• India tunnels under Himalayan peaks to keep up with China

    In the past decade, as China has furiously built up its military and civilian infrastructure on its side of the Himalayan border, but the Rohtang Pass on the Indian side has stood as silent testimony to India’s inability and unwillingness to master its far-flung and rugged outermost reaches; in June, India has began to change that by starting the ambitious project which will take five years and require boring five miles through the Pir Panjal range; several other tunnels, which would allow all-weather access to Ladakh, which abuts the Tibetan Plateau, are also in the works

  • Worry: Hackers can take over power plants

    In many cases, operating systems at power plants and other critical infrastructure are decades old; sometimes they are not completely separated from other computer networks used by companies to run administrative systems or even access the Internet; those links between the administrative networks and the control systems provide gateways for hackers to insert malicious codes, viruses, or worms into the programs that operate the plants

  • INL's International Symposium on Resilient Control Systems (ISRCS)

    Idaho National Laboratory is helping generate innovative research and codify resilience in next-generation control system designs by hosting the 3rd International Symposium on Resilient Control Systems in Idaho Falls 10-12 August; INL says it sponsors the symposium to support a multidisciplinary approach to the complex nature of control system interdependencies that ensure safe and secure operation of critical components of the U.S. infrastructure including electrical grids, water supplies, and transportation

  • Commerce Department seeks comments on cybersecurity and its impact on innovation

    The U.S. Commerce Department seeks comments from all stakeholders, including the commercial, academic and civil society sectors, on measures to improve cyber security while sustaining innovation; the department says that the Internet has become vitally important to U.S. innovation, prosperity, education, civic activity, and cultural life as well as aspects of America’s national security, and that a top priority of the department is to ensure that the Internet remains an open and trusted infrastructure, both for commercial entities and individuals

  • Oil-eating bacteria responsible for oil plumes, dispersants vanishing

    The plumes of dispersant and oil in the Gulf’s deep waters that were causing anxiety among biologists have gone away; scientists say the reason is oil-eating bacteria; the bacteria in the Gulf’s deeper waters may have reacted so fast thanks in part to being primed by natural oil seeps along the sea floor; given that oil stopped flowing two weeks ago, scientists say it is not surprising that the plumes are now largely gone

  • Smart Grid offers target-rich opportunities for hackers

    SCADA systems are vulnerable to hacking, but the smart grid is even more vulnerable; security experts at the Black Hat conference in Las Vegas last week warned that the accelerated deployment of smart-grid technology could leave critical infrastructure and private homes vulnerable to hackers; hacking may come in a benign form — customers might simply figure out how to lower their electricity bills by manipulating how much energy their meters say they are using; hacking may also have more sinister aspects: large-scale attacks may also be possible, and the smart grid’s serious vulnerabilities make it possible to shut down the power supply to an entire city

  • $1.4 million prize for best oil clean-up technology

    X Prize Foundation is offering $1.4 million in prize money for new technologies to clean up oil spills; competitors will be invited to test their technologies in 2011 in a 203- by 20-metre tank owned by the U.S. government’s Minerals Management Service (MMS); a moving bridge that simulates a boat pulling cleanup equipment and a wave generator create ocean-like conditions in the New Jersey-based facility

  • New funding, schedule agreed for nuclear fusion project

    The governing council of ITER, Europe’s fusion reactor project, reached the deal on the financing and timetable for the experimental reactor after a two-day meeting in Cadarache; Europe pledged to provide additional financing of a maximum €6.6 billion ($8.5 billion); the total estimated bill for the EU has doubled to €7.2 billion ($9.2 billion), with the overall cost now reckoned to be around €15 billion; the reactor will become operational in November 2019

  • Subsidies for fossil fuel dwarf government support for renewable energy

    Governments around the world spent between $43 and $46 billion on renewable energy and biofuels last year, not including indirect support, such as subsidies to corn farmers that help ethanol production; direct subsidies of fossil fuels was more than ten times larger — it came to $557 billion; if the fossil fuel subsidies disappear, gasoline and electricity prices will increase, and this will help renewables compete, but it will still take decades for renewables to reach levels high enough to replace all fossil fuels

  • Good business: Developers make buildings more disaster-secure than building code requires

    A Florida developer hopes to get more business by making his building hurricane-proof; with debris-resistant windows on all thirty-five of its stories, the developer says the building would withstand a Category 5 hurricane without significant damage; the extra hurricane proofing built into the Miami building shows that sometimes the private market can overtake the public sector when it comes to building design and safety standards; for example, in New York and Washington, D.C., some developers have put in anti-terrorism safeguards that exceed building codes

  • Chemical industry welcomes extension of current chemical facilities security measure

    The U.S. chemical industry breathes a sigh of relief: a senate panel votes unanimously to extend current chemical facilities security law to 4 October 2013; the industry worried about modifications to the Chemical Facility Anti-Terrorism Act of 2009 (CFATS) which would make the measure more stringent — for example, by requiring the chemical plants replace the more toxic and volatile chemicals they use with inherently safer technologies, or IST

  • 3,000 chemical-filled barrels washed into major northeast China river

    Severe floods in China’s Jilin Province carried about 3,000 barrels containing toxic chemicals into the Songhuajiang River in Jilin City; in addition, 4,000 empty barrels containing chemical residues were also washed into the river — a major source of drinking water and fishing; each chemical-filled barrel contains about 170 kilograms of chemicals

  • X Prize to offer millions for Gulf oil cleanup solution

    The X Prize Foundation will tomorrow launch its Oil Cleanup X Challenge promising millions of dollars for winning ways to clean up crude oil from the BP spill in the Gulf of Mexico; past X Prize categories include mapping genomes, making an incredibly fuel efficient car, and exploring the moon’s surface with a robotic vehicle

  • Research shows promise for nuclear fusion test reactors

    Fusion powers the stars and could lead to a limitless supply of clean energy. A fusion power plant would produce ten times more energy than a conventional nuclear fission reactor, and because the deuterium fuel is contained in seawater, a fusion reactor’s fuel supply would be virtually inexhaustible

  • Senate panels to discuss high-risk chemical facilities

    This is an important week in chemical facilities security legislation, as two Senate panels are set to hold hearings on how the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and DHS can most effectively monitor the security measures taken by U.S. chemical facilities: