Costa Rica Has Gone 76 Straight Days Using 100% Renewable Electricity (vox.com)

Last year, Costa Rica powered itself using only renewable energy for 75 days. It has topped that feat this year. Vox reports: Costa Rica is pulling off a feat most countries just daydream about: For two straight months, the Central American country hasn't burned any fossil fuels to generate electricity. That's right: 100 percent renewable power. This isn't a blip, either. For 300 total days last year and 150 days so far this year, Costa Rica's electricity has come entirely from renewable sources, mostly hydropower and geothermal. Heavy rains have helped four big hydroelectric dams run above their usual capacity, letting the country turn off its diesel generators. Now, there's a huge, huge caveat here: Costa Rica hasn't eschewed all fossil fuels entirely. The country still has more than 1 million cars running on old-fashioned gasoline, which is why imported oil still supplies over half its total energy needs. The country also has cement plants that burn coal.

Comments

gasoline == old fashioned??

[NotInHere]

I like new technology, but to consider gasoline to be old fashioned is hybris.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

hybris. I like that :) Or did you mean hubris? :D

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Flavianoep]

Don't be so pedantic, "hubris" comes from Ancient Greek, "hybris", therefore it is perfectly acceptable to write it with a y.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

And how is hydroelectric renewable? Can they make it rain? I used 100% renewable money last month, I won the lottery!

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[MightyMartian]

It's hard to tell whether you're just a blathering moron, or just trying to be funny.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

No, Hybris was a vertical scrolling shooter on the Amiga.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[jellomizer]

Also to note Electric Cars are a luxury for the Rich of Americans and Europeans. This isn't old fashioned yet, because there isn't a wide scale replacement.
A flip phone is an old fashioned device, because most of the population have moved over to smartphones. However your iPhone 6 isn't an old fashion phone, just because the 7 just got released.
There are still a lot of gasoline cars being created in the market, with many companies without an all electric plan for their cars in any time in the future.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[ShanghaiBill]

And how is hydroelectric renewable? Can they make it rain?

I have been to Costa Rica. It rains everyday.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Thud457]

hybris - hypocritical hubris

seem pretty self-evident and a perfectly cromulent word.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[farble1670]

Don't be so pedantic, "hubris" comes from Ancient Greek, "hybris", therefore it is perfectly acceptable to write it with a y.

Perfectly acceptable and also unused outside of english lit major parties. But I guess if your goal is to pretend you are smarter than the other humans as opposed to being understood, you have succeeded. Really, ask yourself why you'd use a form of a word that essentially no one knows?

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

sunday
Sunday
SUNDAY!!

WITNESS the BATTLE of the PEDANTS!

No holds barred LANGUAGE ACTION

PROFESSIONAL circumlocution MAYHEM!

Tickets available NOW
(first 20 rows must wear ponchos)

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[FatdogHaiku]

Tickets available NOW (first 20 rows must wear ponchos)

Is that due to saliva or, ahhh, other body fluids?
A friend of mine wants to know...

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[GameboyRMH]

An electric car is no more expensive than an ICE car in the long term - an ICE car's fuel and maintenance costs are vastly more expensive while an electric car is more expensive up front (and has the long-term occasional concentrated maintenance cost of a new battery pack). I know Gen. Y'ers who own Nissan Leafs and Kia Soul EVs.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[operagost]

Or it's a portmanteau of hubris and hybrid, as in, you bought a Prius so now inside your cloud of smug you consider yourself an expert on green energy.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

Perfectly acceptable and also unused outside of english lit major parties.

And in every language not English?
So what you are saying is that hubris only is used by American rednecks, got it.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

I don't know what your talking about.I drive a Hybris and barely uses any gas at all.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

Numbers please. And add in the cost of renting ICE cars when you need to drive out of range.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[farble1670]

And in every language not English?

Irrelevant. We're typing in English here.

So what you are saying is that hubris only is used by American rednecks, got it.

I see you are lacking a proper grasp of English grammar as well as vocabulary then.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

And how is hydroelectric renewable? Can they make it rain?

How is wind renewable? Can they make the wind blow?
How is solar renewable? Can they create suns?

Well, I guess we all posts without thinking it through every now and then...

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Yvan256]

Do you drive a hubrid car by any chance?

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[dfghjk]

Perfectly acceptable to whom? The english word is what it is, its ancient origins don't entitle anyone to misspell it.

Language is only as useful as understanding allows it to be. When you deliberately break it and people misunderstand then you have failed.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[slew]

An electric car is no more expensive than an ICE car in the long term - an ICE car's fuel and maintenance costs are vastly more expensive while an electric car is more expensive up front (and has the long-term occasional concentrated maintenance cost of a new battery pack). I know Gen. Y'ers who own Nissan Leafs and Kia Soul EVs.

I have a 20 year old acura integra with an old fashion ICE... Paid $16K in 1996 (perhaps $27K for something similar today). Only ICE related maintenance (other than changing oil about every 7500 miles and 3 air filter over those 20 years) was a battery and most recently spark plugs (when it diped down below 25mpg). At about 100K miles (mostly commute miles on par with a brave range-limited Leaf class EV), say about $12K in gas (@ $3/gallon) and about a $1000 in twenty oil changes (@ $50/each), and say $1000 in overhaul for sparkplugs, airfilter, battery etc. Given electric car batteries seem to last about 10 years and cost about $15K to replace (presumably 2 times in 20 years or basically the price of the car)...

I still think at least for my experience, an ICE is still more than a standard deviation cheaper than electric (given they are about 1sd more expensive up front).

Of course I've had other vehicle ownership costs (e.g, emissions tests that always pass), and of course tires need to be replaced (ev's tend to be harder on tires, but I drive pretty hard on my car tires), Also living in Cali, AC is a must and that thing sprung a leak once (I guess I would just need to roll down the windows on the EV for a long commute) One thing that might be important to some, I don't get to drive in the carpool lane (doesn't matter for my commute), but if everyone had an electric car, that fringe benefit would disappear. At least my old ICE car has an old fashion key and not one of those hackable wireless keyfobs...

Maybe I'll buy something like a Bolt if it is likely to be no more expensive than ICE over 20 years, but until then, I think I'll see if I can make it 30 years for my Integra (my mechanic thinks it definitely possible)...

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Range extenders exist for a reason, and real world driving distance distribution is advantageous here.

Re: gasoline == old fashioned??

[hackwrench]

Intelligent and stupid use the same alphabet, so it is okay to use stupid when you mean intelligent. I don't like your reasoning, but I don't mind the end result.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[GameboyRMH]

I wouldn't assume the battery will cost the same 10 or 20 years from now as it does now...the price will probably halve or better each decade.

Re: gasoline == old fashioned??

[hackwrench]

Don't make me go ballistic on you. I know you trolls get off on that sort of thing, but I can give you so much of it you'll live to regret it. Remember that bartender in The Simpsons? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Maxo-Texas]

Your experience is atypical.

Consumer reports says the average annual cost of running a used car rises to over $4000 per year by year 12 in today's dollars.

I agree electric is more expensive when gasoline is below $2 per gallon. They made sense when gasoline was $4 per gallon and likely to head up.

Ironically, the higher the percentage of electric cars, the lower the cost of oil and gasoline until the gasoline network effect collapses which is at least a couple decades away. This is because they eliminate demand for the most expensive oil and most expensive gasoline which sets the price for all the rest of oil and gasoline.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[goose-incarnated]

An electric car is no more expensive than an ICE car in the long term - an ICE car's fuel and maintenance costs are vastly more expensive while an electric car is more expensive up front (and has the long-term occasional concentrated maintenance cost of a new battery pack).

I doubt it. The EV may be missing an engine, but it's hardly ever the engine that gives problems. Engines typically outlast most of the other crap that falls off cars. As an EV owner you'll still have the gearbox, the suspension, the brakes, the hydrualics, the electrical system, the aircon, the heater and most of the other mechanicals present in a non-EV car. With a single exception, my repairs for the last 25 years of driving have been electrical or non-engine mechanical problems.

Engines just don't break without abuse.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[LynnwoodRooster]

He's probably a blathering moron, but probably one who works for a Government agency. After all "in general, hydropower is not even considered a renewable energy in most states or, for the most part, by the federal government". Yes, liquid falling from the sky, collecting in valleys and lakes, and tumbling down rivers is not a renewable resource.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[LynnwoodRooster]

Lithium has a long history of increasing in price. Unless we happen to find some huge, new, easy-to-mine vein of lithium ore, those prices most likely won't come down as production is barely keeping up with demand.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Applehu Akbar]

And how is hydroelectric renewable? Can they make it rain? I used 100% renewable money last month, I won the lottery!

