Power outage in Venezuela

[BestSSS]

Every day the situation in Venezuela is only getting worse and grows into a bigger conflict. On Thursday evening, large-scale power outages occurred in part of the country. President Maduro called it the"energy war". Officials of the country blame the opposition for all this, who attacked the power plant with Molotov cocktails and set fire to the power plant.
I can understand everything, but what people do sometimes just does not fit in my head. As a result of these blackouts, schools, kindergartens and hospitals were left without electricity!!! They do not have powerful generators able to support the equipment and therefore the sick, children and babies were left without a life support system!
Why people making evil think only about their interests. No one even thought about the sick and babies, but most likely without artificial respiration systems, many of them could just die. How to stop it? Why should innocent people suffer because of political conflicts?

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[e-coinomist]

Officials blamed a wide subset of possible actors. Your focus on collateral damage strikes out at least one possibility.
Doubtfull if an enemy state could have caused the outake by cyber attack, as has been claimed. Reason: Civilians.
Otherwise there has been that Isfahan cyber attack case.

Most likely on my assumption the cause might have been missing spare parts or fatigue or a lack of maintenance on crucial engines.

Opens up one question: How well would Bitcoin be doing under such circumstances? Cellphones and satellites?

[Jet Cash]

The Last American Vagabond makes some interesting points about the power outage in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fea61lqEWrg

Given the current tweets and previous actions by Washington, I'm inclined to believe that they commissioned the outage in an attempt to continue their ambition to force regime change in Venezuela, Nothing else seems to fit the probabilities and the facts as they emerge.

[TECSHARE]

The Last American Vagabond makes some interesting points about the power outage in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fea61lqEWrg

Given the current tweets and previous actions by Washington, I'm inclined to believe that they commissioned the outage in an attempt to continue their ambition to force regime change in Venezuela, Nothing else seems to fit the probabilities and the facts as they emerge.

Nothing else? So you find it totally unbelievable that their collapsing infrastructure everywhere else is an indicator of the state of the power grid? Nope the CIA burned down the power plant. I have no desire to hold water for tyrants and usurpers but this is infantile.

[Jet Cash]

Reports seem to indicate that the infrastructure in the US is in a greater degree of collapse than that of Venezuela. Washington has stated publicly that they were going to do it, and then shortly afterwards it happened. It's like all the fake rubbish they are pushing about their unwanted "aid" that just replicates the stuff that Russia, China,and the Red Cross are sending. Venezuela has so much aid that they are even giving some to Columbia, and that country is in a far worse position.

[TECSHARE]

Reports seem to indicate that the infrastructure in the US is in a greater degree of collapse than that of Venezuela. Washington has stated publicly that they were going to do it, and then shortly afterwards it happened. It's like all the fake rubbish they are pushing about their unwanted "aid" that just replicates the stuff that Russia, China,and the Red Cross are sending. Venezuela has so much aid that they are even giving some to Columbia, and that country is in a far worse position.

That's... wow. Just wow. You are way more unhinged than I gave you credit for.

[JetAid]

Having to resort to personal attacks rather than reasoned logic is more indicative of your myopia and insecurity. You should stop believing the Washington controlled propaganda news sheets, and stop to think about the credibility of the false reports they produce..

Here is a report by Max Blumenthal following his visit to Venezuela. You are welcome to attack me over that, but many of his points seem to ring true to me, and they fit many of the facts and history that I know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfD-7_kXs9E

[KingScorpio]

jes the energy war, means nothing less than venezuela being unable to pay energy related tech workers with "their money"

[TECSHARE]

Having to resort to personal attacks rather than reasoned logic is more indicative of your myopia and insecurity. You should stop believing the Washington controlled propaganda news sheets, and stop to think about the credibility of the false reports they produce..

Here is a report by Max Blumenthal following his visit to Venezuela. You are welcome to attack me over that, but many of his points seem to ring true to me, and they fit many of the facts and history that I know.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WfD-7_kXs9E

Sorry but when you say something as retarded as the USA's energy grid is just as deteriorated or worse than Venezuela's, you kind of are begging for it. That is beyond retarded and you deserve to be called out for it. You make the mistake of believing that if I don't drink down your version of horse shit I must be drinking Washington's horse shit. That's not how it works, maybe for you... not for me.

[coins4commies]

Well the US is a big country and since all resources are distributed based on extreme inequality, we end up with the best and worst of everything. Jetcash statement would not apply to well-off areas but its definitely a reasonable point if you consider underserved areas within the US for your comparison.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/15/17692414/puerto-rico-power-electricity-restored-hurricane-maria
Just for perspective, Puerto Rico was without power for 11 months and it was largely due to the poor shape of the grid infrastructure before Maria. I think its safe to say it was in worse shape.

