Texas Crisis Highlights Grid Vulnerabilities

• 作者: Mitch Leslie
• 来源期刊: 工程（英文）
• 年，卷（期）: 2021,（10）
• 所属期刊栏目: News & Highlights
• 页码范围: 1348-1350
• 页数: 3页
• 语种: 英文

摘要

In February 2021,during a massive blackout in Texas,USA,a man made the news for using his hybrid Ford F-150 pickup truck,a model equipped with a generator,to power his house for three days[1].Other hybrid F-150 owners followed suit,and Ford requested that its Texas dealerships lend out the trucks on their lots so that more people could access these mini-power stations during the week-long disaster[2]. That some residents had to rely on their pickup trucks to pro-vide electricity for their homes illustrates the severity of the grid crisis that paralyzed Texas.For an average of 42 h,69％of Texans had no electricity(Fig.1)[3],leaving many homes without heat as temperatures fell to record lows.About half of the population also lacked running water because water plants lost power[3].According to the state's figures,hypothermia,carbon monoxide poisoning,and other storm-related causes exacerbated by the power outage killed at least 210 people[4],but one analysis put the death toll at 700[5].The economic price tag,including damage to homes and businesses from burst pipes,may be as high as 200 billion USD[6].