Cuba: The Collapse Accelerates

Less than three weeks ago, on October 10, I had a post about Cuba with the headline “What The Hell Is Going On In Cuba?” The post noted that it is difficult to get real information from Cuba, and that there had recently been almost total silence about that island from the mainstream media. But if one researched some out-of-the-way sources, it turned out that there is some sort of sudden economic collapse going on there. Besides economic production declining significantly, and pervasive shortages of basic goods, there was also information from a source in Spain (El Pais) that Cuba’s population had suddenly dropped by close to 20% over just the past two to three years. Moreover, the 20% who had departed were not randomly distributed, but rather were concentrated among those in their prime working years, meaning that Cuba had suddenly lost around a third of its working age population.

In the short period since that post, the collapse has accelerated. Just over a week later, on Friday October 18, Cuba’s electrical grid failed, causing a blackout of the entire island. Reuters reported that story on the day of the blackout:

Cuba's national grid collapsed on Friday, leaving the entire population of 10 million people without electricity and underscoring the precarious state of the Communist-run country's infrastructure and economy. Restoration of service is under way but long-term challenges will remain.

But OK, blackouts can happen anywhere. For example, Western North Carolina has just had some extensive blackouts in the aftermath of Hurricane Helene. Is this new Cuba blackout just one of those things caused by a sudden natural event, or does it represent something more systemic in the economy? Clearly, in the case of Cuba it’s the latter.

A few days after the blackout started — Tuesday October 21 — the Cuban authorities began to report that the grid was being rapidly restored. For example, there was this from CBC on October 22:

Cuba made fast progress restoring power to swaths of the Caribbean island nation on Tuesday, both in Havana and outlying provinces. . . . Upwards of 70 per cent of Cuba had electricity on Tuesday, and officials said they expected several more power plants to come online shortly, boosting that total.

That just goes to show why you shouldn’t believe anything coming from Cuban “officials.” The sad truth took a few days to manifest itself. By the middle of the following week, the blackouts were back, and it was becoming clear to anyone who looked that Cuba’s electricity failure was the result of years, indeed decades, of under-investment and under-maintenance. The island’s entire electricity system had fallen into a hole that may well be impossible to dig out of, at least without bringing back capitalism. From the BBC, October 25:

Electricity generation in Cuba has recently fallen well below what’s required, only supplying some 60-70% of the national demand. The shortfall is a “huge and serious gap” which is now being felt across the island, says [Cuban economist Richard] Torres. By the government’s own figures, Cuba’s national electricity generation dropped by around 2.5% in 2023 compared to the previous year, part of a downward trend which has seen a staggering 25% drop in production since 2019.

On October 26, the Guardian reported on how things were going eight days into the blackouts:

A week after the blackout, the island has returned to the status quo ante with regular power cuts of up to 20 hours a day. But the crisis has left a deep, melancholy dread about the future. . . . [On October 18] Antonio Guiteras, one of the main power stations, shut down, crashing all the other big generating stations in the system. “It’s very hard to restart a power station,” said a retired engineer from Antonio Guiteras, who asked to remain anonymous. . . . Antonio Guiteras was built in 1989, and is now battered and obsolete. “The truth is that it was built rotten,” said the engineer. He told harrowing stories of working with faulty safety equipment, political management who would disappear when problems arose and a system long pushed to its limit.

According to a 2023 report from Power magazine, Cuba has a total of eight thermal power plants that are the backbone of its electricity generation system. All but one of those are over 30 years old, and all have been poorly maintained, meaning that they are at or past the end of their useful lives. There are no new thermal plants under construction.

The prospects of bringing the eight old plants suddenly up to top operating condition are about nil. What’s to keep Cuba from just continuing its slide into ever increasing darkness until, at the end, electricity is no more on the island? The communist government thinks it has the answer: Solar! From the Guardian:

In a televised address, Cuba’s prime minister, Manuel Marrero, said . . . the government looks to renewables to secure its future energy needs. The island is blessed by sunshine, but the multiple attempts to start solar projects have nearly all failed when the companies involved failed to get paid. . . . Instead a deal has been cut with a Chinese firm to provide the materials for a slew of solar farms in return for access to Cuba’s nickel deposits.

They’re going to try powering the country with solar panels from China without having any functioning fossil fuel backup for cloudy days or, for that matter, nights. Good luck with that. And then there’s the problem that all the people with relevant expertise have left the country:

[W]ith well over 10% of Cuba’s population having fled the economic crisis on the island in the last two years, there is scepticism whether the expertise remains to build such systems.

The Guardian finishes up by throwing in that it’s not just Cuba’s electricity system that has collapsed; the water system has failed as well:

Meanwhile, one crisis begets another. Failures have been reported in the equally obsolete water supply system. Six hundred thousand people lack regular running water, but the blackouts appear to have multiplied that number by damaging pumps and pipes. Much of Havana is dry.

And on top of it all, they have given up on trying to stop people from leaving. I’d say that the last person out should turn off the lights, but it looks like the lights are already off.