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Electric Field-Induced Glass Softening reveals a Joule heating anomaly in silicate glass, where anode-side nanoscale alkali depletion drives ionic conduction, localized thermal runaway, melting, and evaporation, challenging homogeneity assumptions and refining materials processing models.

Key Points

An effect where electric fields lower glass softening temperature via nanoscale ionic migration and structural change.

✅ Anode-side alkali depletion creates extreme, localized heating

✅ Thermal runaway melts glass near the anode despite uniform bulk

✅ Findings refine Joule heating models and enable new glass processing

A team of scientists working with electrical currents and silicate glass have been left gobsmacked after the glass appeared to defy a basic physical law, in a field that also explores electricity-from-air devices for novel energy harvesting.

If you pass an electrical current through a material, the way that current generates heat can be described by Joule's first law. It's been observed time and time again, with the temperature always evenly distributed when the material is homogeneous (or uniform).

But not in this recent experiment. A section - and only a section - of silicate glass became so hot that it melted, and even evaporated. Moreover, it did so at a much lower temperature than the boiling point of the material.

The boiling point of pure silicate glass is 2,230 degrees Celsius (4,046 degrees Fahrenheit). The hottest temperature the researchers recorded in a homogeneous piece of silicate glass during the experiment was 1,868.7 degrees Celsius.

Say whaaaat.

"The calculations did not add up to explain what we were seeing as simply standard Joule heating," said engineer and materials scientist Himanshu Jain of Lehigh University.

"Even under very moderate conditions, we observed fumes of glass that would require thousands of degrees higher temperature than Joule's law could predict!"

Jain and his colleagues from materials science company Corning Incorporated were investigating a phenomenon they had described in a previous paper. In 2015, they reported that an electric field could reduce the temperature at which glass softens, by as much as a few hundred degrees, a line of inquiry that parallels work on low-cost heat-to-electricity materials in energy research. They called this "electric field-induced softening."

It was certainly a peculiar phenomenon, so they set up another experiment. They put pieces of glass in a furnace, and applied 100 to 200 volts in the form of both alternating and direct currents.

Next, a thin wisp of vapour emanated from the spot where the anode conveying the current contacted the glass.

"In our experiments, the glass became more than a thousand degrees Celsius hotter near the positive side than in the rest of the glass, which was very surprising considering that the glass was totally homogeneous to begin with," Jain said.

This seems to fly in the face of Joule's first law, so the team investigated more closely - and found that the glass wasn't remaining as homogeneous as it started out. The electric field changed the chemistry and the structure of the glass on nanoscale, in just a small section close to the anode.

This region heats faster than the rest of the glass, to the point of becoming a thermal runaway - where an increase in temperature further increases temperature in a blistering feedback loop.

As it turned out, that spot of structural change and dramatic heat resulted in a small area of glass reaching melting point while the rest of the material remained solid.

"Unlike electronically conducting metals and semiconductors, with time the heating of ionically conducting glass becomes extremely inhomogeneous with the formation of a nanoscale alkali-depletion region, such that the glass melts near the anode, even evaporates, while remaining solid elsewhere," the researchers wrote in their paper.

In other words, the material wasn't homogeneous any more, which means the glass heating experiment doesn't exactly change how we apply Joule's first law.

But it's an exciting result, since until now we didn't know a material could actually lose its homogeneity with the application of an electrical current, with possible implications for thin-film heat harvesters in electronics. (The thing is, no one had tried electrically heating glass to these extreme temperatures before.)

So the physical laws of the Universe are still okay, as a piece of glass hasn't broken them. But Joule's first law may need a bit of tweaking to take this effect into account, a reminder that unconventional energy concepts like nighttime solar cells also challenge our intuitions.

And, of course, it's another piece of understanding that could help us in other ways too, including advances in thermoelectric materials that turn waste heat into electricity.

"Besides demonstrating the need to qualify Joule's law," Jain said, "the results are critical to developing new technology for the fabrication and manufacturing of glass and ceramic materials."

The research has been published in Scientific Reports.

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Newfoundland and Labrador Energy Efficiency faces low rankings yet signs of progress: heat pumps, EV charging networks, stricter building codes, electrification to tap Muskrat Falls power and cut greenhouse gas emissions and energy poverty.

