Puerto Rico can become the first significant size polity to rebuild itself from the ground up to be totally Carbon free. Or at least, that seems like a good idea. If only the US Government wasn’t so anti-Puerto Rico, owing to the president being, well, Trump.
Anyway, there is now a pile of money and effort pouring int Puerto Rico and this can be used in part to give Puerto Rico sigificantly more economic and energy security in its future, if only energy-smart decisions are made now. So let’s see what Get Energy Smart Now blog has to say about this!
Puerto Rico’s electricity system, prior to Maria, heavily relied on centralized diesel power generation with above-ground power transmission: very high cost electricity, dependent on continued fossil-fuel imports, with great vulnerability to disruption.
Post disaster, thoughtful policy and efforts would seek to maximize value in the Disaster 4R chain: relief, recovery, reconstruction, and resiliency against future impacts.
Rapid deployment/installation of solar-power centered micro-grids to Puerto Rico is a clear example of a Disaster 4R.
Here are some rapid thoughts as to such a Solar Disaster 4R package.
Go HERE to see the bullet pointed suggestions which could ultimately lead Puerto Rico into the next era of energy planning and development. As noted in the bullet points of the post, the success and validity of any such overhaul is based on it coming from the Puerto Rican society, economy, and local population.
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An article on Reuters pointed out how a farm on Puerto Rico is back in business because of a $300,000 investment in solar PV six years ago:
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-puertorico-solar/how-solar-energy-saved-a-puerto-rican-farm-from-hurricane-maria-idUSKCN1C90CG
I believe that a certain amount of Puerto Rico’s water supply is covered by solar as well, with plans to expand that.
https://electrek.co/2017/10/05/elon-musk-tesla-rebuild-puerto-ricos-power-grid-batteries-solar/
Musk wants in
They should build a passively cooled nuclear power plant, to provide baseload power when it is dark and not windy.
They could install tens of thousands of solar PV and battery backup systems for the $10 billion it would cost to build a nuclear power plant and they wouldn’t have to have backup for when the nuclear plant is down for maintenance.
And on top of that Puerto Rico’s problem is far more with the distribution system than it is with the power generation. Distributed solar would be far more resilient than a single large power plant.
Don’t mistake rickA for someone who understands a rational argument.
I’ve been around here for a while so I’m familiar with the usual suspects. I wasn’t really talking to him. I’m not against nuclear just because it’s nuclear. But in today’s world it has to be one of the most expensive ways to produce power and they haven’t solved the waste disposal problem yet.