By Catherine Bischofberger

Geothermal resources are vast, clean and plentiful, but just how safe is geothermal energy for the environment?

The principle of geothermal energy is very simple: hot water and steam from deep in the earth’s crust is used to drive turbines. It produces no harmful polluting gases and has the potential to become one of the main sources of renewable energy of the 21st century.

The natural heat energy produced from the earth is called geothermal heat energy. The source of geothermal energy is the continuous heat flux flowing from the interior of the earth towards its surface. Geothermal power plants pipe hot water or steam through wells that sometimes reach deep down to reservoirs underground. …

Businesses are beginning to understood the importance of the circular economy, writes Natalie Mouyal

Every time a popular mobile brand releases a new phones, millions of consumers purchase it, even though they already own a device that works perfectly well. When a television set breaks down, we replace it with a new one, rather take it for repair. Products are made, used and discarded, based on a linear economic model

In the long term, this economic model is clearly not sustainable. The population of the world is expected to reach 9 billion by 2050, exacerbating the demand for scarce resources. …

Antoinette Price spoke to the top US expert leading international efforts to make facial recognition software more accurate

The number of applications using facial recognition will continue to increase. They range from airport security to unlocking smart devices and enhancing retail security. Police are using the technology to apprehend criminals or to find missing children. Credit card companies are looking into using if for authenticating payments and hotels for checking in.

IEC and ISO work together to develop international standards for ICT through their joint technical committee (ISO/IEC JTC 1). Subcommittee 37 covers biometrics and has begun work on the new ISO/IEC 24358 standard.

e-tech spoke to Patrick J. Grother, who leads the work of SC 37, to find out more about the new standard. Grother is a scientist at the National Institute of Standards in Technology responsible for biometric standards and testing. The US Department of Commerce has awarded him two gold medals for his work on biometrics and he has also received the IEC 1906 Award and the ANSI Lohse IT Medal. …

The circular economy is a systemic approach to managing resources, writes Natalie Mouyal

A new economic model which puts the emphasis on the recycling and reusing of materials and products is emerging, as concerns for the environment escalate. The circular economy calls for a radical shift in production and consumption. Continual cycles recover and restore products, components and materials through strategies such as reuse, repair, remanufacture and, ultimately, recycling.

Material efficiency is an essential part of the circular economy. It consists of the preservation of materials by making products more durable and repairable. It also facilitates the recovery and recycling of material at the end of the product life. …

International standards and cooperation between broadcasters can help build resilience to cyber threats, writes Morand Fachot

Broadcasters are failing to take adequate steps to mitigate the risk of cyber-attacks, according to a report published by the European broadcasting Union (EBU) last summer. This is despite the fact, the report says, that broadcasters have been targeted increasingly in recent years.

Broadcasters are attractive targets for state, non-state actors and organized crime as any attack becomes public, is amplified and may attract more attackers. In addition to being content distributors, broadcasters are content providers, producing or commissioning valuable content, often for entertainment, as such their content may be of interest to many. Furthermore, parts of the broadcasters’ infrastructures cannot be totally insulated from the outside world, as new work practices, from news gathering to editing and distribution, are computer-based and need to be widely shared between collaborators. …

While halogens can provide many benefits, they are also associated with risk, writes Natalie Mouyal

Halogens are the elements that make up Group 17 on the periodic table: fluorine (F), chlorine (CI), bromine (Br), iodine (I) and astatine (At). The term halogens comes from the Greek for ‘salt former’ because when halogens react with metals, they produce a wide range of salts.

Modern utilization of halogens is extensive. They are used in swimming pools (chlorine and bromine), drinking water (chlorine and fluorine), toothpaste (fluorine) as well as in table salt (chlorine). Apart from astatine, traces of halogens can be found in the human body and are considered essential for good health.

Halogens are also used widely in electrical and electronic products. For example, they can be found in printed circuit boards, components such as connectors, ion batteries, electrical cables as well as in the plastic cases around television sets and mobile telephones. …

A new international standard will boost the cyber resilience of nuclear power plants, writes Morand Fachot

Any incident at a nuclear installation can have potentially catastrophic human and environmental consequences. Concern is growing as nuclear power plants become prime targets for cyber attacks from a variety of threat actors (criminal, state or state-sponsored).

Considering that 444 nuclear reactors were in operation in the world as of June 2016, with 66 more under construction and an additional 172 planned, ensuring robust cyber security and resilience of these installations to cyber threats is cause for serious concern.

Nuclear plants not built for cyber threats

The main systems within a nuclear power plant fall broadly into two categories.

Primary systems control the reactor itself and, when needed, shut it down and maintain it in a safe condition to protect it. Secondary systems control the power generation equipment. Many of these systems, built years ago, are still based on analogue equipment that is not connected to the network and so is less susceptible to cyber attacks. …

Standards experts and open source developers are working together to make cloud computing safer and more efficient Natalie Mouyal

It would be an understatement to say that cloud computing is a growing industry. The cloud computing market has increased from an estimated USD 24.6 billion in 2010 to more than USD 100 billion today and is expected to reach USD 150 billion by the end of 2020.

Cloud computing enables users to store data that can be accessed from anywhere in the world with an internet connection. It is an enabling technology, based on the principles of shared devices, network access and shared data storage. Businesses are benefiting from the nearly instantaneous and positive impact of the technology. Eighty percent of companies report improvements to their operations within the first few months of adoption. …