Forgotten in the debate about the electric crisis are two decisions made by the Chavez administration which are key in understanding the current electricity shortage, independent of how many Guri turbines are out of order which is the real problem even if Chavez continues to blame El Niño for the gallery: The first one is the decision to halt the construction of four (not three as I indicated earlier) dams in the Alto Caroni and the decision to nationalize the private electric sector.
The Alto Caroni dams: The Alto Caroni dams was a hydroelectric project for building four dams in the Upper part of the Caroni River (Guri is in the lower part). The four dams were in an advanced stage of design and practically ready to be started when Chavze arrived in power. They were Tayucay (1.800 MW), Eutobarima (2.700 MW), Aripichi (2.800 MW) and Auraima (2.700 MW) for a total of 10,000 MW in ne generation capacity.
It was Jorge Giordani, named czar of Venezuela’s economy last night after ruining it for eleven years, who argued then that Venezuela had energy for 500 years and that the Alto Caroni was not an option that should ever be needed. Giordani, an electric engineer as an undergraduate, said that the environmental impact of these dams was too large and instead the Government should focus in the use of thermoelectric power plants that use gas. However, the Tocoma project in the lower Caroni was never canceled, it was delayed and it was not until 2006 that the bidding was opened to begin the excavation of the dam.
Chavez however did not cite this issue when he said it was the oligarchy (?) that wanted this project in the Alto Caroni, which would have increased our dependence on the Caroni are and saying imagine what a crisis we would be in because El Niño. Which clearly shows he does not understand the issue, first of all these dams would not exist as of yet, if Tocoma which was further ahead in the planning is not ready (2012? more like 2014), these would not be ready. But Chavez seems to think that it is the flow of the Caroni river that matters, not the potential energy stored in the water of the dam. Once the dam is filled, the flow is unaltered by the presence of the dams, in fact that is one of the reason why dams are built to save flow from the rainy season for the dry season.
The reason hydroelectric power is attractive is simple: Cost. The large cost in a hydroelectric plant is building the dam. Once it is over maintenance should be cheap (If you do it!). In countries like Venezuela it is even cheaper to bulid dams, because there is no ost associated with buying out the land.
There are typically three issues associated with the environment in building dams: indigenous populations, wildlife and water quality. Water quality is not relevant here as these dams are not used for drinking water. The usual problem is that building the dam alters the quality of the water and may deteriorate it. The largest history in building dams in other countries in terms of wildlife has been species which may become extinct and altering fish traveling patterns. The latter is once again not relevant here. The former is, but when Guri was built it was determined that there were no threatened species, the problem was more helping the migration of species present in the area.
However, thermoelectric power plants are also problematic in terms of the environment and long term imply not only a higher cost, but a long term fuel commitment, read less oil for export which the way we are going may become an issue soon in any case. (Mark my words!)
But in any case, the environmental record of the Chavez administration is simply abysmal, thus even if seem to have forgotten this argument, they can longer claim given everything they are allowing to take place in Venezuela, from the huge increase in CO2 emissions due to cheap gasoline, to gold mining to the Maracaibo Lake eutrification. Only in giving relevance to the problem of Venezuela’s indigenous populations can the administration claim success, even if it has been more hot air than anything.
(PS: There is a lot of BS with Caracas, EDC has capacity of 2,300 MW (or had) Caracas uses less than 2,000, thus bringing “barcazas” to Caracas as the VP said just means they want current power somewhere else.}
The Devil's Excrement 
February 17, 2010 at 8:27 pm
Short circuit inside the revolution
Venezuela is going through a grievous power –electrical energy- emergency but the so called revolution is also having difficulties to conceal it, while the motto “To stick to one’s hands” pretending not to understand, ignoring this problem isn’t paying any results.
Frequent black outs would reach even to the farthest country geography, consequently affecting its inhabitants. There’s no getting around it: government officials are definitely not ruling this South American country efficiently and again, back to the old tricks, they don’t attend their office duties, and clerks fail to come to work either for the well being and people’s welfare and to bring this country on the road to a fair progress and steady growth.
But wages these bureaucrats earn are justified since they support and secure Chavez president at office and of course at power. This explains vacant minister offices as public administration clerks abandon their jobs just to attend to campaign parades.
