“with wind the single-biggest contributor… Power production costs have declined “by almost half” … And the clean energy sector has created 50,000 new jobs… Ask me what was the impact on the electricity sector in Uruguay after this tragic war in Europe — zero.”
I don’t understand the objection to greater efficiency… Even renewables are not without their own environmental costs of mining, transportation, manufucaturing etc. If we use less power we can more easily transition to renewables, with less disruption to the environment.
You’re right! There’s nothing wrong with efficiency and teaching people to be less wasteful, however I believe including it in your argument for renewables means muddying the message.
Talking about getting production to 100% renewable puts the onus on governments and power companies to change.
Talking about efficiency is about getting consumers to use less, and allows energy producers and politicians to point the finger at people leaving their lights on unnecessarily rather than getting on with the job of making more renewable energy.
This is of course speculation on my part
Efficiency doesn’t have to be consumer led, though. It could be stuff like higher building standards and subsidies for insulation, subsidies for heat pumps for AC and hot water, even seemingly trivial things like free/subsidised LED bulbs can add up (there is still a significant amount of non-LED bulbs in the wild in many countries).