• The Inside Story of How the Navy Spent Billions on the “Little Crappy Ship”

    By Joaquin Sapien

    Littoral combat ships were supposed to launch the Navy into the future. Instead they broke down across the globe and many of their weapons never worked. Now the Navy is getting rid of them. One is less than five years old.

  • U.S. Chip Sales to China to Continue, but Not Most Powerful Ones

    By Ken Bredemeier

    The United States will continue to sell semi-conductor computer chips to China but not its most powerful ones “that China wants for its military,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo said. While the United States and China maintain more than $700 billion in annual trade, escalating tensions in recent years have made it more challenging for U.S. firms to operate in China.

  • Watching Trends: Helping the NRC Model Risk and Reliability

    By Matthew L. Wald

    Nuclear power accounts for 0.03 deaths per terawatt-hour of electricity generated, when including both accidents and deaths due to air pollution. This fatality rate is a factor of 820 lower than electricity produced using coal. One reason U.S. nuclear power plants have such an impressive safety record is that utilities embrace a safety culture, one that uses probabilistic risk assessments, also known as PRAs.

  • A Common BRICS Currency to Challenge the U.S. Dollar? “A Very Far-Fetched Notion”: Expert

    By Todd Prince

    The BRICS bloc, a group of developing countries seen as seeking to counter the United States and the West, agreed at a summit last week to admit six new countries — Argentina, Egypt, Ethiopia, Iran, Saudi Arabia, and the United Arab Emirates. The new members will make BRICS a commodities powerhouse, and the group now accounts for 40 percent of the world’s population. It will be tough for group members  to get away from the dollar as a reserve currency, however, due to the far greater ease of buying and selling it.

  • Chipmaker Nvidia Strikes AI Gold

    By Arthur Sullivan

    The artificial intelligence boom has seen Nvidia achieve stunning financial results. Shares in the Silicon Valley company hit an all-time high, after its revenue doubled year-on-year in the second quarter of 2023 to $13.5 billion. But other companies, including Google, Microsoft and Amazon, want a piece of the action.

  • How ERCOT Is Narrowly Getting Through an Extreme Summer — and How Experts Say It Could Do Better

    By Emily Foxhall

    Record-high power demand and faltering electricity sources have tested the grid in the past month, forcing the Electric Reliability Council of Texas to dig deep into its toolbox to keep power flowing.

  • Fortune 500 Companies with Immigrant Roots Generated More Money Than the GDP of Most Western Nations

    By Steven Hubbard

    When Fortune released this year’s Fortune 500 list—the magazine’s iconic ranking of the year’s top-grossing American companies—one fact remained unchanged from previous years: the profound role that immigrants and their children have played in establishing many of the U.S. most successful and influential companies.

  • The Scourge of Commercial Spyware—and How to Stop It

    Years of public revelations have spotlighted a shadowy set of spyware companies selling and servicing deeply intrusive surveillance technologies that are used against journalists, activists, lawyers, politicians, diplomats, and others. Democratic nations (thus far) lag behind the United States in executing spyware-related policy commitments.

  • President Biden Has Banned Some U.S. Investment in China. Here’s What to Know.

    By Noah Berman

    A new executive order restricts U.S. investments in sensitive technologies that Washington fears could help Beijing increase its military power. It is the latest in a raft of policies erecting barriers between the world’s two largest economies, and U.S. allies could soon adopt similar measures. The  Biden administration says the restrictions are directed at protecting national security, not stifling economic competition.

  • Shutting Off Power to Reduce Wildfire Risk on Windy Days Isn’t a Simple Decision – an Energy Expert Explains the Trade-Offs Electric Utilities Face

    By Tim C. Lieuwen

    Maui County is suing Hawaiian Electric, claiming the utility was negligent for not shutting off power as strong winds hit the island in the hours before the city of Lahaina burned. Electricity is critical infrastructure and a foundational bedrock to many other services, so utilities have to balance the risk of keeping power on with the risks created by shutting power off.

  • International Ransomware Gangs Are Evolving Their Techniques. The Next Generation of Hackers Will Target Weaknesses in Cryptocurrencies

    By Alpesh Bhudia, Anna Cartwright, Darren Hurley-Smith, and Edward Cartwright

    In reality, not a week goes by without attacks affecting governments, schools, hospitals, businesses and charities, all over the world. These attacks have significant financial and societal costs. Ransomware is now widely acknowledged as a major threat and challenge to modern society, and there is every expectation that criminals will continue to adapt their strategies and cause widespread damage for many years to come.

  • Ms. Nuclear Energy Is Winning Over Nuclear Skeptics

    By Poornima Apte

    Kaylee Cunningham recognizes that her training as a Ph.D. student in nuclear science and engineering could be for naught if myths continue to plague the industry. The activist is committed to helping — one TikTok at a time.

  • Thermal Battery Helps Industry Eliminate Fossil Fuels

    By Zach Winn

    The explosion of renewable energy projects around the globe is leading to a saturation problem. As more renewable power contributes to the grid, the value of electricity is plummeting during the times of day when wind and solar hit peak productivity. The problem is limiting renewable energy investments in some of the sunniest and windiest places in the world. Antora Energy is commercializing a thermal battery that lets manufacturers use renewable energy around the clock.

  • Climate Change and U.S. Property Insurance: A Stormy Mix

    By Alice C. Hill

    Accelerating risks and damage from climate change are spurring private insurers in the United States to limit coverage in a growing number of areas, thus imposing mounting stress on local communities and straining the country’s overall economic health.

  • Is China Engaged in Biodiesel Fraud?

    By Insa Wrede

    European biofuel producers have come under significant price pressure as Chinese companies inundate the European second-generation biofuel market with their cheaper products. Shipping advanced biofuels from China to Europe should add about 20% to the price of the fuel, yet Chinese producers are selling it for half the price charged by European producers. The suspicion is that Chinese producers are using palm oil in the production of the fuel, even though palm oil, which will be phased out as a biofuel ingredient by 2030, is already tightly capped in Europe because it is linked to the destruction of rainforests in countries like Malaysia and Indonesia.