Key Points

Policies and programs improving N.L.'s energy use via electrification, EVs, heat pumps, and stronger building codes.

✅ Ranks last provincially but showing policy momentum

✅ Heat pump grants and EV charging network underway

✅ Stronger building codes and electrification can cut emissions

Ah, another day, another depressing study that places Newfoundland and Labrador as lagging behind the rest of Canada.

We've been in this place before — least-fit kids, lowest birthrate — and now we can add a new dubious distinction to the pile: a ranking of the provinces according to energy efficiency placed Newfoundland and Labrador last.

Efficiency Canada released its first-ever provincial scorecard Nov. 20, comparing energy efficiency policies among the provinces. With energy efficiency a key part of reducing greenhouse gas emissions, Newfoundland and Labrador sat in 10th place, noted for its lack of policies on everything from promoting EV uptake in Atlantic Canada to improving efficient construction codes.

But before you click away to a happier story (about, say, a feline Instagram superstar) one of the scorecard's authors says there's a silver lining to the statistics.

"It's not that Newfoundland and Labrador is doing anything badly; it's just that it could do more," said Brendan Haley, the policy director at Efficiency Canada, a new think tank based at Carleton University.

"There's just a general lack of attention to implementing efficiency policies relative to other jurisdictions, including New Brunswick's EV rebate programs on transportation."

Looking at the scorecard and comparing N.L. with British Columbia, which snagged the No. 1 spot, isn't a great look. B.C. scored 56 points out of a possible 100, while N.L. got just 15.

Haley pointed out that B.C.'s provincial government is charting progress toward 2032, when all new builds will have to be net-zero energy ready; that is, buildings that can produce as much clean energy as they consume.  

While it might not be feasible to emulate that to a T here, Haley said the province could be mandating better energy efficiency standards for new, large building projects, and, at the same time, promote electrification of such projects as a way to soak up some of that surplus Muskrat Falls electricity.

Staring down Muskrat's 'extraordinary' pressure on N.L. electricity rates

It's impossible to talk about energy efficiency in N.L. without considering that dam dilemma. As Muskrat Falls comes online, likely at the end of 2020, customer power rates are set to rise in order to pay for it, and the province is still trying to figure out the headache that is rate mitigation.

"There is a strategic choice to be made in Newfoundland and Labrador," Haley told CBC Radio's On The Go.

While having more customers using Muskrat Falls power can help with rate mitigation, including through initiatives like N.L.'s EV push to grow demand, Haley noted simply using its excess electricity for the sake of it isn't a great goal.

"That should not be an excuse, I think, to almost have a policy of wasting energy on purpose, or saying that we don't need programs that help save electricity anymore," he said.

Energy poverty
Lots of N.L. homeowners are currently feeling a chill from the spectre of rising electricity rates.

Of course, that draft could be coming from a poorly insulated and heated house, as Efficiency Canada noted 38 per cent of all households in N.L. live in what it calls "energy poverty," where they spend more than six per cent of their after-tax income on energy — that's the second highest such rate in the country.

That poverty speaks for a need for N.L.to boost efficiency incentives for vulnerable populations, although Haley noted the government is making progress. The province recently expanded its home energy savings program, doubling in the last budget year to $2 million, which gives grants to low income households for upgrades like insulation.

Can you guess what products are selling like hotcakes as Muskrat Falls looms? Heat pumps

And since Efficiency Canada compiled its scorecard, the province has introduced a $1-million heat pump program, in which 1,000 homeowners could receive $1,000 toward the purchase of a heat pump. 

That program began accepting applications Oct. 15, and one month in, has had 682 people apply, according to the Department of Municipal Affairs and Environment, along with thousands of inquiries.

Heat pump popularity
Even without that program, heat pump sales have skyrocketed in the province since 2017. That popularity doesn't come as much of a surprise to Darren Brake, the president of KSAB Construction in Corner Brook.

With more than two decades in the home building business, he's been seeing consumer demand for home energy efficiency rise to the point where a year ago, his company transitioned into only building third-party certified energy efficient homes.

"Everybody's really concerned about the escalating power costs and energy costs, I assume because of Muskrat Falls," he said.

"It's evolving now, as we speak. Everybody is all about that monthly payment."

