• Doubts about burying CO2 underground to address climate change

    Burying the greenhouse gas carbon dioxide, a byproduct of burning fossil fuels, has been mooted as one geoengineering approach to ameliorating climate change. To be effective, trapping the gas in geological deposits would be for the very long term — thousands of years. Now, researchers have reviewed the risk assessments for this technology, suggesting that a lack of knowledge means we should be cautious of turning to this method rather than finding sustainable ways to reduce emissions at their source.

  • Joplin, Missouri hospital re-built to withstand powerful tornadoes

    In 2011 St. John’s Medical Center in Joplin, Missouri was devastated by one of the most ferocious tornadoes in U.S history. Today, Mercy Hospital Joplinstands on the site of the former hospital, occupying a new structure designed to survive future tornadoes, with windows that can withstand 250-mile-per-hour winds. The buildingis covered in concrete and brick paneling, and houses an underground bunker where generators and boilers are kept.

  • Underground impact of a missile or meteor hit

    When a missile or meteor strikes the earth, the havoc above ground is obvious, but the details of what happens below ground are harder to see. Physicists have developed techniques that enable them to simulate high-speed impacts in artificial soil and sand in the lab, and then watch what happens underground close-up, in super slow motion. The research, funded by the Defense Threat Reduction Agency, the research may ultimately lead to better control of earth-penetrating missiles designed to destroy deeply buried targets such as enemy bunkers or stockpiles of underground weapons.

  • DHS S&T selects UNC as coastal resilience center of excellence

    The DHS Science and Technology Directorate (S&T) the other day announced the selection of the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill as the lead institution for a new DHS Coastal Resilience Center of Excellence (COE). S&T will provide the Coastal Resilience COE with an initial $3 million grant for its first operating year. The DHS Coastal Resilience COE will bring together university students and professors, DHS and other federal agencies, private sector partners, the first responder community, and other COEs to collaboratively address the unique challenges facing communities across the United States that are vulnerable to coastal hazards, including hurricanes and flooding.

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  • The addition of renewable energy to power grid requires flexibility

    Solar panels, wind turbines, electric vehicles, and other green power sources are proliferating rapidly, but their reliable integration into the existing electric grid is another story. A new study offers a comprehensive reimagining of the power grid that involves the coordinated integration of small-scale distributed energy resources. The study asserts that the proliferation of renewable energy must happen at the periphery of the power grid, which will enable the local generation of power that can be coordinated with flexible demand.

  • N.C. scientific panel completes sea-level rise forecast draft

    In January, the North Carolina Coastal Resources Commission advisory science panel completed its draft copy of sea-level rise forecasts for five regions along the North Carolina coast over the next thirty years. That draft copy has now been released for a public comment period that will last through 31 December, before being finalized in early 2016 and delivered to the state’s General Assembly by 1 March 2016.According to the 43-page draft report, by 2045, the seas will rise between 6.5 and 12.1 inches at Duck, between 4.8 and 11.6 inches at the Oregon Inlet Marina, between 4.9 and 9.3 inches at Beaufort, between 4.1 and 8.5 inches at Wilmington, and between 4.0 and 8.5 inches at Southport.

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  • $500 million, 5-year plan to help Miami Beach withstand sea-level rise

    Miami Beach is investing up to $500 million in a new five-year plan to fortify its coastline against flooding caused by sea-level rise. Between seventy to eighty pumps that will be installed to drain the streets of water as it comes in. Additionally, the city is planning to raise roadways and sidewalks by 1.5 to 2 feet along the western side, which faces the Biscayne Bay. Florida is already seen as one of the most vulnerable states to climate change. Over the past 100 years, sea levels along the coast have risen 8 to 9 inches and are expected to rise by between three and seven inches within the next fifteen years, according to federal government projections.

