This Company Could Save Puerto Rico from the Second-Largest Blackout in History

3.4 billion hours.

That's the amount of energy that has leaked out Puerto Rico's mangled power grid ever since Hurricane Maria devastated the island last September.

The Category 4 storm, with 150-mph winds and 36 inches of rainfall that toppled 80% of the island's power lines and flooded its generators, has left the island in the longest and largest blackout in U.S. history.

It is also the second-longest blackout in world history.

The only event to have a bigger impact is Typhoon Haiyan, which pummeled the Philippines in 2013, where more than 6.1 billion hours of power was lost.

As of March 20, six months after the hurricane shredded the island, 7% of utility customers still couldn't turn on the lights, refrigerate food, or run water pumps.

The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers estimates that Puerto Rico would need 50,000 utility poles and 6,500 miles of cable to restore its power system.

But it's starting to look like the island's power problems are far from over...

Puerto Rico Goes Dark

More than 200 days since the Hurricane Maria, an island-wide power outage rocked the island last week.

According to reports, the outage was caused by a bulldozer hitting a power line while trying to remove a collapsed transmission tower. The company responsible was D. Grimm, a subcontractor for Cobra Energy, which received a $200 million contract to repair Puerto Rico's devastated power grid.

The blackout came less than a week after a major outage that affected more than 800,000 Puerto Rican residents.

And another one in February that plunged much of San Juan and the northern part of the island into darkness.

And a blackout in November that hit the capital just hours after officials had celebrated restoring 50% of the island's power.

What's worse, the island remains incredibly vulnerable to future outages.

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Even before Maria, the island was struggling with an aging electrical grid - a system that is 28 years older than the industry average in the rest of the United States.

"It'll happen again," Judith Enck, a former U.S. Environmental Protection Agency regional administrator responsible for Puerto Rico said. "And likely at that scale."

For Puerto Rico's 3.3 million residents, the reconstruction of the power grid - bottlenecked by bureaucracy, outdated laws, and potentially corruption - has been unbearably slow.

The U.S. Department of Energy had been issuing weekly reports on grid reconstruction progress, but did not issue a report this week and did not respond to requests for comment.

However, Bruce Walker, an assistant secretary at the DOE, told Congress recently that the repair bill for Puerto Rico's grid could top $17.6 billion.

The blackout is already the worst in U.S. history, beating out Hurricane Georges in 1998 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012.

But with the 2018 Atlantic hurricane season rapidly approaching (June 1), many are worried if the "new" grid - once completed - will be able to hold up.

On Wednesday, the Army Corps of Engineers testified that the rickety grids have only been marginally improved since Maria hit.

"It is not the resilient grid that we all recognize is needed, but it's in better condition," Ray Alexander, an Army Corps director who led the grid reconstruction, told Congress.

Fact is, Puerto Rico's power grid battle began long before the devastating hurricane hit.

Puerto Rico's state-owned power company, the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority (PREPA) has been in crisis for years, and its decaying electricity grid - with a fragile transmission scheme, little basic maintenance, extraordinary pollution, and out-of-date infrastructure - made the threat of blackouts common for millions of Puerto Ricans.

Furthermore, it speaks to the fragility of the overall U.S. grid as a whole.

America's Failing Power System

Right now, our electric grid is a brittle, interlinked system pieced together bit by bit over the past 125 years. In March alone, the U.S. experienced millions of power outages in the wake of four devastating Nor'easters, making it clear that the current grid is not only fragile and prone to failure, but also capable of completely disrupting our daily lives on a grand scale.

Made up of more than 3,200 utilities over 2.7 million miles of power lines, these power companies sell $400 billion worth of electricity each year. Regulators set the rates; utilities get guaranteed returns; investors get "sure-thing" dividends.

It's a spinning wheel that hasn't been updated much since Thomas Edison invented the lightbulb.

And as I've explained in Oil & Energy Investor in the past, that aging system is leading us one year closer to an energy crisis.

But a new breakthrough in energy grid technology is working to change all of that - and fast.

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The Key to "Infinite Power"

I call it the "Infinite Power" Nano-Grid, and it could take over a $6 trillion market, almost overnight.

You see, the technology is about to be commercialized by a small U.S. defense contractor and is already partially funded by the military.

But here's what makes this life-saving new grid even more exceptional...

On Jan. 5, 2016, the Department of Energy implemented Standard 90-1, which requires that all new federal buildings lower their energy consumption from the grid by 30%.

This matters, because the federal government is the largest owner of real estate in the country, with more than 900,000 individual buildings, all reliant on the national power grid.

Ordinarily, reducing their power grid demand by 30% would be a tough target to meet.

But the Department of Energy has a $29.5 billion budget for "advancing national, economic, and energy security."

And as you've seen, relying on our outdated power grid is a security risk in itself.

That's what makes this incredible technology so unique...

In fact, I've been in the energy business for 40 years, and I've never come across a company that could single-handedly save the U.S. power grid before.

Make no mistake, what this tiny Michigan company has created is an unparalleled feat of engineering.

It can be set up in less than 20 minutes with no technical training...

It pays for itself in as little as two months...

In fact, if this company replaces the electric system in 60% of new construction, which I think it will, their revenue could soar to more than $37.9 billion a year by 2020.

That would be a historic 38,901% revenue surge.

Think about that for a second.

That's the equivalent of turning every $3,000 into $1.1 million.

That's why I just released a special dossier showing my Micro Energy Trader subscribers everything they need to know about this unique situation.

And by clicking here, you too can learn how to get in on the ground floor - before mainstream investors become privy to this incredible opportunity.

The post This Company Could Save Puerto Rico From the Second-Largest Blackout in History appeared first on Oil & Energy Investor.

About the Author

Dr. Kent Moors is an internationally recognized expert in oil and natural gas policy, risk assessment, and emerging market economic development. He serves as an advisor to many U.S. governors and foreign governments. Kent details his latest global travels in his free Oil & Energy Investor e-letter. He makes specific investment recommendations in his newsletter, the Energy Advantage. For more active investors, he issues shorter-term trades in his Energy Inner Circle.

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