Archive for the 'Infrastructure' Category
Portion of Keystone Pipeline Shut Down After 380,000-Gallon Oil Leak in North Dakota
November 2nd, 2019Via: USA Today: A portion of the Keystone Pipeline in North Dakota was shut down this week after more than 380,000 gallons of oil leaked, the pipeline owner said in a statement. Meanwhile, environmental groups argue that the spill and the pipeline’s volatility is why the separate Keystone XL pipeline should not be built. Pipeline […]
The Fantasy of Opting Out
November 1st, 2019Via: The MIT Press Reader: Consider a day in the life of a fairly ordinary person in a large city in a stable, democratically governed country. She is not in prison or institutionalized, nor is she a dissident or an enemy of the state, yet she lives in a condition of permanent and total surveillance […]
Los Angeles Fire: Southbound 405 Closed Between Sunset and the 101
October 28th, 2019CBS Live Also, California state-wide emergency declared as wildfire forces 200,000 to flee and leaves millions without power.
Californians Brace For 10 Years Of Blackouts
October 27th, 2019Via: ZeroHedge: With the state of California set to experience the “biggest blackout ever” as a violent windstorm forces local utilities PG&E, Edison and Sempra to shut off power to millions of residents over fears a broken transmission line could trigger another massive fire, resulting in billions in legal costs, a dismal reality is starting […]
SpaceX Plans to Start Offering Starlink Broadband Services in 2020
October 24th, 2019Global Lightning. Hmm. Via: Space News: Shotwell said many of the Starlink features are being tested by the U.S. Air Force Research Laboratory under a program called Global Lightning. SpaceX in December 2018 received a $28 million contract to test over the next three years different ways in which the military might use Starlink broadband […]
SpaceX Submits Paperwork for 30,000 More Starlink Satellites
October 16th, 201942,000 satellites in low Earth orbit… Is anyone besides me wondering if there is some other purpose here besides fast Internet access? Via: SpaceNews: SpaceX has asked the International Telecommunication Union to arrange spectrum for 30,000 additional Starlink satellites. SpaceX, which is already planning the world’s largest low-Earth-orbit broadband constellation by far, filed paperwork in […]
How Amazon.com Moved Into the Business of U.S. Elections
October 15th, 2019Via: Reuters: The expansion by Amazon Web Services into state and local elections has quietly gathered pace since the 2016 U.S. presidential vote. More than 40 states now use one or more of Amazon’s election offerings, according to a presentation given by an Amazon executive this year and seen by Reuters. So do America’s two […]
Millions Brace for Unprecedented Power Cuts in California
October 9th, 2019Via: Bloomberg: It was a once-unthinkable move: purposely shutting off power to millions of people and plunging a major metropolitan area into darkness. And yet, on Wednesday, utility PG&E Corp. began cutting electricity to almost 800,000 California homes and businesses — representing roughly 2.4 million people — to prevent wildfires as high winds are forecast […]
World’s Largest Wind Turbines to be Built Off Yorkshire Coast
October 7th, 2019Via: Guardian: The largest offshore wind turbines ever built will begin powering millions of British homes using blades more than 100 metres long by the early 2020s. Each of the new mega-turbines planned for the world’s biggest offshore windfarm at Dogger Bank in the North Sea will reach 220 metres high and generate enough electricity […]
Global Groundwater Extraction a “Ticking Time Bomb”
October 4th, 2019New Zealand: Council in Drought Prone Canterbury Consents to Foreign Company Extracting 40 Billion Litres of Water Via: Cosmos Magazine: A glimpse into the sustainability of global groundwater extraction for rivers, streams and lakes in the next few decades has revealed a worrying picture. The hydrological model, published in the journal Nature, shows that in […]
