The failed foray into the development of hydrogen – based energy has the Costa Rican Oil Refinery (RECOPE) on tenterhooks.
Since March last year, a series of legal complications brought down the link between the refinery and Ad Astra Rocket for the use of hydrogen as an energy source for transportation.
The contract by which RECOPE paid $ 6,000 dollars a month for Ad Astra to maintain the plant in Liberia, which cost around $ 2.1 million, ended in January.
Now, the refinery’s staff must visit Guanacaste once a month to turn the equipment on and off, so it doesn’t get damaged.
The agreement was that Ad Astra, which holds the human resource, would take care of the plant’s maintenance while RECOPE waited for the progress on a legal reform that would allow further research. But none of that happened.
According to the refinery,
a legislative approval of the project 19,448 is essential for the continuation of this project that would give us the power to work in alternative energy,”
including biofuels research and production, hydrogen technologies and other alternative energy sources.
The bond between RECOPE and Ad Astra was completed in 2011, but the project progressed between 2012 and 2013.
To continue the work, Franklin Chang -head of Ad Astra- urged the State to solve the legal situation that made it impossible for RECOPE to dabble in alternative energy and also to cancel a debt of nearly $ 11,000 and to commit that to take over the operation while the project was resumed.
In April 2015, the Attorney General’s Office (PGR) determined that RECOPE did not have sufficient legal powers to enter this type of project.