The Oil Drum

116 comments on Power Outages and Demand

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costa rica Johns on July 23, 2006 - 11:23pm

We used to live in Huntsville AL so I enjoy reading the TN valley updates. Thanks y'all.

I don't know how climate change will impact us here in Costa Rica. The seasons, such as they are, seem to have shifted some in the past couple of years. My landlord is worried about it. The dependable rainy season seems to be starting later and ending earlier, with rainy periods during the historically dry times and dry periods during the historically rainy times, but they say we still get about nine feet of rain a year, although I haven't measured it. There are so many micro-climates in Costa Rica that you can travel 10 kms and be in a totally different environment. The Tapanti National Park, for example, is only about 10 kms down the road from us. It is the third wettest place in the world and gets nearly three times the rainfall we get.

But thank god we don't get the heat the US is having. We are in a valley but still at 1051m above sea level. Our temps rarely get to the mid 80s and only occasionally do they fall into the low 50s/high 40s. It's the perfect temp year-round, and surprisingly, it does not feel very humid either, no where near as humid as FL or NO or even Norhtern AL felt to me. Perfect sleeping weather. If we decide, however, that we miss being sticky and miserable, we are only four hours from either coast by bus.

No electrical problems in CR yet. There are three small diesel powered electric generator stations in country but most of our electric is generated by mini- and micr-hydro plants with only a couple of big dams in the country, plus there are also a few wind farms. My electric bill is about 8 cents/kwh for the regular service and 13 cents/kwh for my 220.

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DIYer on July 24, 2006 - 7:22am

I don't know how climate change will impact us here in Costa Rica. The seasons, such as they are, seem to have shifted some in the past couple of years.

You might want to make sure you live > 20m above sea level.

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Vintermann on July 24, 2006 - 8:55am

I'm not sure this is meant as a joke or not... but remember, the models predict that the ice caps of antarctica and greenland are threatened do so on a hundreds of years time scale. If enough energy to do it was released in a so much shorter time, I suspect we would have bigger adjustment problems!

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GreyZone on July 24, 2006 - 11:31am

Hansen and some of the other leading climatologists disagree with the current models. Hansen points out that the models consistently have been too low on ice melt rates even just a few years after the model date. Hansen believes that there is a positive feedback loop(s) that is not accounted for in current models and which may result in catastrophic melt rates within 50 years. His argument is that the models have consistently been too conservative and that melt rates are reaching, in just a few years, levels not predicted for decades. Since this higher-than-predicted melt rate is observable fact, the models must be wrong and the only question becomes exactly how fast can these ice sheets melt?