Brake uses spray foam installation in every house he builds, to seal up any potential leaks. Without sealing the building envelope, he says, a heat pump is far less efficient. (Lindsay Bird/CBC)
And in the weakest housing market in the province in half a century, Brake has been steadily moving his, building and selling seven in the last year.

Brake's houses include heat pumps, but he said the real savings come from their heavily insulated walls, roof and floors. Homeowners looking to install a heat pump in their leaky old house, he said, won't see lower power bills in quite the same way.

"They are energy efficient, but it's more about the building envelope to make a home efficient and easy to heat. You can put a heat pump in an older home that leaks a lot of air, and you won't get the same results," he said.

Charging network coming
The other big piece to the efficiency puzzle — in the scorecard's eyes — is electric vehicles. Those could, again, use some of that Muskrat Falls energy, as well as curtail gas guzzling, but Efficiency Canada pointed to a lack of policies and incentives surrounding electrifying transportation, such as Nova Scotia's vehicle-to-grid pilot that illustrates innovation elsewhere.

Unlike Quebec or B.C., the province doesn't offer a rebate for buying EVs, even as N.W.T. encourages EVs through targeted measures, and while electric vehicles got loud applause at the House of Assembly last week, it was absent of any policy or announcement beyond the province unveiling a EV licence plate design to be used in the near future.

Electric-vehicle charging network planned for N.L. in 2020

But since the scorecard was tallied, NL Hydro has unveiled plans for a Level 3 charging network for EVs across the island, dependent on funding, with N.L.'s first fast-charging network seen as just the beginning for local drivers.

NL Hydro says while its request for proposals for an island-wide charging network closed earlier in November, there is no progress update yet, even as N.B.'s fast-charging rollout advances along the Trans-Canada. (Credit: iStock/Getty Images)
That cash appears to still be in limbo, as "we are still progressing through the funding process," said an NL Hydro spokesperson in an email, with no "additional details to release at this time."

Still, the promise of a charging network — plus the swift uptake on the heat pump program — could boost N.L.'s energy efficiency scorecard next time it's tallied, said Haley.

"It is encouraging to see the province moving forward on smart and efficient electrification," he said.

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Ontario Clean Energy Adjustment lowers hydro bills by shifting global adjustment costs, cutting time-of-use rates, and using OPG debt financing; ratepayers get inflation-capped increases for four years, then repay costs over 20 years.

Key Points

A 20-year line item repaying debt used to lower rates for 10 years by shifting global adjustment costs off hydro bills.

✅ 17% average bill cut takes effect after royal assent

✅ OPG-managed entity assumes debt for 10 years

✅ 20-year surcharge repays up to $28B plus interest

Ontarians will see lowered hydro bills for the next 10 years, but will then pay higher costs for the following 20 years, under new legislation tabled Thursday.

Ten weeks after announcing its plan to lower hydro bills, the Liberal government introduced legislation to lower time-of-use rates, take the cost of low-income and rural support programs off bills, and introduce new social programs.

It will lower time-of-use rates by removing from bills a portion of the global adjustment, a charge consumers pay for above-market rates to power producers. For the next 10 years, a new entity overseen by Ontario Power Generation will take on debt to pay that difference.

Then, the cost of paying back that debt with interest -- which the government says will be up to $28 billion -- will go back onto ratepayers' bills for the next 20 years as a "Clean Energy Adjustment."

An average 17-per-cent cut to bills will take effect 15 days after the hydro legislation receives royal assent, even as a Nov. 1 rate increase was set by the Ontario Energy Board, but there are just eight sitting days left before the Ontario legislature breaks for the summer. Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault insisted that leaves the opposition "plenty" of time for review and debate.

Premier Kathleen Wynne promised to cut hydro bills and later defended a 25% rate cut after widespread anger over rising costs helped send her approval ratings to record lows.

Electricity bills in the province have roughly doubled in the last decade, due in part to green energy initiatives, and Thibeault said the goal of this plan is to better spread out those costs.

"Like the mortgage on your house, this regime will cost more as we refinance over a longer period of time, but this is a more equitable and fair approach when we consider the lifespan of the clean energy investments, and generating stations across our province," he said.

NDP critic Peter Tabuns called it a "get-through-the-election" next June plan.

"We're going to take on a huge debt so Kathleen Wynne can look good on the hustings in the next few months and for decades we're going to pay for it," he said.

