Unknown

All right, all right. Hello, everyone. This is Volz for August 19th, 2026. He helped Uruguay decarbonize. Can he help other countries do the same? I'm your host, David Roberts. In the early 2000s, Ramon Mendez-Galain was a particle physicist teaching at the Universidad de la República in Montevideo, Uruguay. At the time, the country was in a bit of an energy crisis. Its plentiful hydropower was plagued by droughts. Imported oil was $150 a barrel, and there were rolling blackouts. So it was considering building a nuclear power plant. Galain, closest thing the country had to a nuclear physicist, took a look at the proposal and concluded it was the right thing to do. wrong way to go, that renewables were a better option for the country. He wrote a proposal to that effect. The country's president, Tabaré Vázquez, heard about the proposal and called him to offer him the job of energy secretary. Galain took the job, and over the next seven years, Uruguay became one of the first countries in the world to almost completely decarbonize its power system, regularly running on 98 or 99% of its energy. Galain was the first country to do that. The country retained public ownership of its power utility and its grid, while private capital funded the changes, something the big institutions like the IMF and the World Bank predicted could not be done. Galain went on to become Uruguay's national director of climate change and its chief negotiator for the Paris Agreement before founding Associación Ivy, a non-profit, that advises governments in the global south on how to redesign their electricity systems. Until recently, Ivy was working with one country at a time on a project-by-project basis, but in September 2025, Galain won a $4 million climate breakthrough, which will allow Ivy to spread out and work with many countries simultaneously. His stated ambition is to reach at least 50 countries by 2035 and avoid, on the order of, two gigatons of emissions. It is difficult to find another single individual who has had a greater influence on the spread of clean energy in the global south, so I cannot wait to talk to him about Uruguay's experience, what does and doesn't transfer to other countries, how he tries to frame and sell decarbonization to other governments, and the role the global south plays in the larger decarbonization fight. All right then, with no further ado, Ramón Méndez-Galain, welcome to VOLTS. Thank you so much for coming. Thank you so much for inviting me, David. It's a big pleasure to be with you and with your audience. Awesome. So let's start with a story I'm sure at this point you've told a million times, but I'm guessing most of my listeners are not familiar with it. You were a professor teaching back in 2008. Tell us the story of how this sort of proposal for a nuclear plant came across. Your desk. And kind of what happened next. How you ended up where you ended up. It's a fantastic story. In fact, yes, I told it many times, but every time I remember that, then I'm really excited about what happened. I never imagined, you know, 20 years ago that I was going to be in the position I am right now. I never imagined that in life. Yes, I was just a university professor, a researcher, in fact, working in particle physics, working in subjects that are far, far away from the real world. People life because I work in trying to understand what happened in the first microsecond of the universe after the Big Bang. Yeah. So because at that time, at the early time, the universe was completely different than the one we know today. So I was really trying to understand the physics with many other colleagues all over the world. And yes, as you were saying in the introduction, I was perhaps the closest thing as a nuclear engineer or something like that, because we don't have nuclear engineers in Uruguay. We don't because we didn't. We don't have nuclear power plants. But at that time, this was the first years of this century. And it was a kind of reborn of the nuclear industry because more than 20 years passed after Chernobyl. And I grew up understanding that in principle, we have learned from the Chernobyl lessons. Now we were ready in order to increase the participation of nuclear power, all over the world. So, yes, it was many people in my country. The president himself were thinking about the possibility of going to nuclear. And so as a university professor and somewhere close to the subject, I understand that I can have to contribute to this discussion. So I began to study the issue to bring into my country experts from abroad, experts from nuclear countries. And then I rapidly understood that it was not that simple that there is just one solution that solves all problems that you can have in a power sector, in the energy sector. So that's why I began a journey and trying to understand all the issues which are involved in a power sector, in the energy business. And so in a way, I concluded, I make up with different conclusions. And so I wonder, I mean, you drew those different conclusions and then the president responded by offering you the job of energy secretary, which I'm sure must have come as somewhat of a surprise. And so I wonder, I mean, you drew those different conclusions and then Were you big surprised, scared, nervous to make that leases? Yeah. I did something that no one has the right to do that. I took two weeks thinking what the answers should be, but they waited for me. After these two weeks, I understood that yes, it was possible for me to leave the, you know, when you're in the academy sector, everything is very simple. I mean, the sense that you can dress whatever you, which way you want. You have a lot of freedom. You can think whatever you want to think you can mistake. And this is the role of a scientist to mistake and to think that to try to find where different options exist. But if I was going to enter into the policy framework and the political sector that things were going to change a lot for me, but in fact, I believe in the proposal that I have written. And I had this tremendous appetite, you know, that to try it and I eventually accept it. Okay. So at the time, just to give listeners kind of a little bit of context at the time, Uruguay had a bunch of hydro power, which as I understand it, depending on sort of the weather and the year could swing anywhere from something like 40% to like 60 or 70% of the year's electricity. And then the balance was provided by. Imported oil, oil fired electricity, which is just about the most expensive kind you can have. And so you had this combination of a drought, which had your hydro very low and then historically expensive oil at the time, people might remember back then there was a little bit of an oil crisis and so this was a crisis situation. And I'm wondering, did that sense of crisis? Is that part of. Why you were successful, why you were able to do the dramatic things you were doing? Like what was the sort of level of kind of panic at the time? Yeah, absolutely. We're leaving up the perfect story because as you were saying, you were historically believe in, in our hydro power plan, but there was delivering