EDIT: From Wikipedia "It is known for its long-standing and stable democracy, and for its highly educated workforce, most of whom speak English. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its economy, once heavily dependent on agriculture, has diversified to include sectors such as finance, corporate services for foreign companies, pharmaceuticals, and ecotourism. Many foreign manufacturing and services companies operate in Costa Rica's Free Trade Zones (FTZ) where they benefit from investment and tax incentives."
"The Narrow Corridor" has an entire chapter devoted to examining the differences between Costa Rica and its neighbor Guatemala.
Guatemala had a large indigenous population that was forced to work on Encomiendas -- essentially Spanish plantations worked by indigenous slaves. This resulted in large swaths of land to be controlled by a few elite. This imbalance eventually results in a highly extractive and exploitative political and economic system. The same 8 families that were major Spanish colonial landowners still essentially run the country (though apparently their power is finally waning). The Castillo family has been the most powerful for literally half a millennium.
Contrast this with Costa Rica which was far more sparsely populated. This resulted in small landholders working their own plots of land, and, in the short term, relative poverty compared to other Spanish conquered lands. But being overlooked by the Spanish, and having a wide spread of land ownership across the populace resulted in a homegrown movement of rural democracy.
Links for further reading:
https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/04/03/the-influe...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Spanish_colonizatio...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_El_Salvador#The_oli... (El Salvador, but a similar situation)
Mexico for example had a revolution which gave the land to the people and is a country that, over a century later, is still struggling with corruption, ignorance, superstition, etc.
I've been living in Mexico for 12 years and IMO it all comes down to poor education like the grandparent comment by belval suggested.
As an example, take the current Mexican government who was largely put in power by the lower classes. Instead of investing into education and social programs, is putting all its eggs into the oil basket.
Edit:
BTW I'm not arguing that more expenditure in education results in better education.
Could this be partially attributed the geography, natural resources available in the region. AKA both the Spanish Empire and contemporary society saw the same poverty inducing industries available in those regions?
I'm not saying setting up an alliance with the country that has the biggest army in the world and then doing without an army is a bad thing...
What I'm saying though is that it'd probably be very different for a country without any alliance with the US to decide to have no army.
It's obviously easier for a country with lots of hydropower to go 100% renewable, as you have a potentially flexible source that not everyone has.
"A small African country's cabinet is meeting to come up with solutions for the bleak economic situation. One minister says: 'I know! Let's declare war on the United States! After they invade us they will have to support us.' Everyone murmurs in agreement at the clever plan. However one last minister is not convinced and says: 'But... what if we win?'"
Yes. Anytime you see an article that says "X country runs on 100% renewable" ... it's hydro-electric power every time. So if your country is blessed with a type of geography that makes hydro electric power viable, you're golden!
Solar and Wind cannot power a modern economy without fossil fuel back-up.
Wiki: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Renewable_energy_in_Austria
About your last point: <<Solar and Wind cannot power a modern economy without fossil fuel back-up.>>
I respectfully disagree. I think solar+wind+batteries+nuclear can do the trick. Not everywhere, but many places.
I'm surprised no one talks more about how countries near the equator (DRCongo, Brazil, Malaysia, Indonesia, etc.) will transition to renewables. Wind is much weaker near the equator, and building huge solar farms will mean cutting down precious rainforest. It's a real conundrum!
The army was removed before the cold war started, and CR was neutral in the game that USA-USSR played in all Latin America, of placing and destroying governments (Iran-Contra, CIA drugs, Noriega, etc). Also the savings are transferred to education and infrastructure.
The lands in CR aren't as fertile as the rest of Central America, but it has plenty of water from the mountain ranges. It can sell hydro-power to its neighbors. Also the geography detour hurricanes which means more savings from reconstruction.
