[HN Gopher] Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for...
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Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Electricity for 299 Days
Author : Knajjars
Score : 542 points
Date : 2021-06-23 14:16 UTC (8 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.under30experiences.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.under30experiences.com)
| rjmunro wrote:
| What about Paraguay? It's been running on 100% renewable
| electricity since the late 1980s, and it has a larger population.
|
| 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.
| pelasaco wrote:
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Itaipu_Dam
| stewx wrote:
| 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.
| belter wrote:
| Portugal also got good results recently:
|
| "Renewables produce 79.5% of Portugal's power in Q1 2021"
|
| https://renewablesnow.com/news/renewables-produce-795-of-por...
| cbmuser wrote:
| Portugal looks pretty dirty on electricitymap.org. They're
| burning quite a lot of natural gas.
| berkes wrote:
| Impressive. Especially since Q1 is often one of the lesser
| quarters for solar and wind. Some sunny&cold spring days will
| boost solar, though.
| fukd wrote:
| People should never forget that green energry is not 100% green
| and embrace minimalism
| bequanna wrote:
| Ah, right. If only we all would have embraced minimalism from
| the very start! There would be no need for these pesky warm
| houses, abundant food, or relatively cheap medicine.
| chacha2 wrote:
| Won't have that stuff in an ice age.
| bequanna wrote:
| Oh, are we expecting that soon? I thought Miami was going
| to be underwater by 2050.
|
| I'm getting a little older and have a tough time keeping up
| with the climate-change alarmism dejour.
| InitialLastName wrote:
| If only there were space for a lifestyle between hunter-
| gatherer and "Every year, I drive the equivalent of the
| circumference of the earth, ordering a brand new pocket
| computer from the other side twice".
| realreality wrote:
| Costa Rica's per capita electricity use (about 400W right now) is
| less than half of New York state's (about 1kW).
|
| Solutions to fossil fuel use are going to have to involve drastic
| cuts in our electricity consumption.
| aembleton wrote:
| > Solutions to fossil fuel use are going to have to involve
| drastic cuts in our electricity consumption.
|
| Why? Why can't we produce enough from wind and solar and store
| it in batteries? Maybe use electric cars as batteries for
| helping to balance the grid.
| cwkoss wrote:
| Lithium scarcity is one issue. Much of the cheap lithium has
| already been mined.
|
| We'll likely need to utilize different chemistries that are
| less suited for cars for grid scale solutions.
| asteroidbelt wrote:
| No the solution is to impose carbon tax, and:
|
| * Let consumer decide what is more important for them, saved
| money or not worrying about light switches
|
| * Give capitalists incentive to produce greener electricity
|
| Yes, technically, forcing people to reduce their quality of
| life is a solution, but it's better to solve the problem
| without it.
| joncrane wrote:
| In CR, electricity is comparatively very expensive. In the US
| we think nothing of leaving lights on when we go out or go to
| bed. In CR it's considered extremely taboo to leave lights or
| fans on unnecessarily.
| Pick-A-Hill2019 wrote:
| 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?)
|
| Appologies if this has already been asked & answered - a quick
| skim didn't show anything related to the "why?"
| advisedwang wrote:
| The difference in the update is "Renewable Energy" originally
| vs "Renewable Electricity" now, because this only applies to
| the Electrical grid and not other energy used by Costa Rica (ie
| transport)
| Pick-A-Hill2019 wrote:
| Ah! Thanks!
| detritus wrote:
| 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.
|
| - ed.
|
| RTFA, detritus - it's right there in the first paragraph. As you
| were!
| conjecTech wrote:
| It is, and they literally address this in the first paragraph.
| detritus wrote:
| I realised and edited just as you, correctly, chided me :)
|
| </reddit>
| fernly wrote:
| The Wikipedia list of nations by renewable energy[0] mentions
| some others as high scorers. Sorting by %Renewable, the top are
|
| * Albania 100
|
| * DR of the Congo 100
|
| * Iceland 100
|
| * Paraguay 100
|
| * Namibia 99.3
|
| * Costa Rica 97.7
|
| 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.
|
| [0]
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_renewable...
| belval wrote:
| Is there an easy answer as to why Costa Rica is doing so well?
| They seem to be a bit of an exception in Central/South America.
|
| EDIT: From Wikipedia "It is known for its long-standing and
| stable democracy, and for its highly educated workforce, most of
| whom speak English. The country spends roughly 6.9% of its budget
| (2016) on education, compared to a global average of 4.4%. Its
| economy, once heavily dependent on 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."
| GuB-42 wrote:
| Here is the key, from the article
|
| > Also, Costa Rica can get a lot of rain. With consistent
| rainfall, their hydroelectric plants can produce a plethora of
| energy.
|
| A quick search lead me to 2/3 hydro.
|
| Of course, there are other reasons, but essentially, hydro is
| almost a perfect way of generating electricity. It is cheap,
| renewable, and comes with built-in storage. Whether or not it
| is environmentally friendly is debatable but at least, it
| produces no emission or waste.
|
| The problem is that there is a limited capacity, once you have
| dammed all the interesting rivers, you can't get any more.
| Costa Rica just happens to have enough to cover most of their
| needs.
|
| But if they want more, they will have to find another strategy,
| and that's what they are doing. I guess having that much hydro
| helps than absorb the peaks of solar and wind. They also have
| geothermal energy they can exploit. They can also bank on their
| reputation as a "green" country. So, IMHO, smart decisions on
| their side, playing on their advantages.
| reubenswartz wrote:
| Aside from the many interesting answers in this thread, one
| thing that struck me when I visited was someone telling me that
| the terrain was more mountainous than some of the countries to
| the north, making the plantation economy that the Spanish
| installed less profitable, so you didn't have as much of the
| aristocracy/serf divide. This tends to lead to healthier
| political systems...
| avereveard wrote:
| Step one: no heavy industries
| throwthrow432 wrote:
| "Costa Rica had an estimated population of 4,999,441 people.
| White and Mestizos make up 83.4% of the population"
|
| They have the second largest European descendant population in
| South America after Uruguay. The European culture of support
| for democracy can be attributed here (not claiming any genetic
| predisposition).
| ffhhj wrote:
| The reason is Costa Rica, while being a colony of Spain, used
| to trade a lot with UK, specially tobacco. Also had good
| relations with the US. For that reason it has one of the first
| electrified cities in the world.
|
| The army was removed before the cold war started, and CR was
| neutral in the game that USA-USSR played in all Latin America,
| of placing and destroying governments (Iran-Contra, CIA drugs,
| Noriega, etc). Also the savings are transferred to education
| and infrastructure.
|
| The lands in CR aren't as fertile as the rest of Central
| America, but it has plenty of water from the mountain ranges.
| It can sell hydro-power to its neighbors. Also the geography
| detour hurricanes which means more savings from reconstruction.
|
| Intel factory was established with the help of national
| electronic engineers who studied their careers in Germany.
| gknapp wrote:
| I don't have an answer in particular, but I was surprised to
| discover that Panama is doing just as well, if not better, in
| most macro-measures (HDI, median income, per capita GDP PPP,
| etc.) than Costa Rica. Took me by surprise!
| [deleted]
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| they're tiny, non-industrial, and they don't track brownouts
| leesalminen wrote:
| I live part-time in Costa Rica. Brownouts occur 1-4x every
| day. It's usually just a few seconds and not all that bad.
| The worst part is when you have to restart the dishwasher.
| NortySpock wrote:
| Seems like an opportunity for a massive battery system
| similar to the Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia that
| Tesla pulled out all the stops for.
| jeffbee wrote:
| "Massive" Honsdale battery is capable of supplying much
| less than 1% of grid power in Australia. An installation
| of that size could help at the margins to prevent some
| brownout events, but don't overestimate the capacity of
| batteries compared to grid demand. It looks like Costa
| Rica has about 3600 MW of generating capacity. The
| Hornsdale battery is good for 150 MW.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| Worth noting that of that 150MW, only about 70MW over 10
| minutes is available to the government to stabilize the
| grid. The remaining capacity is reserved for the Neoen
| (the privately owned energy company running the facility)
| to buffer energy prices by storing excess energy when
| prices are low.
| wp381640 wrote:
| You don't have to supply the entire grid demand - only
| smooth out the brownouts, which something the size of
| Hornsdale would likely be able to do for Costa Rica
|
| Note that Hornsdale is also tiny compared to batteries
| currently being developed in Australia. The new battery
| in the Hunter will be 1200MW - which is enough to nullify
| the need for all gas-generated peaking capacity in that
| state
| singhrac wrote:
| As someone who knows very little about power systems - is
| this true? Watts are a unit of instantaneous energy
| delivery, so if the whole system browns out then doesn't
| the battery need to handle 100% of the load? I guess I
| would expect the entire system not to drop at the same
| time but worth asking if someone knew this.
| whoisburbansky wrote:
| I'm assuming a brownout is usually a drop in voltage (a
| reduction in output power), so a backup battery wouldn't
| need to handle 100% of the load, just some fraction, for
| a short period of time.
