Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days • Hacker News Board

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#241

Post by pier25 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:29 PM UTC

azernik wrote: post #229

pier25 wrote: post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I haven't read those books, but a priori it sounds like cherry picking. 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…

Revolutions are not as effective as they claim at overturning the basic structure of society - not without some very serious application of coercion at a grassroots level. For the Mexican case specifically, the revolution did not replace the landowning political elite, but installed a different subset of them. A succession of presidents from the landowning class slow-walked land reform (we're talking single-digit per…

Anything I can read to learn more about this?

BTW there are still plenty of ejidos all over Mexico which are not owned by the political elite.

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#242

Post by macspoofing » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

cronin101 wrote: post #217

macspoofing wrote: post #182

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>but Scotland is ~97% renewable ... 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%.

Do you have a source? I would love to read more about that. FWIW I currently live in Norway which is ~100% renewable but that's mainly hydro and a very different situation with the amount of potential energy that hydro gives the 5M population.

I hope this is the right one: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section...

Wind accounts for 42%. Solar does nothing.

The 97% is from charts like this: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section...

And they define 'Gross electricity consumption' as referring to total electricity generation minus net exports.

Here's my home province of Ontario: https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html

At the time of this posting, Hydro and Nuclear account for 85% of total energy consumption. 10% from Wind, so 95% of our energy is carbon-free. Wind for us is a vanity play since we can just buy more hydro power from Quebec.

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#243

Post by aembleton » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

realreality wrote: post #125

Costa Rica’s per capita electricity use (about 400W right now) is less than half of New York state’s (about 1kW). Solutions to fossil fuel use are going to have to involve drastic cuts in our electricity consumption.

> 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.

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#244

Post by asteroidbelt » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:32 PM UTC

realreality wrote: post #125

Costa Rica’s per capita electricity use (about 400W right now) is less than half of New York state’s (about 1kW). Solutions to fossil fuel use are going to have to involve drastic cuts in our electricity consumption.

No the solution is to impose carbon tax, and:

* 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.

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#245

Post by macspoofing » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

aembleton wrote: post #238

cronin101 wrote: post #217

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Do you have a source? I would love to read more about that. FWIW I currently live in Norway which is ~100% renewable but that's mainly hydro and a very different situation with the amount of potential energy that hydro gives the 5M population.

I just tried to find some more information on Scotlands consumption but couldn't find it. Most interesting piece I found was this: 51.7% of electricity generated in Scotland was generated by renewable technologies, compared to just 29.3% for the UK as a whole (or 25.6% for the rest of the UK, excluding Scotland). [1] The 97% figure quoted earlier is a gross figure [2] that is worked out on the basis of total renewabl…

This is the one you want: https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section...

42% of electricity consumption derives from wind power. The rest of carbon-free energy derives from Nuclear and Hydro. And then you have natural gas as back-up.

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#246

Post by asteroidbelt » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:33 PM UTC

lobocinza wrote: post #236

azernik wrote: post #231

Earlier quoted context omitted.

For global warming purposes, I'm personally okay with local ecological disruptions from hydro.

The reservoirs emit a lot of CO2 and methane. Not sure about that.

How much per watt is that "a lot" compared to others? Source?

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#247

Post by azernik » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:39 PM UTC

pier25 wrote: post #241

azernik wrote: post #229

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Revolutions are not as effective as they claim at overturning the basic structure of society - not without some very serious application of coercion at a grassroots level. For the Mexican case specifically, the revolution did not replace the landowning political elite, but installed a different subset of them. A succession of presidents from the landowning class slow-walked land reform (we're talking single-digit per…

Anything I can read to learn more about this? BTW there are still plenty of ejidos all over Mexico which are not owned by the political elite.

Emmm. Most of this is from my college courses, with Wikipedia for recalling names and dates. From a quick Googling, this seems like a good overview: https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147642277.pdf

If you're interested in a really deep dive into related Eastern European examples (not Russian) of the limits and successes of land reform, I'd suggest this textbook: https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=372

And yup! The reversion of Cárdenas's reforms was not complete; reformers in positions of power do make some difference, even if it's less than you'd guess based on short-term results. Though note that many ejidos owned by the intended local peasant's collectives are de facto controlled by a large landowner or business. (The political elite of the early-/mid-20th century was a subset of the landowning elite, not its entirety.)

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#248

Post by AdrianB1 » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:45 PM UTC

lesterzone wrote: post #21

belval wrote: post #3

Is 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…

Costa Rican resident here. Costa Rica invest a lot in renewables. Tourism is a huge income. There are lots of places to visit. Hundreds of volcanoes, 7 active. The climate, it can rain and then sunny...several times a day. Costa Rica exports technology. Intel, MS,Google...Several start ups...lots of outsourcing jobs.

Not complaining, but the last time I was in Costa Rica in the shopping mall the guards were carrying huge shotguns and a few months before that a colleague escaped a kidnapping tentative with car chases and automatic gunfire. other colleagues were taking dinner in a restaurant when a gang fight left several people in that restaurant dead and the company had to covertly extract my colleagues from the country because as eye witnesses they were in danger to be executed. This was all in San Jose, a few years ago.

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#249

Post by jessaustin » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:50 PM UTC

_etyf wrote: post #121

34679 wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

From your link: Tensions between government and the opposition, supported by the CIA, caused the short-lived Costa Rican Civil War of 1948 that ended Calderón's government and led to the short de facto rule of 18 months by José Figueres Ferrer.

Sounds like he had an interesting relationship with the CIA, to say the least: >"At the time, I was conspiring against the Latin American dictatorships and wanted help from the United States", he recalled. "I was a good friend of Allen Dulles." >"Anyway", Mr. Figueres went on, "the C.I.A.'s Cultural Department helped me finance a magazine and some youth conferences here. But I never participated in espionage. I did b…

Wow, Ferrer was brilliant. He made friends with the devil, and kept the devil looking elsewhere. One suspects this was also thanks to the fact that Costa Rica had no oil or fruit plantations...

With respect to the coup mentioned upthread, it's notable that Ferrer instituted largely the same reforms proposed by Calderón and previously instituted in USA by FDR. That took courage.

Re: Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days

#250

Post by JamisonM » Wed, Jun 23, 2021, 9:51 PM UTC

Reason077 wrote: post #112

neurotixz wrote: post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 electrifi…

Oil heating's days are essentially over.

Still lots of natural gas heating though.

There is a lot of room for greening at the point of service through geothermal and the like, lots of room for efficiency improvements too. The economic incentives are aligned as well, every ounce of savings in-province means export dollars in on green energy exports.