Dark Island PR
Puerto Rico is the dark island since September. We cannot get reliable information from the newspapers, from the government, from the media. I have lived in Puerto Rico since 1971 and am somewhat familiar with the PREPA system. Contact darkislandpr@gmail.com
Tuesday, March 5, 2024
Monday, June 6, 2022
Elantra milage
Drove from Fajardo to yauco this morning 112 miles 55.8 miles to the gallon.
Hyundai Elantra 2022 not hybrid, pure ice
First 10,000 miles averaged over 40 mpg
Monday, October 14, 2019
One of the interesting things to come out of this is that a lot of people who went all in on residential solar power are finding that it does them no good in an outage. Most of the solar systems are connected to the grid and do not have local storage. When the grid is down, so is the homeowner's residential system.
Kind of like what we found out about our windmills 2 years ago. Unless they have grid power for energization, they cannot generate enough power on their own to light a flashlight.
Speaking of windmills, the Naguabo wind farm is still dead. There seem to be no plans whatever to repair it. All the money in windmills seems to be in building them, not actually operating them.
Another scam on us long-suffering taxpayers.
NUCLEAR NOW!
Saturday, June 23, 2018
Saturday, May 12, 2018
22m PREPA Customers without light/ MWs of power on pier 4
http://caribbeanbusiness.com/senators-concerned-about-usace-exit-amid-puerto-rico-grid-repair/
Reporter Eva Llorens Velez says:
"Some of the senators noted that if Puerto Rico wants to be resilient and produce 30% of the energy with renewable sources, system redundancy must be in place. Bruce Walker, the assistant secretary of the U.S. Energy Department’s Office of Electricity Delivery and Energy Reliability, spoke at length about strategies to make the grid more resilient."
I find that most of the time "renewable" is code for solar and wind, although there are other renewable alternatives (nuclear, landfill gas, OTEC, waste to energy, cogeneration, to name a few).
Getting people to switch from electric to propane for cooking, water heating and clothes drying would save a lot of energy each year even though propane may not be renewable.
I've posted enough on solar and wind that I won't go into why they are bad ideas again.
Whatever else they are and are not, they are NOT resilient. Not in the face of a hurricane.
Udate on Sta Isabel Windfarm
I drove past last night and most of them were spinning merrily around. 3-4 were stopped but the rest were running.
So perhaps they are undamaged and/or repaired after all.
John Henry
Sunday, May 6, 2018
Open Thread
Have at it!
PRASA generator
Why does PRASA still have generators (and 24/7 guards) at pumping stations?
All three of these were running today and have been for months.
These are in rio grande, Luquillo and Fajardo.
Power has been restored at all 3 locations since jan/feb
Anybody know?
Monday, April 23, 2018
I drove through Guayama and drove up close to the AES coal plant. There was some steam venting but, looking closely at the heat plume, or rather the lack of a plume, it appeared that the plant might have been offline.
I also drove close to the Aguirre plant. Again, a bit of steam venting but not much of a heat plume.
In Yabucoa, at least 2 of the 3 gas turbines were running and, from the plumes, running fairly hard. Ditto the 2 GTs in Ceiba.
Santa Isabel Windfarm
Wednesday, March 7, 2018
A brief history of PREPA
This is a history of PREPA and its antecedents in the electric game. Interesting throughout.
https://www.elnuevodia.com/english/english/nota/historyshedslightonthepresentsituation-2390186/
Saturday, February 3, 2018
50mw factory nuclear generators
I've said before that I think we need to keep an open mind to nuclear power.
These modular nukes are built in a factory and erected onsite. Perhaps these or something like them is the key to acompact, hurricane proof and sustainable future.
http://www.nuscalepower.com/our-technology/technology-overview
Friday, February 2, 2018
Warehouse 5 fake news update
http://www.foronoticioso.com/fn/puerto-rico-department-of-justice-issues-report-on-the-prepa-warehouse-investigation/
There were no materials hidden in warehouse 5. It was fake news. I don't know who ginned it up or why but am happy to see it put to sleep.