Energy

Aeroradiometry can be used to detect radioactivity on the ground from the air. Every year, the National Emergency Operations Centre (NEOC), with the support of PSI, carries out measuring flights to determine the radiological situation in Switzerland.

A nuclear waste storage facility needs to be secure, even if glaciers were to churn down from the Alps into the midlands in a distant future. This is why Nagra arranged for a study of the sediments that had been deposited in former, deep glacial lakes. The layers are around 600,000 years old, making them much older than the last ice age, which was around 24,000 years ago. Good news for Nagra: it seems that the layers of stone lying beneath have not been eroded by ice since that time.

Hydrogen-powered planes are set to take wing around the world in the future. To make this possible, engineers have to develop the jet engines that will power them. Experiments by researchers at ETH Zurich are now providing the necessary basis for making these engines powerful and durable.

The Hotlab at the Paul Scherrer Institute PSI is a unique experimental facility for analysing highly radioactive materials – its 60^th anniversary marks a milestone not only in the institute’s history but also in the history of Swiss nuclear technology as a whole. 

In times of climate crisis and food shortages, the cultivation of microalgae is a promising solution that could fundamentally change the way we produce animal feed, bioplastics or biofuel. However, the enormous potential is still largely untapped, which is partly due to undeveloped cultivation methods. One of the challenges is to protect the cultures against pests. A new publication by Eawag now shows that co-cultures of different microalgae are more resistant to pests than monocultures.