Khoa học

The world faces a ‘fire’ summer: It’s hot, there’s frequent power outages

The world faces a hot summer: It's hot, there's frequent power outages - Photo 1.

South Africa has a record number of power outages during the hot season – Photo: BLOOMBERG

As noted by the news agency Bloombergmuch of the Northern Hemisphere will use electricity at very high rates this summer due to the weather here extremely sultry because Climate Change. As a result, the grid was overloaded and many places lost power.

The ‘focal point’ of the power outage is South Asia and Southeast Asia, where heat waves have forced people to turn on their air conditioners around the clock. In South Asia, temperatures in many places are high enough to cook salmon.

In Pakistan, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and India, power outages happen almost daily, putting more than 1 billion people at risk.

In the US, at the beginning of May, all six power plants in Texas failed, causing power shortages, foreshadowing what was to come. At least a dozen US states are at risk of power outages this summer.

When Texas power plants failed, wholesale electricity prices in the city of Houston quickly skyrocketed to $5,000 per megawatt hour, a 22-fold increase over the average peak-hour electricity cost.

Teri Viswanath, leading economist for electricity, energy and water at CoBank (ACB), said: “The US is going through a period of electricity shutdown more than other industrialized countries. About 70% of our grid is nearing the end of its life.”

Power supplies will also be tight in China and Japan. South Africa is also poised for a record year of power cuts.

Meanwhile, Europe is also “twitched” by Russia: if Moscow cuts off natural gas in the region, plants in some countries may have to stop working.

Without electricity, human welfare would be at stake. Poverty, age and living near the equator make people more likely to get sick and die from the relentlessly rising temperatures.

At the same time, if there is no electricity, businesses have to close. That would also cause a huge economic shock.

You are reading the article The world faces a ‘fire’ summer: It’s hot, there’s frequent power outages
at Blogtuan.info – Source: tuoitre.vn – Read the original article here

Back to top button