Climate Changed
Forget the Grid of the Future, Puerto Ricans Just Want Power Back
The island will gladly take oil power over solar if it turns the lights back on.
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A month after Hurricane Maria devastated the island, power lines still lie slack along roads, utility poles are snapped clean in half, and most Puerto Ricans remain in the dark.
So you could understand why Cruz Maria Ramos Resto, a 50-year-old school cafeteria worker, rolled her eyes when asked if she supports the solar-driven “grid of the future”—the one that environmentalists, renewable energy developers and Puerto Rico’s government have been touting since Maria laid waste to the island’s power system.