Hydro is the most important of the renewables by far, but Greens only count it when they brag about the energy output of rainy countries. At other times, hydro is the energy source they loved to hate the most before nuclear came along.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[GameboyRMH]

Ohoho how I wish that were true! I've had to get two engines disassembled for major work in the last few months. One was rebuilt recently, but due to some microscopic imperfection in the reassembly process, it wrecked itself (spun a rod bearing) costing me thousands. And in my experience about 1/4 of automotive problems are directly related to the engine, and about 2/3rd related to the ICE or a system only an ICE would have. I've never had an engine fail from "abuse" though. In fact from what I've seen they seem to shrug off abuse and die from very minor problems and the consequences of design flaws, or if it's a really good engine, it will simply become comically inefficient and polluting (both through the exhaust and directly from every orifice) when it gets old.

Most EVs don't have gearboxes - they're direct-drive into the differential or even into the axle shafts. The heat and AC on EVs are the same system. Many EVs don't have a cooling system, those that do run at much lower temperatures and pressures than an ICE cooling system. The brakes see much less load - especially less load than an ICE car with an automatic transmission. Other systems no longer have to stand up to the heat, vibration and potential fluid leaks of the ICE.

EVs are vastly simpler and more reliable.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[GameboyRMH]

Yet lithium batteries have a long history of decreasing in price. I'd suspect that's because lithium batteries can be recycled and because the price of batteries has more to do with manufacturing costs than raw material price. Furthermore, lithium-based batteries might not always be the best - look at dual-carbon batteries for example.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[AaronW]

Lithium only makes up around 2% of the battery. It is not a significant contributor to the price.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[dbIII]

Unless we happen to find some huge, new, easy-to-mine vein of lithium ore

Surely you are joking.
The desert in California is full of the stuff in salt lakes and there is a huge salt lake in Bolivia with enough for centuries of current lithium usage in that lake alone. That Bolivian lake is so big and so flat that it is used by satellites to calibrate their altitude measurements.
Access? It has around a dozen rusty locomotives parked on it. If they could get there then getting the salt out isn't so hard.
Mining? Lithium is "mined" by bulldozer, backhoe and truck.
The current price is an artifact of the small number of suppliers. If it continues to rise then that will motivate others to look at the deposits that are not being used at the moment.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[z0idberg]

Also solar energy is not renewable because it will one day go supernova.

Although at that point we will have bigger fish to fry, so to speak.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

in many places, full sized cars of any kind and driving long distances are a luxury period. Little scooters and tuktuks dominate with people not driving far, and some places are already banning them from running on gasoline. Most now in those areas use LNG, but electric ones are popping up and easy to recharge on a cheap low power circuit due to being so small.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[slew]

Your experience is atypical.

Consumer reports says the average annual cost of running a used car rises to over $4000 per year by year 12 in today's dollars.

I agree electric is more expensive when gasoline is below $2 per gallon. They made sense when gasoline was $4 per gallon and likely to head up.

Ironically, the higher the percentage of electric cars, the lower the cost of oil and gasoline until the gasoline network effect collapses which is at least a couple decades away. This is because they eliminate demand for the most expensive oil and most expensive gasoline which sets the price for all the rest of oil and gasoline.

FWIW, I didn't say I only have a few thousand in total maintenance over 20 years, only ICE specific maintenance. However, I find $4000/year a bit hard to believe, unless it includes *all* expenses and gas.

I suppose amortizing consumables like brakes, tires, adding insurance costs, and assuming general wear/tear like a broken tail light, a broken windshield, shocks, a bad AC unit etc, could easily add up to another $1000/year plus on an older car, but these would likely be the same for EV and ICE cars.

It probably also assumes you drive around 15K miles/year. I average about 7K miles/year which is a typical M-F EV commuter car amount. That extra gas could be responsible for 1/3 of that $4K. Also probably assumes folks change their oil every 3K miles (rather than 7.5K which is what is recommended for a car of my vintage).

The moral of the story, with today's cost structure, the less you drive, the less paying the EV premium makes sense, yet until they get the range up on the EV, you probably won't drive a typical EV *that* much meaning the range where it really is better is a somewhat narrow band of drivers. If you want to draw an analogy to lightbulbs, ICEs are like Incandecent, EVs are like CFLs. The LED equivalent car technology probably hasn't been invented yet, but will be the one that really works.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[dave420]

If you make less generalisations, you'll probably lead a happier life. Grouping disparate people together under one convenient label isn't helping you seem rational, or letting you even see the finer points of the discussion.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Barsteward]

it is old fashioned, its old tech by a long way. its a newer version of coal burning but its now in the "old tech" bracket.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[guyniraxn]

There's always a little splashing in a pissing contest.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[DirkDaring]

Wrong. Name a car company without an electric plan. Go ahead, I'll wait.

Ford? Going electric. Audi? Yep. Porsche? Yes. Nissan, Volvo, Chevy, Hyundai, Aston Martin, Volkswagen, Mercedes-Benz? Yes.

   

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[DirkDaring]

I looked up the most common repairs. Just about every site I saw had the same ones.

1. Brake Work. Most EVs use regenerative breaking. Advantage EV by far.

2. Oil Changes. EVs don't use oil.

3. Coolant System (Radiator/Cooling system). EVs do have cooling for the batteries, but nothing like can be compared to ICE. Advantage EV.

4. Tires. EVs typically weigh more, advantage ICE.

5. Ignition System. Advantage EV.

6. Electrical System. Equal.

7. Fuel System. Advantage EV, doesn't have one.

8. Transmission. Advantage EV, doesn't have one.

9. Exhaust System. Advantage EV, doesn't have one.

10. Air Conditioning System. Equal.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Coren22]

I'm wondering how they are defining geothermal as renewable. It isn't like the Earth will always produce that heat, and locally, they can actually shut down the heat source pretty easily. Most of the internal heat in the Earth comes from radioactive decay, which will slow down at some point.

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Coren22]

The heat and AC on EVs are the same system.

The heater is actually more complicated in an EV. ICE heaters utilize the heat of the engine, EV heaters need to be electrically powered, which uses tons of power to produce heat. EV also have additional heaters on the batteries to prevent freezing in the winter (at least around here that would be required, and Maryland isn't exactly a northern state).

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[GameboyRMH]

I wouldn't say it's more complicated. It's a heat pump system, which is similar to a car's AC system, except that it's powered by an electric motor and it has switchable valve circuits to allow it to heat or cool the inside of the car. I don't know if any EVs use waste heat for the interior, an EV doesn't create much. Battery heaters could be resistive elements (can't get simpler than that) or simply a heat exchanger tied into the heat pump system. Some EVs like the BMW i8 use the heat pump to cool the batteries as well.

An ICE vehicle has the AC system which is about as complicated as the EV's heat pump system (doesn't have the electric motor or switchable valves but does have an electromagnetic clutch and belt drive), plus the separate heater that runs on engine waste heat. A diesel car would also have a fuel preheater system on the engine, a combination of a resistive element & waste heat system.

Re: gasoline == old fashioned??

[interstellarsurfer]

I'm sure the marketing folks at Apple would beg to disagree with you. 6 is antiquated tech, and 7 is the best phone since 6. ^.^

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

Yep, so they tore down all the dams... and then when flooding occurred blamed Climate Change.

You can't make this shit up folks it's true!

Re:gasoline == old fashioned??

[Maxo-Texas]

Yes that's all maintenance plus gasoline.

Again... 7000 is very low mileage. I'm retired and I put 12,000 miles a year on my car.

Consumer reports and their methodology are easy to google.

Brakes are crazy cheap for EV's that have regenerative braking (which is most of them) and they lack several expensive systems that ICE cars have. Maintenance costs are at least $1000 lower for EV's.

The kicker is the battery. I'm waiting to see how long they last before I go EV.

Re: gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't make me go ballistic on you. I know you trolls get off on that sort of thing, but I can give you so much of it you'll live to regret it. Remember that bartender in The Simpsons? Pepperidge Farms remembers.

Niggers like you dont remember. Now fuck off and stop trying to sound like a big man. Nigger.

Re: gasoline == old fashioned??

[hackwrench]

Oh, I remember. I'm back, but I'm still working on my banter so you aren't going to be as sorry as the next person. Now what was it that The Doctor said about the guy who had a bomb in him that he wanted to slip away because the bomb was no longer a threat and the value of one life was worth more than preventing technology from falling into the wrong hands? Oh, that's right- "Wheh we get back, you'll be so deactivated." Now that's memory, baby.

Re: gasoline == old fashioned??

[Anonymous Coward]

Oh, I remember. I'm back, but I'm still working on my banter so you aren't going to be as sorry as the next person. Now what was it that The Doctor said about the guy who had a bomb in him that he wanted to slip away because the bomb was no longer a threat and the value of one life was worth more than preventing technology from falling into the wrong hands? Oh, that's right- "Wheh we get back, you'll be so deactivated." Now that's memory, baby.

