Headline

Climate Change Threatens Blackouts Nationwide

 United States

FILE - In this Oct. 10, 2019, file photo, a helicopter drops water near power lines and electrical towers while working at a fire on San Bruno Mountain near Brisbane, Calif. California energy leaders on Friday, May 6, 2022 said the state may see an energy shortfall this summer. Threats from drought, extreme heat and wildfires, are among the issues that will create challenges for energy reliability this summer and in the coming years. (Credit: AP Photo/Jeff Chiu, File)

Grid operators are warning summer heatwaves will cause rolling blackouts across the country, the Wall Street Journal reports. Concerns are especially high in California where heat waves drive electricity demand, drought threatens to shut off hydroelectric power stations, and wildfires (and the threat thereof) force outages. Climate change, mainly caused by the extraction and combustion of fossil fuels, increases the intensity, duration, and frequency of extreme heat, heatwaves, and droughts and thus essentially supercharges wildfires by turning fuel into veritable tinder. While relatively few customers lost power in Texas over the weekend, concerns over the state’s notoriously independent grid's (in)ability to cope with impending summer temperatures are sure to grow.

(Nationwide: Wall Street Journal $; California: Sacramento Bee $, AP, New York Times $, Reuters, Bloomberg $; Hydro: S&P Global; Texas: Ft Worth Star-Telegram, Gizmodo, Washington Post $; Weekend outages: Fox7-Austin; Climate Signals background: Extreme heat and heatwaves, Western US megadrought, Wildfires)