For as much as we rely on the Mississippi River for trade, transportation, and agricultural irrigation, the world’s third-largest tributary system has only recently been tamed. One multiple occasions, the mighty Mississippi has overflown its banks, flooding into the surrounding valley, destroying property and lives.
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Spanning more than 25 miles of shoreline and covering 41 square miles, the Port of Rotterdam is largest shipping berth in all of Europe, the fifth-busiest in the world, and a major interchange for the region’s energy supplies. But keeping the North Sea’s fury in check is no easy feat. So to keep the port open for business, the Netherlands has installed two monumentally mammoth surge barriers. Huge doesn’t even begin to cover it.
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The UK has set some very ambitious carbon reduction goals for itself—including the overall reduction of greenhouse gas emissions by a whopping 80 percent by 2050, but this goal is proving more challenging than anticipated. At this rate, the UK will have to go fully-carbon free by 2030. So to meet its environmental deadline, they’re building the biggest, safest—and first—nuclear power plant on the British Isles in nearly 25 years.
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Disposing of the world’s chemical weapon stockpiles is far easier said than done. It’s not like the good old days prior to WWII when we could just dump extraneous supplies of mustard gas and other chemical weapons into the open ocean or under Delaware roadways or just big pits at the Redstone Arsenal in Alabama—no, no, now we have to dispose of it in a responsible manner. That’s why Army crews now rely on an ingenious explosive vacuum chamber to burn these deadly weapons to harmless ash.
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America possesses the most formidable naval fleet in the world. However, the face of oceanic warfare is rapidly evolving and bears little resemblance to 20th century sea battles. Naval dominance is no longer decided in the middle of the Pacific or Atlantic, but rather in shallow territorial waters. To meet these new offshore challenges, the US Navy has spent years and billions on a new class of Destroyer.
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After the end of hostilities in WWII, France and Germany have become surprisingly close. The two nations are stalwart proponents of expanded European Union integration and are regularly referred to as the EU’s "twin engine." But on the issue of unmanned aerial platform, the two simply cannot agree. So while France and its cohorts are developing the nEUROn, Germany is building the stealth Barracuda.
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The primary complaint against solar power—that it, you know, requires the sun—is perfectly valid. But Arizona’s new Solana Generating Station, the largest capacity solar thermal plant on the face of the Earth, has just provided a $1.4 billion counterpoint. Thanks to its massive molten salt reserves, this plant keeps producing power even after lights out.
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The ability to passively track people within a given space is every retailer’s dream (and every conspiracy theorist’s nightmare). Those dreams recently took a step closer to reality with the debut of a new people-tracking system from MIT.
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While NASA’s asteroid-capturing mission remains grounded from a lack of Congressional funding, a similar and equally ambitious ESA program is nearing fruition. In the coming months, the Rosetta spacecraft and its integrated Philae probe will become the first manmade objects to not only orbit an asteroid but land on it as well. Here’s how they’ll do it.
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During Wisconsin’s long, bitterly cold winters, the only things that grow are snow banks. So to keep Lambeau Field’s turf in game shape for Sunday, the Packers roll out these massive Friday night lights.
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