Spoken like a big, black, greasy, criminal thug gangsta worthless vile yardape NIGGER. Now seriously just shut the fuck up, nigger.

Re: gasoline == old fashioned??

[hackwrench]

Now that's the beginning of the reaction I'm looking for. Any stirrings within you that maybe this wasn't as good an idea as you originally thought? Or maybe you are just playing reverse psychology or something and actually want me to continue. Because as it stands, it looks to me like I am getting results. Instead of attempting to trigger a reaction, you appear to be now trying to put the genie you unleashed back into the bottle. I can keep this up better than you can. Ready to quit the game?

So they didn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

"The country also has cement plants that burn coal." So assuming they didn't go offline for 150 days, then they didn't actually go 100% on green energy.

Why did they lie? Oh I see, 'marketing speech'.

Re:So they didn't?

[Archangel Michael]

I used 100% renewable energy, except for the parts where I didn't. It makes perfect sense

Re:So they didn't?

[Flavianoep]

Some people (not you) forget that "energy" is not always synonym with "electricity". So whereas headline is accurate, the whole of the article is not so.

Re:So they didn't?

[fbobraga]

Hydroelectricity is the standard in several countries where capable rivers are present: Brasil here, for example, have the majority of his electricity generated by Hydro. Some authors do not call Hydroelectricity a renewable

Re:So they didn't?

[rahvin112]

Cement production doesn't involve power generation so no electricity is used. Worldwide Cement production uses around 20% of the world energy. You have to heat the mixture (a man made combination of several minerals) to about 2,700 degrees F to get Cement. This tremendous amount of heat (every ounce of mineral has to sustain this temp) requires massive expenditures of energy, sometimes electricity but usually something easy like thermal coal. The resulting klinker is then ball milled into a fine powder and sold as Portland Cement Concrete.

Re: So they didn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

If they mentioned that part they didn't lie. If they intended to deceive they wouldn't have mentioned that part! So the question is, why did YOU lie?

Even by your definition, they went 95% renewable energy. Since you have done everything possible to try to block renewable energy, I think they did pretty good. Too bad for you bro.

Re:So they didn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

I used 100% renewable energy, except for the parts where I didn't. It makes perfect sense

I think we should recycle our electricity and re-use it. Yes, it gets a little dirty, maybe a little out of phase, but that's fine for most purposes.

Re:So they didn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

That is an excellent point. Wind and solar are NOT renewable, they are recurring.

Re:So they didn't?

[Qzukk]

And some people forget that fly ash is made by burning coal. It would be interesting to see if they simply wasted the heat from the coal though.

Re:So they didn't?

[LynnwoodRooster]

I already recycle my electricity. For everything I plug into an outlet, I return every electron I receive back to the source.

Re:So they didn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

Me too, I take a diesel electric train to work, the carbon emitted will eventually be absorbed by trees, the trees will eventually turn back into oil, renewable !

Seriously, Costa Rica good for you! Much like NZ patted it self on the back when the last coal fired power plant was closed down recently. Yet they still sell coal to China to burn lol.

Now lets see Costa Rica scale their renewable system to supply the US with most of its electricity. Oh snap, you cant!

Re:So they didn't?

[Mashiki]

Lot of places have long since moved to tires and/or plastics which aren't recycled or valueless to recycle with a combination of NG for making klinker.

Re:So they didn't?

[Anonymous Coward]

So those trucks I see every day with big drums turning in the back... don't require any power? That's incredible.

Unlimited plan

[turkeydance]

or something like that

Costa Rica... Thats by the South pole, right?

[Anonymous Coward]

I hear it gets bitterly cold down there.

100% Renewable Electricity, except

[Anonymous Coward]

we will later mention that 50% of their energy needs aren't counted as part of this.

Re:100% Renewable Electricity, except

[Anonymous Coward]

Generated Energy != Consumed Engergy.

As consumed energy also counts items from non generated sources like cars and coal furnaces for making cement. I know reading comprehension is hard but...

And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"The downside to hydropower is that it requires consistent rainfall. Though the dams in Costa Rica are now full, just months ago the country was suffering one of the worst droughts in its history. This forced Costa Rican utility companies to burn fuel to generate power, releasing greenhouse gases and causing rate rises. Even if Costa Rica were able to sustain 100% clean electricity production, the country still relies on petroleum for transportation, and emissions from this sector are the largest hurdle the country faces in reaching its carbon neutrality goal. The environment ministry reports that fuel burned by cars, buses and trains accounted for almost 70% of the country’s carbon emissions in 2014. According to customs there are only 200 or so hybrid cars in Costa Rica to take advantage of the energy produced by renewables on the grid.

The fact that even a country like Costa Rica, which has made major investments to produce clean energy, still struggles with these obstacles, shows just how difficult it would be for larger, more industrialised nations to follow in its footsteps.

With a population under 5 million and no major industry, Costa Rica uses much less power than most developed countries, and its geography of tightly packed volcanoes, rivers and mountains is more suited to producing clean power than most."

sauce: https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/mar/30/truth-behind-costa-rica-renewable-energy-reservoirs-climate-change

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

The downside to fossil fuels is that it needs an unlimited supply. You guys that basically try to stifle research into alternative means of producing energy, what's your plan when the oil runs out? If you think renewable energy technology sucks, what will you do when the oil runs out? How will we get energy then, if all you do is prevent research? Is there anything gained by blocking revenue for alternative energy companies?

The downside to breathing is that it doesn't work properly when there are pollutants in the air.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your " Big evil corps are the root of all evil" argument just completely blew any credibility you had out the window, hippie.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually no, storage is the issue and what we know isn't practical enough

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That, and the absolutely crushing destruction of our standard of living to third-world European shithole levels.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Fragnet]

When fossil fuels start to run out the price increases. As the price increases alternative energy sources become viable and evil corporations looking to make a profit start to invest in developing them.

The current model (capitalism) has already solved the problem, therefore.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Your " Big evil corps are the root of all evil" argument just completely blew any credibility you had out the window, hippie.

And your assumption that it would somehow NOT be "big corps" that build and run the next-gen solar/hydro/geo/wind systems destroyed yours.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[David_Hart]

The Canary Islands are far ahead of Costa Rica.... They use Solar farms, solar on practically every building, and wind farms...

http://www.npr.org/sections/pa...

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[pastafazou]

Not to mention the potential of nuclear energy dwarfs the potential of all fossil fuels known to exist...

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[phantomfive]

Even if Costa Rica were able to sustain 100% clean electricity production, the country still relies on petroleum for transportation

If only there were a company building electric cars with the goal to eventually make them affordable.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Scarletdown]

My rough guess as to why a country like Costa Rica is having better success at this than we in the U.S. are is simply due to a much smaller population, and therefore considerably fewer superinfluential sociopaths trying to cockblock anything that looks like Human progress.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[arth1]

"The downside to hydropower is that it requires consistent rainfall.

That depends on what is meant by "consistent". Hydro power that harness waterfalls won't stop producing electricity unless the river dries up. For most rivers, that is just not going to happen, even if there's a drought. Especially not rivers that get some of their water from glacier melt-offs.
At worst, you will produce less electricity in dry years than in wet ones, but it doesn't require consistent rainfall - inconsistent works fine.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[cogeek]

We know how to build wind farms. - Think of the birds!
We know how to build hydro-electric stations. - Think of the fish!
We know how to build geo-thermal stations. - Think of the fish!
We know how to build solar stations. - Think of the birds!
Each form of renewable energy comes with it's own impact to the environment. As long as that's the case and any environmentalist with a microphone can shut down progress, the US will never be able to cut ties with fossil fuels. The one big advantage fossil fuels have is that they are already entrenched in our daily lives and abundantly available.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[avandesande]

Electricity on remote islands is very expensive which makes solar affordable. Most of them use diesel generators, and the cost of shipped diesel is very high.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[CanadianMacFan]

Geothermal stations don't have an impact on fish or other wildlife, except maybe during any drilling.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

Hydroelectric is the storage.
The turbines can typically handle a lot more load than used. The output is mainly limited by how much water you want to save for later.
As long as you have hydroelectric you can handle the output variation from solar and wind.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[CanadianMacFan]

For years, decades even, people have been saying that you can't run an economy on renewable* sources of electricity but Costa Rica is showing that it can be done. Some countries in Europe have a high percentage of the electrical generation from renewable sources at times but nothing close to 100% for 76 days.

Sure they are using fossil fuels for transportation and other uses but they are way ahead of other countries. When Canada, the US, Australia, or even some other country like New Zealand powers their electrical grid from 100% renewable sources then feel free to criticize Costa Rica on their lack of progress on using gasoline.