| mavhc wrote:
| Would be good for those 5 second brownouts though
| jacquesm wrote:
| Flywheels are a pretty good solution for ride-through of
| brownouts. Fairly compact and instantly available.
| onethought wrote:
| The battery is for one state, not the country. Batteries
| only need to cover intermittent load, not 100% of
| generated load... so the difference in MW doesn't mean
| anything without knowing how long generation is reduced
| for and the net negative that occurs on the grid
| lesterzone wrote:
| Resident here. No issues with brownouts. Costa Rica uses
| different sources of electricity with several producers
| hence different experiences by different people
| wil421 wrote:
| A lot of people in Costa Rica have generators on standby
| for blackouts and brown outs.
| newsclues wrote:
| Battery backups as well?
| mnouquet wrote:
| That's probably not accountable as "renewable"...
| asdff wrote:
| I live in California and I have an APC on standby for
| when my power company cuts power too. They've already
| encouraged that I refrain from using my AC during the
| heatwave of course. People think we in the U.S. are far
| removed from the experiences of people in other
| countries, but we aren't really. That's just our biased
| perception. A lot of LA looks just like parts of central
| america.
| belval wrote:
| I've read about expats praising Costa Rica for its low
| costs and beautiful properties that foreigners can buy. How
| was your experience there?
| asdff wrote:
| I don't think foreigners can get a mortgage though, you
| might have to buy property outright.
| belval wrote:
| If median salary is $9k/year I would assume their housing
| market to be a lot more affordable than Toronto's.
| leesalminen wrote:
| It took about 2 months of us being there to pull the
| trigger and buy a house.
|
| Costs for most things are low, except for cars. Cars are
| insanely expensive due to the ~50% import tax.
| Electricity is also fairly expensive per KWH.
|
| The people are very nice and generally welcoming to
| foreigners.
|
| You never run out of things to do, either. There's always
| another adventure to explore.
|
| Fiber internet is accessible in most areas I've been to.
| Pretty reliable to boot. I've never had an issue Zooming
| etc.
|
| It really is extremely beautiful.
|
| Overall, we have very few complaints about the country.
| megabless123 wrote:
| how about the weather and climate?
| Cd00d wrote:
| That import tax on cars is interesting. Several years ago
| I sold a used Toyota Echo that I'd had for ~12 years, but
| had maintained nicely. The buyer's whole effort was
| buying used Echos and shipping them to Costa Rica. I
| thought that was pretty niche, but I guess a very
| reliable and quite cheap car finding a home in a place
| where prices high makes a lot of sense.
|
| Thanks for helping make the pieces fit.
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| four brownouts a day is an instant kill for industry
|
| despite that you're okay with it, most heavy users of power
| aren't
|
| the reason they're omitting this from the reporting is that
| the reporting just isn't true
| mikeyouse wrote:
| Depends entirely on the length of the brownouts and the
| type of industry, there are long-proven fallback and
| standby options that can smooth out temporary blips (or
| just clean dirty power in general) that allow 'industry'
| to work just about anywhere in the world. The bigger
| issue in Costa Rica is that they aren't actively courting
| heavy industry, so their power is very expensive for
| commercial users -- nearly $0.20/kWh compared to half
| that rate in a place like Mexico or Colombia, or more
| like $0.05/kWh in Texas.
| walshemj wrote:
| Standby = spinning up diesel generators in a lot of
| cases.
| leesalminen wrote:
| That's fair. Every grocery store has a massive diesel
| generator sitting out back. Guess they don't want their
| cold foods to spoil.
|
| As a counter point, nearly all brownouts occur after 6
| PM. So maybe it affects heavy industry less?
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Puerto Rico's 4 _blackouts_ a day stares awkwardly from
| the distance. Guess the US isn 't doing any better.
| idiotsecant wrote:
| It might not be bad for you but it's pretty rough on your
| AC motors like fridge compressor etc. Most of them are
| constant power machines - a voltage drop means a current
| rise means a hot winding means a failed motor.
| arcticbull wrote:
| I'd always wondered and never asked why turning off a
| fridge was bad for it. Thank you!
| bberenberg wrote:
| I believe one of the reasons is they don't have defense
| spending per-se. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_Force_of_Costa_Rica#His...
| They let the US handle all of that for them, and they spend
| funds on power. This isn't to say that they're an
| infrastructure paradise. A region I visited had poor roads and
| internet connectivity.
| silicon2401 wrote:
| This is my understanding. With the US supporting them, it
| makes certain things a bit easier. I've also visited and
| depending where you go, it certainly isn't some kind of sci-
| fi utopia. Crime and poverty are still tragically rampant.
| But we should certainly celebrate their renewable achievement
| as that's a massive victory for any nation.
| asdff wrote:
| Crime and poverty are rampant in parts of the US too
| silicon2401 wrote:
| That has nothing to do with a conversation about Costa
| Rica.
| foobarian wrote:
| Reminds me of an old communist joke/jab at the capitalists'
| expense:
|
| "A small African country's cabinet is meeting to come up with
| solutions for the bleak economic situation. One minister
| says: 'I know! Let's declare war on the United States! After
| they invade us they will have to support us.' Everyone
| murmurs in agreement at the clever plan. However one last
| minister is not convinced and says: 'But... what if we win?'"
| mikro2nd wrote:
| See also the (old) movie, "The Mouse that Roared". Follows
| exactly that theme. Peter Sellers playing about four
| different roles.
| MomoXenosaga wrote:
| No military. When the Dutch government gave independence to
| their South American colony of Suriname they advised it: do not
| create a military.
|
| Military in South/Middle America= failure.
| samfisher83 wrote:
| Lots of wind and hydro. Plus they use 1/6th energy of us.
|
| Edit: why the downvotes? Just because I mentioned they use way
| less power than the US?
| leesalminen wrote:
| Hydro is a huge part of it. The amount of water flowing from
| the mountains to the ocean is almost incomprehensible for a
| Coloradan like me.
| lesterzone wrote:
| Yet Nicoya is dry most part of the year
| hannob wrote:
| Mix of a country well suited for hydropower (+geothermal) and
| political will.
|
| It's obviously easier for a country with lots of hydropower to
| go 100% renewable, as you have a potentially flexible source
| that not everyone has.
| lesterzone wrote:
| Education, well suited, several renewable sources. But lots
| of issues from politics
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| it's a complete fiction, if you bother to look
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/CR?wind=false&solar=fal
| s... (Electricitymap.org: Costa Rica)
|
| 2.36GW of total hydro generating capacity, 595MW of wind,
| and 1.64GW of geothermal, as well as interconnectors with
| Panama and Nicaragua to export excess renewables generation
| (or import when in nation generation isn't meeting
| consumption).
|
| With CR's favorable geography for hydro, it'd make a lot of
| sense for central america to more tightly integrate their
| electrical grid, similar to how Tasmania's hydro capacity
| in Australia is used as a "big battery" for the rest of the
| NEM (eastern AUS electrical grid). In the above link I
| provide, the interconnectors are shown with real time usage
| data below generator capacity for each country/grid.
| onethought wrote:
| What do you mean Tasmania's hydro is used as a big
| battery?
|
| My understanding is it barely provides enough electricity
| for the state, and the interconnect is used to consume
| power from Victoria 99% of the time
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| https://opennem.org.au/energy/tas1/?range=all&interval=1M
|
| Hover over exports on the right hand side. There are
| imports from VIC occasionally, but Tas Hydro's plan is to
| build pumped hydro infra [1], as well as an additional
| interconnector to South Australia [2] which has robust
| renewables resources.
|
| [1] https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/battery-of-the-
| nation/...
|
| [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Marinus_Link
| onethought wrote:
| Exports are listed as -10%. Im super confused though.
| jbsimpson wrote:
| Depending on the season Tasmania exports a lot of
| electricity to the mainland.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| > import when in nation generation isn't meeting
| consumption
|
| When people say "it's fiction" I think this is a lot of
| what they mean. If a location is net 100% renewable, say,
| someone who is 100% solar, so they generate lots of
| excess in the daytime, but, consume lots on cloudy days
| and at night and we assume that imported power is very
| dirty, they might be a net 100% renewable but ultimately
| they are consuming polluting power. I suspect, with tons
| of Hydro/Geothermal (which are very on-demand/stable
| sources) the gross amount of power that costa rica
| imports is actually quite low and they are actually doing
| very well (especially compared to others who are "net
| 100% renewable"), but, I would love to see that figure
| (gross import %) represented when people talk about being
| net 100% renewable. Net 100% renewable with 1% gross
| imports is far more impressive and sustainable than net
| 100% renewable with 25% gross imports.
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| As with everything, there is nuance. Good points. I think
| we're simply arguing over the amount of
| pessimism/optimism as the global energy transformation
| continues.
| AdamJacobMuller wrote:
| Not even arguing (I'm not the person who said "it's
| false" without providing any information). I say it
| because I want to reward projects which can hit a crazy
| 1% gross target vs projects which are primarily for show
| and aren't useful without dirty grid power backing them a
| huge % of the time.