Intel factory was established with the help of national electronic engineers who studied their careers in Germany.
non-traditional ideas:
* no army
* generate most government revenue from sales taxes rather than income taxes
* firm commitment to prioritize economic growth over social spending (Costa Rica has among the highest rates of inequality in the OECD)
* much higher levels of education spending (7+% of GDP) (but PISA scores in the bottom half of Latin America and they are falling)
That said, it has problems common to Latin America:
* Low test scores and poor educational outcomes
* Declining fertility leading to pension shortfalls
* Black/gray markets where a large part of the labor force is employed informally and thus does not make pension contributions or pay income taxes
In terms of taxation, there is a 13% sales tax on everything except food and medicine.
They do have an income tax, but it's a weird hybrid between a flat tax and a wealth-surcharge, in that the majority of the population pays no income tax at all.
Median income in Costa Rica is about 6K and average income is 9K. But your first $10K is tax exempt, those earning 10-18K pay 10%, and the highest bracket is 15%.
That is a very different structure than you find in western nations which have upper tax brackets in the range of 40% or even 80%.
There is a separate income tax for self-employed workers which goes up to 25%, but again very few self-employed businesses will earn.
Costa Rica also has a progressive property tax, starting at .25% and going to .55% with the highest bracket applying to 3 million dollars or more. It has 7 property brackets. Thus there are more than twice as many property tax brackets as there are income tax brackets! Yet because those brackets, like the income brackets, only hit the very high end, overall Costa Rica collects the among the least revenue from income and property taxes compared to the rest of the OECD. It is almost entirely dependent on sales taxes, excise taxes, and social security contributions to fund its budget.
It also has a number of free trade zones in which businesses don't pay any taxes at all (neither income, nor import/export) if they meet certain conditions.
source: https://www.oecd.org/economy/surveys/costa-rica-2020-OECD-ec...
Edit: why the downvotes? Just because I mentioned they use way less power than the US?
> Also, Costa Rica can get a lot of rain. With consistent rainfall, their hydroelectric plants can produce a plethora of energy.
A quick search lead me to 2/3 hydro.
Of course, there are other reasons, but essentially, hydro is almost a perfect way of generating electricity. It is cheap, renewable, and comes with built-in storage. Whether or not it is environmentally friendly is debatable but at least, it produces no emission or waste.
The problem is that there is a limited capacity, once you have dammed all the interesting rivers, you can't get any more. Costa Rica just happens to have enough to cover most of their needs.
But if they want more, they will have to find another strategy, and that's what they are doing. I guess having that much hydro helps than absorb the peaks of solar and wind. They also have geothermal energy they can exploit. They can also bank on their reputation as a "green" country. So, IMHO, smart decisions on their side, playing on their advantages.
Military in South/Middle America= failure.
Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
They have the second largest European descendant population in South America after Uruguay. The European culture of support for democracy can be attributed here (not claiming any genetic predisposition).
Pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development, and ecotourism have become the prime industries in Costa Rica's economy. High levels of education among its residents make the country an attractive investing location. [0]
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Trade_and_foreign_i...
Costa Rica is blessed with plenty of the second type and uses it. Because we lump it all into "renewables," it sounds like it should be easy for everyone to follow their example, and that's not the case. No country has run on a high percentage of wind/solar/battery for a long period of time.
The wording you are looking for is "dispatchable" (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation).
Only because it's early. The first grid-scale battery only went online 3 years ago.
In that example (South Australia) you only have to look at this chart[0] to see what it done to grid renewable demand and where the trend is heading.
There are multiple GW more of additional battery coming online over the next few years
[0] https://opennem.org.au/stripes/sa1/?metric=renewablesProport...
They aren't. The 97% renewable claim is misleading. Scotland can generate huge amount of wind/solar energy at certain times of day that they cannot use, and therefore they have to rely on fossil fuels for evenings and nights and any time sun isn't shining and wind isn't blowing.
Their actual renewable *consumption* is on the order of 30%.
I believe that the issue is that the Earth's crust isn't uniformly thick, and that there are places where one could drill for miles without reaching magma/suitable heat sources, and other places (Costa Rica and Iceland come to mind) where the suitable heat sources are essentially on the surface.
Or, looking at it another way - oil drilling happens all over the globe and "hitting magma" isn't really a risk they're concerned about because it's so deep, that even the industry concerned with drilling too greedily and too deep doesn't intersect with it.