less and less. And we are very sensitive to what is called the El Nino phenomenon. And when we have dry years, I mean, the hydro power generation can be less than half of the usual. Years and yes, we're using oil because we're trying to depend on gas, but we just had one single provider, which was Argentina and Argentina was having tremendous difficulty to supply their own domestic demand. So it was not possible for them to sell us gas. And so we didn't have that much options were importing more oil, which was becoming more and more expensive. And so we were experiencing not only tremendous instabilities in the system, but also we're experiencing lack of electricity at some moments and more and more expensive electricity. So it was really the perfect storm. And at the top of that, you know, the country economy was growing very rapidly. We're growing at that time at six, seven, even 8% per year. And there was a very successful governments where the poverty was decreasing very sharply. Also, we were ended with no more than 8% of poverty in the country, the energy demand was growing and growing with a very difficult energy mix. Well, one of the most sort of fascinating, at least from where I'm standing here in the United States, sort of baffling aspects of all this is you came in in a majority government. You had a political majority, but the president pushed you to basically generate political unity on this, to create a plan that every political party would sign off on basically so that these changes would be enduring and steady over time and of course, I'm sure any country would love to have political unity to make their plans enduring over time. But how in the world did you get everyone from every side of politics to sign off on these very ambitious plans? Well, this was one of the two or three most important issues that allows us to make this transition. Because, yes, what is happening for the last 20 years in our Western democracies is that we're going from one government to another government and things change dramatically. And it's even worse because the energy sector is in a way politicized and ideologized, which means that you put the ideology in that which is a technical and economical environment. Environmental discussion, which in fact has no meaning at all. So what I did is when the president asked me to lead a technical and political committee trying to figure out a long term solution or long term transition on a new framework for the energy sector in the country, my proposal was let's try to discuss what the benefits are for our constituencies, no matter if they vote right or left or center or whatever. I mean, what are the benefits of going to one direction? And the crucial point was, let us not begin discussing about what we should do today, not even next year, not even during this government. Let's try to imagine how we can think the country should be in 30 years from now. So we are thinking about 30 years in the future. Everything becomes much more simple when we discuss, because if you're asking about what we should do now or next year, your first thoughts are, and what about? I'm gaining or losing in this direction, should have more and less power, should have more and less votes, should have more and less money. But if you're discussing about the future, the real future, you don't imagine yourself 30 years in the future. I mean, it's simple to discuss how you can imagine the country if you are not in this imagination. So it was not that difficult to imagine the country that we would like to have 30 years in the future concerning the power of energy. It was not that difficult to imagine the country that we would like to have 30 years in the future concerning the power of energy. years in the future concerning the power sector. And then we make a kind of reverse engineering. So if we have to be in 30, you have to be in this point, where should we be in 25 years? I'd wait in 20, I'd wait in 15. And then when we're going back and back, it was becoming a little bit more difficult. But at the end of the day, if we want to face on this amazing future, then we have to take decision now. And this was the way that we built an overall agreement. But once again, the most important thing was that we build it according to the benefits of the new system we bring to our citizens. And this was the crucial issue. Speaking of that, I'm curious, what role, if any, climate change played in that discussion? Was that a big part of the puzzle? Or were you focused more on just basic financial and security benefits? What was the sort of discussion like? It was one of them. Most important point, but not the most important one. The point at that time, and now it's much, much simpler. But at that time, the point is that for any country, but particularly for a country, oil imported country, a gas import country, the most important was try to have the basis of our system based on our own national resources. Because if you have your own national resources, you don't have to depend on fluctuation of energy commodity prices, on decisions. You don't have to pay for the fluctuation of wars or whatever decision that you cannot take, but other things for you. And you have to pay for the consequences of that. And renewables for us was for sure the best option. Because renewables, you are not dependent on an energy commodity price. You are much less vulnerable to these geopolitical events all over the world and your own national resources. So you are much more sovereign and much more independent, much more stabilized as an energy society. And I think that's a big part of the problem. As an energy system. So when we build this agreement, in fact, we put together a lot of ingredients. One of them was climate. One of them, yes, was environment in general, but it was also economical issues, geopolitical issues, social issues, ethical issues, even, and technological one. What we're understanding in that moment, that renewables were ready to have their part in their share. We ended up with a lot of energy. But in fact, we were based in optimization of the power system according to our national characteristics. We had to prove, first of all, that renewables are the cheapest option. Today is very simple because today there's no cheaper option than producing electricity with wind and solar. But at that time, it was not that simple. It was not that clear at all. And of course, we have to prove that it was possible to manage a system with a high share of variability, of variable sources. Like wind and solar. Once again, today, it's absolutely proved that, yes, we can do it. We are the real proof because we have been doing this for the last 10 years. So we had a lot of economic challenges, very difficult technical challenges, but also regulatory challenges and market design challenges. How to build a market which is appropriate for the characteristics of these new technologies that were emerging at that time. And now they are absolutely mature. It gets into my next question. My next question, which is another fascinating aspect of all this, is how you financed this. Obviously, any big plan like