ACRE
What to know about Cuba’s widespread blackout
HAVANA (AP) — Millions of people in Cuba were left without electricity for two days after the nation’s energy grid went down when one of the island’s major power plants failed. The widespread blackout that swept across the county was the worst in years.
Authorities have restored power to some people in Cuba’s capital, where 2 million people live, but much of Havana has remained dark. The impact of the blackout goes beyond lighting, as services like water supply also depend on electricity to run pumps.
People have resorted to cooking with improvised wood stoves on the streets before their food went bad in refrigerators.
Here are a few things to know:
What happened and why?
About half of Cuba was plunged into darkness on Thursday evening, followed by the entire island on Friday morning after the failure of the Antonio Guiteras thermoelectric plant in Matanzas Province east of Havana.
Even in a country that for decades has been accustomed to frequent outages amid a series of economic crises, the grid failure was unprecedented in modern times, aside from incidents involving powerful hurricanes, such as one in 2022.
Even as Cuba worked to fix the power problems Saturday, the country issued hurricane watches for the far eastern Guantanamo, Holguin and Las Tunas provinces as a tropical storm developed into Hurricane Oscar, the 10th hurricane of the 2024 Atlantic hurricane season.
A man drives his American classic car during a massive blackout after a major power plant failed in Havana, Cuba, Friday, Oct. 18, 2024. (AP Photo/Ramon Espinosa)
The National Hurricane Center said Sunday that Oscar was expected to produce a dangerous storm surge in parts of the southeastern Bahamas and Cuba
Authorities said the outage that began Thursday stemmed from increased demand from small- and medium-sized companies and residences’ air conditioners — as many as 100,000 additional ones this year alone. They also blamed breakdowns in old thermoelectric plants that haven’t been properly maintained because of a lack of hard currency due to U.S. sanctions, as well as insufficient fuel to operate some facilities.
Has this happened before?
While some homes have spent up to eight hours a day this year without electricity as the grid has grown more unstable, the current power failure is considered Cuba’s worst in years.
Officials said that 1.64 gigawatts went offline during peak hours, about half the total demand at the time. The government implemented emergency measures to slash demand, suspended classes, and shut down some state-owned workplaces and canceled non-essential services.
Another major collapse occurred two years ago after Hurricane Ian, an intense Category 3 storm, damaged power installations and the government took days to fix them.
Any political consequences?
It’s unknown how Cubans will react if the current blackout endures or recurs.
But problems in the electrical grid have helped sparked street protests several times in recent years, including large demonstrations in July 2021 that led to international criticism of the government for its harsh response. There were also smaller demonstrations due to blackouts in October 2022 and March of this year.
Authorities now say changes to electricity rates for small- and medium-sized companies, which have proliferated since they were first authorized by the communist government in 2021, are being considered.
What’s next?
Officials said the state-owned power company UNE was using distributed generation to provide power to some areas of the island and that a gas-fired thermoelectric plant was starting operations.
Cuba gets its power from huge thermoelectric plants like Antonio Guiteras and some smaller ones, which require crude oil to operate. The country produces about half of the crude needed, but must purchase some of the rest on the international market, which can be difficult and costly due to U.S. sanctions. It has also depended on allies like Venezuela and Russia for cheaper fuel.
Authorities have been working since last year on a project to upgrade the island’s electrical grid through the use of alternative power sources. A project to build 31 centers generating solar energy is under way and projected to be completed next year.
“We are devoting absolute priority to addressing and solving this highly sensitive energy contingency,” Cuba’s President Miguel Díaz-Canel wrote on X. “There will be no rest until its restoration.”
____
Follow AP’s coverage of Latin America and the Caribbean at https://apnews.com/hub/latin-america
A reitora da Ufac, Guida Aquino, participou, nessa segunda-feira, 25, em Brasília, do 1º Fórum de Reitores Brasil-África. A convite do presidente Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) e do Ministério da Educação (MEC), ela representou a Ufac no encontro, acompanhada da pró-reitora de Inovação e Tecnologia, Almecina Balbino Ferreira. O evento segue até quarta-feira, 27, e tem como foco o fortalecimento da cooperação internacional em educação superior entre universidades brasileiras e instituições africanas.
Guida destacou a importância da presença da Ufac em um espaço voltado ao diálogo internacional e à construção de parcerias acadêmicas. Segundo a reitora, a aproximação entre Brasil e África por meio da educação, da pesquisa, da inovação e da troca de experiências permite avançar em soluções conjuntas para desafios comuns. “Temos histórias, identidades e desafios que nos aproximam, e a universidade tem um papel fundamental nessa conexão”, afirmou.
O fórum é uma iniciativa liderada pelo MEC, pela Coordenação de Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior e pela Associação Nacional dos Dirigentes das Instituições Federais de Ensino Superior. A programação reúne reitores, pró-reitores e assessores de cooperação internacional de universidades federais, estaduais e privadas do Brasil, além de representantes de universidades africanas mobilizadas pela Associação de Universidades Africanas.
A proposta do encontro é ampliar as relações acadêmicas entre Brasil e África, com a construção de novos acordos institucionais, programas de mobilidade estudantil, intercâmbio científico e cooperação em áreas estratégicas como agricultura, energias renováveis, mineração, petróleo e gás, setor aeroespacial, inteligência artificial e ciências humanas.
A programação inclui painéis temáticos, reuniões bilaterais, workshops e sessões voltadas à construção de novas parcerias universitárias. Ao final do evento, os resultados e compromissos construídos serão formalizados na Carta de Brasília do 1º Fórum de Reitores Brasil-África, documento que deve orientar os próximos passos da cooperação entre universidades brasileiras e africanas.
ACRE
Ufac conquista 3º lugar em hackathon internacional promovido por laboratório de Harvard — Universidade Federal do Acre
ACRE6 dias agoUfac realiza curso de turismo de base comunitária para extrativistas em parceria com MMA e ICMBio — Universidade Federal do Acre
ACRE5 dias agoUfac conquista 3º lugar em hackathon internacional promovido por laboratório de Harvard — Universidade Federal do Acre
ACRE13 horas agoReitora da Ufac participa de fórum Brasil-África em Brasília — Universidade Federal do Acre
ACRE6 horas agoProjeto de extensão seleciona resumos expandidos para publicação — Universidade Federal do Acre
Warning: Undefined variable $user_ID in /home/u824415267/domains/acre.com.br/public_html/wp-content/themes/zox-news/comments.php on line 48
You must be logged in to post a comment Login