I invite you all to take a look at Energy from Portugal
It powerfully starts like this: 43% of our energy comes from renewable energy sources. No wonder we worship the sun, the sea and the wind.
It reveals testimonials from Bill Clinton, Sam Bodman, Tony Blair, the King of Sweden and the President and CEO of Nissan and Renault.
Furthermore the website presents Portugal’s energy policy, nothing less than: Leadership in renewable energies
The success stories are quite some and the results achieved are:
- 43% of gross electricity generated from renewable sources;
- Largest wind farm in operation in Europe;
- Largest PV solar plant in the World;
- First worldwide wave energy project to reach the market;
- National platform for electric cars in 2011;
- EDP the 4th company in the world in renewable energy.
The website links to some related press. Here’s one more, a photo story from The Guardian: Portugal’s renewable energy boom
In addition, Portugal and Spain agreed this month on setting up a joint Renewable Energy Research Center (CIERE). The center will be specialized in biomass energy and electric vehicles investigation. The center will be led by the Portuguese António Sá da Costa, the current vice-president of the European Renewable Energy Federation.
•
The last of Portugal’s true commitments, to globalization, took place five centuries ago and produced many admirable results too, such as:
- The discovery of the direct maritime route from Europe to India, rounding the Cape of Good Hope, under Vasco da Gama;
- The discovery of Brazil, by Pedro Álvares Cabral;
- The first expedition around the world, under Fernão de Magalhães;
- The discovery of New Guinea, Timor Island and maybe Australia too;
- The first trading ship to reach China;
among many others…
No wonder we worship the sun, the sea and the wind. Now, as 500 years ago, they are taking us further ∞
2 comments
Comments feed for this article
February 27, 2009 at 15:05
David Fialho
Great post Fábio!!!!
Like other countries (and we had this conversation in Copenhagen) Portugal has a lot of bad aspects, and like has been writen before in a comment to other post from you “self-criticism is a good thing”, but we portuguese people, and some portuguese organizations (including the media) have to communicate better what we do well instead of only what we have wrong.
We are in the good path for a energy/green revolution, but a lot has to be done, and times of crisis are definitely the rigth time to change habits and save costs and the world environment at the same time.
This is a link to my aicep’s article about this last pharagraph:
http://halfhourminute.blogspot.com/2009/02/danger-opportunity-crisis.html
AND THIS IS A CBC (Canada) FOOTAGE ABOUT WHAT YOU HAD JUST POST:
http://www.cbc.ca/mrl3/8752/news/features/durham-portugal081020.wmv
February 27, 2009 at 15:19
David Fialho
AND ANOTHER LINK TO ANOTHER GREAT POST FOR THE AICEP’S BLOG, made by António Veloso a collegue in the 12th Inov Contacto edition (in portuguese):
«A verdade da mentira»
http://visaocontacto.blogs.sapo.pt/96038.html