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Oil and Gas Companies Need to Brace for a Tough 2026
Oil and gas companies need to brace for a tough 2026, Wood Mackenzie warned in a statement sent to Rigzone recently. In the statement, Wood Mackenzie highlighted that, according to its new Corporate Strategic Planner Oil and Gas 2026 report, oil and gas companies “will plan for a tough year in 2026, with capital budgets set to decline as firms prioritize financial strength over long-term growth investments”. “The comprehensive corporate planning toolkit reveals that companies will maintain disciplined investment criteria whilst navigating significant headwinds,” Wood Mackenzie noted in the statement. “Reinvestment rates will average 50 percent, enabling firms to return an average of 45 percent of operating cash flow to shareholders and, in some cases, deleverage even at our forecast annual average price of just under $60 per barrel Brent for 2026,” it added. Wood Mackenzie noted in the statement that companies with gearing above 35 percent will prioritize deleveraging to build resilience against rising price shock risks. It went on to state that those with high reinvestment rates exceeding 80 percent will emphasize net investment after asset sales, deploying disposals to offset higher spending whilst high-grading portfolio quality. In the statement, Wood Mackenzie warned that low carbon spending “faces deeper cuts”, pointing out that the report “identifies further reductions in low-carbon spending as companies withdraw from marginal projects”. “Leading European Majors will cap renewable and low-carbon investments at 30 percent of total budgets as companies pull back from low-return projects,” the company said in the statement. “Most large international oil companies and national oil companies will converge on allocating 10-20 percent of overall budgets to low-carbon initiatives. Capital allocation will swing back towards upstream investments, including exploration and business development,” it added. The statement also noted that structural cost reductions will be a priority to boost margins and hedge against macro
Scientists can see Earth’s permafrost thawing from space
Something is rotten in the city of Nunapitchuk. In recent years, a crack has formed in the middle of a house. Sewage has leached into the earth. Soil has eroded around buildings, leaving them perched atop precarious lumps of dirt. There are eternal puddles. And mold. The ground can feel squishy, sodden. This small town in northern Alaska is experiencing a sometimes overlooked consequence of climate change: thawing permafrost. And Nunapitchuk is far from the only Arctic town to find itself in such a predicament. Permafrost, which lies beneath about 15% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, is defined as ground that has remained frozen for at least two years. Historically, much of the world’s permafrost has remained solid and stable for far longer, allowing people to build whole towns atop it. But as the planet warms, a process that is happening more rapidly near the poles than at more temperate latitudes, permafrost is thawing and causing a host of infrastructural and environmental problems. Now scientists think they may be able to use satellite data to delve deep beneath the ground’s surface and get a better understanding of how the permafrost thaws, and which areas might be most severely affected because they had more ice to start with. Clues from the short-term behavior of those especially icy areas, seen from space, could portend future problems.
Using information gathered both from space and on the ground, they are working with affected communities to anticipate whether a house’s foundation will crack—and whether it is worth mending that crack or is better to start over in a new house on a stable hilltop. These scientists’ permafrost predictions are already helping communities like Nunapitchuk make those tough calls. But it’s not just civilian homes that are at risk. One of the top US intelligence agencies, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), is also interested in understanding permafrost better. That’s because the same problems that plague civilians in the high north also plague military infrastructure, at home and abroad. The NGA is, essentially, an organization full of space spies—people who analyze data from surveillance satellites and make sense of it for the country’s national security apparatus.