How’d they get that way? As an invaluable article in IEEE Spectrum points out, tax incentives in the 1970s induced mainland US companies to build factories in the southern part of the island, so Prepa built generating facilities there. In 1996 the tax break expired and the factories left. So today, 70 percent of Puerto Rico’s population lives in the north, around San Juan, and 70 percent of the power generation is in the south. A fragile grid connects the two via tough, mountainous terrain. Scattered rural populations have always had a tenuous connection to that grid. Meanwhile Prepa, hamstrung by billions of dollars of debt, austerity measures, and possible corruption slacked off on maintenance. Hurricane Maria sliced Puerto Rico’s broken-down grid in half.

This has been what Knowles calls a “slow disaster.” Like the lead-tainted water in Flint, Michigan or a flood in Houston, the crisis in Puerto Rico came not as a consequence of one big storm but after years of well-understood neglect. “The standard logic has been, ‘we know, and that’s just the way our government works.’ So we wait for a disaster,” Knowles says. “But disaster relief funds are not up to the challenge of meeting deferred maintenance issues.”

https://www.wired.com/story/why-cant-we-fix-puerto-ricos-power-grid/

Also, keep in mind that Flint, New Orleans, and Houston have all suffered severe disasters because of poor, foreseeable infrastructure failures that we are sure were not due to any intentional sabotage.  

[Artemis3]

Every day the situation in Venezuela is only getting worse and grows into a bigger conflict. On Thursday evening, large-scale power outages occurred in part of the country. President Maduro called it the"energy war". Officials of the country blame the opposition for all this, who attacked the power plant with Molotov cocktails and set fire to the power plant.
I can understand everything, but what people do sometimes just does not fit in my head. As a result of these blackouts, schools, kindergartens and hospitals were left without electricity!!! They do not have powerful generators able to support the equipment and therefore the sick, children and babies were left without a life support system!
Why people making evil think only about their interests. No one even thought about the sick and babies, but most likely without artificial respiration systems, many of them could just die. How to stop it? Why should innocent people suffer because of political conflicts?

I don't know if Maduro changed his speech, but last i heard him (yesterday) they told the people it was due to a "cyber attack from US imperialists", as in, evil h4xx00rs. I'm the first one to point how insecure running SCADA system on Windows terminals is, but apparently this network is air-gapped, and protections simply engaged when a simple fault (due to lack of maintenace) occured. This of course cascaded the protections nationwide. Under normal circumstances, the (non operating) natural gas power-plants would have started and contained the situation, but alas, "socialism..." ruins it all.

I'm not going as far as to deny if this actually occurred or not, but that doesn't alter the facts, they have not invested enough funds in the State company and only unqualified low workers remain operating it, with whatever scraps they can find, because the socialist government in all its mightily central planned economy, neglects to assign the needed resources (foreign currency) in enough quantity and prompt time to the acquire parts and equipment that needs periodic replacement.

Maduro has abused this rhetoric, it is ALWAYS somebody else's fault, they are perfect planners and executors (NOT!).

And yes you have noticed that, almost no school, hospital or anything State owned has a proper (working) backup generator. Why? Same reason, everything has been rundown by negligence, corruption and abuse. At the same time they harass and impede private initiatives, either directly or indirectly via destruction of the economy.

[lobcmt2]

Maduro should not blame the terrible crisis in Venezuela, under his management over decades, on someone else or on external forces, such as U.S.
Over last two decades, under Maduro compromises, the nation has crashed in nation-scale, from financial, to medical, transportational, and other factors.
He should accept the fact that the crash of Venezuela is mainly due to his bad approaches, and he should be responsible for that.
What happened with other dictator, like Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi are very classic, valueable, and bloody lessons for him.
For current power outage in Venezuela, it has widely impacts on locals, lots of patients die due to lack of electricity supplies to essential medical devices, poverty has become worse, and violence has turned worse as well.

[TECSHARE]

Well the US is a big country and since all resources are distributed based on extreme inequality, we end up with the best and worst of everything. Jetcash statement would not apply to well-off areas but its definitely a reasonable point if you consider underserved areas within the US for your comparison.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/15/17692414/puerto-rico-power-electricity-restored-hurricane-maria
Just for perspective, Puerto Rico was without power for 11 months and it was largely due to the poor shape of the grid infrastructure before Maria. I think its safe to say it was in worse shape.

