Engineering

What 100,000 simulations reveal about the US power grid

On August 13, 2003, a single transmission line near Cleveland, Ohio, sags into an overgrown tree limb and short circuits. Within minutes, nearby lines overload and trip one after another, triggering cascading failures across ...

Engineering

Why solid-state batteries keep short-circuiting

Batteries that use solid metal as their charge-carrying electrolyte could potentially be a safer and far more energy-dense alternative to lithium-ion batteries. Unfortunately, these solid-state batteries have been plagued ...

Engineering

Harvesting heat and electricity from the sun, when you need it

Solar energy is abundant and frustratingly ill-timed. A sunbeam can become either electricity (useful for running modern life) or heat (useful for keeping spaces warm). But conventional solar hardware is single-minded: Photovoltaic ...

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