• Keystone XL pipeline: reliability of remote oil-spill sensors questioned

    The oil industry plans to build thousands of miles of pipelines in the next five years, making leak detection a growing issue; many of the new pipelines will cross aquifers and rivers which are used for drinking water and irrigation; the Keystone XL pipeline has already experienced its share of controversies, and now there is a debate over the quality and reliability of the pipeline’s sensor system for remote detection of oil spills

  • Repair bill for Miami-Dade water and sewage system: $12 billion

    Repairing, replacing, and rebuilding 13,000 miles of old water and sewage pipes and the treatment plants they connect to could cost Miami-Dade County, Florida more than $12 billion dollars over the next fifteen years; this is a staggering amount – made even more so in light of the fact that this is considerably more than the original estimate of $1 billion

  • Georgia’s Plant Vogtle reviving hopes for nuclear power in U.S.

    Plant Vogtle, located in Burke County, Georgia, is one of the most watched construction projects in the world; it is currently going through a $14 billion dollar expansion, which includes the first new commercial reactors built in the United States in decades

  • DOE promotes small-nuclear reactors (SMRs)

    South Carolina’s Savannah River Site (SRS) located in Aiken, along with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), have announced three partnerships to develop three small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) at the SRS facility; SMRs produce less energy than a regular reactor, but they produce enough energy to power small cities and remote areas

  • New FERC office to focus on cyber security

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has created a new FERC office — Office of Energy Infrastructure Security (OEIS) —  which will help the Commission focus on potential cyber and physical security risks to energy facilities under its jurisdiction

  • Rare Earth metals: Will we have enough?

    Life in the twenty-first century would not be the same without rare Earth metals; cell phones, iPads, laptops, televisions, hybrid cars, wind turbines, solar cells, and many more products depend on rare Earth metals to function; will there be enough for us to continue our high-tech lifestyle and transition to a renewable energy economy? Do we need to turn to deep seabed or asteroid mining to meet future demand?

  • Specialty metals recycling policy needed: experts

    An international policy is needed for recycling scarce specialty metals that are critical in the production of consumer goods; because they are used in small amounts for very precise technological purposes, such as red phosphors, high-strength magnets, thin-film solar cells, and computer chips, recovery can be so technologically and economically challenging that the attempt is seldom made

  • Exploring solutions to growing water shortages

    Most Americans do not pay much attention to how much water they use when they take a shower or when they water the grass, but Michael Sullivan, a global executive at IBM thinks this will change; “Water is a finite resource,” Sullivan told a panel in a conference on water policy; “What we’re dealing with is that there’s a finite supply, and as the population grows and industry grows, we’re stressing that finite supply”

  • Raytheon Aerostat, SM-6 missile work together to protect ships

    As tensions continue to rise over Iran’s nuclear weapons program, and the likelihood of military action to stop Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons increases – military action which would place U.S. ships in the Persian Gulf and the Indian Ocean at risk — there is good news from Raytheon: soon the seas may be a little safer

  • Lessons learned: Cheech and Chong at the Y-12 security breach

    On 28 July 2012, an 82-year old nun and her two confederates — both senior citizens themselves – breached the vaunted and supposedly impregnable perimeter protection system at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, where uranium for nuclear weapons is processed and stored (the Y-12 complex is not affiliated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory [ORNL]); a report on the incident by the Inspector General of the Department of Energy is couched in bureaucratic jargon, but it reveals that the Y-12 security system and practices were much worse than Cheech and Chong could have ever portrayed in their wildest stand-up comedy routines or loopy films

  • Leading Latino supermarket entrepreneur criticized for using E-Verify

    Juvenal Chavez built his Mi Pueblo supermarket chain from the ground up into twenty-one stores, revitalized San Rafael’s Canal neighborhood in San Jose; he has been hailed  the king of Latino supermarket; now the entrepreneur has come under fire: Mi Pueblo shocked some of its 3,000 employees last month when it told them the supermarket chain has joined E-Verify, a DHS program that aims to verify the immigration status of new hires and existing employees

  • U.S. models underestimates costs of carbon pollution

    Model used by government all but ignores economic damages that climate change will inflict on future generations; two economists argue that when these costs are factored in, the real benefits of carbon reduction range from 2.6 to more than 12 times higher than the government’s estimate

  • New NIST publication provides guidance for computer security risk assessments

    The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) has released a final version of its risk assessment guidelines which can provide senior leaders and executives with the information they need to understand and make decisions about their organization’s current information security risks and information technology infrastructures

  • Boeing to pursue cybersecurity opportunities in Japan

    Boeing and Japanese trading company Sojitz are teaming up to offer advanced cybersecurity solutions in Japan to help protect critical government, civil, and commercial information technology infrastructure

  • Tasered youth fare as well as adults: study

    Adolescents who are tasered by law enforcement officers do not appear to be at higher risk for serious injury than adults, according to new a new study; the conclusions are based on a retrospective study of Taser use from law enforcement data collected by the largest, independent multicenter database established in 2005