NEWSWORTHY
Struggling California utility PG&E blamed for historic wildfire fatal to 85
Pacific Gas & Electric Corp. power lines caused a fire that killed 85 people — the deadliest and most destructive wildfire in state history, California fire officials said Wednesday. Cal Fire said the transmission lines owned and operated by the San Francisco-based utility sparked the ...
Manila has been hit by its worst water shortage in years, leaving bucket-bearing families to wait hours to fill up from tanker trucks and some hospitals to turn away less urgent cases. Taps are dry from four to 20 hours per day in the homes ...
Gas industry donations of ¥39 million call Japan government panel's neutrality into question
Three members of the government's advisory panel on city gas market deregulation repeatedly received donations from a gas industry organization, documents obtained by Kyodo News showed Monday. While the recipients, who are all public university professors, say the Japan Gas Association's donations, which totaled ¥39 ...
Fearing blackouts, Kyushu Electric asks solar power generators to suspend generation
Kyushu Electric Power Co. asks solar power operators in its service area to suspend the generation of electricity to prevent oversupply and potential large-scale blackouts.
As groundwater levels plunge, Lahore begins turning off the taps
Five mornings a week, Saima Azeem helps her children wash and prepare for school. But this week has been different: She has had to use her few bottles of drinking water to get them ready. "It's been a difficult morning. I'll have to schedule my ...
Hokkaido's prefecture-wide blackout on Sept. 6 was caused by a failed emergency step that was designed to prevent exactly what it caused after the level 7 earthquake, a document has revealed. The reason it failed was because the temblor triggered a bigger initial power loss ...
Japanese utilities ended funding for nuclear fuel reprocessing in 2016, putting MOX program in doubt
The 10 nuclear power plant operators halted the allocation of reserve funds for reprocessing costs, according to financial reports, due to the expense of building the reprocessing facilities.
Japan's utilities crank up oil-fired power in face of heat wave
To cool down, electricity suppliers are firing up fossil fuels.
Locals reap little benefit in Laos's controversial hydroelectricity ambitions
Mountainous and landlocked Laos, known as the "Battery of Asia," is building dozens of dams at breakneck speed so it can sell energy to power-hungry neighbors as a fast track out of poverty. But the communist country's ambitious power plans are highly controversial. Most energy is ...
Ten months after Hurricane Maria destroyed Puerto Rico's electric grid, the local agency responsible for rebuilding it is in chaos and more than $1 billion in federal funds meant to strengthen the rickety system has gone unspent, according to contractors and U.S. officials who ...
A month after magnitude 6.1 Osaka quake, progress slow on fixing walls and water pipes
The elimination of substandard concrete walls drags on despite offers of subsidies for their removal and the construction of alternative fencing, while costs increase challenge of pipe replacement.
California utility PG&E Corp. has proposed using giant lithium-ion batteries, including packs supplied by Tesla Inc., to supply power to Silicon Valley instead of burning natural gas. The utility has sought approval from state regulators for four energy-storage projects with a total capacity of about ...
