Why the Lights Are Still Off in Puerto Rico

[Chris]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DYWe1ATOzV8

[Don]

Good video. He had to get his digs in on president Trump but he didn't cut Hilary Clinton any slack either in his review of her why she is a loser book. :laugh:

[MisterVeritis]

The problem is corruption. Who runs Puerto Rico?

[Chris]

Don't really know. They probably came to power and riches by means of our meddling there.

[MisterVeritis]

Don't really know. They probably came to power and riches by means of our meddling there.
For some people, it is important to blame America as a first resort.

[Chris]

For some people, it is important to blame America as a first resort.

Watch the video.

[Chris]

For some people, it is important to blame America as a first resort.

Watch the video. And keep in mind Puerto Rico is part of the US.

[MisterVeritis]

Watch the video.
I did. The narrator barely mentions the massive corruption that PR struggles under and has for decades.

[Chris]

I did. The narrator barely mentions the massive corruption that PR struggles under and has for decades.

I acknowledged that.

I also added on edit that PR is part of the US, so there can be blaming no one but the US.

[Peter1469]

They need an entirely new grid.

[MisterVeritis]

I acknowledged that.
I also added on edit that PR is part of the US, so there can be blaming no one but the US.
They can blame themselves. Victims everywhere. You are an enabler.

[waltky]

PR havin' to pull itself up by it's bootstraps...


What Puerto Rico Is Doing to Get Power Back After Storm
20 Oct.`17 - Electrical linemen descend from helicopters, balancing on steel girders 90 feet high on transmission towers in the mountains of central Puerto Rico, far from any road. At the same time, crews fan out across the battered island, erecting light poles and power lines in a block by block slog.


A month after Hurricane Maria rolled across the center of Puerto Rico, the power is still out for the vast majority of people on the island as the work to restore hundreds of miles of transmission lines and thousands of miles of distribution lines grinds on for crews toiling under a blazing tropical sun. And it won't get done soon without more workers, more equipment and more money, according to everyone involved in the effort. 'It's too much for us alone,' Nelson Velez, a regional director for the Puerto Rican power authority, said as he supervised crews working along a busy street in Isla Verde, just east of San Juan, on a recent afternoon. 'We have just so many, so many areas affected.'


The office of Gov. Ricardo Rossello said Thursday that about 20 percent of the island has service and he has pledged to get that to 95 percent by December 31. For now, though, most of the island's 3.4 million people suffer without air conditioning or basic necessities. Many have resorted to using washboards, now frequently seen for sale along the side of the road, to clean clothes, and sleeping on their balconies and flocking to any open restaurants for relief from daytime temperatures above 90 degrees. 'I thought we would we have power in the metro area by now,' said Pablo Martinez, an air conditioning technician, shaking his head in frustration.



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Hurricane Maria, which caused at least 49 deaths on the island, made landfall on the southeastern coast near Yabucoa as a Category 4 storm, with maximum sustained winds of about 154 mph (248 kph). It passed out of the territory about 12 hours later near Barceloneta in the north, still with sustained winds of about 115 mph (185 kph). The onslaught was sufficient to knock down hundreds of transmission towers and thousands of distribution poles and lines.


The storm's path was ideal for taking down the entire grid. Most of Puerto Rico's generating capacity is along the southern coast and most consumption is in the north around San Juan, with steel and aluminum transmission towers up to 90 feet (27 meters) tall running through the mountains in the middle. At least 10 towers fell along the most important transmission line that runs to the capital, entangling it with a secondary one that runs parallel and that lost about two dozen towers in a hard-to-reach area in the center of the island. 'It reminds me of a fireball that just burned everything in its path,' said Brig. Gen. Diana Holland, commander of the Army Corps of Engineers unit working to clear debris and restore the grid, with nearly 400 troops on the ground.


MORE (http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/255097596/what-puerto-rico-is-doing-to-get-power-back-after-storm)


See also:


Puerto Rico Governor to Plead With Trump for 'Equal Treatment' After Hurricane
Friday 20th October, 2017 | WASHINGTON - Puerto Rico Governor Ricardo Rossello says he intends to tell U.S. President Donald Trump at a White House meeting Thursday that people in the U.S. territory want 'equal treatment' in recovering from the devastation left a month ago by Hurricane Maria.


