• Climate Change Has Forced America’s Oldest Black Town to Higher Ground

    By Jake Bittle

    Princeville, North Carolina, is relocating with help from a new federal grant. Hurricane Matthew, which submerged the town under more than 10 feet of water, was the final straw. The town has just received millions of dollars in new funding from FEMA to build a new site on higher ground.

  • As the Rio Grande Runs Dry, South Texas Cities Look to Alternatives for Water

    By Berenice Garcia

    Many of the solutions are costly, putting them out of reach for small towns. But the region’s most populous cities are getting innovative.

  • Albuquerque Made Itself Drought-Proof. Then Its Dam Started Leaking.

    By Jake Bittle

    El Vado is an odd dam: It’s one of only four in the United States that uses a steel faceplate to hold back water, rather than a mass of rock or concrete. The dam, which is located on a tributary of the Rio Grande, has been collecting irrigation water for farmers for close to a century, but decades of studies have shown that water is seeping through the faceplate and undermining the dam’s foundations. Cities across the West rely on fragile water sources — and aging infrastructure.

  • Nature-Based Solutions to Disaster Risk from Climate Change Are Cost Effective

    Nature-based solutions (NbS) are an economically effective method to mitigate risks from a range of disasters—from floods and hurricanes to heatwaves and landslides—which are only expected to intensify as Earth continues to warm.

  • Why Chinese Technology Set Off Alarm Bells in Germany

    By Dirk Kaufmann

    Even as the German government moves to bar components made by China’s Huawei and ZTE from core parts of the country’s 5G networks, some German companies are looking to work with Chinese firms in other critical areas.

  • In an Era of Dam Removal, California Is Building More

    By Theo Whitcomb, High Country News

    Earlier this year, the federal government finalized $216 million dollars in funding for a controversial dam project south of the Klamath River, adding to the $1 billion in direct grants already pledged to the project known as Sites Reservoir. This would be California’s first major new reservoir in half a century. Proponents say a new reservoir off the Sacramento River is environmentally friendly.

  • Uranium Science Researchers Investigate Feasibility of Intentional Nuclear Forensics

    Despite strong regulations and robust international safeguards, authorities routinely interdict nuclear materials outside of regulatory control. Researchers are exploring a new method that would give authorities the ability to analyze intercepted nuclear material and determine where it originated.

  • Transformers: Cooler Side of the Grid

    Failures in transformers cause widespread disruptions across electrical networks, severely affecting grid stability. The financial impact of such failures often goes beyond just the cost of replacing the transformer. Simulations on NSF-funded Stampede2 provide models for a resilient and sustainable electric grid.

  • Tornadoes Are Deadly. These New Building Codes Will Save Lives.

    Because of its unique geography, the United States has more tornadoes, and more intense tornadoes, than any other country. Tornadoes are deadly, but until recently there were no building codes designed to protect communities from tornadoes. Tornado winds push and pull on buildings in unique ways that require special safety designs. NIST research led to the first building code provision for tornado resilience.

  • Disaster Recovery: What Community-Driven Relocation Could Look Like

    Over the past forty years, the Gulf Region has experienced devastating hurricanes and flooding, costing 232 billion dollars. The gut reaction after any disaster is to rebuild and protect-in-place, but sometimes communities have to consider relocation — but the conversations around rebuilding versus relocation continue to be challenging for policymakers and the communities impacted by disasters.

  • Researchers Spot Potential Hazard with Private Well Water Treatment

    While arsenic is a naturally occurring element, it is a known human carcinogen and dangerous to human health. Systems designed to treat arsenic in private well water may be malfunctioning and endangering the health of people who count on them to keep their water safe.

  • Scientists Call for ‘Major Initiative’ to Study Whether Geoengineering Should Be Used on Glaciers

    A group of scientists has released a landmark report on glacial geoengineering—an emerging field studying whether technology could halt the melting of glaciers and ice sheets as climate change progresses. Their report finds many questions remain around technology to address glacier melting and sea-level rise.

  • How Do You Convince Someone to Live Next to a Nuclear Waste Site?

    By Austyn Gaffney

    The world’s first permanent depository for nuclear fuel waste opens later this year on Olkiluoto, a sparsely populated and lushly forested island in the Baltic Sea three hours north of Helsinki.  Engineers know how to build a site that can safeguard nuclear waste for 100,000 years. The challenge is convincing people to live next to it.

  • Nuclear Electricity Supply Would Be Less Vulnerable to Attack Than Renewables

    By Graham Cummings

    Renewable energy generation is not as robust in the face of enemy attack as it looks. Nuclear power, even though it would probably be concentrated in a few large generating stations, should in fact be a little more dependable in wartime.

  • Ranking the Feasibility of Converting 245 U.S. Coal Plants to Nuclear

    An assessment ranks the feasibility of converting 245 operational coal power plants in the U.S. into advanced nuclear reactors. This is the most comprehensive coal-to-nuclear analysis to date, and it could help policymakers and utilities plan how to meet climate targets.