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What Are the Risks of Hydrogen Vehicles in Tunnels?
In addition to electric vehicles, hydrogen-powered vehicles are also seen as an alternative to conventionally powered vehicles. Scientists have analyzed the risk and damage potential of hydrogen vehicles in tunnels and derived recommendations. Their conclusion? Any damage would be extensive, but its occurrence is unlikely.
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Facing a Potentially Warmer, Drier Washington State, Scientists Develops Plans to Be Sure Nuclear Power Plants Stay Cool
Waterways — tried and true cooling sources for nuclear power plants — could get warmer due to global climate change. Washington is planning ahead. Argonne scientists will use Gateway for Accelerated Innovation in Nuclear funding from the U.S. Department of Energy to work with Washington’s Energy Northwest on climate-ready nuclear reactor designs.
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Small Hydroelectric Plants Could Provide Emergency Power During Outages
Idaho National Laboratory (INL) is seeking a hydropower utility to collaborate on a case study, funded by the U.S. Department of Energy’s Water Power Technologies Office (WPTO), to understand how small hydroelectric plants operating at 10 megawatts or less can be upgraded to provide emergency power to critical loads (e.g., hospitals and emergency service providers) during outages.
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Making Batteries Takes Lots of Lithium: Almost Half of It Could Come from Pennsylvania Wastewater
Most batteries used in technology like smartwatches and electric cars are made with lithium that travels across the world before even getting to manufacturers. But what if nearly half of the lithium used in the U.S. could come from Pennsylvania wastewater?
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Securing Competitiveness of Energy-Intensive industries Through Relocation: The Pulling Power of Renewables
Countries with limited potential for renewables could save up to 20 percent of costs for green steel and up to 40 percent for green chemicals from green hydrogen if they relocated their energy-intensive production and would import from countries where renewable energy is cheaper.
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Rivers Are the West’s Largest Source of Clean Energy. What Happens When Drought Strikes?
With rivers across the West running low, utilities must get creative if they are to meet demand without increasing emissions.
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Subterranean Storage of Hydrogen
Hydrogen is an important clean fuel: It can be made by splitting water using solar or wind power, it can be used to generate electricity and to power heavy industry, and it could be used to energize fuel-cell-based vehicles. Sandia scientists are using computer simulations and laboratory experiments to see if depleted oil and natural gas reservoirs can be used for storing this carbon-free fuel.
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How Texas Is Playing a Major Role in the Race to Develop Clean Energy Technologies
The federal government is pouring billions of dollars into developing clean power sources. In this conversation hosted by The Texas Tribune in Houston, panelists discussed how Texas companies are playing a major role in emerging technologies like hydrogen and geothermal.
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In the Central U.S., an Electric Grid Bottleneck Persists
Forty-five million people live in the area managed by the Midcontinent Independent System Operator, the organization that runs a massive portion of the North American electric grid running from Manitoba, Canada, to the Gulf of Mexico. Where the northern part of the system meets the southern end — a narrow corridor that traverses a corner of southeast Missouri and northeastern Arkansas — there’s a bottleneck that can hurt electric customers and create major inefficiencies on both sides of the divide.
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Georgia’s Vogtle Plant Could Herald the Beginning — or End — of a New Nuclear Era
Few issues are as divisive among American environmentalists as nuclear energy. Concerns about nuclear waste storage and safety, particularly in the wake of the 1979 Three Mile Island reactor meltdown in Pennsylvania, helped spur the retirement of nuclear power plants across the country. Nuclear energy’s proponents, however, counter that nuclear power has historically been among the safest forms of power generation, and that the consistent carbon-free energy it generates makes it an essential tool in the fight against global warming. The $35 billion Vogtle nuclear project is an investment in the future or a cautionary tale, depending whom you ask.
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Strengthening the Grid’s ‘Backbone’ with Hydropower
Argonne-led studies investigate how hydropower could help add more clean energy to the grid, how it generates value as grids add more renewable energy, and how liner technology can improve hydropower efficiency.
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LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.
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Does Australia Have the Will to Develop the Next Critical Mineral at Scale?
The forces of demand driven by the global energy transition and supply limited by geopolitics are coalescing to make yet another mineral globally ‘critical’—uranium. Australia’s rich economic geology has endowed it with the world’s biggest uranium resources. Yet Australians have a long-term aversion to uranium mining.
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In $100 Million Colorado River Deal, Water and Power Collide
The Colorado River District plans to buy the water rights that flow through Colorado’s Shoshone hydropower plant. The acquisition is seen as pivotal for a wide swath of the state, and has been co-signed by farmers, environmental groups, and local governments.
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The Balticconnector Incident: Hybrid Attacks and Critical Infrastructure Protection
There is the recognition that Europe needs to invest more resources to proactively prevent attacks such on those related to the Nord Streams in 2022 and Balticconnector in 2023. The European Union and individual EU countries are investing in new military measures as well as enacting new regulations aimed at protecting critical infrastructure.
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