this requires a lot of financing, a lot of money. And as I understand it, there was a lot of pressure from the international institutions, your IMF, your World Bank, privatized. You had one state utility, publicly owned utility that ran the country's grid. And as I understand it, there was quite a bit of pressure to privatize that utility and privatize the whole thing. You did not do that. And I think you had to push back to not do that. So talk about how you structured things so that you could attract private capital without privatizing. Well, in fact, it was, we have a lot of challenges, of course. We were designing from the scratch. We had no experience to copy or to try to adapt, to try to understand from them. We were really, really invited. I mean, make it a function that didn't exist in the world. And in fact, we make a kind of agreement. And this was crucial. I mean, the agreement was not only in the political sector, it was also with the private sector. And the governance of the whole process was absolutely crucial because we share our vision, we share our benefits with the private sector, and we're invited to have a public partnership with our public utility and bring in not only capitals, but bring in also knowledge and bring in experiences. And we built an ecosystem, a transformative ecosystem, where everybody was gaining. It was kind of adaptive governance in the way we were all the time discussing, all the time having interaction, learning from each other, mistaken, both from the public and private sector, and doing learning curves and trying to correct mistakes and trying to discuss because we built an option that was, in principle, the best for all of us. And so we had all this overall national commitment in order to make this as a possible solution. And yes, I mean, we created something that was very interesting because something that you didn't say so far, David, is that in fact, yes, we invested a lot of money. Yes, it was a lot of private and public investment, but the final cost was negative. What do I mean by the final cost negative? Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. I mean that the cost. cost of electricity in Rwai decreased by a factor of two after the transition. So it was real business, not a single subsidy in order to make it possible, not a single subsidy. It has created the appropriate investment conditions that were the most adequate in order to introduce the new renewable sources, which those conditions are completely different than the traditional one, from the traditional that exists in all of the world power system. And if you create these conditions, we made the proof that wind and solar are the cheapest option that we have today. And so the final cost of electricity for the consumers decreased, and there were real options for investors to come. We received in total something like $6 billion investment in only four years, and $6 billion for Uruguay, which is one of the smaller economies in South America, was 12% of the GDP. Now, imagine how much is the 12% of the GDP of the United States. It has a lot of zeros, believe me. And so this was the amount of money that we got just proposing real business, no subsidized business, just making win-win solutions. And we proved it was possible. So that's why there was a clue in order to attract a lot of this weapon. Real business, real benefits, and talk, talk, talk, and talk, discussing and discussing, understanding each other, understanding how to build win-win-win-win solutions for all the stakeholders, and having open ears, but at the same time, leadership. Because at the end of the day, we have to understand what everybody's saying, we have to understand what everybody needs. But then you have to take decisions. And for that, public policies are crucial. The present power systems are not the ones we need in order to go through a transition, in order to take profit for the benefits, real benefits of renewables today. But if you make the appropriate changes, then there is an absolute explosion for the benefits for this new system that we can build today. Do you think having the public utility was an important part? Do you think that was crucial to being able to succeed at making everyone succeed, everyone benefit? Do you think having the public utility in your hands was a crucial part? It's not mandatory. I mean, you can do the same with it in Uruguay, in a system which is absolute and totally privatized. This is possible. But when you have a public utility, it's much simpler because once there is a political decision that this is the direction to take, I mean, just discussing with the authorities of the public utility. And making them to understand that it was the best for the country, it was just a strategic decision. It was not a competition of different stakeholders, each of them looking at their own pocket, if there were more and less benefits. It was just at the end of the political decision. And so, yes, it was simple because we had a new way of planning a system with a high share of renewables. It's much more complicated and much different than the traditional ones. And we needed long-term contracts. We tried to transform completely. The. The market design, the basis is that the public utility has long-term contracts with independent energy providers. And those contracts are coming from BID processes, very open BID processes with very open information. So in this public to private partnership, in fact, private partnerships competed to be in the market. They're not competed in the market all the time, but they compete for the market. So they compete in order to. To have long-term contracts with the public utility and this sharply decrease the risk perception by investors. So the cost of the money was sharply reduced. At the end of the day, this was the most important thing in order to decrease the cost. Because, you know, renewables, they don't have a traditional energy production. They don't have a fuel behind. So the cost of electricity is at the cost of the money. The operational maintenance costs are very low. There's no fuel. So you just have to pay back the investment. And you have to pay back investment and practice a financial business. Nothing more than that. Then the most important is the risk perception for the capital cost. And as we sharply decrease risk perception, having these long-term contracts with very clear, very clear understanding, very clear framework, very clear political agreement, long-term agreement. So this was the panacea for investors. And so that's why they came a lot with a lot of money. But also. they came with a very low capital costs. And these were the most important key in order to decrease the cost of electricity. Interesting. So my audience is full of grid geeks. We love the grid. We love talking about how the grid works. So as you say, a grid with a bunch of variable renewables looks and operates very different than one with traditional fueled power plants, but you did have, I mean, if you're going to implement a bunch of renewables, I think it is very useful to have a giant amount of hydropower to basically firm up that renewable energy. So I'm curious how you thought about structuring the grid from a technical perspective, and I'm curious how close the mix you ended up with was to the mix you imagined when you started out. Hey there, everybody. Don't worry, I'm not going to tell you about it. I'm not going to talk about a new mattress or push a credit card on you. This isn't an ad. There are no ads on Voltz. It is supported entirely by listeners like you. If you'll indulge me for a second, I'd like to ask for your support. I started Voltz because we're all surrounded by depressing news about climate change and misinformation about clean energy. And it's never been more important to share the stories of the real people on the ground doing the real work of transition and all the ingenuity and courage and public spirit. They are bringing to it. People are hungry to hear these stories to learn from and find inspiration in them. I've heard from people who change majors or careers after hearing episodes of Voltz, people using it in classrooms and community groups, even state legislators who have passed bills inspired by specific episodes. Sharing these stories matters. It makes a difference. If you have found value in it and want to help me continue doing it, I hope you will join the community of paid subscribers at Voltz.wt.com. It's about the cost of a cup of coffee a month. If you don't like subscriptions, you can make a one-time contribution, leave a review on Apple or Spotify, or just tell a friend about Voltz. I am grateful for any and all support. If you're already a paid subscriber, thank you. And now back to the show. How close the mix you ended up with was to the mix you imagined when you started out? It was quite the one. We imagined, but in fact, we didn't know if we were expected to be successful because we have to prove a lot of things that were not proven so far when we began on that. Today is very simple because today there are a lot of things that have already been proved. We have to prove that it was possible to manage not only the stability, the reliability of wind and solar, but also the dynamic stability of the grid, which means some technical issues like maintaining the control of the frequency of the tension. There were a lot of. Technical issues that wasn't unsolved at that time. Today they are solved, but at that time they weren't solved. So we have to imagine the thing we wanted, but we didn't know if we were able to do it. So it was as a surprise, but it was something that we didn't know from the beginning. It was really possible to achieve. So yes, the way you plan the system, when you have this new technology, the new, cheaper and more mature technology, which are wind and solar, the way we plan the system, the way you understand. The system is completely different than the traditional one. In the traditional one, you have thermal power plants that you can put on and off as you will. I mean, perhaps not a nuclear power plant, but I'm not a coal plant that has to be there for days or months because there have no flexibility, just as both flexibility, but the rest, you can put it on and off according to the demand is the demand peaks. Then you have to put more power plants, which are more and more expensive when the demand goes down. Then you take out those power plants, but it's just a human decision. It's simpler. And if you have hydro, it's fantastic, but then when there's water, instead of using paying for fuels, you just use water, which is free. Then it's a perfect mix of hydro power with thermal power. We're called hydrothermal systems as our beast that complicated, but they're easy to manage in a way, but when you have the variability of wind and solar, and if they're the cheapest one, as there are today, then you have to rethink everything. In our case, in base load in Uruguay is that even hydro is not thermal, base load in Uruguay is wind and solar. And when I say that base load is wind and solar, what I mean is that the total installed capacity of wind plus solar equal the peaks demand of the country. So this means that when there is enough wind and enough sun in the country, and this is a nature decision, it's not our decision, but when this happens, then a hundred percent of electricity is just wind and sun, nothing more than that. And on that time, of course, we don't use thermal power plant, but we don't even use hydro because hydro, the role is not as base load. The role is not as peaker. The role of hydro is to follow the variability of wind and solar. So it's a completely different role than the way we use hydro power plants all over the world. So hydro are there to provide a big storage, a big battery in the system. And to follow the variability of wind and solar. So this is a completely different issue. And what happened about thermal power plant, do we have thermal power plant in the United States? Yes, we do have thermal power plant, but we have them in the way that you have the insurance for your car. When you have a car, you pay for the insurance, but you pay the insurance in order not to use it. You just pray not to have to use the insurance, but you know they have to pay it just in case. So this is exactly the role. A thermal power plant in our system, we pay for them to be ready all the time just in case, but we pray for not use them. So, and when I say pray, in fact, it's just one of the most important words in this new kind of system, which is planning. Planning is crucial. We have developed a new planning, completely new power planning platform in which not only we plan the expansion according to the lowest capex and opex of the new technologies in order to decrease the cost, but at the same time that we expand or we found the optimum complementation of technologies, we also, at the same time, make a simulation of the operation. At each time step of the evolution of the system, we make a simulation of the operation of the system. So there is some technology which is missing for some reason. Then we prove to add this technology and once again to simulate the operation of the system. in order to understand if we need more reforming or compensator or more spending reserve or whatever. So at the same time, we are building the lowest cost system, which is operable. You can operate at any kind of weather conditions or water condition or rain condition. So it's a pure stochastic model, which is based on the probability of occurrence or different probabilistic scenarios for the future of your system. And then you define which is the best complementarity of each technology. And so this planning is the one which is defined. You know what is the best solution today? The best solution is let's try to put as much as wind and solar as possible because they are the cheapest option. And all the rest of the system, beginning with hydropower, if you have the chance to have them, or batteries, or as the last resource, thermal power plant, all the rest, which are more expensive, their role is just to follow the variability of wind and solar. Well, there you have it. As you say. You have these thermal plants. They're sort of mostly insurance. But when you