* - Where renewable is used instead of saying sources of electricity that do not produce CO2 or other greenhouse gases directly.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"There's always more. That's what more means."

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[K. S. Kyosuke]

How do (most) solar installations do anything to birds? One would think that birds actually do more to those solar plants (you have to wipe away the shit).

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

When fossil fuels start to run out the price increases. As the price increases alternative energy sources become viable and evil corporations looking to make a profit start to invest in developing them.

The current model (capitalism) has already solved the problem, therefore.

Modern capitalism deals very badly with externalities. While your first paragraph is true, your second paragraph misses the point entirely. The companies creating power from fossil fuels do not bear the cost of the long-term environmental damage that these processes cause (including, but not limited to, global warming). Those costs are heavily subsidized by the governments and other entities that will pick up that tab in years to come, which is the way externalities are almost always handled in modern capitalism. Others will pay to transplant the entire population of the Marshall Islands to higher ground, etc, not the fossil fuel industry.

The fact that fossil fuels prices are low is precisely because of the fact that they are so heavily subsidized by having other foot these very large bills. If the fossil fuel industry paid for them now, renewable energy would already be profitable today. What's profitable and not profitable under capitalism is highly dependent on the dominant system of laws and government regulations. Fossil fuels are profitable only because we've collectively decided that they should be profitable, not due to the invisible hand of the market.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Trogre]

Solar is great but it is not a base load. Without a massive, MASSIVE, bank of batteries solar has no effective buffering - it generates full power when the sun is out, less when cloudy, and nothing at night and so cannot be depended on as a single source of power. Likewise for wind.

They are best served supplementing renewable base loads such as hydro, so when there is plenty of sunlight/wind the hydro use, and thus depletion of the water level, is reduced.

Of course, there may be better base loads in the works. Molten salt perhaps?

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

When fossil fuels start to run out the price increases. As the price increases alternative energy sources become viable and evil corporations looking to make a profit start to invest in developing them.

  The current model (capitalism) has already solved the problem, therefore.

This is true, assuming perfect information and perfect enlightened beings. This is not true in the event of externalities (see: Tragedy of the Commons).

For the sake of illustration, consider the mines of Moria. You can get tons of gold and iron out of them, but unpredictably one day if you dig too deep you hit a Balrog who destroys all the whole city. How will the rise of cost of mining fix this problem, especially when there is no evidence that such a Balrog exists until it is hit.

Or, let's assume AGW exists (this is an assumption, if you don't believe it then pretend it is a false assumption for the sake of illustration). At a certain point you can have run-away greenhouse effect which will devastate the world. In other words, the apparent cost of collecting fossil fuels is lower than the real cost. However, a substantial portion of the world doesn't believe this, so how will "the market" properly price in the cost of carbon to ensure we don't hit that point? Even assuming it does, how will "the market" prevent some bad actor (see: toxic waste being dumped in a river) from over-consuming and causing problems?

I agree that eventually the market will compensate for dwindling fossil fuels. I'm not convinced that this compensation will be in alignment with the true need, though. I don't know of any economist who disagrees with the concept of externalities in any fashion except the most global settings (which individual humans do not operate in).

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

duh... as soon as the water has passed through the dam and generators, you just boil it back to the top, where it falls as rain!!

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[turp182]

I can't think of an industry that has such wild changes in capital investments and wild contractions of the same assets.

When oil was $140+ shale and old wells were very profitable and built or started back up en mass.

Now at sub $50, all of that investment is shut down. It's still mostly available later, but the investments are expensive (and companies pay much higher interest rates than the government).

Coal companies are bankrupting as well, and they have always provided the fuel for the cheapest energy (natural gas is a big problem for them).

Coal Problems:
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/...

Interesting dynamics.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[blindseer]

As I recall the solar PV panels have a color and/or reflective properties that are not seen in nature. The birds are confused by the panels and run into them in flight, which injures and kills them.

One theory is that they are confusing them with water, and instead of a pleasant "plop" into a puddle they have a hard landing and break their little legs. Another theory is that the dark flat color looks like a hole or cave to them, so instead of flying into shade they fly into a hard surface. Another theory is that birds just run into things but PV panels are harder and with sharper edges than leaves and grass, what would be a soft bounce off of vegetation is now a deadly hard collision.

Solar thermal stations create invisible and intense beams of heat. A bird is a relatively small animal, moving at a relatively low speed, and so once a bird happens to cross this beam they don't have much of a chance on flying out before the heat overwhelms them and they cook to death. If they survive the initial encounter with the heat then they might have cooked feathers, temporary blindness, and other injuries that make them easy prey for small furry creatures on the ground. The beam concentrators also create an artificial sun from the intense point of light, this can lead birds astray as many species will use the sun as a navigation point. A lost bird cannot find food and shelter.

I also recall that it's not just birds that are hazards to the solar power farms, vegetation also cause problems. If plant life is not controlled they can grow to a height to obstruct the sunlight. A responsible solar farm owner will mow the grass and trim the trees. A less environmentally conscious, and more conscious of profit, solar farm manager will control the plant life with chemicals. These chemicals can cause problems later as the weather moves them around. What the weather will also do is blow dirt, leaves, and grass clippings onto the solar panels. These need to be washed off with fresh water, a valuable resource, and possibly with soap/detergents in the water, polluting the water downstream.

We'd be better off with nuclear power. A modern air cooled nuclear power plant would not kill near as many birds, and would not consume or pollute near as much fresh water. A modern nuclear power plant would also possibly consume the waste from previous inefficient reactors or, at a minimum, not add to the radioactive waste problem we have.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[blindseer]

Fossil fuels are profitable only because we've collectively decided that they should be profitable, not due to the invisible hand of the market.

Oh really? We just "decided" they were profitable. Imagine if we just "decided" they weren't profitable tomorrow, what would happen then? I'll tell you. A lot of children would not get to school because they could not ride a bus. A lot of people would die of seemingly minor injuries because we could not drive an ambulance to them and/or the medicines we produce, transport, refrigerate, and sterilize with fossil fuels would disappear. No more airplanes for travel and communication. No more container ships by sea, or they'd be limited to the speed of the prevailing winds. Say goodbye to a lot of the cheap goods that you enjoy.

In short, life would suck without fossil fuels. You choose to focus on the negatives of fossil fuels because you've been brainwashed into thinking they are bad. I think you need to take a history course on modern western civilization from a college professor that isn't a raging lefty. I imagine there are a few of them left in the world. My history professors were raging left wingers but at least I knew enough before hand to know when bias crept into the lecture. I suspect you are not so inclined.

It's because of fossil fuels that societal constructs like slavery ended. It is because of fossil fuels that we were able to transport coffee and sugar across the world. It also helped that fossil fuels made it much easier to produce a modern water and sewage system. We live in a world built on oil, sugar, and coffee. From that flowed a healthy and well fed population, capable of doing so much more than subsistence farming. If the oil stops we might still get the sugar and coffee but we'd need slave labor to harvest it.

Or we'd need nuclear power. But we "decided" that nuclear power wasn't going to be profitable. When we decide different then maybe we can have our coffee and eat our cake too.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as we don't alter the biosphere to the point that civilization collapses before fossil fuels become scarce and expensive....or the quality of life is degraded to such an extent due to externalities that it ends up costing more than shifting energy production to renewable sources and/or nuclear.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

In short, life would suck without fossil fuels.

Sure, a world built around artificially cheap fossil fuels would suck if they suddenly weren't. I totally agree, and it kinda proves my point.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[cheesybagel]

They are supposed to increase the incidence of earthquakes. At least the ones that inject water underground. Google "basel hydraulic rock".

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[AmiMoJo]

Renewables are already cheaper than nuclear and on their way to surpassing coal in the next decade. It's just a matter of time and how quickly we want it to happen.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[AmiMoJo]

Lol, yes, it's the environmentalists keeping renewables down.

In the UK we are looking to build tidal lagoon power stations. Environmental groups support it because while there will be some change and damage, it's way better than the alternatives (coal, fracked gas or nuclear).

The opposition comes from anti-environmentalists, mostly gas and coal shills.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[dbIII]

Base load is a chicken/egg issue. Because we had a lot of thermal power generation that runs best 24/7/365 we've spent years providing incentives for energy use at night despite most industrial and commercial activity happening in daylight.

If you've got an Aluminium smelter or 24/7 production lines then a lot of base load is ideal, but in a lot of places it does not really matter apart from a little bit needed for lighting and residential use at night.

