· 2 min read
illuminem summarizes for you the essential news of the day. Read the full piece on the New York Times or enjoy below:
🗞️ Driving the news: A new analysis indicates that the increasing frequency and intensity of hurricanes due to climate change could significantly stress U.S. power grids, causing more frequent and devastating outages
• The study highlights regions like Puerto Rico and major cities including Boston, Houston, and New Orleans as particularly vulnerable
🔭 The context: Researchers from the Pacific Northwest National Laboratory and the Electric Power Research Institute modeled nearly a million hurricanes under various climate scenarios to predict future impacts on power grids
• Their findings show stronger, wetter storms will push further inland, affecting more areas and causing substantial infrastructure damage
🌍 Why it matters for the planet: Climate-driven hurricanes threaten to exacerbate power outages, impacting access to essential services like healthcare and heating/cooling systems, especially in socio-economically vulnerable regions
• This underscores the urgent need for resilient infrastructure to withstand increasing climate stress
⏭️ What's next: Energy companies are urged to incorporate climate considerations into their planning to enhance grid resilience
• The analysis suggests that without adaptation measures, such as burying power lines and integrating renewable energy sources, outages will become more frequent and severe
💬 One quote: "It’s a wake-up call that we need to be addressing our power system and making it much more reliable and much more resilient to climate related stresses," said Kristina Dahl, a principal climate scientist for the Union of Concerned Scientists
📈 One stat: The average person in cities like Miami could see a 119% increase in power outage events per decade due to future hurricanes
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