To meet surging demand for online information, internet giant taps public water supplies that are already straining from overuse. From a report: In August 2019, the Arizona Municipal Water Users Association built a 16-foot pyramid of jugs in its main entrance in Phoenix. The goal was to show residents of this desert region how much water they each use a day…
Tag: utilities
Can Solar Power Compete With Coal? In India, It’s Gaining Ground
Electricity from sunlight costs less, a hopeful sign for developing nations building out their power grids. From a report: In a dusty northwest India desert dotted with cows and the occasional camel, a solar-power plant is producing some of the world’s cheapest energy. Built in 2018 by India’s Acme Solar Holdings, it can generate 200 megawatts of electricity, enough to power…
The Municipal Bond Market Is Using Geospatial Data For Climate Risk Evaluation
mikeebbbd shares a report from Los Angeles Times: The $3.8-trillion municipal-bond market has found a new tool in its effort to understand the effects of climate change: satellites orbiting Earth. Assessing climate risks is a particularly vexing problem given that U.S. state and local governments tend to give investors information that’s too little or just too late. But the use of…
Linux Kernel Developers and Commits Dropped in 2019
Phoronix reports that on New Year’s Day, the Linux kernel’s Git source tree showed 27,852,148 lines of code, divided among 66,492 files (including docs, Kconfig files, user-space utilities in-tree, etc). Over its lifetime there’s been 887,925 commits, and around 21,074 different authors: During 2019, the Linux kernel saw 74,754 commits, which is actually the lowest point since 2013. The 74k commits…
Will Iran Launch a Cyberattack Against the U.S.?
“Iranian officials are likely considering a cyber-attack against the U.S. in the wake of an airstrike that killed one of its top military officials,” reports Bloomberg: In a tweet after the airstrike on Thursday, Christopher Krebs, director of the U.S. Cybersecurity and Infrastructure Security Agency, repeated a warning from the summer about Iranian malicious cyber-attacks, and urged the public to brush…
Los Angeles Is Considering Make Uber and Lyft Go All-Electric
“The Financial Times is reporting that Los Angeles may now force Uber and Lyft to use electric cars,” reports Electrek: Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti said, “We have the power to regulate car share. We can mandate and are looking closely at mandating that any of those vehicles in the future be electric….” Mayor Garcetti’s concept to require rideshare services to…
Are California’s Utilities Undermining Rooftop Solar Installations?
California now has one million solar roofs, representing about 14% of all renewable power generated in the state. But solar advocates “said the milestone has come despite escalating efforts by utilities to undermine rooftop solar installations,” according to the San Diego Union-Tribune. “They said those attacks include everything from hefty fees on ratepayers to calling for dramatic cuts to the credits…
Will Tesla’s Rooftop Solar Panels Revolutionize the Power Industry?
Long-time Slashdot reader 140Mandak262Jamuna brings news of a triumph for a Tesla power project in South Australia: about 900 residential rooftop solar panels, coupled with storage batteries, “all linked up to central control, to form what they are calling a ‘Virtual Power Plant.'” Nothing virtual about it, distributed power plant would have been a better name. That project, designed to link…
The World’s First Village of Affordable 3D-Printed Homes Is Now Complete
MikeChino shares a report from Dwell: In Tabasco, Mexico, a family living below the poverty line recently visited their future home: a 3D-printed, 500-square foot structure with two bedrooms, one bath, a wraparound cement patio, and an awning over the front porch. It’s one of two fully furnished homes — printed in about 24 hours and finished by local nonprofit ECHALE…
How Tech From Australia Could Prevent California Wildfires and PG&E Blackouts
“Technology developed to combat Australia’s deadly bushfires could slash California’s fire risk and reduce the need for PG&E’s ‘public safety power shutoffs’,” reports IEEE Spectrum. “See the video to watch an advanced power diverter cut off 22,000 volts of power in less than 1/20th of a second, preventing ignition of dry brush,” writes Slashdot reader carbonnation. IEEE Spectrum reports: California utility…