Puerto Rico, a Caribbean island 1,600 kilometers southeast of the U.S. mainland, is still reeling from the storm's ravages, with less than 20 percent of the 3.4 million of the American citizens who live there with electricity and 35 percent still without drinking water. Ahead of meeting with Trump, Rossello said he will tell the president 'what our pressing needs are,' chiefly help with restoring hospitals, provision of more medical supplies, food and water and reconstruction of its infrastructure.



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The national government's effort in assisting residents in several southern states on the mainland recover from other hurricanes has generally won favorable reviews, but its Puerto Rico performance has been more problematical. 'We're in this together,' Rossello said. 'We need equal treatment.' He said cash-strapped Puerto Rico needs the resources to rebuild its already-shaky infrastructure, which was largely decimated by the September 20 storm. 'If we don't focus on the long term, we'll have bigger problems,' Rossello said. The contents of a damaged home can be seen as recovery efforts continue following Hurricane Maria near the town of Comerio, Puerto Rico, October 7, 2017.


Criticism of response


Rossello has been largely supportive of the U.S. government's recovery effort, but Mayor Carmen Yulin Cruz Soto of San Juan, the territory's capital and its biggest city, has frequently criticized Trump's response to the disaster. Rossello and others have justified the relatively slow response of the Federal Emergency Management Agency because of the logistics in reaching remote parts of the island. But Cruz Soto said, 'That is the most ridiculous, offensive explanation. The most powerful nation in the world cannot get supplies to [an island that is] 100 miles by 35 miles wide? They don't want to get supplies there. It's unthinkable that they cannot, so it must mean that they do not want to.'


Congress is considering $4.9 billion in emergency relief to Puerto Rico, which even before the storm faced $124 billion in long-term debt obligations and had filed for bankruptcy protection from its creditors. Rossello is also asking for at least another $4.6 billion in assistance for the recovery. Trump has voiced mixed sentiments about helping the island recover, saying the national government would assist it as long as needed, yet also saying that federal relief workers would not be there 'forever.' He visited the island earlier this month to assess the recovery efforts, at one point tossing rolls of paper towels into a crowd of islanders.


http://www.bignewsnetwork.com/news/255083978/puerto-rico-governor-to-plead-with-trump-for-equal-treatment-after-hurricane

[waltky]

G-men gonna get to the bottom of it...
http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/images/smilies/cool.gif
Source: FBI opens inquiry into Whitefish's Puerto Rico contract
Mon October 30, 2017 | Washington (CNN)The FBI has opened a preliminary inquiry into the $300 million Whitefish Energy Holdings contract secured by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, according to a source with knowledge of the inquiry.


The energy firm was contracted to rebuild the damaged electrical grid that was destroyed by hurricanes that struck the island. The Wall Street Journal was first to report the existence of the FBI probe. If the FBI's preliminary inquiry develops into a full investigation of the contract, it would join several other reviews of the contract already underway. It wasn't immediately clear what about the deal the FBI would be investigating. But members of Congress have raised concerns over the manner in which the contract for essential work to rebuild the island's decimated grid was awarded to the small Montana company. The Federal Emergency Management Agency has also raised concerns over whether the amount of the contract awarded was reasonable.

The company also has ties to the Trump administration. The company is based in and named after the small hometown of Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke, and the CEO is an acquaintance of the secretary. An investment firm that owns a major stake in the company is run by a donor to Trump's presidential campaign. The company, Zinke, the White House, and PREPA have denied any wrongdoing in issuing the contract. The Department of Homeland Security's inspector general said it opened a review of the contract after a CNN report highlighted the contract and calls from members of Congress. The office said it considers the investigation to be one of its high priority cases. At least two committees on Capitol Hill have also asked questions about the contract.

