Energy Conscious

• Short answer - Not really.
• Medium answer - People I talk to don’t really care all that much about this. It’s not a source of pride for anyone, apart from maybe some people in the industry. People are just content with the stability this brings, more than anything.
• Long answer - Here’s when I post too much info…

Cost

• The cost is what is in most people’s consciousness. No ‘just stop oil’ protest nonsense here. No sides to pick in the politics of the globe.
• The government has invested strategically into energy for decades with minimal corruption to get to this position.
• That seems to put them in the fortuitous position where perhaps prices don’t need to rise so crazily like in other countries nearby. That remains to be seen, although recent metrics (below) suggest the possibility.
• Energy is still much more expensive than their neighbours, the same with almost all products. My hunch is inflation is left rampant here due to the currency & energy stability over the next decade.
• Plus, Uruguayans are flocking to Argentina still to stock-up on inventories due to being about 50-60% cheaper. Perhaps that is dampening inflation and demand. Something to monitor.
  https://m.stacker.news/5178

Metrics

• CPI since 2021 has been 20% which is comparable vs Western countries.
• PPI since 2021 has been 14% vs 40% in Europe, 25% U.K. and (the laughably misrepresented) 18% for U.S.
• PPI since 2008 is over double Weatern countries but that is due to base currency effects of depreciation over those 10 years.
• In last 2 years the currency has strengthened vs dollar by about 10%.

Energy Uses

• The energy they discuss in the article being 100% is really for industry, heating and mains electricity.
• It’s so common for Uruguayans (and Argentinians) to cook dinner over wood or charcoal, on the parilla, or using older gas cookers indoors. So it’s a bit disingenuous to say the country is 100% renewable and living in the future. But it’s great to know they’ve reached this point of renewable energy inputs.
• Many also use wood to warm their houses. In the colder months, walking through the city you get that gorgeous wood smell, very cosy. Does mean you need to bring the washing in at night however.
• Many youngsters have been trained & educated well in these energy industries, and so they’ve created a solid career path for engineers. Sustainable sustainability for years to come.

Transport

• Of course almost everyone is still running gas & diesel cars here, in spite of fuel being the most costly to run in all of South America.
• Oil & Gas is completely imported pretty much, as you’ll see by the final yellow highlights at the bottom of this chart:
  https://m.stacker.news/5179
• Gasoline is about 40% more expensive than Brazil and 75% more than in Argentina.
• The electric car adoption feels more organic and less forced than in Europe. Decent infrastructure & chargers for how many vehicles currently.
• They plan to have 30% of city buses being electric in 2 years time (which is probably achievable) and the transport in general in the capital of Montevideo is pretty good.
• The city doesn’t feel like a capital really, so very little congestion apart from 1 hour each in the morning and evening.

Reliability

• I know Argentina used to have regular power outages (and I imagine still does in summer, due to A/C usage). I gather there was a time Montevideo had them too, but that is no longer the case.
• More than enough power to go around, and in fact quite often they export what is not needed. If there’s a deficit for a short time, it’s easily sourced from elsewhere.

Water

• In the capital of Montevideo, we had a water issue a few months back, which as some articles mention meant they needed to import some oil for a short period. The water issue was only for a few weeks and only in Montevideo basically.
• The reservoir nearby dried up and that caused a bit of a stink, with them needing to pump salt water from the sea into peoples homes & taps. People went to buy bottled water to drink & cook with for some time. It was more an inconvenience than a crisis.
• Hopefully they’ve learned from that and it won’t happen again. As people were not happy with water being used to cool massive data centres at the expense of their pocket & health.
• Other parts of the country did not suffer from those problems. Smaller cities and towns have plenty of water, energy & resources to go around.

Fin. For now.