Business

While the cybersecurity threat escalates asymmetrically, federal agencies may be shortchanging cybersecurity while developing smart grid standards designed to protect the emerging smart grid from attack.

Critical minerals—such as rare earth metals—are important to many new energy technologies. However, the U.S. Department of Energy is concerned that foreign control of supply, particularly by China, could limit the ability of these technologies to develop fully, so the DOE is developing a strategy to keep the supply chain open. Meanwhile, some analysts say China is playing a losing game with its hold on the minerals.

We’ve heard—endlessly, it seems at times—about "peak oil," the idea that the world is rapidly running out of oil and will face catastrophic consequences. Now talk is emerging about "peak coal."

The 2009 blockbuster movie 2012 about a global cataclysm combined Hollywood special effects with supposed predictions by Nostradamus; a Mayan calendar that ends on December 21, 2012; and a very rare planetary alignment that supposedly occurs on the same day. Hollywood producers seldom let technical accuracy get in the way of a good story, but suppose, this one time, the story has an element of truth.

MHI to Continue Pre-Construction Work for North Anna Unit. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries Ltd. (MHI), through Mitsubishi Nuclear Energy Systems Inc., and Dominion subsidiary Virginia Electric and Power Co. on Dec. 27 said they had reached an agreement to continue pre-construction, engineering, and planning work in preparation for a third unit at Dominion’s North Anna Nuclear […]

Given cloud computing’s potential to lower operating costs and increase flexibility, it’s no wonder that it is on the cusp of sending the corporate world into a paradigm shift.

The process of banking allowances under the existing schemes for creating markets for pollution reductions has created a set of difficult problems as those programs have changed, wiping out significant value from the allowances.

As mergers and acquisitions in the power sector heat up again, questions arise about how employee benefits are affected by these complex business deals.

Although it doesn’t get much attention, the world’s first and largest source of renewable electricity, water power, is still a major player on the world stage. Though viewed as politically incorrect by some folks, mostly in the developed world, and despite its well-known environmental impacts, using water to turn turbines to generate electricity represents an attractive way to generate electricity with no fuel costs, even in the U.S. Here’s what’s being talked about in the U.S., India, Turkey, Nigeria, and China.

Despite high-powered congressional legislation in 2005, the U.S. is still unable to site high-voltage interstate transmission lines in a timely fashion. Two new reports suggest ways out of the gridlock.