Understanding the potential instabilities of the Alaskan military infrastructure—which includes radar stations that watch for intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as military bases and National Guard posts—is key to keeping those facilities in good working order and planning for their strengthened future. Understanding the potential permafrost weaknesses that could affect the infrastructure of countries like Russia and China, meanwhile, affords what insiders might call “situational awareness” about competitors. The work to understand this thawing will only become more relevant, for civilians and their governments alike, as the world continues to warm. The ground beneath If you live much below the Arctic Circle, you probably don’t think a lot about permafrost. But it affects you no matter where you call home. In addition to the infrastructural consequences for real towns like Nunapitchuk, thawing permafrost contains sequestered carbon—twice as much as currently inhabits the atmosphere. As the permafrost thaws, the process can release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That release can cause a feedback loop: Warmer temperatures thaw permafrost, which releases greenhouse gases, which warms the air more, which then—you get it. The microbes themselves, along with previously trapped heavy metals, are also set dangerously free. For many years, researchers’ primary options for understanding some of these freeze-thaw changes involved hands-on, on-the-ground surveys. But in the late 2000s, Kevin Schaefer, currently a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, started to investigate a less labor-intensive idea: using radar systems aboard satellites to survey the ground beneath. This idea implanted itself in his brain in 2009, when he traveled to a place called Toolik Lake, southwest of the oilfields of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. One day, after hours of drilling sample cores out of the ground to study permafrost, he was relaxing in the Quonset hut, chatting with colleagues. They began to discuss how space-based radar could potentially detect how the land sinks and heaves back up as temperatures change. Huh, he thought. Yes, radar probably could do that.
Scientists call the ground right above permafrost the active layer. The water in this layer of soil contracts and expands with the seasons: during the summer, the ice suffusing the soil melts and the resulting decrease in volume causes the ground to dip. During the winter, the water freezes and expands, bulking the active layer back up. Radar can help measure that height difference, which is usually around one to five centimeters. Schaefer realized that he could use radar to measure the ground elevation at the start and end of the thaw. The electromagnetic waves that bounce back at those two times would have traveled slightly different distances. That difference would reveal the tiny shift in elevation over the seasons and would allow him to estimate how much water had thawed and refrozen in the active layer and how far below the surface the thaw had extended. With radar, Schaefer realized, scientists could cover a lot more literal ground, with less effort and at lower cost. “It took us two years to figure out how to write a paper on it,” he says; no one had ever made those measurements before. He and colleagues presented the idea at the 2010 meeting of the American Geophysical Union and published a paper in 2012 detailing the method, using it to estimate the thickness of the active layer on Alaska’s North Slope. When they did, they helped start a new subfield that grew as large-scale data sets started to become available around 5 to 10 years ago, says Roger Michaelides, a geophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis and a collaborator of Schaefer’s. Researchers’ efforts were aided by the growth in space radar systems and smaller, cheaper satellites. With the availability of global data sets (sometimes for free, from government-run satellites like the European Space Agency’s Sentinel) and targeted observations from commercial companies like Iceye, permafrost studies are moving from bespoke regional analyses to more automated, large-scale monitoring and prediction. The remote view Simon Zwieback, a geospatial and environmental expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, sees the consequences of thawing permafrost firsthand every day. His office overlooks a university parking lot, a corner of which is fenced off to keep cars and pedestrians from falling into a brand-new sinkhole. That area of asphalt had been slowly sagging for more than a year, but over a week or two this spring, it finally started to collapse inward. Kevin Schaefer stands on top of a melting layer of ice near the Alaskan pipeline on the North Slope of Alaska.COURTESY OF KEVIN SCHAEFER The new remote research methods are a large-scale version of Zwieback taking in the view from his window. Researchers look at the ground and measure how its height changes as ice thaws and refreezes. The approach can cover wide swaths of land, but it involves making assumptions about what’s going on below the surface—namely, how much ice suffuses the soil in the active layer and permafrost. Thawing areas with relatively low ice content could mimic thinner layers with more ice. And it’s important to differentiate the two, since more ice in the permafrost means more potential instability.
To check that they’re on the right track, scientists have historically had to go out into the field. But a few years ago, Zwieback started to explore a way to make better and deeper estimates of ice content using the available remote sensing data. Finding a way to make those kinds of measurements on a large scale was more than an academic exercise: Areas of what he calls “excess ice” are most liable to cause instability at the surface. “In order to plan in these environments, we really need to know how much ice there is, or where those locations are that are rich in ice,” he says. Zwieback, who did his undergraduate and graduate studies in Switzerland and Austria, wasn’t always so interested in permafrost, or so deeply affected by it. But in 2014, when he was a doctoral student in environmental engineering, he joined an environmental field campaign in Siberia, at the Lena River Delta, which resembles a gigantic piece of coral fanning out into the Arctic Ocean. Zwieback was near a town called Tiksi, one of the world’s northernmost settlements. It’s a military outpost and starting point for expeditions to the North Pole, featuring an abandoned plane near the ocean. Its Soviet-era concrete buildings sometimes bring it to the front page of the r/UrbanHell subreddit.
