Short Takes – 7-7-23

Inside a high-tech cement laboratory. TechnologyReview.com article. Pull quote: “The next step for the startup is to build a demonstration facility producing around 100 tons per day. “That’s the size where you’re no longer invisible to the cement world,” Ellis says. The current goal is to have that facility running in 2025. After that, there’s yet another step: commercial scale, at about a million tons a year.” Process scale up is never clean and straight.

India, a growing space power, is forging closer ties with NASA. ArsTechnical.com article. Pull quote: “But none of the other 26 signatories to the Artemis Accords—a list that includes European space powers and Japan—has their own human spaceflight program. India is developing a human-rated spacecraft called Gaganyaan that could be ready to fly people into low-Earth orbit in 2025, several years later than originally planned.”

Siemens Energy deepens in-house probe into turbine problems. Reuters.com article. Pull quote: “One key question it will deal with is why Siemens Energy's leadership failed to spot the issues during the due diligence process ahead of its recent takeover of the remaining stake in the troubled division, Siemens Gamesa, the people said.” Cybersecurity is not the only problem facing energy systems…

Former Contractor Employee Charged for Hacking California Water Treatment Facility. SecurityWeek.com article. Former insider attack. Pull quote: “After he resigned in January 2021, he used that remote access software to enter the water facility’s systems and “transmitted a command to uninstall software that was the main hub of the facility’s computer network and that protected the entire water treatment system, including water pressure, filtration, and chemical levels,” according to a press release from authorities in the Northern District of California.”