by Rod Hughes
The gasoline from the National Refinery (RECOPE, its Spanish acronym) you get the second half of next year will contain 7% alcohol fuel, RECOPE announced yesterday. The plan goes along with President Oscar Arias’s ecology program as well as reduces somewhat expenditures for imported fossil fuel.
But, at least initially, it will not reduce your cost at the pump, since RECOPE must invest a total of $5.3 million in infrastructure, with the first bid of $600,000 to be let in two weeks. Eventually the refinery hopes to infuse gasoline with 10% to 15% ethanol, and a somewhat lesser percentage in diesel fuel.
RECOPE, a government monopoly, provides all the fossil fuels to the country. It was also noted that the new fuel will not obligate service stations to change their present storage tanks.
The renewable resource may be a boon to small farmers, since alcohol can be made from almost any fermentable crop. Brazil, a pioneer in ethanol technology, uses sugar cane but yuca (manioc), sorgum and palm oil, among other crops, can be used.
Alcohol fuel was tried here a couple of decades ago as an alternative fuel. But customers mostly spurned it, acting on myths that it would ruin the car’s engine (not true) and that costly special carburator adaptation was needed (also not true) and the movement died in its tracks. This time, there’s no choice–You want gas, fella, you fill up with this.

By Katherine Stanley
Tico Times Staff | kstanley@ti…

It’s a job that would make most of us quake in our boots or call for our mommies – but not Jorge Woodbridge, apparently.

The Vice-Minister of Economy and Commerce has been assigned the task of getting rid of government institutions’ unnecessary trámites, or bureaucratic processes. Institutional Coordination Minister Marco Vargas announced Woodbridge’s new assignment at a press conference following President Oscar Arias’ weekly Cabinet meeting yesterday.

Woodbridge will have “special political power” over even the heads of government institutions to study, then eliminate their excess bureaucracy. His first stop: the National Technical Secretariat of the Environment Ministry (SETENA), where he is already working almost full-time, Vargas said.

Excess trámites at SETENA, which is charged with evaluating environmental impact studies for all development, include a central commission that sees all projects four times when one would do, according to Vargas.

“It’s really a sickness we have,” the minister said of Costa Rica’s infamous tramitología.