The legislation also holds rate increases to inflation for the next four years. After that, they'll rise more quickly, as illustrated by a leaked cabinet document the Progressive Conservatives unveiled Thursday.

The Liberals dismissed the document as containing outdated projections, but confirmed that it went before cabinet at some point before the government decided to go ahead with the hydro plan.

From about 2027 onward -- when consumers would start paying off the debt associated with the hydro plan -- Ontario electricity consumers will be paying about 12 per cent more than they would without the Liberal government's plan to cut costs in the short term, even though a deal with Quebec was not expected to reduce hydro bills, the government document projected.

But that was just one of many projections, said Energy Minister Glenn Thibeault.

"We have been working on this plan for months, and as we worked on it the documents and calculations evolved," he said.

The government's long-term energy plan is set to be updated this spring, and Thibeault said it will provide a more accurate look at how the hydro plan will reduce rates, even as a recovery rate could lead to higher hydro bills in certain circumstances.

Progressive Conservative critic Todd Smith said the "Clean Energy Adjustment" is nothing more than a revamped debt retirement charge, which was on bills from 2002 to 2016 to pay down debt left over from the old Ontario Hydro, the province's giant electrical utility that was split into multiple agencies in 1999 under the previous Conservative government.

"The minister can call it whatever he wants but it's right there in the graph, that there is going to be a new charge on the line," Smith said. "It's the debt retirement charge on steroids."

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Green Party Mission Possible 2030 outlines a rapid transition to renewable energy, electric vehicles, carbon pricing, and grid modernization, phasing out oil and gas while creating green jobs, public transit upgrades, and building retrofits.

Key Points

A Canadian climate roadmap to decarbonize by 2030 via renewables, EVs, carbon pricing, and grid upgrades.

✅ Ban on new gas cars by 2030; accelerate EV adoption and charging.

✅ 100 percent renewable-powered grid with interprovincial links.

✅ Just transition: retraining, green jobs, and building retrofits.

Green Party Leader Elizabeth May has a vision for Canada in 2030. In 11 years, all new cars will be electric. A national ban will prohibit anyone from buying a gas-powered vehicle. No matter where you live, charging stations will make driving long distances easy and affordable. Alberta’s oil industry will be on the way out, replaced by jobs in sectors such as urban farming, renewable energy and retrofitting buildings for energy efficiency. The electric grid will be powered by 100 per cent renewable energy as Canada’s race to net-zero accelerates.

It’s all part of the Greens’ “Mission Possible” – a detailed plan released Monday with a level of ambition made clear by its very name. May insists it’s the only way to confront the climate crisis head-on before it’s too late.

“We have to set our targets on what needs to be done. You can’t negotiate with physics,” May told CTV’s Power Play on Monday.

But is that 2030 vision realistic?

CTVNews.ca spoke with experts in economics, political policy, renewable energy and climate science to explore how feasible May’s plan is, how much it would cost and what transitioning to an environmentally-centred economy would look like for everyday Canadians.

MOVING TO A GREEN ECONOMY

Recent polling from Nanos Research shows that the environment and climate change is the top issue among voters this election.

If the Greens win a majority on Oct. 21 – an outcome that May herself acknowledged isn’t likely – it would signal a major restructuring of the Canadian economy.

According to the party’s platform, jobs in the fuels sectors, such as oil and gas production in Alberta, would eventually disappear. The Greens say those job losses would be replaced by opportunities in a variety of fields including renewable energy, farming, public transportation, manufacturing, construction and information technology.

The party would also introduce a guaranteed livable income and greater support for technical and educational training to help workers transition to new jobs.

But Jean-Thomas Bernard, an economist who specializes in energy markets, said plenty of people in today’s energy sector, such as oil and gas workers, wouldn’t have the skills to make that transition.

“Quite a few of these jobs have low technical requirements. Driving a truck is driving a truck. So quite few of these people will not have the capacity to be recycled into well-paid jobs in the renewable sector,” he said.

“Maybe this would be for the young generation, but not people who are 40, 45, 50.”

Ryan Katz-Rosene is an associate professor at the University of Ottawa who researches environmental policy. He says May’s overall pitch is technically possible but would require a huge amount of enthusiasm on behalf of the public. 

“The plan in itself is not physically impossible. It is theoretically achievable. But it would require a major, major change in the urgency and the level of action, the level of investment, the level of popular urgency, the level of political commitment,” he said.

