Subscribe via E-Mail

Get all of our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning! Just tell us your name and where to send it using the form below.

PS – We hate spam too. We don’t sell or share our list with anyone, and we never send commercial email.




luxe
Friday, January 29th, 2016  |  USD: Buy 531.29 / Sell 543.92
20 years

New regulations would require daytime electricity cuts, advance notice

Email this page

November 21st, 2013 (InsideCostaRica.com) New regulations being pushed forward by the Regulatory Authority for Public Services (ARESEP) will require one-week advance notice to customers by electric utilities before cutting off electricity for rationing or maintenance purposes.

 

The regulations also specify that such outages should only be programmed during the day, from 5 a.m. until 10 p.m., and cannot affect hospitals, emergency radio stations, water pumping systems, gas stations, industrial areas, road lighting, and “economic centers.”

 

ARESEP said it hopes reduce the number and duration of nighttime electricity outages.

costa rica news

ATTENTION: If you are seeing this message,


Advertisement


Get our news delivered fresh to your inbox every morning.

Click here to subscribe to our email list. We hate spam too and never send commercial email.

Like us on Facebook and receive our news in your timeline

  • mhogan

    Rationing, huh! Can’t remember this being such a problem before we got onto this “renewable” kick! Seems we’re going backward in quality of life — all for the sake of carbon emissions which countries with common sense understand it is economically unfeasible to try to stop MMGW and are instead using a different, pragmatic approach — ADAPTING to 1 or 2 degrees difference in temperature which may or may not occur in the next 87 years. Read (if you’re literate, articles on the 50to1 project) or watch (if you don’t have the inclination to read: http://www.50to1.net or topher.com.au/50-to-1-video-project/) But be warned, there are hours and hours of interviews on this webpage by experts who make more sense than Gore or the IPCC put together. If you don’t want to watch the whole thing, at least watch the summary video, (it’s under 10 minutes) then you have no right to refute their opinions.

    • expatin paradise

      The pseudoscience of the 50to1 project is an affront to logic. Global warming is about much more than one or two degrees’ increase in temperature. As atmospheric carbon increases, ocean pH lowers, causing a multitude of changes in species that will inevitably result in extinctions. As ocean waters rise, fragile coastal and estuary ecosystems are altered, cutting the food chain at its origins. Since most of the world’s populations are located close to coasts, “adapting” will require relocating most of that population inland.

      Since everyone will have to move, anyway, they should be selective about where they go because deserts will grows, the plains will see more tornadoes, and (the new) coastlines will see more mega-storms. Even the mountains will see more flash-flooding.

      This stuff is already happening – anyone seen the flooded streets in Miami Beach at high tide recently? Island nations are in threat of disappearing. Seasonal weather is changing everywhere, threatening traditional crops because of temperature changes and migration of pests into areas previously hostile to them.

      Global warming has to be stopped to the extent humanly possible. Even if warming stopped today, melting of the glaciers, rising oceans, and ocean acidification will continue.

      All of this discussion is tangential to the subject of this article, but it is connected. One reason that electricity generation is down in Costa Rica is that the hydroelectric plants don’t have enough water flow to drive their turbines at maximum output BECAUSE OF CLIMATE CHANGE.

      • mhogan

        Oh! I see your point. Wait while I get a steel umbrella and a pair of galoshes, the sky is falling. Of course there is Global Warming — it’s been warming since the last Ice Age. Maybe those areas of the Earth that were henceforth too cold to grow anything will start sprouting palm trees. Or maybe the Earth will shift on its axis and cause major catastrophe. Maybe, maybe, maybe. In the meantime, I hope you pardon me if I don’t go into panic mode over CO2. All the money we throw at the problem of Global Warming is a waste of resources — better to spend a fraction of that money and mitigate the effects if and when. I’m not a proponent of “foolishly” abusing our environment, but there isn’t enough money in the world to stop Nature from doing what she intends to do.

        • expatin paradise

          I don’t have the authority to pardon you.

          Yes, there was a natural gradual warming trend following the last ice age, but it really picked up at the time of the industrial revolution, accelerated a century ago when drivers applied pressure to the gas pedal, and has been increasingly accelerating since. Of course, nature contributes to it – I can see an active volcano as I write this; but mankind’s contribution can be credited with the unprecedented acceleration over the past 200 years. Carbon dioxide levels are higher than at any other time in hundreds of millions of years. We can’t control the volcanoes, but we can control vehicular and industrial emissions, and we can make concerted effort to reforest the planet. Clean energy is viable, and its technology is improving daily.

          To do nothing about greenhouse emissions would be to throw up one’s hands and invite crop failure and starvation on a global scale as well as catastrophic weather events. Your arguments are reminiscent of the reaction of industry to efforts to stop pollution of the air and waterways 50 years ago – they claimed that it would be too expensive to curtail pollution. If that had continued, we would all be choking on smog and gagging on foul water (of course, we now have the problem of fracking liquids poisoning the water).

          Again, this is only tangentially related to the article about electricity rationing. As noted before, some of the power grid shortfall in CR is due to decreased rains caused by climate change. Some if it is because of development outreaching the infrastructure. Some is due to excessive usage by consumers. Possibly some is due to CR’s selling electricity to our neighbors. CR could deal with the third of these by providing solar and wind energy incentives, providing LED lightbulbs at low cost to consumers, and giving incentives to consumers for energy-efficient appliances (funded, perhaps by higher electricity rates paid by excessive consumers). Costa Rica should also consider meeting future energy needs with solar and wind farms (an area where Nicaragua outdoes us) and with evolving technologies such as tidal power.

