• New Wave Energy Technology Gets Its Sea Legs

    Clothing that charges your smart watch as you walk, buildings that vibrate in the wind and power your lights, a road that extracts energy from the friction created by moving cars, and flexible structures that change shape in ocean waves to generate clean electricity: New technology could generate electricity from ocean waves – and many other sources.

  • Burying Short Sections of Power Lines Could Drastically Reduce Hurricanes' Impact on Coastal Residents

    As Earth warms, people living near the coasts not only face a higher risk of major hurricanes but are also more likely to experience heat waves while grappling with widespread power outages. Strategically burying just 5% of power lines — specifically those near main distribution points — would almost halve the number of affected residents.

  • Puerto Rico’s Vulnerability to Hurricanes Is Magnified by Weak Government and Bureaucratic Roadblocks

    Hurricane Maria caused extensive damage to Puerto Rico’s power grid in 2017 that left many residents without electricity for months. Rebuilding it has been hampered by technical, political and financial challenges. Now Hurricane Fiona has, again, exposed the sorry state of Puerto power grid.

  • Rooftop Solar Cells Can Also Help Water Conservation

    Energy generation and use are tightly bound to water consumption, and fossil-fueled electrical grid’s enormous water use is often overlooked. A given household may save an average 16,200 gallons of water per year by installing rooftop solar.

  • Removing One Dam after Another: Water in the West

    Many of the cities of the American southwest would not exist were it not for dams. Dams come with a cost, but removing them without offering alternatives is a folly, Edward Ring writes. If the proponents of dam removal would simultaneously support practical new infrastructure solutions, then rewilding America’s rivers could happen without impoverishing the farms and cities that depend on water,” Ring writes. “There is naïveté, and also nihilism, in fighting to remove the building blocks of civilization without facing the realities of energy and water economics.”

  • Rapid Land Sinking Leaves Cities Vulnerable to Rising Seas

    Sea levels are rising as Earth’s ice sheets melt and as warming sea water expands, but many densely populated coastal cities around the world are more vulnerable to sea level rise because large amounts of their land are sinking. They suggest that an increase in industrial processes such as the extraction of groundwater, oil, and gas, as well as the rapid construction of buildings and other urban infrastructure may be contributing to this vulnerability.

  • Cracking the Secrets to Earthquake Safety, One Shake Simulation at a Time

    A new experimental capability, designed to replicate realistic earthquakes in the laboratory, paired with the world’s fastest supercomputers, will help lead to resilient buildings and infrastructure across the U.S.

  • Is China Reexporting Russian Gas to Europe?

    As the EU attempts to unpick its reliance on Russian gas, it could become more dependent on Chinese supplies, some of which come from Russia. This might undermine the aim of reducing purchases of its fossil fuels.

  • Germany Takes Over Rosneft Refineries in Move to Secure Energy Supplies

    Germany says it has taken control of a major oil refinery owned by the German unit of Russia’s Rosneft as a step to bolster energy security for the country amid oil and gas cuts by Moscow in retaliation for Western sanctions against it because of the invasion of Ukraine.

  • The Inflation Reduction Act Is the Start of Reclaiming Critical Mineral Chains

    One important component of the Inflation Reduction Act (IRA), passed by Congress and signed into law by U.S. President Joe Biden on Aug. 16, has been largely overlooked. “Built within the IRA is a commitment to increasing the domestic U.S. supply of critical minerals—lithium, nickel, manganese, and graphite, among others—to provide the materials necessary for a vast expansion in electric vehicles (EVs), batteries, and renewable power production infrastructure,” Morgan Bazilian writes. “The United States needs more wind turbines, solar panels, and electric cars. But to make that possible, it will need more mines.”

  • Rising Seas Threaten Tax Bases as Private Property Falls Below Tidelines

    New analysis from Climate Central quantifies the risk of sea level rise to the tax bases of hundreds of coastal counties across 24 states and Washington, D.C. as more land falls beneath the tideline. More than 48,000 properties are projected to be entirely below their states’ tidal boundary levels by 2050, with roughly 64,000 buildings at least partially below the high tide line. By 2100 more than one million properties with a combined assessed value exceeding $108 billion are projected to be at least partly submerged at high tide.

  • Modeling Thawing at Base of Antarctic Ice Sheet

    Across Antarctica, some parts of the base of the ice sheet are frozen, while others are thawed. Scientists show that if some currently frozen areas were also to thaw, it could increase ice loss from glaciers that are not currently major sea-level contributors.

  • Three Iranian Nationals Charged with Cyber Plots Against U.S. Critical Infrastructure Providers

    An indictment was unsealed Wednesday charging three Iranian nationals with allegedly orchestrating a scheme to hack into the computer networks of multiple U.S. victims, including critical infrastructure providers. The defendants’ hacking campaign exploited known vulnerabilities in commonly used network devices and software applications to gain access and exfiltrate data and information from victims’ computer systems.

  • Better Human-Machine Coordination to Thwart Growing Threats to the U.S. Power Grid

    The U.S. electrical grid faces a mounting barrage of threats which could trigger a butterfly effect – floods, superstorms, heat waves, cyberattacks, not to mention its own ballooning complexity and size – which the nation is unprepared to handle. Researchers have plans to prevent and respond to potential power grid failures.

  • “Prediction Markets” Could Improve Climate Risk Policies and Investment Decisions

    A market-led approach could be key to guiding policy, research and business decisions about future climate risks, a new study outlines. The paper details how expert ‘prediction markets’ could improve the climate-risk forecasts that guide key business and regulatory decisions.