Mooney, Chris. “Severe power failures in Puerto Rico and across the Caribbean spur new push for renewable energy.” The Washington Post, WP Company, 28 Sept. 2017,

www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2017/09/28/storm-driven-power-failures-in-the-caribbean-spur-new-interest-in-renewable-energy/.

 

Hurricane Irma and Hurricane Maria have largely destroyed Puerto Rico’s and the Caribbean’s energy grids.  These grids have usually failed due to the overhead transmission lines breaking.  In order to prevent damage in the future, these places want to rebuild their energy grids by creating more localized energy generation and storage.  This would decrease the need for electricity to be delivered in large amounts across great distances.  Because of this reworking, Puerto Rico and Caribbean countries have an opportunity to change their main source of energy that their electric grids run on.  At the moment, imported oil is the main energy source for these countries since these regions have no proven petroleum reserves (U.S. Energy Information Administration).  However, this is not optimal since oil has many environmental impacts from both extraction and burning of it.  For example, some countries use hydraulic fracturing to collect oil.  This process uses machinery to drill into rock and emit high-pressure streams of liquid, which causes oil to be pushed through a receiving end.  This high-pressure stream, however, cracks rocks, making them easier to move, and pushes faults further open.  This increases the likelihood of earthquakes.  Also, burning fossil fuels increases the emission of greenhouse gases into the atmosphere, which causes pollution and global warming.

Imported oil is also very expensive, and people who receive electricity from this source of energy pay a high price for it.  Although complete reliance on renewable resources for energy would be optimal, this is incredibly unlikely to occur especially because battery storage is very expensive.  Researchers suggest to have towns run mostly on solar power, but to have local microgrids ready to receive natural gas as a contributing fuel.  This would be economical, allow for less electrical grid damage from transmission lines, and be less taxing on the environment.  Also, when there is another natural disaster, each local area will have its own electrical supply.  This means that if one supply is damaged, only the local area powered by this supply would be in the dark; there would be no chains of outages.

 

“U.S. Energy Information Administration – EIA – Independent Statistics and Analysis.” Puerto Rico – Territory Energy Profile Analysis – U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA), www.eia.gov/state/analysis.php?sid=RQ.