• French authorities ban water use following nuclear leak

    Safety agencies in France are playing down the risk to public health from Tuesday’s uranium leak at the Tricastin nuclear plant, but water-usage bans have worried skeptical residents and environmental organizations

  • U.K. critical infrastructure vulnerable

    New report says last summer’s flood showed infrastructure’s vulnerability; funding for flood defenses was not sufficient or secure, undermining industry confidence, and there were not enough skilled engineers to deliver the protection from flooding needed

  • Oversight of fire protection at U.S. nuclear reactors could be strengthened

    GAO examined the oversight exercised by the Nuclear Regulatory Commission over fire protection procedures at U.S. commercial nuclear power plants, and says this oversight could be strengthened

  • U.K. leads world in nuclear energy investment

    Te United Kingdom attracts the world’s leading energy companies to build the country’s next generation of nuclear power stations

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  • Flood protection call for utilities

    Twelve months after the devastating U.K. floods a government agency says much more must be done to tackle the vulnerability of buildings such as power stations and hospitals to flooding

  • 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

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  • 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