
Tesla Turns Power Back on at Children's Hospital in Puerto Rico - petethomas
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-way/2017/10/25/560045944/tesla-turns-power-back-on-at-childrens-hospital-in-puerto-rico
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notatoad
wasn't this same story at the top of HN yesterday?

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grzm
A TechCrunch article on the same topic received 52 points, 18 comments from 2
days ago:

[https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546186](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=15546186)

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sixdimensional
I hope I'm not being naive about this (as corporations often have a way of
making you regret your words), but this is the way - find a need, make it
happen, get it done. I am really glad Tesla et al are doing this. They are
having a direct impact and they may even reap some nice rewards themselves
down the line, even if that wasn't the biggest driver.

I wonder if they could look into outcome-based contracting [1] for these
projects, should the discussion of paying ever arise. Seems like it might be a
good fit.

[1]
[http://www.enme.umd.edu/ESCML/Papers/Sandborn%20Contract%20E...](http://www.enme.umd.edu/ESCML/Papers/Sandborn%20Contract%20Engineering%20-%20TES%20Conf.pdf)

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forsaken
Tesla is amazing at marketing. Elon also seems like a genuinely good person,
which helps.

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yeukhon
I think this is a social responsibility regardless, although some people
prefer to do good work either anonymously or behind the camera. Either way is
fine.

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jdietrich
If you see the adoption of sustainable technology as a social good, then it
would be a missed opportunity to _not_ publicize this event. It's a great
advert for solar power and battery storage.

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rb808
One problem with Solar I hadn't really thought about is how robust they are
(not) in storms. The picture at the top of this article shows how a grid on
Peurto Rico was destroyed.

[https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/the-smarter-
grid...](https://spectrum.ieee.org/energywise/energy/the-smarter-grid/should-
a-devastated-caribbean-leap-forward-to-renewable-power-and-microgrids) links
to: [http://www.theweatherjunkies.com/single-
post/2017/09/28/Puer...](http://www.theweatherjunkies.com/single-
post/2017/09/28/Puerto-Rican-Solar-Farms-Heavily-Damaged-By-Hurricane-Maria)
which shows some that are built more robustly.

Looking around there are lots of panels with hail damage and catching fire
etc, its not as simple as I thought!

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rottyguy
I too am curious how this is superior to electrical lines in a storm. The best
I could come up was that the grid is now more distributed such that storms
could take out some but not all systems. I suspect getting certain critical
assets back online would necessarily be easier since additional nodes aren't
necessary to interlink power from a central system. Can anyone provide other
benefits?

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stuaxo
Some good news after the layoffs and news of a shitty working environment.

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busted
The amount of Elon Musk hate I see online is crazy. It seems like people are
hellbent on hating this guy. When he announced that Tesla could help Puerto
Rico, the number of snarky and demeaning comments was huge. Now, so quickly,
they've actually accomplished something good. I wonder if any of those snarky
people, most of which probably did nothing to help Puerto Rico, will care.

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SapphireSun
All I can say is I saw this headline and breathed a sigh of relief. I haven't
heard anything good coming out of PR at all.

For what it's worth, while I like the idea of solar power as the revival of
PR's power grid, I would not be breathing such a sigh of relief if the feds
had helicoptered in with the kind of energy they reserve for invading
countries and restored power and set up relief for villages far from the port.

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Animats
_Tesla 's image of the project's solar array, in a parking lot next to the
hospital, has been liked more than 84,000 times since it was posted to
Instagram Tuesday._

Tesla should be paying the hospital.

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throwaway5752
_Tesla should be paying the hospital._

Beyond donating the panels? Other people are free to donate goods and services
to help Puerto Rico recover, I will do my part to ensure they're recognized
regardless of partisan affiliation.