"Renewables produce 79.5% of Portugal's power in Q1 2021"
https://renewablesnow.com/news/renewables-produce-795-of-por...
> Update 3/17/2021: Our original article stated "Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Energy for 299 Days." It was pointed out to us that while Costa Rica's electric grid does run primarily on renewable energy, a better title would have been "Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity". Below the article says that the government had not burned any oil to power the country, but this would technically imply that the government does not own gasoline powered vehicles, which couldn't be true.
Accounting for the origins of energy is tricky business. Want to squeeze out internal combustion engines? Go electric. Where do the batteries come from, and how much non-renewable energy does it cost to produce them? For that matter, how many goods are important with non-neglibile carbon footprints? Because carbon emissions can be exported.
> In other words, a country can be considered carbon neutral while still using fossil fuels by planting trees that offset the carbon, or funding conservation programs which aim to reduce the amount of carbon in the air.
How long do those trees you're planting keep CO2 out of the atmosphere? When they die, a good chunk of that carbon may be released.
There's an interconnection. As the world electrifies, it will become easier for manufacturing to electrify, too.
Anecdotal, rather whimsical example; As soon as i transitioned my factorio to electricity, i found it much easier to just build a solar panel factory and batterys to power everything because i stop getting attacked by the mobs.
Also, one future problem that i find funny. Electric is better. If everyone had access to cheap, renewable energy it only makes sense to transition to that renewable energy. Also with the rise of carbon removal, I see global warming in the future becoming an entirely different problem to solve. It shows in our models that the PPM of carbon in the atmosphere has different effects throughout the world. So once we 'solve' the climate crisis, what entity says where the happy medium is? If it makes one region arid and another eden, who gets to be the deciding factor.
I see a future where carbon sequestration and maybe even addition is a matter of national security.
Pulverizing the charcoal and plowing it into farm fields improves the soil.
In fact you could say it is running on 300% renewable electricity, because it has large Hydro electric dam, exports around 70% of what it generates to Brazil and Argentina and only uses 30% itself.
It's important to keep in mind that wind and solar aren't really a part of this success story.
Of course hydro power can be done correctly, assuming the collaboration of all the stakeholders in the watershed and careful tradeoffs. How many dams were built with such an equitable process?
Given hydro power's well-documented negative impacts, and our arsenal of other truly renewable energy sources, damming new rivers should be a last resort. In the US at least there is a strong trend of dam removal - many ill-considered hydro projects are costly to maintain, an economic loss to society as a whole, and a detriment to the environment. Quite far from any feasible definition of "renewable resource".
Would it be possible for them to utilize hydro significantly without destroying their agricultural industry?
* In 2020, the global weighted-average levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from new capacity additions of onshore wind declined by 13%, compared to 2019.
* Over the same period, the LCOE of offshore wind fell by 9% and that of utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) by 7%.
Source: https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-Power-...
End customers pay market prices, not production costs.
I don’t have any advantage as a customer when electricity is super cheap when it can’t be produced on demand.
There is a major cost that is not accounted for here - the cost of balancing the grid. When wind turbines aren't spinning and solar PV is dead, the grid continues to function. The generators doing that have a cost and that cost is paid for by the customer. The source of the problem is the variable generator i.e. wind or solar but the LCOE figure does not account for this because that charge is not passed on to the renewable generator.
Those costs must be part of the LCOE figure else it is like saying that email costs zero.
vatican city is pretty green too
The country’s whole electricity demand is about 1.82 GW according to electricitymap.org with around 1.5 GW from hydropower and the rest mostly from geothermal power.
1.82 GW is a little more than a single EPR reactor. Just for comparison.
Hydro only cover 15% of France total electricity demand.
It’s indeed all about scale.
* Albania 100
* DR of the Congo 100
* Iceland 100
* Paraguay 100
* Namibia 99.3
* Costa Rica 97.7
All of these are small countries with relatively small total power quantities. Not to say it isn't a praiseworthy achievement to get to, or near, 100% renewable at any quantity. But if you sort the table on Total GWhr of RE, they are far down the list. The runaway winner in quantity of renewable generation is China, with the US, Brazil and Canada fighting for fourth place.
