• Integration Can Prevent Failures in Large Power Grids

    The recent power outages in Texas brought attention to its power grid being separated from the rest of the country. While it is not immediately clear whether integration with other parts of the national grid would have completely eliminated the need for rolling outages, the state’s inability to import significant amounts of electricity was decisive in the blackout.

  • New Initiative Aims to Ensure 5G Networks Are Reliable, Secure

    The transition to 5G will affect every device connected to the internet. Later this year, a team of Stanford researchers will demonstrate how a tight formation of computer-controlled drones can be managed with precision even when the 5G network controlling it is under continual cyberattack. The demo’s ultimate success or failure will depend on the ability of an experimental network control technology to detect the hacks and defeat them within a second to safeguard the navigation systems.

  • Batteries: Reshaping the Future of the Electric Grid

    Research begun at the Department of Energy’s Joint Center for Energy Storage Research and continued at spinoff company Form Energy may launch a new era of renewable energy.

  • How Should the United States Compete with China’s Belt and Road Initiative?

    China’s Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is the country’s most ambitious foreign policy undertaking in modern times and is central to Chinese President Xi Jinping’s legacy. BRI, which dwarfs the Marshall Plan in scale, has funded and built roads, power plants, ports, railways, fifth-generation (5G) networks, and fiber-optic cables around the world. While BRI initially sought to connect countries in Central, South, and Southeast Asia with China, it has since transformed into a globe-spanning enterprise encompassing 139 countries.

  • Almost 70% of ERCOT customers lost power during winter storm, study finds

    Texans in ERCOT’s service area who lost electricity were without power for an average of 42 hours, according to the study. They had been told to prepare for short-term, rolling outages.

  • Solving Problems for the World’s Freshwater Supply

    Water’s value to society goes far beyond quenching thirst. An indispensable resource, it is required not only to sustain life, but also for economic prosperity. Water, for example, is needed to generate energy and to manufacture nearly everything, from food to clothes, cars and electronics. Our future economy and national security highly depend on the availability of clean water. But there is a limited supply of renewable fresh water when and where it is needed.

  • Stepped-Up U.S. Investment in Fusion Energy

    An influential Department of Energy (DOE) advisory committee has recommended that the nation move aggressively toward the deployment of fusion energy, including investments in technology and equipment to support one of the missions of LLNL’s National Ignition Facility (NIF) — laying the groundwork for the development of inertial fusion energy (IFE).

  • Tsunamis It Comes in Waves

    Tsunamis pose a real threat to the California coast, even if the triggering earthquakes occur elsewhere. And it doesn’t take a 50-foot tsunami out of a science-fiction film to inflict severe damage. Researchers are helping ensure coastal cities are ready.

  • Drought May Lead to Elevated Levels of Naturally Occurring Arsenic in Private Domestic Wells

    An estimated 4.1 million people in the lower 48 states are potentially exposed to arsenic levels that exceed EPA’s drinking water standards.

  • Water Wars Are Here

    In 2009, the U.K. intelligence services submitted their annual intelligence report to then-Prime Minister Gordon Brown, warning of the coming threat of “water wars” between states vying for diminishing fresh-water resources. Rising water-related tensions between India and Pakistan and between Ethiopia and its neighbors bear out the report’s warnings. The recent decision by Turkey to use its dam system to limit the amount of water flowing into Syria is a demonstration of using the control over water sources for exerting pressure on neighboring states.

  • Kurds in Northern Syria Warn of Water Crisis

    Turkey has reduced the volume of water flowing downstream toward Syria, and the first to feel the pinch are the Kurds in Syria’s Kurdish region. In the last decade. Turkey has built twenty-two dams in southeast Anatolia, leading to fears in Syria and Iraq that Turkey was going to use its control over the sources of the Tigris and the Euphrates to apply political pressure on both countries.

  • Is It Worth Investing in Solar PV with Batteries at Home?

    Solar energy is a clean, renewable source of electricity that could potentially play a significant part in fulfilling the world’s energy requirements, but there are still some challenges to fully capitalizing on this potential. Researchers looked into some of the issues that hamper the uptake of solar energy and proposed different policies to encourage the use of this technology.

  • Paperwork Failures Worsened Texas Blackouts, Sparking Mid-Storm Scramble to Restore Critical Fuel Supply

    Dozens of natural gas companies failed to do the paperwork that would keep their facilities powered during an emergency, so utilities cut their electricity at the very moment that power plants most needed fuel. The mid-storm scramble to fix the problem exposed a regulatory blind spot.

  • Reducing Risk and Avoiding Disaster – Creating Grid 2.0

    It’s hard to imagine a world without electricity. But as demand increases, so do the assaults to the system that delivers that energy — the power grid. Severe weather is a primary driver of power outages. Aging infrastructure is also a problem for the electric system.

  • Sea Levels Are Rising Fastest in Big Cities – Here’s Why

    It is well known that climate-induced sea level rise is a major threat. What is less well know is the threat of sinking land. And in many of the most populated coastal areas, the land is sinking even faster than the sea is rising.