The National Security Agency planned to open the first of four new facilities in Utah this year, but a series of mysterious meltdowns has pushed back the opening for a year.
Ten “meltdowns in the past 13 months” have broken “hundreds of thousands of dollars worth of machinery,” The Wall Street Journal reported. The NSA’s Utah Data Center has had nine incidents alone since Aug. 9, 2012.
One official told The Journal that electrical problems, more specifically “arc fault failures,” seem to be the culprit. The official described the problem as “a flash of lightning inside a 2-foot box.” Such electrical explosions cause metal to melt and circuits to fail.
Once operational, the new NSA facility will span “more than one-million square feet, with construction costs pegged at $1.4 billion,” The Journal reports.
• Douglas Ernst can be reached at dernst@washingtontimes.com.
Please read our comment policy before commenting.