Puerto
Rico werd vorig jaar door 2 orkanen getroffen, Irma en Maria, deze hebben het eiland in diepe ellende gestort. Niet alleen gigantische materiële schade,
maar ook zaken als de elektriciteitsvoorziening werden vernield……
De Trump administratie heeft de situatie op Puerto Rico keer op keer
gebagatelliseerd en Trump gaf een hem bevriend bedrijf de opdracht om
de energievoorziening op het eiland weer op gang te brengen, echter
dit bedrijf had daar bij lange na de capaciteit niet voor…..
Er
zijn veel vergelijkingen met Sint Maarten, onderdeel van ‘ons
koninkrijk’, ook daar hield orkaan Irma stevig huis en 90% van de
huizen werd vernield*. Nederland misbruikte de enorme ellende voor de
bewoners om het bestuur van dit eiland te chanteren
(hoofdverantwoordelijke PvdA ploert Plasterk): het democratisch
gekozen bestuur moest opstappen en het kleine eiland met amper
middelen werd verplicht meer te doen aan grensbewaking, dit terwijl er al jaren een
peperdure marine missie gaande is rond de Antillen waar de
Nederlandse marine de VS marine assisteert in de zinloze jacht van de VS op
drugs uit Zuid-Amerika…….
Terug
naar Puerto Rico, waar men nu de blik heeft gevestigd op duurzame
energie, waarbij de firma van Elon Musk, Tesla de eilandbewoners helpt met batterijen
voor de opslag van zonne- en windenergie. Voor korte duur was Puerto Rico zelfs de VS staat, waarbij het grootste gebied werd voorzien van duurzame energie.
Uiteraard is de Trump
administratie niet blij met het besluit van Puerto Rico om duurzaam
te gaan, immers deze administratie zet in op zoveel mogelijk fossiel
brandstofverbruik……. Toch leuk dat deze administratie dit zelf in de hand heeft gewerkt, al blijft het een godvergeten schandaal dat men deze elandbewoners zo lang heeft laten zitten, zoals het voor ons een schande
is, dat Nederland na 8 maanden eindelijk wat geld heeft overgemaakt voor
de wederopbouw van Sint Maarten, al wordt dit geld dan wel beheert door de neokoloniale
Wereldbank……. (het bestuur moest weg van Plasterk, daar het niet vertrouwd was geld aan dit bestuur over te maken, blijkbaar vertrouwt men nu ook het nieuwe bestuur niet……)
Lees
het volgende artikel van Harvey Wasserman over de gevolgen van 2
vernietigende orkanen op- en de verduurzaming van Puerto Rico:
Puerto
Rico Gets to Solartopia
Puerto
Rico Goes Back Door to Solartopia and the Corporate Media Blacks It
Out
By
Harvey Wasserman, Reader Supported News
Puerto
Rico has made history by becoming — briefly — the largest US
territory or state to be powered almost entirely by renewable energy.
The
corporate media has done all it can to black the story out.
The
rising grassroots movement to totally rebuild Puerto Rico’s
electric supply system with renewable energy and locally owned
micro-grids poses a serious threat to the centralized, fossil-based
corporate elite.
But
two hurricanes and two human-error blackouts have opened the door to
systemic change.
Here’s
how:
Last
September, Hurricane Irma blew through the Caribbean, passing over
enough of Puerto Rico to plunge tens of thousands of people into
darkness. Many of them are still without power.
Then
Hurricane Maria shredded the island’s electric grid and blacked out
its 3.4 million residents virtually in toto.
The
island had two large wind farms, one of which was severely damaged.
The other survived, but had no grid through which to distribute its
electricity.
Some
solar arrays on the island were also severely damaged.
But
at a farm in Barranquitas owned by Hector Santiago, 244 solar panels
kept some 2,500 light bulbs alight to maximize greenhouse plant
growth. Much to the derision of his neighbors, Santiago had invested
some $300,000 in the solar array. Small gas and kerosene-fired
generators kicked back up around the island. But Santiago’s solar
array may well have been its biggest operating power station.
Over
the following months, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) tried
to restore its rickety poles and wires, plus its network of obsolete
gas and oil plants … and the ancient coal plant that burns ore from
Colombia.
Along
the way, PREPA’s director was fired, and Governor Ricardo Antonio
“Ricky” Rosselló Nevares has campaigned to privatize the
utility, a move strongly opposed by democracy activists.
On
April 8, as PREPA was bringing the island back up to near-total
power, restoration workers felled a tree onto live transmission
wires, knocking out power to some 850,000 customers.
