What does a 30 millimeter cannon have to do with your electric bill or the next heatwave that strains the grid? More than it seems at first glance.
The A-10 Thunderbolt II is a ground attack aircraft built not to be sleek or fast, but to keep flying when everything goes wrong. Its designers wrapped the pilot in a titanium “bathtub,” doubled up critical systems, and even gave the jet a way to fly with cables and rods if hydraulics fail.
That same mindset, focused on surviving damage instead of avoiding it entirely, is exactly what clean energy systems now need as climate extremes hit harder and more often. Human-driven warming is already intensifying heavy rainfall, droughts and other weather extremes, and that trend is expected to continue.
A jet literally built around its mission
Unlike many fighter aircraft, the A-10 was designed around a single job, close air support for troops under fire. At the heart of the airframe sits the GAU-8/A Avenger, a seven-barrel 30 millimeter rotary cannon. The gun system is about 19 feet long and, with its ammunition drum full, weighs close to two tons.
Everything else bends around that choice. The nose gear sits slightly off center so the firing barrel can line up with the aircraft centerline. The straight wings help the jet fly low and slow, giving the pilot time to aim accurately when friendly forces may be just a couple of hundred meters from the target.
In testing, the cannon and fire control system proved accurate enough that roughly eighty percent of rounds could land inside a circle about twelve meters across from a typical attack profile. That matters when “close support” really means close.
Layered redundancy in the sky
Survivability shaped everything. The cockpit and nearby control runs sit inside roughly 1,200 pounds of titanium armor, the famous “bathtub.” The fuel system uses self-sealing tanks and protected plumbing so that hits are more likely to leave a leak than a fireball.
Flight controls have two separate hydraulic circuits. If both are damaged, the pilot can switch to manual reversion, moving surfaces through direct mechanical linkages. It is not comfortable flying, but it can be enough to get home.
That redundancy is not just a line in a brochure. In 2003, A-10 pilot Kim Campbell brought her aircraft back to base after losing both hydraulic systems over Baghdad, relying on that manual backup for more than an hour.
In other words, engineers assumed failure was coming and designed for it.
Climate extremes are doing something similar on the ground
Energy planners now face their own version of hostile fire. Heatwaves, intense storms and heavy downpours that scientists link to climate change are already stressing power systems and other infrastructure. Studies of recent events show that heatwaves can noticeably increase both the frequency and duration of power outages as demand spikes and equipment overheats.
Grid regulators and the International Energy Agency warn that extreme weather is now one of the main threats to electricity reliability, with large blackouts in the past decade often triggered by storms or cold snaps.
At the same time, global energy investment is shifting, with around two trillion US dollars per year flowing into wind farms, solar parks, storage and high-voltage lines, just as the climate makes life harder for them.
So we are pouring record sums into wind farms, solar parks, storage and high-voltage lines, just as the climate makes life harder for them. The risk is simple. If we build low-carbon systems that are efficient but fragile, people will remember the blackout more than the emissions they did not produce.
Designing green systems the way the A-10 was designed
What would it look like to apply A-10 style thinking to climate solutions?
First, start from the mission instead of the gadget. For the jet, the mission was “protect people on the ground at close range.”
For a regional grid, the mission might be “keep the lights on in homes and hospitals through a once-in-a-century storm.” That framing changes design choices. It pushes planners toward local storage at critical facilities, stronger distribution lines, and backup communication channels that still work when cell towers fail.
Second, add layers of redundancy that are simple, not just smart. The A-10 does not depend only on sophisticated electronics. It also has cables and rods. A climate-resilient grid can mirror that mix, combining advanced digital monitoring with old-fashioned physical robustness and clear manual procedures when digital systems go down.
Third, think about repair in the same way engineers thought about field maintenance for the jet. Many parts of the A-10 can be swapped left to right, and its structure uses straightforward materials that can be patched in basic hangars.
For clean energy, that suggests modular components, standard connectors and local spare part stockpiles so a wind turbine or inverter can be returned to service quickly after an ice storm instead of waiting weeks for a custom shipment.
Finally, remember the human factor. On a hot night when air conditioners are running full tilt, most people only care that the power stays on. If resilient design keeps the grid steady, public support for the broader transition toward renewables and electrified transport is more likely to hold.
The A-10 may have been built for a very different battlefield, but its stubborn ability to stay in the fight offers a useful metaphor for the low-carbon systems we are racing to build.
Resilience, redundancy and repairability are not luxuries. They are what will keep climate solutions working when the weather turns against us.
The report was published by the International Renewable Energy Agency (IRENA).
