• Obama, Romney differ on major homeland security issues

    Tomorrow, Tuesday 6 November, American voters will choose between Barack Obama and Mitt Romney as the next president of the United States; the state of the U.S. economy and the best ways to reduce unemployment and increase the pace of economic growth were at the center of the campaign, leaving little room for other issues. Homeland security issues, in particular, played little, if any, role in the campaign or in the three debates between the presidential candidates and the debate between the vice-presidential candidates; still, if we examine the policy proposals each candidate has made, and also examine the details of policies posted on his Web sites, the differences between the candidates’ approaches on three major homeland security issues – immigration, cybersecurity, and infrastructure – are considerable

  • States, localities to assume more responsibilities for rebuilding U.S. aging infrastructure

    Infrastructure in the United States is in bad shape; Maryland needs more than $100 million a year for its bridges; Virginia needs $125 million per year for roads that need repaving; Washington’s failure to create a long-term funding plan to repair the nation’s infrastructure is forcing state and local governments to fill the void in federal funding

  • Biofuels from algae hold potential, but more work required to realize that potential

    Scaling up the production of biofuels made from algae to meet at least 5 percent — about ten billion gallons — of U.S. transportation fuel needs would place unsustainable demands on energy, water, and nutrients, says a new report from the National Research Council (NRC); these concerns, however, are not a definitive barrier for future production, and innovations that would require research and development could help realize algal biofuels’ full potential

  • Sea levels are rising ahead of predictions; scientists explain why

    The last official Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) report in 2007 projected a global sea level rise between 0.2 and 0.5 meters by the year 2100; current sea-level rise measurements meet or exceed the high end of that range and suggest a rise of one meter or more by the end of the century; scientists meeting next week at the Geological Society of America annual meeting will discuss whether estimates of the rate of future sea-level rise are too low

  • Experts: German nuclear exit offers economic, environmental benefits

    Following the accident at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Station in 2011, the German government took the nation’s eight oldest reactors offline immediately and passed legislation which will close the last nuclear power plant by 2022; this nuclear phase-out had overwhelming political support in Germany; elsewhere, many saw it as “panic politics”; a new collection of studies shows that the nuclear shutdown and an accompanying move toward renewable energy are already yielding measurable economic and environmental benefits

  • U.K. govt. awards £37.1 million for civilian nuclear research

    The U.K. Department for Business, Innovation and Skills has announced an award of 37.1 million pounds to the University of Sheffield’s Nuclear Advanced Manufacturing Research Center (Nuclear AMRC), which are working in partnership with Rolls-Royce as the lead company for the U.K. nuclear supply chain

  • Quick-cook method turns algae into oil

    It looks like Mother Nature was wasting her time with a multimillion-year process to produce crude oil; University of Michigan engineering researchers can “pressure-cook” algae for as little as a minute and transform an unprecedented 65 percent of the green slime into biocrude

  • Rising sea levels make NYC vulnerable to more frequent, more intense floods

    Scientists say that Hurricane Sandy has forced a recognition on New York City and on other coastal communities: the steady rise in sea levels means not only more floods, but more frequent and more devastating floods; three of the top 10 highest floods at the Battery since 1900 happened in the last two and a half years; after rising roughly an inch per decade in the last century, coastal waters in New York are expected to climb as fast as six inches per decade, or two feet by midcentury; the city is exploring a $10 billion system of surge barriers and huge sea gates

  • Study connects burning fossil fuels to sea level rise

    A study has found that burning all the Earth’s reserves of fossil fuels could cause sea levels to rise by as much as five meters — with levels continuing to rise for typically 500 years after carbon dioxide emissions ceased

  • Calculating the benefits of switching from food to energy crops

    Along with the growing interest in biomass energy crops as renewable alternatives to fossil fuels comes a growing list of questions from corn and soybean farmers about what it will cost them to switch; researchers developed a customizable online calculator to eliminate some of the guesswork and help farmers make the decision

  • Death, destruction in wake of Hurricane Sandy

    Hurricane Sandy’s left millions along the U.S. East Coast without power or mass transit, in all likelihood for days; the U.S. death toll reached 48, with most of the dead being killed by falling trees; the hurricane cut power to more than 8.2 million across the East Coast; airlines canceled more than 15,000 flights; Sandy will end up causing about $20 billion in property damage and $10 billion to $30 billion more in lost business, making it one of the costliest natural disasters on record in the U.S. history

  • Improving high-speed rail ties against freezing, thawing conditions

    Research project is helping high-speed rail systems handle the stress of freezing and thawing weather conditions; the 3-year study looks at the freeze-thaw durability of concrete railroad ties; the research is essential to developing safe and durable high-speed rail systems

  • Researchers invent safe wireless vehicle charging technology

    Researchers have invented a safe, efficient technology wirelessly to charge electric vehicles using “remote magnetic gears” — a rotating base magnet driven by electricity from the grid, and a second located within the car — and successfully tested it on campus service vehicles

  • A coal economy has multiple health, social risks, says major review

    A major review of evidence on the impact of coal mining has highlighted serious, ongoing health and social problems, and an urgent need for improvements in government coal mining policy

  • Hurricanes will test Florida buildings, built under new, post-Wilma building codes

    In 2005 Hurricane Wilma was responsible for five deaths and millions of dollars worth of damage in Florida; building codes in the state were updated, and experts predict that these new buildings, most of which were designed with wind-tunnel testing, should perform well in all but the most severe conditions