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.<p>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."
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).<p>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.
Portugal also got good results recently:<p>"Renewables produce 79.5% of Portugal's power in Q1 2021"<p><a href="https://renewablesnow.com/news/renewables-produce-795-of-portugals-power-in-q1-2021-737883/" rel="nofollow">https://renewablesnow.com/news/renewables-produce-795-of-por...</a>
The update is telling:<p>> 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.<p>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.<p>> 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.<p>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.
What about Paraguay? It's been running on 100% renewable electricity since the late 1980s, and it has a larger population.<p>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.
70-80% Hydro [~90% Hydro+Geothermal].
~10% wind and almost no PV.<p>It's important to keep in mind that wind and solar aren't really a part of this success story.
Renewables are getting much cheaper every year:<p>* In 2020, the global weighted-average levelised cost of electricity (LCOE) from new capacity additions of onshore wind declined by 13%, compared to 2019.<p>* Over the same period, the LCOE of offshore wind fell by 9% and that of utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) by 7%.<p>Source: <a href="https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-Power-Costs-in-2020" rel="nofollow">https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-Power-...</a>
Where did Costa Rica go so <i>right</i>? In the news it always appears to be a bastion of moderation and success, especially when compared to its neighbours.
Costa Rica is a small country with hardly any industry and abundant amounts of hydro power.<p>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.<p>1.82 GW is a little more than a single EPR reactor. Just for comparison.
The Wikipedia list of nations by renewable energy[0] mentions some others as high scorers. Sorting by %Renewable, the top are<p>* Albania 100<p>* DR of the Congo 100<p>* Iceland 100<p>* Paraguay 100<p>* Namibia 99.3<p>* Costa Rica 97.7<p>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.<p>[0] <a href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable_electricity_production" rel="nofollow">https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable...</a>
Costa Rica’s per capita electricity use (about 400W right now) is less than half of New York state’s (about 1kW).<p>Solutions to fossil fuel use are going to have to involve drastic cuts in our electricity consumption.
The lion's share of Costa Rica's power is hydroelectric. This can't easily be replicated by a lot of other countries, since it's highly dependent on local geography.
Why is a country not able to come out of poverty post colonialism? Some have succeeded like the East Asian "Tiger" economies some haven't like India and Bangladesh, yet. Like everything its a confluence of factors.<p>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.<p>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.
100% renewable...but not 100% green by the new standards. Hydro is only renewable for "low impact small sources". Considering a majority of their electricity is coming from hydro I would say it's not from "low impact small sources". Still a great feat though, but the bar keeps moving higher.
This is meaningless on a global scale.<p>Globally, we've added more mega watts of coal power for decades. Doesn't look like it is stopping anytime soon.<p><a href="https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants" rel="nofollow">https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants</a>
"That means the government did not burn any oil, coal, or natural gas to power the country."<p>This is a new low for HN to upvote such garbage, but at least they edited the headline which originally was:<p>"Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Energy for 299 Days".
Absolutely loved Costa Rica when I visited several years ago. It is on my list of places to go back.<p>However, I was saddened to see litter all over some of the beaches I went to.
1) best possible natural conditions for renewables<p>2) import most things that require energy to make<p>3) transportation isn't electric<p>4) small population<p>5) works 80% of the year<p>Sure. Sounds great. Doesn't seem generalisable?
I'm confused.. the Article opens with an Update that I'm struggling to parse.. They seem to be saying that a better title would have been xyz (i.e the same but dropping the 299 Days claim?)<p>Appologies if this has already been asked & answered - a quick skim didn't show anything related to the "why?"
> Because of that, the country has an abundance of geothermal renewable sources that account for much of the necessary energy to make the country successfully function.<p>>Also, Costa Rica can get a lot of rain. With consistent rainfall, their hydroelectric plants can produce a plethora of energy.<p>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
Not to be That Guy (again), but it would be helpful if headlines like these could distinguish between 'electricity usage' and 'total energy consumption', because the non-electricity slice of the overall energy pie tends to be one of the far greedier slices.<p>- ed.<p>RTFA, detritus - it's right there in the first paragraph. As you were!
This the classic, usual kind of misleading news about renewable energy.<p>Keep dreaming, hoping and advocating for renewables, but it's just not the solution. Nuclear is the only viable solution.