Here, Zwieback saw part of the coastline collapse, exposing almost pure ice. It looked like a subterranean glacier, but it was permafrost. “That really had an indelible impact on me,” he says. Later, as a doctoral student in Zurich and postdoc in Canada, he used his radar skills to understand the rapid changes that the activity of permafrost impressed upon the landscape. And now, with his job in Fairbanks and his ideas about the use of radar sensing, he has done work funded by the NGA, which has an open Arctic data portal. In his Arctic research, Zwieback started with the approach underlying most radar permafrost studies: looking at the ground’s seasonal subsidence and heave. “But that’s something that happens very close to the surface,” he says. “It doesn’t really tell us about these long-term destabilizing effects,” he adds. In warmer summers, he thought, subtle clues would emerge that could indicate how much ice is buried deeper down. For example, he expected those warmer-than-average periods to exaggerate the amount of change seen on the surface, making it easier to tell which areas are ice-rich. Land that was particularly dense with ice would dip more than it “should”—a precursor of bigger dips to come.
The first step, then, was to measure subsidence directly, as usual. But from there, Zwieback developed an algorithm to ingest data about the subsidence over time—as measured by radar—and other environmental information, like the temperatures at each measurement. He then created a digital model of the land that allowed him to adjust the simulated amount of ground ice and determine when it matched the subsidence seen in the real world. With that, researchers could infer the amount of ice beneath. Next, he made maps of that ice that could potentially be useful to engineers—whether they were planning a new subdivision or, as his funders might be, keeping watch on a military airfield. “What was new in my work was to look at these much shorter periods and use them to understand specific aspects of this whole system, and specifically how much ice there is deep down,” Zwieback says. The NGA, which has also funded Schaefer’s work, did not respond to an initial request for comment but did later provide feedback for fact-checking. It removed an article on its website about Zwieback’s grant and its application to agency interests around the time that the current presidential administration began to ban mention of climate change in federal research. But the thawing earth is of keen concern.
To start, the US has significant military infrastructure in Alaska: It’s home to six military bases and 49 National Guard posts, as well as 21 missile-detecting radar sites. Most are vulnerable to thaw now or in the near future, given that 85% of the state is on permafrost. Beyond American borders, the broader north is in a state of tension. Russia’s relations with Northern Europe are icy. Its invasion of Ukraine has left those countries fearing that they too could be invaded, prompting Sweden and Finland, for instance, to join NATO. The US has threatened takeovers of Greenland and Canada. And China—which has shipping and resource ambitions for the region—is jockeying to surpass the US as the premier superpower. Permafrost plays a role in the situation. “As knowledge has expanded, so has the understanding that thawing permafrost can affect things NGA cares about, including the stability of infrastructure in Russia and China,” read the NGA article. Permafrost covers 60% of Russia, and thaws have affected more than 40% of buildings in northern Russia already, according to statements from the country’s minister of natural resources in 2021. Experts say critical infrastructure like roads and pipelines is at risk, along with military installations. That could weaken both Russia’s strategic position and the security of its residents. In China, meanwhile, according to a report from the Council on Strategic Risks, important moving parts like the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, “which allows Beijing to more quickly move military personnel near contested areas of the Indian border,” is susceptible to ground thaw—as are oil and gas pipelines linking Russia and China. In the field Any permafrost analysis that relies on data from space requires verification on Earth. The hope is that remote methods will become reliable enough to use on their own, but while they’re being developed, researchers must still get their hands muddy with more straightforward and longer tested physical methods. Some use a network called Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring, which has existed since 1991, incorporating active-layer data from hundreds of measurement sites across the Northern Hemisphere. Sometimes, that data comes from people physically probing an area; other sites use tubes permanently inserted into the ground, filled with a liquid that indicates freezing; still others use underground cables that measure soil temperature. Some researchers, like Schaefer, lug ground-penetrating radar systems around the tundra. He’s taken his system to around 50 sites and made more than 200,000 measurements of the active layer. The field-ready ground-penetrating radar comes