Portugal and Renewable Resources, What the US Could Learn

There are many reasons for countries and governments to look into renewable technologies but usually the first one to come to mind is not get out of an economic deficit. That is exactly the reason why Portugal has gone through a big change in how their country gets its energy. Portugal has no fossil fuels of its own, so therefore it had to import almost all of its energy. The buying of their energy from an outside source contributed to about half of the countries national deficit. So, in order for Portugal to start climbing out of their debt they needed to find a way to make their own energy and start utilizing what resources their country had like its hundreds of miles of coastline and very sunny areas. The country bought the privately owned transmission lines that ran throughout the country and upgraded them at a cost. The company that had owned the lines before had no interest in renewable energy because the upgrades that would need to occur to the grid would increase cost to industry. The upgrades that the country made increased flexibility and the connection to remote areas so that people can now produce and distribute their own energy back onto the grid through a personal generator like a solar panel. The new emphasis on renewable energy especially in wind and solar power has really paid off for Portugal. It now is nearly at forty five percent renewable energy for electricity production, which is up about twenty eight percent from five years earlier.

Not only is Portugal improving its economy because they are no longer importing as much foreign fossil fuels but also their economy improved because of the boom in jobs available for creating renewable energy. In Portugal the number of energy enterprises tripled over a six year period creating a mass amount of jobs. Someone has to build the wind turbines, hydroelectric dams, and other renewable energy generators so it ends up being a win-win situation. Not only are the new companies flourishing just in Portugal, they are flourishing all over the world because other countries see how well they are performing.

The United States could learn a thing from Portugal about advancement in renewable technology and fixing economic deficits. Every day on the news you see stories about the economy and lack of jobs and see people trying to come up with solutions to the problems. Well this is one great idea that in a sense kills two birds with one stone. If the United States looked at what Portugal is doing and try something similar our dependence on fossil fuels would plummet and available jobs would increase instead of it being the other way around like it is now.