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| There's proposals to build a giant pumped storage hydro
| scheme in Tassie [1], which would literally make it a
| "big battery".
|
| [1] https://www.hydro.com.au/clean-energy/battery-of-the-
| nation
| toomuchtodo wrote:
| I poorly communicated the idea in that part of my comment
| to be honest, my apologies. It's currently a battery in
| the sense that it exports during the wet season and
| imports from VIC during the dry season. As mentioned,
| it'd be a "proper battery" where it can "charge" from
| renewables (or, dreadfully, fossil) with the link you and
| I provided in this subthread.
|
| Hydro resources are an important component of future
| grids, as long duration battery storage is pricey
| (although short duration storage such as Tesla's install
| at the Hornsdale Power Reserve is critical for ancillary
| services like frequency response and synthetic inertia,
| to keep frequency and voltage within tolerances when a
| thermal generator trips or renewables drop offline).
| NortySpock wrote:
| Links to sources would go a long way to helping your case.
|
| "That which can be asserted without evidence, can be
| dismissed without evidence." - Christopher Hitchens.
| anonymouse008 wrote:
| [Flagged]
| martin_a wrote:
| "Shitty quotes won't get you far on HN" - Abraham Lincoln
| [deleted]
| [deleted]
| pydry wrote:
| Most of South/Latin America is afflicted by the resource curse.
| darzu wrote:
| They also invested early in preserving their nature and
| establishing parks. Additionally, all their beaches are public.
| It's illegal to build a fence on the ocean. These have
| contributed to large tourism income.
| rsj_hn wrote:
| Costa Rica is an interesting mishmash of neoliberal economic
| policies and some radical (non-traditional) ideas.
|
| non-traditional ideas:
|
| * no army
|
| * generate most government revenue from sales taxes rather than
| income taxes
|
| * firm commitment to prioritize economic growth over social
| spending (Costa Rica has among the highest rates of inequality
| in the OECD)
|
| * much higher levels of education spending (7+% of GDP) (but
| PISA scores in the bottom half of Latin America and they are
| falling)
|
| That said, it has problems common to Latin America:
|
| * Low test scores and poor educational outcomes
|
| * Declining fertility leading to pension shortfalls
|
| * Black/gray markets where a large part of the labor force is
| employed informally and thus does not make pension
| contributions or pay income taxes
|
| In terms of taxation, there is a 13% sales tax on everything
| except food and medicine.
|
| They do have an income tax, but it's a weird hybrid between a
| flat tax and a wealth-surcharge, in that the majority of the
| population pays no income tax at all.
|
| Median income in Costa Rica is about 6K and average income is
| 9K. But your first $10K is tax exempt, those earning 10-18K pay
| 10%, and the highest bracket is 15%.
|
| That is a very different structure than you find in western
| nations which have upper tax brackets in the range of 40% or
| even 80%.
|
| There is a separate income tax for self-employed workers which
| goes up to 25%, but again very few self-employed businesses
| will earn.
|
| Costa Rica also has a progressive property tax, starting at
| .25% and going to .55% with the highest bracket applying to 3
| million dollars or more. It has 7 property brackets. Thus there
| are more than twice as many property tax brackets as there are
| income tax brackets! Yet because those brackets, like the
| income brackets, only hit the very high end, overall Costa Rica
| collects the among the least revenue from income and property
| taxes compared to the rest of the OECD. It is almost entirely
| dependent on sales taxes, excise taxes, and social security
| contributions to fund its budget.
|
| It also has a number of free trade zones in which businesses
| don't pay any taxes at all (neither income, nor import/export)
| if they meet certain conditions.
|
| source: https://www.oecd.org/economy/surveys/costa-
| rica-2020-OECD-ec...
| wwweston wrote:
| IIRC part of the answer is that they had a successful
| revolution led by principled people who realized that cultural
| capital is just as important as power and in fact maybe keeping
| a standing army had problems.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Figueres_Ferrer
|
| https://www.spanishpuravida.com/why-costa-rica-has-no-army/
| TacticalCoder wrote:
| Well sure but then it relies on the US army. Costa Rica is
| allied with the US and foolish would be the country trying to
| declare war to Costa Rica because it'd very probably face the
| full wrath of Uncle Sam's army.
|
| I'm not saying setting up an alliance with the country that
| has the biggest army in the world and then doing without an
| army is a bad thing...
|
| What I'm saying though is that it'd probably be very
| different for a country without any alliance with the US to
| decide to have no army.
| estebarb wrote:
| Technically it relies on the TIAR (interamerican treaty of
| reciprocal defense).
|
| Edit: fixed acronym. Thanks
| jccooper wrote:
| TIAR. ITAR is the International Traffic in Arms
| Regulations.
| api wrote:
| A standing army creates a ton of problems, but what happens
| if _nobody_ has a standing army? Seems like someone has to
| play cop and eat the cost (both social and economic) of doing
| so.
| fastball wrote:
| Like many social problems, this is actually a coordination
| problem, and can be easily boiled down to a tragedy of the
| commons situation.
|
| Everyone would prefer to not have an army, because most of
| the time you don't need them but they're still expensive to
| maintain and when you _do_ need them they 're even more
| expensive. But if nobody has an army then the bad actors
| can form an army and take over everybody else. So everybody
| needs to have an army unless and until you can get global
| coordination working to the point where everyone de-
| militarizes and the moment anyone starts militarizing
| everyone else does the same and joins together to
| absolutely crush that violator. You just gotta hope they
| weren't able to massively militarize in secret.
|
| The seems unlikely to ever happen, so until then you have a
| couple countries that get to live in the sweet spot of not
| having their own army but still being covered by someone
| else's.
| groby_b wrote:
| The fascinating thing is that the "well the bad guys
| could form an army" argument _sounds_ logical, but really
| isn 't. You can't secretly recruit and train several
| 100,000 people.
|
| The closest we've ever come to seeing this happen in real
| time was probably with German rearmament in the 20s and
| 30s, and they were telegraphing for _decades_ what they
| were doing.
|
| It does however raise the other problem - if people are
| willing to stand by and ignore obviously bad actors
| skirting closer and closer to the line, you'll have at
| some point a fairly big problem, and it depends on how
| long you waited.
|
| _That_ is the bigger problem of global demilitarization
| - the fact that non-action in the face of a violation
| usually plays better to a domestic audience than actually
| doing something. (This is a pattern that has and will
| play out repeatedly. That 's the actual question that
| needs answering)
| fastball wrote:
| Alas with modern warfare you don't need 100k people in
| order to curb-stomp the unmilitarized competition.
|
| I am certain the US for instance could easily make nukes
| with no other country knowing about it, and that's _with_
| all the people in the US who would scream that from the
| rooftops if they knew.
|
| Or you could get even more creative: make a virus in a
| lab, develop a vaccine / cure, vaccinate your population,
| release the virus. We don't even know if COVID-19 came
| from a Wuhan lab and even if it did it seems incredibly
| unlikely it was developed as a weapon. Imagine the
| secrecy that would be involved by a country doing so
| deliberately.
|
| Between nukes / bioweapons / chemical weapons / drones /
| etc, a country could definitely achieve a huge edge
| before any other country knew what was happening. It's
| not 1920 anymore.
| azernik wrote:
| Germany is actually a very illustrative example. They
| started remilitarization in earnest in 1933, Britain and
| France started around 1936, and those few years of head
| start let Germany trounce everyone around for the first
| few years of WWII despite their inferior industrial base.
| mikro2nd wrote:
| I think that, "what happens if nobody has a standing army?"
| is an interesting question. What I don't understand is why
| you think that "someone has to play cop"...?
| Bayart wrote:
| If you go by historical data, when nobody has a standing
| army everybody has mercenaries (which leads to
| instability at scale).
| emidln wrote:
| Or someone gets the bright idea of putting together an
| army and conquering their neighbors (who don't have a
| standing army and are relying on Mercenaries who keep a
| good feel on which way the wind is blowing (and who will
| have the money to pay them in the future)).
| amalcon wrote:
| The neighbors, not being stupid, notice this and build
| their own standing armies (or at least conscript
| militias). Which is why historically, the situation where
| there are no armies or militias is so rare: it's not a
| Nash equilibrium.
| jjk166 wrote:
| So long as you can raise an army at some future point in
| time should the need arise, this issue seems moot. It's
| inefficient to maintain a standing army when it is
| unnecessary.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| >So long as you can raise an army at some future point in
| time should the need arise, this issue seems moot.
|
| By the time you could cobble together an army any modern
| military would have already conquered you, especially if
| you have super strict civilian firearm laws like Costa
| Rica that make putting together defensive militias much,
| much harder.
| jjk166 wrote:
| But no one else has a standing army in this scenario so
| there is no such modern military that can conquer you
| before you can remilitarize. The moment one country
| starts militarizing in a world without militaries, you
| know their intentions and can start remilitarizing to
| counter.