However, the FBI field office in San Juan would neither confirm nor deny an investigation.
Whitefish Energy spokesman Ken Luce said the company has not been contacted by the FBI. "While Whitefish is not aware of any such investigation, Whitefish is committed to full cooperation with any inquiry or investigation," Luce told CNN. "The procurement of the PREPA contract was at all times fully appropriate. Our focus continues to be on our work in Puerto Rico completing the work PREPA has tasked Whitefish to complete including the repair of the second major transmission line."

http://www.cnn.com/2017/10/30/politics/whitefish-energy-holdings-contract-fbi/index.html

See also:

Puerto Rico Power Authority Moves to Cancel Whitefish Contract After Plea From Governor
Oct 29 2017 — The head of Puerto Rico’s power authority moved on Sunday to cancel a controversial contract with Whitefish Energy, the small Montana company under scrutiny for the deal worth hundreds of millions to help restore power to the hurricane-ravaged island.


The announcement of the upcoming cancellation came just a few hours after Puerto Rico Gov. Ricardo Rosselló asked the board of Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) to cancel the contract with Whitefish during a news conference on Sunday morning. PREPA CEO Ricardo Ramos said during a news conference Sunday afternoon that he accepted the governor's recommendation and would be writing a letter to the board of directors "asking for a resolution that will allow me to cancel the contract," adding that the contract was not officially canceled as of yet. Ramos added that the plan was for Whitefish to "finish what they started," which was work on two transmission lines on the island. He added that he hoped to speak with officials at Whitefish within the next few hours and that the contract required a 30-day notice for cancellation. "Even if I cancel today it becomes effective in 30 days," he added.

Earlier Sunday, Gov. Rosselló said he was calling on PREPA to cancel the contract out of public interest. “In light of the information that has come about with regards to the contracting of Whitefish Energy and in the interests of protecting our public interests I have asked the board of the power authority to invoke the cancellation clause in the contract immediately,” Rosselló said. “There can be no distraction that alters the commitment to lift up the electrical system as quickly as possible,” he added in a post on social media. The governor had previously called for the Office of the Comptroller to investigate and audit the contracting process of the company by PREPA. The governor also called for the installation of a "special outside coordinator" in terms of contracts and purchases, "so that we can have more clarity in this process."

Ramos said he will follow the governor's suggestion and will move to cancel the contract. Ramos said that the move to cancel the deal comes after the controversy over the contract, but did not signal that there was anything "outside of the law" with the agreement. He added that Whitefish had been doing a great job but that political distractions had snowballed. Ramos said the cancellation will not stop any work the company currently has in progress, but could delay other grid-restoration efforts by 10 to 12 weeks. He also said it would cost PREPA additional money to demobilize the contract.

Whitefish Energy said in a statement Sunday evening that it was "very disappointed" that the governor asked PREPA to cancel the contract, "which led to PREPA's announcement this afternoon." "The decision will only delay what the people of Puerto Rico want and deserve — to have the power restored quickly in the same manner their fellow citizens on the mainland experience after a natural disaster," the company said in the statement. "We will certainly finish any work that PREPA wants us to complete and stand by our commitments knowing that we made an important contribution to the restoration of the power grid since our arrival on the island on October 2."

The company said it was proud of the work it had done and that in less than a month, it had "brought 350 workers with specific expertise in this task and were on track to have more than 500 linesmen on the island by this week if allowed to continue." "We only wish the best for the great people of Puerto Rico. We are very proud of our contributions to the island's recovery and proud of the tremendous work that our team has done under very challenging conditions," the statement added. The chief executive of Whitefish Energy, Andy Techmanski, told NBC News from San Juan on Saturday that he first made contact with officials on Puerto Rico through the business networking site LinkedIn shortly after Hurricane Irma hit in September — and not through any previous connections. He said he kept in contact with them through Hurricane Maria's devastation.

MORE (https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/puerto-rico-crisis/puerto-rico-governor-calls-whitefish-energy-contact-bee-canceled-immediately-n815396)

[waltky]

New outage hits Puerto as electricity begins to return...
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Puerto Rico hit with new outage as electricity begins to return
Nov. 10, 2017 -- Puerto Rico's electrical grid has suffered a new failure -- leaving thousands without power and less than half of the island will get it back Friday, officials said.


The failure in a 230-kilo-volt transmission line on Thursday, which was repaired after Hurricane Maria, changed power generation from about 40 percent of capacity to 18 percent, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority said. After Maria hit, 100 percent of the island had lost power. Thursday's failure came after significant repairs had been made and power restoration was nearing 50 percent. Why the north-south transmission line, running from Arecibo to Manati, suddenly failed has not been determined. Suburbs of San Juan, including Manatí, Bayamón, Caguas, Guaynabo and Carolina, were affected by the power outage.

PREPA spokesman Carlos Monroig said 42 percent of power is expected to be restored by Friday. The outage occurred on a transmission line repaired by Whitefish Energy, a U.S. company that received a $300 million contract, which was later canceled, to restore power on the island after the hurricane. Whitefish spokesman Chris Chiames said the new outage doesn't have anything to do with the repairs his company performed.


https://cdnph.upi.com/svc/sv/upi/1971510314156/2017/1/bb1ad60c78f793f4ed62b9177b4a05a4/Puerto-Rico-hit-with-new-outage-as-electricity-begins-to-return.jpg
U.S. Marines, left in the dark amid widespread power outages, conduct an assessment as part of Hurricane Maria relief efforts in Humacao, Puerto Rico

Natalie Jeresko, executive director of Puerto Rico's federal oversight board, told the House Natural Resources committee Tuesday that the island will need between $13 billion and $21 billion over the next two years to keep the basic functions of government operating. She said about 60 percent of Puerto Rico was still without power, tens of thousands of homes lack roofs and about 100,000 residents have already left the island.

The new outage came on the same day the U.S. Federal Emergency Management Agency announced it will airlift as many as 3,000 hurricane survivors who are still in shelters to the U.S. mainland.

https://www.upi.com/Top_News/US/2017/11/10/Puerto-Rico-hit-with-new-outage-as-electricity-begins-to-return/1971510314156/?utm_source=upi&utm_campaign=mp&utm_medium=5

[waltky]

Most of the island still without electricity...
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If The Developing World Can Go Solar, Maybe Puerto Rico Can Too
November 22, 2017 • With most of the island still without electricity, some Puerto Ricans are hoping to follow the example of developing world countries — and turn to the sun for power.


Puerto Rico is in the midst of the worst electricity outage in U.S. history. Most of the island remains without power more than two months after Hurricane Maria hit the island. Some Puerto Ricans are saying that the current crisis should be a wake-up call that the island needs to move to a less centralized power system — and that solar power might be part of the solution. In other words, they believe Puerto Rico should follow the lead of many developing nations where solar power production is expanding rapidly. Despite being part of the United States, Puerto Rico has electrical woes similar to those facing deeply impoverished nations in Africa and Southeast Asia. Hurricane Maria, which hit Puerto Rico on September 20 as a Category 4 hurricane, caused the entire electric grid to collapse.


But things weren't exactly in good shape pre-Maria. The transmission lines and power plants of the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, also known as PREPA, were crumbling due to a lack of maintenance. The rates it charged were higher than any utility on the mainland, yet still PREPA was financially broke. This summer the power authority filed for bankruptcy after failing to make payments on part of its $9 billion in debts. "PREPA has failed," says Arturo Massol Deyá, who lives in the small city of Adjuntas in the island's mountainous interior. Weeks after Maria hit, most of the 20,000 residents of Adjuntas are still without electricity. "The only people that have power are the ones that own their own generators.But from the government ... zero, nothing." Massol is a professor of microbiology and ecology at the University of Puerto Rico at Mayaguez and is on the board of directors of Casa Pueblo, a nonprofit community group based in Adjuntas.



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These solar panels were set up by Tesla at the San Juan Children's Hospital after the island was hit by Hurricane Maria.


And Massol is one of the islanders who still has power because he has solar panels. Massol and other activists from Casa Pueblo have been advocating for years for Puerto Rico to embrace alternative forms of energy. The group installed its first array of solar panels 18 years ago. Massol and others are saying Puerto Rico should use this disaster as an opportunity to move away from what Massol refers to as an "obsolete, corrupt model of power generation." Currently utility crews, FEMA and the Puerto Rico government are frantically trying to re-string electric lines and get power back across the island.


