The Debt/Energy Nexus behind Puerto Rico’s Long Blackout: From Fossil Colonialism to New Energy Poverty

• DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20911446
• Author: Sandy Smith-Nonini
• Published date: 01 May 2020
• Date: 01 May 2020
• Subject Matter: Articles

https://doi.org/10.1177/0094582X20911446

LATIN AMERICAN PERSPECTIVES, Issue 232, Vol. 47 No. 3, May 2020, 64–86

DOI: 10.1177/0094582X20911446

© 2020 Latin American Perspectives

64

The Debt/Energy Nexus behind

Puerto Rico’s Long Blackout

From Fossil Colonialism to New Energy Poverty

by

Sandy Smith-Nonini

After Hurricane Maria wiped out Puerto Rico’s electrical grid in 2017, its citizens

endured the longest blackout in U.S. history, some not regaining power until nearly a year

later. An analysis of the profound social impacts and health costs and the delays in power

restoration with a focus on the relationship between the U.S. territory’s debt crisis and its

“fossil colonial” past offers insights into patterns of manipulation by politicians, bankers,

and fossil-fuel companies that led to excess borrowing by the Puerto Rican public electri-

cal utility, contributing to a neglect of infrastructure and high rates for citizens during a

time period when tax incentives for corporate manufacturing were being phased out just

as oil prices rose to record levels.

Después de que el huracán María destruyera la red eléctrica de Puerto Rico en 2017,

sus ciudadanos sufrieron el apagón más largo en la historia de los EE. UU., Algunos no

recuperaron la luz hasta casi un año después. Un análisis de los profundos impactos

sociales y los costos de salud y los retrasos en la restauración del poder eléctrico, con un

enfoque en la relación entre la crisis de deuda de este territorio estadounidense y su pasado

“colonial fósil“, revela nuevas percepciones sobre los patrones de manipulación por parte

de políticos, banqueros y empresas de combustibles fósiles que condujeron a préstamos

excesivos por parte de la empresa eléctrica pública puertorriqueña, lo que contribuyó a la

negligencia de la infraestructura y las altas tasas para los ciudadanos durante un período

de tiempo cuando los incentivos fiscales para la fabricación corporativa se estaban elimi-

nando gradualmente justo cuando los precios del petróleo subieron a niveles récord.

Keywords: Energy, Puerto Rico, Colonialism, Debt, Climate change

Hurricane María swept across Puerto Rico on September 20, 2017, knock-

ing out power for 3.3 million residents. It was the end of the year before San

Juan, the capital, had power restored; roughly half the population had the

lights on by February, but a full 11 months passed before grid repairs were

complete in the mountainous interior. Counting time and people affected, the

blackout has been ranked the worst in U.S. history and second-worst in the

world (Houser and Marsters, 2018). A New York Times report captured the

Sandy Smith-Nonini is an adjunct assistant professor of anthropology at the University of North

Carolina, Chapel Hill. She is a political anthropologist with research experience in labor, health

policy, and energy and the author of Healing the Body Politic: El Salvador’s Struggle for Health

Rights, from Civil War to Neoliberal Peace (2010). Her current research is on the relationship of

oil-related debt, energy poverty, and global inequality, for which she has done fieldwork in

Puerto Rico and Greece.

911446LAPXXX10.1177/0094582X20911446Latin American PerspectivesSmith-Nonini / The Debt/Energy Nexus and the Long Blackout

research-article2020

Smith-Nonini / THE DEBT/ENERGY NEXUS AND THE LONG BLACKOUT 65

profound significance of the disaster, noting that after María, Puerto Rico “all

but slipped from the modern era” (Glanz and Robles, 2018).

In this article I use the case of the blackout to examine the relationship of debt,

colonial status, and oil dependence as Puerto Ricans struggle to design a more

resilient future in a climate-changed Caribbean where threats from giant storms

are the new norm. The research draws in part on a series of 32 in-depth inter-

views with island residents, scholars, policy experts, relief workers, journalists,

and advocates during three visits to Puerto Rico with a cinematographer in

January and July 2018 and April-May 2019 for production of Dis.em.POWER.ed:

Puerto Rico’s Perfect Storm, a documentary on the blackout.1 The key questions

for the project were how to account for such a long blackout affecting a large

population in a modern place that has counted on electric service for over 40

years and what the disaster says about the nexus of climate change, fossil-fuel

dependency, and neoliberal capitalism that we face in this new epoch of the

Anthropocene, in which the concept of “normal” weather no longer applies.

Most citizens of industrialized countries take the electric grid for granted.

Only in (usually temporary) blackouts does access to electricity climb into

public awareness (Rupp, 2013). Thus, social activism over electricity is rare.

But for rural Puerto Ricans, nearly four months without power reached a

nadir the day after my arrival in January 2018, when several hundred rural

residents protested outside Governor Ricardo Rosselló’s mansion in El Viejo

San Juan (San Juan’s Old Town). A dozen activists stretched a large banner

across the street that read “Sobre 100 días sin luz . . . ” (Over 100 days without

Figure 1. Protest over lack of electricity, San Juan, January 15, 2018. Photo Sandy

Smith-Nonini.