Venezuela blackouts from bad planning, drought

[naaman fletcher]

CARACAS, Jan 18 (Reuters) - A severe drought has forced Venezuela President Hugo Chavez to ration electricity in South America's top oil exporter, but underinvestment and shortsighted planning during an economic boom are as much to blame as the weather.

http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSN1816466420100118?type=oilRpt

[Better Today]

1. Yeah, like we can say anything about that at all without looking like

hypocrits. During our booms years we didn't improve our infrastructure in the least which lead to Katrina levee's breaking, bridges tumbling, and who knows what awaits us as we continue to ignore our infrastructure.

[MyNameGoesHere]

2. Funny thing about the power grids of

South and Central America, hell USA as well. THERE IS A PLETHORA OF INSTANCES OF THIS ALL OVER THE WORLD. Yes it is easier to pick on the boogie man of south America. Propaganda anyone?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

3. Really? Which other net oil exporters are having blackouts? n/t

[MyNameGoesHere]

4. Really?

You lost your google?

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

10. No, but apparently you did since you refuse to back up your claim with data.

I wonder why that is...

[TxRider]

8. Not blackouts, rationing.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

9. Look, you either have electricity at a given time or you don't.

Why the hell is a net oil exporter having to "ration" its supply?

[Bucky]

11. True. These are planned blackouts. They foresaw the screw up's consequences.

Good for them. It's still a function of a centralized command economy that you have more shortages and market distortions.

[Cessna Invesco Palin]

13. Having lived through the ridiculous so-called "California Energy Crisis"

I can tell you that a blackout is a blackout is a blackout. You can call it whatever you want. You can call it a glorious socialist sacrifice for democracy, but when the goddamn lights go out, the goddamn lights go out. I'm not even opposed to collective ownership of utilities, but at some point there needs to be accountability for the quality of service, and Venezuela has fucked this up royally for no particularly good reason.

Oh, except that no foreign entity will invest any money in infrastructure there any more, because the government will just appropriate it whenever it sees fit. That might have something to do with it.

[Bucky]

16. But the California blackout was also a result of a planned economy--planned by Enron

Collective ownership is not a command economy. It's not nationalization. It's just a diversified ownership of an otherwise free market firm. It functions a-ok (a good example is the Green Bay Packers--although not a utility they are in a unique monopoly situation which has not gotten out of hand in Green Bay but which has led to exhorbitance and corruption in other markets).

Accountability is what you get in a regulated free market (or in that rare free market that requires no regulation).

I think we're on the same page here. Venezuela is fucking up because of nationalization of too many industries.

[Selatius]

15. The idea that Venezuela is a command economy is itself a strawman argument.

Venezuela's economy is nowhere near nationalized. Certain sectors, yes, but the vast majority of Venezuela's economic output is in private hands, not state-controlled. The Soviet Union was a planned economy. Cuba is a planned economy as well as North Korea. Venezuela's economy could better be described as a mixed economy, combining elements of both socialism and capitalism, but nearly all nations in the world have mixed economies to some degree or another.

[Bucky]

17. But the parts that are fucking up--utilities, energy--are government controlled.

The country's nationalized industries are not being run well. This is the last country in South America that should be having power outages. I admire Hugo Chavez's ballsy anti-imperialist rhetoric, but outside of that he's an incompetant clown who's repeating a lot of the mistakes of the 20th century.

[votingupstart]

5. i am sure the US is to blame somehow..... just give him time - he will give a speech about it

that sarcasm button has to be here somewhere

[NoPasaran]

6. Must be too many members of the elite playing video games

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=view_all&address=389x7497567

[devilgrrl]

7. I had no idea that the state of California was on the same grid as Venezuela!

eom

[EFerrari]

12. Hugo Chavez stole my cheeseburger.

[struggle4progress]

18. Actually, I stole your cheeseburger. But I did that for your own good.

I can lend you another cheeseburger to replace it, but only if you promise to stop using a public water supply and to privatize social security.

[EFerrari]

20. LOL.

:hi:

[bridgit]

14. i fold

[JohnyCanuck]

19. Meanwhile, on the other side of the Atlantic....

The French blackout and the Byzantium delusion

by Damien Perrotin

The American press probably hardly noticed but southern France has experienced a major blackout around Christmas and in my own region – Brittany - local authorities have urged people to reduce their power consumption, lest the whole regional grid catastrophically fail. The lights are still on in the small Breton village I am writing this from, but it is probably a matter of time before they go off. No matter what nuclear power fans say on the other side of the Atlantic, French power plants are not aging well. They need more maintenance, and this takes longer. To make things worse, EDF, the French national power company has outsourced most of said maintenance to independent contractors whose employees are less paid and less well treated than its own. The result has been a row of strikes, which paralyzed operations and forced EDF to delay maintenance until the end of the year.

France, which used to be a major power exporter has now become a net importer and since the grid is undersized, this is becoming a real problem for those of us who don't live near a power plant. In Brittany, where the population has refused – and is still refusing – nuclear power, this has become a major political subject – we are nearing a regional election, remember – and local politicians are pushing for the building of a gas power plant on the northern coast. Another – built in a low-lying coastal area - will be put on line in a few days, but everybody agrees it won't be enough and that we are only a cold day away from darkness.

There is more to this than the failure of a short-sighted energy policy, however. It is not unusual, indeed, to see France, and its all-nuclear policy, proposed as a model for a supposedly oil-addicted and oil-starved USA. It is also not unusual to see Europe considered as a kind of new Byzantium, set to survive, because of its sensible energy policy, a doomed America.

Needless to say, this has nothing to do with the reality of the European situation. It is true that European economies are more energy efficient than the American one, but there are reasons for that. With the exception of the North Sea, European resources are long exhausted. France, the country I know best, has no oil, almost no uranium and gas, and as for its coal mines, they have all closed down. Moreover, its agriculture is heavily dependent upon fossil fuel... and European subsidies.

http://www.energybulletin.net/51208