Benjamin Kroposki

It’s late in the afternoon of 2 April 2023 on the island of Kauai. The sun is sinking over this beautiful and peaceful place, when, suddenly, at 4:25 pm, there’s a glitch: The largest generator on the island, a 26-megawatt oil-fired turbine, goes offline. This is a more urgent problem than it might sound. The westernmost Hawaiian island of significant size, Kauai is home to around 70,000 residents and 30,000 tourists at any given time.