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Comment by SideburnsOfDoom | Hacker News Reader

It is worth noting that "Running on 100% Renewable Electricity" most likely only addresses grid electricity, not other form of fossil fuel use, such as cars, truck, boats and trains. 100% Renewable Electricity in the grid is a great milestone, but it's not 100% of energy use as the title might suggest.

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Then it is also worth noting that electricity generation is the biggest single source of carbon emissions globally :-). And that transport is actually a relatively tiny part of global carbon emissions: http://www.epa.gov/climatechange/ghgemissions/global.html

In other words, this is a bigger deal than your post seems to suggest.

I did a summer internship project with our national electricity supplier here in Ireland when I was a student - the aim was to asses he environmental impact of their fleet of vehicles.

The management weren't terribly happy with the presentation I gave at the end of the summer where using a few simple models I showed that even their smallest power station was polluting on a scale that was orders of magnitude greater than the impact of their entire fleet.

We have mostly coal and peat powered plants here. Nuclear is completely off the table for political reasons, but there is a huge untapped wind energy resource.

This really is great news for Costa Rica. I think we should also be exploring Nuclear energy more to bridge the gap in most other countries though.

We're getting offtopic, but peat powered plants? In this day and age? What the hell? I do hope that is not being sold as sustainable or renewable?

But yeah, automobile emissions in general are relatively limited in comparison to other sources.

Don't be mistaken. In many developing nations there is a thirst for power. Renewables aren't up to it when it comes to the scale and speed required (even though the countries involved are on the equator).

I don't advocate for the use of coal in generating power but this is what seems to be going on.

The largest (MW/GW wise) expansion projects in terms of power generation are all coal projects as far as I'm aware on the entire African continent.

Typically each unit/turbine generates close to 1 GW. It's hard to find something with the equivalent cost (including the use of a small amount of space) with renewable energy.

Even the best geothermal well in Kenya, on the rift valley geothermal reservoir, only gives out near 5 MW.

The renewable scaling issue is something that needs to be faced. Costa Rica truly has achieved a milestone much larger than it sounds.

It is possible I'm not saying its not. The three gorges dam hydroelectric plant is able to produce near 22 GW, also the largest power plant in the world (including non renewable energy)

I am under no illusions about the need for power :-). In fact, I agree with just about everything in your post.

However, I would add: Coal plants use only a relatively small local surface area, but when you add the size of the coal mines, the infrastructure required to ship those tons of coal, the space required to store the tons coal ash produced each day (often contaminated with heavy metals; it's earth we're burning after all).... that becomes a very different discussion.

I'm unsure why people are so keen on geothermal, though. I thought it was relatively well-known that geothermal generates power in the order of milli-watts-per-square-meter, thus much smaller than solar (hundreds of watts per square meter), or even hydroelectric.

> Renewables aren't up to it when it comes to the scale and speed required (even though the countries involved are on the equator).

Surely you must be joking. Nuclear plants take years, if not a decade to build. Coal must be trucked in. Wind and solar deployment speed is limited to only your logistical supply chain to get the parts to the generation site and your on-site installation talent.

If the first world wanted to help the third world, they'd give them renewable generation equipment free or at cost.

http://www.earth-policy.org/data_highlights/2015/highlights5...

"China, the country that is building more nuclear reactors than any other, continued to get more electricity from the wind than from nuclear power plants in 2014. This came despite below-average wind speeds for the year. The electricity generated by China’s wind farms in 2014—16 percent more than the year before—could power more than 110 million Chinese homes."

"China added a world record 23 gigawatts of new wind power capacity in 2014, for a cumulative installed capacity of nearly 115 gigawatts (1 gigawatt = 1,000 megawatts). Some 84 percent of this total—or 96 gigawatts—is connected to the grid, sending carbon-free electricity to consumers."

What kind of land do we need to make wind turbines generate more power then a nuclear plant?

Are we counting off-shore turbines that consume no usable land? And are we taking into account that we still don't dispose of nuclear waste in an acceptable way and won't ever agree to recycle it?

Good point, but does sea based cost the same and is available to everyone? What's the average case?

Peat accounts for close to 10% of the energy sources in Ireland. It's mostly coal and gas, but the damage done to the environment by mining peat is downplayed a lot here.

People don't realise we're destroying a natural resource.

Thats... madness. The Icelanders destroyed their soil in a single generation. You have perhaps the most fertile island at your latitude. I wish I thought you were pranking us.

ps Flann O'Brien fan, or Robert Anton Wilson fan?

Flann O'Brien! The 3rd Policeman specifically :)

Should I check Robert Anton Wilson out?

Yes! He was a Joyce scholar, among many other things. One, perhaps several of his books and plays reference Flann O'Brien's work, which is how I came to know about it.

Did you factor in the energy that goes into producing vehicles, building & maintaining roads, etc? Or did you just count tail pipe emissions? What all factors did you consider when assessing the impact of the fleet?

Like I say, it was a simple model developed as part of a summer intern project. It was also quite a few years ago now, so I don't remember many details.

Regardless, I don't think energy from vehicle/road production is a valid consideration for a company assessing the environmental impact of their fleet.

These days, ESB's generation is mostly gas, with wind being the second-largest. Coal is being phased out, and peat generally not expanded.

Furthermore, within the "transport" category, the largest container ships emit more combustion products than every car. If you combine the tailpipe emissions of every car on Earth, that accounts for less atmospheric pollution than just 16-24 gigantic ship engines, burning bunker fuel.