          The answer for Costa Rica and the rest of the planet is not simply to move to higher ground.

          • mhogan

            Let’s get a reality check. First: they call CO2 greenhouse gas because it is “pumped” into greenhouses to stimulate plant growth. If we want more forests, we need more CO2. If Man does not have CO2, we would die because our respiratory system would not know when to shut down intake of Oxygen. How did fossil fuels come to be: they originated from organic sediment from land plants and marine life that lived millions of years ago. So if we take the cycle of life, we are returning the CO2 back to its origin as a stimulate of plant life (which millions of years from now will again be fossil fuel) and also to sustain man. I think there are much greater pollutants in the atmosphere, doing more damage than CO2 (like sulfur dioxide from your volcano), but alas, governments haven’t yet found a way to tax it. But to think Man can control Nature — nah! The buzzword is “sustainable”. What’s sustainable about dumping more money than could ever be printed into trying to do the impossible. Are we that arrogant?

          • Lav

            If man does not have CO2 he dies… Is this the part where you attach a hose to your car exhaust, roll the windows up, start the engine and inhale? Nothing like a good clean dose of CO2 to keep those lungs working huh.

          • mhogan

            Not quite the hose but have you not heard of a paper bag placed over your mouth to re-breath your exhale (CO2) to counter the effects of hyperventilation ? And fyi, car exhaust is not CO2, it’s CO (carbon monoxide). I understand where you get confused with science and when you don’t understand it, you get to share your space with expatin paradise and blithely refer to the misunderstood as pseudoscience, and eager to be one of the “fear” propagandists of the MMGW crusades.

          • Lav

            Ouch this may hurt… Carbon monoxide only accounts for 5%, carbon dioxide accounts for 9% of vehicle emissions.

          • mhogan

            Haha! Doesn’t hurt at all. You must be really much smarter than Wiki Answers: Q: What is the main gas in car exhaust fumes? A: Carbon Monoxide. Don’t worry, you can split hairs all you like, I’m not disputing CO2 is present (as is: nitrogen oxide, sulphur dioxide, and hydrocarbons). You brought up the reference of the car exhaust, not I. Look at it this way, electric cars have no exhaust. Their pollution comes from electricity for charging batteries (from coal, I believe), from disposal of spent batteries, from production facilities. Still, CO2 is considered a safe gas for animals and plants — carbon monoxide is really a killer! But again, almost everything is bad in excess

          • turbooperator

            A 5% concentration of CO with cause rapid death. Even a brief exposure at 5% will give you a headache like you won’t believe for several days. CO2, not not much. Didn’t need to google/wiki this one , speaking from personal experience.

          • Lav

            You are confusing concentration with percentage of emission. I never stated the amount released from exhaust held a concentration level of 5%.

          • turbooperator

            So tell me then, what would be the concentration of CO at 5 “percentage of emission?

          • mhogan

            Great question. Was hoping you’d respond. Can’t wait for the explanation! LOL

          • turbooperator

            at times like these I am reminded of the words of the great Vinnie Barbarino……

          • Lav

            Without knowing 100 other factors I am unable to tell you.

          • turbooperator

            The term greenhouse gas comes from the fact that the gases in question trap the solar energy in the earth, such as a greenhouse traps solar energy in a greenhouse , c’mon people, really.

          • mhogan

            Yes, turbooperator, that term has come into vogue since the dastardly CO2 has been identified. However, its use goes back many years prior as a supplementation on plant growth and production within the greenhouse environment (hence the original term: greenhouse gas). While ambient CO2 level in outside air is about 340 ppm by volume, it has been determined that when levels are raised by 1,000 ppm, photosynthesis increases proportionately resulting in more sugars and carbohydrates available for plant growth. So you see, we’re both right. On the fact of 5% concentration of CO, I agree on the toxicity. So let’s just cancel the suggestion from Lav that we hook a hose to the car exhaust, roll the windows up, start the engine and inhale. Lav, I think this is where you ideas should go.

  • Joe1047

    This could easily be helped if the government would move more towards solar power. It is so expensive here to get solar power for something as small a house. This is insane. Germany is a country that obviously has much less sun exposure than CR and yet Germany is generating more solar power than any country in the world and now have about one quarter of their power supply from renewable resources. My point is renewable is possible if done the right way… which they are not doing here.

    • http://www.facebook.com/fhuh.kew Fhuh Kew

      You have to have a place to put the panels so they won’t get stolen.

    • turbooperator

      You are aware that renewable energy generation here in Costa Rica is over 90%, right? Solar is not currently cost effective and would only increase costs

      • Joe1047

        I am aware that it is 90% renewable. But am I wrong that there is a lot of sun here? Many other places and country’s are using solar power more and more and they have much less sunlight to use than we do. It isn’t cost effective that is what I am saying. I’m sure every little piece required for a solar grid is taxed like crazy. Where in other places you see the governments subsidizing solar panels for your house. I am sure that many country’s around the world like Germany would not be using it if it wasn’t cost effective. Its just not cost effective here.

Popular Content