VENEZUELA'S MASSIVE, NATIONWIDE power outages, which began on Thursday, have so far resulted in at least 20 deaths, looting, and loss of access to food, water, fuel, and cash for many of the country's 31 million residents. Late Monday, the United States said its diplomats would leave the US embassy in Caracas, citing deteriorating conditions. As the societal impacts intensify and Venezuela's internal power struggle continues, the country is clearly struggling to restart its grid and meaningfully restore power—a problem exacerbated by its aging infrastructure.
Reenergizing a dead grid, a process known as a black start, is challenging under any circumstances. But statements from Venezuelan president Nicolás Maduro, opposition leader Juan Guaido, and other officials have largely failed to explain details of what caused the country's outage or a plan for restoration. Government statements and reports indicate that the blackout stems from a problem at the enormous Guri dam hydropower plant in eastern Venezuela, which generates 80 percent of the country's electricity. And the already arduous process of restoring power seems hobbled by years of system neglect. It's also unclear whether Venezuela has the specialists, workforce, and spare equipment available on the ground to triage the situation quickly.
The article goes into a lot of detail about the technical difficulties of restarting an electrical grid that’s gone down. The situation in Venezuela is exasperated by years of government mismanagement and insufficient maintenance for the electrical grid. I can barely grasp what people are living through there. Food shortages there were bad enough, but lack of electricity makes distribution of water also a huge problem.
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