• ENERGY SECURITYHydroBoost: Increasing Hydropower Revenue with Realistic Forecasting

    By Brandon Hallmark

    Optimizing the revenue and power storage capabilities of hydropower plants is challenging because water flow varies with seasons and weather conditions.To help hydropower operators,researchers developed HydroBoost, an optimization solver.

  • CONSPIRACY THEORIESWhy Wind Farms Attract So Much Misinformation and Conspiracy Theory

    By Marc Hudson

    Like 19th century fears that telephones would spread diseases, wind farm conspiracy theories reflect deeper anxieties about change. They combine distrust of government, nostalgia for the fossil fuel era, and a resistance to confronting the complexities of the modern world.

  • NUCLEAR POWERNuclear Waste Could Be a Source of Fuel in Future Reactors

    In theory, nuclear fusion —a process that fuses atoms together, releasing heat to turn generators —could provide vast energy supplies with minimal emissions. But nuclear fusion is an expensive prospect because one of its main fuels is a rare version of hydrogen called tritium. Now, researchers are developing new systems to use nuclear waste to make tritium.

  • ENERGY SOURCESTrump’s Bid to Support Coal Could Cost Ratepayers Billions: Report

    By Alex Brown

    The market has spoken: Across the country, coal plants have phased out as they’ve been unable to compete with cheaper renewables and natural gas. A recent report found that 99% of existing U.S. coal plants “are more expensive to run than replacement by local wind, solar, and energy storage resources.” Mandates from the Trump administration to subsidize aging, uncompetitive coal plants would cause taxpayers billions and lead to a massive spike in energy costs.

  • PLUGGING ABANDONED WELLSPlugging America's Forgotten Wells: Study Addresses Decades Long Problem

    By Sydney O’Shaughnessy

    Since the drilling of the first oil well in 1859, millions more oil and gas wells have been drilled across the nation. Today, millions of wells – bout 3.4 million of them — sit idle, some for decades. One option for limiting the environmental and health impacts of orphaned wells is to plug them. But the question remains, with so many orphaned wells in the United States, what’s the best way to address this issue?

  • HOBBLING U.S. INNOVATIONWhy the U.S. Is Letting China Win on Energy Innovation

    By Stephen Lezak

    The frontiers of global technology have pivoted to AI and next generation energy. In AI, the U.S. has far outpaced any other nation, but in energy, the U.S. has just tied its shoelaces together. The reason isn’t technology, economics or, despite the administration’s misleading official line, even national security. Rather, it is politics. The fact is, the U.S. does not have an energy security problem. It does, however, have an energy cost problem combined with a growing climate change crisis. These issues will only be made worse by Trump’s enthusiasm for fossil fuels.

  • ENERGY SECURITYWill New Interior Department Rules Shackle Wind and Solar? Insiders Are Divided.

    By Rebecca Egan McCarthy

    Some Republicans felt that the massive budget bill that President Trump signed into law earlier this month did not go far enough in discouraging the growth of wind and solar power. So we know new Interior Department rules will slow wind and solar development — but we don’t yet know how much.

  • ENERGY INFRASTRUCTURENuclear Energy and AI Companies Seek Solutions at Argonne Summit

    Three U.S. Department of Energy labs host major forum dedicated to building the energy infrastructure needed to secure America’s digital competitiveness. Leaders in artificial intelligence and nuclear energy explored ideas for powering a digital future and streamlining nuclear technologies.

  • ENERGY SECURITYTrump Is Fast-Tracking New Coal Mines — Even When They Don’t Make Economic Sense

    By Katie Myers

    In Appalachian Tennessee, mines shut down and couldn’t pay their debts. Now a new one is opening under the guise of an “energy emergency.”

  • NUCLEAR POWERDespite Bipartisan Backing, Nuclear’s Future Is Uncertain Under Trump

    By Mia Beams

    As President Trump seeks to cut clean energy funding across the country, nuclear energy emerges as a rare area of bipartisan alignment and a priority for the administration. Yet inconsistent and conflicting federal policies threaten to impede efforts to promote nuclear energy production.

  • NUCLEAR POWERSmaller Nuclear Reactors Spark Renewed Interest in a Once-Shunned Energy Source

    By David Montgomery

    In the past two years, half the states have taken action to promote nuclear power, from creating nuclear task forces to integrating nuclear into long-term energy plans.

  • BATTERIESTrump’s Second Term Is Creating ‘a Limbo Moment’ for U.S. Battery Recyclers

    By Maddie Stone

    Since January, President Donald Trump has taken a sledgehammer to the Biden administration’s efforts to grow America’s clean energy industry. At the same time, citing economic and national security reasons, Trump has sought to advance efforts to produce more critical minerals like lithium in the United States. That is exactly what the emerging lithium-ion battery recycling industry seeks to do, which is why some industry insiders are optimistic about their future under Trump.

  • NUCLEAR POWERVirtual Models Paving the Way for Advanced Nuclear Reactors

    By Marguerite Huber

    Computer models predict how reactors will behave, helping operators make decisions in real time. The digital twin technology using graph-neural networks may boost nuclear reactor efficiency and reliability.

  • NUCLEAR POWER‘The West Will Lead’: Utah, Idaho, Wyoming Team Up on Nuclear Energy Development

    By Katie McKellar

    Utah state leaders are taking the next steps in their efforts to make Utah a major nuclear energy development hub and a “national leader” in developing next-generation energy technology, reaching beyond state lines to do it.

  • ENERGY SECURITYExperts Discuss Geothermal Potential

    By Graeme Beardsmore and Rachel Webster, University of Melbourne

    Geothermal energy harnesses the heat from within Earth—the term comes from the Greek words geo (earth) and therme (heat). It is an energy source that has the potential to power all our energy needs for billions of years.