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A Tale of Two Coastlines: Desalination in China and California – New Security Beat

The port city of Tianjin is in desperate need of water. The surface and groundwater supplies of this sprawling northeast Chinese metropolis have shrunk to dangerously low levels due to decades of reduced rainfall and overexploitation of the Hai River that flows through the city. According to the Tianjin Environmental Protection Bureau, the city’s per capita water resources are one-twentieth of China’s national average, far below the UN benchmark for a water-stressed region.

State Grid of China Switches on World’s Largest Pumped-Hydro Station

The State Grid Corporation of China, which is China’s largest state-owned grid operator and power utility, has commissioned, last week, the 3.6GW Fengning Pumped Storage Power Station, a pumped-storage hydroelectric power station located in Hebei province.

The construction of the $1.87 billion project, which was implemented in two 1.8GW phases, was started by engineering company China Gezhouba Group Company Limited in 2014.

MWD Among Targets in Large-Scale Cyber-Espionage Hack Blamed on China

A cyber-espionage campaign blamed on China was more sweeping than previously known, with suspected state-backed hackers exploiting a device meant to boost internet security to penetrate the computers of critical U.S. entities.

Among the suspected targets was the Metropolitan Water District of Southern California, which provides water to 19 million people and operates some of the largest treatment plants in the world.

Water Harvesting Tech for PV Panel Cleaning and Cooling

An international research team has proposed to use nighttime radiative cooling to harvest water from PV panels and reuse it for module cleaning during the daytime. According to their findings, the proposed system has, also, a beneficial effect on the modules’ operating temperature.