Urbanization is usually judged by what is built, but it should also be evaluated according to what it hollows out. Around the world, increasing numbers of people are moving to cities — 67% of the global population is projected to live in urban areas by 20501. But this trend is about more than people relocating.
Inside a nondescript warehouse in an industrial park in Oakville, Canada, sits a squat forklift truck that requires no driver. When activated by its remote operator, the vehicle trundles to a stack of huge clay blocks, each weighing 8,000 kilograms, and carries them into a narrow rock tunnel. Another custom-built machine then fills the spaces
Light emitted by a microplasma could be used to monitor a molten-salt nuclear reactor.Credit: ORNL New insight into an old material Because it can tolerate high temperatures and neutron damage, the carbon material graphite is used in several ways in nuclear reactors. It has a role in structural components and in fuel coatings, and it
Over the past decade or so, the once- sleepy nuclear sector has become a hive of activity. Venture capital drove innovative reactor designs promising lower risk. The need for low-carbon energy eroded environmental opposition. Electrification and artificial intelligence boosted energy demand, and the geopolitical weaponization of energy put a premium on domestic generation. As a
Wildfires in Indonesia this year, including this one next to a housing complex in Kubu Raya, might been intensified by the strong El Niño. Credit: DITO/AFP via Getty For Julia Cole, a palaeoclimatologist who uses corals to study Earth’s past climate, the powerful El Niño event now gaining strength in the Pacific Ocean comes as
Almost since the first nuclear power plant started generating electricity in the 1950s, critics have pointed out the difficulty of safely disposing of highly radioactive spent fuel. In those days, radiation was among the few carcinogens that were recognized and could be measured easily. Cold-war anxieties amplified public fear of nuclear technologies and radiation. As
