Grid

BARREN RIDGE, CA - APRIL 4: The new project will join the current large Barren Ridge solar panel array in Kern County, California. (Photo by George Rose/Getty Images)GETTY IMAGES

CLICK HERE - Kern County, CA - Eland 1 Solar Project

forbes.com - by Jeff McMahon - July 1, 2019

Los Angeles Power and Water officials have struck a deal on the largest and cheapest solar + battery-storage project in the world, at prices that leave fossil fuels in the dust and may relegate nuclear power to the dustbin.

Later this month the LA Board of Water and Power Commissioners is expected to approve a 25-year contract that will serve 7 percent of the city's electricity demand at 1.997¢/kwh for solar energy and 1.3¢ for power from batteries.

"This is the lowest solar-photovoltaic price in the United States," said James Barner, the agency's manager for strategic initiatives, "and it is the largest and lowest-cost solar and high-capacity battery-storage project in the U.S. and we believe in the world today. So this is, I believe, truly revolutionary in the industry."

CLICK HERE - Report of the Commission to Assess the Threat to the United States from Electromagnetic Pulse (EMP) Attack - Volume 1: Executive Report - 2004 (62 page .PDF report)

solarpowerrocks.com - by Ben Zientara - October 2017

. . . The thing to be worried about here is what’s known as a nuclear electromagnetic pulse, or EMP for short. If a nuclear weapon of sufficient size is detonated, an EMP can disrupt everything that uses electronic circuitry, potentially causing irreversible damage to electronics in cars, airplanes, the U.S. electric grid, and yes, your home solar system . . .

. . . the U.S. Government has commissioned a few studies of the effects and likely aftereffects of an EMP-as-weapon deployed against the country . . .

. . . Coronal Mass Ejections (CME) . . . it’s a lot like the E3 component of a nuclear EMP, and can shut down the grid in much the same way.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

Turns out there’s a lot of latent demand for a quick and cheap way to get around.

vox.com - by Umair Irfan - August 27, 2018

 . . . Amid the feverish passion for and against scooters, there’s a larger reckoning taking place about rapid changes to our cities and public spaces. The scooters are forcing conversations about who is entitled to use sidewalks, streets, and curbs, and who should pay for their upkeep.

They’re also exposing transit deserts, showing who is and isn’t adequately served by the status quo, and even by newer options like bike share. That people have taken so readily to scooters shows just how much latent demand there is for a quick and cheap way to get around cities.

(CLICK HERE - READ COMPLETE ARTICLE)

A transmission tower and downed lines in the mountainous terrain of eastern Puerto Rico. Workers from the island and throughout the United States have worked to restore power after Hurricanes Irma and Maria last September.

It took months to restore electricity in Puerto Rico after hurricanes dealt a one-two punch. Many homes are still without power, and the system’s future is far from certain.

nytimes.com - by JAMES GLANZ and FRANCES ROBLES - Photographs by TODD HEISLER - May 6, 2018

 . . . After Maria and the hurricane that preceded it, called Irma, Puerto Rico all but slipped from the modern era . . .

 . . . an examination of the power grid’s reconstruction — based on a review of hundreds of documents and interviews with dozens of public officials, utility experts and citizens across the island — shows how a series of decisions by federal and Puerto Rican authorities together sent the effort reeling on a course that would take months to correct. The human and economic damage wrought by all that time without power may be irreparable.