“But it’s not completely fantastical in it being theoretically impossible.”

PHASING OUT BITUMEN PRODUCTION

Katz-Rosene said that, under the Greens’ plan, Canadians would need to pay for a bold carbon pricing plan that helps shift the country away from fossil fuels and has significant implications for electricity grids, he said. It would also mean dramatically upscaling the capacity of Canada’s existing electrical grid to account for millions of new electric cars, reflecting the need for more electricity to hit net-zero as demand grows.

 “Given Canada’s slow attempt to climate action and pretty lacklustre results in these years, to be frank, this plan is very, very difficult to achieve. We’re talking 11 years from now. But things change, people change, and sometimes that change can occur very quickly. Just look at the type of climate mobilization we’re seen among young people in the last year, or the last five years.”

Bernard, the economist, is less optimistic. He cited international agreements such as the Kyoto Protocol from 1997 and the more recent Paris Climate Agreement and said that little has come of those plans.

A climate solution with teeth, he suggests, would need to be global – something that no federal government can completely control.

“I find a lot this talk to be overly optimistic. I don’t know why we keep having this talk that is overly optimistic,” he said, adding that he believes humankind is already beyond the point of being able to stop irreversible climate change. 

“I think we are moving toward a mess, but the effort to control that is still not there.”

As for transitioning away from Canada’s oil industry, Bernard said May’s plan simply wouldn’t work.

“Trying to block some oil production here and there means more oil will be produced elsewhere,” he said. “Canada could become a clean country, but worldwide it would not be much.”

Mike Hudema, a climate organizer with Greenpeace Canada, thinks the Green Party’s promises for 2030 are big – and that’s kind of the point.

“They are definitely ambitious, but ambition is exactly what these times call for.  Unfortunately our government has delayed acting on this problem for so long that we have a very short timeline which we have to turn the ship,” he said.

“So this is the type of ambition that the science is calling for. So yes, I believe that if we here in Canada were to put our minds to addressing this problem, then we have the ability to reach it in that 2030 timeframe.”

In a statement to CTVNews.ca, a Green Party spokesperson said the 2030 timeline is intended to meet the 45 per cent reduction in emissions by 2030 as laid out by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

“If we miss the 2030 target, we risk triggering runaway global warming,” the spokesperson said.

GREENING THE GRID BY 2030

Greening Canada’s existing electric grid – a goal May has pegged to 2030 – is quite feasible, Katz-Rosene said, and cleaning up Canada’s electricity is critical to meeting climate pledges. Already, 82 per cent of the country’s electric grid is run off of renewable resources, which makes Canada a world leader in the field, he said.

Hudema agrees.

“It is feasible. Canada does have a grid already that has a lot of renewables in it. So yes we can definitely make it over the hump and complete the transition. But we do need investments in our electric grid infrastructure to ensure a certain capability. That comes with tremendous job growth. That’s the exciting part that people keep missing,” Hudema said.

But Bernard said switching the grid to 100 per cent renewables would be quite difficult. He suggested that the Greens’ 2030 vision would require Ontario and Quebec’s hydro production to help power the Prairies.

“To think we could boost (hydro production) much more in order to meet Saskatchewan and Alberta’s needs? Oh boy. To do this before 2030? I think that’s not reasonable, not feasible.”

In a statement to CTV News, the Greens said their strategy includes building new connections between eastern Manitoba and western Ontario to transmit clean energy. They would also upgrade existing connections between New Brunswick and Nova Scotia and between B.C. and Alberta to boost reliability.

A number of “micro-grids” in local communities capable of storing clean energy would help reduce the dependency on nationwide distribution systems, the party said.

Even so, the Greens acknowledged that, by 2030, some towns and cities will still be using some fossil fuels, and that even by 2050 – the goal for achieving overall carbon neutrality – some “legacy users” of fossil fuels will remain.

However, according to party projections, the emissions of these “legacy users” would be at most 8 per cent of today’s levels and those emissions would be “more than completely offset” by re-forestation and new technologies, such as CO2 capture and storage.

ELECTRIC VEHICLE REVOLUTION

The Green Party’s platform promises to revolutionize the Canadian auto sector. By 2030, all new cars made in Canada would be electric and federal EV sales regulations would prohibit the sale of cars powered by gasoline.

