Posted on 03/11/2019 1:45:09 PM PDT by catnipman
On Thursday, the San Geronimo B substation in the center of the country, which supplies electricity to four out of five Venezuelans from the massive Guri hydropower plant, went down.
No date has been set to restart the plant and most workers were told to stay home on Monday
...
Other experts, including Mr. Aguilar, said the magnitude of the blackout indicated the problem was caused by a major failure inside Guri’s turbines. A Corpoelec supervisor involved in dispatching Guri’s power said he was told by the plant’s managers on Thursday that the plant’s equipment was damaged.
...
Mr. Aguilar ... said the government has tried to restart Guri four times since the start of the blackout on Thursday.
(Excerpt) Read more at nytimes.com ...
There may be Russian or Chinese engineers flying in soon, but depending on what went wrong, they may not have parts even if one of them supplied the turbines and hardware in the first place. A lot of the gear in these plants is *specific* to that plant and only that plant due to vagaries of the installation and plant. Many parts are long-lead time, months if not years away from being ready to install.
Looks like the people who were skilled enough to operate the plant left, or disappeared and pointing guns at the janitors to tell them to restart the plant hasn't worked.
As I’ve pointed out, powerplant engineers, electricians, mechanics/millwrights, equipment operators, etc. do not grow on trees, and have skills that organizations in other countries will hire.
A “standard” thermal power plant is in the neighborhood of 1000 MW.
You hinted at it, but you didn’t explicitly call out that greatest of modern evils, CLIMATE CHANGE!
“Anyone notice that Bernie, AOC, Harris and others have NOTHING to say about the socialist failure of a rich country?”
And to keep that question from being brought up at the Democrat primary debates the DNC banned Fox News from hosting one.
Great post, thanks. Don’t have anything like your background, but enough to know I wouldn’t bet against that scenario.
AOC should go down there and tell them the wonderful opportunity they have leading the world as an oil-rich country but surviving without it.
Somebody called it a “ load rejection event”. Basically, a cascading catastrophic failure?
CC
Interesting.
Don’t expect some company to go to Venezuela to fix them. No sensible businessperson should go there to do any work. maduro has no respect for private businesses, and will just seize them and their assets.
Venezuela has oil. No sensible businessperson would set up a business there to refine it because he will just “nationalize” it.
He and he alone is responsible for the peoples’ suffering. I don’t hear a word from the American marxists who rejoiced at maduro’s election.
This is terrible.
I know someone whose family is there. The elderly members, the ill, the very young will die without relief.
She is devastated.
It is the end game in Atlas Shrugged. It’s eerie. Ocean of oil, and a blackout. Only in a communist country.
This is a VERY terrible situation ... but this is always the the end condition of socialism, just as predicted in “Atlas Shrugged” ...
But the majority of voters selected Chavez every time he ran and then voted for Maduro (at least legitimately the first time) ... this is what always happens in 3rd world countries where the majority are uneducated and are allowed to vote ... they always fall for the free-everything promises of socialists in exchange for their freedom ...
within one or two generations this is the condition our own country will be in due to the government schools turning out students ignorant of almost everything except for social justice warrior precepts ... it’s just a matter of time until the uneducated voters in this country vote for socialism ...
“He and he alone is responsible for the peoples’ suffering.”
The majority of voters repeatedly elected these socialist dictators (not counting the last illegitimate election) ... they ended up with what voters who vote for socialists always end up with: everyone destitute but the elite ...
[ Stone age life in a modern country. And still Maduro is king. ]
Yes, a country that’s been out of food for a long time (for a lot of people) and has them digging through garbage and fighting over it.
It’s beyond a Captain Obvious to say this will not end well.
Keep posting that good info
[Buddy, if 80% of the US was without power for 4 days it would be utter chaos.]
yep - that’s why I’ve been prepping for a long time - I’ve basically got (cheap) food and some drink - not enough drink (water / juice).
If a turbine breaks, trying to start it again without fixing or replacing it isn’t likely to make things better...
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Yup - you’re going to need a few more tools than a crescent wrench and a screwdriver to get one of those back on line, no matter how smart you are, or how much fuel you have available.
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