There are plenty of storage methods out there, even molten salt with solar thermal, all a bit lossy but all can get the job done at scale. Storage is not really required when you have massive grids, especially east-west grids like the USA and Europe. The wind is going to be blowing somewhere, the sun is shining somewhere, there are huge snow covered mountains feeding hydro and peak consumption is spread out over time so you do not need massive capacity just to cover a couple of hours. Reserve power is a lot less lossy than storage if you have a big grid and not much of a peak.
A small grid or a north-south grid with a lot happening at the same time is a different story and that's where storing to cover huge peaks ends up being cheaper than a lot of stuff in reserve.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Mashiki]

Guess that's why my electricity bill keeps going up. It now costs me 0.18c/kWh on peak of which "green energy" mainly wind makes up less then 10% of total generation, but makes up 78% of the actual cost. And is now such a huge problem here in Ontario that 500k+ people are more then 3-5 months in arrears and the governments decade long "green energy program" created this entire mess. FYI that 500k number? That's nearly half of all customers of Hydro One, the largest power provider in Ontario.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Mashiki]

Obviously you don't live in North America. Environmentalists are keeping renewables down, and renewables are also causing the price of electricity go to through the roof, especially when there are far cheaper methods like hydro-electric which generation costs pennies on the dollar to generate, or coal. Of which there is so much of in the ground that some places have been mining it since before confederation, and there's still a 700-900 year supply of.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[GNious]

"The downside to hydropower is that it requires consistent rainfall.

Purely brain-farting here, but since they have more than just hydropower (it mentions geothermal, and uses words like "mostly), could there be times where other excess sources allow them to pump water back into the reservoirs, thus negating the need for consistent rainfall, and allow better utilization of multiple green energy sources?

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[gsliepen]

That's only El Hierro. On the other islands, they happily burn fossil fuels to generate electricity. The only thing I saw in big numbers on La Palma and Tenerife were small scale solar boilers for heating water. There's a huge unused potential for photovoltaic cells.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I guess you do not count Norway or possibly Canada as developed countries, then.

Norway gets all its electricity from hydro power. So much of it, in fact, that we used to have a large number of aluminium smelters. But then they discovered that it was more profitable to sell the same electricity to the general public. That, and China et.al.

Unfortunately, we have so much hydro power that They(R)(TM) decided to lay down the cables required to sell it off to continental Europe. So now I get CO2 taxes on my electric bill since I had the dare to consume dirty German coal mine electricity, made available to me through the 'coordinated open market of electric power.' Thank you sooo much. Can't wait for Them(C)(TM) to f... up Costa Rica as well.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[pastafazou]

No, renewables are not cheaper than nuclear. Hydroelectric is cheaper. Solar is more expensive. Onshore wind on it's own is cheaper, but wind power requires backup generation, and when the backup costs are factored in, nuclear is still cheaper. Offshore wind is more expensive. And onshore wind requires a massive amount of land in order to match the output of a single nuclear plant.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[AmiMoJo]

In the UK, onshore wind is already significantly cheaper than nuclear. The proposed Hinkley Point C plant will be paid about 30% more than onshore wind for every watt it produces, and that's not even counting the other massive subsidies it will attract.

Fortunately it's looking like the government might cancel it, partly because the insane cost necessitated Chinese investment.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

"It's difficult to do a full 100%, so we might as well not even try"

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm about as pinko-enviro-leftist as they come, but I totally agree with you. When it gets more rare and thus more expensive, alternatives and replacements will be found.

The problem that capitalism hasn't solved is who cleans up the mess caused by the dirtier energy sources.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[pastafazou]

Intermittency of wind power in the UK for 2013 and 2014: http://www.caithnesswindfarms....
The analysis showed:
-average capacity factor across the UK was less than a third of maximum capacity
-average capacity in any given month varied from 16.2% to 50.8%
-total time during which turbines produced less than 10% of rated capacity totaled 3165 hours (131.8 days!)
-total time during which turbines produced less than 5% of rated capacity totaled 1200 hours (50 days!)
-output from wind turbines was extremely intermittent
Conclusions drawn from this study are that increasing wind turbine capacity DOES NOT increase the average capacity, DOES NOT reduce the periods of low or very low output, and DOES NOT reduce intermittentcy or variability in an hourly period. What this means is that MORE windmills do not provide any possibility of closing conventional fossil-fuel power stations. All wind power potential must have an alternative source of backup for when the wind isn't blowing. The costs of these backup plants are NOT being included in the true cost of wind power. Also not being included in the numbers are the cost of premature failure of turbines, which is proving to be much higher than originally estimated: http://www.nawindpower.com/onl...

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[catprog]

Except the cooking of the birds apparently only occurred during standby (and when they changed the standby configuration they were no more bird cooking.)

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Fragnet]

The investment isn't really shut down. Once it's up and running the economic forces are towards greater efficiency of costs and innovation in methods. E.g. Saudi has tried to destroy the US shale industry by its own overproduction (relative to the price it wants). It has so far failed and is rapidly burning through its cash reserves. The problem for Saudi is it's so quick and easy to get a shale well up and running, compared to an oil field. The capital investment isn't all that huge.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

hope your happy with the lights out and no internet.

windmills don't produce 24/7

we need base load, not more useless windmills.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

We live in a world built on oil, sugar, and coffee. From that flowed a healthy and well fed population

You can't be serious. Sugar and coffee healthy? Really?
Sugar is a major health problem in the developed world.
Coffee is not essential - it's luxury and addictive.

Oil is much better used for refining it into polymers to make plastics and to power vehicles that require very high energy density, like air planes.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

That's a political and then insurance problem.
If politics would force energy producers to insure for future risks towards the society then insurance companies would go ahead and calculate the risk (expressed in dollars) and would offer such insurances. That would (hopefully) price in today the risks of tomorrow and make the whole energy market more fair. (actually what we should care about is optimal resource allocation, i.e. the best balance between current extraction costs and risks, including future.)

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[blindseer]

You can't be serious. Sugar and coffee healthy? Really?

It's healthier than the beer and wine it replaced.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[blindseer]

What you failed to do is explain how oil is artificially cheap. I pointed out that oil is naturally cheap, we get much more value from it than it costs.

Compared to wood or cattle dung we find that we can get cleaner energy from fossil fuels. It also leaves the wood for building and the dung for fertilizer.

You claim that fossil fuels damage the environment beyond the benefit they give which is demonstrably false. We are only able to have as much food, clean water, clothing, shelter, medicines, etc. because we have naturally cheap fossil fuels.

What you propose is not removing the "artificially" inexpensive but creating an artificial expense.

Re: And the crowd goes mild!!!

[Anonymous Coward]

But oil is NOT naturally cheap, no fossil fuel is.

When you factor in the costs of either recapturing the carbon from the atmosphere or the value of the coastal real estate lost to rising sea levels, the failed crops caused by desertification, and all the other externalities, oil is really, really expensive.

Re:And the crowd goes mild!!!

[boa]

"For years, decades even, people have been saying that you can't run an economy on renewable* sources of electricity but Costa Rica is showing that it can be done. Some countries in Europe have a high percentage of the electrical generation from renewable sources at times but nothing close to 100% for 76 days."

Norway generates almost all its power from hydro/renewables, year in and year out. (It rains a lot here too.)

source: https://www.regjeringen.no/no/... (in Norwegian)

Double standard with renewable classification.

[Anonymous Coward]

"For 300 total days last year and 150 days so far this year, Costa Rica's electricity has come entirely from renewable sources, mostly hydropower and geothermal."

So the glowing article is including hydro when speaking of Costa Rican renewable energy but in the states hydro is almost totally avoided when speaking about renewable energy. Obviously to pad stats when discussing renewable energy implementation.

   

Re:Double standard with renewable classification.

[danbob999]

Well, those people in the states are wrong. Hydro is renewable, like it or not. Renewable doesn't mean no impact on the population and ecosystems. All power sources have an impact.

Re:Double standard with renewable classification.

[Mr D from 63]

Hydro is claimed in renewable counts when making claims about performance. But when making claims about progress, its almost always credited to wind and solar expansion. Here we have very high perentage of electricity considered renewable, but almost none of that is wind or solar. So some will downplay the headline for that reason.

In reality, hydro is great for those countries that have the option, but its not a production growth capable technology as it gets harder and harder to get approvals to sequester the land and alter the water flow.

Re:Double standard with renewable classification.

[Gavagai80]

The problem with hydro is that it's impossible to build more dams in countries with environmental regulations, water rights laws and lawyers.

Re:Double standard with renewable classification.

[danbob999]

Obviously the best rivers have been used first. What is left is not as interesting. It's still renewable, though.

Re:Double standard with renewable classification.

[KingBozo]

I agree Hydro is renewable, and so Oil and Gas are renewable also, just takes millions of years to renew, instead of weeks or years, or decades to fill back up the emptying reservoirs.

Re:Double standard with renewable classification.

