As usual with this kind of reporting, it’s not really running 100% on renewables. “In the three months to end-September 2023, the South American nation generated all of its electricity from renewable sources”.
⇒ Good result, but not there yet.
⇒ Good result, but not there yet.
Run their gas-powered cars and factories from renewable gas?
As a further step up, there’s “produce enough excess electricity to potentially produce the gas we use”, then the end goal where that excess production actually is used to produce that gas (that likely will be with much lower gas usage), either in the country or abroad.
I doubt they’ll ever be truly independent for their energy needs. The country is too small for that, as it would require producing solar cells, wind turbines, etc. inside the country.
That said, the "Energy independent Uruguay" oversells it, because if one doesn't understand that renewables can't obviously power non-electric cars and other non-compatible infrastructure, they might think it means Uruguay is totally energy independent and powered on renewables alone.
I personally felt for it for quite some time: as a French we say our electricity is nuclear, so we're much much better than our eco-friendly neighbour Germany wrt carbon. But that's completely missing the point. (I'm not saying we're actually worse than them, but we all have still much to improve)
I fall in the area of people who think journalists' job is not just to report fact, but to properly phrase them to understand the implications, you might disagree with that.
And, and it's a big "and", if those renewables themselves weren't just feasible because of subsidies (like how, in non-renewables, nuclear is also uncompetitive when considering the whole course of life of a factory and not just the bare production) or built/maintained/etc through ample use of fossil fuels.
They would also be feasible if fossil fuels were paying for their environmental costs.
But probably the "current way of life" and fixation of "growth" wouldn't be feasible then - with or without renewables on the side.
Which I'm also all for it - for degrowth to be exact.
Look to the expansion of actually green hydrogen to power and drive the fertilizer trade and look to reducing transport costs for Phosporus, Potossium, and the final end product while electrifying the mining industry.
Not even the title is misleading, the first sentence of the article as well.
"the Uruguayan economy" includes mobility (cars, planes), industry, heating of homes.
If this is the way we want to promote renewables, by straight up lying, we are merely deceiving ourselves.
The only question is what end of the conversational spectrum are the lies offloaded?
Potential for energy supply parity with non-renewables? Population life support (the third rail)?. True carbon math vs the feel-good type? Or like you note, actual renewable energy implementation in contrast with what is purported? Expect a shuffle, with a multi-agenda authoritarian streak under all.
When "save group x" loses its political appeal generally, toward justifying politics, then "save the Earth" is an emotionally attractive and infinitely "renewable" excuse for acting anti-democratically.