GoKawiil
Tech News
A guide breaks down what's required to run an RV fully on solar power, noting that most users still pair solar with a backup generator rather than going all-solar. Going fully solar demands a battery bank to store energy, an inverter to convert DC to AC, and a charge controller to regulate power flow from panels to storage.
A DC Circuit Court of Appeals panel unanimously ruled that the Department of Energy's use of emergency wartime powers to keep the J.H. Campbell coal plant in Michigan running past its scheduled closure was unlawful. The DOE had issued five consecutive 90-day emergency declarations under the Federal Power Act to prevent the plant from shutting down, despite no actual power shortage.
Tom's Hardware tested the Thermalright TR-KG750, a 750W ATX 3.1 power supply built for Thermalright by OEM manufacturer HKC. The unit squeaks past 80 PLUS Gold certification at 115 VAC, lacks any Cybenetics efficiency or noise rating, uses mostly unbranded internal components, and pairs mediocre voltage regulation and ripple suppression with a sleeve-bearing fan that runs constantly and gets loud under load.
Google has agreed to buy roughly 50% of the electricity generated by a nuclear power plant, according to reports. The deal reflects the company's push to secure reliable, carbon-free power to run its data centers and AI operations.
Amazon has discounted Belkin's 45W USB-C wall charger by 25%, bringing the price down to $14.99. The compact charger supports USB Power Delivery 3.1 and Programmable Power Supply (PPS) standards, making it compatible with fast charging for phones, tablets, and some laptops.
AI training campuses can swing 70% of their electrical load within milliseconds and disconnect just as abruptly to protect expensive compute hardware, a pattern conventional grid infrastructure was never designed to handle. Analysis of the setup shows the standard power stack—medium-voltage feeds, transformers, and uninterruptible power supplies—fails at three points: undersized battery buffers, converters run in bypass mode that let raw swings and grid transients pass unfiltered, and protection logic built for far smaller loads that trips offline at the worst possible moment. The 2024 Virginia grid disturbance was traced largely to this outdated protection logic disconnecting under stress.
Tom's Hardware reviewed the Phanteks AMP GH 750W, a Helly Technology-built power supply that replaces the Seasonic-based AMP line. The unit delivers strong 12V voltage regulation, low ripple, Japanese capacitors and an 8-year warranty, but its 12V-2x6 connector is limited to 450W of output. Despite that restriction, the reviewer calls it one of the better mainstream 750W options given street prices under $90.
The US Department of Energy has issued a $1.9 billion loan guarantee to support restarting a nuclear power plant tied to a deal with Google. The financing is meant to help bring the previously shuttered reactor back online to supply carbon-free electricity for growing data center demand.
Reuters reports that Big Tech firms including Amazon, Google, and OpenAI are exploring Argentina's Patagonia region for large-scale data centers, drawn by its cold climate and abundant hydroelectric, wind, and shale gas energy. The region still lacks sufficient fiber infrastructure, and its political future is uncertain ahead of next year's presidential election.
CNET tested 19 large and extra-large portable power stations by connecting each to a standard refrigerator to see how long they could sustain it during an outage. The Fossibot 3600 Pro led the pack at 44.65 hours, followed by the Oupes Mega 5 at 43.72 hours, while the Oscal Power Max 2400 lasted just 12.58 hours despite similar categorization.
Portable power devices often list peak wattage on the box, but real-world performance drops as heat builds up during charging—especially in magnetic wireless chargers, where the induction coils sit in direct contact with the phone. For years manufacturers have relied on passive materials like graphite sheets and heat spreaders to manage that heat, but these can only slow warming, not stop it, once a compact enclosure hits its thermal ceiling.
Federico Felici and Jonas Buchli, former Google DeepMind researchers, have founded Fusionality in Lausanne to build standardized hardware and software for controlling fusion reactors. The company raised $3.7 million in pre-seed funding from Founderful and Playfair, with Felici as CEO and Buchli as CTO.