[danbob999]

Either your are a nitpicker or don't understand the issue. On a human time frame oil and gas are not renewable. That's why when having a sane discussion, we separate renewable sources (wind/solar/hydro/...) and non-renewable sources (oil, gas, coal, nuclear fission, ...).
Technically, I agree hydro isn't renewable either if you empty a reservoir that took 20 years to fill in one month. But it is clearly renewable if you keep the reservoir at a more or less constant level every year (after a cycle of all seasons).

Re:Double standard with renewable classification.

[dbIII]

But when making claims about progress, its almost always credited to wind and solar expansion

Obviously because hydro is old news that everybody should have heard about before they grew up.

Keep in mind

[clonehappy]

When they trot out these "feel good" stories about renewable energy, that this is a developing nation with an extremely temperate climate. Also remember this is the model for the United States and the rest of the modern first-world/western nations under globalism/leftism: reducing them to third-world status.

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf are you talking about? You must be an oil/coal shill. In what world or circumstance does renewable (hydro/solar/wind/nuclear) not provide cleaner power than oil or coal?

There are better options than oil and coal for generating power in every single possible environment on the planet.

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

If the USA doesn't figure out how to be less dependent on oil, it's going to be reduced to third world status one day, with or without the involvement of 'leftism'.

And it's pretty astonishingly dimwitted for you to lump globalism and leftism together as if they are two sides of the same coin; this could hardly be further from the truth.

Re:Keep in mind

[pastafazou]

First off, nuclear isn't renewable. Second, there are plenty of environments where fossil fuels are actually the best option. Think arctic/antarctic, mountains, remote areas. Renewable energy sources tend to be non-portable, or far less portable than gasoline.

Re:Keep in mind

[sjames]

It's hysterical watching people desperately downplaying Costa Rica's accomplishment so their own country doesn't come off looking as much like a dinosaur mired in a tar pit.

Re:Keep in mind

[GameboyRMH]

Portability doesn't give fossil fuels any advantage in remote areas, it gives them an advantage on vehicles that have to travel long distances before refuelling. Don't forget that fossil fuels require heavy industry to produce, so unless you have crude oil pumps and a refinery on site it needs to be shipped in, from a long distance since it's a remote area. In remote areas on-site energy production is an advantage. The arctic and antarctic regions get a solid 6 months of sun per year and don't seem to have a shortage of wind (which constantly blows snow around in undesirable ways). During the 6 months of darkness, fossil fuels make more sense simply because it's a compact form of stored energy. Mountains and most other remote areas get sun and wind like anywhere else.

Re:Keep in mind

[viperidaenz]

Why do you think they use oil from other countries? in 2015 they imported as much as they produced. Half of what they product ended up being exported.
So their consumption is 2/3 from imports and only 1/3 of their own oil.

Re:Keep in mind

[viperidaenz]

The guy sort of has a point. A lot of people in Costa Rica don't have a connection to the grid, so they have to run their own generators for electricity. That's not counted in the 100% renewable figures.

Re:Keep in mind

[pipingguy]

Shhh! You'll ruin the taxpayer-guaranteed ROI for "investing" in solar and wind!

Re:Keep in mind

[K. S. Kyosuke]

Even in non-arctic conditions, mining companies and the like apparently fancy hybrid solar-diesel gensets these days. Saves a lot of fuel, and lot of the hassle with its transportation into remote places.

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Wallowing around, 'what do you mean? surely everyone is stuck in the tar if I'm stuck in the tar, I'm too big to be stuck in tar if nobody else is'

Re:Keep in mind

[FlyHelicopters]

It's hysterical watching people desperately downplaying Costa Rica's accomplishment so their own country doesn't come off looking as much like a dinosaur mired in a tar pit.

Call me when millions of people are rushing to live in Costa Rica and their high quality of life!

Oh yea, it is largely a shit hole outside of a few resort areas...

Re:Keep in mind

[LynnwoodRooster]

Sure, why use our own reserves (which are around 260-270 years worth of oil, at our current consumption rate) when we can use everyone else's - and then end up with the big reserves to be sold at much higher prices in the future? When you have an abundance of a resource, and your neighbors (Canada and Mexico, where we get a lot of our oil) are selling theirs without concern - why not buy from them? When they run out - you're in the driver's seat...

Re: Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Horseshit. A 10KW diesel generator and a two week supply of fuel will fit in the back of any pickup truck. Good luck getting 10KW of solar panels or a 10KW wind turbine in a pickup.

Re: Keep in mind

[iggymanz]

It's hysterical you people avoiding the fact that Costa Rica is a third world craphole with 1/7 the energy consumption per person and per capita income of 12k $, if you had a single light bulb in your house to light you could go 100% renewable too. I'm not interested in living like a ghetto rat thanks.

Re: Keep in mind

[sjames]

That means they also accomplished their goal with very little money. Since we are proportionally better off here, we should be able to do a similar job but to our standard of living.

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Not millions, but after some right-winged family moved there after "being fed up with the US government", at least two dozen friends followed them and now friends of friends are following them. Basically once their friends realized it wasn't a shit hole, and a little money goes a long ways, they were jumping to move there and just had to deal with immigration. If you need to get a job in Costa Rica to make a living, you're screwed and won't get in, but if you have money (a large enough retirement fund, or a lump sum of $200k) it is much easier. Food is cheap, health care is free (and better than US by many stats), and it doesn't take much money to buy a house away from the slums and resort areas (the resort areas suck for a variety of reasons). But you won't see millions, as their immigration policy is too strict and there to stop people from coming from actual shitholes and from stealing jobs.

Re: Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

A 10 kW wind turbine kit has one to two dozen ten foot long pieces that would fit in any pickup truck that can carry lumber. That takes a bit more time to setup, and you would probably need some cement too, but it can also last longer than two weeks.

Re: Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

If you're not polluting like a rich entitled American, you're not trying hard enough.

Americans have the money, so idiots like you think it's ok to pollute three and a half times the worlds average.

Let me guess, you want Costa Rica to become as rich as America and also pollute just as much as you do, to "save the world".

Re:Keep in mind

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes they are developing. So they also don't get the benefit of all those decades of polluting like the developed countries did, before anyone 'realized' it was bad.

Re: Keep in mind

[catprog]

for 10k of solar panels I get a volume of 2,277.632 liters and 720 kilograms

Another 35Kg and 45 litres for the inverter.

Re: Keep in mind

[iggymanz]

wrong, it is only an engineering issue to solve the problem of not polluting but still having the growing energy supply to drive progress and health benefits. I don't want to pollute, and it's not necessary to pollute.

So?

[Strider-]

With the exception of a few isolated communities (and the occasional voltage support from Burrard Thermal in Vancouver), British Columbia has run on hydro power for decades.

Re:So?

[danbob999]

mostly hydro, but thermal is also important (11%):

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

...but that's impossible in the USA

[Anonymous Coward]

...because the oil companies say so!

100% if...

[hyperar]

So, more than half Costa Rica's energy comes from fossil fuels yet TFA says it's been running without fossil fuels... FUD.

Re:100% if...

[danbob999]

How long can you country survive with 100% renewal electricity? I bet less than a week.
100% renewable electricity is a remarkable step. Electric cars will allow to reduce fossil fuels even further from that point.

Re:100% if...

[Anonymous Coward]

FUD is an acronym for Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt. Can you explain what fear, uncertainty and doubt is being caused by the claim that a country has gone 76 days with just using 100% renewable electricity?

You could claim that it is misleading, I would disagree, as the article mentions the non-renewable fuels that are still used, but at least it would be a reasonable argument.

It seems that your claim the article is FUD, is actually itself FUD.

Re:100% if...

[viperidaenz]

Mine.... probably quite a while.
New Zealand is 80 - 90% renewable. If the aluminium smelter was shut down, that would probably tip the scale, seeing as how it consumes 15% of our electricity production.

Re:100% if...

[danbob999]

Wake me up when you shut down that plant and ran for more than a week on renewable electricity only.

Also this is from 2012 but it lists New Zealand as only 72% renewable: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Re: 100% if...

[iggymanz]

Not remarkable at all, Costa Rica is mostly ghetto.

Re:100% if...

[viperidaenz]

According to the MBIE it was 75.1% in 2013 and 79.9% in 2014

http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-s...

June 2015 quarter and all the quaters after that have been above 81%

Our generation capacity is increasing, with decreases in non-renewable

http://www.mbie.govt.nz/info-s...

Re:100% if...

[dbIII]

Wake me up when you shut down that plant and ran for more than a week on renewable electricity only.

I suspect the one in Iceland that already does has been doing so since before you were born.

Orly?

[DougOtto]

The country still has more than 1 million cars running on old-fashioned gasoline

You mean they all just don't swing from vine to vine to get around? Who knew?

