As this issue of the journal goes to press, the COVID-19 virus continues its relentless march around theworld. Globalmedia covers every step of this unyielding and terrifying story. And yet one aspect has, thus far, received relatively little attention: Are the world’s utilities – particularly electricity and water – ready to deal with a pandemic of this magnitude?Withmanyworld governments insisting, and in some cases demanding, that citizens take seriously the need for social distancing as ameans of reducing the spread of the virus, the pressure on utilities to maintain their services has grown exponentially. A failure of the electric grid system anywhere in the world during a pandemic would be catastrophic. The problem is illustrated by the growing reliance on data centres, which are a component of modern Internet infrastructure and which use large amounts of electricity. The information necessary to provide emergency response, health care and access to clean energy, among many other important matters, is stored in these data centres. However, as McGuireWoods partner Dale Mullen points out, uninterruptable power is key to data centres’ operation: ‘Internet infrastructure (of which data centres are a part) has now reached the level of essential utility infrastructure. This is so because our most vital societal functions, health care, public safety, military transportation, water, wastewater, and energy ride on a network of internet infrastructure of which the data centre is key’. He notes, however, that uninterruptable power supplies, which are ‘key to sustaining necessary utility infrastructure’, are ‘only as reliable as their access to fuel’. There are a number of key issues/concerns regarding utilities’ operations during these uncertain times:

中文翻译：

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COVID-19与能源和自然资源部门：几乎没有错误的余地

在本期杂志付印之时，COVID-19病毒继续在世界范围内不断前进。Globalmedia涵盖了这个坚定而恐怖的故事的每一步。到目前为止，还没有一个方面引起人们的关注：世界上的公用事业（特别是电力和水）是否准备好应对这种规模的大流行？许多世界各国政府坚持并在某些情况下要求公民认真对待这一需求作为减少病毒传播手段的社会隔离，公用事业公司维持其服务的压力成倍增长。大流行期间世界任何地方的电网系统故障都将是灾难性的。对数据中心的依赖性越来越大说明了这一问题，它们是现代Internet基础结构的组成部分，并且消耗大量电能。在这些数据中心中存储了提供紧急响应，医疗保健和获取清洁能源所必需的信息以及许多其他重要事项。但是，正如McGuireWoods合伙人Dale Mullen指出的那样，不间断电源是数据中心运营的关键：“互联网基础设施（数据中心是其中的一部分）现已达到基本公用事业基础设施的水平。之所以如此，是因为我们最重要的社会功能，医疗保健，公共安全，军事运输，水，废水和能源都依赖于以数据中心为关键的互联网基础设施网络。但他指出，不间断电源是“维持必要的公用事业基础设施的关键”，“只有获得燃料一样可靠”。在这些不确定的时期内，存在许多与公用事业运营有关的关键问题/担忧：