  • Forecasting future flooding in the Pacific Northwest

    Unlike the South or East coast of the United States, coastal flooding in the Pacific Northwest comes primarily from large waves generated by major storms instead of hurricanes. The Pacific Northwest is dotted by small, low-lying, coastal cities where populations tend to cluster. These communities can be isolated and are susceptible to devastation from major storms that bring substantial wind, waves, and storm surge. With climate change, it is anticipated that storms will only become more frequent and intense, signifying a need to understand how the areas will be affected.

  • Over 61,000 U.S. bridges need structural repair

    An analysis of the recently released 2014 U.S. Department of Transportation (U.S. DOT) National Bridge Inventory database finds good news and bad news when it comes to the most heavily traveled U.S. bridges. The good news is that there are over 2,000 fewer structurally deficient structures than there were in 2013. The bad news is that it means more than 61,000 structurally deficient bridges are still in need of significant repair. Cars, trucks, and school buses cross the nation’s 61,064 structurally compromised bridges 215 million times every day.

  • U.S. grid vulnerable to cyber, physical attacks

    The U.S. electric grid remains vulnerable to cyber and physical attacks, putting millions of households at risk from outages that could last a few days or weeks. Attacks on the grid occur once every four days, and though no great harm has been caused, some experts are warning that the series of small-scale incidents may point to broader security problems. “It’s one of those things: One is too many, so that’s why we have to pay attention,” says one expert. “The threats continue to evolve, and we have to continue to evolve as well.”

  • Bridge repair method cuts amount of time, money for bridge maintenance

    According to American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) 2013 Report Card for America’s Infrastructure, one in nine of the U.S. 607,380 bridges is rated as structurally deficient, and $76 billion is needed to address the issue. The high cost is partly due to the fact that traditional repair methods are time consuming and labor intensive. Researchers, however, say that they have validated a new approach that could significantly reduce the amount of time and money needed to repair bridge components damaged by corrosion: Applying ultrahigh-performance concrete to the ends of corroded bridge beams could restore bearing capacity in a fraction of the time possible with traditional repair techniques.

  • NASA asteroid hunter spacecraft data available to public

    Millions of images of celestial objects, including asteroids, observed by NASA’s Near-Earth Object Wide-field Infrared Survey Explorer (NEOWISE) spacecraft now are available online to the public. The data was collected following the restart of the asteroid-seeking spacecraft in December 2013 after a lengthy hibernation. NEOWISE is a space telescope that scans the skies for asteroids and comets. The telescope sees infrared light, which allows it to pick up the heat signature of asteroids and obtain better estimates of their true sizes. As a result, NEOWISE can see dark asteroids that are harder for visible-light surveys to find.

  • Half of U.S. lacks network backup systems to withstand outages

    About half of the rural United States lacks access to high-speed Internet service, and since 2009, the U.S. Agriculture and Commerce departments have provided roughly $10 billion in grants and loans to expand broadband Internet access. The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) also plans to distribute about $20 billion in funds over the next five years to support rural broadband, but the federal government does not require recipients to build network backup systems against outages.While most major cities have backup systems to withstand outages, in most rural areas, damage to a fiber-optic cable will lead to a temporary loss of Internet and phone service.

  • U.S. economy imperiled by crumbling infrastructure

    The U.S. economy remains strong, but the nation’s dated, crumbling public infrastructure may threaten its future dominance, according to experts. The World Economic Forum (WEF) placed the United States 25th in infrastructure investment and 30th in air transportation, a field previously dominated by the United States. Since the 1960s, public spending on infrastructure, as a share of GDP, has dropped to around half the European average and, the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) reckons, $3.6trn will have to be spent if the U.S. is to catch up.

  • States seek to protect grid from solar flare damage

    Citing warnings from scientists about the threat of major solar storms — or EMPs, intense bursts of radiation from the sun — and their potential to disrupt the nation’s electrical grid, many state lawmakers are introducing legislation that seeks to protect their region’s infrastructure. Congress has commissioned reports and held hearings about the dangers of solar storm events, but little action has been taken, prompting many state legislators to take matters in their own hands.