• A New Way to Assess Radiation Damage in Reactors

    By David L. Chandler

    A new method could greatly reduce the time and expense needed for certain important safety checks in nuclear power reactors. The approach could save money and increase total power output in the short run, and it might increase plants’ safe operating lifetimes in the long run.

  • Metal-Free Batteries Raise Hope for More Sustainable and Economical Grids

    Rechargeable batteries that use ammonium cations as charge carriers could provide ecofriendly and sustainable substitutes to metal-ion-based batteries. Metal-ion batteries dominate the market, but they depend on limited and declining resources, which threatens long-term availability.

  • Growing Interest in, Planning for, Managed Retreat from High-Risk Areas

    Strategically moving communities away from environmentally high-risk areas, such as vulnerable coasts, has been referred to as “managed retreat.” Of all the ways humans respond to climate-related disasters, managed retreat has been one of the most controversial due to the difficulty inherent in identifying how, when, where, and by whom such movement should take place.

  • Achieving Foundational Security for Food Systems

    U.S. cereal crops such as corn, rice, and wheat feed hundreds of millions of Americans and millions more around the world. Ensuring active defense of these and other staple food grasses is a critical national security priority. New DARPA project seeks advanced threat-detection and warning capabilities for crop defense.

  • Interest in Geothermal Energy is Growing

    By Gero Rueter

    These days, some 400 power plants in 30 countries generate electricity using steam generated beneath the earth’s surface, producing a total capacity of 16 gigawatts (GW). Despite its advantages, geothermal energy has seen limited use compared to fossil fuels, but recent energy shocks have increased interest in this energy source.

  • Can Floating Solar Islands Meet the World’s Future Energy Needs?

    By Live Oftedahl

    Covering less than ten per cent of the world’s hydropower reservoirs with floating solar panels would yield as much energy as all hydropower does today, one researcher says.

  • Two Charged with Attacks on Four Washington State Power Substations

    Two men were arrested earlier this week following attacks on four power substations in Washington state. DHS and the FBI have repeatedly warned in recent months of a rise in threats to critical infrastructure by anti-government groups and domestic extremists.

  • Towers in the Storm

    The problem with the U.S. electrical grid is that many transmission towers have exceeded their design life by about 50 years, which means the aging grid today faces bigger chances of failure. One threat to the grid is from damaging winds of extreme storms such as hurricanes.

  • Space Solar Power Technology Demo Launched into Orbit in January

    Space solar power provides a way to tap into the practically unlimited supply of solar energy in outer space, where the energy is constantly available without being subjected to the cycles of day and night, seasons, and cloud cover.

  • Europe Faces a Chilling Couple of Years, but Russia Will Lose the Energy Showdown

    By Todd Prince

    In the European Union this winter, fears of rolling blackouts triggered by Russian energy export cuts amid Moscow’s war in Ukraine have subsided thanks to good luck, good weather, and quick action. “In the long run, Russia simply can’t win this energy war,” says an expert.

  • Hydrogen Changing Power Dynamics in Energy Sector

    By Sergio Matalucci

    As the EU tries to finalize its hydrogen rules, Asian countries are moving fast to secure deliveries and the US is committing money to set up local supply chains. Can the Middle East collaborate with both continents?

  • 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

    By Abrahm Lustgarten

    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

    By Felicity Barringer

    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.