|
| But let's say Costa Rica had a standing army - are they
| going to stop that modern military from conquering them?
| Probably not, so why waste money on a half assed defense?
| bufferoverflow wrote:
| No, in this scenario someone made an army and conquered
| you, and now they own you and your resources.
| jjk166 wrote:
| > but what happens if nobody has a standing army?
|
| The moment someone has a standing army, we are, by
| definition, no longer in a situation where nobody has a
| standing army.
|
| If someone can magically instantaneously create an army,
| then Costa Rica should just do that the moment they're
| threatened.
| goatlover wrote:
| The issue is that while someone is building an army, the
| rest of the world might stand by and do nothing in hopes
| that the army won't be used, via appeasement and
| negotiation, particularly if the world's culture is
| strongly set against having armies. At least until the
| aggressor starts conquering. That's how it tends to play
| out historically, so countries and kingdoms go to the
| trouble and expense of having standing armies, or being
| able to call them up quickly enough. Because there's
| always potentially someone who gains power that wants
| more, and plenty of people willing to follow.
| ctdonath wrote:
| Germany, between WWI & WWII, officially has no military
| to worry about. Was able to create a Europe-conquering
| army very quickly.
| jjk166 wrote:
| So would you describe the Maginot line as a good
| investment?
| ctdonath wrote:
| Obviously not. Germany noticed lines have ends, and just
| went around.
| jjk166 wrote:
| So you're saying that a nation without a large standing
| army can build a new force well suited to exploiting
| weaknesses of its adversaries who spend substantially on
| maintaining investments in defense which contain those
| exploitable weaknesses?
|
| One might go so far as to say that not having a strong
| standing army for an extended period of time actually
| proved militarily advantageous for the Germans in 1940
| when their new army outmaneuvered an obsolete one.
| HideousKojima wrote:
| The Brits abd French actually drastically cut military
| spending between WWI and WWII
| ctdonath wrote:
| I was responding to "The moment one country starts
| militarizing in a world without militaries, you know
| their intentions and can start remilitarizing to
| counter." Lack of a military is quite a weakness to
| exploit.
| yongjik wrote:
| > especially if you have super strict civilian firearm
| laws like Costa Rica that make putting together defensive
| militias much, much harder.
|
| Not refuting the larger point, but this part sounds
| questionable. For a country, rifles are easy to
| provision: just buy enough and keep them in well-guarded
| armories in strategic locations. Trained soldiers are
| much harder to come by.
|
| South Korea has relatively strict gun laws and very few
| people own one at home. But almost every male goes
| through two years of military service. In case of a
| foreign invasion, it won't take 24 hours to summon
| millions of civilians, just throw each one a rifle, and
| there's your army.
| [deleted]
| notyourwork wrote:
| Anecdotal - I spent some time in Costa Rica and was able to
| interact with some local families. In conversation, it was
| explained to me that they (parents) want their kids educated
| and to learn as many languages as they can. Commonly, English,
| Spanish, French and German. The idea being that the more
| education and languages their children know the better prepared
| and enabled they are to leave the country and earn a better
| wage and life elsewhere. This also results in their children
| being able to send money home to help care for their family.
| lesterzone wrote:
| Costa Rican resident here. Costa Rica invest a lot in
| renewables. Tourism is a huge income. There are lots of places
| to visit. Hundreds of volcanoes, 7 active. The climate, it can
| rain and then sunny...several times a day. Costa Rica exports
| technology. Intel, MS,Google...Several start ups...lots of
| outsourcing jobs.
| elboru wrote:
| Talking about outsourcing work, I'm from Mexico, I work with
| nearshore development teams and it amazes me how well
| represented Costa Rican developers are in the industry
| (considering Costa Rica has a population of 5 million
| people). I've met several great Costa Rican developers. My
| next vacations after the pandemic will definitely be in Costa
| Rica. Pura vida!
| shadowgovt wrote:
| Had the honor of visiting years ago. It really is a gorgeous
| country.
| sergiomattei wrote:
| Pura vida!
| lr4444lr wrote:
| What do you think is holding back its GDP per capita from
| competing with the top rankers?
| ffhhj wrote:
| I'm not the OP, but while the small population in CR is
| enthusiastic about technology and education, the cultural
| trend is having a simple and happy life, not being overly
| ambitious, and there isn't much artistic/technological
| creativity or innovation. The best workers easily find jobs
| in other countries: Canada, USA, UK, Germany, Taiwan, New
| Zealand, and so on.
| AdrianB1 wrote:
| Not complaining, but the last time I was in Costa Rica in the
| shopping mall the guards were carrying huge shotguns and a
| few months before that a colleague escaped a kidnapping
| tentative with car chases and automatic gunfire. other
| colleagues were taking dinner in a restaurant when a gang
| fight left several people in that restaurant dead and the
| company had to covertly extract my colleagues from the
| country because as eye witnesses they were in danger to be
| executed. This was all in San Jose, a few years ago.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >Is there an easy answer as to why Costa Rica is doing so well?
|
| Yes. Anytime you see an article that says "X country runs on
| 100% renewable" ... it's hydro-electric power every time. So if
| your country is blessed with a type of geography that makes
| hydro electric power viable, you're golden!
|
| Solar and Wind cannot power a modern economy without fossil
| fuel back-up.
| mssundaram wrote:
| I'm ignorant - why can't solar and wind provide enough power?
| What about somewhere like Arizona/Nevada/Utah?
| macspoofing wrote:
| Because those are intermittent power sources. That is,
| there are times when the wind isn't blowing, and sun isn't
| shining, and there is no battery technology (now or coming)
| that is capable of storing enough energy to bridge this
| intermittency gap. This is why solar and wind need fossil
| fuel back-up. Natural gas companies are some of the biggest
| proponents of solar and wind projects.
| gautamcgoel wrote:
| Can you elaborate on the "or coming" part of your post?
| What makes you think batteries won't be substantially
| better 20 years from now?
| ctdonath wrote:
| Short answer: solar produces ~10 watts per square meter,
| all factors considered. Wind, even less. USA consumes 3.8T
| kWh/yr electricity, needing 44,000 square kilometers (20%
| of Utah) of solar panels & buffer batteries to supply.
|
| Conceivable, but a massive undertaking at a scale having
| inevitable significant problems ($66T price tag for
| starters).
| ctdonath wrote:
| ($66T = 1m^2 panel + 1kWh battery from
| https://www.goalzero.com/shop/kits/goal-zero-
| yeti-1000x-powe... times 44,000km^2. That's 3 years of
| the USA's entire GDP.)
| asdff wrote:
| France at least has a huge amount of nuclear power. I wish we
| saw more reactors built in the U.S., it would certainly kill
| a lot of birds with a single stone.
| lobocinza wrote:
| Killing birds! Wind turbines?
| sadfasf122 wrote:
| Tiny country that has very little industry?
| KineticLensman wrote:
| > Tiny country that has very little industry?
|
| Pharmaceuticals, financial outsourcing, software development,
| and ecotourism have become the prime industries in Costa
| Rica's economy. High levels of education among its residents
| make the country an attractive investing location. [0]
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Trade_and_foreig
| n_i...
| mnouquet wrote:
| None of these qualify as "industry" being mostly tertiary.
| KineticLensman wrote:
| >> The country's Free Trade Zones provide incentives for
| manufacturing and service industries to operate in Costa
| Rica. In 2015, the zones supported over 82 thousand
| direct jobs and 43 thousand indirect jobs.
| d4mi3n wrote:
| Eco tourism is huuuge in Costa Rica, and the local peoples
| greatly value both the cultural and economic value of
| conservation. I don't think that explains why they've been
| successful when others have not, but I'd be surprised if
| leadership and it's constituents there did not at least have
| the political will to do whatever it needed to to maintain the
| beauty of the country--it's literally their livelihood.
| gamegoblin wrote:
| The book "Why Nations Fail" and the followup by the same
| authors "The Narrow Corridor" paints a fairly convincing
| picture that the success or failure of many modern Latin
| American countries is directly correlated with the extent to
| which the Spanish colonialists were able to enslave/subjugate
| the indigenous population, and the types of societies and
| institutions that followed that initial seed. For example, in
| modern day Bolivia you can overlay a Spanish colonial map
| detailing how much forced labor must be performed in each
| region with a modern poverty map and there is still a high
| degree of correlation.
|
| "The Narrow Corridor" has an entire chapter devoted to
| examining the differences between Costa Rica and its neighbor
| Guatemala.
|
| Guatemala had a large indigenous population that was forced to
| work on Encomiendas -- essentially Spanish plantations worked
| by indigenous slaves. This resulted in large swaths of land to
| be controlled by a few elite. This imbalance eventually results
| in a highly extractive and exploitative political and economic
| system. The same 8 families that were major Spanish colonial
| landowners still essentially run the country (though apparently
| their power is finally waning). The Castillo family has been
| the most powerful for literally half a millennium.
|
| Contrast this with Costa Rica which was far more sparsely
| populated. This resulted in small landholders working their own
| plots of land, and, in the short term, relative poverty
| compared to other Spanish conquered lands. But being overlooked
| by the Spanish, and having a wide spread of land ownership
| across the populace resulted in a homegrown movement of rural
| democracy.
|
| Links for further reading:
|
| https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/04/03/the-influe...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Spanish_colonizatio...
