Article archive
Published news and blog articles, organized by category. Browse older coverage by month or search for a topic. Undated blog guides appear after dated news.
9,639 articles · Newest first
The hidden history of desalination plants
Desalination is far older than the modern industrial plant. From ancient Greek sailors boiling seawater in clay pots to medieval shipboard stills and the first municipal plant in 19th-century Malta, the drive to make seawater drinkable has…
How desalination plants works
Desalination removes salt from seawater through thermal distillation or reverse osmosis. The process is energy-intensive, produces brine as a byproduct, and turns an abundant resource into a scarce one through the economics of pressure,…
China's renewable energy investment: how it changed the global grid
China built renewable infrastructure at unprecedented scale — over 2.3 TW of capacity by 2025 — reshaping global supply chains, energy markets, and the economics of clean energy.
Denmark's renewable energy model: how it shields from global energy turmoil
Denmark produces 81% of its electricity from renewable sources. Its wind power strategy, district heating, and grid flexibility provide a template for energy independence and price stability.
Google reveals what comes after AGI: the next frontier of intelligence
Google DeepMind is framing a future beyond artificial general intelligence — recursive self-improvement, superintelligence, and the safety challenges that come with systems smarter than their creators.
Iran war oil shock: how it threatens the global auto supply chain
Rising oil prices from Iran conflict pressure every link of the automotive supply chain, from raw materials to shipping and semiconductor fabrication.
Issues stopping EV adoption: why electric cars still face barriers in 2026
Charging gaps, battery range, cost, grid capacity, cold weather, the used market, and effective policy incentives remain barriers to mass electric vehicle adoption.
Mexico on the brink: cartel violence and the risk of civil conflict
Cartel violence in Mexico has escalated through fragmentation, leadership decapitation, and succession wars. The risk of civil conflict is growing as civilian displacement rises and government control erodes.
Inside the Sinaloa Cartel: what they think of the US presidency
The Sinaloa Cartel remains Mexico's most dominant criminal organization — fragmented, violent, and deeply embedded in the fentanyl trade that kills tens of thousands of Americans each year.
Spain bans social media for under-16s: the global movement to protect children online
Spain joins Australia and the UK in restricting minors from social media, as evidence mounts linking platform use to adolescent mental health decline.
The successor to CRISPR: what comes next in gene editing
CRISPR revolutionized gene editing but has limitations. Prime editing, base editing, and epigenome editing are the next frontier — with clinical trials already underway and ethical debates intensifying.
The US-China chip war is over: who actually won?
The US-China semiconductor conflict reshaped the global chip industry. Export controls, the CHIPS Act, and China's self-sufficiency drive have produced winners and losers across the supply chain.
What the heat pump teaches us about the world
The heat pump teaches that good technology is not enough: adoption depends on infrastructure, carbon pricing, trained installers, consumer trust, and a clean grid. Decarbonising heating is a chain of coupled steps, not a single switch, and…
The heat pump explained: the ideas that matter
The heat pump rests on a small set of thermodynamic ideas: heat is not temperature, the second law is not violated because the compressor supplies work, the COP exceeds one because the environment contributes energy, and phase change at…
The engineering challenge behind the heat pump
The heat pump becomes less efficient as outdoor temperatures fall, and pushing performance into cold climates requires larger heat exchangers, variable-speed compressors, advanced refrigerants, and precise installation. Each improvement…
The hidden history of the heat pump
The heat pump concept is older than the telephone. Lord Kelvin proposed it in 1852, Peter von Rittinger built one in 1855, and Heinrich Zoelly patented a residential version in 1919. The technology waited more than a century for cheap…
How the heat pump works
A heat pump does not generate heat by burning fuel. It moves thermal energy from outdoor air, ground, or water into a building using a closed refrigerant cycle. The compressor is the only part that consumes significant electricity, and the…
What the lithium-ion battery supply chain teaches us about the world
The lithium-ion battery supply chain teaches durable lessons about material dependency, innovation ecosystems, manufacturing as policy, circularity, resilience, and why the energy transition is fundamentally a supply chain problem.
The lithium-ion battery supply chain explained: the ideas that matter
The lithium-ion battery supply chain is built on a few core ideas: intercalation, energy density limits, economies of scale, vertical integration, geographic concentration, recycling, and what comes after lithium-ion.
The engineering challenge behind the lithium-ion battery supply chain
Building a lithium-ion battery supply chain is an engineering challenge spanning material purity, electrode coating precision, formation chemistry, thermal management, and the leap from lab to gigawatt-scale factories.
The hidden history of the lithium-ion battery supply chain
The lithium-ion battery supply chain has a hidden history spanning oil crises, academic breakthroughs, corporate gambles, and geopolitical shifts. From 1970s labs to Asian megafactories, the chain was built one decision at a time.
How the lithium-ion battery supply chain works
The lithium-ion battery supply chain spans mining, refining, component manufacturing, cell assembly, pack integration, and recycling. Each stage adds value and complexity, linking raw earth materials to the devices that power modern life.
What fiber-optic cables teach us about the world
Fiber-optic cables are physical objects on the ocean floor, but they teach lessons that reach beyond engineering. They show how infrastructure becomes invisible, how fragility and resilience coexist, and how the most powerful technologies…
Fiber-optic cables explained: the ideas that matter
Fiber-optic cables are often explained with numbers, bandwidth in terabits, attenuation in decibels, distances in kilometers. But the ideas that matter are simpler and more durable: light can be guided, a medium can be shared, and a…
Also explore blog articles and guides or search all DutyStation pages.