Costa Rica News – Costa Rica might be actually trying to go after that carbon neutrality goal set for 2021. The only problem is it seems the private sector will have to lead the way as the Costa Rican government is failing in it’s part.
There are opportunities to produce the needed projects on the government level but we all know that once the Costa Rican government starts putting its own employees on the task of completing one of these ideas it fails or is just years of broken promises…..we have all been waiting on the new airport in Osa for years and the border trail between Nicaragua and Costa Rica was a huge fiasco; which has all but been washed away.
But when you see examples of private enterprise in Costa Rica in regards to projects many of them have the funding and structure to make them work. For example the stadium that was being built for the U-21 Women’s World Cup in Jaco was going to be ready on time even after having to basically go through the permitting process twice due to a mangrove. However, the rest of the stadium improvements around the country for which the government was responsible were no where near happening and the entire event was pulled by FIFA.
Brazilian researcher Jorge Vieira and Costa Rican businessman Edgar Badilla, are trying to put together the first microalgae. biodiesel plant in Guanacaste. Guanacaste offers the best location for this project as it hovers around 30 ° C with 8 hours of sunlight a day.
It is expected that this project will start with 2 hectares and increase to 15 hectares in the long term. With 15 hectares it is expected that this project will produce 2.4 million liters of biodiesel per year, which is enough to fuel an entire fleet of buses.
This technology works in Brazil and, according to Vieira, is capable of producing 1.2 million liters of oil per hectare per year.
Regarding the use of biofuels nationwide, the Ministry of Environment and Energy (Minae) is contemplating this a a viable idea and currently there are pending studies to ensure that large-scale production viable.
You should expect the biorefinery spoken about in this article to be up and running before an answer is found in regards to national use of biofuels.
PS – Also expect someone to start this as a scam in Costa Rica, asking for you to invest in a biofuel project. Any worthwhile biofuel project will receive large capital from groups or joint venture capitalist. They do not need small investments from individuals.
