Immediately in the wake of Hurricane Maria, small communities in Puerto Rico found themselves relying on the few sites that maintained electricity after the island’s gas power plant went offline.

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Local community center Casa Pueblo was able to be an “ energy oasis ” due to the solar panels it had installed on its roofs 20 years earlier. The center then handed out 10,000 solar lamps to victims of the hurricane.

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The work of Casa Pueblo demonstrates the types of emergency response that can be performed during extreme weather events exacerbated by climate change. Just as distributed solar power can help a site maintain its electricity after a hurricane, distributed production may be useful for fabricating necessary tools in an emergency. The increased incidence of extreme weather events and other emergencies that will occur as a result of global warming may see 3D printing become an important tool […]

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