Re:Orly?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, Dora the Explorer lied to you.

Re:Orly?

[LynnwoodRooster]

It's a growth target for Tesla. They have the electricity! Just have to figure out how to sell $100,000 cars to a populace that averages under $7,000 per year in total income...

Re:Orly?

[catprog]

Or how to reduce the cost of the cars.

They aren't even wired throughout

[mi]

In our trip to the country, we stayed in a semi-permanent camp on the Pacific shore, which was not wired. In fact, there was no proper road to it either — the only way to get there was by (small) plane.

The camp had a generator, of course — a noisy affair, which they fired for a few hours each day to power up/recharge the radio and phones. But, hey, there are still places in the world, where even those evil devices — made from poisonous materials by exploited workers toiling in polluting factories — aren't known...

Some times the spurning of civilization is explained simply by absence of civilization...

Industrial Capacity of Costa Rica?

[Bugler412]

Great that they can exist on renewables like this, mean it. But using an essentially non-industrial country in a temperate climate as an example is statistical bias at best, outright lying at worse. How many aluminum smelters, steel plants, large data centers, and other myriad large bulk power users exist in Costa Rica? You know, the things that allow humans to actually build a first world country capable of supporting a large urban population? Yeah, thought so.

Re:Industrial Capacity of Costa Rica?

[Anonymous Coward]

So basically, they're homesteading. (which is admirable for research & keeping things status-quo).
When they're running 7-11 shoppettes 24hrs around the clock keeping coolers full of ice chilled, steaming hot car washes, and bright lamps over the gas-station... lemme know.

Re:Industrial Capacity of Costa Rica?

[Anonymous Coward]

More than half of their exports is semiconductors, electrical components and medical devices. While their metal and chemical industries are small (but existing) compared to larger countries, they do have quite a lot of manufacturing and are not just an agrarian country.

Not Giving Up My Gasoline Car

[Anonymous Coward]

Sorry. I like gasoline powered cars. I'm not interested in being green or whatever they call it these days. I hunt animals, I fish, eat lots of red meat, drive two gas-powered cars and have a two-story house with no green tech. Not interested. All of this climate bullshit has become a damned religion of sorts. I'm not buying. I like to change my own oil and get it on my hands. I clean dirty gun barrels in diesel or penetrating oil. I mow my yard with a gas mower and gas weed eater. I won't be changing. This is Texas. We use fossil fuels and don't plan on changing.

Re:Not Giving Up My Gasoline Car

[danbob999]

We couldn't care less about your personal tastes. We will end up making you pay for your pollution, like it or not.
And also fuck you.

-the rest of the world

Re:Not Giving Up My Gasoline Car

[Anonymous Coward]

Awww, Dan... were you offended, you little SJW dicksucking climate fag? The OP can post his likes or dislikes, much as you have a right to do. Go check in with your green weenie climate homos... All of you girly boys that have never lifted a finger to do actual work in your life wouldn't know the first thing about engine oils and hunting or anything that involved actual physical labor.

You will end up doing nothing other than being a waste of oxygen. Go find a real woman who will give you a taste of what it's like to be a man. Maybe also go down to your local butcher shop and learn where your meat comes from... oh, wait... there is no tofu in butcher shops...

Re:Not Giving Up My Gasoline Car

[Anonymous Coward]

>>>> We will end up making you pay
>>>> And also fuck you

angry much? also, your totalitarian attitude is truly frightening.

Re: Not Giving Up My Gasoline Car

[iggymanz]

That's not how this world works. The rest of the world wants the tech and industry products. Takes energy to make those, and even in Costa Rica half the energy used comes from fossil despite misleading headline

Costa Rica doesn't have an army

[Streetlight]

I don't think Costa Rica is interested in invading another country nor has it been invaded except by folks enjoying its beaches and mild climate. Not sure how big the police force is but may be no larger than that of a big US city.

Re:Costa Rica doesn't have an army

[rahvin112]

That depends on whether you consider filibustering, invading. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...

Personally I consider it an invasion.

Demographics

[lobiusmoop]

Costa Rica population has doubled within the last 35 years and is up 500% since 1950.. I'd say this level of population growth will cause long-term problems no matter how the countries energy is produced.

Re:Demographics

[Anonymous Coward]

That works out to about a 2% annual growth rate over the last 35 years, and Google seems to agree, though you'll note that it was down to 1.4% (50 year doubling) as of 2013 and continues to decline. For further perspective, the current annual growth rate for the US is 0.7% and India is 1.2%.

At that rate of growth, in about 200 years Costa Rica would be 16x their current population, or roughly 77million people. At the same time, the US would be at about 1.29 billion people and India would be around 13.6 billion.

I'd be real happy if the U.S. got the same way

[Crashmarik]

No ridiculous subsidies for renewables
let people build hydro when and where they can
Stop getting in the way of coal

Re:I'd be real happy if the U.S. got the same way

[DirkDaring]

No ridiculous subsidies for fossil fuels then as well right? How do you think that would affect your gas price?

Re:I'd be real happy if the U.S. got the same way

[Crashmarik]

Oh I dunno, going to take those ridiculous taxes on gas off as well ?

Re:I'd be real happy if the U.S. got the same way

[DirkDaring]

And those have to do with fossil fuel or renewable subsidies how? Or do you just switch topics when you can't answer something?

Re:I'd be real happy if the U.S. got the same way

[Crashmarik]

And those have to do with fossil fuel or renewable subsidies how? Or do you just switch topics when you can't answer something?

I did answer your question. Sorry you can't understand why taxing competing products is relevant in shaping the marketplace.

Or is it that you do understand and went belligerent because you don't like where that goes ?

This isn't as awesome as it sounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets be clear here. While an accomplishment, this is not a feat when you are starting from such a small scale but they'll never move off their gasoline footprint. They can't afford it.

If you've ever been to Costa Rica you understand that most roads aren't paved and almost none are marked. Most people don't have direct power lines to their homes and run off generators if they can afford them. Those that do have brown outs all the time. I'd love to hear if those brown outs continued.

lets compare that to the US where almost everyone has electricity, AC, etc etc. That's not even considering how industrialized we are in comparison or the sheer number of data centers who gobble power like you can't imagine.

This is not a good comparison, but still an accomplishment to be able to say you did.

Re:This isn't as awesome as it sounds

[Anonymous Coward]

Forget the data centers, per capita their contribution is miniscule. Air conditioning and heating are the biggest offenders.

Well, only 5 million people...

[Anonymous Coward]

What is their total electricity requirement? Per capita?
How does that compare to the more industrialized nations?

And on another note ( probably B-flat, but I hope to hit D-sharp...)
why can't the NRC license packaged nuclear reactor power generation for the US ?
A bunch of smaller, 10 to 100 MW stations instead of the large 4 GW plants?

Oh, sorry, I forgot - money. As in corporate lobbying.

I live in the Southeast, and a few of these could take the load off coal generation.
Bet it'd work up north, too...

So part 2: Iceland

[JBMcB]

I think Iceland generates almost all of it's power from geothermal, to the point where most of the world's bauxite smelting is done there, and there's enough power left over for most citizens to pay a flat rate for electricity.

Re:So part 2: Iceland

[Anonymous Coward]

Clearly we need to break up the earth's crust and create tectonic plate boundaries near large cities and industrial complexes. It sounds hard but it's doable. Soon we'll have near-total geothermal generation.

Re:So part 2: Iceland

[viperidaenz]

Yes... all 330,000 people.

Re:So part 2: Iceland

[LWATCDR]

They also have a lot of Hydro.
I guess the lesson is Solar and Wind are not good for energy generation. Costa Rica used next to none.

Re:So part 2: Iceland

[vinlud]

"In 2010, Iceland only contributed about 2% of the worldâ(TM)s aluminium smelting production (780 thousand metric tons)."

https://arcticecon.wordpress.c...

Not Allowed in the US

[sycodon]

Environmentalists won't allow new dams to built in the US and are actively trying to have old ones torn down.

Re:Not Allowed in the US

[No Longer an AC]

Doesn't that have more to do with wildlife and habitat protection than whether hydroelectric is renewable?

Well, renewable so long as the water doesn't dry up anyway.

Here's a whole article on it:

Environmental Impacts of Hydroelectric Power

It seems the environmentalist complaints boil down to 3 things:

* impact on wildlife
* impact on the land (in and around the dam as well as downstream)
* carbon emissions which they say "can also be significant"

But aside from that, it's all good.....as long as the water doesn't dry up.

Comparing it to money, it would be more like you get a fixed income every month, but if you don't spend it, it just flows downstream (presumably in the form of bank fees). Barring any unforeseen catastrophe however the money is completely renewable as well as transient.

