Costa Rica: Central American nation, once described as the greenest on the planet, thrives on rain and volcanoes
2015/04/04
Costa Rica has reached an environmental milestone by using only renewable energy to generate power for at least the initial 75 days of the year, a record for any country.
The Central American country, which has long boasted of its green credentials on energy policy, was able to achieve the milestone thanks to heavy rain in the initial three months of the year.
Around four-fifths of its electricity supply comes from hydro-electric power, which was boosted by rainfall at four major dams.
“This has been a totally environmentally friendly 2015 as far as electricity is concerned,” the Costa Rican Institute of Electricity, the national supplier, said in a statement.
Costa Rica is one of the majority developed nations in Latin America, ranking above Italy and several other European Union nations in the annual prosperity rankings put out by the Legatum Institute, a think-tank.
Its environmental record may not be easily copied by other nations - its tropical climate with high rainfall, mountainous interior, and relatively low people of 4.8 million people give it an chance in terms of renewable energy.
Additional than ten % of its electricity in some years is generated by geothermal projects operating from its string of active volcanoes. It as well has wind, biomass and solar energy plants.
Additionally, it has a low heavy industrial base, with its economy relying on tourism, agriculture - particularly bananas and coffee - and an Intel microprocessor plant.
However, it has been widely praised for its broader environmental policies, often ranking in the top five worldwide of “eco-friendly nations”. It has a goal of being “carbon neutral” by 2021.
Last year, all but six % of its energy was generated renewably.
That figure should come down further at the same time as a new geothermal project, commissioned last year by the government at a cost of $958 million, comes on stream.
“It’s good news that additional geothermal will be coming on board, as there are obvious downsides of being too reliant on hydro-power, particularly run-of-the-river systems, which can be hindered by seasonal changes in water flow,” Jake Richardson, an analyst at Clean Technica, told Science Alert.
“Droughts can as well severely impact power supplies. And there are as well some environmental downsides to hydroelectric dams additional generally, namely the impact on riparian ecosystems and passing fish.”
In Britain, renewable energy made up just under 15 % of total electricity generation in 2013, with a target of reaching 30 % by 2020.
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