Disasters

"Systems are designed to handle spikes in demand, but the wild and unpredictable weather linked to global warming will very likely push grids beyond their limits."

"A new paper argues that returning to estimates for the cost of carbon dioxide used in the Obama era would leave the U.S. far behind its Paris Agreement goals."

"A rare deep freeze in Texas that raised demand for power forced the state’s electric grid operator on Monday to impose rotating blackouts, leaving 4 million customers without power even as temperatures dipped to teeth-chattering levels."

"As the first heavy rains of the season poured across the Santa Cruz Mountains last month, emergency responders and residents braced for debris flows, road closures and power outages. Others also feared for their drinking water."

"A powerful earthquake that hit Japan on Saturday was an aftershock of the devastating 9.0 magnitude quake that struck the same area almost 10 years ago, according to the national Meteorological Agency."

"A winter storm dropping snow and ice also sent temperatures plunging across the southern Plains, prompting a power emergency in Texas a day after conditions canceled flights and impacted traffic across large swaths of the U.S."

"It was a harrowing vision of the vulnerability of aging California dams — crews laboring feverishly to sandbag and drain the lower San Fernando Reservoir, as billions of gallons of Los Angeles drinking water lapped at the edge of a crumbling, earthquake-damaged embankment that threatened catastrophe on the neighborhoods below."

"One of the nation’s premier nuclear laboratories isn’t taking the necessary precautions to guard against wildfires, according to an audit by the U.S. Energy Department’s inspector general."

"A cyberattack on a Florida water treatment plant underscores the need for strong security protections at the municipal level, attorneys and industry professionals say."