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“Power,” within the Puerto Rican context, has at the moment been within the headlines once more after the large blackout there on New 12 months’s Eve. It’s disheartening that the island appears to solely get main mainland media consideration when there’s a catastrophe, like the latest blackout, or when there’s a hurricane or earthquake. This blackout was solely one among many—although not all have been island-wide. As a result of the latest one befell on a vacation, it acquired plenty of media consideration. The each day plight of islanders going with out energy, nevertheless, doesn’t.
Puerto Rico, as a colony of the U.S., finally has zero energy to manage its personal future. Although it elects its personal governor and has a non-voting consultant within the U.S. Congress, closing selections concerning the economic system are made by a U.S. appointed governing board, the Monetary Oversight and Administration Board—which many islanders have dubbed ”La Junta de Management Fiscal,” or for brief merely “La Junta.”
“Caribbean Matters” has repeatedly lined the ability concern on the island, and protests in opposition to LUMA Vitality. However so long as islanders don’t have the political energy to take away the FOMB, revoke LUMA’s contract, and shift to different power sources, the “apagones” will proceed to be a part of the lifestyle (and dying) on the island.
As political anthropologist Dr. Yarimar Bonilla wrote for The New York Occasions within the wake of an enormous blackout in June 2024:
Puerto Rico Will Not Go Quietly Into the Darkish
In 2020 the Puerto Rican authorities transferred administration of the electrical grid to a newly minted Canadian-American non-public firm, Luma Vitality. It promised to carry clear, dependable power to Puerto Rico after the state-owned Puerto Rico Electrical Energy Authority filed for chapter and Hurricane Maria knocked out the island’s ailing electrical grid.
[…]
Puerto Rico’s energy authority is now a three-headed monster: Luma handles customer support, transmission, upkeep and restore; one other firm, Genera PR, takes care of power technology; and PREPA stays chargeable for compliance and the continuing chapter course of.
Thus far, Luma has spent solely a small fraction of the a whole lot of thousands and thousands of {dollars} allotted for enhancements. At this price, it should take over a century to rebuild the grid — assuming no additional disasters. Plus, underneath a brand new federal administration these allotted funds may simply disappear. The labyrinth of federal forms contributes to delays, nevertheless it’s solely a part of the story.
When Luma took over the electrical grid, PREPA’s expert line employees had been compelled into contracts with lowered advantages. Some had been left with little selection however to switch to jobs mopping flooring or reducing grass for different public businesses. Luma changed them with an inexperienced crew led by executives who command extravagant salaries. They blame the island’s climate, vegetation, cats and iguanas for the fixed outages.
Throughout the latest blackout, posts like this one on X raised the problem of U.S colonialism:
What most information organizations don’t cope with or report on is “power” within the Puerto Rican political context. Puerto Rico has a unique political system than the mainland, with political events that had been initially organized across the standing concern. Elections usually are not merely “Democrats vs. Republicans.”
Though Puerto Ricans are U.S. residents by beginning, these residing on the island can not vote for president, like all U.S. “territories” (i.e colonies), Their “delegates” can’t take part in main flooring votes within the Home of Representatives. Throughout the vote for Home speaker on Jan. 3, Del. Stacey Plaskett—the non-voting consultant from the close by colony of the U.S. Virgin Islands—known as for change, noting that “This body and this nation [have] a territories and a colonies problem.”
It was good to listen to the “c” phrase used.
It’s obscure the complexity of points going through Puerto Rico with out understanding the historical past of these issues. A documentary detailing that historical past,“Disempowered: Puerto Rico’s Perfect Storm,” makes an attempt to deal with that problem.
Because the movie’s photographer, Roque Nonini writes:
Our movie, “DisemPOWERed,” finds no “natural” catastrophe, however as a substitute a “perfect storm” of debt disaster, corruption, manipulation by Large Oil and Wall Avenue, an electrical utility that was bankrupt earlier than Maria, and the burdens of colonialism that has left Puerto Rico with a dying financial mannequin and a legacy of heavy oil dependence.
