{"id":31721,"date":"2018-02-28T10:55:02","date_gmt":"2018-02-28T15:55:02","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31721"},"modified":"2018-02-28T10:55:02","modified_gmt":"2018-02-28T15:55:02","slug":"puerto-rico-hurricane-destroyed-wind-solar-plus-five-months-on-15-still-blacked-out","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/olduvai.ca\/?p=31721","title":{"rendered":"Puerto Rico: Hurricane destroyed wind, solar. Plus five months on, 15% still blacked out."},"content":{"rendered":"
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Puerto Rico: Hurricane destroyed wind, solar. Plus five months on, 15% still blacked out.<\/a><\/h3>\n<\/div>\n
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In South Australia, when the lights went out, Olympic Dam took two entire weeks to get operational again. Spare a thought for those in Puerto Rico.<\/a> Right now, five months later, and one in 6 still don\u2019t have electricity<\/a>. That\u2019s five full months of blackout \u2013\u00a0 surviving off candles, car batteries, small diesels and whatever anyone can get. Some people will be waiting til May.<\/a> Though that\u2019s \u201c95%\u201d connected, so still no joy or lights, for one in 20 people. How do you put a roof back on your house when you can\u2019t even power up your drill? (See The Atlantic<\/em>s photo montage <\/a>from January 27th to get some idea of what life is like, months after the storm).<\/p>\n

Puerto Rico has 3.6 million people, was poor and corrupt, with failing infrastructure and huge debts before Hurricane Maria hit on Sept 20th.\u00a0The government has a budget of $10b per year, but owes more than $70b. The hurricane wiped out 80% of the infrastructure, completely trashing some of the solar and wind \u201cfarms\u201d, and bringing down transmission lines.<\/p>\n

The remains of one solar plant:<\/p>\n

\"Solar<\/a><\/p>\n

\u2026<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

See the complete destruction here:<\/p>\n

Brett Adair with Live Storms Media<\/a>
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