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Cubans rendered powerless as outages persist and tensions with US escalate

34 points

by petethomas

1 hour ago

| past

| 6 comments

| apnews.com

| HN

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mperham

14 minutes ago

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The fossil fuel industry has stolen the bulk of Cuba’s income. Need to switch to solar and batteries to onshore your energy production. China could help here and get a big diplomatic win if they were to give Cuba subsidized access to their clean energy assets.

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giancarlostoro

35 minutes ago

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I have a coworker from Cuba, her grandmother still lives there, this has been going on for about 2 years. She had sent her grandmother a power generator thinking she could just buy gas, but when it became apparent that they have gas shortages, she bought her grandmother a solar based one, this was several months ago if I remember correctly.

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goda90

1 hour ago

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This really illustrates how important it is to switch to renewable energy. I know it's not an easy task for impoverished communities to get the startup capital to install solar+batteries, especially one in such a politically tumultuous position, but that really is a path to stability for so many people around the world.

A YouTuber known for talking about dishwashers and Christmas lights recently put out a long rant about how ridiculous it is that humanity still leans so much on single use fuels: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtQ9nt2ZeGM

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cosmic_cheese

55 minutes ago

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Extensive deployment of renewables and battery storage is perhaps the best thing that can be done anywhere (even in developed countries) for making the grid more robust. Not only is there no fuel supply to be cut off, targets become too diffuse and decentralized to take out quickly, especially if you can manage to cover 30-40% of cities with rooftop solar.

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bryanlarsen

48 minutes ago

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You can hit a solar plant with a missile, and it can be back in operation with a reduced capacity within a week:

https://www.wanhossolars.com/news/ukrainian-solar-power-plan...

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propagandist

52 minutes ago

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It also illustrates the importance of not getting caught on the wrong side of the global hegemon right next door who can choke you out and prevent you from importing energy and integrating with the global economy.

A lot of food for thought all around.

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mothballed

50 minutes ago

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That's definitely part of the equation, but the blockade has been over for a long while. They have suffered not only the brutal effect of US colonization/hegemony but also the brutal effect of the legacy of Castro's brand of economics. If they were just suffering one or the other, they'd be significantly better off.

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roumenguha

19 minutes ago

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Do you mean Batista?

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fulgencio_Batista

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user982

29 minutes ago

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> the blockade has been over for a long while.

What are you talking about?

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bryanlarsen

14 minutes ago

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The embargo was partially lifted in 2015. The article is about the effects of the re-tightening in 2025.

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user982

5 minutes ago

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> The embargo was partially lifted in 2015

And then reinstated in 2017. How has that been "over for a long while"?

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lstodd

55 minutes ago

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> At length I remembered the last resort of a great princess who, when told that the peasants had no bread, replied: "Then let them eat brioches."

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buckle8017

26 minutes ago

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Much of the developing world is close enough to the equator that solar and batteries just have to last a few days.

In most developed countries solar is seasonal.

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anonymars

4 minutes ago

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Solar is one type of renewable. The Nordics have done all right

https://www.nordicstatistics.org/news/the-5-large-nordic-cou...

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D-Machine

25 minutes ago

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Cuba is dying and collapsing, with this kind of issue being just a part of a broader systemic set of causes. It is a serious tragedy and humanitarian crisis. If people aren't aware of how bad it is: they haven't had reliable food and electricity for a while now, even parts of Havana and other cities look eerily like a ghost town, and it seems as if almost anyone that is able to has been fleeing.

"Compared to the peak of 11.2 million inhabitants reached in 2012 – the year of the last census – Cuba has lost 13% of its population. [...] A quarter of the island's population is aged 60 and over, and it is the only demographic category that has grown in recent years"

https://www.lemonde.fr/en/international/article/2025/04/30/c...

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standardUser

42 minutes ago

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I recall visiting Cuba during the second term of Obama (shortly after his visit) and seeing the various reforms that were taking place and feeling very optimistic about the island's future. We saw a lot of highly political art on display, ate at some of the first private restaurants, watched a helicopter explode overt the ocean as they were filming a Fast and Furious film, and went to a nightclub/art show event that rivaled anything I've been to in NYC.

In a sane world, we would be Cuba's largest trading partner and largest source of tourists. In that hypothetical world, the ongoing economic and cultural exchange would have propelled the island towards a different political system. Instead, we doubled down on an approach that has failed for 70+ years.

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logicx24

19 minutes ago

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> the ongoing economic and cultural exchange would have propelled the island towards a different political system

The blocker to this has always been the government refusing to reform. I don't see how increased exchange changes this. If anything, the Cuban government would've blocked any integration that threatens their control.

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giancarlostoro

34 minutes ago

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In that same world we have Puerto Rico with a fragile power grid. I'm not sure what the best course of action is for Puerto Rico, I am from the Island, and there's just way too many issues on the island, the biggest thing I do know is that the old tax incentives made the island thrive drastically. There was a point in time where Puerto Rico was as high up in terms of production quality as Japan, above the US itself. A lot of pharmaceuticals come from Puerto Rico, so much so that hospitals in Florida have shortages if the Island loses power due to a major hurricane.

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mothballed

1 hour ago

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It's amazing people are living on $6/month when even someone in Liberia or the Congo can make $50/month solving Captchas and only spend half that on internet.