Ten
days later, PREPA proudly announced that it had restored power to
95.8 percent of the island’s population. Some 62,000 customers were
still in the dark. But PREPA was proud that each the territory’s 78
municipalities had at least some power.
Literally
within hours, Puerto Rico was again plunged into darkness. The same
contractor that on April 8 had dropped a tree into the grid now ran
an excavator that shorted out the entire system. Once again,
Puerto
Rico was without central-generated electric power.
But
now there was much more solar. In the wake of Irma and Maria,
Solartopian activists have poured thousands of photovoltaic panels
into the island. Strongly advocating that they become the centerpiece
of a rebuilt energy supply system, many collectors now power locally
owned micro-grids.
According
to Elon Musk, Tesla has helped make 662 locations energy
self-sufficient. Key has been San Juan’s Hospital del Nino, which
in just two weeks was made energy self-sufficient with panels and
batteries.
Nearly
all the island’s hospitals were knocked out by Maria. Dialysis
machines, operating rooms, air
conditioning and other key services
went dead. Many still are.
Ironically,
according to activist Joel Segal, much of the nation’s supply of
pain-killing morphine and Dilaudid also went away, as they are mostly
(for tax purposes) manufactured in Puerto Rico.
While
referring uniformly to this latest centrally-generated fiasco as a
“total” blackout, the corporate media have almost totally ignored
this steady, fast-growing stream of power being generated on Puerto
Rico, virtually all of it solar.
CNN
did cover a local named “Frank,” who after Maria took his home
solar with $7500 in system components. Wired has reported on a
Brooklyn architect, Andrew Marvel (a grand-nephew of the famed
futurist Buckminster Fuller), who plans to use grants of $625,000 for
his Resilient
Power Puerto Rico to
build 25 small arrays with Tesla battery backups. Another 75 or more
may follow.
During
my California
Solartopia show
on KPFK-Pacifica in Los Angeles, a listener pledged $20,000 for
a
neighborhood micro-grid linked with solar panels and batteries.
Rep.
Ted Lieu (D-Calif.) and Rep. Stacey Plackett (D-Virgin Islands) have
asked FEMA to take the island solar. So has San Juan’s progressive
mayor, Carmen Yulin Cruz.
But
it’s all too hot for the corporate media.
In
December PREPA and the New York governor’s office estimated that
$17.6 billion was needed to revamp Puerto Rico’s old grid, funds
that could instead help take the island totally solar.
To
put that in perspective: Governor Andrew Cuomo wants New York
ratepayers to fork over $8 billion to keep four decrepit upstate
reactors on line, despite their owners’ attempts to close them.
Ohio’s
FirstEnergy just asked Trump to force ratepayers to fork
over $8 billion PER YEAR in “emergency funding” to prop up four
more dying nukes and scores of obsolete coal burners.
Ironically,
the blacked-out story of Puerto Rico having already inadvertently
gone almost entirely solar has opened the brightest window onto a
sustainable future.
A
Solartopian Puerto Rico would enjoy permanent, reliable service, free
of fuel costs and protected from the ravages of the inevitable next
storm while avoiding the emissions that would help cause and
intensify it.
But
a Solartopian Puerto Rico would threaten the Trumpian corporatists
who want to “restore” the island’s central, fossil-fired,
utterly corrupted grid, which is sure to go down in the next
global-warmed hurricane. Or by the next felled tree and errant
excavator.
Puerto
Rico’s Solartopian moments are big news. So are the solar panels
and micro-grids that could help the island survive the next
hurricanes (season starts June 1) and corporate wrecking crews.
Let’s
keep those panels coming!
To
learn more contact me at solartopia.org.
Hear this
at prn.fm with
Joel Segal & David Braun:
http://prn.fm/solartopia-green-power-wellness-hour-04-19-18/
===============================
* Zie o.a.: ‘Sint Maarten bukt nog steeds onder de gevolgen van orkaan Irma, pas na bijna 8 maanden maakt Nederland wat geld over……..‘ Voor meer berichten over het schandalige gedrag van Nederland i.z. Sint Maarten, klik op het label met die naam, of op ‘orkaan Irma’, direct onder dit bericht.
Zie ook:
‘Puerto Rico (‘VS’) wordt nog steeds slecht of niet geholpen voor gevolgen orkaan Maria >> Trump: ‘eiland krijgt teveel hulp’‘ (zie ook de links in dat bericht)
‘6.000 doden i.p.v. 60 op Puerto Rico na Orkaan Maria, zo gaat de VS met haar burgers om………‘