How’d they get that way? As an invaluable article in IEEE Spectrum points out, tax incentives in the 1970s induced mainland US companies to build factories in the southern part of the island, so Prepa built generating facilities there. In 1996 the tax break expired and the factories left. So today, 70 percent of Puerto Rico’s population lives in the north, around San Juan, and 70 percent of the power generation is in the south. A fragile grid connects the two via tough, mountainous terrain. Scattered rural populations have always had a tenuous connection to that grid. Meanwhile Prepa, hamstrung by billions of dollars of debt, austerity measures, and possible corruption slacked off on maintenance. Hurricane Maria sliced Puerto Rico’s broken-down grid in half.

This has been what Knowles calls a “slow disaster.” Like the lead-tainted water in Flint, Michigan or a flood in Houston, the crisis in Puerto Rico came not as a consequence of one big storm but after years of well-understood neglect. “The standard logic has been, ‘we know, and that’s just the way our government works.’ So we wait for a disaster,” Knowles says. “But disaster relief funds are not up to the challenge of meeting deferred maintenance issues.”

https://www.wired.com/story/why-cant-we-fix-puerto-ricos-power-grid/

Also, keep in mind that Flint, New Orleans, and Houston have all suffered severe disasters because of poor, foreseeable infrastructure failures that we are sure were not due to any intentional sabotage.  

Nope. Even that comparison is absolutely retarded. I would also like to point out those areas you pointed out are all Democrat strongholds for a long time. While I wouldn't quite call it intentional sabotage, it definitely falls under the rubric of corrupt leftist mismanagement, especially Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico only has itself to blame for its issues. Still none of these places come even close to the degradation of the infrastructure in Venezuela currently.

[squatz1]

The Last American Vagabond makes some interesting points about the power outage in this video.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fea61lqEWrg

Given the current tweets and previous actions by Washington, I'm inclined to believe that they commissioned the outage in an attempt to continue their ambition to force regime change in Venezuela, Nothing else seems to fit the probabilities and the facts as they emerge.

Like honestly Jet Cash I don't even know how you make this stuff up, nor how someone of your caliber of knowledge could think this is true.

Maduro is obviously going to try to sway public opinion by blaming the 'evil United States for attaking his regime'  Once I see some evidence to back that claim by the Maduro regime, then I'd be ready to say 'okay, that's fair, but until then I'm going to cast that bullshit away as propaganda by a hostile regime.

Maduro and his horrid administration have been able to be the cause behind hyper inflation, starving, an economy that has practically collapsed, little to no jobs, and so on and so forth.I don't think anyone finds it hard to believe that they also mismanaged the utility system and electricity is failing now. Surprise, surprise!

[markstivn98]

Every day the situation in Venezuela is only getting worse and grows into a bigger conflict. On Thursday evening, large-scale power outages occurred in part of the country. President Maduro called it the"energy war". Officials of the country blame the opposition for all this, who attacked the power plant with Molotov cocktails and set fire to the power plant.
I can understand everything, but what people do sometimes just does not fit in my head. As a result of these blackouts, schools, kindergartens and hospitals were left without electricity!!! They do not have powerful generators able to support the equipment and therefore the sick, children and babies were left without a life support system!
Why people making evil think only about their interests. No one even thought about the sick and babies, but most likely without artificial respiration systems, many of them could just die. How to stop it? Why should innocent people suffer because of political conflicts?

The situation in Venezuela is getting worse.
The simple requirements for life, such as electricity, have been banned from people.
 What is the real reason for this. Who is responsible for everything that happens.

[Waradlain]

Like honestly Jet Cash I don't even know how you make this stuff up, nor how someone of your caliber of knowledge could think this is true.

Good to know I'm not not the only one who notice that.

[Spendulus]

Well the US is a big country and since all resources are distributed based on extreme inequality, we end up with the best and worst of everything. Jetcash statement would not apply to well-off areas but its definitely a reasonable point if you consider underserved areas within the US for your comparison.

https://www.vox.com/identities/2018/8/15/17692414/puerto-rico-power-electricity-restored-hurricane-maria
Just for perspective, Puerto Rico was without power for 11 months and it was largely due to the poor shape of the grid infrastructure before Maria. I think its safe to say it was in worse shape.

How’d they get that way? As an invaluable article in IEEE Spectrum points out, tax incentives in the 1970s induced mainland US companies to build factories in the southern part of the island, so Prepa built generating facilities there. In 1996 the tax break expired and the factories left. So today, 70 percent of Puerto Rico’s population lives in the north, around San Juan, and 70 percent of the power generation is in the south. A fragile grid connects the two via tough, mountainous terrain. Scattered rural populations have always had a tenuous connection to that grid. Meanwhile Prepa, hamstrung by billions of dollars of debt, austerity measures, and possible corruption slacked off on maintenance. Hurricane Maria sliced Puerto Rico’s broken-down grid in half.