[0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable...
Solutions to fossil fuel use are going to have to involve drastic cuts in our electricity consumption.
Why? Why can't we produce enough from wind and solar and store it in batteries? Maybe use electric cars as batteries for helping to balance the grid.
[1] https://twitter.com/drvolts/status/1405387412168052738/photo...
[2]https://jancovici.com/en/energy-transition/renewables/could-...
We'll likely need to utilize different chemistries that are less suited for cars for grid scale solutions.
* Let consumer decide what is more important for them, saved money or not worrying about light switches
* Give capitalists incentive to produce greener electricity
Yes, technically, forcing people to reduce their quality of life is a solution, but it's better to solve the problem without it.
Costa Rica is an outlier but perhaps it's only because of success of policy. To make an industry flourish and provide gainful employment(like the IT and Services sector in Costa Rica) you need Labor or Capital. In india for example the manufacturing industry is badly hobbled with lack of capital availability and poor labor laws an exception being the IT Services Sector where laws were written specifically to exempt them of such onerous regulation and capital is available more freely.
Perhaps with the sparse population and good Services Sector and Tourism is a happy path to prosperity for Costa Rica, but for other Central American countries like Guatemala or El Salvador it's harder because the right conditions have never been allowed to take root.
This is part of why small-scale factory-built nukes never found a foothold in the US. There just isn't the scope for wholly-legal corruption to generate the institutional support that big nukes got.
Nobody ever denied the fact that Hydro is viable. You're getting confused by the misleading title because you think that it's wind and solar that is powering Costa Rica .. it isn't. It's hydro.
Globally, we've added more mega watts of coal power for decades. Doesn't look like it is stopping anytime soon.
It may be meaningless for global greenhouse-gas emission reduction in itself, true. But for "the movement" it is an important milestone.
Hydro energy works, what exactly is novel or meaningful about that?
the title here is 100% clickbait as it frames the situation as "renewables" work when the accurate claim is "hydro + a small population" works.
This is a new low for HN to upvote such garbage, but at least they edited the headline which originally was:
"Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Energy for 299 Days".
However, I was saddened to see litter all over some of the beaches I went to.
2) import most things that require energy to make
3) transportation isn't electric
4) small population
5) works 80% of the year
Sure. Sounds great. Doesn't seem generalisable?
Vernacular design is just very localized design using local materials and suited to local weather. It's like adobe homes in the American Southwest and igloos in Alaska.
What is a typical home like there? How are they heated and cooled?
Appologies if this has already been asked & answered - a quick skim didn't show anything related to the "why?"
>Also, Costa Rica can get a lot of rain. With consistent rainfall, their hydroelectric plants can produce a plethora of energy.
While wind and solar get most of the headlines, it seems that geothermal and hydroelectric are actually more useful in going completely carbon-free because they can produce a consistent base load. Win
Traditionally it's been one of the most cost effective and technologically simple sources of electricity, only in more recent years have other sources such as PV solar started to edge it out.
It's also depressing to see how electricity is a distant third to gas and other petroleum products in terms of energy demand - even though the eletric supply is almost 100% renewabe, all those transport trucks and cars far outweigh it.
https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...
I can confirm that we have no brown-outs. Also - We have a mix of very cold and warm weather, so are consuming lots of energy for heating in winter. - Hydro-Quebec, state-owned utility has a stellar record for maintenance, coverage and capacity management. It also send money back to the gov to support social programs. - Even with all that our electriciyy cost for consumers,,entre rpsies, and industrial is one of the lowest in the world.
https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-commoditie...
They've been around for longer.
Solar and wind are crazy cheap but they haven't been cheap for that long.
- ed.
RTFA, detritus - it's right there in the first paragraph. As you were!
</reddit>
Keep dreaming, hoping and advocating for renewables, but it's just not the solution. Nuclear is the only viable solution.
electronics were not common when nuclear energy was built
also other comments pointed out how misleading the article is
