by Rod Hughes

If President Oscar Arias is really serious about his zero carbon emission campaign, he is going to have to direct his Environment Minister’s attention to the country’s chief energy producer, ICE, a government monopoly. The president’s announced goal is to reduce petroleum consumption while increasing the carbon dioxide consuming forest areas.

ICE’s purchase of diesel and bunker oil rose a stunning 66% over the first nine months of this year comparing with the same period last year. As the English=language weekly The Tico Times has reported in past issues, although a chain of presidents have giving lip service to alternate means of producing electricity for the burgeoning energy demands in this country, ICE has been back-sliding every year.

Not only is this trend ecologically unwise, it is economically indefensible as well. the announcement was made today that, although gasoline prices well drop slightly soon, the price of diesel is going up.

According to the National Refinery, RECOPE, (another government monopoly) ICE bought 185 million liters of diesel this year, 54 million more than last year. And the power provider cannot plead low water levels in its reservoirs as it did at the end of the dry season. Fuel oil for thermic generators swallowed 7.9 million liters of fuel oil as opposed to only 4.8 million last year.

Of course, the demand for fuel has risen across the board. RECOPE reports that gasoline consumption has risen 5% so far this year. This is for moving the nation’s 531,000 cars and taxis registered with the National Insurance Institute (INS, still another government monopoly,)

The bottom line economically is this: RECOPE has bought $998 million in petroleum so far this year.

The only bright light in this tunnel of petroleum dependency is that ICE has announced that the rationing that plagued the country at the end of the last dry season will not be repeated in 2008, thanks to the wetter than average rainy season just now winding down and due to more petroleum-guzzling electrical generators in which ICE has invested.