in a big box—the size of a steamer trunk—that emits radio pulses. These pulses bounce off the bottom of the active layer, or the top of the permafrost. In this case, the timing of that reflection reveals how thick the active layer is. With handles designed for humans, Schaefer’s team drags this box around the Arctic’s boggier areas. The box floats. “I do not,” he says. He has vivid memories of tromping through wetlands, his legs pushing straight down through the muck, his body sinking up to his hips. Andy Parsekian and Kevin Schaefer haul a ground penetrating radar unit through the tundra near Utqiagvik.COURTESY OF KEVIN SCHAEFER Zwieback also needs to verify what he infers from his space data. And so in 2022, he went to the Toolik Field station, a National Science Foundation–funded ecology research facility along the Dalton Highway and adjacent to Schaefer’s Toolik Lake. This road, which goes from Fairbanks up to the Arctic Ocean, is colloquially called the Haul Road; it was made famous in the TV show Ice Road Truckers. From this access point, Zwieback’s team needed to get deep samples of soil whose ice content could be analyzed in the lab. Every day, two teams would drive along the Dalton Highway to get close to their field sites. Slamming their car doors, they would unload and hop on snow machines to travel the final distance. Often they would see musk oxen, looking like bison that never cut their hair. The grizzlies were also interested in these oxen, and in the nearby caribou. At the sites they could reach, they took out a corer, a long, tubular piece of equipment driven by a gas engine, meant to drill deep into the ground. Zwieback or a teammate pressed it into the earth. The barrel’s two blades rotated, slicing a cylinder about five feet down to ensure that their samples went deep enough to generate data that can be compared with the measurements made from space. Then they pulled up and extracted the cylinder, a sausage of earth and ice. All day every day for a week, they gathered cores that matched up with the pixels in radar images taken from space. In those cores, the ice was apparent to the eye. But Zwieback didn’t want anecdata. “We want to get a number,” he says. So he and his team would pack their soil cylinders back to the lab. There they sliced them into segments and measured their volume, in both their frozen and their thawed form, to see how well the measured ice content matched estimates from the space-based algorithm. The initial validation, which took months, demonstrated the value of using satellites for permafrost work. The ice profiles that Zwieback’s algorithm inferred from the satellite data matched measurements in the lab down to about 1.1 feet, and farther in a warm year, with some uncertainty near the surface and deeper into the permafrost. Whereas it cost tens of thousands of dollars to fly in on a helicopter, drive in a car, and switch to a snowmobile to ultimately sample a small area using your hands, only to have to continue the work at home, the team needed just a few hundred dollars to run the algorithm on satellite data that was free and publicly available. Michaelides, who is familiar with Zwieback’s work, agrees that estimating excess ice content is key to making infrastructural decisions, and that historical methods of sussing it out have been costly in all senses. Zwieback’s method of using late-summer clues to infer what’s going on at that depth “is a very exciting idea,” he says, and the results “demonstrate that there is considerable promise for this approach.” He notes, though, that using space-based radar to understand the thawing ground is complicated: Ground ice content, soil moisture, and vegetation can differ even within a single pixel that a satellite can pick out. “To be clear, this limitation is not unique to Simon’s work,” Michaelides says; it affects all space-radar methods. There is also excess ice below even where Zwieback’s algorithm can probe—something the labor-intensive on-ground methods can pick up that still can’t be seen from space. Mapping out the future After Zwieback did his fieldwork, NGA decided to do its own. The agency’s attempt to independently validate his work—in Prudhoe Bay, Utqiagvik, and Fairbanks—was part of a project it called Frostbyte. Its partners in that project—the Army’s Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory—declined requests for interviews. As far as Zwieback knows, they’re still analyzing data. But the intelligence community isn’t the only group interested in research like Zwieback’s. He also works with Arctic residents, reaching out to rural Alaskan communities where people are trying to make decisions about whether to relocate or where to build safely. “They typically can’t afford to do expensive coring,” he says. “So the idea is to make these data available to them.” Zwieback and his team haul their gear out to gather data from drilled core samples, a process which can be arduous and costly.ANDREW JOHNSON Schaefer is also trying to bridge the gap between his science and the people it affects. Through a company called Weather Stream, he is helping communities identify risks to infrastructure before anything collapses, so they can take preventative