have a low hydro year, say, or low wind and solar year, those thermal plants do ramp up a bit. So like the clean energy percentage on some years is down to, you know, 93% or 92%. Sometimes it's up to 99%. I'm curious, two questions about that. One is, have you replaced all your oil-fired plants with gas plants at this point? And two, is there any. Is there any prospect or plan to eliminate that last bit of fossil? Is there anything else that you can imagine playing that role that won't produce greenhouse gases? Is there any way to eliminate that last bit? Absolutely. So the two questions are absolutely fantastic, David. First of all, when you're using 1% or 2% of electricity produced by some kind of fuel, it doesn't matter what the fuel is because at the end of the day, it's only 2%. So 2%, not only. It's only 2% of the emissions, but only 2% of the cost. So yes, we are still having now the two possibilities because we have diversified our providers. So we have gas, we have oil, but no matter what we use. I mean, it's just a very small amount of the total cost of electricity. So the goal is just to use fuels as less as possible. If you use fuel as less as possible, no matter what the fuels are. And so if you're talking about emissions, what I can tell you is that, in fact, our per capita emissions. Our per kilowatt hour emissions are something like 40 times smaller than the world average. I mean, I can give you two answers to your question. The first answer would be, when the rest of the world is going to be 40 times smaller, then let's talk about our last 1%, 2%. Yeah, it's a good problem to have. Yes, of course. But in fact, this is one possible answer to your question. The other possible answer is that, in fact, today, we are having in Uruguay is the less cost system. This means that could we be 100% renewable? The answer is immediately, yes, we could be 100% renewable. For example, adding batteries. But adding batteries, instead of having this last chance of having the last 1%, 2%, 3% of thermal power in the system, would be more expensive. So it is better just to have their old thermal power plant, because we never had to build more power plants. In fact, we have decommissioned thermal power plants because we didn't need them anymore. So we have a few of them just there as this last insurance recourse. And so, in fact, we could replace them by batteries, but as we have already paid back all this investment of thermal power plants, maybe just use them, you know? So, yes, perhaps our plan shows that in five years from now, we could be 100% renewable, but once we are able to do this, we could be 100% renewable, we could be 100% renewable, we could be 100% renewable, we could be 100% renewable, we could be 100% renewable, we could be 100% renewable. So, again, it's a kind of combination of different measures of emissions, of geopolitics, of different visions, and one of them is also cost. Right, well, speaking of that, speaking of batteries, Uruguay is also, I think, setting itself apart from the Global South for the speed of its adoption of EVs. Yeah. It's frequently being called the Norway of the South, because it's ramping up EVs really quickly. And I'm wondering if one of the opportunities posed by EVs is that it's going to be more efficient, and it's going to be more efficient, and it's going to be more efficient. An EV fleet is a giant distributed battery, among other things. If you can hook it up to the grid and manage it correctly, I wonder if that might help you squeeze out some of those last bits of fossil fuel. It will. No sure that it will. I mean, when you are a fossil fuel importer, as we are in Uruguay, and you have a 98%, 99%, 97% grid in your system based just on your own autochthonous resources, then you have all the benefits in order to go to EVs, because this is the best for your sovereignty, for your economy. I made a calculation once, and I put that to my student in university, which is a very simple calculation. What if, magically, 100% of our fleet would go from combustion engines to EVs? What if? And if this would happen, then we would decrease by a factor of eight the cost of the energy to everything in the country. Because we will go, yes, about a factor of eight if we replace imported derivatives, oil, with nationally produced green electricity. So it is a huge amount of possibility that you're having and a huge impact in your economy. In our case, it will be a decrease of about three points of the GDP if we were able to go magically from 100% of our fleet from combined engine to EVs. Yes, that's why, for example, last month. In the last month, we sold more EVs than gasoline cars. Yes, EVs were something like 43%, more or less, in total, in the last month, and gasoline was about 41% or something like that, the rest being diesel and other things. So there's an exponential growth. So this is the new sold car, but in the total fleet, we're still not less than 4% to 5%, which is increasing very rapidly, but we are still not 4% to 5%. So, yes, if we are able to have more than 15% to 20% of EVs in the fleet, then things would change dramatically. Because another interesting thing in Uruguay is that 100% of our consumers have intelligent meters. With intelligent meters, we invested heavily because when you have. Trying to build an electrostate, there are many petrol states, but we are trying to build an electrostate. An electrostate means that you have a lot of other possibilities. One of them is the one that you are saying is that, yes, for example, I can give a very, very quick example. I have an EV for the last three years now, and I charge it during the night because during the night, there is much more wind than during the day. And, of course, during the night, there is less consumption. So during the night, the electricity cost is much lower than during the rest of the day. So I charge my car from midnight to 7 a.m., and so the cost in order to charge, fully, my car, is only $4. And with $4, I made 500 kilometers, 300 miles, okay? So this is what you can do when you take profit of a fully renewable power system. And so in the future, I could do it now, but it's not ready yet in the country, that I can charge my car during the night, during the midday, during the whole night. Then I go to work, whatever I want to do. And when I go back to my place at 6 p.m., 7 p.m., which is the peak, and demand it in many high air conditioners and different things, then I plug the car in order to sell electricity to the grid. This is absolutely perfect. This is the kind of things that you can do if you have these intelligent meters. There are much other things that you can do when you have intelligent meters. Just to give you an example, if you have to irrigate a field, if you are a food producer and have to irrigate a field, you have to bring your plants a certain amount of water in a week, let's say. But you can irrigate, and you need to irrigate, let's say, 40 hours during a week. But which 40 hours you have to irrigate? So let the utility to decide which are those 40 hours that they're going to irrigate. And let's connect automatically. And that's when