Danny Harvey, a geography professor with the University of Toronto who specializes in renewable energy, said he thinks May’s plan for making a 100 per cent renewable-powered electric grid is feasible.

On cars, however, he thinks the emphasis on electric vehicles is “misplaced.”

“At this point in time we should be requiring automobiles to transition, by 2030, to making cars that can go three times further on a litre of gasoline than at present. This would require selling only advanced hybrid-electric vehicles (HEVs), which would run entirely on gasoline (like current HEVs),” he said.

“After that, and when the grid is fully ready, we could make the transition to fully electric or plugin hybrid electric vehicles, possibly using H2 for long-distance driving.”

At the moment, zero-emissions vehicles account for just over 2 per cent of annual vehicle sales in Canada. Katz-Rosene said that “isn’t a whole lot,” but the industry is on an exponential growth curve that doesn’t show any signs of slowing.

The trouble with May’s 2030 goal on electric vehicles, he said, has to do with Canadians’ taste in vehicles. In short: Canadians like trucks.

“The biggest obstacle I see is that I don’t even think it’s possible to get a light-duty truck, a Ford F150, in an electric model in Canada. And that’s the most popular type of vehicle,” he said.

However, if a zero emissions truck were on the market – something that automakers are already working on – then that could potentially shake things up, especially if the government introduces incentives for electric vehicles and higher taxes on gasoline, he said.

WHAT ABOUT THE COST?

CTVNews.ca reached out to the Green Party to ask how it would pay to revamp the electrical grid. The party did not give a precise figure but said that the plan “has been estimated to cost somewhat less” than the Trans Mountain Pipeline expansion.

The Greens have vowed to scrap the expansion and put that money toward the project.

Upgrading the electric grid to 100 per cent sustainable energy would also be a cost-effective, long-term solution, the Greens believe, though critics say Ottawa is making electricity more expensive for Albertans amid the transition.

“Current projects for renewable energy in Canada and worldwide are consistently at lower capital and operating costs than any type of fossil, hydro or nuclear energy project,” the party spokesperson said.

The party’s platform includes other potential sources of money, including closing tax loopholes for the wealthy, cracking down on offshore tax dodging and a new corporate tax on e-commerce companies, such as Facebook, Amazon and Netflix. The Greens have also vowed to eliminate all fossil fuel subsidies.

As for the economic realities, Katz-Rosene acknowledged that May’s plan may appeal to “radical” voters who view economic growth as anathema to addressing climate change.

But while May’s plan would be disruptive, it isn’t anti-capitalist, he said.

“It’s restrained capitalism. But it by no means an anti-capitalist platform, and none of the parties have an anti-capitalist platform by any stretch of the imagination,” Katz-Rosene said.

From an economist’s perspective, Bernard said the plan is still “very costly” and that taxes can only go so far.

“In the end, no corporation operates at a loss. At some stage, these taxes have to go to the users,” he said.

But conversations around money must also consider the cost of inaction on climate change, Hudema said.

“Costing (Elizabeth May) is always a concern and how we’re going to afford these things is something we definitely need to keep top of mind. But within that conversation we need to look at what is the cost of not doing what is in line with what the science is saying. I would say that cost is much more substantial.”

“The forecast, if we don’t act – it’s astronomical.”

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Infrastructure Security Algorithm prioritizes cyber defense for power grids and critical infrastructure, mitigating ransomware, blackout risks, and cascading failures by guiding utilities, regulators, and cyber insurers on optimal security investment allocation.

Key Points

An algorithm that optimizes security spending to cut ransomware and blackout risks across critical infrastructure.

✅ Guides utilities on optimal security allocation

✅ Uses incentives to correct human risk biases

✅ Prioritizes assets to prevent cascading outages

Millions of people could suddenly lose electricity if a ransomware attack just slightly tweaked energy flow onto the U.S. power grid, as past US utility intrusions have shown.

No single power utility company has enough resources to protect the entire grid, but maybe all 3,000 of the grid's utilities could fill in the most crucial security gaps if there were a map showing where to prioritize their security investments.

Purdue University researchers have developed an algorithm to create that map. Using this tool, regulatory authorities or cyber insurance companies could establish a framework for protecting the U.S. power grid that guides the security investments of power utility companies to parts of the grid at greatest risk of causing a blackout if hacked.

