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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 know
by belval 5y ago
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."
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JohnHaugeland 5y agothey're tiny, non-industrial, and they don't track brownouts
- leesalminen 5y agoI 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.
- belval 5y agoI've read about expats praising Costa Rica for its low costs and beautiful properties that foreigners can buy. How was your experience there?
- leesalminen 5y agoIt 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 5y agohow about the weather and climate?
- Cd00d 5y agoThat 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.
- asdff 5y agoI don't think foreigners can get a mortgage though, you might have to buy property outright.
- belval 5y agoIf median salary is $9k/year I would assume their housing market to be a lot more affordable than Toronto's.
- asdff 5y agoActually if thats really the median salary then Costa Rica is far less affordable than Toronto. Look at these prices on this website (albeit one of the first search hits that comes up) (1) I'm seeing 3-4 bedroom homes for at least $500k USD in some cases. If you can afford to pay that outright with no financing as a foreigner in Costa Rica, you can certainly afford a down payment in Toronto's housing market today. 1. https://www.propertiesincostarica.com/homes.html https://www.propertiesincostarica.com/homes.html
- JohnHaugeland 5y agofour 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
- leesalminen 5y agoThat’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?
- mikeyouse 5y agoDepends 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 5y agoStandby = spinning up diesel generators in a lot of cases.
- sergiomattei 5y agoPuerto Rico's 4 blackouts a day stares awkwardly from the distance. Guess the US isn't doing any better.
- NortySpock 5y agoSeems 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 5y ago"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.
- mavhc 5y agoWould be good for those 5 second brownouts though
- jacquesm 5y agoFlywheels are a pretty good solution for ride-through of brownouts. Fairly compact and instantly available.
- mavhc 5y agoWhere are they deployed at scale?
- jacquesm 5y agoHospitals, datacenters. Plenty of them to ensure that operation theater gear continues to work uninterrupted in case of brown out or the - short - interval during which generators start up if the power should fail. Teraloop, AFS and others.
- JohnHaugeland 5y agoLiterally everywhere. They're standard issue. The Level3 building in San Diego had a two story iron flywheel that got loose and cut its way through the highway. They are by far the most common kind of energy storage on Earth. Even in your car, which has both. https://www.10news.com/news/11k-pound-flywheel-caused-poway-explosion https://www.10news.com/news/11k-pound-flywheel-caused-poway-...
- lesterzone 5y agoResident here. No issues with brownouts. Costa Rica uses different sources of electricity with several producers hence different experiences by different people
- wil421 5y agoA lot of people in Costa Rica have generators on standby for blackouts and brown outs.
- newsclues 5y agoBattery backups as well?
- mnouquet 5y agoThat's probably not accountable as "renewable"...
- asdff 5y agoI 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.
- idiotsecant 5y agoIt 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 5y agoI'd always wondered and never asked why turning off a fridge was bad for it. Thank you!
- bberenberg 5y agoI 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#History 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 5y agoThis 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 5y agoCrime and poverty are rampant in parts of the US too
- silicon2401 5y agoThat has nothing to do with a conversation about Costa Rica.
- foobarian 5y agoReminds 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 5y agoSee also the (old) movie, "The Mouse that Roared". Follows exactly that theme. Peter Sellers playing about four different roles.
- samfisher83 5y agoLots 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 5y agoHydro 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 5y agoYet Nicoya is dry most part of the year
- hannob 5y agoMix 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.
- JohnHaugeland 5y agoit's a complete fiction, if you bother to look
- NortySpock 5y agoLinks 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 5y ago[Flagged]
- martin_a 5y ago"Shitty quotes won't get you far on HN" - Abraham Lincoln
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- JohnHaugeland 5y ago> Links to sources would go a long way to helping your case. Anyone who would actually listen looked it up when I said it, and learned something. The redditors demanded a field guide, and got nothing.
- toomuchtodo 5y agohttps://www.electricitymap.org/zone/CR?wind=false&solar=false https://www.electricitymap.org/zone/CR?wind=false&solar=fals... (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.
- lesterzone 5y agoCosta 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.
- shadowgovt 5y agoHad the honor of visiting years ago. It really is a gorgeous country.
- sergiomattei 5y agoPura vida!