utilities are having excess of renewable electricity, of uncontrolled electricity, and with less demand. So this is the moment that you are going to irrigate your field. And this, you can do it automatically. You can do it automatically using intelligent grids and intelligent meters. So this is the kind of things that you can begin doing when you have such kind of new systems. Okay, I have one more question about Uruguay, and then I want to talk about your work with other countries. But final question, which is, as you say, you cut the electricity generation costs by 50%, over 50% at this point, which is remarkable. But electricity bills to consumers only fell by about, 20%, so what's happening to that money? Where's that money going? What happened in Uruguay is that, in fact, differently what happened in other countries, is that the government and the finance minister uses the power grid and the power utility as an ATM. This means that there is indirect subsidy going from the electricity consumer to the rest of the economy. Because the minister used these efficiency measures increase of the corporate or of the utility in order to have more money for public policy. At the end of the day, you know, it's a public utility. So the owner is the government at the end, but the shareholders are the citizens. And so the owner of utility uses this as a source of incomes for public policy. So in fact, this has nothing to do with energy decision. It has to do with an economic decision in the country. And we need a redefinition of the fiscal platform, the fiscal structure of the country. And this is a decision that's, I used to say that one of the worst, my worst day, I've been secretary of any for two consecutive presidents here in eight years. And one of my worst day was when I was about to finish the job and my colleague, the minister of final will say, fantastic job, Ramon, you did a fantastic job. Thank you so much. But I'm like, actually, if you own a part of the wind and you don't, I'm going to take 80% of that. So this was a very bad day for me. Then I understood that at the end of the day, this was the best for the country because at the end of the day, the most important point is the cost decrease. What the country makes, the economy makes with this money is just as soon as it begins in the national economy. Well, that's good. There's nothing that better. Right, right, right, right. You're, uh, have been pivoting recently to trying to basically help other countries in the global South follow this path. And I know you've had this question a million times too, but in a lot of ways, Uruguay was just perfectly set up to make this transition. It had a lot of hydro to use as that big battery. And the competitor to renewables was $150 barrel imported oil, which is about the best enemy you could, you could pick. You know, a lot of other countries that I know you're talking to might not necessarily have that much hydro or any hydro to serve as that battery. And they might be, the competitor might be cheap gas rather than expensive oil. So a lot of other countries are not going to have those sort of natural advantages starting out. So I'm sort of curious, like what parts of the Uruguay model transfer to other countries? What is it exactly you're trying to encourage other countries to do? What are some of the things that you're trying to encourage other countries to do? It can't be exactly what Uruguay did. So what is it that you're trying to sell them on? Thank you so, so much for that question. Because in fact, one important thing is that you have new technologies. Thanks to climate change, we have developed new technology. But then the new technologies are there. We cannot avoid the fact that we have now wind and solar, which are much cheaper than all the rest in all markets, not just in Uruguay, but in all markets. They are the cheapest option today all over the world. And that they have the matured, technology matures in order to make it possible. So this is worldwide. It's not just for one single country. And now let me, in a way, correct you if you allow me to say that. One thing that you say, when I'm saying that we decrease by a factor of two the cost of electricity, is that compared to $150 barrels? Is compared to $80 barrel? And even compared to a much cheaper gas? If I compare to the $150 barrel, then. I'll decrease the cost by a factor of five. Perhaps the most interesting point is the absolute point and not the comparison. The absolute point is that today we produce electricity by only $5 cents per kilowatt hour. This is the cost, the average cost of all the electricity we produce in the country. Not the tree, not the bill, the cost to produce electricity. And this is a very low cost, no matter where you are in the world. This is just one specific position I wanted to make. But yes, if we compare a country with hydro, with a country with no hydro, some things are different, but not the most important point. And precisely not now that we have batteries. The battery cost has decreased by a factor of 10 in only 12 years. This is a dramatic change. And you have seen, for example, having many systems today, in many power systems, that including batteries, even with the cost of last year or 2024 cost, it already makes sense from the cost point of view. So today, the point is that we have different options. And I can tell you what we're doing today. I created a non-profit, which is just financed by philanthropic funds. We don't have any hidden agenda, whatever. We are just financed by philanthropic funds that understand. That is, the Uruguayan experience is very interesting for the rest of the world. So we're trying to share this experience. It's a very competitive team, which has a lot of technical knowledge, but also the political expertise on how to deal with these kind of changes. And all of this based on a success story, which is Uruguayan case. So it's a small team. We are more than 30, but we are working now very heavily, bringing, first of all, information to decision makers and to the private sector in many countries in the global South, trying, first of all, to simulate for them what will be the consequences for them if they go to the optimum definition of the system, not just based on political climate decision or goals, just on the optimal cost of the country, using in a wide way, in a smart way, what the present technologies are right now. Because as you said, in Uruguay, the basis is to use wind and solar, the cheapest sources, as kind of the baseload. And then everything else is about how to compensate for the rest. And one of the most important things is that we're trying to share in other countries that everything depends on a very heavy planning technology or planning definition. Then in Uruguay is that we have the optimum containment. Yes, there is containment because it's better sometimes to have more wind and solar than we need, because, you know, not to have less in other moments and not to have to turn on a thermal power plant, which are more expensive. So there is that tradeoff between having more and less containment. And what we have is the optimum