• Georgia’s Plant Vogtle reviving hopes for nuclear power in U.S.

    Plant Vogtle, located in Burke County, Georgia, is one of the most watched construction projects in the world; it is currently going through a $14 billion dollar expansion, which includes the first new commercial reactors built in the United States in decades

  • DOE promotes small-nuclear reactors (SMRs)

    South Carolina’s Savannah River Site (SRS) located in Aiken, along with the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE), have announced three partnerships to develop three small modular nuclear reactors (SMRs) at the SRS facility; SMRs produce less energy than a regular reactor, but they produce enough energy to power small cities and remote areas

  • Desalination losing ground as a solution to California’s chronic water shortage

    According to the July 2011 census, more than thirty-seven million people live in California, increasing the pressure on the state’s water sources; desalinating sea water as a solution to the scarcity of fresh water is not a new technology — it has been around for more than four decades — but it has more recently been considered as a way to address California’s chronic, and growing, water shortage; a closer examination of the technology and its cost has cooled the initial enthusiasm for it

  • Dutch test-levee experiment helps strengthen U.S. levees, dams

    In the United States, the national flood-control infrastructure is aging and its structural health is deteriorating; the system comprises more than 5,600 km of levees, and 43 percent of the U.S. population lives in counties with levees designed to provide some level of protection from flooding; some of these levees are as old as 150 years; in 2009, the American Society of Civil Engineers Report Card for America’s Infrastructure gave the condition of the nation’s dams a grade of D, and levees a grade of D-minus; an dam-strength experiment in the Netherland helps engineers collect data to validate new suite of technologies for assessing the health of levees and dams

  • New FERC office to focus on cyber security

    The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission (FERC) has created a new FERC office — Office of Energy Infrastructure Security (OEIS) —  which will help the Commission focus on potential cyber and physical security risks to energy facilities under its jurisdiction

  • Rare Earth metals: Will we have enough?

    Life in the twenty-first century would not be the same without rare Earth metals; cell phones, iPads, laptops, televisions, hybrid cars, wind turbines, solar cells, and many more products depend on rare Earth metals to function; will there be enough for us to continue our high-tech lifestyle and transition to a renewable energy economy? Do we need to turn to deep seabed or asteroid mining to meet future demand?

  • Specialty metals recycling policy needed: experts

    An international policy is needed for recycling scarce specialty metals that are critical in the production of consumer goods; because they are used in small amounts for very precise technological purposes, such as red phosphors, high-strength magnets, thin-film solar cells, and computer chips, recovery can be so technologically and economically challenging that the attempt is seldom made

  • Exploring solutions to growing water shortages

    Most Americans do not pay much attention to how much water they use when they take a shower or when they water the grass, but Michael Sullivan, a global executive at IBM thinks this will change; “Water is a finite resource,” Sullivan told a panel in a conference on water policy; “What we’re dealing with is that there’s a finite supply, and as the population grows and industry grows, we’re stressing that finite supply”

  • New York unprepared for flooding, sea level rise

    New York City may be a fast paced city of bright lights, sleek attitudes, fashion trends, and some of the best sports teams in the country, but underneath the glitz and glamour is a city which is not prepared for an act of God and which is being threatened by rising sea levels and severe storm flooding; “It’s a million small changes that need to happen,” one expert says

  • Seventy-four nuclear reactors in tsunami-risk areas

    Researchers have, for the first time, identified those nuclear power plants which are more vulnerable to suffering the effects of a tsunami; in total, twenty-three plants, in which there are seventy-four active nuclear reactors, are located in dangerous areas in east and southeast of Asia

  • Seventy-four nuclear reactors in tsunami-risk areas

    Researchers have, for the first time, identified those nuclear power plants which are more vulnerable to suffering the effects of a tsunami; in total, twenty-three plants, in which there are seventy-four active nuclear reactors, are located in dangerous areas in east and southeast of Asia

  • Thermoelectric material converts heat waste to electricity

    Scientists have developed a thermoelectric material which they claim is the best in the world at converting waste heat to electricity; this is very good news, since nearly two-thirds of energy input is lost as waste heat

  • Limiting world trade unlikely to reduce CO2 emissions

    The United States emits less CO2 in the production of its exports than is contained in its imports, simply because it imports more than it exports; only about 20 percent of CO2 transfers from China into the United States can be traced back to the fact that China is in effect relatively more specialized in the production of dirty goods; interventions in world trade, like CO2 tariffs, would probably have only a small impact on global emissions

  • Lessons learned: Cheech and Chong at the Y-12 security breach

    On 28 July 2012, an 82-year old nun and her two confederates — both senior citizens themselves – breached the vaunted and supposedly impregnable perimeter protection system at the Y-12 National Security Complex at Oak Ridge, where uranium for nuclear weapons is processed and stored (the Y-12 complex is not affiliated with the Oak Ridge National Laboratory [ORNL]); a report on the incident by the Inspector General of the Department of Energy is couched in bureaucratic jargon, but it reveals that the Y-12 security system and practices were much worse than Cheech and Chong could have ever portrayed in their wildest stand-up comedy routines or loopy films

  • New law aims to make Istanbul earthquake-safe, but it has its critics

    Estimates of Istanbul’s population range from twelve and nineteen million people, a significant increase from two million people fiftyyears ago; during the waves of migration to Istanbul during the 1960s,1970s, and 1980s, the government gave citizens free permitsto add to their homes, which resulted in single-story residents becoming 4-or 5-story buildings on unstable foundations; Istanbul sits only thirteen miles north of the North Anatolian Fault, the intersection of the Eurasian and Anatolian plates, and has been subject to devastating earthquakes; new, controversial law aims to make Istanbul’s buildings earthquake-safe