Re: Not Allowed in the US

[Anonymous Coward]

environmentalists mainly work for oil intersts, and special interest groups representing the elites.

If they really put there money where their mouth is, they would be trying to sell Teslas into Cista Rica greatly subsidised and subsidising the charger infrastructure to go with it, ina country where the carbon neutral footprint of cars definitely makes sense and closes the loop.

These people are jokers. I promise u that. Its not about protecting the environment for them. Its about regulating all industry out if existence.

As an investor...

[Anonymous Coward]

I'm betting on oil. In a few years, see you on Easy Street!

Good for Costa Rica!

[Chas]

Unfortunately, in the US, we're past peak Hydro here due to environmental impacts and the corresponding legislation. Additionally, Costa Rica had to stop hydro generation because of water shortages..

Geothermal has some applications, but they've geographically limited. Costa Rica's got it fairly good. But the US doesn't really have the same distribution of available sites that are useful for utility-grade geothermal.

Now, that's not to say other forms of geothermal might not help out on smaller scales. But we're talking about national/regional utilities here.

Re:Good for Costa Rica!

[dbIII]

But the US doesn't really have the same distribution of available sites that are useful for utility-grade geothermal.

With long range HVDC power transmission going in all over the place it's not really going to matter much if you want to power stuff in New York from a geothermal plant near Yellowstone.
The same of course applies for everything from big nukes (which need to be on a big lake/river/sea to have dependable cooling water - nowhere near as difficult to site as geothermal, but still you can't just put them anywhere) and solar. With a huge grid and not a lot of losses you can site just about anything.

daydream?

[ooloorie]

Costa Rica's per capita GDP is 1/3 of that of the US, making it a fairly poor country. And if you want to find other countries that use little fossil fuel energy, just keep going down the list and look at the countries that are even poorer than Costa Rica.

Every country in the world was run on pretty much 100% renewable energy sources until the industrial revolution. That's neither something to brag about or something to aspire to.

Re:daydream?

[pipingguy]

Prepare to be modded into oblivion, you're not sufficiently enthusiastic about renewable energy.

Re:daydream?

[Enigma2175]

Every country in the world was run on pretty much 100% renewable energy sources until the industrial revolution. That's neither something to brag about or something to aspire to.

Renewable energy sources produce less pollution and are more sustainable than fossil fuels, why wouldn't they be something to aspire to?

Re: daydream?

[Anonymous Coward]

Living in a poor third world country isn't something to aspire to.

Here in WA State

[Anonymous Coward]

We apparently don't consider hydroelectric power "renewable."

I wish the US would do this

[Anonymous Coward]

so the people get fed up and shoot all the environmentalists and we can get along with making progress.

Oh wait, it will turn into another it will work better this time party.

A lot of people use generators in Central America

[sdguero]

It is common for rural areas to be disconnected form the grid and many small communities in Central/South America run off generators. I stayed at a surf/yoga camp in 2011 that was run off candles and generators, even though a place to tie into the grid was only a couple miles away.

When I ruminated about how a candle is probably a worse polluter than a 60W light bulb powered by a coal power plant, the crunchy ex-pat owner got pretty upset with me. I goolged it when we got home and sure enough, candles horrible for air pollution compared to light bulbs.

Not sure if this is ongoing.

[Anonymous Coward]

The last report out of Costa Rica was 75 days ago -- a text message saying "We are going to live on 100% renewable Electricity".

However, some smoke signals intercepted a few days later signaled that "We are unable to charge phones - expect no status messages."

So, we are not really sure what is going on with the experiment.

merely a simple matter of engineering...

[Thud457]

You have to heat the mixture (a man made combination of several minerals) to about 2,700 degrees F to get Cement.

hey wait, don't they have volcanoes in Costa Rica? So that pesky cement production problem is solvable.
Now to just get everybody switched over to electric cars.

And since someone inevitably brought up the energy storage with problem with renewables -- Costa Rica is also pretty close to the equator. Just run mass up the space elevator when the wind is blowing / Sun is shining. Then run mass down the elevator when you need more baseload power. Good grief, I can't believe I have to spell everything out for you. This isn't rocket surgery!

Re:merely a simple matter of engineering...

[LynnwoodRooster]

hey wait, don't they have volcanoes in Costa Rica? So that pesky cement production problem is solvable.

Better yet, why even use cement? Just ladle out some lava into your form, let it cool, and BAM - natural stone buildings!

Re:merely a simple matter of engineering...

[GNious]

Just ladle out some lava into your form, let it cool, and BAM - natural stone buildings!

Auch - mental image of workers who "ladle out some lava" ...

Re:merely a simple matter of engineering...

[Coren22]

It works in Minecraft.

Paraguay has been doing this for 40 years

[sombragris]

My country (Paraguay) went 100% renewable after 1973, when the Acaray dam went operational and covered 100% of the energy needs of the country. In 1983 the world's largest operational dam (Itaipú) began to serve energy and we own 50% of it (with Brazil). We also own 50% of another large dam (Yacyreta). Now, and save for biomass-burning usines used in the Mennonite colonies at the far north, isolated Chaco area, we still are 100% covered by hydropower. There are plans to convert these biomass plants either to solar power or to lay down wires so they could use power from Itaipu. So, I would say that covering large energy needs with renewable power is totally possible, and we are proof of it since 1973.

A few problems

[Vinegar Joe]

From the Guardian last year:

"The downside to hydropower is that it requires consistent rainfall. Though the dams in Costa Rica are now full, just months ago the country was suffering one of the worst droughts in its history. This forced Costa Rican utility companies to burn fuel to generate power, releasing greenhouse gases and causing rate rises."

https://www.theguardian.com/co...

Costa Rica Sized Economy?

[sl149q]

So if you have a Costa Rica sized economy (and accompanying lifestyles) it is possible to (barely) run it on renewable's.

I'm sure that tells us a lot about what a first world economy can do.

Nice going dudes!?

[AndyKron]

They could probably go another 20 years, and not generate as much energy as the solar cells and equipment took to make. Nice going dudes!

Re:Nice going dudes!?

[hyades1]

The energy to make them is paid back in 2-4 years, and they last 30 years. That's in Australia, which is roughly the same distance from the Equator as Sri Lanka.

http://www.solarchoice.net.au/blog/news/solar-energy-myth-buster-1-they-take-more-energy-to-manufacture-then-they-will-ever-generate-161209/

You're welcome. No charge. I educate idiots every day.

Re:Because Lead is a fertilizer..

[ljw1004]

Along with lots and lots of primarily lead acid batteries for storage.
You want to know where a good proportion of that lead ends up when batteries reach end of life?
You want to know what lead does to the environment? The Wildlife? The People?

Ah, but no, its all pure shiny pretty warn nice solar power! Ignore the realities.

Did you ignore the link in thread you were replying to? Here it is again: http://www.npr.org/sections/pa...

"The plant consists of five big industrial windmills and two lakes. On windy days — and there are plenty — the windmills harness the Canary Islands' Atlantic gusts. When production exceeds demand, such as at night, excess energy is used to pump water from a sea-level lake up into a natural volcanic crater half a mile uphill. When the wind dies down, the water is released down through a pipe connecting the two lakes. On its way, it passes through turbines, which generate hydro-power. Everything is connected with sensors so that within five seconds of the wind dying down, the hydro portion of the plant kicks in. For island residents, the lights don't even flicker."

I don't think the lake is made out of lead acid batteries...

Wow get a load of the butthurt!

[Anonymous Coward]

Unbelievable amount of knee-jerk poo-pooing of this achievement. Brainwashing works.

Re:Paraguay has been doing this for 40 years

[hyades1]

So what you're saying is that it's sort of like a Third World version of the US?

Re:Paraguay has been doing this for 40 years

[AbRASiON]

Really loved the Itaipu damn engineering documentary I saw years ago, might be Build it Bigger or MegaStructures or something - big god damned damn, pretty impressive. (Isn't the Chinese one now operational and bigger or no?)

It's incredibly easy to mine

[dbIII]

I should have added this link to the other post.
Look at the background picture. That is how easy lithium is to mine.
http://www.talisonlithium.com/...

Re:Paraguay has been doing this for 40 years

[sombragris]

Thanks! I think the Three Gorges dam (China) is bigger but AFAICT Itaipu still holds the record for energy production (98.630 TWh in 2013). Of course, Three Gorges is expected to surpass Itaipu, going over 100 TWh, but it still hasn't happened yet.

I Am from Costa Rica

[Anonymous Coward]

This is a utter lie!!!

Costa Rica has the "I.C.E." which translates to "Costarrican Instute of Electricity" and they constantly raise electric bills based on hydrocarbon fuel usage, so, how can Costa Rica be using 100% renewable energy when we, costaricans, are being billed for hydrocarbon usage??