containment. So the demand pays for this containment because they know that this is the optimum to optimize or to minimize the total cost of the system. So with this in mind, we optimize system and in large majority of the system, we are obtaining more than 80% of renewables in the market. So we have to make sure that we have the minimum of renewables in the market. And we have the minimum of renewables in the market. So we And just a small hydro without a small battery, I mean, without a small dam, without a small water reserve, even this is just enough because the ramps that you have to manage are not month ramps. You don't have to storage water for months, not even for days. You have to storage water for hours because if you want to follow the variability of wind and solar, you just need to storage water for hours, for 12 hours, nothing more than that. And so it's not that big hydropower plants neither. It's just simple hydropower plants and that you have in many countries. For example, now we have work heavily in Colombia. For Colombia, the optimum system, it was 95 to 96% of renewables in the mix because they're half hydro. If you go to other countries, perhaps it's not 95, 96 or 99, it's perhaps 80%. But everything rests in the way you use the system. So even if. Yes, one country is going to have its unique way of going, not to the transition, but just to optimize the system according to the new technologies that are available in the market. Though, even if every country is going to have a different solution, a different optimum, there is a recipe, which is the Hawaiian recipe, if you allow me to put it in this way, which can be repeated in any country all over the world. And the most important thing is how you plan the system, how you operate the system. Can you. Can you remunerate the system? So this is the big difference with the traditional power system. So what the first thing to do is a plan. When you have a plan, you define which is the optimum combination of each technology needed in order to decrease costs and to have resource adequacy. So you bid, no matter if it's a public utility, a private utility, it's a pool of utilities, it will no matter how the uptaker organize themselves. But the uptaker. the uptaker, they bid not to have a short-term energy market, but they bid long-term contracts. So the recipe is going from short-term energy market to a long-term capacity market. And so with that, you have a long-term contract, and this is the way to decrease risk perception by investors. And if you decrease risk perception in this system, which are mainly based in paying back money, because there is no fuel behind, so this is the recipe in order to decrease cost. And this recipe, you can sell it in any country, no matter if they have hydro, no matter of anything else. And you've said that, I just want to underline it, you think that any of these countries you're dealing with, any country in the global south, can get to at least 80%? percent renewables with proper planning and long-term commitment. I say that any country in the world, if they have today more or less reasonable wind and solar, and in the future with the advancement of the technology, any country in the world, if they make the appropriate system, can be, yes, at least 80 percent real. I know you're still relatively early in this work, but do you have another success story, another country that's sort of taken you up on this? No, I can tell you two very completely different markets. Colombia is one of them, which they have hydro, so there is, I would say, it's simpler. And I can tell you another example where we made a simulation, which is Haithi. Haithi, it's a very poor country, but they have wind. Mostly they have solar. They have a fantastic sun. And for them, thermal power is expensive because they have to import everything. And so this is expensive. And for them, with the present cost of batteries, it's better for them to have as much solar as possible with batteries. And with that, they have the lowest cost today. With that, they can have even 90 percent of renewables in the mix. And this is. This is the optimum cost for them. So this is an example of a country with a very interesting sun, with very solar radiation. And so, yes, present cost of technology, if you put them, if you combine them in the appropriate way, then it worked. This is the most important. And once again, it's not only the fact of cost, it's the cost stability, it's the economy. Yes. Stability. Remember what happened in your country. Yes. There was the Ukrainian war, the beginning of the Ukrainian war, 10 percent of inflation. So in Uruguay, I can tell you which is the cost of electricity today, tomorrow, in a year, in 10 years from now, because we don't depend on any kind of wars or invasion or whatever, just paying back an investment. So I can tell you from day zero, which is going to be the cost, because I just have to pay back an investment, nothing more than that. As you say, you can do these simulations for other countries and you can advise other countries technically on their optimum systems. And politically. Well, this is my question. Like, I'm guessing in many cases, the reason there hasn't been more progress in other countries is not technical doubt, it's politics. In a sense, the political unity you generated in Uruguay is kind of the magic sauce here that's missing in other places. Are you also advising on that? I mean, I don't even know what that would look like, but how do you try to generate political unanimity in another country? Absolutely. Absolutely. Because the first point is, I don't know, I don't know. The second point is that just to simulate, which is the optimum, and then to show that not only to the authorities, but also to the private sector and to stakeholders, et cetera. But then the real worry begins. Then the question is, and what can we do with this? And now we have this information. So what are you going to do? And so the second point is that your regulatory framework, your market design is not the most appropriate in order to take advantage of this new possibility of the new technology. Because, of course, the all-power system all over the world has been built. According to the characteristic of thermal power plant. And that's fine, because until a few years ago, they were the best solution we have. So I'm not at all against thermal power plants or fossil fuels. But the point is that now we have new technologies. So what can we do? We have to face it. So after bringing the information, we help them understand what are the regulatory and the market design change they need to make. And after that, we help them in order to make this change possible. Of course, we have to deal with different stakeholders. And we have incumbents and we have to show the incumbents that there are national interests that are perhaps greater than theirs. And we have to straight pollutions in order to make it possible. And then at the end of the day, the most important is for decision makers to make the political and social cost of doing nothing becoming in acceptable. And so this is the point. And so this