And furtherfurthermore, coal-fired electricity plants are by far the worst polluters among electricity generating facilities that burn fuel.

This is a big win for Costa Rica, but the rest of the planet would be hard-pressed to replicate the achievement without going bankrupt. That accomplishment would be surpassed many times over by even one technology that could be used to refine coal or bunker fuel to make it cleaner-burning in the existing infrastructure at or near the same price per ton.

EPA Chart: Global Emissions by Source

  • Energy supply: 26%
  [...]
  • Transport: 13% (certainly less, but "a relatively tiny part"?)
  • Buildings: 8%
  • Waste & wastewater: 3% (definitely a tiny part)

[updated for formatting and clarity]

Obviously 'electricity' is not 'all energy' and the title does not suggest that, it very explicitly uses 'electricity'.

Also, quite a bit of Costa Rica's rail is electrified:

http://www.ferrolatino.ch/en/reports/costarica/

And then there is 'off-grid' electricity, local installations of solar power. These are typically smaller but there are quite a few of them.

Well, the title doesn't say "100% of Costa Rica's Electricity is Now Renewable", it says "Costa Rica Is Now Running on 100% Renewable Electricity."

That translates out to "What Costa Rica runs on is 100% renewable." It's likely pedantic to discuss it, but I will wager that no, the construction of that title was less than explicitly mindful. The ambiguity is reinforced multiple times throughout the article.

> That translates out to "What Costa Rica runs on is 100% renewable."

No it doesn't. You changed the meaning.

That's pretty much correct. The article's title at first glance looks like it says (Costa Rica Is Now Running on) (100% Renewable Electricity).

This is a subjective grammatical nitpick, but it would be foolish to say that it's not there at all. Further, the article text isn't mindful of the distinction either , so I'm happy that I raised the topic, with the resulting discussion around the share of total energy used for transport vs grid, and with my original wording of "as the title might suggest". (emphasis now on "might". YMMV. )

That title can just as easily mean that Costa Rica's electricity is 100% renewable as it could mean that all of Costa Rica's energy is 100% renewable electricity. Given two equally correct meanings, choose the one that actually makes any sense in context.

Re: Rail......

All of those railroads have been shut down for ages - there are no working railroads here, other than a revived diesel commuter railroad with a few cars that goes back and forth across the central valley.

Historically, yes, costa rica was one of the first countries to adopt electric power as a nation, including for railroads and stuff... but that time is over.

Ai, that's a real pity. To go from being ahead of the curve to behind really sucks.

I wouldn't say behind... those railroads were the product of a booming fruit industry - and those days are over; global agriculture changed. Also, now we have roads.

You can drive from the carribean to the pacific on highway in a few hours here.

Grid electricity is only about a third of primary energy consumption. Renewables and nuclear power only make up about 10% and 6% of primary energy consumption worldwide [1]. In the coming years we have to ramp those fractions up globally A LOT in order to become CO2-neutral. Also from the low fraction of 6% we can see that nuclear could be switched off today without making a big difference for CO2 output, renewables already generate more power.

[1]: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Primary_energy

That's exactly what it means - grid power. I don't know why everyone thinks it means we somehow, under the radar, stopped using gas vehicles and stoves and stuff... obviously that's not the case.

And it's not a milestone.. it's a sensationalized headline.

As much as I'm proud of my little adopted country - this doesn't represent some new investment or initiative. We had more rain than usual this year so ran on renewables longer than average this year (dropping electricity prices 10% for a while, which is fantastic).

On that note, consider this sentence:

>And the country's economy relies on tourism and agriculture, not energy-sucking industries like manufacturing.

Of course tourism is energy-sucking. Its just not grid electricity and most likely the energy use is attributed to European or American airlines and passengers.

And that's where electric vehicles come in :)

Also I find it really dismaying the degree to which nuclear has been downplayed. It has risks, but what are those risks against the certainty of global warming?

While I believe both are real risks, I also believe catastrophic anthropogenic global warming (CAGW) is only certain for those who have something to gain from the immediate actions to combat it. Ice is melting, seas are rising, storms are getting more powerful. But, are we not able to adapt? Under Kyoto, the forgone economic growth would put us in a much worse position to do something about adapting (rebuilding, relocation, drought assistance, etc.). And who knows, there might be other things we will have to adapt to besides changes in climate in the future. Improving our living conditions and technology is the best option. Out of that will come solutions to CAGW.

Despite a couple of bad preventable accidents, Nuclear is safe and the only clear economic solution to the CO2 emission issue.

Another issue is disposal of waste. Living in Australia it seems pretty clear to me there's lots of land here where such storage / disposal could be implemented, yet the outcry from various groups over 'abuse' of areas where no-one lives or visits has to be seen to be believed. And one reason I stopped supporting Greenpeace (some years ago now) was because of their staunch and irrational opposition to nuclear.

I have a feeling that many new car buyers figure out a way to get around the import tax - probably by driving them in through Panama or Nicaragua.

The title "Running on 100% Renewable Electricity" in no way suggested to me that they are talking about anything other than grid electricity.

If I recall Costa Rica has a 100% import tax on cars. Not everyone has or can afford a car there. What would be really interesting is if they were to remove or lower that tariff for electric vehicles it could for example make a Nissan Leaf the cheapest new car you could get in the country.

It does say electricity, not energy.

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