This being a decent blog, I can’t repeat what I said when I saw them, that day with Harry, but it was something like, “what the fuh…?”
Harry was driving; we were on the highway to Ponce, the island’s second largest city. And right there, where Santa Isabel should be, was this:
Yup, 44 windmills in a plain between two mountains. Quite a cite / sight it was, and a bit difficult to overlook.
Yup, 44 windmills in a plain between two mountains. Quite a cite / sight it was, and a bit difficult to overlook.
“They’re completely worthless,” said Harry. “They’re not producing any energy, really. It was another stupid plan of your governor….”
It was a joke—OK, maybe the slightest of jabs. Harry favors independence, but fears gravely that I am a statehooder.
“I’m not surprised,” I said, “that it’s not producing any energy. I tried for years to get Wal-Mart to install windmills, and the sustainability guy told me there’s nowhere on the island with enough wind.”
Actually, if memory serves, the only place with enough wind was alongside of the expressway we were driving on. Cars moving at 65 miles per hour create a lot of air movement.
We had been talking, Harry and I, of the wonderful developments in Puerto Rico. The statue of Christopher Colombus, a monstrosity bigger than the Statue of Liberty, had been shipped off to Arecibo, a town west of San Juan, where it was to be erected. It had been offered to several cities in the US, but curiously, nobody wanted it. Could it be because it looked like this?
“Well, not every statue has to be beautiful,” I said to Harry. And he agreed: there has to be a place for diversity of aesthetics in our society. And went on to tell me that the windmill parts had been stored in his neighborhood, and that each blade was exactly one city block long. He even showed me the block.
“Well, not every statue has to be beautiful,” I said to Harry. And he agreed: there has to be a place for diversity of aesthetics in our society. And went on to tell me that the windmill parts had been stored in his neighborhood, and that each blade was exactly one city block long. He even showed me the block.
“There are two over at Bacardi,” I said, “and one sitting on the municipal dump.”
Right, so Harry had to tell me the story on that.
The governor, wanting to promote this excellent scheme, had erected the windmill on the dump, and they had all watched breathlessly for the majestic white—symbolic for clean and renewable—blades to spin. They were as still as corpses.
Well, that was a problem, but not for long, and not for our governor. What did he do? Rigged it up with electricity, and we now have, as Harry explained it, an enormous fan slowly twirling in public view. See? Instead of producing any energy, it is in fact consuming it….
This made perfect sense, in a tropical sort of way; it was a precise example of a previous, also statehood, governor’s campaign motto: “¿Problema? ¡Resuelto!”
(Problem? Fixed!)
Well, it was a thing to know about, so I looked it up, after I got home. And found that a company, Pattern Energy, had invested 215 million bucks into this project, and were intending to sell the power company 95 MW, enough to power 33 thousand homes.
Yes, and this would be a savings of $13,000 per hour for the company, and thus for us!
Well, the news came out, a week ago. The windmills have been stopped, for the time being. And why? It seems that the turbines have an unfortunate habit—the blades are flying off. So, shut down until further notice.
Fear not, Readers, that we will be sitting in the dark, reduced to rubbing sticks to light the fires to heat our food. For the new director of the energy company—for we have a new governor, so everybody has to change, even the president of the University of Puerto Rico—has just stated what Marc and Harry knew that day in September.
There’s no wind.
The project, in fact, generates all of 3% of the energy on the island. And the turbines are working at only 20% of capacity, not the 40%-50% that is expected. So Pattern Energy, “one of North America’s leading independent wind and transmission companies,” according to their website, has just stuck in $215,000,000 to Puerto Rico, and is getting back…
The project, in fact, generates all of 3% of the energy on the island. And the turbines are working at only 20% of capacity, not the 40%-50% that is expected. So Pattern Energy, “one of North America’s leading independent wind and transmission companies,” according to their website, has just stuck in $215,000,000 to Puerto Rico, and is getting back…
…what?
“Did García Márquez really say that about Puerto Rico?” I asked Harry. He knew immediately the remark; it’s part of Puerto Rican folklore. When asked why he didn’t write about Puerto Rico, García Márquez said something like, “they didn’t believe me when I wrote about Macondo, so they really wouldn’t believe me if I wrote about Puerto Rico….”
“Absolutely,” returned Harry.
Good to know. What would I write about, if I woke up and found everything normal?
