This the classic, usual kind of misleading news about renewable energy. Keep dreaming, hoping and advocating for renewables, but it's just not the solution. Nuclear is the only viable solution.
Why not both?
Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
111–120 of 305 posts
Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#112Earlier quoted context omitted.
Quebec gets most of its eletric power from hydroelectric sources (95%), while Ontario gets >60% from nuclear and 26% from hydroelectric. It's wild to compare the breakdown compared to western, oil-rich provinces which are basically 50-50 natural gas and coal-powered. 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 s…
Based on this page, Quebec is 99.8% renewable. 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 consume…
> "We have a mix of very cold and warm weather, so are consuming lots of energy for heating in winter"
Are heat pumps / electric heating widely used in Quebec yet? When I lived in Ontario, despite having a very clean grid (nuclear, hydro, wind) and relatively low electricity prices, pretty much every house/building had oil or gas heating. Seems like Scandinavia and Northern Europe are a bit further along in electrification of heating.
Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#113Is there an easy answer as to why Costa Rica is doing so well? They seem to be a bit of an exception in Central/South America. 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 agri…
IIRC part of the answer is that they had a successful revolution led by principled people who realized that cultural capital is just as important as power and in fact maybe keeping a standing army had problems. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Figueres_Ferrer https://www.spanishpuravida.com/why-costa-rica-has-no-army/
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Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#114Is there an easy answer as to why Costa Rica is doing so well? They seem to be a bit of an exception in Central/South America. 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 agri…
Eco tourism is huuuge in Costa Rica, and the local peoples greatly value both the cultural and economic value of conservation. I don't think that explains why they've been successful when others have not, but I'd be surprised if leadership and it's constituents there did not at least have the political will to do whatever it needed to to maintain the beauty of the country--it's literally their livelihood.
Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#115Is there an easy answer as to why Costa Rica is doing so well? They seem to be a bit of an exception in Central/South America. 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 agri…
The book "Why Nations Fail" and the followup by the same authors "The Narrow Corridor" paints a fairly convincing picture that the success or failure of many modern Latin American countries is directly correlated with the extent to which the Spanish colonialists were able to enslave/subjugate the indigenous population, and the types of societies and institutions that followed that initial seed. For example, in modern day Bolivia you can overlay a Spanish colonial map detailing how much forced labor must be performed in each region with a modern poverty map and there is still a high degree of correlation.
"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)
Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#116Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#117Absolutely loved Costa Rica when I visited several years ago. It is on my list of places to go back.
However, I was saddened to see litter all over some of the beaches I went to.
Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#118Earlier quoted context omitted.
A standing army creates a ton of problems, but what happens if nobody has a standing army? Seems like someone has to play cop and eat the cost (both social and economic) of doing so.
I think that, "what happens if nobody has a standing army?" is an interesting question. What I don't understand is why you think that "someone has to play cop"...?
If you go by historical data, when nobody has a standing army everybody has mercenaries (which leads to instability at scale).
Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#119Earlier quoted context omitted.
I live part-time in Costa Rica. Brownouts occur 1-4x every day. It’s usually just a few seconds and not all that bad. The worst part is when you have to restart the dishwasher.
A lot of people in Costa Rica have generators on standby for blackouts and brown outs.
That's probably not accountable as "renewable"...
Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
#120Earlier quoted context omitted.
What are you talking about? If AOC and Gov. Brown are confident we can get to 100% renewable energy, then we can. Batteries will solve all the issues you mentioned and 100% renewable we go!
And in fact the battery method has been proven to work to solve Australia's power issue (thanks Elon!).
Part of the bargain was that Tesla will be recycling the materials for these batteries when they are EoL. Until that actually happens, the battery only solves half the problem.