Casa Pueblo is pushing a program they're calling "50 with Sun" which sets a goal of generating 50 percent of the island's electricity from solar. "Engineers at the University of Puerto Rico have stated that if 60 to 65 percent of all the roof surfaces that we have in the island right now were covered with solar power panels, we can generate 100 percent of that demand energy demand at peak hours," Massol says. "So what we're saying is the potential is out there." But that would be a huge shift for Puerto Rico. Prior to Hurricane Maria, Puerto Rico was getting only a tiny percentage of its electricity from solar.According to the U.S. Energy Information Administration only two percent of island's power last year was coming from renewable energy sources of any kind. "The commonwealth has some renewable solar, wind, hydropower and biomass resources but relies primarily on imported fossil fuels to meet its energy needs," the EIA states in its latest profile of Puerto Rico.


MORE (https://www.npr.org/sections/goatsandsoda/2017/11/22/565917467/if-the-developing-world-can-go-solar-maybe-puerto-rico-can-too)


See also:


Earth Is Lit, And That's A Problem
November 22, 2017 • Over the last five years, global light pollution has increased nearly 10 percent, a new study shows, The fastest rise occurred in developing nations.


The ever-widening use of artificial lights is making the nighttime Earth glow increasingly brighter, with the amount of global light growing about 2 percent each year. That worries advocates for the protection of dark skies, who say that artificial night glow can affect wildlife like migrating birds and keeps people from connecting to the stars. What's more, they say, all that wasted light sent out into space is effectively wasted money. The findings are in a new study in the journal Science Advances that used five years of data from a satellite launched in 2011. This satellite has an instrument that gives scientists a more reliable way to measure nighttime light than they've had in the past. "The areas that are getting brighter rapidly are developing countries," says Christopher Kyba, a researcher at the German Research Centre for Geosciences in Potsdam. "So a lot of places in South America, Africa and Asia are brightening really, really rapidly, up to 10 percent or more per year, even, in some cases."



https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/11/22/earth-at-night-1_custom-95e0f2215185f02a86521c3b7db4681df85393b1-s800-c85.jpg
Astronauts aboard the International Space Station took this image of southern Scandinavia lit up at night. A green aurora is visible over the horizon.


Only a few countries — like war-ravaged Yemen and Syria — showed a decrease. Some of the very brightest places on Earth, such as the United States, Spain, and Italy, appeared to remain relatively stable. With new solid-state lighting technology becoming available, some areas have started making a switch to LEDs. And because this satellite is not able to see all of the light emitted by LEDs, Kyba says the brightening that's actually happening is probably greater than what's been measured. "For the United States, for example, we don't see much of a change. But we know that a lot of LEDs are going in. And that means that the United States is almost certainly getting brighter, in terms of how people see the world with their human eyes," Kyba explains.


Some have suggested that energy-savings from LEDs will reduce the cost of lighting. But the researchers found that "as light gets cheaper, we use more of it, nearly proportionately to the rate at which it's getting cheaper," Kyba says. On a global or national scale, all this wasted light is expensive, he says: "It costs a lot of money to radiate that light into space and it's not doing anybody any good."



https://media.npr.org/assets/img/2017/11/22/paris-night-1_custom-093394f9c79365e6e0da878a24a6e6f39fa64a94-s800-c85.jpg
Paris, often referred to as the "City of Light", as photographed by astronauts aboard the International Space Station.



He and others argue that lighting efforts must be well-designed to reduce the amount of light going out into space while still providing a safe and comfortable experience for people on the ground who need to see at night. The rapid increase in night lighting has been a profound change, a kind of global experiment, that has happened in just the last 100 years. "My mum, for example, grew up on a farm in Saskatchewan, in a time before they had electrification," Kyba says. "So she grew up with an amazing starry sky, and now she lives, within one lifetime, under a very light-polluted sky."


https://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/11/22/565949539/earth-increasingly-looks-lit-up-at-night

Related:

Deputy Helps Native Puerto Rico From Houston
November 23, 2017 - Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Armando Aviles Jr. decided to hold a two-day relief drive at a Kroger in northwest Houston, an area he now patrols.