From the YouTube video notes:
In September 2017 Hurricane María worn out Puerto Rico’s electrical grid, plunging 3 million folks into the worst blackout in US historical past. Roughly 3,000 folks died, and tens of hundreds lived with out energy for almost a yr. A filmmaker and an anthropologist teamed as much as inform the story of the basis causes behind the longest blackout.
The catastrophe revealed fashionable society’s profound dependence on electrical energy – for water, meals, healthcare, communication and financial life. Dis.em.POWER.ed finds no “natural” catastrophe, however as a substitute a “perfect storm” of debt, corruption, and manipulation by oil corporations and Wall Avenue banks. The US territory ’s electrical utility and authorities had been bankrupt earlier than the storm largely as a consequence of selections made by federal politicians. The ability imbalance of this fossil-colonialism left Puerto Rico with a legacy of heavy oil dependence and a dying financial mannequin. The battle between a renewable future and one among fossil dependency continues to play out on the island.The movie affords an necessary useful resource to college students, educators and the final US public for whom each the politics of power and the results of Puerto Rico’s territorial standing are poorly understood.…
Sandy Smith-Nonini PhD is a former journalist who teaches anthropology on the College of North Carolina – Chapel Hill. She does analysis on the connection of power and debt. Her publications could be discovered at https://www.researchgate.web/profile/…
Gov. Jenniffer González-Colón, the newly elected, right-wing, statehood-supporting former head of Latinos For Trump, has issued statements of concern concerning the blackouts.
And as Dánica Coto reported for the Related Press:
González, a Republican who backs President-elect Donald Trump and whose pro-statehood New Progressive Social gathering secured a historic third consecutive time period after she received the Nov. 5 election, has pledged to stabilize the Caribbean island’s crumbling energy grid.
Earlier than the beginning of a ceremony in entrance of Puerto Rico’s seaside Capitol to have a good time her swearing in, González attended Mass surrounded by household and supporters.
“What better than to come first to thank God and to ask God to give me the wisdom, the fortitude and the tools to fulfill everything I promised the people of Puerto Rico,” she advised reporters.
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In the meantime, a rising variety of protesters gathered on the Capitol earlier than González’s arrival. Protesting the ceremony was Yara Humarán Martínez, an aquatic bodily therapist whose 83-year-old mom stays with out energy.
“I don’t have any hope that she will change anything,” she mentioned of the brand new governor.
González has promised to nominate an power “czar” to assessment potential contractual breaches whereas one other operator is discovered to presumably change Luma Vitality, a personal firm that oversees the transmission and distribution of energy in Puerto Rico.
Nonetheless, no contract could be canceled with out prior approval from Puerto Rico’s Vitality Bureau and a federal management board that oversees the island’s funds.
Because the AP reported, González introduced the “energy czar” appointment Wednesday.
The nomination of Josué Colón comes days after an enormous blackout hit the island, leaving almost all its 3.2 million inhabitants at midnight as they ready for New 12 months’s Eve.
“Right now, we’re in an emergency,” mentioned Gov. Jenniffer González Colón. “Our electrical system is in such a precarious situation that anything can cause the power to go out.”
Josué Colón is at the moment the chief director of Puerto Rico’s Electrical Energy Authority however would step down if lawmakers approve his new place, which they’re anticipated to do in upcoming days. In his new function, he’ll supervise Genera PR, which oversees the technology of energy on the island, and Luma Vitality, which handles transmission and distribution
Environmental and power activists on the island need Puerto Rico to maneuver away from dependence on fossil fuels, and shift to photo voltaic and wind. That doesn’t appear to be what Gonzalez has deliberate, as famous by Jim Wyss for Bloomberg Information.
Puerto Rico New Governor Pivots to Fuel to Repair Crumbling Grid
When Jenniffer Gonzalez takes over as Puerto Rico governor on Thursday she must navigate one of many greatest power messes within the US. Her answer: Embrace fossil fuels.
