• Information technology to create more efficient power grid

    Creating a smarter grid through information technology could save $80 billion over 20 years nationally by offsetting costs of building new electric infrastructure; 300 Pacific Northwest volunteers take part in smart-appliance trial

  • Tiny sensors detect toxic gasses

    MIT researchers developed a small detector the size of a match box which will detect minute quantities of hazardous gases, including toxic industrial chemicals and chemical warfare agents, much more quickly than current devices

  • Towns overhauling infrastructure maps

    The GIS Consortium was established in 1999; it enables police, fire, and public works employees the ability to bring computer-based mapping applications onsite, and allows mapping and updating of towns’ infrastructure — everything from sewer and water lines to the location of valves, fire hydrants, street lights, trees and signs

  • Interim government review of U.K. summer flooding published

    Interim review addresses the issues of managing flood risk, groundwater monitoring, local and national planning and response, public information, and public preparedness; the Review draws seventy-two interim conclusions, awaiting further information and evidence before being put forward in firm recommendations next summer

  • CN expands rail holding, banking on increasing northern oil production

    As the price of oil increases, the attractiveness of extracting oil from oil sands in Canada’s northern regions increases apace; CN acquires yet more rail to ensure rail links to Alberta’s oil sands region

  • Weapon-grade plutonium shipped cross-country

    The Department of Energy plans to scale down U.S. nuclear weapons program by consolidating special nuclear materials — read: weapon-grade material — at five federal sites by the end of 2012 and reducing the square footage and staff within those sites by 2017; nuclear materials will have to be shipped from different labs around the country to these five sites

  • DOE IG offers details of 24 October Oak Ridge security breach

    Certain areas of the U.S. nuclear labs are designated “limited areas” by DOE; employees are prohibited from bringing into these secure areas any equipment capable of transmitting data wirelessly; at Oak Ridge, 38 laptops had been allowed into restricted areas, and IG finds that nine of these laptops had later been taken on foreign travel — two of them to countries on DOE’ sensitive countries list

  • Storage offers investors intriguing opportunities

    More and more surveillance cameras are placed around critical infrastructure facilities, above city streets, and long highways; these cameras generate mountains of visual material — and there is a need to store all this material; storage solutions will be a major business in the coming years

  • U.K. nuclear power plan draws fire

    A group of academics issue a report arguing that the established nuclear-power industry would inevitably move on to the use of fast-breeder reactors to manufacture plutonium for use as fuel, increasing the risk of nuclear weapons proliferation

  • VT Group acquires British Nuclear Group Project Services

    As interest in nuclear power revives, nuclear-power related services enjoy another look from investors and businesses

  • Investigation begins into causes of deadly Florida explosion

    Jacksonville, Florida massive explosion and fire at the T2 Laboratories facility kill 4 and injure 14; rescue teams describe scene as “hellish inferno”

  • Quantum communication over long distance, flawed networks possible

    Chinese scientists offer possible breakthrough in quantum communication — overcoming the problem of quantum entanglement between photons at long distances; the scientists show a quantum-communications network in which producing entanglement over a long distance is conceptually possible

  • L.A. reservoirs emptied after high levels of contamination discovered

    Two of Los Angeles’s beloved landmarks — Silver Lake and Elysian Park — are emptied after tests revealed bromate, a disinfectant byproduct that can form when treated water reacts with naturally occurring mineral bromide in sunlight

  • FERC seeks industry cyber-security plans

    Earlier this year, government scientists hacked into a simulated power-plant control system and caused an electric generator to destroy itself; as worries about the vulnerability of the U.S. power grid to cyber attacks grow, regulators demand that utilities submit detailed reports about their progress in addressing potential cybersecurity vulnerabilities

  • EVT shows enhanced video management tool

    What with CCTVs being installed by the thousands on street corners, along perimeter fences, and as part of border protection, there is a need to effectively and efficiently manage the avalanche of visual information coming in to the command center; this is where EVT’s new tool comes in