• Tipping the Balance Between Global Rivals

    Seeking to understand how trade policies fueled China’s rise and continue to determine geopolitical winners and losers.

  • Why Outlawing Ghost Guns Didn’t Stop America’s Largest Maker of Ghost Gun Parts

    Unregistered, unserialized weapons produced with Polymer80 parts have turned up at crime scenes across the country, but state-level efforts to close ghost gun loopholes continue to fall short.

  • Forging the Future of U.S. Microelectronics Manufacturing

    U.S. initiatives are necessary to fortify access and restore the supply chains underpinning modern communications, travel, national security, and manufacturing. Foundational new program will fuel domestic microsystem innovations beyond today’s 2D limitations.

  • Computer Chips: While U.S. and EU Invest to Challenge Asia, the U.K. Industry Is in Mortal Danger

    U.S. semiconductor giant Micron, on the back of incentives in the recent U.S. Chips Act, is to invest U.S.$40 billion (£33 billion) during the 2020s in chip manufacturing in America, creating 40,000 jobs. The EU is also making moves to boost computer-chip manufacturing at home. In the U.K., however, successive governments have overlooked the importance of having a home-grown industry for this vital component. There is a clear absence of any strategic plan, and no way of riding on the coattails of the EU following Brexit.

  • ‘Silicon Lifeline’: Report Reveals Western Technology Guiding Russia’s Weapons in Ukraine

    Microelectronics produced in the United States and allied countries are crucial components of Russian weapons systems used in the Ukraine invasion. A new report says more than 450 foreign-made components have been found in Russian weapons recovered in Ukraine. The report’s authors say Moscow acquired critical technology from companies in the United States, Europe and Asia in the years before the invasion.

  • Critical Minerals Competition Uses AI to Accelerate Analytics

    The United States depends on a variety of raw, non-fuel materials dubbed “critical minerals” to manufacture products considered essential to national security. Increasing demand, coupled with limited domestic supply and increasing reliance on foreign companies to import these critical minerals, poses significant risks to the U.S. supply chain. DARPA is offering prizes for automating aspects of USGS critical mineral assessments.

  • Chinese Firms Leaving New York Stock Exchange Could Be First of Many

    A long-running battle between U.S. securities regulators and Chinese companies that sell their shares in the United States is expected to result in five large state-controlled Chinese firms leaving the New York Stock Exchange, with other departures possible in the future.

  • The Economic Weapon: The Growing Use of Sanctions as a Tool of War

    The war in Ukraine has put economic sanctions in the global spotlight. In his book, Nicholas Mulder traces the first use of sanctions back to the Peloponnesian War, but says that it was only in the globalizing world of the 20th century that sanctions moved to center stage. Ironically, as the use of sanctions has surged, their chances of success have plummeted.

  • How the U.S. Oil and Gas Industry Works

    The United States is the world’s top producer of oil and natural gas. The country’s economy runs on these fossil fuels, but producing and burning them releases greenhouse gas emissions that cause climate change. Russia’s war in Ukraine stoked the debate over whether the United States should boost production to strengthen U.S. and European energy independence or reduce production, improve efficiency, and transition to renewables. The U.S. decision to either continue at the current pace of oil and gas production or curb production to achieve its climate goals will have global consequences.

  • Wealthiest Homeowners Most at Risk of Wildfire Hazard

    The top 10 cent most valuable homes in the western United States are 70% more likely to be in high wildfire hazard areas than median-value properties, measured by county.

  • California Mining Firms Seek to Clean Up Lithium's Production Footprint

    Three large mining projects based in California’s “Lithium Valley” aim to recover lithium with minimal environmental impacts. They have the potential to simplify the global lithium supply chain.

  • Growing the Impacts of Climate-Smart Agriculture

    A range of ‘climate-smart’ farming practices have the potential to lower that impact, and also help sequester carbon dioxide emitted by other parts of the economy. For example, planting cover crops in between plantings of cash crops can absorb CO2 into the soil, among other benefits. However, cover crops and other climate-smart practices aren’t yet the norm.

  • New Dataset Shows Value Building Flexibility Adds to Grid

    New study estimates the gross value (including capacity, energy, and ancillary service values) of generic building flexibility in future power systems projected for the contiguous United States using computer modeling. Building flexibility refers to a building’s capability to shed, shift, and modulate electricity demand.

  • China Has a New Global Development Initiative, but Who Will Actually Benefit from It?

    China is a major player in world affairs, representing the second-largest economy in the world after the United States. A year after assuming power in 2012, President Xi Jinping announced the creation of the so-called Belt and Road Initiative, a massive infrastructure project designed to increase investment and promote economic development in many of the world’s poor nations. In the past year, Xi has advanced another idea – the Global Development Initiative.

  • When the Hardware Traps Criminals

    Up to now, protecting hardware against manipulation has been a laborious business: expensive, and only possible on a small scale. And yet, two simple antennas might do the trick.