Renewable Energy for Puerto Rico?
Regarding my recent post: “Climate Change Will Eventually Cause a Horrible Epiphany: Certain Parts of the World Will Soon Be No Longer Habitable,” a colleague makes this suggestion about the rebuilding of Puerto Rico:
I have a former Coast Guard friend who works with FEMA now and went to Puerto Rico the day before Hurricane Maria to be on hand for what was expected to be a disaster. He says the entire island is dark; there is no communication system, and roads are so clogged with debris that a 30 minute trip takes five hours. Just now I thought that perhaps this is a good time to rebuild this totally destroyed grid for renewable energy. It would be a good microcosm experiment.
That’s a very interesting idea. There are island nations all over the world that have established microgrids based truly on remarkable percentages of renewables. FWIW, most of these success stories are made possible with grid-integration software called “Homer,” which was developed by 2GreenEnergy Associate, Dr. Peter Lilienthal.
But the issue with Puerto Rico is that there is no money for a project like this–or anything of the kind–due to decades of mismanagement and under-taxation of the rich, making this a special case.
The point I raised in my post is that most of these islands haven’t been mistreated as badly as Puerto Rico; their real estate assets are quite valuable, because their infrastructure is OK, 99+% of their people don’t live in poverty, etc. And even they are going to be in trouble when hurricanes tear their places apart every couple of years.
Of course, all this conversation about human suffering pales in importance when put in the context, i.e., the leader of the free world’s crusade to curtail the free expression of some of its athletes. First things first.
Craig,
Even when you raise some interesting and valid issues, you can’t refrain from including irrelevant political point scoring.
Puerto Rico’s debt has nothing to do with the rich not paying enough tax. That’s just plain facile.
Puerto Rico’s economy experiences the same problems as many small island nations, but the main difference is Puerto Rico has a confusing and relationship with the US.
The whole history of US colonial occupation of the Island has been one long litany of mismanagement, hypocrisy and corruption.
As I illustrated in a previous post, most of Puerto Rico’s economic woes are the result of conflicting US laws,regulations, and interference affecting the islands ability to manage the economy.
The US is, and always has been, a very inefficient, corrupt and hypocritical colonial power. Colonialism, isn’t really part of the American ethos, and the US does it badly.
The idea of rebuilding Puerto Rico as a showpiece of US clean tech engineering and renewable energy, is an exciting concept. Hurricane proofing (minimization)is also possible and the project would stimulate the US economy.
Of course, such a project would have to be carefully monitored and managed, kept practical and ideology free, but it’s certainly doable, given the resources of the US, and US corporations.
It’s a wonderful opportunity.
This would be an ideal time to also clarify the status of Puerto Rico.
The US certainly owes this much to Puerto Rico.
No one is restricting the free speech of athletes in the US. No one is suggesting changing the Constitution.
But the President, like any American is also entitled to exercise his right to free speech by upbraiding those athletes who decide a political protest is more important than honouring the symbol of their nation.
The defenders of that flag made the ultimate sacrifice to ensure US citizens freedom of expression. The President isn’t suggesting the right to protest be removed, simply condemning the use of the national flag to score an inappropriate political stunt.
These athletes are highly paid employees of their teams, and role models for many young people, they have a responsibility not to abuse that position. No other employees, on their employers time, and using the facilities of their employers, would expect to be allowed to undertake contentious political activity, so why should professional athletes ?
Professional athletes have many other, legitimate avenues, the media, especially TV is only to eager to encourage the use of their celebrity status to publicize their political beliefs.
More importantly, why shouldn’t the President respond ?
Lol re: my “irrelevant political point scoring.” You’re right; I try to keep a sense of humor, often throwing stuff in where, strictly speaking, it doesn’t belong.
Re: why the president should or shouldn’t respond to the NFL, I would say that he actually must respond. To do otherwise would be to miss an opportunity to enrage and thus galvanize his (largely racist) base. This is Trump’s only real talent, and I have to admit, he’s ferociously good at it.
Craig,
WTF ! Since when did defending the dignity of the national flag, and expecting appropriate behavior by highly paid employees become “racist” ?
Craig,
Hmmm.., perhaps you could explain what’s racist about respecting the national flag ?
But back to Puerto Rico, I would love to see a US restructuring plan which involved hurricane proofing, and clean tech infrastructure.
I’d rather not get to the “respecting the flag” thing.
What Puerto Rico needs right now is disaster relief. There are people living in sewage, drinking water that has floating cadavers and dead animals in it. The response to this catastrophe has been abysmal.
Craig,
“The response to this catastrophe has been abysmal”.
That’s very untrue ! The scale of the disaster, coming on top of the disasters on the mainland, has been overwhelming.
The response by FEMA and other government and private aid agencies, has been impressive. No other nation could mount such a logistically complicated response.
Too many personnel often only over-complicates and makes the organization of disaster relief to coordinate, and reduces efficiency.
The media provides very graphic, but simplistic, images of what’s wrong without providing any information of the difficulties for relief workers.
Disaster relief in Puerto Rico is not helped by a population unprepared and trained to assist themselves. Local resources are poorly organized or non-existent.
The local people just sit and drink water with “floating cadavers and dead animals”, while waiting for aid agencies to provide remedies.
All over the world this behaviour is a symptom of people who are badly led, badly prepared, lack training, education and local leadership.
It’s also a result of poor civic planning.
Craig, while these problems do exist, you are doing great disservice to the valiant efforts of FEMA, the US military, US government agencies and tireless aid workers.
For all his faults, The President has grasped the scope and logistics of the disaster to a remarkable degree. The praise for his comprehension and measured response is almost unanimous among the professional, qualified agencies and experts.
Sadly, there are always those among the media who are willing to sensationalize and exploit the misfortunes of the victims of such disasters for their own agenda.
I’ve worked on several disaster relief operations, In my opinion, most are poorly organized and relief efforts are often completely inappropriate and only add to the problems.
FEMA and the other US agencies have shown this time to have learned the the lessons of the past and are handling an unprecedented series of disasters with praiseworthy efficiency and professional dedication.
It might be more helpful if people not involved, and lacking training or knowledge of the difficulties, stop denigrating the valiant efforts of those actually in the field !
Craig,
Re-reading my post, I apologize if I sounded overly critical.
These events are truly heartbreaking, and I realize many kind, compassionate people like yourself find themselves overwhelmed by the scale of the tragedy.
Indeed, even hardened professionals are often traumatized by the scale of human misery.
I believe it’s important that disaster relief in areas prone to hurricanes, Cyclones, drought, bush fires, floods etc, be carefully planned, with every member of local communities trained and prepared to participate in civil defense procedures.
Local leadership, training and infrastructure preparation like designated strong/safe congregation areas are also important.
(My own preference is designing places of worship to include civil defense facilities).
Every dollar spent on prevention and preparation pays off ten times over in terms of efficiency in an emergency, and more importantly civic pride and self-reliance.