This has been what Knowles calls a “slow disaster.” Like the lead-tainted water in Flint, Michigan or a flood in Houston, the crisis in Puerto Rico came not as a consequence of one big storm but after years of well-understood neglect. “The standard logic has been, ‘we know, and that’s just the way our government works.’ So we wait for a disaster,” Knowles says. “But disaster relief funds are not up to the challenge of meeting deferred maintenance issues.”

https://www.wired.com/story/why-cant-we-fix-puerto-ricos-power-grid/

Also, keep in mind that Flint, New Orleans, and Houston have all suffered severe disasters because of poor, foreseeable infrastructure failures that we are sure were not due to any intentional sabotage.  

Nope. Even that comparison is absolutely retarded. I would also like to point out those areas you pointed out are all Democrat strongholds for a long time. While I wouldn't quite call it intentional sabotage, it definitely falls under the rubric of corrupt leftist mismanagement, especially Puerto Rico. Puerto Rico only has itself to blame for its issues. Still none of these places come even close to the degradation of the infrastructure in Venezuela currently.

Wrong question

Right question...

Why can't Puerto Rico fix Puerto Rico's power grid?

[LUCKMCFLY]

At the time that was given so much material to make dams in other countries, they had to realize at least that in the same country required to change systems, make maintenance to the turbines, and even, leave aside the policy to fix the problems internal.

He had to think about making or restarting many electrical systems in different states, before stealing money. Perhaps the consequences are being seen now, when they have let the best professional specialists go to other countries. If only they had thought about it, they would not have suffered so much global punishment, because that is a global shame, nobody with four fingers on their foreheads, will believe that there is an attack by hackers on analog systems that are not online, because not even the Internet service is of a respectable level.

[Artemis3]

Maduro is obviously going to try to sway public opinion by blaming the 'evil United States for attaking his regime'  Once I see some evidence to back that claim by the Maduro regime, then I'd be ready to say 'okay, that's fair, but until then I'm going to cast that bullshit away as propaganda by a hostile regime.

Maduro and his horrid administration have been able to be the cause behind hyper inflation, starving, an economy that has practically collapsed, little to no jobs, and so on and so forth.I don't think anyone finds it hard to believe that they also mismanaged the utility system and electricity is failing now. Surprise, surprise!

This is a fundamental problem of how "socialists" see the economy. Maduro basically insists economy is a capitalist lie that needs to be destroyed...

But the truth behind is far much simpler: Under Chávez oil prices soared, and they increased expenses. After that the barrel of oil price came down, that more or less coincided with Maduro's taking power, but he refuses to cut expenses, blaming it on an "imperialist attack".

See the problem is a socialist would "look bad" by cutting expenses (ie: "social" programs), only because there is less money now... I can't even begin to fathom how could there be people like that, let alone be given the reigns of power over a nation.

Duh! Less money less spending!

But oh no, "we are going to overcome this by sheer force of will" and overnight all State bank accounts have money from nowhere.., therefore hyperinflation ensued. Unlike classical "money printing" of history, this time they do it electronically. Which means there are no corresponding banknotes (forget coins) printed anymore, every-time they increase the money circulating, its done electronically, reducing drastically the amount of physical currency. At this moment it is estimated that only 3% of the Venezuelan bolivar exists in physical form.

Maduro last year blamed it all to foreigners "taking the banknotes away". But its a simple offer and demand situation, by having so little cash, the value of both (technically the same fiat) differs. And things become more expensive with electronic money than cash but few people has cash anymore. Among these a naive foreigner who would exchange a "small" amount (ie. 100 USD) is actually demanding 350,000 VES. A Venezuelan can only borrow from a bank 6000 per day in cash, often much less. The largest banknote is 500, so that means while a Venezuelan has to somehow survive with 12 banknotes the foreigner is already taking 700.

Note that the foreigner is completely innocent here, you wouldn't think in any country borrowing 100 USD would bankrupt a nation's economy, would you? But that's what hyperinflation does, induced when those incapable of doing basic math are put in power.

See? It is that simple. there is no money to pay wages, let alone do maintenance. For years people warned the electrical grid was in trouble, but they either didn't care, or accuse the people giving the warnings as "agents of imperialism", which is the only thing Maduro so far has spoken to he people, pure politic rhetoric, zero technical details in what is going on and what they plan to fix it.

I could also go on on how corruption makes things cost 100 times more to buy and take 10 times more to execute, if ever. A socialist government is a giant bloated State, with bureaucracy "enforcing" "controls" all over, all of this is corruption breeding. We are living "On a wing and a prayer" as that old aviation saying goes...

PS: Just had another 10 min blackout while writing this post... Had several of those yesterday, some lasting 30 minutes.