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_El_Salvador#The_oli...
| (El Salvador, but a similar situation)
| frozenport wrote:
| `you can overlay a Spanish colonial map detailing how much
| forced labor must be performed in each region with a modern
| poverty map and there is still a high degree of correlation.`
|
| Could this be partially attributed the geography, natural
| resources available in the region. AKA both the Spanish
| Empire and contemporary society saw the same poverty inducing
| industries available in those regions?
| gamegoblin wrote:
| I decided to look up the actual blurb I was referencing to
| see what I had misremembered. Here is the text from the
| book (some snippets shortened with [..]). Paragraph 5
| directly answers your question by comparing two provinces
| that are geographically and culturally similar, but
| happened to fall on different sides of a colonial forced
| labor zone.
|
| """
|
| At this point the Spanish focused on the people of the Inca
| Empire. [..] Citizens were divided into encomiendas, with
| one going to each of the conquistadors [..]. The encomienda
| was the main institution used for the control and
| organization of labor in the early colonial period, but it
| soon faced a vigorous contender.
|
| In 1545 a local named Diego Gualpa was searching for an
| indigenous shrine high in the Andes in what is today
| Bolivia. He was thrown to the ground by a sudden gust of
| wind and in front of him appeared a cache of silver ore.
| This was part of a vast mountain of silver, which the
| Spanish baptized El Cerro Rico, "The Rich Hill." Around it
| grew the city of Potosi, which at its height in 1650 had a
| population of 160,000 people, larger than Lisbon or Venice
| in this period.
|
| To exploit the silver, the Spanish needed miners [..]. They
| sent a new viceroy [..] Francisco de Toledo, whose main
| mission was to solve the labor problem. [..] To find the
| labor he needed, de Toledo first moved almost the entire
| indigenous population, concentrating them in new towns
| called reducciones -- literally "reductions" -- which would
| facilitate the exploitation of labor by the Spanish Crown.
| Then he revived and adapted an Inca labor institution known
| as the mita, which, in the Incas' language, Quechua, means
| "a turn."
|
| Under their mita system, the Incas had used forced labor to
| run plantations designed to provide food for temples, the
| aristocracy, and the army. [..] In de Toledo's hands the
| mita, especially the Potosi mita, was to become the largest
| and most onerous scheme of labor exploitation in the
| Spanish colonial period. De Toledo defined a huge catchment
| area, running from the middle of modern-day Peru and
| encompassing most of modern Bolivia. [..] The Potosi mita
| endured throughout the entire colonial period and was
| abolished only in 1825. Map 1 shows the catchment area of
| the mita superimposed on the extent of the Inca empire at
| the time of the Spanish conquest. It illustrates the extent
| to which the mita overlapped with the heartland of the
| empire, encompassing the capital Cusco.
|
| Remarkably, you still see the legacy of the mita in Peru
| today. Take the differences between the provinces of Calca
| and nearby Acomayo. There appears to be few differences
| among these provinces. Both are high in the mountains, and
| each is inhabited by the Quechua-speaking descendants of
| the Incas. Yet Acomayo is much poorer, with its inhabitants
| consuming about one-third less than those in Calca. [..] In
| Calca and Acomayo, people grow the same crops, but in Calca
| they sell them on the market for money. In Acomayo they
| grow food for their own subsistence. These inequalities,
| apparent to the eye and to the people who live there, can
| be understood in terms of the institutional differences
| between these departments -- institutional differences with
| historical roots going back to de Toledo and his plan for
| effective exploitation of indigenous labor. The major
| historical difference between Acomayo and Calca is that
| Acomayo was in the catchment area of the Potosi mita. Calca
| was not.
|
| [..] Throughout the Spanish colonial world in the Americas,
| similar institutions and social structures emerged. After
| an initial phase of looting, and gold and silver lust, the
| Spanish created a web of institutions designed to exploit
| the indigenous peoples. [..] Though these institutions
| generated a lot of wealth for the Spanish Crown and made
| the conquistadors and their descendants very rich, they
| also turned Latin America into the most unequal continent
| in the world and sapped much of its economic potential.
| distribot wrote:
| Nothing substantial to add, but I'm reading this book now and
| I'm finding it pretty interesting. The idea that the way
| colonial societies were organized and their institutional
| legacies affect modern nations makes a lot of sense. Cortes
| vs John Smith. Encomiendas vs settler colonies. And while
| early American society was extremely unequal, there was a lot
| more participation in the political process by more people
| than in most Spanish colonies.
| pier25 wrote:
| I haven't read those books, but a priori it sounds like
| cherry picking.
|
| Mexico for example had a revolution which gave the land to
| the people and is a country that, over a century later, is
| still struggling with corruption, ignorance, superstition,
| etc.
|
| I've been living in Mexico for 12 years and IMO it all comes
| down to poor education like the grandparent comment by belval
| suggested.
|
| As an example, take the current Mexican government who was
| largely put in power by the lower classes. Instead of
| investing into education and social programs, is putting all
| its eggs into the oil basket.
|
| Edit:
|
| BTW I'm not arguing that more expenditure in education
| results in better education.
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| Systems of exploitation tend to be durable and adaptable
| over time, producing similar outcomes even if the overall
| shape appears to change drastically.
|
| For example, the U.S. Constitution's 13th Amendment freed
| the slaves, but included an exception on forced labor for
| those convicted of a crime. Surprise surprise, former
| Confederate states make up crimes (like loitering) that are
| only enforced on Black people, and the cheap, no-choice
| labor force is back at work, even if under a structure that
| only barely resembles prewar chattel slavery.
| pier25 wrote:
| > Systems of exploitation tend to be durable and
| adaptable over time, producing similar outcomes even if
| the overall shape appears to change drastically.
|
| Yes, because the fundamental problem is changing the
| culture, not the "shape".
|
| In Mexico (the example I know first hand) corruption is
| definitely a cultural problem. It happens at all levels
| because it is culturally acceptable to bend/ignore the
| rules for personal gain.
|
| There's even a saying in Mexico which is "el que no
| transa no avanza". It translates to something like "the
| one who doesn't cheat, doesn't move forward in life".
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| A film you may find interesting if you haven't seen it is
| the Brazilian crime thriller "Tropa de Elite 2 - O
| Inimigo Agora e Outro", which not wishing to spoil
| anything, was a fascinating exploration of how systems of
| corruption can remain even as everyone involved gets
| moved out; the vacuum is filled as quickly as it's made.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Elite_Squad:_The_Enemy_Wi
| thi...
| pier25 wrote:
| Thanks for the recomendation!
| gamegoblin wrote:
| The book has sections about Mexico as well. The basic gist
| is that the fundamental institutions that result in the
| inequality have persisted, even if the government has been
| overturned several times. The overarching theme of the book
| is about what types of incentives result from various types
| of institutions, and how positive and negative feedback
| loops can form therein.
|
| Ultimately, Mexico has suffered significantly from the
| government granting monopoly rights to particular
| businesses (friends of the government) and by not
| respecting property rights. Both of these trends have
| spanned governments and go all the way back to the Spanish
| colonialists.
|
| There is little incentive in Mexico to innovate and invest,
| because if you are too successful, you will likely run
| afoul of some wealthy friend of a politician who will use
| his power to ruin you. From the point of view of the
| political elite, this makes sense, because they are all
| rich and in charge. But this behavior impoverishes society
| on average.
|
| Concrete examples in the book include the banking industry,
| which was effectively monopolized by 2 banks with
| government support in the 19th century. Contrasted with
| hundreds of banks with fierce competition in the US in the
| same time period. This resulted in high interest rates in
| Mexico (and thus little incentive to invest) and low
| interest rates in the US (which was rapidly
| industrializing).
|
| A more modern example is comparing Bill Gates vs. Carlos
| Slim, who were vying for the title of the world's richest
| person when the book was written. Bill Gates made his
| fortune by founding an incredibly successful company. When
| it was engaging in monopolistic behavior, it was
| successfully prosecuted by the government. Contrast this
| with Carlos Slim who made his fortune largely by being
| granted favorable monopolistic deals by the Mexican
| government.
| pier25 wrote:
| I would like to read more about this. Which of the two
| books has this chapter on Mexico?
| gamegoblin wrote:
| Here is a pdf of Why Nations Fail. Ctrl+f for "A tale of
| two constitutions" and read until you see the next
| chapter title "Theories that don't work".
|
| https://www.bau.edu.jo/UserPortal/UserProfile/PostsAttach
| /33...
| kerblang wrote:
| > by not respecting property rights
|
| Ref. the movie Viva Zapata! Which has Marlon Brando
| playing a Mexican revolutionary hero facing this kind of
| disillusioning outcome over & over. (Mostly bringing this
| up because I went to the trouble to watch it recently and
| needed a conversation to work it into)
| azernik wrote:
| Revolutions are not as effective as they claim at
| overturning the basic structure of society - not without
| some very serious application of coercion at a grassroots
| level.
