• Cyber mishap causes nuclear power plant shutdown

    Worries about critical infrastructure vulnerabilities: The move to SCADA systems boosts efficiency at utilities because it allows workers to operate equipment remotely, but experts say it also exposes these once-closed systems to cyber attacks

  • UAE upgrades security of energy infrastructure

    UAE is the third-largest oil exporter in OPEC; emirate wants to protect its oil and gas infrastructure

  • Power plants open to hacker attack

    Power plants, dams, and many other critical infrastructure assets are controlled by a system called supervisory control and data acquisition, or SCADA; a Boston technology specialist finds serious vulnerability in the system

  • Smarter electric grid key to saving power, I

    Power providers and technology companies are making the electric grid smarter; it will stop being merely a passive supplier of juice; installing smart controls in homes would allow consumers to decide how much energy they need at what price

  • Modernizing the U.S. electrical grid

    The U.S. Department of Energy will invest $50 million in demonstration project aiming to improve efficiency in the U.S. electricity grid

  • NTR invests in SES

    Irish renewable energy company buys controlling interest in SES; SES is developing two of the world’s largest solar generating projects in the Imperial Valley and Mojave Desert

  • Paris airport first in Europe to use geothermal power

    Paris-Orly airport sits on a hot water table where the water temperature reaches 74 degrees C (165 degrees F) at a depth of 5,500 feet; management thought it would be a good idea to build a geothermal station to exploit this source of energy

  • Ontario invests in harnessing river flow for energy

    New York City already has it: A Free Flow Turbine in the East River which will generate 10 MW when the project is completed; now Ontario wants to place a three-blade, horizontal-axis turbine on the floor of the St. Lawrence River

  • USGS says Bakken Formation holds large recoverable oil, gas reserves

    U.S. Geological Survey assesses Bakken Formation to Hold 3 to 4.3 billion barrels of technically recoverable oil — 25 times more than 1995 estimate; in addition, assessment also identified 1.85 trillion cubic feet of associated/dissolved natural gas, and 148 million barrels of natural gas liquids

  • Energy from vortices

    When water flows over an underwater obstacle, whirlpools or vortices form alternately above and below it; the vortices create a tugging effect, so the result is an alternating force that yanks the object up and down; Wolverines researchers want to harness the power of vortices to generate energy

  • Next-generation nuclear fuel may be too hot to handle: report

    It sounded like a good idea: Enrich the uranium used to power nuclear reactors further so that operators will be able to extract more electricity from a given amount of fuel; trouble is, burn-up rates above a certain point would violate U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission’s safety standards unless new methods were devised for packaging the fuel

  • The future of U.K. nuclear power

    In the last five years the U.K. government has been vigorously promoting the idea of a U.K. nuclear power revival; John Hutton, Secretary of State for Business, Enterprise and Regulatory Reform explains the government’s policy

  • MIT start-up raises $12.4 million in a first round

    Start-up has developed an innovative silicon cell architecture and a complementary manufacturing methodology which will allow it to make the solar cells so inexpensive that they would produce electricity at a comparable cost to that generated from coal powered stations

  • NRG, Toshiba to promote ABWRs

    There are serious questions about the security of Boiling-Water Reactor (BWR) design and construction, questions which Advanced Boiling-Water Reactor (ABWR) design was supposed to answer; not everyone is convinced; NRG Energy, Toshiba to promote and build ABWRs in the United States

  • Study of U.K. nuclear power plants employees reveals radiation risks

    More than 65,000 individuals were employed between 1946 and 2002 at nuclear power plants operated by British Nuclear Fuels plc and its predecessors; a team of researchers studied the health histories of these individuals, and found evidence for an association between mortality from noncancer causes of death, particularly circulatory system disease, and external exposure to ionizing radiation