• Concerns About Extremists Targeting U.S. Power Stations

    Attacks on four power stations in Washington State over the weekend added to concerns of a possible nationwide campaign by far-right extremists to stir fears and spark civil conflict. Violent extremists “have developed credible, specific plans to attack electricity infrastructure since at least 2020, identifying the electric grid as a particularly attractive target given its interdependency with other infrastructure sectors,” the DHS said in a January.

  • A Water War Is Brewing Over the Dwindling Colorado River

    Diminished by climate change and overuse, the river can no longer provide the water states try to take from it.

  • A Simmering Revolt Against Groundwater Cutbacks in California

    In 2014, California legislators, focused on groundwater’s accelerating decline during a prolonged drought, passed the Sustainable Groundwater Management Act. New agencies find making sustainability plans is hard, but easier than persuading growers to accept them.

  • Addressing the Needs of Underprepared Communities

    Many regions in the U.S. do not have regular earthquakes. Still, they have faults that can create large earthquakes, and communities in these regions are not prepared to experience a large quake with the capacity to cause significant damage. A new center will specifically address areas of low probability of occurrence but high impact earthquake risk and seek to meet the needs of all communities for natural hazard mitigation.

  • To Quit Russian Gas, EU Invests Billions in LNG

    The European Union is investing billions in infrastructure in its effort to replace Russian fuels with liquefied natural gas. This could prove to be a dead end — both for taxpayers and for the climate.

  • Flash Droughts Becoming Big Concern for Farmers, Water Utilities

    Many people are familiar with flash floods – torrents that develop quickly after heavy rainfall. But there’s also such a thing as a flash drought, and these sudden, extreme dry spells are becoming a big concern for farmers and water utilities.

  • Drought Encouraged Attila’s Huns to Attack the Roman Empire, Tree Rings Suggest

    Hunnic peoples migrated westward across Eurasia, switched between farming and herding, and became violent raiders in response to severe drought in the Danube frontier provinces of the Roman empire.

  • Testing Environments Help Secure Transportation Infrastructure

    “All critical infrastructure sectors—including the energy, manufacturing, and transportation sectors—rely heavily on sophisticated technologies like industrial control systems, cellular networks, and artificial intelligence,” said DHS S&T’s Alex Karr. “These are all accessed, monitored, and controlled via the internet, which, in turn, makes them susceptible to hacking, malware attacks, and other malicious activities.”

  • Energy, War, and the Crisis in Ukraine

    Russia’s invasion of Ukraine is having a global impact on many areas of the world today, affecting the balance of power among states and creating a contest between democratic and authoritarian alliances. It is also having a major impact on the global energy supply. An expert panel examined the implications of energy use and energy policy during Russia’s invasion.

  • Why Nuclear Fusion Is So Exciting

    The Lawrence Livermore National Lab in California last week achieved fusion with a net energy gain. Harvard scientist Adam Cohen breaks down breakthrough that might prove major turning point in clean energy efforts — but not any time soon.

  • Can Nuclear Fusion Help Fuel the World?

    The US Department of Energy is expected to make an important announcement Tuesday on the generation of energy using nuclear fusion. Nuclear fusion reaction has a higher energy potential than all other energy sources we know. It can release nearly 4 million times more energy than chemical reactions like burning coal, oil or gas, and four times more than nuclear fission. Nuclear fission is the process currently used in all nuclear power plants around the world.

  • The Cold War Legacy Lurking in U.S. Groundwater

    In America’s rush to build the nuclear arsenal that won the Cold War, safety was sacrificed for speed. ProPublica has cataloged cleanup efforts at the 50-plus sites where uranium was processed to fuel the nation’s nuclear arsenal. Even after regulators say cleanup is complete, polluted water and sickness are often left behind.

  • Renewable Power’s Growth Is Being Turbocharged as Countries Seek Energy Security

    The global energy crisis has triggered unprecedented momentum behind renewables, with the world set to add as much renewable power in the next 5 years as it did in the past 20

  • Majority of California's Coastal Airports Are Vulnerable to Increased Flooding Caused by Climate Change

    Most of California’s population and its largest airports are located along the Pacific coastline, which is increasingly impacted by storm surges, sea level rise, and erosion due to climate change. In the next 30 years, sea level along the coast is expected to rise as much as 8 inches.

  • S&T Makes Headway on Infrastructure Investment

    Critical infrastructure is the backbone of life as we know it here in the U.S.—there are, of course, the roads and highways we travel, but also the electric grids that power our lives and livelihoods, the public transit systems that facilitate connection, the cyber networks that enable commerce and communication, and much, much more.