Technology

There are vibrations occurring in the ground nearly all the time. They happen when cars pass by, when machines are operating, and from natural forces in the earth’s crust. For the most part, we don’t notice these vibrations. But they are there, and they represent an untapped source of clean energy.

Few people may have seen St. Elmo’s Fire, the mythical glow that appears on structures and ships at sea during thunderstorms.But a team of researchers has discovered the fabled phenomenon is quite common. You just need the right equipment to see it.And we’ll discuss two recent landmark court decisions against social media companies that are part of the national discussion over the negative impacts of tech on young people.

Few people may have seen St. Elmo’s Fire, the mythical glow that appears on structures and ships at sea during thunderstorms.But a team of researchers has discovered the fabled phenomenon is quite common. You just need the right equipment to see it.And we’ll discuss two recent landmark court decisions against social media companies that are part of the national discussion over the negative impacts of tech on young people.

The world is moving towards the electrification of vehicles. In 2025, EVs grew by 33% in Europe and 20% worldwide. They represented 50% of new car sales in China. It’s a very different story in the United States, where EV sales actually fell by 4% year-over-year.

It seems as if the whole world is retreating on climate and green energy. Politicians in many places are calling for so-called energy realism. In the US, President Trump calls global warming a hoax. The EPA has repealed the endangerment finding, the 2009 science-based finding that the buildup of heat-trapping greenhouse gases in the atmosphere endangers public health and welfare.

Platinum is a key industrial catalyst because its electronic structure gives it an exceptional ability to accelerate oxidation and hydrogenation chemical reactions. Among its uses are in catalytic converters in automobiles and in fuel cells that generate electricity from hydrogen. Catalysts are also critical for methods of upcycling plastic waste and converting old plastics into high-quality new products.

Mining tailings are the waste byproduct of mining, consisting of ground rock, water, and processing chemicals that remain after extracting valuable minerals. They have been disposed of for thousands of years, but the industrial mining in the late 19th and 20th centuries is responsible for most of what occupies large, engineered dams. Estimates are that there are over 8,000 active and inactive tailings facilities storing nearly 220 billion cubic meters of material. They pose many environmental dangers, some catastrophic in nature.

In 1973, Steve Sasson, 23 and fresh out of college at RPI, landed a job at Eastman Kodak in the apparatus division of the company’s Applied Research Department. Sasson will deliver the 76th Steinmetz Memorial Lecture on Tuesday, March 3, at 7 p.m. in the Nott Memorial on the campus of Union College.

Hydrogen can play a key role in the transition to clean energy because when it is used as a fuel, it only produces water as a byproduct. Hydrogen is already produced in industrial quantities, but it is primarily made with methods that use fossil fuels like natural gas. But instead of extracting hydrogen from hydrocarbons, it can be obtained by splitting water into its constituent elements.

The global growth of electric cars has continued to rise over the past year, increasing by 20% over 2024. Worldwide, 20.7 million EVs were sold, constituting nearly 23% of all light vehicle sales.