Costa Rica Energy - The new wind energy project in the Los Santos region
| |
Costa Rica Energy - Our actions have serious consequences.
Scott Oliver
In the face of daily front page news regarding the catastrophic consequences of climate change it is surprising that so many real estate buyers coming to Costa Rica still insist on buying homes with air conditioners.
In the USA: "We use about one-sixth of our electricity to cool ourselves. That's more than the total electricity consumption of India, a country whose population exceeds 1 billion. To get the electricity, we use nuclear energy and we burn oil and coal." Yes! It can be hot and humid living at the beach but if Mother Nature has designed your body so that you feel it's impossible for you to live in those temperatures without air conditioning then perhaps you should question your decision to live there?
I have driven past these a hundred times, they're magnificent.
|
|
The wonderful thing about Costa Rica is that you can choose your weather. You can choose to build or buy a home at higher elevations, where the views are better and where you can enjoy a cool breeze without air conditioning. In the USA: "According to the Air-Conditioning and Refrigeration Institute, shipments of air conditioners and heat pumps have tripled over the last three decades. The percentage of single-family homes built with central air has gone from 36 to 87." It is baffling as to why anybody needs air conditioning in the Central Valley where there is normally a pleasant breeze, the highest temperature is around 82 degrees and then cools off to the low 60's in the evening. Having lived in ten countries, I can't imagine a more perfect climate.
Due to start operations in late 2011
|
|
Unfortunately developers are listening to their customers and since so many buyers ask for air conditioning, developers are now including this in many of their homes in the Central Valley. Ten years ago, they would never have thought of it but...
Like many nations, Costa Rica has had energy problems in the past when we experienced some serious shortages and, although Costa Rica is making serious efforts to expand the number or renewable energy sources - the 15 new 44 meter tall Los Santos windmills are a great example (El Proyecto Eólico Los Santos (PELS)), building thousands of new homes and apartments with air conditioning will not help.
44 meters tall
|
|
Among The Costs Of War: $20B In Air Conditioning.
There are dozens of reasons - or should I say lies - we can come up with to justify our actions in the Middle East but the end result is that as we sit here reading this today, more than one million mostly innocent people have been slaughtered in the past ten years and millions more have been displaced because we choose to ignore the basic fact that we - primarily in the US - are using far too much energy. And yup! You read that right! While we're over there killing people, "The amount the U.S. military spends annually on air conditioning in Iraq and Afghanistan: $20.2 billion."
Costa Rica Wind Energy
|
|
This is no political argument, this is merely a request to carefully consider the consequences of our actions when you choose your home in Costa Rica and remember that the future of our children's planet is in our hands.
 Written by Scott Oliver, author of 1. Costa Rica Real Estate Scams & How To Avoid Them, 2. How To Buy Costa Rica Real Estate Without Losing Your Camisa, and 3. Costa Rica's Guide To Making Money Offshore. Click On The Box Below To Tell Us How You Feel About This?
Customer Comments
Most Helpful Customer Comments
Americanitis - fat, lazy and entitlement oriented. Can't work w/ nature. Must try and control everything. Like AIDS, it spreads everywhere and American goes.
Use a fan and shut up.
It is just too hot and humid to live at sea level in the tropics and too expensive, inconsiderate and even selfish to use air conditioning in order to live close to a beach.
There are so many other, better choices of climate in Costa Rica.
Excellent take on what we are doing to the planet. the consumption of power in the average expat home is far higher than it is in the average Tico home even without the air conditioning. We are so enamored with the concept of having a home on the beach with an ocean view that we fail to consider the consequences of the additional burden of AC.
Many are in denial that climate change is a fact as they watch the nightly news stories of violent weather changes, lightning initated wild fires, increase in tornados, flooding, increasing areas of drought, etc.
Thank you
I could not agree more with the article on energy use & a/c in Costa Rica. We have a condo in Guanacaste, where so many people think we must live in an oven. So wrong!
Like anywhere else in the country, just open the windows and the breeze does it all. We turn our bedroom a/c on 'low' only at night in the dry season, and very occasionally in the living areas when the humidity has built up over the day, largely to discourage any mould.
As a first world people, 'we' have apparently forgotten how to work with nature. Indeed, the norm for our baby boom generation seems to be to complain about nature and try to 'fix' it. Sad, and the consequences of this aspect are simply and concisely described in the article.
Well done.
|
Homes For Sale
why choose the beach?, June 29, 2011