Puerto Rico May Be Partnering With Tesla To Rebuild It's Power Grid

More taxpayer money into Elon's pocket.

Next Tesla press conference...

Musk: "In the interest of 'doing the right' thing, we at Tesla agreed to provide technical support to the poor, struggling people of Puerto Rico so they can get their homes re-powered. Tesla is all about 'doing the right thing'. Now, some naysayers may say that the Model 3 production ramp up is going very slowly because the cars as being essentially hand-made at this point and that production robots are not functional.

To those naysayers, I would ask the public to cast scorn upon them because Tesla is doing God's Work re-powering Puerto Rico and the Model 3 will be rolled out in due time. Management's attention is 100% focused on Tesla's priorities and with the Model 3 in launch mode, some management attention will be applied to alleviate the great suffering in Puerto Rico as only we, Tesla, can...."

I can see this press conference coming from miles away.

In the meantime, there just might be humans with screw drivers, duct tape, and glue, gallantly piecing together Model 3's by hand so "all can look well" with Tesla.

You know, weird stuff happens!

There are places in third-countries where it's not cost effective to run telephone line, so these people never had telephones, like we did. They went directly from "no phone" to cell phones, in a single step. Yup. It was cheaper and more practical to install cell towers, and for people to buy cheap "feature phones" (not like the smartphones we're used to), than to install a landline infrastructure. That's freakin' amazing! Very few people predicted that would happen. Relatively few people in North America know such conditions exist.

Now readers know I'm no Tesla fan. I think the Tesla Motor Company is on shaky ground. I think Mr. Musk himself is somewhat of a "confidence man" (I nice word for a con-artist). I openly admit I have my biases, and they don't favor Musk or the Tesla company. But putting that aside, I can envision a weird condition arising, in which the disaster in Puerto Rico might demonstrate the feasibility of decentralizing electrical power generation. What if Musk's hair-brained scheme ends up having some merit? I don't know how this will pan out, but I'm keeping my eyes open rather than ridiculing it.

In the meantime, my hope is that the prez continues to support Americans (Puerto Ricans) and their devastated island, in the form of relief resources, aid, etc., rather than complaining that they "blew the budget." Americans in Puerto Rico need and deserve our help just as much as Americans in Texas do.

The roll-out of a decentralized electrical grid should not be prototype'd on a previously functioning large city-state where people are dying because potable water cannot be supplied and homes cannot be powered up because the pre-existing grid was destroyed.

The US Army Corps of Engineers and/or Bechtel would be a wiser choice to solve this problem.

Would you ask an EMT or faith-healer to perform an appendectomy on you, if your appendix was in the process of bursting?

mre30: I don't think anyone is saying "leave the power situation alone in Puerto Rico 'cuz Musk has that covered." Therefore, the risk you describe is not unfolding now, nor is it likely to.