Costa Rica's Energy Crisis - Living in Darkness

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Costa Rica is in the midst of a dire energy shortage. Hydro electric plants are running dry, thermal plants are breaking down, and we are losing power!

Costa Rican Paper has the story here
Reuters News has the story here
This story talks about how it is affecting hotels (us)

We have been dealing with rolling blackouts for two weeks, and a massive blackout a couple of weeks ago that left us without power for almost 6 hours two days in a row. With our new schedule being completely dependant upon the baby, blackouts in the middle of the night can make for long hours of keeping the baby happy in the dark.

The problem here is that the blackouts are supposed to be scheduled, they are on the power company’s website, but regardless they happen at random times, anwhere from 5am to 10pm and lasting for 2-3.5 hours. I have a hard time understanding why would they have the blackouts come from 5-8pm in at the most inconvenient time of the day. Have them at night or in the morning! Other parts of the city do have their blackouts mid-day, but the 6-8pm blackouts make even the simplest tasks difficult.

Well, last night was Wednesday and that’s our TV night. First we watch Criminal Minds and then Lost on TV, and of course we lost power 10 minutes before Criminal Minds was supposed to start. Thankfully we’re pretty resourceful. I have a power inverter plugged into our truck’s cigarette lighter, I usually use this to power my laptops or cell phone, but last night we ran an extension cord from the power inverter into our house to power the television and we watched TV in the dark. I had a phone meeting last week, and ran the extension cord to power my phone since we have no “non-portable” phones.

With no end in sight, you have to wonder how Costa Rica will be dealing with these shortages as demand continues to grow and supply in the for of rainwater continues to drop!

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