|
| For the Mexican case specifically, the revolution did not
| replace the landowning political elite, but installed a
| different subset of them. A succession of presidents from
| the landowning class slow-walked land reform (we're talking
| single-digit percentages of land redistributed per decade),
| mostly motivated by the fear of Zapatista rebels rather
| than commitment to equality.
|
| Cardenas was probably the first seriously pro-reform
| president (mid- and late-30s), but the old landowners
| remained wealthy and preserved a good chunk of their
| holdings. (For political reasons, he focused on foreign
| landholders.) This meant that the next landowner-friendly
| president a few years later created a land-leasing system
| that de facto returned control of large collective farms to
| the landowning class.
|
| See also how the (non-revolutionary) emancipation of serfs
| in the Russian Empire didn't change much, since serfs had
| to take out loans to compensate their former masters.
| Social hierarchies and power balances remained, despite a
| change in form.
| pier25 wrote:
| Anything I can read to learn more about this?
|
| BTW there are still plenty of ejidos all over Mexico
| which are not owned by the political elite.
| azernik wrote:
| Emmm. Most of this is from my college courses, with
| Wikipedia for recalling names and dates. From a quick
| Googling, this seems like a good overview:
| https://core.ac.uk/download/pdf/147642277.pdf
|
| If you're interested in a really deep dive into related
| Eastern European examples (not Russian) of the limits and
| successes of land reform, I'd suggest this textbook:
| https://www.sup.org/books/title/?id=372
|
| And yup! The reversion of Cardenas's reforms was not
| complete; reformers in positions of power do make some
| difference, even if it's less than you'd guess based on
| short-term results. Though note that many ejidos owned by
| the intended local peasant's collectives are de facto
| controlled by a large landowner or business. (The
| political elite of the early-/mid-20th century was a
| subset of the landowning elite, not its entirety.)
| visualradio wrote:
| In the United States continuous revolution is referred to
| as 'property tax'.
|
| The historical pattern is that advocates for the rich
| will try to undermine assessments to fall more heavily on
| buildings in poor neighborhoods and replace property tax
| revenues with sales tax, and that advocates for the poor
| will try to reform assessments to fall more heavily on
| land in rich neighborhoods and decrease sales tax.
|
| 'Land reform' in the sense of trying to equally divide
| low value rural land by area without appointing assessors
| to appraise taxable value of urban property is viewed as
| a bizarre and impractical European idea.
| azernik wrote:
| Rural land reform is less of a pressing issue when
| agriculture ceases to be the main economic activity -
| even in Europe, it was mostly either 1) very very early,
| or 2) in economically backwards regions.
| nicoburns wrote:
| Not pissing off the United States? My understanding is that
| most Central and some South American countries have had their
| governments intentionally destabilised by the US because they
| were perceived as too left wing.
| sjm wrote:
| This has to be a huge part and it's sad but not surprising
| that you're being downvoted here. Almost every other country
| in Latin America has either been invaded by the US, or has
| gone through US-backed coups, economic sanctions during the
| cold war, etc.
|
| Source: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involveme
| nt_in_r...
| 34679 wrote:
| From your link:
|
| Tensions between government and the opposition, supported
| by the CIA, caused the short-lived Costa Rican Civil War of
| 1948 that ended Calderon's government and led to the short
| de facto rule of 18 months by Jose Figueres Ferrer.
| neartheplain wrote:
| Sounds like he had an interesting relationship with the
| CIA, to say the least:
|
| >"At the time, I was conspiring against the Latin
| American dictatorships and wanted help from the United
| States", he recalled. "I was a good friend of Allen
| Dulles."
|
| >"Anyway", Mr. Figueres went on, "the C.I.A.'s Cultural
| Department helped me finance a magazine and some youth
| conferences here. But I never participated in espionage.
| I did beg them not to carry out the Bay of Pigs invasion
| of Cuba, which was madness, but they ignored me."
|
| >Figueres backed the leftist Sandinista revolution in
| neighboring Nicaragua that overthrew dictator Anastasio
| Somoza Debayle in 1979. He railed against U.S. policy
| when the United States supported Nicaragua's Contra
| guerrillas.
|
| It also reads as though his 1958 testimony before
| Congress [0] shamed the CIA into facilitating the
| assassination of Rafael Trujillo, a bloody right-wing
| dictator who Figueres all but named:
|
| >"If you're going to speak of human dignity in Russia,
| why is it so hard to speak of human dignity in the
| Dominican Republic? Where is intervention and where is
| non-intervention? Is it that a simple threat, a potential
| one, to your liberties, is, essentially, more serious
| than the kidnapping of our liberties?"
|
| >With Figueres as sponsor, Bosch and Ornes agreed to form
| a coalition government in anticipation of the overthrow
| of dictator Rafael Trujillo.
|
| Such a fascinating figure. Amazed I never knew his name
| before now.
|
| [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Figueres_Ferr
| er#1958...
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Trujillo
| jessaustin wrote:
| Wow, Ferrer was brilliant. He made friends with the
| devil, and kept the devil looking elsewhere. One suspects
| this was also thanks to the fact that Costa Rica had no
| oil or fruit plantations...
|
| With respect to the coup mentioned upthread, it's notable
| that Ferrer instituted largely the same reforms proposed
| by Calderon and previously instituted in USA by FDR. That
| took courage.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| You might want to read
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Feast_of_the_Goat or
| Trujillo's successor's book with the blank page in the
| middle.
| sjm wrote:
| Yeah, not strictly zero intervention of course (a
| socialist won a democratic election and the US wasn't
| going to have it), but compared to other countries it was
| shorter-lived and longer ago.
| mc32 wrote:
| It probably helps that pop growth compared to like countries
| was lower, so they have a more balanced age distribution.
| cbmuser wrote:
| Costa Rica is a small country with hardly any industry and
| abundant amounts of hydro power.
|
| 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.
|
| 1.82 GW is a little more than a single EPR reactor. Just for
| comparison.
| asien wrote:
| Just for comparison, France has 25 GW of hydro electricity ,
| it's the second largest hydro producer in Europe behind Sweden.
|
| Hydro only cover 15% of France total electricity demand.
|
| It's indeed all about scale.
| asdff wrote:
| I wonder how these numbers compare per capita. I'm assuming
| the average french person uses more electricity than the
| average costa rican. Both in terms of electric transit in
| france and the cooler winters.
| RcouF1uZ4gsC wrote:
| > 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.
|
| >Also, Costa Rica can get a lot of rain. With consistent
| rainfall, their hydroelectric plants can produce a plethora of
| energy.
|
| 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
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| Practically everywhere that it's possible to put a hydro dam,
| there's already a hydro dam.
|
| Traditionally it's been one of the most cost effective and
| technologically simple sources of electricity, only in more
| recent years have other sources such as PV solar started to
| edge it out.
| pydry wrote:
| >While wind and solar get most of the headlines, it seems that
| geothermal and hydroelectric are actually more useful
|
| They've been around for longer.
|
| Solar and wind are _crazy_ cheap but they haven 't been cheap
| for that long.
| jsjsbdkj wrote:
| Quebec gets most of its eletric power from hydroelectric
| sources (95%), while Ontario gets >60% from nuclear and 26%
| from hydroelectric. It's wild to compare the breakdown compared
| to western, oil-rich provinces which are basically 50-50
| natural gas and coal-powered.
|
| It's also depressing to see how electricity is a distant third
| to gas and other petroleum products in terms of energy demand -
| even though the eletric supply is almost 100% renewabe, all
| those transport trucks and cars far outweigh it.
|
| https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-markets/pr...
| neurotixz wrote:
| Based on this page, Quebec is 99.8% renewable.
|
| I can confirm that we have no brown-outs. Also - We have a
| mix of very cold and warm weather, so are consuming lots of
| energy for heating in winter. - Hydro-Quebec, state-owned
| utility has a stellar record for maintenance, coverage and
| capacity management. It also send money back to the gov to
| support social programs. - Even with all that our electriciyy
| cost for consumers,,entre rpsies, and industrial is one of
| the lowest in the world.
|
| https://www.cer-rec.gc.ca/en/data-analysis/energy-
| commoditie...
| Reason077 wrote:
| > _" We have a mix of very cold and warm weather, so are
| consuming lots of energy for heating in winter"_
|
| Are heat pumps / electric heating widely used in Quebec
| yet? When I lived in Ontario, despite having a very clean
| grid (nuclear, hydro, wind) and relatively low electricity
| prices, pretty much every house/building had oil or gas
| heating. Seems like Scandinavia and Northern Europe are a
| bit further along in electrification of heating.
| JamisonM wrote:
| Oil heating's days are essentially over.
|
| Still lots of natural gas heating though.
|
| There is a lot of room for greening at the point of
| service through geothermal and the like, lots of room for
| efficiency improvements too. The economic incentives are
| aligned as well, every ounce of savings in-province means
| export dollars in on green energy exports.
