• U.K. defense minister lends support to notion of an EMP threat

    The U.K. minister of defense, Liam Fox, appears to be lending support to the idea of an imminent electromagnetic strike against the West; in speech to an EMP-threat organization on Monday, Fox said that “As the nature of our technology becomes more complex, so the threat becomes more widespread — While we all benefit from the products of scientific advances so we also create vulnerabilities that can be exploited by our enemies. However advanced we become the chain of our security is only as strong as its weakest link”; security experts say an EMP strike is difficult to execute, and that a terrorist organization or a rogue state with only one bomb would rather use it to destroy a major city than disrupt the electrical grid and communication networks

  • The National Infrastructure Bank idea gains adherents

    The U.S. aging infrastructure will eventually constrain economic growth; government alone can no longer finance all of the nation’s infrastructure requirements; a national infrastructure bank (NIB) could fill the gap; the NIB could attract private funds to co-invest in projects that pass rigorous cost-benefit tests, and that generate revenues through user fees or revenue guarantees from state and local governments; investors could choose which projects meet their investment criteria, and, in return, share in project risks that today fall solely on taxpayers

  • A first: a Master's degree in infrastructure protection

    Ottawa’s Carleton University has unveiled a first-of-its-kind degree program: a Master of Infrastructure Protection; the program was launched last week, is offering a unique mix of courses related to engineering and national security policy; the aim is to educate infrastructure designers and engineers about policy-related issues, and policy makers about the design and engineering of the interconnected systems that form Canada’s economic and societal backbone

  • Age of pipes blamed for deadly San Bruno gas explosion

    Robots called “smart pigs” can inspect new pipelines, and modern pipelines have automated valves that stop gas flow when sensors detect a pressure drop — but the natural gas pipeline in San Bruno, California, is 54-years old; to shut off the old pipeline after the deadly explosion, workers had to retrieve keys and drive to two secured sites 1.5 to 2 kilometers from the fire, then manually crank valves shut

  • Louisiana worried about Corps' levee armoring plans

    Louisiana says the Corps of Engineers is $1 billion short for completing levee construction around New Orleans, while the Corps says it has enough money; the disagreement over the cost of completing levee construction centers on a long-simmering argument over the last construction task scheduled for earthen levees throughout the system: deciding what type of armoring will keep the levees from washing away if they are overtopped

  • Geoengineering may affect different regions differently

    Geoengineering approaches would succeed in restoring the average global temperature to “normal” levels, but some regions would remain too warm, whereas others would “overshoot” and cool too much; in addition, average rainfall would be reduced

  • Using bacteria to create self-healing concrete

    Cement production has an impact on the environment as it is very energy intensive, accounting for about 7 percent of the total anthropogenic atmospheric CO2 emissions; in addition to the energy consumption from production and transportation, air pollution, as well as land use and impacts on the landscape from related mining activities are also matters of concern; means of increasing the service life of concrete structures would make the material not only more durable, but also more sustainable — and researchers find that embedding certain bacteria in the concrete promises to do just that

  • Asteroids: Earth will be hit by a shotgun blast instead of a single cannonball

    Scientists find that many asteroids are not solid rocks, but a collection of small gravel-sized rocks, held together by gravity; instead of a solid mountain colliding with Earth’s surface, the planet would be pelted with the innumerable pebbles and rocks of which it is composed, like a shotgun blast instead of a single cannonball; this knowledge could guide the defensive tactics to be taken if an asteroid were on track to collide with the Earth

  • Water-proofing cities by using buildings for flood protection

    Buildings, car parks, and roads can be designed in such a way that they can protect the urban area behind them from flooding, alongside their regular urban functions; these innovative construction techniques can also be adapted to the circumstances in the long term, enabling flood protection systems to take account of external influences such as climate change and economic development

  • New method predicts communication-disrupting solar activity

    Major solar eruptions (coronal mass ejections) normally take several days to reach the Earth, but the largest recorded in 1859 took just eighteen hours; solar flares — which can also cause significant disruption to communications systems — take just a few minutes; U.K. researchers develop a method of predicting solar storms that could help to avoid widespread power and communications blackouts

  • Scientist offers better ways to engineer Earth's climate to blunt global warming

    A Canadian scientist suggests two novel geoengineering approaches to limit the effects of climate change on Earth: “levitating:” engineered nano-particles, and the airborne release of sulphuric acid; both ideas are more refined than, and have advantages over, another geoengineering concept developed by geoengineers: mimicking volcanic eruptions by injecting massive amounts of sulphur dioxide gas into the upper atmosphere

  • Small thorium reactors could lead to fossil-fuel-free world within five years

    An argument is made that nuclear reactors which use thorium as an accelerator (hence the technical name: Accelerator Driven Thorium Reactors, or ADTR) could lead to fossil-fuel-free world within five years; thorium is an abundant mineral deposit, with 3 to 5 times more thorium in the world than uranium; more importantly, virtually all of the thorium mined can be used as fuel compared to only 0.7 percent of the uranium recovered in its natural state, this means, in energy terms, that one ton of thorium mined is equivalent to 200 tons of uranium mined, which is equivalent to 3.5 million tons of mined coal; ADTRs also enjoy proliferation resistance advantages compared to other reactor systems

  • Dramatic climate change is unpredictable

    Scientists examine two models to explain climate change; one scenario is like a seesaw that has tipped to one side; if sufficient weight is placed on the other side the seesaw will tip — the climate will change from one state to another (an ice age, or warmer climate as is the case today); in the other model, the climate is like a ball in a trench, which represents one climate state; the ball is continuously pushed by chaos-dynamical fluctuations, and the turmoil in the climate system may finally push the ball over into the other trench, which represents a different climate state

  • Are New Orleans' storm defenses strong enough?

    The U.S. Army Corps of Engineers has invested $14.45 billion in bolstering New Orleans’ defenses against storms, and there is a consensus that the city’s protection now is better than they were on 29 August 2005, when Katrina made landfall, and its 8.5-meter surge went on to overpower a poorly constructed and poorly connected levees and flood walls; critics say, though, that the better designed and built levees do not take into account the stronger hurricanes which climate changes causes, and that the best defenses against hurricanes — coastal marshes, wetlands, and barrier islands — are being eroded and lost at an alarming rate as a result of urban development and the Corps’ own engineering approach to harnessing and taming the Mississippi River

  • U.S. military wants to cyber-protect critical infrastructure

    The U.S. military wants to exert more influence over the protection of power grids, transportation networks, and financial network systems because the military relies on these networks to deal with suppliers and these networks could become military targets