- lr4444lr 5y agoWhat do you think is holding back its GDP per capita from competing with the top rankers?
- ffhhj 5y agoI'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.
- elboru 5y agoTalking 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!
- AdrianB1 5y ago
- nicoburns 5y agoNot 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 5y agoThis 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_involvement_in_regime_change_in_Latin_America https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_States_involvement_in_r...
- 34679 5y agoFrom your link: Tensions between government and the opposition, supported by the CIA, caused the short-lived Costa Rican Civil War of 1948 that ended Calderón's government and led to the short de facto rule of 18 months by José Figueres Ferrer.
- sjm 5y agoYeah, 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.
- neartheplain 5y agoSounds 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_Ferrer#1958_testimony_before_U.S._Congress https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Figueres_Ferrer#1958... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Trujillo https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rafael_Trujillo
- mc32 5y agoIt probably helps that pop growth compared to like countries was lower, so they have a more balanced age distribution.
- darzu 5y agoThey 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.
- wwweston 5y agoIIRC 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://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jos%C3%A9_Figueres_Ferrer https://www.spanishpuravida.com/why-costa-rica-has-no-army/ https://www.spanishpuravida.com/why-costa-rica-has-no-army/
- api 5y agoA 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.
- mikro2nd 5y agoI 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 5y agoIf you go by historical data, when nobody has a standing army everybody has mercenaries (which leads to instability at scale).
- emidln 5y agoOr 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 5y agoThe 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.
- sadfasf122 5y agoTiny country that has very little industry?
- KineticLensman 5y ago> 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_foreign_investment https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Trade_and_foreign_i...
- mnouquet 5y agoNone of these qualify as "industry" being mostly tertiary.
- KineticLensman 5y ago>> 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.
- reubenswartz 5y agoAside 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...
- pydry 5y agoMost of South/Latin America is afflicted by the resource curse.
- ffhhj 5y agoThe 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.
- d4mi3n 5y agoEco 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 5y agoThe 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-influence-of-central-american-dynasties-is-ebbing https://www.economist.com/the-americas/2021/04/03/the-influe... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Spanish_colonization https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Costa_Rica#Spanish_colonizatio... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_El_Salvador#The_oligarchy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_El_Salvador#The_oli... (El Salvador, but a similar situation)
- frozenport 5y ago`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?
- throwthrow432 5y ago"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).
- notyourwork 5y agoAnecdotal - 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.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- macspoofing 5y ago>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 5y agoI'm ignorant - why can't solar and wind provide enough power? What about somewhere like Arizona/Nevada/Utah?
- macspoofing 5y agoBecause 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 5y agoCan you elaborate on the "or coming" part of your post? What makes you think batteries won't be substantially better 20 years from now?
- nytgop77 5y agoMy heuristic for pessimism: We use enourmous amounts of energy and we invest enourmous amounts of money in energy production. At the same time we have neglible storage and and neglible investment in storage. some numbers: 194MWh - capacity of Hornsdale Power Reserve in Australia 161 million A$ - it's cost (https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hornsdale_Power_Reserve) 4 700 000 MWh - Australia's daily total consumption of energy of all fuel types (https://www.energy.gov.au/data/energy-consumption https://www.energy.gov.au/data/energy-consumption) 4700000 / 194 = 24226 - number of same power reserves to store australias power for one day. 24226 * 161 millions = 3.9 trillions of A$ - money needed to build a days capacity in Australia at current price. (for comparison, Australia GDP is near 2 trillion A$, US GDP is 27 trilion A$)
- MomoXenosaga 5y agoNo 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.
- avereveard 5y agoStep one: no heavy industries
- throwaway2037 5y agoWith all that hydro power, I am surprised they do not have a huge aluminium smelting industry!
- rsj_hn 5y agoCosta 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-economic-survey-overview.pdf https://www.oecd.org/economy/surveys/costa-rica-2020-OECD-ec...
- gknapp 5y agoI 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!
- GuB-42 5y agoHere 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.
- stjohnswarts 5y agoWithout corruption from top to bottom you can get a lot done. Most bureaucracies and police forces in central america are rotten to the core, and then you have the gangs who take advantage of that. It's a really hard feedback loop to break out of. Costa Rica has managed to beat that.