is the way that you create the one, the political. political system understands that this is the way for the constituencies, that's it. If you were to identify one country that you think is most likely to follow Uruguay's example the soonest, what country do you have most hope for at the moment? We are just beginning. I mean, the first stages, I can tell you that there are at least 20 countries that want to work with us. We are just beginning to work in many of them. And so I still cannot tell you, for example, that yes, Colombia could be the next Uruguay, for sure. I can tell you that a small state island could also be crucial. For example, Jamaica, we're beginning to work in Jamaica because it is for an island country. I mean, the cost of thermal power plants is so heavy for them because they have to import everything that that's not Trinidad and Tobago, but the regular state island where they don't have fossil fuels, the cost. The fuels are very expensive. So there are now with the present cost of renewables and batteries and the new technologies, they are a perfect example to be at least 90% renewables. And this will be the best for them. But the point, of course, is that we still haven't ended up in a narrative denying the truth, denying and saying, oh, it's not possible to deal with the variability of wind and solar. Oh, but if you put batteries, it's more expensive. Oh, but what happened with the spinning reserve and what happened with the stability of the system, the dynamic stability of the system? We don't have to manage that. And what I used to say is that the human engineering has put a man in the moon, you Americans, has put in the moon 50 years ago. And you are trying to convince that this human engineer is not capable to deal with variability of wind and solar. I mean, we're crazy. But this is the point. The point is that we have a dominant narrative and we are living in a era of different truth. And to separate what is the truth or is not the truth. This is something which is different even for decision makers. And one last point. I'm not at all against the oil and gas industry at all. But we have to accept something which is very important, is that subsidies to fuel oil and gas industry is as high as $1.4 trillion per year. And this is not me which is saying that. It's not the International Union of Energy Engines. It's not Greenpeace. This is the International Union of Energy Engines. This is the International Monetary Fund, which year after year send a report saying which is the amount of the subsidy, direct and indirect subsidy, to the fossil fuel industry. And so this is something I have to take into account that we have built an economy which is more and more based in subsidies to the incumbent system. If you want to take profit of the new possibility, of the new technologies, of the new cost, of the new maturity of the new technologies. Then you have to make changes. And this is on the profit of all of us because we are going to avoid all the heavy subsidies that we have today for the old fossil fuel industry. And this is something that we have to understand also. We have to change many variables in the system. We have to change powers in the system, in the oil system, I mean. And this, of course, taking some time is a counter change at the end of the day. But, well, at the end of the day, as you were saying in America, is the economy stupid. So at some time, the economy will win. And now, once again, the driver for the transition, even if I'm a climate guy, the driver for the transition is no longer climate, it's economy. That's it. As a final question, this sets me up well for my very final question, which is sort of how you think about the role of the global south in all this. I mean, in some sense, if you're just look at it through a climate change lens, the total climate emission, climate emissions from the global south is still relatively small. I mean, it's a rounding error compared to what you get from the U.S. and China. So in a purely climate way, if you want to just reduce emissions, it makes sense to go after the U.S. and China. But I wonder, it seems like what you're also offering these countries in the global south is not just reduced emissions, but something like greater sovereignty and energy independence. And a kind of resistance, resilience against an energy colonialism, something like greater independence. Is that what's most motivating you here? I'm curious about your mix of motives in working with the global south specifically. It's exactly my claim. This is exactly my claim. My claim is that for global south country today, except for a few big oil producers, but even Colombia produce oil, gas, and energy, but even for them, it's better to go to renewables because they're increasingly shifting to a new economy that doesn't exist in their country. Look, in Uruguay, we created 50,000 new jobs. 50,000 new jobs for a country with only 3 million people is something like 3% of the total labor force of the country. So once again, do you know what is the labor force of the United States? So imagine what is 3%? It's more than a million people. So this is more than a million people. So imagine what is 3% of the total labor force of the United Our systems are not just because of climate change. Climate change is the consequence of that. Mitigating climate change is the consequences of using the benefits of having lower energy, more independence, more human natural resources, more labor force, more work developing the country, more development. When we voted, when we created those NDCs, National Determined Contribution, which was the base of the Paris Agreement, the C was commitment. Eleven years ago, we had to commit. It was an obligation in order to avoid fossil fuels, in order to go to renewables. Today, to me, NDC means National Development Catalyst. Making an NDC is making a catalyst for the development of your country. I mean, at the end of the day, we used to talk about develop and developing countries. Today, we are all developing countries. We all have to develop a new economy. The new economy is there, but we have to develop it. And there are huge opportunities in this renewable-based economy, but you have to understand that. And yes, of course, I work in the Global South because I understand that there are a lot of much more improvement that we have to some way, quote, suffer the recession taken in the Global North. So, yes, for us, it's having much more independence, has much more sovereignty, much more possibilities of developing. Awesome. Awesome. Well, that sounds like a great place to wrap up. This was exactly as fascinating as I expected, Ramon. Thank you so much for coming on and walking us through it. It was really a big, big pleasure. And please keep in touch, keep in contact. Thanks, everybody. You've been listening to Volts, founded and hosted by me, David Roberts, produced by Nate Peavy, and supported entirely through the generosity of listeners like you. If you enjoyed this conversation, please consider telling a friend about Volts. That's how this show grows and survives, through word of mouth. See you next time.