Uruguay, where I’ve been living for the last year. It’s a small country of 3 million people wedged in between Argentina and Brazil on the Atlantic Ocean.
Megan Hall: What sets them apart?
Juliana Merullo: Well for a long time they were like most other countries, and relied on importing fossil fuels to power their grid. But by the 1990s, they were having economic problems, and dealing with blackouts all across the country.
Megan Hall: So what changed?
Juliana Merullo: Basically, this one physics professor in Uruguay, Ramón Méndez Galain, started paying attention to the energy problems his country was having. He wrote up a proposal for how to transition to renewable energy. He didn’t think it would go anywhere…
Ramón: It was absolutely crazy.
Juliana Merullo: But Uruguay’s president didn’t think so. He called up Ramón and asked him to join the government as the National Director of Energy, and implement his plan.
Megan Hall: Wow! What was his plan?
Juliana Merullo: He focused on using a combination of different energy sources, like wind, hydropower, biomass and solar. Like other countries that have done this, he took into account Uruguay’s natural resources and weather patterns to make sure the country always had a source of energy, even if it wasn’t windy, or sunny, or there was a drought. It took a lot of work.
Ramón: It’s not just by chance. Oh, I woke up one morning and said, “Oh, why not
add in some wind in the grid?” No, this is not the point. We had to dramatically change the way we plan the system, the way we operate the system, the market design, everything had to change dramatically in order to make it possible.
Juliana Merullo: He also had to make sure that his country could afford this new plan. So Uruguay made long terms deals with private wind companies, where they agreed to buy all of the electricity from the wind turbines for a set price. That way the companies knew they had business, and the country knew it would avoid big changes in electricity prices.
Megan Hall: And the government agreed to this plan?
Juliana Merullo: Yeah! Not only that, the leaders who supported Ramón’s plan worked to get approval from all of the political parties in Uruguay, even though they could have passed it with a smaller majority. That way even if there were elections and a new party took over, the plan would still stick.
Megan Hall: How did they do that?
Juliana Merullo: Well, Ramón says,
Ramón: what we did was to show real data that this was the best for us. An energy
system which is not dependent on imports, we are going to create new jobs, we are going to stabilize costs.
Megan Hall: So has the plan worked?
Juliana Merullo: It has! In 2024, Uruguay got 99% of its electricity from renewable sources. They even generate excess electricity to sell to other countries! And they created 50,000 new jobs in the process.
Megan Hall: Wow! Ok, but Uruguay is a really small country… is this actually something a place like the US could do?
Juliana Merullo: Ramón says that every country will have its own path to a renewable energy grid, but that it’s definitely possible.
Ramón: It was not simple, but it was not rocket science. For a larger country,
this is much more simple. For a small country in the global south, believe me, everything is much, much more difficult. Because we have less technology development, we have less industrial capacities, we have less money, we have less investment.
Juliana Merullo: But despite those obstacles, smaller and less wealthy countries all over the world are actually switching to clean electricity faster than wealthy places like the US and Europe.
Megan Hall: So what’s it like to live in a country that’s powered by renewable energy? Do you notice it?
Juliana Merullo: We’ll have to talk about that in our next episode!
Megan Hall: Sounds good! Thanks Juliana. That’s it for today. You can find more information, or ask a question about the way your choices affect our planet, at ask possibly dot org. You can also subscribe to Possibly wherever you get your podcasts or follow us on social media at “ask possibly”
Possibly is a co-production of Brown University’s Institute for Environment and Society, Brown’s Climate Solutions Initiative, and Ocean State Media.
