Could we survive a massive blackout caused by a solar super storm? The sun, our most important source of natural energy, light, and even nutrition could one day also become our worst enemy if intense solar magnetic ‘super storms’ cause massive power blackouts. Whether these storms, which appear to come in 11-year cycles, could melt […]
Was it the leap-second bug that pushed America’s power plants beyond their capacity? A 61 second minute was added to clocks around the world on June 30, 2012 at 23:59:60 UTC in order to compensate for slight variations in earth’s rotation speed. This triggered a number of software bugs one of which caused a spike […]
Crystal Lagoons has developed an alternative cooling and energy harvesting system for power plants that doesn’t require the use of seawater. Gulf countries that lack freshwater resources rely deeply on seawater desalination to meet their daily needs and cool down thermal generation plants. According to Gulf News, the United Arab Emirates alone uses four trillion litres […]
In bucolic but earthquake-prone Armenia, people both fear and rely on a nuclear power plant that has operated for three decades with no primary containment structure. In the 1970s, a series of first-generation nuclear reactors were built in the former Soviet Union, all lacking the infrastructure to contain major ruptures in the reactor’s primary circuit. […]
Saudis, Kuwaitis and Emiritis experience summer blackouts, despite being oil- and gas-rich. Lack of infrastructure and change in lifestyle to blame. With temperatures reaching up to 50 degrees Celsius or 112 Fahrenheit more the a few countries in the region are struggling to keep up with people’s needs to keep cool in the scorching summer […]