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California Hydropower Could Be Cut in Half This Summer: Report
A third year of drought spells less hydropower, more natural gas, and higher electricity prices. The U.S. Energy Information Administration, or EIA, reported last week that as reservoir levels dip far below their historic averages, electricity generation from California’s hydroelectric dams could be cut in half this summer.
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A Quarter of World's Internet Users Rely on Infrastructure Highly Vulnerable to Attack
About a quarter of the world’s Internet users live in countries that are more susceptible than previously thought to targeted attacks on their Internet infrastructure. Many of the at-risk countries are located in the Global South.
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Mitigating Flood Disasters
Engineers have proposed a flood control measure which recommends designing permeable pavements to specifically suit local rainfall and soil conditions and reduce flood impacts.
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Food Production Vulnerable to Cyberattacks
Wide-ranging use of smart technologies is raising global agricultural production but cyber experts warn this digital-age phenomenon could reap a crop of another kind – cybersecurity attacks.
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Challenges to Tidal Flats Pose Risks to 41M Americans Living in Coastal Counties
About 29 percent of the United States’ population live in coastline counties – more than 41 million are in Atlantic counties. This high population density poses a critical challenge to sustainable developments in coastal areas.
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S&T Hackathon: Thwarting Emerging Threats to Critical Infrastructure
Threats against the U.S. critical infrastructure are not new—physical threats and natural disasters have challenged the U.S. critical infrastructure and their support systems time and time again. But the rapid development of new information and communication technologies, and their inevitable integration the into the U.S. critical infrastructure, bring with them the possibility of digital attacks and other new challenges that the United States must be ready to face.
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Hydropower’s Future Is Clouded by Droughts, Floods and Climate Change – It’s Also Essential to the U.S. Electric Grid
The United States has over 2,100 operational hydroelectric dams, with locations in nearly every state. They play essential roles in their regional power grids. But most were built in the past century under a different climate than they face today. As global temperatures rise and the climate continues to change, competition for water will increase, and the way hydropower supply is managed within regions and across the power grid in the U.S. will have to evolve.
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Diminishing Snowmelt to Make Colorado, Utah, Wyoming Resemble the Arid Southwest
New research predicts that changes in mountain snowmelt will shift peak stream flows to much earlier in the year for the vast Colorado River Basin, altering reservoir management and irrigation across the entire region. As a result, upper basin in Colorado, Utah, and Wyoming may more closely resemble the arid Southwest.
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Does Drought-Prone California Need Another Reservoir?
For a century, California and the West have grappled with the job of storing water. The first half of the 20th century was the heyday of western dams; now many of them are aging; they were designed for the needs and values of another era. Is California “dammed out?” Or could increasing reservoir capacity help the state ride out the new era of aridification?
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Strengthen Advanced Manufacturing for Critical and Emerging Technologies
NIST has awarded a total of $2.08 million to seven organizations in six states to develop manufacturing technology roadmaps to strengthen U.S. innovation and productivity. Each award will fund projects for up to 18 months to address national priorities such as manufacturing of critical infrastructure, communication, and transformative approaches and technologies in construction.
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The "Rock-to-Metal Ratio" of Critical Minerals
A new metric to quantify the amount of waste rock generated by mining for minerals essential to 21st century society has been created by the U.S. Geological Survey and Apple.
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FEMA Funding Opportunities for Dam Safety
There are 90,000 dams in the United States, many of them old and poorly maintained. FEMA will commit $33 million for two funding opportunities to enhance dam safety efforts across the United States.
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AMLO's Lithium Grab and War on Green Energy Will Hurt North America
Nationalizing Mexico’s lithium reserves and extending state control over electricity and energy will undermine the region’s prosperity and security.
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How Destructive Is a DDoS Cyberattack?
Last weekend, Russian hackers attacked several German government websites. These cyberattacks were seemingly harmless, much to the relief of the authorities. But many others are not so lucky.
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Undetected and Dormant: Managing Australia’s Software Security Threat
At the same time as software has become integral to our prosperity and national security, attacks on software supply chains are on the rise. Software supply chain attacks are popular, can have a big impact and are used to great effect by a range of cyber adversaries.
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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.