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“Power,” within the Puerto Rican context, has at present been within the headlines once more after the large blackout there on New Yr’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 considered one of many—although not all have been island-wide. As a result of the latest one happened on a vacation, it received a lot 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 regulate its personal future. Although it elects its personal governor and has a non-voting consultant within the U.S. Congress, ultimate choices 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 coated the ability difficulty 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 vitality 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 Instances 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 deliver clear, dependable vitality 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 vitality technology; and PREPA stays answerable for compliance and the continuing chapter course of.
To this point, Luma has spent solely a small fraction of the lots of of thousands and thousands of {dollars} allotted for enhancements. At this price, it is going to take over a century to rebuild the grid — assuming no additional disasters. Plus, beneath a brand new federal administration these allotted funds might simply disappear. The labyrinth of federal forms contributes to delays, however it’s solely a part of the story.
When Luma took over the electrical grid, PREPA’s expert line staff have been pressured into contracts with diminished advantages. Some have been left with little alternative however to switch to jobs mopping flooring or chopping grass for different public companies. Luma changed them with an inexperienced staff 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 difficulty of U.S colonialism:
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The brutality of US colonialism:
The US imposed an unelected colonial junta on Puerto Rico that privatized its vitality grid.
Ever because the privatization, there have been fixed blackouts, particularly in poor neighborhoods.
90% of houses do not have electrical energy on New Yr’s Eve https://t.co/wZm3QCSeIx pic.twitter.com/tQLJbOKytf
— Ben Norton (@BenjaminNorton) January 1, 2025
Although Puerto Ricans are U.S. residents by delivery, these residing on the island can’t vote for president, like all U.S. “territories” (i.e colonies), Their “delegates” can’t take part in main ground 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—referred to 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.
x
Plaskett: This physique and this nation has a territories and a colonies downside. What was presupposed to be momentary has now successfully develop into everlasting. We should do one thing about this downside. pic.twitter.com/sG7a0iSrAT
— Acyn (@Acyn) January 3, 2025
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 handle 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 individuals into the worst blackout in US historical past. Roughly 3,000 individuals died, and tens of 1000’s lived with out energy for practically a yr. A filmmaker and an anthropologist teamed as much as inform the story of the foundation 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 firms and Wall Avenue banks. The US territory ’s electrical utility and authorities have been bankrupt earlier than the storm largely attributable to choices made by federal politicians. The facility imbalance of this fossil-colonialism left Puerto Rico with a legacy of heavy oil dependence and a dying financial mannequin. The wrestle between a renewable future and considered one of fossil dependency continues to play out on the island.The movie affords an vital useful resource to college students, educators and the final US public for whom each the politics of vitality 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 vitality and debt. Her publications may be discovered at https://www.researchgate.internet/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.
Puerto Rican Gov. Jenniffer Gonzalez Colon
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 gained 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 fun 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 instructed 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 vitality “czar” to evaluation potential contractual breaches whereas one other operator is discovered to probably change Luma Vitality, a personal firm that oversees the transmission and distribution of energy in Puerto Rico.
Nonetheless, no contract may 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 practically all its 3.2 million inhabitants at nighttime as they ready for New Yr’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 present the manager 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 position, he’ll supervise Genera PR, which oversees the technology of energy on the island, and Luma Vitality, which handles transmission and distribution
Puerto Rico New Governor Pivots to Gasoline to Repair Crumbling Grid
When Jenniffer Gonzalez takes over as Puerto Rico governor on Thursday she should navigate one of many greatest vitality messes within the US. Her resolution: Embrace fossil fuels.
Gonzalez, 48, is proposing the US commonwealth drop a few of its clear vitality targets in favor of utilizing extra liquefied pure fuel. A neighborhood regulation that requires Puerto Rico to have 100% renewable vitality by 2050, amongst different commitments, shouldn’t be 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 vitality.
President elect Donald Trump promised to prioritize fossil gasoline extraction and put an finish to the “green new scam” of renewable vitality 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, referred to as net-metering, has led to a growth in rooftop photo voltaic installations in Puerto Rico however it’s being challenged in courtroom 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.”
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 gasoline the archipelago’s electrical energy. In 2018, she proudly stood beside Republican consultant Rob Bishop, then chairman of the Home Pure Sources Committee, as he relayed his plan to develop methane fuel to remodel 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 said the terminal would enhance using so-called transition fuels, resembling methane fuel. In accordance with a 2021 report by the United Nations Atmosphere 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 develop using methane fuel undermines the 2019 Puerto Rico Vitality Public Coverage Act, which mandated Puerto Rico obtain 40 % of its electrical energy from renewable vitality sources by 2025 and one hundred pc by 2050. Briefly, methane fuel growth threatens Puerto Rico’s renewable vitality 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.
In my view, the mess that’s Puerto Rico’s energy system is a direct reflection of Puerto Rico’s incapacity to have energy over its personal future beneath 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—referred to as La Alianza, and whose second placegubernatorial candidate, Juan Dalmau, got here in second within the governors race—portends for the long run. In accordance with the NACLA report, Dalmau introduced
probably the most complete imaginative and prescient to revive public management over Puerto Rico’s vitality, promote a dependable and renewable vitality transition, and deal with the political corruption and debt accumulation that helped facilitate the present vitality disaster. The core function of his proposal is the adoption of the self-sufficient and sustainable photo voltaic vitality growth plan laid out by Queremos Sol, a multi-sector coalition of scientific, labor, and environmental organizations working towards enhancing rooftop photo voltaic vitality and an accelerated withdrawal of fossil fuels-based technology.
As of this writing, no knowledge about what number of present outages there are on the island have been obtainable, since LUMAs outage map wasn’t working.
Marketing campaign Motion