Power grids are a type of critical infrastructure, which is any network - whether physical like water systems or virtual like health care record keeping - considered essential to a country's function and safety. The biggest ransomware attacks in history have happened in the past year, affecting most sectors of critical infrastructure in the U.S. such as grain distribution systems in the food and agriculture sector and the Colonial Pipeline, which carries fuel throughout the East Coast, prompting increased military preparation for grid hacks in the U.S.

With this trend in mind, Purdue researchers evaluated the algorithm in the context of various types of critical infrastructure in addition to the power sector, including electricity-sector IoT devices that interface with grid operations. The goal is that the algorithm would help secure any large and complex infrastructure system against cyberattacks.

"Multiple companies own different parts of infrastructure. When ransomware hits, it affects lots of different pieces of technology owned by different providers, so that's what makes ransomware a problem at the state, national and even global level," said Saurabh Bagchi, a professor in the Elmore Family School of Electrical and Computer Engineering and Center for Education and Research in Information Assurance and Security at Purdue. "When you are investing security money on large-scale infrastructures, bad investment decisions can mean your power grid goes out, or your telecommunications network goes out for a few days."

Protecting infrastructure from hacks by improving security investment decisions

The researchers tested the algorithm in simulations of previously reported hacks to four infrastructure systems: a smart grid, industrial control system, e-commerce platform and web-based telecommunications network. They found that use of this algorithm results in the most optimal allocation of security investments for reducing the impact of a cyberattack.

The team's findings appear in a paper presented at this year's IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy, the premier conference in the area of computer security. The team comprises Purdue professors Shreyas Sundaram and Timothy Cason and former PhD students Mustafa Abdallah and Daniel Woods.

"No one has an infinite security budget. You must decide how much to invest in each of your assets so that you gain a bump in the security of the overall system," Bagchi said.

The power grid, for example, is so interconnected that the security decisions of one power utility company can greatly impact the operations of other electrical plants. If the computers controlling one area's generators don't have adequate security protection, as seen when Russian hackers accessed control rooms at U.S. utilities, then a hack to those computers would disrupt energy flow to another area's generators, forcing them to shut down.

Since not all of the grid's utilities have the same security budget, it can be hard to ensure that critical points of entry to the grid's controls get the most investment in security protection.

The algorithm that Purdue researchers developed would incentivize each security decision maker to allocate security investments in a way that limits the cumulative damage a ransomware attack could cause. An attack on a single generator, for instance, would have less impact than an attack on the controls for a network of generators, which sophisticated grid-disruption malware can target at scale, rather than for the protection of a single generator.

Building an algorithm that considers the effects of human behavior

Bagchi's research shows how to increase cybersecurity in ways that address the interconnected nature of critical infrastructure but don't require an overhaul of the entire infrastructure system to be implemented.

As director of Purdue's Center for Resilient Infrastructures, Systems, and Processes, Bagchi has worked with the U.S. Department of Defense, Northrop Grumman Corp., Intel Corp., Adobe Inc., Google LLC and IBM Corp. on adopting solutions from his research. Bagchi's work has revealed the advantages of establishing an automatic response to attacks, and analyses like Symantec's Dragonfly report highlight energy-sector risks, leading to key innovations against ransomware threats, such as more effective ways to make decisions about backing up data.

There's a compelling reason why incentivizing good security decisions would work, Bagchi said. He and his team designed the algorithm based on findings from the field of behavioral economics, which studies how people make decisions with money.

"Before our work, not much computer security research had been done on how behaviors and biases affect the best defense mechanisms in a system. That's partly because humans are terrible at evaluating risk and an algorithm doesn't have any human biases," Bagchi said. "But for any system of reasonable complexity, decisions about security investments are almost always made with humans in the loop. For our algorithm, we explicitly consider the fact that different participants in an infrastructure system have different biases."

To develop the algorithm, Bagchi's team started by playing a game. They ran a series of experiments analyzing how groups of students chose to protect fake assets with fake investments. As in past studies in behavioral economics, they found that most study participants guessed poorly which assets were the most valuable and should be protected from security attacks. Most study participants also tended to spread out their investments instead of allocating them to one asset even when they were told which asset is the most vulnerable to an attack.