We would expect an outcome: the basic, elementary maintenance overhaul given to dams is neglected, overlooked and careless by negligent office clerks, who obligated to wear red clothes -men in red- are forced to attend to these parades -assistance is checked- even humiliated if refused, so Venezuela won’t get out of control.
The country’s infrastructure, communication, transportation, and roads, has become impaired, wearing out, causing damage to citizens. This is what has happened to power plants, despite huge budgets approved by president Chávez to deal with these problems.
In only just a decade, over 950.000 million dollar bugged of calculated proceeds without control authority or instrument have been handed out to energy board, without authority control, except for the ostentatious, showy governmental expense squandering. This has been augmented by the new attention, courtesy contributions and donations given for the sake of the Bolivarian Revolution to allied countries, plus purchases of obsolete weaponry for wars in non existing wars.
The biggest and only dam in Venezuela is “Guri” or “Raúl Leony,” once a major outstanding engineering masterpiece, and still is today, standing as one of the best in the world, lacks appropriate maintenance and safeguarding creating some problems along the years. So it shows the fact only half of total turbines working presently is responsible for 70% of power going to Venezuela’s energy necessities.
Nevertheless, 11 years since Chávez got power and enough resources were not sufficient to build more dams -or alternate energy plants. At the same time other ways for generating energy have been abandoned -like thermoelectric plants powered by orimulsion fuel. These latter depend greatly on oil -Venezuela has plenty of this- and would be much more manageable than depending on rain hazard.
The country is now under the worst leadership crisis, blaming others for the power shortage, ranging from “El Niño,” to blame the IV Republic, ruined by almighty chavismo, it has the government way out.
Everybody would question if too much power given to a president has been effective to solve Venezuela’s problems, or if random, hit and miss is the rule here instead. Venezuelans cannot accept any political project hat would let collapse public utility and risk the nation budget in arms and propaganda expenses on the rise.
Energy supply has been a hard trial for Chavez and his admirers, yet they have mismanaged these damned catastrophe. The only way out of this in resolving the current power crisis would be a proposal bound to execute and carry out new alternate ways to get Venezuelans out of the existing electric shortage.
January 18, 2010 at 2:01 am
Don’t forget that dams don’t put a continuous stream of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere, like burning fuel does. That could eventually become a real crisis. And fossil fuels will run out a lot sooner than the Sun will stop evaporating water from the oceans that will fall as rain.
As far as making animals extinct, how much of Venezuela will the dams flood? We must realize that we can’t keep increasing the Earth’s human population without changing the environment. What we should do is to try to develop the economy sufficiently, so that population growth will end. This has already happened in some developed countries. Without enough electricity, it will be next to impossible to get poor countries to such a high level of development.
If you like grand plans, Google ‘The North American Water and Power Alliance.” It might get built when enough people get hungry, if enough fuel can be found to do it. A lot of the American West deserts could be farmed if enough Canadian water could be diverted to irrigate it.
January 17, 2010 at 8:10 pm
Then maybe Venezuela needs a Conan the Barbarian instead of Conan O’Brien running the show. heh.
January 16, 2010 at 5:40 pm
With Miguel running the show….Export orchids, not brainz.
January 16, 2010 at 5:07 pm
But in any case, the environmental record of the Chavez administration is simply abysmal..
How can you say that Miguel? He gave a great speech at Copenhagen!
🙂
January 16, 2010 at 4:39 pm
Floyd: No thanks, I just don’t have the DNA to run even a small city, I can’t stand stupidity, like being at home and hate long meetings.
January 16, 2010 at 4:08 pm
This is one of the best written blogs on the internet. I think Venezuela should depose Chavez and put Miguel in charge!
January 16, 2010 at 1:20 pm
Putting one’s eggs in the same basket such as building most of your generation system on the same stream or the same watershed is a dangerous proposition, witness the collapse of the economy of Ivory Coast in the mid-80s when all their reservoirs went dry.
The best system is a mixed system from a reliability viewpoint so the construction of thermoelectric power station makes sense even if, unlike hydro, you have to feed those beasts. Considering that the construction of a 1,000MW thermal station can take as little as 18 months from the drawing board to Mr Chavez cutting the ribbon, there is absolutely no excuse for what is going on around here, in a country so gifted with all sources of energy. As they say back home “des perles aux cochons”, pearls for the pigs.
January 16, 2010 at 1:16 pm
Thanks, great post.
If only Venezuelans who don’t read English knew