Military’s selection of Buckley base as possible site for nuclear microreactor spurs questions in Aurora

Thomas Albrecht, professor of chemistry and the director of the Nuclear Science and Engineering Center, explains that microreactors use nowhere near the amount of water that traditional and much bigger nuclear power plants require.
May 7, 2026

Waymo self-driving cars are ‘learning’ Denver’s streets

Frankie Zhu, assistant professor of mechanical engineering, and Jason Slowinski, associate vice president of infrastructure and operations, discuss Waymo's roll out of autonomous cars in Denver and Colorado School of Mines experience with a shuttle service that utilized autonomous vehicles.
November 9, 2025

Mines grad’s app helps solve access question for some of Colorado’s 704,000 acres of inaccessible public lands

Zack Bennett, director of The Beck Venture Center, discusses Infinite Outdoors, an app started by Sam Seeton, a petroleum engineering program graduate, that allows landowners to be compensated by members of the public who wish to cross their land so they can access nearby public land.
October 13, 2025

Is nuclear power becoming cool in Colorado? Discussion of a role for it is growing

Mark Jensen, professor of chemistry, says more private money is flowing into nuclear projects than he has seen over the past 35 years.
October 13, 2025

What stands between Broncos and a stadium at Burnham Yard?

John Spear, professor of civil and environmental engineering and quantitative biosciences and engineering, notes that the time it takes to cleanup contaminants at the new Broncos stadium site will depend on what scientists find when they analyze the environmental hazards found there.
September 14, 2025

Denver airport to explore nuclear energy as option to power growth

Mark Jensen, professor of chemistry, discusses Denver's decision to study the feasibility of utilizing a small modular nuclear reactor for Denver International Airport. Jensen says that it's likely 5 to 10 years before the U.S. will have its first operating nuclear reactor of this type.
August 7, 2025

New law could finally address thousands of abandoned mines leaking pollution into Colorado water

Molly Morgan, a Geology PhD candidate, is quoted in this article examining the impact of a new law recently signed by President Biden.
January 4, 2025

Mining waste cleanup near Arkansas River would use cyanide to extract gold. Does it pose an environmental threat?

Corby Anderson, a professor of mining engineering and metallurgical and materials engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, said people have many misconceptions about cyanide, which is naturally occurring and can be found in foods like spinach and ....
May 15, 2024

Drinking water for 268,000 Coloradans exceeds new limits on “forever chemicals.” How will providers find millions to fix the water?

In Colorado, state water regulators have a good idea which water systems have PFAS in their drinking water supplies, said Christopher Higgins, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at the Colorado School of Mines, who is an expert in ....
April 21, 2024

An attempt to ban all "forever chemicals" in Colorado failed. What will it take to finally get rid of PFAS?

“There are critical uses for PFAS that are going to be hard to replace with other chemicals — those will take more time,” said Timm Strathmann, a Colorado School of Mines professor who researches PFAS. “Then there are products where we already have ....
March 17, 2024