To all the f***wits still denying Renewable Energy:

[riqster]

https://bluntandcranky.wordpress.com/2015/03/23/to-all-the-fwits-still-denying-renewable-energy/

Source info at the link.

Costa Rica just met 100 % of its energy needs with no, repeat, NO fossil fuels to generate electricity. Not a big country, granted, but 4 million+ people just spent over 2 months contributing almost not at all to global climate change.

The year 2015 has been one of electricity totally friendly to the environment for Costa Rica,” the state-owned power supplier Costa Rican Electricity Institute (ICE) said in a press release.

The ICE says the country’s zero-emission milestone was enabled thanks to heavy rainfalls at four hydroelectric power facilities in the first quarter of 2015. These downpours have meant that, for the months of January, February and so far March, there has been no need to burn fossil fuels to generate electricity.

Instead, Costa Rica has been powered primarily by hydro power – both pumped storage and run-of-the-river plants – and a mixture of geothermal, wind, biomass and solar energy.

Note this little phrase: “State owned power supplier”. The reason Costa Rica has done what America will not is encapsulated in that phrase. America has become a nation obsessed with private, profitable enterprises. We think nothing can be done in any other way, so we don’t even try to use government anymore.

America is failing, Costa Rica is succeeding. Maybe we should try what works, like they did.

[Android3.14]

1. Untrue

Last edited Mon Mar 23, 2015, 08:26 PM - Edit history (1)

What, pray tell, did they use for gasoline to power their vehicles?

Certainly it is significant, but 100% is a huge reach.

[riqster]

3. Good catch. Corrected.

[Android3.14]

16. I saw what you did there.

[hunter]

10. This is what frightens the fossil fuel sellers:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2015/01/28/the-best-idea-in-a-long-time-covering-parking-lots-with-solar-panels

If you drive an all electric or a plug-in hybrid car to work, and you park it under solar panels, you never have to buy gasoline for your commute.

The same goes for electric light rail, trolley bus, and subway service. It can all be powered with solar, wind, and other renewable sources.



Diagram of a 1947-built Pullman Standard model 800 trolleybus, a type still running in Valparaíso, Chile..

Some modern electric bus designs don't even need continuous overhead wires. They quickly top up their batteries at busier stops as the passengers leave and board the buss.

[world wide wally]

2. Maybe their scientists Can teach our wannabe third world nation how it's done

[riqster]

4. Science, schmience. It's about financing and priorities.

[world wide wally]

12. It's really all about "you know who" telling Republicans to not allow it to happen

[karadax]

5. Lots of rain helps.

costa rica hasn't used any fossil fuel in over two months


/snip

It doesn't hurt that Costa Rica has invested heavily national power grid. 80 percent of Costa Rica's entire energy budget comes its four hydroelectric plants with another 13 percent derived from geothermal stations. Solar, wind and fossil fuels round out the remaining 7 percent.

Of course, these fossil fuel alternatives are not without drawbacks. The nation's hydro-electric dams may be working at capacity right now, thanks to those heavy rains at the start of the year, but should the country face drought (or even just seasonal water shortages), Costa Rica may have to revert back to petroleum power in order to keep the lights on.

Costa Rica pulled this off thanks in part to its small population (just 4.8 million people) and lack of energy-intensive manufacturing industries, which keep the nation's energy needs relatively low. What's more, Costa Rica sits atop a highly active volcanic region of the Earth, enabling the nation to harness geothermal power in addition to hydro, solar, and wind energy.

2 months is a great achievement. I'm hoping they can go all year with no fossil fuels needed to generate electricity.

[riqster]

7. It's 2 months + more than we have accomplished.

They are making amazing progress.

[world wide wally]

14. What the US needs to do is to think regional.

In the East hydroelectric is great. In the Midwest, a combination of wind and solar. In the West, it would be solar, wind and geothermal
Even if this isn't a 100% solution, it makes a serious dent in fossil fuel pollution.

[riqster]

18. Correct. In Ohio, solar is marginal, wind is OK in the NW and on the lakefront.

Geothermal is viable in some spots, as is small-to-medium scale hydro.

All proving your point: a cooperative, regional framework is required. A personal, individualist approach will not work in most cases. We need governmental policies that enable renewables adoption at the very least.

[MADem]

6. I was with you all the way up through the "America is failing, Costa Rica is succeeding"

bit.

Costa Rica is tiny, but it does serve as a valid, useful demonstration project--much as Commonwealth Care in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts served as a demonstration project for Obamacare.

It's always more of a challenge when you enlarge anything, and there is a profit motive at the core of energy services, so that will have to be factored in as well.

But "failing?" No. We're doing WAY better than we were doing a decade ago, and we'll keep getting better.

Good for Costa Rica for moving forward--hopefully their example will motivate others.

[riqster]

8. In America, utilities are blocking renewables and penalizing individuals who use them.

You are right about technology, but the business is stopping us from progressing.

[MADem]

9. We, The People will only put up with a certain amount of shit, I suspect...!

The business interests/utilities will need to start getting reasonable about their price structure, or people will start cutting them out of the equation.


One of these days people will have a little home-operated wind generator that gives much bang for the buck along with windows and window shutters and roof tiles that take in the energy of the sun...the paradigms will change, the question is, how soon? I'd love to live to see it!

[riqster]

13. It sucks that the government is not enabling progress.

Long term, yeah, we should get there. But given the pace of climate change, our gummint should get out of the way at the very least.

[MADem]

15. The government won't do a damn thing for We, The People. We have to do it ourselves!

We've got to elect people to office who will prioritize forward movement in this regard. We need to grow those candidates in the state legislatures and then send them on to Washington...!

[riqster]

19. Exactly. We need a government that answers to us.

Because we need policy and finances at that level to make such steps.

And we need to GOTFV to get that done.

[MADem]

22. GOTFV!!! I love it!!!!!! nt

[riqster]

23. "F" for "fantastic", of course.

[MADem]

24. Hee hee! nt

[stevenleser]

11. An alternative business will break through that Tesla just announced a battery for homes.

Based on the technology of their car batteries, it will store the extra energy produced during the day by solar energy cells and during windy times from wind power. That combined with the new solar energy cells that supposedly translate 40% of solar energy into usable energy and we are almost there if not there already.

[riqster]

21. True. And if governments do as the utilities and fossil fuel merchants bid?

If they make it illegal or difficult, or prohibitive?

[Major Hogwash]

17. Which is why all of the power companies are trying to limit the use of solar power.

Idaho Power just bought 2 more Republican state legislators this year to write laws limiting the amount of solar power an individual citizen can produce.

[riqster]

20. Just so.

[Fix The Stupid]

25. "land of the free"... and all that... n/t