Geothermal Costa Rica

摘要

Costa Rica is located in the southern part of the Central American isthmus, between Nicaragua and Panama. The country extends over an area of approximately 51,000 km~2, and has a population of about four million people. In the early 1970s, Costa Rica satisfied its electricity needs using hydro (70%) and thermal (30%) energy sources. However, continuously rising oil prices―especially during the 1973 world energy crisis―motivated authorities of the national utility, the Instituto Costarricense de Electricidad (ICE), to study the possibility of using other energy sources for electrical generation, including geothermal.