mp;gt;by Rod Hughes</strong>

Environmentalists welcomed the news that, during a break in classes, school children in Santa Cruz canton in Guanacaste planted 520 trees around the main aquifers that provide water to several communities including Tamardindo Beach. But residents and deveopers at Tamrindo should applaud, as well as to support this movement.

The whole province is a victim of deforestation, product of 50 years of cutting the dry, slow-growing tropical lowland vegetation to make way for lucrative cattle production, reaching a peak in the 1970s. Pastures do not hold the rain as well as do deeply-rooted trees, whose leafy canopies also provide an umbrella to break the force of downpours. Trees do the best job to prevent erosion and flooding.

Moreover, cattle themselves, with their heavy weight on sharp hooves, cut up river banks, worsening an already devastating situation. A biologist of our acquaintance, Hugh Casey, once opined that the best way to keep Guanacaste from turning into a desert was to kill a cow, bury her, and plant a tree on her corpse. These factors have led to severe damage to water sources.

If the efforts of only 35 students seems like a prinprick against a raging rhinocerous, Cassie Rauser of the Tamarindo Environmental and Cultural Committee assures that many more reforestation efforts area planned. "This is the first effort in what is planned to be repeated shortly to offer better protection to water sources in this tourism district…" she said. Areas effected by these aquifers include Santa Rosa, Villareal, Tamarindo and El Llanito. <em>It is time people begin thinking in the long range. Government certainly has not and its plan to rob other communities of their water is not the answer.

by Rod Hughes

The Association of Auto and Machinery Dealers strongly criticized the national refinery (RECOPE) for not releasing details about the bio-fuels it has promised will go on sale later this year, according to the daily paper La Nacion. The introduction of the fuels was announced three months ago but no specifics of percentages of ethanol has come from the refinery, come plain the car dealers..

Lillian Aguilar, association chief, said the percentage of alcohol content would would effect which cars and diesel units (to use bio-fuel) would stand the new fuels. RECOPE spokesmen reply that all vehicles can use the fuels without major adjustments. Biodiesel is made in this country from the fruit of the oil palm, which has been used in the past to make margarine. Great expanses of tropical lowlands farmland was planted with the palms in the 1980s.

(Indeed, the use of palm oil as a butter substitute fell out of favor as an export crop when nutritionists found it higher in cholesterol than the butter itself.) This is not the first time RECOPE has offered alcohol-laced fuel. In the aftermath of the petroleum crisis of the 1970s, it appeared at service stations here (at that time, made from sugar cane) and suffered from untrue rumors that it would destroy the engines using it. It was an alternative at that time but drivers felt that there was no fuel like an old fuel and avoided the new product.

But Aguilar is voicing the same fears, claiming that some cars–especially older models–cannot use the ethanol-gasoline mixture. Some 70% of cars in this country are more than 12 years old. She claims that Brazil, which has made itself petroleum-independent by offering only biofuels at the pumps, entered into an accord with auto makers to offer engines adaptable to the fuel. Aguilar told La Nacion that the government’s measure is mistaken. “They must offer an incentive to use the new fuel and allow those who wish to buy traditional fuel,” she said.

The newspaper consulted two manuals from recently imported autos. A 2007 one said biofuels should be used “only in models modified by the manufacturer.” A 2008 imprent said the engine could run well on up to 5% alcohol could be used but warned that other than this, the warranty would not apply to repairs of engines running on other fuels.

Jorge Rojas, chief of distribution at RECOPE, assured the paper that no more than 2% biodiesel and 7% ethanol in gasoline was planned Indeed, the government has emitted mixed signals, perhaps without coordinating them with their the state-run refinery. It was first suggested that 7.5% biodiesel and 2 to 5% ethanol was planned, then promised the percentages would rise to 12% and 20% respectively in five years. (It is possible that speculative planning discussions inside the Presidency have made their way to the press. Such premature data are the plague of journalists the world over.)

Trying to get the facts, La Nacion reporter Esteban Oviedo asked three importers. A used car importer told him that autos no more than 10 years old should have no problems with biofuel mixtures. Purdy Motors said that models from 1995 on can handle 7% ethanol and 5% biodiesel easily. Jose Pablo Salas of Mercadeo Viensa said his firm and Dragon Motors knew their cars could run on up to 10% ethanol and 5% biodiesel.

But Brazil is the only country with extensive experience at this game and has been at it for 30 years. The country produces enough petroleum for its own consumption, augmented in the case of diesel with 3% biodiesel from vegetable oils and animal fats. (In recent years, scientists have even run modified diesel bus engines on processed oil discarded by restaurants, leaving behind an exhaust emission faintly smelling of french fries.)

By last March, use of ethanol surpassed that of gasoline in Brazil and in 10 years it is predicted that consumption of gasoline will be minimal. Most cars there use a 25% mixture without modifications. But cars running on “flex,” as they call pure ethanol, are popular even now and 80% of new cars can run on it. Ethanol costs 84 U.S. cents per liter and gasoline $1.53 so, even though pure ethanol cars consume 30% more fuel, the alcohol price is competitive and will become more attractive if petroleum continues its dizzying rise.

One question not answered by La Nacion’s article is this: Brazil is one of the largest countries in the world and has thousands of square miles of sugar cane to convert of alcohol under cultivation. Can tiny Costa Rica hope to equal the Brazilian fuel experience? Or will this sugar exporting country become an overall sugar importer?