Heat Stresses Loom For Northern Hemisphere Grids
Record heat across Europe and Asia augurs peril for electrical grids across the Northern Hemisphere. Portugal, Spain, and Morocco all broke April heat records on Thursday, with Córdoba, in south-central Spain, breaking the European April record with a high of 101.8°F (38.8°C). Drought in the region is forcing 80,000 people in Córdoba province to rely on trucked deliveries of drinking water, and French authorities have mobilized wildfire-fighting operations a month earlier than usual. Meanwhile, “endless record heat in south-east Asia, with weeks of records falling every day,” as described to The Guardian by climatologist and weather historian Maximiliano Herrera, is pushing electricity consumption to new heights as people try to keep cool. Meanwhile, in Texas, the state legislature has found time to further ostracize trans people and cut them off from obtaining medical care and debate even more ways to restrict abortion access, but with just one month left in this year's legislative session has done nothing to address the persistent inadequacy of the state's coal- and gas-fired electricity capacity.
(Power grids: Bloomberg $; European heat: Washington Post $, The Guardian; Trucked water: Reuters; French firefighters: Reuters; Asian heat: The Guardian; Texas: Forbes $)
Climate Signals: Extreme Heat & Heat Waves
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