Snow melts fast in wildfire burn areas, imperiling water supply

Arielle Koshkin, doctoral candidate in hydrologic science and engineering, and Adrienne Marshall, assistant professor of geology and geological engineering, led a study published in Science Advances that concluded snow melts more quickly in forests that have been burned by wildfire.
September 17, 2025

Trump’s critical minerals obsession reignites deep-sea mining

Corby Anderson, professor of mining engineering, said in terms of deep sea mining for critical minerals the U.S. is decades behind China, and it’s going to be very hard to catch up.
July 21, 2025

An American Mine Still Has Millions of Tons of Copper, If Companies Can Get to It

Corby Anderson, Harrison Western Professor of Metallurgical and Materials Engineering, discusses the history of treating calcopyrite to make copper.
April 2, 2025

Hydrogen Tax Credit Rules Must Sync With Biden’s Climate Agenda

Morgan Bazilian, Greg Clough and Simon Lomax of the Payne Institute for Public Policy wrote this opinion piece about the disconnect in U.S. hydrogen policy.
April 10, 2024

Soaring Denver-Area Rents Spur $200 Million Student Housing Bond

“We are located in the west side of Denver and it’s very, very expensive,” said Kristen Volpi, vice president and chief financial officer at the Colorado School of Mines. “Students are unable to find private apartments that they can afford, so they ....
March 13, 2024

Bezos Eyes SpaceX Rival as Critical New Rocket Is Finally Ready

ULA was formed by Boeing and Lockheed in 2006. The pioneering venture had “a virtual monopoly on U.S. government launches” in those early years, said George Sowers, the company’s former chief scientist.
January 4, 2024

Commodities: The pros and cons of getting cobalt from Idaho

Elizabeth Holley, associate professor of mining engineering at Colorado School of Mines, appeared on BNN Bloomberg to discuss the prospects of cobalt mining in the U.S. amid heightened demand for EV batteries.
June 22, 2023

How a 10-Story Wood Building Survived More Than 100 Earthquakes

After a half hour, inspectors deem the building safe to enter. On the third floor, Shiling Pei, the TallWood Project’s principal investigator, examines the walls and floor. “This is exactly the results that we’re looking for, which is no structural ....
June 5, 2023

SpaceX Bets Steel Plates Will Keep Launchpad From Blowing Up

“It’s sort of astonishing to me that they didn’t use the practices that the launch industry has perfected for decades,” said George Sowers, a professor of mechanical engineering at the Colorado School of Mines who previously worked for Martin ....
May 9, 2023

Starship Launch Ushers In a New Space Economy

“There’s just really not a business case to bring precious metals back to Earth,” George Sowers, a professor in the Space Resources program at the Colorado School of Mines, told me in a recent conversation. Instead, Sowers, and a growing number of ....
April 20, 2023