By Distributing Free CFL Light Bulbs, Hugo Chávez Slyly Gains More Political Power and Saves Venezuela Electrical Power

Several weeks ago, Venezuela President Hugo Chávez provided free energy-saving light bulbs to some low-income residents of Houston, Texas. This magnanimous act probably gained him a few American fans. In late March of this year, he also announced his plan to fund “an energy revolution” in Venezuela.

The revolution has an emphasis on using Venezuelan produced products like PVC pipes to construct homes. Another major component of the revolution includes an initiative to make Venezuela more self-sufficient in food production, thus quelling the need to import food. Projects to provide additional electrical power through alternative energies like wind and solar technologies are also commencing.

The most notable and measurable success to date for the so-called energy revolution, however, has been Venezuela’s effort to change out standard light bulbs across the country for CFLS (energy-saving compact flourescent light bulbs) exactly like those Chávez donated to Texans. So far, 72.3 million light bulbs have been changed. But the story is perhaps not as simple as it would seem (as is almost any story about Chávez and his schemes).

One would think that by using less of their own natural resources to obtain power, Venezuela would be thus gaining economically. Critics of Chávez claim, however, that by distributing free light bulbs, he has provided himself with a smokescreen for not addressing the need to overhaul and expand the country’s electrical power system.

Last year it was announced that the electrical system for the country might break down. The website petroleumworld.com, a source that covers news about energy, oil, and gas in Latin America, describes why this situation will cause more and more blackouts to occur throughout Venezuela:

… last year when the [electrical] system was on the brink of a crisis and its possible collapse was announced, the government’s brilliant response was to hand out energy-saving light bulbs and put the domestic electricity system under state ownership with the purchase of Electricidad de Caracas (EDC), the country’s largest private electricity utility, and Seneca, the electricity utility servicing Margarita Island.

As a consequence of these purchases, not only were resources spent unnecessarily instead of using them to speed up the investments the country urgently needed, but also, a year after the purchase, the services provided by these companies are showing clear signs of deterioration, a fate they share with all the companies that have passed into state ownership.

In other words, they claim that Chávez employed a strategy that would score him more political points with Venezuela’s poorer citizens, for whom energy is expensive– all while avoiding to take on the challenge of a much greater long-term problem.

Nonetheless, this is not to say that the changing of light bulbs is insignificant as an economic and environmental improvement for Venezuela. For citizens it means less money spent on bulbs over time as energy costs increase, and for the world it means less carbon emissions coming out of Venezuela that would contribute to global warming. For Chávez though, perhaps it’s just another detail in his increasingly eventful and fascinating presidency.