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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.
"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'.
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.
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.
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.
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.
In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act. George Orwell
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.
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.
The problem with hydro is that it's impossible to build more dams in countries with environmental regulations, water rights laws and lawyers.
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Not to mention the potential of nuclear energy dwarfs the potential of all fossil fuels known to exist...
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.