• DHS Seeks Standards for “Smart City” Sensors, Starting in St. Louis

    The Homeland Security Department’s Science and Technology Directorate is kicking off a pilot program that will test the integration of smart city technologies in St. Louis, Missouri. Working in collaboration with the city and the Open Geospatial Consortium, agency insiders will use the pilot to research, design and assess Homeland Security’s Smart City Interoperability Reference Architecture, or SCIRA.

  • Better Support Column Design to Help Bridges to Withstand Earthquakes

    Bridges make travel faster and more convenient, but, in an earthquake, these structures are subject to forces that can cause extensive damage and make them unsafe. Researchers are investigating the performance of hybrid sliding-rocking (HSR) columns. HSR columns provide the same support as conventional bridge infrastructure columns but are more earthquake-resistant.

  • Helping Structures Better Withstand Earthquakes, Wind, and Fire

    NIST is awarding more than $6.6 million to fund research into improving disaster resilience. Eleven organizations will receive 12 grants to conduct research into how earthquakes, wind and fire affect the built environment to inform building designs, codes and standards to help those structures better withstand such hazards.

  • How to Measure Cybersecurity

    Many experts agree that there are no universally recognized, generally accepted metrics by which to measure and describe cybersecurity improvements, and that, as a result, decision-makers are left to make choices about cybersecurity implementation based on qualitative measures rather than quantitative ones. Robert Taylo argues that the “search for quantitative metrics and dismissal of qualitative metrics ignores the dynamic nature of the challenge of ensuring cybersecurity, as well as the critical role of processes and procedures. Cybersecurity is a matter not just of the equipment and tools in place but also of how the equipment and tools are used by people, and how the organization ensures that the equipment and tools and methods of use are kept up to date. Qualitative measures that are discernible and reproducible are and will continue to be essential in helping to guide sound investment and operational decisions.”

  • Governments Mull “Managed Retreat” of Coastal Towns Before Rising Seas Claim Them

    More and more governments around the world are advised by experts to prepare to make a “managed retreat” from coasts as sea levels rise because of climate change. Scientists say that a decision to leave the coasts should not be “seen largely as a last resort, a failure to adapt, or a one-time emergency action.” Rather, it should be viewed as an opportunity to build better communities away from the rising waters.

  • Risks Grow as Countries Share Electricity Across Borders

    Increasing interconnection of electricity systems both within and between countries has much promise to help support clean energy power systems of the future. If the sun isn’t shining or wind isn’t blowing in one place, an electricity grid with high voltage transmission lines can move electricity to where it is needed. This shared infrastructure and increased trade can possibly serve as a basis for peace between neighbors in conflict, but it may also serve as a tool of coercion if the electricity can be cut off by one party.

  • Key Takeaways from the Fukushima Disaster

    In March and April of 2011 the Fukushima Nuclear Power Plant disaster resulted in what was the largest ever accidental release of radioactive material into the ocean. “Even though the levels of radiation in the area and in the marine organisms were elevated, they were actually not a threat to the ecosystem or to human consumers in most cases,” says an expert.

  • Can Nuclear Power Be Saved?

    Whither nuclear power? That question has become more important as energy policies evolve to emphasize emissions-free “green” energy and an increased electrification of the U.S. economy. Some environmentalists consider nuclear power to be crucial to reducing carbon emissions; others continue to vehemently oppose nuclear power and believe that our energy must come solely from renewable sources.  The public, encouraged into hysteria by dramatizations of nuclear-plant accidents such as the film The China Syndrome and HBO’s Chernobyl, is split. Meanwhile, the nuclear-power industry itself is in a parlous state for a variety of tangled reasons.

  • A Cyberattack Could Wreak Destruction Comparable to a Nuclear Weapon

    People around the world may be worried about nuclear tensions rising, but I think they’re missing the fact that a major cyberattack could be just as damaging – and hackers are already laying the groundwork. The threat of a new nuclear arms race is serious – but the threat of a cyberattack could be as serious, and is less visible to the public. So far, most of the well-known hacking incidents, even those with foreign government backing, have done little more than steal data. Unfortunately, there are signs that hackers have placed malicious software inside U.S. power and water systems, where it’s lying in wait, ready to be triggered.

  • Whaley Bridge Dam Collapse Is a Wake-up Call: Concrete Infrastructure Will Not Last Forever Without Care

    Torrential rain in the Midlands and North of England that saw half a month’s rain fall in one day caused such volumes of water to pass through the spillway of the Toddbrook Reservoir dam, above the town of Whaley Bridge in Derbyshire, that the protective concrete facing was damaged – badly enough to put the dam at risk of a full collapse. It is clear from data of dam failures in the UK and worldwide that the most common cause is overtopping of the dam due to the spillway’s inadequate capacity to discharge floodwaters, due to damage or design. The lesson from Whaley Bridge dam is that the maintenance of dam spillways cannot be ignored – in any circumstances or at any cost.

  • When the Lights Went Out: On Blackouts and Terrorism

    When the Northeast Blackout of 2003 killed electricity to more than 50 million people in the United States and Canada, the FBI, like many in New York who were still reeling from the September 11, 2001 attacks, shared these concerns. Just the previous year the agency concluded that terrorists were studying weaknesses in power grids. Meanwhile, groups across the country had been preparing for and speculating about doomsday scenarios — scenarios that the first moments of the 2003 blackout mimicked to a disquieting degree.

  • Exploring Options for Microreactors in Alaska

    For cities in the most isolated regions of Alaska, keeping the lights on is often challenging and almost always expensive. There’s no good way to string power lines over the vast expanses of wilderness that separate individual towns, so instead of one consolidated grid spanning the entire state, Alaskans get their power from a disconnected mishmash of more than 200 microgrids. This is why experts have been exploring whether microreactors might help alleviate some of Alaska’s energy challenges.

  • New Ways for Taking Salt Out of Seawater

    As populations boom and chronic droughts persist, coastal cities like Carlsbad in Southern California have increasingly turned to ocean desalination to supplement a dwindling fresh water supply. Promising design rules for cost-effective desalination rely on just a few ingredients: ionic liquids plus low-cost geothermal or solar heat, or waste heat from machines.

  • The World's Aging Dams Are Not Built for Ever More Extreme Weather

    The town of Whaley Bridge in the UK has had to be evacuated after damage to a dam built in 1831. The Toddbrook Reservoir is just one of many ageing dams worldwide not designed for ever more extreme rainfall as the planet warms. Dams are typically designed to cope with a so-called 1-in-100-year flood event. But as the world warms the odds of extreme rainfall are changing, meaning the risk of failure is far greater. Engineers have been warning for years that many old dams around the world are already unsafe and need upgrading or dismantling.

  • Climate Change Has Made Our Stormwater Infrastructure Obsolete

    We are not ready for the extreme rainfall coming with climate change. A quick dramatic thunderstorm in New York on Wednesday flooded Staten Island so badly that brown murky water joined bus riders for their evening ride home. It’s just one in a growing number of examples of infrastructure not being up to the task. Many cities’ water management systems—think stormwater drains or dams—aren’t equipped to handle climate change-influenced weather shifts.