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

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

#251

Post by selimthegrim »

_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…

You might want to read https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_of_the_Goat or Trujillo’s successor’s book with the blank page in the middle.

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

#252

Post by belval »

asdff wrote: post #225
belval wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I've read about expats praising Costa Rica for its low costs and beautiful properties that foreigners can buy. How was your experience there?

I don't think foreigners can get a mortgage though, you might have to buy property outright.

If median salary is $9k/year I would assume their housing market to be a lot more affordable than Toronto's.

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

#253

Post by selimthegrim »

leesalminen wrote: post #154
DoreenMichele wrote: post #92

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Thank you for replying 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?

Our house in Costa Rica was built with cinder blocks on a concrete pad. Very different from the wooden framing + drywall in my house in the US. My house doesn’t have any heating but does have mini-split AC units in the bedroom that we usually run for 3 hours in the afternoon if someone is going to sleep in that room. There is a concept of having a ceiling fan next to some windows at the top of the wall near the roof.…

Transoms (as in passing something ‘over the transom’)

Source: I am typing this from New Orleans where they were common, although the older dorms at my school in SoCal had them in the rooms.

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

#254

Post by visualradio »

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…

In the United States continuous revolution is referred to as 'property tax'.

The historical pattern is that advocates for the rich will try to undermine assessments to fall more heavily on buildings in poor neighborhoods and replace property tax revenues with sales tax, and that advocates for the poor will try to reform assessments to fall more heavily on land in rich neighborhoods and decrease sales tax.

'Land reform' in the sense of trying to equally divide low value rural land by area without appointing assessors to appraise taxable value of urban property is viewed as a bizarre and impractical European idea.

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

#255

Post by cwkoss »

fasteddie31003 wrote: post #108
tohmasu wrote: post #80

70-80% Hydro [~90% Hydro+Geothermal]. ~10% wind and almost no PV. It's important to keep in mind that wind and solar aren't really a part of this success story.

California does not consider hydro to be renewable, so according to California law Costa Rica has not been running on renewable energy. This is to point out California needs to redefine hydro into a renewable resource.

I thought California was running out of water because so much of the water rights are being utilized for agriculture.

Would it be possible for them to utilize hydro significantly without destroying their agricultural industry?

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

#256

Post by gautamcgoel »

macspoofing wrote: post #191
mssundaram wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm ignorant - why can't solar and wind provide enough power? What about somewhere like Arizona/Nevada/Utah?

Because those are intermittent power sources. That is, there are times when the wind isn't blowing, and sun isn't shining, and there is no battery technology (now or coming) that is capable of storing enough energy to bridge this intermittency gap. This is why solar and wind need fossil fuel back-up. Natural gas companies are some of the biggest proponents of solar and wind projects.

Can you elaborate on the "or coming" part of your post? What makes you think batteries won't be substantially better 20 years from now?

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

#257

Post by cwkoss »

aembleton wrote: post #243
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.

Lithium scarcity is one issue. Much of the cheap lithium has already been mined.

We'll likely need to utilize different chemistries that are less suited for cars for grid scale solutions.

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

#258

Post by [deleted] »

DennisP wrote: post #61

We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal). 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…

[deleted]

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

#259

Post by azernik »

visualradio wrote: post #254
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…

In the United States continuous revolution is referred to as 'property tax'. The historical pattern is that advocates for the rich will try to undermine assessments to fall more heavily on buildings in poor neighborhoods and replace property tax revenues with sales tax, and that advocates for the poor will try to reform assessments to fall more heavily on land in rich neighborhoods and decrease sales tax. 'Land refor…

Rural land reform is less of a pressing issue when agriculture ceases to be the main economic activity - even in Europe, it was mostly either 1) very very early, or 2) in economically backwards regions.

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

#260

Post by GuB-42 »

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…

Here is the key, from the article

> 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.

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