Armando Aviles Jr. fondly recalls the soothing sounds of "coquis" or frogs during the summers he spent as a boy in Puerto Rico. The memory of those sounds was a call to arms for the Harris County Sheriff's deputy after Hurricane Maria devastated his native island. Just weeks earlier, the deputy with the Harris County Sheriff's Office had rescued flooded victims of Hurricane Harvey in Houston. "They needed help, (and) I could get to them," said Aviles, who felt fortunate to only suffer some minor damage at the home he shares with his wife and five stepchildren. When Maria hit, he said: "My family needed help, and I couldn't get to them."

Aviles' cousins and grandparents live in Aguas Buenas, but he had no way of immediately getting to the mountain town thousands of miles away. Worry paralyzed the deputy as he sat at home trying to figure out a way to help his isolated relatives. "I'm not rich," he said. "I don't have the hook up with big organizations. I can't call somebody and say, 'Hey give me a plane.' " Aviles grew up in New Jersey but spent summers in Puerto Rico, where he was born. He couldn't stop thinking about his family running out of food and living without electricity and water. The 35-year-old deputy decided to hold a two-day relief drive at Kroger on Highway 6 in northwest Houston, an area he now patrols. He's worked six years for the sheriff's office. As Aviles started putting plans into place, he asked the area Kroger manager if he could use the store to keep donations and hold the drive.


https://cdn.officer.com/files/base/cygnus/ofcr/image/2017/11/16x9/640w/OPED_JACKSON_COLUMN_MCT.5a16c05970a4a.jpg
Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Armando Aviles Jr.'s cousins and grandparents live in Aguas Buenas, but he had no way of immediately getting to the mountain town thousands of miles away. Worry paralyzed the deputy as he sat at home trying to figure out a way to help his isolated relatives.

The manager broke down in tears, confiding to Aviles that she, too, was Puerto Rican. The plan started to come together. Aviles spread the word on social media. He also partnered with another deputy who is an executive for United Sikhs, an organization that has been active in hurricane relief. In a moment of panic, he remembers asking his wife, "What if nobody shows up?" Instead, he watched Puerto Ricans from across Houston flood the store to donate whatever they could. "All these Puerto Ricans came out from different backgrounds, different jobs, even Puerto Ricans who didn't have any money. Puerto Ricans who are unemployed, children," Aviles said. "They came out and wanted to help."

Aviles managed to fill four 18-wheelers with supplies to send to Puerto Rico. They were sent to a warehouse in Miami and are scheduled to arrive by plane in Puerto Rico by early December. However, the deputy still doesn't feel like efforts are enough. He's heard stories of Puerto Ricans burying loved ones in backyards and tales of hospitals with no electricity. He hears about islanders with diabetes who have run out of insulin. Plans swim around in the head of Aviles, who set up a GoFundMe to help raise more money for supplies. He's also searching for families from Puerto Rico who relocated to Houston in the wake of Maria and are in need of food for Thanksgiving. He dreams of holding a local Christmas toy drive for Puerto Rican children. He wrestles with the reality that there's always more he could do. "You know, you can't get to everybody, as bad as you want to," he said.

https://www.officer.com/command-hq/supplies-services/public-awareness/news/20983353/harris-county-sheriffs-deputy-armando-aviles-jr-helps-native-puerto-rico-from-houston

[Peter1469]

They are broke. Currently in bankruptcy proceedings.


Most of the island still without electricity...
http://www.politicalwrinkles.com/images/smilies/eek.gif

If The Developing World Can Go Solar, Maybe Puerto Rico Can Too
November 22, 2017 • With most of the island still without electricity, some Puerto Ricans are hoping to follow the example of developing world countries — and turn to the sun for power.



See also:


Earth Is Lit, And That's A Problem
November 22, 2017 • Over the last five years, global light pollution has increased nearly 10 percent, a new study shows, The fastest rise occurred in developing nations.


Related:

Deputy Helps Native Puerto Rico From Houston
November 23, 2017 - Harris County Sheriff's Deputy Armando Aviles Jr. decided to hold a two-day relief drive at a Kroger in northwest Houston, an area he now patrols.