The Devil's Excrement

Hugo Chavez cut short his visit to South Africa, reportedly to take
charge of the electricity problem after last Monday’s blackout, but the
truth is that he came back early because as Venezuela’s power went on
the blink on Monday, reports came out showing a drop in the
Government’s popularity which was not going to be helped by the
nationwide power shortage.

Then, in an improvised nationwide TV address Chavez tried his old
formula of blaming the past, saying he is in charge and promising that
in three months the whole problem will be solved. Of course, the
deadline is right after the regional elections, just so that nobody can
say he promised and did not deliver before then.

And there is no way he can deliver, because his speech was a potpourri
of lies and incoherent facts, none of which are based on the reality of
the country’s electric grid. In fact, even the simplistic explanation
given by the Government, a sudden fault in one of the trunk lines,
seemed fishy as not everything on this side of the guilty fault
actually lost power.

The reality is that the bombastic energy plan announced in December
2006, has not been able to fulfill its goals for the electric sector in
its first two years, as most projects are still in the drawing board
and they are not even at the stage of ordering equipment.

Meanwhile, there has been little investment and maintainance since
1998. Chavez suggested that there had been no maintenance in the Tacoa
plant since 1981, but this was one of those lies he delivered with a
straight face, which had no foundation, Tacoa was built in 1978 and
suffered a fire in 1982 that required major repairs.

And a similar charge about Guri holds no water (yes, it’s a pun), as
without Guri the problem would be quite severe. Chavez also lied about
Caruache, which he says was in shambles when he arrived in 1998.
Nothing further from the truth, the Caruache plant was on schedule in
1997.

As an example, an engineer formerly in charge of Planning at Edelca,
which runs Guri, said that at the Planta Centro power plant, one unit
stopped working in 2000, another in 2002 and the remainder lines are
functioning at 50% capacity. Chavez suggested that one of the units in
Planta Centro was going on line as if he had bought it and delivered it
as part of investment under him, but the truth is that this unit broke
down and has finally been fixed.

Chavez mentioned projects, which are really not part of the solution.
He spoke of 32 projects but none are major and the one he devoted the
most time about, is a regional project with no direct link to the
national network.

The truth is that Venezuela has daily rationing of power and blackouts
are the daily fare in the interior of Venezuela This was the second
large blackout this year and Caracas, where blackouts were rare before
the nationalization of Electricidad de Caracas, has joined the country
in suffering from regular problems.

Like many other things in the country, the power grid suffers from too
much politics and too little management as military displaced
professional managers in the major electric corporations and
professional teams were disbanded. Add no investment and lack of
maintenance and this was another Chavez recipe for disaster in the
making.

Add a small emergency power plant to the future needs of your home. This problem will not be solved anytime soon.

This entry was posted on September 6, 2008 at 1:47 pm and is filed under Venezuela.