An Interview With 2026–2027 AIST President John G. Speer

John Speer, American Bureau of Shipping Endowed Chair for Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, discusses his upcoming term as president of the Association for Iron and Steel Technology.
May 29, 2026

The sixty-ton problem: Scandium supply chain risk the US defense industrial base

Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy, co-authored this article considering the role of scandium in the United States' defense infrastructure.
May 28, 2026

‘Dot-com boom’? Companies are lining up to mine the deep seas.

Ian Lange, professor of economics and business and Viola Vestal Coulter Chair of Mineral Economics, noted there are alternatives to deep sea mining, including utilizing land-based copper and cobalt mines in the U.S.
May 26, 2026

Nurses throw surprise graduation for Colorado School of Mines senior diagnosed with cancer

Nurses at University of Colorado Hospital performed a graduation ceremony for David Boylan, a chemical engineering major, who was planning to attend commencement ceremonies at Mines before a surprise diagnosis of leukemia less than one week before ....
May 21, 2026

Companies join a deep-sea mining rush after Trump executive order, as regulators fast-track permits

Ian Lange, professor of economics and business and Viola Vestal Coulter Chair of Mineral Economics, questioned whether deep sea mining is the most cost effective way to obtain critical minerals and rare earth elements.
May 21, 2026

The Pentagon wants to operate a nuclear microreactor in Colorado. Here’s what that might look like.

Thomas Albrecht, University Distinguished Professor of Chemistry, says that rather than removing waste from the microreactor onsite, at some point the reactor will be removed and replaced with a new unit so that waste can be processed offsite.
May 21, 2026

Proposed bill would stop eminent domain for carbon dioxide pipelines in Illinois

Anna Littlefield, program manager for Geothermal and Carbon Capture, Utilization, and Storage (CCUS) for the Payne Institute, said Illinois is a hot spot for CCUS because of the proximity of numerous ethanol plants.
May 19, 2026

NLR partners with Colorado School of Mines and University of Utah to scale up US critical minerals capacity

The National Laboratory of the Rockies signed MOU's with Mines and the University of Utah that will help strengthen America’s energy and material supply chains through critical minerals innovation, commercialization, and workforce development.
May 19, 2026

Scaling Patriot Production: The Industrial Base Crisis Explained – Analysis

Morgan Bazilian, director of the Payne Institute for Public Policy, and Jahara “FRANKY” Matisek, a senior fellow at Payne, co-authored this article along with Macdonald Amoah.
May 19, 2026

What previous Super El Niños can tell us about the next one

Nathan Lenssen, teaching assistant professor in Applied Mathematics and Statistics and a scientist with the NSF National Center for Atmospheric Research, said climate change has made El Niño events of the past less informative for events today.
May 19, 2026

Homeowners stuck in 6 years of sinkhole limbo

Paul Santi, professor of geology and geological engineering and director of the Institute for Initiatives in Latin America, said an engineer or geologist who had access to data on abandoned underground mines could have predicted the sinkholes.
May 18, 2026

How microplastic research in Denver’s South Platte River can help a first-of-its-kind study

Anne Marie Mozrall, PhD candidate in civil and environmental engineering, says while awareness of microplastics as a health concern has grown there are still gaps in understanding where they come from and the effects they have on the environment.
May 14, 2026