• “People Should Probably Be Worried”: Texas Hasn’t Done Enough to Prevent Another Winter Blackout, Experts Say

    Natural gas powers the majority of electricity in Texas, especially during winter. Some power companies say the state’s gas system is not ready for another deep freeze.

  • Stacked Deep Learning: Deeper Defense against Cyberattacks

    Internet-based industrial control systems are widely used to monitor and operate factories and critical infrastructure. Moving these systems online has made them cheaper and easier to access, but it has also made them more vulnerable to attack. Stacked deep learning offers a better way to detect hacking into industrial control systems. 

  • Machine Learning Helps Measure Building Earthquake Damage

    One obstacle which often prevent an effective response to earthquakes is that the buildings from which such a response is managed and response equipment stored, are themselves damaged. Researchers have developed a method to quickly assess damage to such buildings immediately after an earthquake to determine whether the buildings can be continued to be used.  

  • Big Batteries on Wheels: Zero-Emissions Rail While Securing the Grid

    Trains have been on the sidelines of electrification efforts for a long time in the U.S. because they account for only 2 percent of transportation sector emissions, but diesel freight trains emit 35 million metric tons of carbon dioxide annually and produce air pollution that leads to $6.5 billion in health costs, resulting in an estimated 1,000 premature deaths each year. Researchers show how battery-electric trains can deliver environmental benefits, cost-savings, and resilience to the U.S.

  • How Climate Change Will Impact National Security

    The recent U.S. National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) lays out the likely security implications over the next two decades of the mounting climate crisis. Calder Walton, the research director at Harvard’s Belfer Center, says: “Let’s start with the basics: that climate change does pose a threat to U.S. national security. The National Intelligence Estimate is a joint assessment produced by the entire U.S. intelligence community, 18 agencies. That’s significant. There are no naysayers; there’s no doubt. So that’s a breakthrough. In this extraordinarily polarized and politicized environment, that is a big milestone itself.”

  • First Planetary Defense Test

    An asteroid slammed into Earth 63 billion years ago, igniting vast fires which threw smoke and soot into the atmosphere, plunging the planet into a prolonged winter, killing many plants on which herbivores depended. The extinction of the dinosaurs was only one consequence of that event. NASA wants to make sure there is no repetition of such a calamity: The agency is planning the first-ever planetary defense test, which deliberately collides a spacecraft into an asteroid called Dimorphos. The aim is to try and deflect the asteroid away from its Earth-bound trajectory. 

  • How to Fix Global Supply Chains for Good

    Truck-driver shortages, “lean” inventories, and an overreliance on China plagued global supply chains long before the pandemic. Permanently addressing these and other issues will help the United States and rest of the world better cope with the next shock.

  • University of Central Florida Students Defend Virtual Energy System to Win CyberForce Competition

    The Knights of the University of Central Florida won the DOE’s CyberForce Competition, valiantly defending and securing a hydropower energy system against a malicious virtual cyberattack. The event challenged 120 teams from 105 colleges and universities to thwart a simulated cyberattack.

  • Preparing Future Cybersecurity Leaders for Protecting Critical Infrastructure

    A network of Virginia universities, in partnership with the Virginia Department of Elections, joined to create an innovative educational program to train future cybersecurity professionals to protect election infrastructure.

  • Providing Resilient Power

    Extreme-weather events and wildfires can put power grids under pressure and threaten their ability to produce reliable power. A microgrid demonstration project demonstrates DC microgrid technology for resilient power to homes and installations.

  • Utilizing Demand Flexibility in Electricity Distribution Networks

    The transition to sustainable energy sources like wind and solar and the introduction of electric vehicles and heat pumps are putting a growing strain on our electricity distribution networks.

  • Seismic Shockwave Pattern May Be Redirecting Earthquake Damage

    New research could change the way scientists think about potential damage from earthquakes. The study examined data from one of the densest seismic arrays ever deployed and found that earthquakes emit their strongest seismic shockwaves in four opposing directions.

  • Supply Chain Disruptions—the Risks and Consequences

    Supply chain disruptions cause general economic disruption and key commodity shortages, which then in turn can, in fact, drive aggressive national behavior and international instability. And ironically, this reactive aggressive national behavior can happen even if the health of a national economy itself depends upon continued international economic interdependence. Indeed, this very interdependence can create vulnerabilities.

  • Be Prepared: It Is Impossible to Predict an Earthquake

    In earthquake-prone developed countries like Japan and New Zealand, even severe earthquakes cause very few deaths – they are mainly stories of economic loss. Earthquakes without Frontiers (EwF) supported physical and social scientists in eight U.K. universities and institutes working to increase resilience to earthquakes in Asian countries. But throughout much of the Mediterranean—Middle East–Central Asia earthquake belt, earthquakes here will kill tens, or hundreds of thousands of people.

  • Germany: Building Back in Flood-Prone Areas After a Flood

    After deadly flash flooding devastated villages in Germany’s Ahr Valley, many residents are hoping to return. But experts say there needs to be a fundamental change in how we build in areas at risk of floods.