Using these findings, the researchers designed an algorithm that could work two ways: Either security decision makers pay a tax or fine when they make decisions that are less than optimal for the overall security of the system, or security decision makers receive a payment for investing in the most optimal manner.

"Right now, fines are levied as a reactive measure if there is a security incident. Fines or taxes don't have any relationship to the security investments or data of the different operators in critical infrastructure," Bagchi said.

In the researchers' simulations of real-world infrastructure systems, the algorithm successfully minimized the likelihood of losing assets to an attack that would decrease the overall security of the infrastructure system.

Bagchi's research group is working to make the algorithm more scalable and able to adapt to an attacker who may make multiple attempts to hack into a system. The researchers' work on the algorithm is funded by the National Science Foundation, the Wabash Heartland Innovation Network and the Army Research Lab.

Cybersecurity is an area of focus through Purdue's Next Moves, a set of initiatives that works to address some of the greatest technology challenges facing the U.S. Purdue's cybersecurity experts offer insights and assistance to improve the protection of power plants, electrical grids and other critical infrastructure.

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Alberta Electricity Market Overhaul will add renewables like wind and solar, curb price volatility tied to natural gas, boost competition, and reward energy efficiency, while safeguarding grid reliability and investor confidence through a transition roadmap.

Key Points

Alberta's 2027 market redesign adds renewables, boosts competition, and cuts volatility to protect reliability.

✅ Integrates wind and solar to meet climate and affordability goals.

✅ Increases competition and efficiency; reduces price volatility.

✅ Plans transition measures to maintain reliability and investment.

Alberta's electricity market is on the precipice of a significant transformation. The province, long reliant on fossil fuels for power generation, has committed to a market overhaul by 2027. This ambitious plan promises to shake up the current system, but industry players are wary of a lengthy period of uncertainty that could stifle much-needed investment in the sector.

The impetus for change stems from a confluence of factors. Soaring energy bills for consumers, reflecting rising electricity prices across the province, coupled with concerns about Alberta's environmental footprint, have pressured the government to seek a more sustainable and cost-effective electricity system. The current market, heavily influenced by natural gas prices, has been criticized for volatility and a lack of incentive for renewable energy development.

The details of the new electricity market design are still being formulated. However, the government has outlined some key objectives. One priority is to incorporate more renewable energy sources like wind and solar power into the grid. This aligns with Alberta's climate change goals and could lead to cleaner electricity generation, supporting the province's path to clean electricity in the coming years.

Another objective is to introduce more competition within the market. The current system is dominated by a few large players, and the government hopes increased competition will drive down prices for consumers, as the market needs more competition to function efficiently.

While the potential benefits of the overhaul are undeniable, industry leaders are apprehensive about the transition period, with a Calgary retailer urging the government to scrap the overhaul amid uncertainty. The lack of clarity surrounding the new market design creates uncertainty for power companies. This could discourage investment in new generation facilities, both renewable and traditional, potentially leading to supply shortages in the future.

John Kousinioris, CEO of TransAlta, a major Alberta power generator, expressed these concerns. "We need a clear roadmap for the future," he stated. "Uncertainty makes it difficult to justify significant investments in new power plants, which are essential to ensure a reliable electricity supply for Albertans."

The government acknowledges the need to minimize disruption during the transition. They have promised to engage in consultations with industry stakeholders throughout the redesign process, as the province changes how it produces and pays for electricity to support long-term stability. Additionally, measures may be implemented to ensure a smooth transition and provide some level of certainty for investors.

The success of Alberta's electricity market overhaul will depend on several factors. Striking a balance between environmental sustainability, affordability, and energy security will be crucial. The government must design a system that incentivizes investment in new, cleaner power generation while maintaining reliable electricity supply at a reasonable cost for consumers.

The role of natural gas, a dominant player in Alberta's current electricity mix, is another point of contention. While the government aims to incorporate more renewables, natural gas is likely to remain a part of the equation for some time. Determining the appropriate role for natural gas in the future market will be a critical decision.

The upcoming years will be a period of significant change for Alberta's electricity market. The province's commitment to a cleaner and more competitive system holds promise, but navigating the transition effectively will be a complex challenge. Open communication, collaboration between stakeholders, and a well-defined roadmap for the future will be essential for ensuring a successful electricity market overhaul and a brighter energy future for Alberta.

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