Power Generation

    Guns, Drones, and Scissors: Lessons From the North Carolina Power Station Incident

    Cyber attacks often take center stage in public and private discussions of critical infrastructure security in the U.S. The Dec. 3 incident that left some 45,000 Duke Energy customers without power in North Carolina — as well as the ongoing Russian assaults on Ukrainian infrastructure — provide an important reminder that physical attacks remain a major threat as well. On the PBS news program Amanpour and Company, Juliette Kayyem, former Assistant Secretary in the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and author… Read More »Guns, Drones, and Scissors: Lessons From the North Carolina Power Station Incident

      Infrastructure in the News: Wastewater Agriculture, Rural Broadband, NIMBY Energy

      Wastewater Agriculture Urban farming may have just taken a big step toward scaleable reality. According to Hortidaily, researchers from Clemson University and South Korea’s Gyeongsang National University have developed a low-impact method for growing produce in cities. The system researchers are developing would use an anaerobic membrane bioreactor to filter harmful contaminants out of wastewater while leaving behind nutrients that fertilize plants. The treated water would be used on crops, such as lettuce, that are growing in an indoor, soil-free… Read More »Infrastructure in the News: Wastewater Agriculture, Rural Broadband, NIMBY Energy

        The Road to Renewable Energy Is Paved With Good Intentions

        Renewables surpassed fossil fuels as the cheapest energy source in 2020, according to the International Energy Agency. But the development path for solar and wind technology hasn’t always followed a straight line, judging by an Oct. 9 article in The New York Times. “‘Eye of Sauron’: The Dazzling Solar Tower in the Israeli Desert” tells the story of an $800 million experiment in energy generation in Ashalim, Israel: 50,000 mirrors on the desert floor reflect sunlight onto a boiler atop… Read More »The Road to Renewable Energy Is Paved With Good Intentions

          Coastal Reconstruction After Hurricane Ian

          The damage wrought by Hurricane Ian has already prompted conversations about a rebuilding boom in Florida as well as concerns about construction labor shortages in the state. The recovery effort certainly will be colossal: The storm took more than 100 lives and left behind private-market insured losses of between $53 billion and $74 billion, according to risk modeling company RMS. Sarasota County has already announced its intention to expedite all storm-related permits. What’s less clear is precisely how Florida will… Read More »Coastal Reconstruction After Hurricane Ian

            A Nebraska Start-Up Eyes Power Line Inspection

            The U.S. electrical grid has been called the largest interconnected machine on Earth. The National Academy of Engineering put it at the top of its list of greatest 20th century engineering accomplishments. With great size comes great complexity, however, Silicon Prairie News reports. Over 200,000 miles of high-voltage transmission lines and 5.5 million miles of local distribution lines link thousands of electricity-generating plants to homes, schools, companies and all manner of buildings, street lights, stoplights and other nodes of vital… Read More »A Nebraska Start-Up Eyes Power Line Inspection

              With Smart Cities, Technology Shouldn’t Be the Goal

              The urban IT movement known as “Smart Cities” offers a seemingly infinite toolset for making cities and their infrastructure more efficient. But tech isn’t the point, cautions Riad Meddeb and Calum Handforth of the United Nations Development Programme, in the pages of the MIT Technology Review. Truly smart cities recognize the ambiguity of lives and livelihoods, and they are driven by outcomes beyond the implementation of “solutions.” They are defined by their residents’ talents, relationships, and sense of ownership—not by… Read More »With Smart Cities, Technology Shouldn’t Be the Goal

                The Biden Administration Is Making a Big Investment in Hydrogen Energy

                A big downside of renewable energy is its periodicity: There are times when the sun doesn’t shine and wind doesn’t blow. The solution is storing surplus energy for use during lean times. Unfortunately, conventional lithium-ion batteries are too expensive to play a major role. The Biden administration believes there may be a viable alternative in hydrogen energy. The U.S. Department of Energy is making a $504.4 million loan to the the Advanced Clean Energy Storage Project, The Hill reports. The… Read More »The Biden Administration Is Making a Big Investment in Hydrogen Energy