action. Making such connections has always been a key concern for Erin Trochim, a geospatial scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. As a researcher who works not just on permafrost but also on policy, she’s seen radar science progress massively in recent years—without commensurate advances on the ground. For instance, it’s still hard for residents in her town of Fairbanks—or anywhere—to know if there’s permafrost on their property at all, unless they’re willing to do expensive drilling. She’s encountered this problem, still unsolved, on property she owns. And if an expert can’t figure it out, non-experts hardly stand a chance. “It’s just frustrating when a lot of this information that we know from the science side, and [that’s] trickled through the engineering side, hasn’t really translated into the on-the-ground construction,” she says. There is a group, though, trying to turn that trickle into a flood: Permafrost Pathways, a venture that launched with a $41 million grant through the TED Audacious Project. In concert with affected communities, including Nunapitchuk, it is building a data-gathering network on the ground, and combining information from that network with satellite data and local knowledge to help understand permafrost thaw and develop adaptation strategies. “I think about it often as if you got a diagnosis of a disease,” says Sue Natali, the head of the project. “It’s terrible, but it’s also really great, because when you know what your problem is and what you’re dealing with, it’s only then that you can actually make a plan to address it.” And the communities Permafrost Pathways works with are making plans. Nunapitchuk has decided to relocate, and the town and the research group have collaboratively surveyed the proposed new location: a higher spot on hardpacked sand. Permafrost Pathways scientists were able to help validate the stability of the new site—and prove to policymakers that this stability would extend into the future. Radar helps with that in part, Natali says, because unlike other satellite detectors, it penetrates clouds. “In Alaska, it’s extremely cloudy,” she says. “So other data sets have been very, very challenging. Sometimes we get one image per year.” And so radar data, and algorithms like Zwieback’s that help scientists and communities make sense of that data, dig up deeper insight into what’s going on beneath northerners’ feet—and how to step forward on firmer ground. Sarah Scoles is a freelance science journalist based in southern Colorado and the author, most recently, of the book Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons.
The US may be heading toward a drone-filled future
On Thursday, I published a story about the police-tech giant Flock Safety selling its drones to the private sector to track shoplifters. Keith Kauffman, a former police chief who now leads Flock’s drone efforts, described the ideal scenario: A security team at a Home Depot, say, launches a drone from the roof that follows shoplifting suspects to their car. The drone tracks their car through the streets, transmitting its live video feed directly to the police. It’s a vision that, unsurprisingly, alarms civil liberties advocates. They say it will expand the surveillance state created by police drones, license-plate readers, and other crime tech, which has allowed law enforcement to collect massive amounts of private data without warrants. Flock is in the middle of a federal lawsuit in Norfolk, Virginia, that alleges just that. Read the full story to learn more. But the peculiar thing about the world of drones is that its fate in the US—whether the skies above your home in the coming years will be quiet, or abuzz with drones dropping off pizzas, inspecting potholes, or chasing shoplifting suspects—pretty much comes down to one rule. It’s a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation that stipulates where and how drones can be flown, and it is about to change. Currently, you need a waiver from the FAA to fly a drone farther than you can see it. This is meant to protect the public and property from in-air collisions and accidents. In 2018, the FAA began granting these waivers for various scenarios, like search and rescues, insurance inspections, or police investigations. With Flock’s help, police departments can get waivers approved in just two weeks. The company’s private-sector customers generally have to wait 60 to 90 days.
For years, industries with a stake in drones—whether e-commerce companies promising doorstep delivery or medical transporters racing to move organs—have pushed the government to scrap the waiver system in favor of easier approval to fly beyond visual line of sight. In June, President Donald Trump echoed that call in an executive order for “American drone dominance,” and in August, the FAA released a new proposed rule. The proposed rule lays out some broad categories for which drone operators are permitted to fly drones beyond their line of sight, including package delivery, agriculture, aerial surveying, and civic interest, which includes policing. Getting approval to fly beyond sight would become easier for operators from these categories, and would generally expand their range.