| tsjq wrote:
| How much of that is by burning wood chips ?
| toomanybeersies wrote:
| About 0% [1]. Looks like it's roughly 71.5% hydro, 12.6%
| geothermal, and 7.5% wind
|
| [1] https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/CR
| j_walter wrote:
| 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.
| azernik wrote:
| For global warming purposes, I'm personally okay with local
| ecological disruptions from hydro.
| lobocinza wrote:
| The reservoirs emit a lot of CO2 and methane. Not sure about
| that.
| asteroidbelt wrote:
| How much per watt is that "a lot" compared to others?
| Source?
| bb101 wrote:
| Where did Costa Rica go so _right_? In the news it always appears
| to be a bastion of moderation and success, especially when
| compared to its neighbours.
| mc32 wrote:
| Panama has done pretty well itself after the narcotrafficking
| president was ousted back in the late 80s.
| ohgodplsno wrote:
| The US never installed a puppet dictator in Costa Rica or
| enforced embargos, as opposed to all its neighbours.
| BitwiseFool wrote:
| Costa Rica is a small nation with favorable geography, a great
| balance of population and density with some fantastic
| externalities that let them focus on domestic affairs.
| awakeasleep wrote:
| Also, while its nice, its not especially wealthy, nor
| situated in a way to become an important geopolitical chess-
| piece.
| throw_away wrote:
| no oil
| LightG wrote:
| no ticket.
| mrkstu wrote:
| Not being a chess piece also is part of their success
| however. Don't want to be the mouse under a herd of dancing
| elephants.
| [deleted]
| JohnHaugeland wrote:
| by lying about its grid, being non-industrial, and having power
| demand on par with a city despite having the name of a country
|
| vatican city is pretty green too
| Tepix wrote:
| You sound bitter.
|
| Got a source for that accusation?
| ThomPete wrote:
| Electricity is less than 20% of their countrys energy plus they
| are well positioned for hydro which is only possible certain
| places.
| [deleted]
| spenrose wrote:
| Renewables are getting much cheaper every year:
|
| * In 2020, the global weighted-average levelised cost of
| electricity (LCOE) from new capacity additions of onshore wind
| declined by 13%, compared to 2019.
|
| * Over the same period, the LCOE of offshore wind fell by 9% and
| that of utility-scale solar photovoltaics (PV) by 7%.
|
| Source: https://www.irena.org/publications/2021/Jun/Renewable-
| Power-...
| eldaisfish wrote:
| those "prices" are misleading and are tantamount to wind and
| solar propaganda figures.
|
| There is a major cost that is not accounted for here - the cost
| of balancing the grid. When wind turbines aren't spinning and
| solar PV is dead, the grid continues to function. The
| generators doing that have a cost and that cost is paid for by
| the customer. The source of the problem is the variable
| generator i.e. wind or solar but the LCOE figure does not
| account for this because that charge is not passed on to the
| renewable generator.
|
| Those costs must be part of the LCOE figure else it is like
| saying that email costs zero.
| cbmuser wrote:
| LCOE is not what determines market prices but supply and
| demand.
|
| End customers pay market prices, not production costs.
|
| I don't have any advantage as a customer when electricity is
| super cheap when it can't be produced on demand.
| testfoobar wrote:
| This is meaningless on a global scale.
|
| Globally, we've added more mega watts of coal power for decades.
| Doesn't look like it is stopping anytime soon.
|
| https://www.carbonbrief.org/mapped-worlds-coal-power-plants
| berkes wrote:
| This is not meaningless. It is an important data-point. One
| that clearly proves it is possible. One that teaches what works
| and what not. Those data-points are crucial for other countries
| or political groups to be swayed and convinced.
|
| It may be meaningless for global greenhouse-gas emission
| reduction in itself, true. But for "the movement" it is an
| important milestone.
| eldaisfish wrote:
| While meaningless may not be the best choice of word, Costa
| Rica's success with hydro is borderline useless to the
| majority of the world that does not have geography for a dam.
|
| Hydro energy works, what exactly is novel or meaningful about
| that?
|
| the title here is 100% clickbait as it frames the situation
| as "renewables" work when the accurate claim is "hydro + a
| small population" works.
| testfoobar wrote:
| Meaningless because the lessons of Costa Rica do not apply in
| the largest carbon generating economies.
| trefgin wrote:
| The thing that really pisses me off is that governments in the
| past worked SO HARD to argue that renewable energy could never
| work.
| tohmasu wrote:
| What government would that be? Hydro has been a mainstay for
| 70+ years.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >The thing that really pisses me off is that governments in the
| past worked SO HARD to argue that renewable energy could never
| work.
|
| Nobody ever denied the fact that Hydro is viable. You're
| getting confused by the misleading title because you think that
| it's wind and solar that is powering Costa Rica .. it isn't.
| It's hydro.
| asdff wrote:
| Nixon actually wanted to build 1000 nuclear power plants in the
| U.S. by the year 2000. Today there 60. Governments of the past
| didn't argue against renewable energy, they gave up on
| renewable energy in the face of political opposition, which
| ironically at the time came from the anti-nuclear left.
| robertlagrant wrote:
| In this, possibly the best possible environment for it, it
| works 80% of the time.
| afterburner wrote:
| Corporate lobbying
| robertlagrant wrote:
| 1) best possible natural conditions for renewables
|
| 2) import most things that require energy to make
|
| 3) transportation isn't electric
|
| 4) small population
|
| 5) works 80% of the year
|
| Sure. Sounds great. Doesn't seem generalisable?
| rm_-rf_slash wrote:
| Costa Rica's answer to #2 is particularly high import taxes[0],
| discouraging an import consumption economy for most but the
| rich or tourists/expats.
|
| [0] https://www.costarica.com/relocation/duty-free-imports
| tohmasu wrote:
| 70-80% Hydro [~90% Hydro+Geothermal]. ~10% wind and almost no PV.
|
| It's important to keep in mind that wind and solar aren't really
| a part of this success story.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| California does not consider hydro to be renewable, so
| according to California law Costa Rica has not been running on
| renewable energy. This is to point out California needs to
| redefine hydro into a renewable resource.
| cwkoss wrote:
| I thought California was running out of water because so much
| of the water rights are being utilized for agriculture.
|
| Would it be possible for them to utilize hydro significantly
| without destroying their agricultural industry?
| walshemj wrote:
| Why ? is there a stated reason
| shawndrost wrote:
| Because of ecosystem and water footprint impacts associated
| with dams, in conjunction with the operational requirements
| of power generation. Dams obviously convert a river into a
| lake and impede/alter natural migratory patterns. Less
| obviously, hydroelectric power generation dictates a
| pattern of water release that is at odds with other demands
| on water usage, for human and natural usage purposes. (You
| can imagine that downstream environments might benefit from
| water flow which is more steady, or which follows natural
| rhythms; this is in conflict to some degree with grid
| demand for power.)
| walshemj wrote:
| That's not zero carbon though if your carbon usage some
| other thing may have to traded off.
| fasteddie31003 wrote:
| Utilities are required to buy a certain percentage from
| renewables. I think California wants to encourage more
| growth from solar and wind.
| walshemj wrote:
| Still going to need base load - so CA is going for NNB
| (nuclear new build ) for that.
| aazaa wrote:
| The update is telling:
|
| > 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.
|
| 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.
|
| > 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.
|
| 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.
| ip26 wrote:
| _Where do the batteries come from, and how much non-renewable
| energy does it cost to produce them?_
|
| There's an interconnection. As the world electrifies, it will
| become easier for manufacturing to electrify, too.
| lrem wrote:
| Cut them down and build something out of them, or bury them. I
| heard that charring before burning is beneficial, but never
| looked into why that might be.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| This is great news. It makes me wonder if their homes or other
| buildings skew towards vernacular design and/or passive solar
| design.
| tzamora wrote:
| No, we don't have any special design for our homes. It's just
| that we have lots of energy for our small country, all from our
| hydro plants and our volcanos, we have so much energy that we
| sell it to 6 more countries in the central America region.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Thank you for replying
|
| Vernacular design is just very localized design using local
| materials and suited to local weather. It's like adobe homes
| in the American Southwest and igloos in Alaska.
|
| What is a typical home like there? How are they heated and
| cooled?
| leesalminen wrote:
| Our house in Costa Rica was built with cinder blocks on a
| concrete pad. Very different from the wooden framing +
| drywall in my house in the US.
|
| My house doesn't have any heating but does have mini-split
| AC units in the bedroom that we usually run for 3 hours in
| the afternoon if someone is going to sleep in that room.
|
| There is a concept of having a ceiling fan next to some
| windows at the top of the wall near the roof. The idea is
| to have the fan pull the hot air up and out that window,
| creating a nice draft. Usually you have this in the main
| living area. They have a name for this that escapes me at
| the moment.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Ceiling fans used like that is an old fashioned method
| that was common in the Deep South of the US before AC, I
| believe. I would say that fits with what I am talking
| about.