Gonzalez, 48, is proposing the US commonwealth drop a few of its clear power targets in favor of utilizing extra liquefied pure fuel. A neighborhood regulation that requires Puerto Rico to have 100% renewable power by 2050, amongst different commitments, is just not solely unrealistic however damaging financial exercise, she mentioned in an interview. “We cannot continue to lose companies because of lack of energy, and none of them can work 24-7 in different shifts with just solar energy,” Gonzalez mentioned. “I believe that we should diversify our energy basket.”
[…]
Gonzalez’s proposals underscore a broader pushback in opposition to clear power.
President elect Donald Trump promised to prioritize fossil gas extraction and put an finish to the “green new scam” of renewable power insurance policies set by his predecessor. Different US utilities have been scaling again their carbon discount targets and delaying the retirement of coal vegetation.
Whereas pushing for extra pure fuel, Gonzalez mentioned she favors permitting particular person photo voltaic prospects to promote energy again to the grid. The coverage, known as net-metering, has led to a growth in rooftop photo voltaic installations in Puerto Rico nevertheless it’s being challenged in court docket by the federal oversight board who runs the island’s funds.
“I am very much in favor of net-metering,” she mentioned. “If you take away the only incentive people have, then nobody’s going to invest in solar energy.”
You possibly can learn extra concerning the FOMB risk to net-metering right here. An in “The Struggle for Energy Sovereignty in Puerto Rico’s Gubernatorial Elections,” Jaden Morales wrote for the North American Congress on Latin America:
All through her time period as resident commissioner—Puerto Rico’s non-voting consultant within the U.S. Home of Representatives—González-Colón has been a staunch supporter of utilizing methane fuel to gas the archipelago’s electrical energy. In 2018, she proudly stood beside Republican consultant Rob Bishop, then chairman of the Home Pure Assets Committee, as he relayed his plan to broaden methane fuel to rework Puerto Rico into “the energy hub of the entire Caribbean area.” This started to come back to fruition when the U.S. provide chain firm Crowley inaugurated a methane fuel loading terminal in Peñuelas, Puerto Rico, in Might 2022. González-Colón acknowledged the terminal would enhance the usage of so-called transition fuels, reminiscent of methane fuel. Based on a 2021 report by the United Nations Setting Programme and Local weather and Clear Air Coalition, nevertheless, over a 20-year interval, methane fuel is “80 times more potent at [global] warming than carbon dioxide.”
González-Colón’s bid, in league with LUMA and Genera PR, to broaden the usage of methane fuel undermines the 2019 Puerto Rico Vitality Public Coverage Act, which mandated Puerto Rico obtain 40 p.c of its electrical energy from renewable power sources by 2025 and one hundred pc by 2050. In brief, methane fuel growth threatens Puerto Rico’s renewable power future. González-Colón’s marketing campaign donors embody Puerto Rico’s largest structure agency Álvarez-Díaz & Villalón, contractors of the luxurious vacationer growth Esencia in Cabo Rojo. This megaproject has acquired $497 million in tax exemptions from the Puerto Rico Tourism Firm, together with one hundred pc in tax exemption on fossil fuels. Such monetary incentives encourage these entities’ use of oil and hydrocarbon fuels like methane fuel.
For my part, the mess that’s Puerto Rico’s energy system is a direct reflection of Puerto Rico’s incapability to have energy over its personal future underneath its present colonial standing. We will see what the rise of the brand new political alliance on the island between the Puerto Rican Independence Social gathering and the Residents Victory Motion—known as La Alianza, and whose second placegubernatorial candidate, Juan Dalmau, got here in second within the governors race—portends for the long run. Based on the NACLA report, Dalmau introduced
essentially the most complete imaginative and prescient to revive public management over Puerto Rico’s power, promote a dependable and renewable power transition, and tackle the political corruption and debt accumulation that helped facilitate the present power disaster. The core function of his proposal is the adoption of the self-sufficient and sustainable photo voltaic power growth plan laid out by Queremos Sol, a multi-sector coalition of scientific, labor, and environmental organizations working towards enhancing rooftop photo voltaic power and an accelerated withdrawal of fossil fuels-based technology.
As of this writing, no information about what number of present outages there are on the island had been accessible, since LUMAs outage map wasn’t working.
Be part of me within the feedback for updates, and for the weekly Caribbean Information Roundup.
