Which countries have adopted renewable energy the fastest?

I don’t want to be a spoiler, but even before reading the entire source article I doubt the U.S. is on that list.

According to the International Energy Agency, as of 2022 solar comprised 4.5% pf global electricity generation and wind accounted for 7.5%. The total of 12% seems small, but the pace of expansion in the last 10 years has been impressive.

However, it’s not impressive enough. To stay on track for our net-zero emissions goals that 12% needs to grow to 41% by 2030. That’s going to be tough. Regardless, the topic de jour is the countries that have done the best job of maintaining the necessary pace.

Again, not to give anything away, but I’m guessing that they are all relatively small. And I’m not kidding, I’m writing this prior to getting to the article’s list.

I just got to the pertinent paragraph so here we go. Drum-roll please.

The countries are Uruguay, Denmark, Lithuania, Namibia, Netherlands, Palestine, Jordan, and Chile.

I know – you think I cheated, but I didn’t. The one benefit of age is you get a feel for these sorts of things. You also develop an understanding of the law of big numbers.

The source article was written by the World Resources Institute. And what I love about evangelists like the WRI is that they’re so optimistic. It pointed out that three countries – Uruguay, Denmark, and Lithuania – have achieved their impressive renewables growth over an eight-year span. That is coincidently about the number of years left before the year 2030. The implication is if these countries could do it, so can the rest of the world.

Since I’m categorize myself as a realist – that would be a hard no.

This is where the aforementioned law of big numbers comes into play. That “law” basically says that it’s much easier to increase something 100% when that something is going from one to two. But it gets exponentially more difficult to achieve 100% growth when you start from a much larger base.

That’s why it was obvious the list was comprised of small countries.

WTI went on to cite the common ingredients to these country’s success. They included a desire to boost energy security, smart effective policies, and costs.

Add one more to that list – it helps to achieve impressive percentage growth when you’re small.