This has not been without public opposition. Huge swathes of fertile farmland, lakes and hillsides have been covered by a silver screen of solar panels and gigantic “windmill” turbines much to the dismay of country folk who consider that their homely habitat is being destroyed to provide a mammoth battery for city dwellers.
Due to these structural limitations, production can then plummet towards zero and the grid must be supported by an input from storage batteries, imports of energy from countries of the EU and accessory power from fossil fuels such as natural gas, which has the facility of permitting CCS (Carbon Capture and Storage) in underground storage.
If the demographic projection of population increase is sustained, the increase in demand for electricity will be more than proportionate. Also, the intended installation in Portuguese territory of industrial buildings to meet the prodigious needs of data centres and other denizens of the digital era will make it undesirable if not impossible for the present system to be expanded.
The alternative to a return to burning natural gas and coal wood or oil is to embark now upon a nuclear agenda.
Understandably, his solution provokes public fears grounded in the memory of the Chernobyl and Fukishima disasters. Other critics point to the disadvantage that such factories need five to 10 years to complete a process of complex planning to achieve a safe but expensive construction in waterside locations.
However, a workable solution on the horizon is to use the SMR (small modular reactor) prototypes of which have been developed, for example, by Rolls Royce and NuScale Power.
Globally, China leads the field of experiment with the ACP100 (Linglong One) and HTR-PM reactors, but Russia is not far behind and has even included a floating SMR in its programme.
In Argentina, the CAREM model is working while in Canada and the USA similar microreactors are planned for specific military and industrial locations where a reliable constant supply of energy is essential in the digital era.
Once these trials and regulatory processes have been successfully completed, SMRs will enter a production line which will enable quick construction by using pre-fabricated units. These, if ordered in multiples, will enable up-front costs to fall.
Even so, it is estimated that SMRs will cost at least twice as much as the installation of renewables. This must be balanced against a forecast depreciation span of 80 years whereas renewables could be around 30 years provided that extreme weather conditions do not worsen.
Traditional nuclear plants with their greater density can produce energy at €50 to €100 per MWh whereas SMRs are higher at €70 to €120. By comparison, renewables of wind plus solar without storage are only €25 to €50 and natural gas is around €60 per MWh, but a stable price is difficult to agree due to geopolitical conflict.
Maintenance costs are not high and both renewables and SMRs can cope with the manufacture of blue hydrogen, but heat generated by SMRs can be used efficiently for industrials such as the proposed factories for the processing of minerals.
The only certain thing in the present fractured world of energy applications is that the demands of Sines and other concentrations will outstrip supply by 2030 if an adequate supplement is not installed.
To avoid great inconvenience to the populace and the writing of essays such as this in longhand and by candlelight, let us hope that governance will heed the words of Dr. Pedro Sampaio Nunes.
