• Nuclear power making a come back

    If Germany, where most of the public is suspicious of nuclear power, plans to extend the life of its nuclear reactors, the world must have entered a new atomic age; indeed: around the world, more than 150 reactors with a total net capacity of almost 170,000 megawatts are planned and more than 340 more are proposed, according to the World Nuclear Association

  • Growing concerns about U.S. aging gas pipeline network

    A disturbing realization has emerged from the wreckage of a deadly pipeline explosion in California: There are thousands of pipes just like it across the United States; experts say that pipes of some age were put in the ground before the dense population arrived and now the dense population is right over the pipes; thousands of pipelines across the United States fit the bill, and serious incidents are not infrequent; federal officials have recorded 2,840 significant gas pipeline accidents since 1990, more than a third causing deaths and significant injuries

  • Gas pipeline info kept secret for security reasons, hampering disaster response

    The United States has a 2.5-million-mile network of gas transmission lines; citing fears that terrorists might try to blow up the U.S. natural gas pipelines, federal regulators and the industry have made it extremely difficult for homeowners to learn the location of pipelines and any history of inspections and repairs — information that safety advocates say could save lives

  • San Bruno gas pipe failure started with bad welds or corrosion

    The failure of a natural-gas pipeline that ruptured three weeks ago, devastating a San Bruno neighborhood, may have started along a weld or in a weakened section of the 54-year-old pipe; “This pipe basically unpeeled and failed catastrophically,” said Tom Bowman, chairman of the thermosciences division in Stanford University’s mechanical engineering department

  • Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse Web Portal launched

    Virginia Tech has released the latest version of the Smart Grid Information Clearinghouse (SGIC) Web portal; the portal is the platform for direct sharing and dissemination of relevant smart grid information, ranging from background documents, deployment experiences, technologies, and standards, to on-going smart grid projects around the world

  • India's ambitious thorium-based nuclear energy plans

    With 40 percent of its population not yet connected to the electricity grid and an economy growing by about 8 percent each year, India’s ambitious 3-stage energy security plan includes exploiting the country’s vast reserves of thorium; India could thus find itself a leading global exporter of an alternative nuclear technology that is more efficient than today’s uranium-plutonium fuel cycle

  • Stuxnet, world's first "cyber superweapon," attacks China

    Stuxnet, the most sophisticated malware ever designed, could make factory boilers explode, destroy gas pipelines, or even cause a nuclear plant to malfunction; experts suspect it was designed by Israeli intelligence programmers to disrupt the operations of Iran’s nuclear facilities — especially that country’s centrifuge farms and the nuclear reactor in Bushehr; it has now infected Chinese industrial control systems as well; one security expert says: “The Stuxnet worm is a wake-up call to governments around the world—- It is the first known worm to target industrial control systems”

  • Stuxnet shows how nuclear plants may be attacked

    Security experts say that critical infrastructure firms need to respond quickly in order to protect their systems from Stuxnet, and warn that its spread may mark the beginning of increased cyber espionage and sabotage; what is especially worrisome about Stuxnet is that a pattern in its code — designed to match that of a specific application — suggests that the worm’s authors had a specific facility in mind

  • Curved escalators can follow any path upward

    A retired British mechanical engineering professor designed an escalator, or conveyance — dubbed the Levytator — that can be designed into any shape, so architects can incorporate escalators that follow curves rather than travel in straight lines; the Levytator moves a continuous loop of curved steps, which can follow any path upwards, flatten, and straighten, and descend again with passengers onboard

  • Livermore scientists to begin fusion quest before end of month

    Before the end of the month, scientists at Livermore’s National Ignition Facility will conduct an experiment backed by billions of dollars — and which promises to change the world’s energy supply; the scientists are preparing to meet an end-of-month deadline for the first set of experiments in the final stretch of a national effort to achieve the long-sought goal of fusion — a reaction in which more energy is released than put into it

  • DOE awards $30 million to bolster smart grid cybersecurity

    The Department of Energy awards $30 million for ten projects that will address cybersecurity issues facing the U.S. electric grid; these projects represent a significant investment in addressing cybersecurity issues in the nation’s electric infrastructure

  • Iran admits its nuclear facilities are under massive cyberattack

    Iran has confirmed that 30,000 computers in the country’s power stations, including the nuclear reactor in Bushehr, have been attacked by the Stuxnet worm; the Stuxnet worm is described by experts as the most complex piece of malware ever designed; once Stuxnet gains access to a plant’s computers, it hunts out specific software that controls operations such as the opening and closing of valves or temperature regulation; by halting those processes it can cause extensive damage to nuclear power stations, power grids or other industrial facilities; the high number of infections in Iran have led experts to conclude that the worm may have been designed in the United States or Israel to disable Iran’s controversial nuclear facilities

  • Secure network for critical infrastructure idea draws fire

    The Obama administration wants to develop a secure computer network to defend civilian government agencies and critical civilian infrastructure and industries; the restricted network would allow the government to provide greater protection to vital online operations and critical infrastructure — such as financial networks, commercial aviation systems, and the national power grid — from Internet-based attacks; critics say this ambitious idea is impractical

  • Worldwide groundwater depletion rate accelerating

    In recent decades, the rate at which humans worldwide are pumping dry the vast underground stores of water that billions depend on has more than doubled; if water was siphoned from the Great Lakes as rapidly as water is pumped out of underground reservoirs, the Great Lakes would go bone-dry in around 80 years

  • Bridge column withstands 6.9 quake in tests

    Engineers in California test a bridge column design capable of withstanding a 6.9 quake; nearly all of California’s 2,194 state-owned bridges have been retrofitted better to withstand tremors; local cities and counties across California own 1,193 with work done on 729 of them