|
| Thank you for replying.
| selimthegrim wrote:
| Transoms (as in passing something 'over the transom')
|
| Source: I am typing this frown New Orleans where they
| were common, although the older dorms at my school in
| SoCal had them in the rooms.
| tzamora wrote:
| Here we have a very non extreme weather, so no cooling and
| no heating needed at all in our homes, we use steel rods,
| concrete blocks and concrete all according to the anti-
| seismic codes here and we also use protection for the
| humidity. The dangers we have from a climate point of view
| are storms that make our rivers overflow and causes lots of
| damage to our towns.
| DoreenMichele wrote:
| Thank you. If there is no "need" for heat or cooling,
| likely there is some degree of vernacular architecture
| and passive solar design going on. It's just so normal
| you likely don't realize it is any different from how
| homes get built elsewhere and lifestyles elsewhere.
| hubadu wrote:
| "That means the government did not burn any oil, coal, or natural
| gas to power the country."
|
| This is a new low for HN to upvote such garbage, but at least
| they edited the headline which originally was:
|
| "Costa Rica Has Run on 100% Renewable Energy for 299 Days".
| itissid wrote:
| 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.
|
| 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.
|
| 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.
| mcarrano wrote:
| Absolutely loved Costa Rica when I visited several years ago. It
| is on my list of places to go back.
|
| However, I was saddened to see litter all over some of the
| beaches I went to.
| skzo wrote:
| when did you go? One of the most impressive things in Costa
| Rica is that they are really careful with litter and very big
| on recycling and banning single-use plastics.
| elevenoh wrote:
| curious: where do you recommend going in CR?
| jokoon wrote:
| This the classic, usual kind of misleading news about renewable
| energy.
|
| Keep dreaming, hoping and advocating for renewables, but it's
| just not the solution. Nuclear is the only viable solution.
| Zigurd wrote:
| Nuclear is brilliant. All that is needed is to solve
| construction cost overruns, waste handling, no private sector
| insurability, uncompetitive pricing, nuclear weapons
| proliferation, and decommissioning cost overruns.
| maxleaf wrote:
| Ooof. Nuclear is no longer economic and the life-time emission
| is way above zero. Both Gov. Brown and AOC are confident about
| 100% renewables. We can do it!
| edgyquant wrote:
| Why not both?
| warlog wrote:
| Agreed. And: where do the concrete, steel and electronic
| components to build and service these "energy sources" come
| from? ...not "renewable". But don't let accurate counting get
| in the way of accounting(tm).
| jokoon wrote:
| you need less steel and concrete for nuclear than for
| renewables
|
| electronics were not common when nuclear energy was built
|
| also other comments pointed out how misleading the article is
| williesleg wrote:
| Here come the experts! Love to read all these fat asses in
| momma's basement who just know everything about everything but
| don't do anything except post shit on the web. What a waste of
| life. Useless eaters.
| DennisP wrote:
| We really need two words for renewables: one for types that scale
| but don't provide power on demand (wind, solar), and the other
| for types that provide power on demand but aren't available at
| scale everywhere (hydro, geothermal).
|
| Costa Rica is blessed with plenty of the second type and uses it.
| Because we lump it all into "renewables," it sounds like it
| should be easy for everyone to follow their example, and that's
| not the case. No country has run on a high percentage of
| wind/solar/battery for a long period of time.
| cronin101 wrote:
| I'll concede it's not a typical country since the weather is
| pretty unique, but Scotland is ~97% renewable and ~75% wind.
| It's well suited for some parts of the world at least.
| macspoofing wrote:
| >but Scotland is ~97% renewable ...
|
| They aren't. The 97% renewable claim is misleading. Scotland
| can generate huge amount of wind/solar energy at certain
| times of day that they cannot use, and therefore they have to
| rely on fossil fuels for evenings and nights and any time sun
| isn't shining and wind isn't blowing.
|
| Their actual renewable *consumption* is on the order of 30%.
| cronin101 wrote:
| Do you have a source? I would love to read more about that.
|
| FWIW I currently live in Norway which is ~100% renewable
| but that's mainly hydro and a very different situation with
| the amount of potential energy that hydro gives the 5M
| population.
| macspoofing wrote:
| I hope this is the right one:
| https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-
| energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section...
|
| Wind accounts for 42%. Solar does nothing.
|
| The 97% is from charts like this:
| https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-
| energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section...
|
| And they define 'Gross electricity consumption' as
| referring to total electricity generation minus net
| exports.
|
| Here's my home province of Ontario:
| https://live.gridwatch.ca/home-page.html
|
| At the time of this posting, Hydro and Nuclear account
| for 85% of total energy consumption. 10% from Wind, so
| 95% of our energy is carbon-free. Wind for us is a vanity
| play since we can just buy more hydro power from Quebec.
| aembleton wrote:
| I just tried to find some more information on Scotlands
| consumption but couldn't find it. Most interesting piece
| I found was this:
|
| 51.7% of electricity generated in Scotland was generated
| by renewable technologies, compared to just 29.3% for the
| UK as a whole (or 25.6% for the rest of the UK, excluding
| Scotland). [1]
|
| The 97% figure quoted earlier is a gross figure [2] that
| is worked out on the basis of total renewable generation
| compared to total consumption. The problem is that the
| two don't always line up and we don't have large scale
| gird storage to handle it so it doesn't get used. Instead
| more polluting electricity is imported from England.
|
| 1. https://www.gov.scot/publications/annual-energy-
| statement-20...
|
| 2. https://www.gov.scot/binaries/content/documents/govsco
| t/publ...
| macspoofing wrote:
| This is the one you want:
| https://scotland.shinyapps.io/sg-
| energy/_w_8738d4b2/?Section...
|
| 42% of electricity consumption derives from wind power.
| The rest of carbon-free energy derives from Nuclear and
| Hydro. And then you have natural gas as back-up.
| greenonions wrote:
| My state, Iowa, was 60% renewable over the last year. This is
| almost entirely from wind as Iowa is probably among the
| flattest US states.
| maxleaf wrote:
| What are you talking about? If AOC and Gov. Brown are confident
| we can get to 100% renewable energy, then we can. Batteries
| will solve all the issues you mentioned and 100% renewable we
| go!
| rytcio wrote:
| AOC is not exactly someone I would trust to have deep
| knowledge about this topic
| franga2000 wrote:
| A politician doesn't need specialist knowledge, they need
| to trust in the experts that have it. Looking at the US
| political landscape, trusting scientists is quite a rare
| trait and AOC seems to be one of the best when it comes to
| that.
| ajdude wrote:
| And in fact the battery method has been proven to work to
| solve Australia's power issue (thanks Elon!).
| itsoktocry wrote:
| Part of the bargain was that Tesla will be recycling the
| materials for these batteries when they are EoL. Until that
| actually happens, the battery only solves half the problem.
| samatman wrote:
| Sure. That seems like a kind of uncharitable way to put
| it though. It's possible that I'm reading in a tone that
| isn't there.
|
| Building the first grid-scale battery bank, and having it
| succeed in smoothing out the delivery curve for an
| intermittent-heavy grid: that's a huge victory! It's a
| triumph really.
|
| Insisting on the accountability and follow-through is
| important, sure. But that battery solves the whole
| problem we have right now, and will serve as a test case
| for solving the problem which it itself created for a
| decade down the road.
|
| Maybe Elon will be broke by then, or living on Mars, or
| we'll all complete the Singularity and have chips in our
| head. My hope is that they just fulfill the contract. In
| any case there's no reason to show that kind of
| skepticism about something which can't have happened yet.
| fhrow4484 wrote:
| The first type can be paired with gravity batteries
| (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gravity_battery) and then the
| "don't provide power on-demand" problem can be reduced to some
| extent.
| [deleted]
| wp381640 wrote:
| > No country has run on a high percentage of wind/solar/battery
| for a long period of time.
|
| Only because it's early. The first grid-scale battery only went
| online 3 years ago.
|
| In that example (South Australia) you only have to look at this
| chart[0] to see what it done to grid renewable demand and where
| the trend is heading.
|
| There are multiple GW more of additional battery coming online
| over the next few years
|
| [0]
| https://opennem.org.au/stripes/sa1/?metric=renewablesProport...
| cesarb wrote:
| > 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).
|
| The wording you are looking for is "dispatchable"
| (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dispatchable_generation).
| gpt5 wrote:
| Isn't geothermal theoretically available everywhere?
| hguant wrote:
| Some available is more available than others
|
| I believe that the issue is that the Earth's crust isn't
| uniformly thick, and that there are places where one could
| drill for miles without reaching magma/suitable heat sources,
| and other places (Costa Rica and Iceland come to mind) where
| the suitable heat sources are essentially on the surface.
|
| Or, looking at it another way - oil drilling happens all over
| the globe and "hitting magma" isn't really a risk they're
| concerned about because it's so deep, that even the industry
| concerned with drilling too greedily and too deep doesn't
| intersect with it.
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