Humanizing Energy Futures

The academic community needs to elucidate a nuanced understanding of what it means by impact, how it happens, and what scholars might do individually and collectively to work toward it.

Rebecca Morgan Frank’s poem “How to Make Your Own Automaton” explores the minds of makers who develop machines and technology with far-reaching implications.

The nineteenth-century rivalry between engineer Egbert Viele and architect Frederick Law Olmsted was one of contrasting visions of New York City that still has lessons for engineering today.

Has funding for medical research been excluding some science that may have incredible potential to improve human health?

Nobel Prize-winning astrophysicist Saul Perlmutter talks with contributing editor Molly Galvin about how the scientific worldview leads to the ability to stick with a challenge, a willingness to be wrong, and—sometimes—the discovery of “amazing solutions to problems.”

Radical designs for fission and fusion energy systems require engineers who are grounded in technical knowledge, adept at engaging communities in participatory design, and fluent in ethical, equity-centered communication.

Fusion energy faces many hurdles. The history of the biotech industry offers lessons for how to build public trust and create a robust investment ecosystem to help fusion achieve its potential.

Until fusion technologies can meet society’s goals, government-supported research should remain broad, and stakeholders should resist attempts to narrow its reach.

Tension between the promise of new nuclear technologies and uncertainty about their feasibility requires a diversified, balanced research portfolio that can be adjusted locally in concert with global progress.

Hydrogen has been “the fuel of the future” for a century. Whether it actually becomes an important part of a climate-friendly energy system depends as much on the cost of greenhouse gas emissions as it does on the tricky process of finding cheap, safe, and easy ways to harness hydrogen’s advantages.

How a unique collaboration between the US and Mexican academies of science evolved over the course of a decade.

Reusing wastewater is a scientifically and technologically sound method of producing drinking water, and it may become necessary in water-stressed regions. But will the public accept it?

South Korea’s bold shift toward international science and technology collaboration—starting with Horizon Europe—requires transforming the weaknesses of the current system into future strengths.

Artificial intelligence can exacerbate social problems, but it can also be used to solve them. AI designers and regulators should seek out partnerships with struggling communities, to learn what they need from this emerging technology and build it.

Patterns are emerging in the various efforts to regulate artificial intelligence around the globe. Understanding these evolving AI norms could help govern this technology intelligently.