-
Falling Space Debris: How High Is the Risk I'll Get Hit?
An International Space Station battery fell back to Earth and, luckily, splashed down harmlessly in the Atlantic. Should we have worried? Space debris reenters our atmosphere every week.
-
-
Houthi Attacks in Red Sea Threaten Internet Infrastructure
The recent attack on the cargo ship Rubymar by the Iran-backed Houthis caused the crew to drop anchor, which damaged undersea internet cables, the US has said. Could the vital infrastructure now become a regular target?
-
-
LNG Exports Have Had No Impact on Domestic Energy Costs: Analysis
U.S. liquified natural gas (LNG) exports have not had any sustained and significant direct impact on U.S. natural gas prices and have, in fact, spurred production and productivity gains, which contribute to downward pressure on domestic prices.
-
-
Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act: Unsung Hero Protecting Critical Infrastructure from National Security Threats
One of the IIJA’s lesser known components is the investment it provides for resilience against cyber threats to critical infrastructure like ports, energy grids, transmission lines, and railways.
-
-
How Climate Change Primed Texas to Burn
Over the past 10 days, five wildfires in the region have burned more than 1.2 million acres. The largest of them — dubbed the Smokehouse Creek Fire, for a creek near its origin — stretches across an area larger than Rhode Island. The state’s high plains get a month more fire weather now than they did in the 1970s.
-
-
Texas Requires Utilities to Plan for Emergencies. That Didn’t Stop the Panhandle Fires.
Experts say utilities need to be ready for extreme weather, which could be a challenge in a state where discussing climate change is often taboo. A review of portions of the state’s electricity code shows utilities have to plan for maintaining their equipment and responding in emergencies, but how they do so is largely left to the companies.
-
-
Scientists Put Forth a Smarter Way to Protect a Smarter Grid
Proliferation of programmable devices presents more gateways for cyberattack. That makes the electric grid, increasingly chock full of devices that interact with one another and make critical decisions, vulnerable to bad actors who might try to turn off the power, damage the system or worse.
-
-
Hurricanes and Power Grids: Eliminating Large-Scale Outages with a New Approach
Large scale-power outages caused by tropical cyclones can be prevented almost entirely if a small but critical set of power lines is protected against storm damages.
-
-
Israeli Tech to Help Modernize Pacific Northwest Power Grid
Exodigo gets federal funding to help Pacific Northwest National Laboratory transition to underground electric power lines.
-
-
How Sponge Cities Work?
With concrete and asphalt covering areas once given over to grass and soil, the water from heavy rains has nowhere to go. Too often, that results in flooding, and cities around the world are now exploring ways to reverse this kind of urban development. And they are doing it by turning themselves into urban “sponges.” In other words, they are creating spaces and infrastructure to absorb, hold and release water in a way that allows it to flow back into the water cycle.
-
-
Earthquake Fatality Measure Offers New Way to Estimate Impact on Countries
A new measure that compares earthquake-related fatalities to a country’s population size concludes that Ecuador, Lebanon, Haiti, Turkmenistan, Iran and Portugal have experienced the greatest impact from fatalities in the past five centuries.
-
-
Does Australia Have the Will to Develop the Next Critical Mineral at Scale?
The forces of demand driven by the global energy transition and supply limited by geopolitics are coalescing to make yet another mineral globally ‘critical’—uranium. Australia’s rich economic geology has endowed it with the world’s biggest uranium resources. Yet Australians have a long-term aversion to uranium mining.
-
-
In $100 Million Colorado River Deal, Water and Power Collide
The Colorado River District plans to buy the water rights that flow through Colorado’s Shoshone hydropower plant. The acquisition is seen as pivotal for a wide swath of the state, and has been co-signed by farmers, environmental groups, and local governments.
-
-
Shoring Up Ports to Withstand Cyberattacks
There are more than 300 ports in the United States, employing an estimated 31 million Americans, and contributing about $5.4 trillion to the country’s economy The White House is moving forward with reforms aimed at shoring up cybersecurity at U.S. ports, some of which may already be in danger of falling under the sway of hackers linked to China.
-
-
Charting the Future of Maritime Security
The United States is a maritime nation surrounded by 95,000 miles of shoreline. Changes in economics, geopolitics, society, demography, or other factors, pose varied and evolving threats to the country’s maritime space – its waterways, ports of entry, and coastline borders.
-
The long view
Virtual Models Paving the Way for Advanced Nuclear Reactors
Computer models predict how reactors will behave, helping operators make decisions in real time. The digital twin technology using graph-neural networks may boost nuclear reactor efficiency and reliability.