Drone companies, and amateur drone pilots, see it as a win. But it’s a win that comes at the expense of privacy for the rest of us, says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project who served on the rule-making commission for the FAA. “The FAA is about to open up the skies enormously, to a lot more [beyond visual line of sight] flights without any privacy protections,” he says. The ACLU has said that fleets of drones enable persistent surveillance, including of protests and gatherings, and impinge on the public’s expectations of privacy. If you’ve got something to say about the FAA’s proposed rule, you can leave a public comment (they’re being accepted until October 6.) Trump’s executive order directs the FAA to release the final rule by spring 2026. This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.
SLB Scores Brazilian Ultra-Deepwater Contract from Petrobras
Schlumberger NV (SLB) has secured a significant contract from Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) to provide services and technology for up to 35 ultra-deepwater wells in the strategically important Santos Basin. SLB said that the contract was awarded through a competitive tender process. The wells, which are part of the second development of the Atapu and Sepia fields, target massive pockets of oil and gas beneath thick salt layers, located up to 2,000 meters below the ocean’s surface, SLB said in a media release. SLB said it will deploy advanced electric completions technologies and digital solutions to provide accurate, real-time production insights. This aims to enhance reservoir management and optimize the extraction of these difficult-to-access resources. “This will help Petrobras drive greater reliability, system uptime, and production performance in those fields, supporting Brazil’s energy security and economic growth ambitions”, Paul Sims, president of Production Systems at SLB, said. The completions work is scheduled to begin in mid-2026 and will feature advanced services and technology from SLB’s completions portfolio, such as SLB’s Electris high-flow-rate interval control valves, which are designed to increase production control and recovery from geologically complex, high-flow-rate wells. This work follows another major contract awarded to the SLB OneSubsea™ joint venture by Petrobras for the Atapu and Sepia fields in 2024, which includes standardized, pre-salt subsea production systems and related services. To contact the author, email [email protected] What do you think? We’d love to hear from you, join the conversation on the Rigzone Energy Network. The Rigzone Energy Network is a new social experience created for you and all energy professionals to Speak Up about our industry, share knowledge, connect with peers and industry insiders and engage in a professional community that will empower your career in energy. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
Seatrium, Cochin Shipyard Pen Cooperation Agreement
Seatrium Offshore Technology Pte. Ltd. (SOT) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cochin Shipyard Ltd. (CSL) to strengthen cooperation in the offshore sector across India and Asia. SOT, a Seatrium Ltd. company, said in a media release that the partnership will combine SOT’s specialized equipment and offshore solutions with CSL’s extensive infrastructure, fabrication facilities, and ship repair expertise to leverage business opportunities. SOT said that the partnership will focus on maintenance, repair, and overhaul projects for clients with operations in Asia. The two companies will also explore opportunities to expand into other key offshore markets in the region. “This MoU is a strategic milestone in Seatrium’s efforts to expand our global footprint across Asia, with India identified as a key market for long-term growth. India’s rapidly developing offshore energy sector and rising demand for maritime infrastructure present compelling opportunities for collaboration and innovation”, Winston Cheng, Senior Vice-President and Head of SOT, said. “By combining CSL’s robust local capabilities with Seatrium’s deep engineering expertise and technology strengths, we aim to deliver integrated offshore asset solutions that meet the region’s evolving needs. “Our shared goal is to support India’s energy transition, enhance its maritime capabilities, and position Seatrium as a trusted partner in driving sustainable offshore development”. The MoU establishes a framework for joint marketing, project execution, and technology collaboration, fostering a long-term partnership with CSL to advance regional energy transition and offshore development. It builds upon a prior agreement signed in November 2024 between Seatrium, via its subsidiary Seatrium Letourneau USA Inc., and CSL for co-designing and supplying essential equipment for jack-up rigs serving the Indian market, SOT said. “The MoU marks a significant step forward in CSL’s efforts to expand our offshore footprint. Our decision to strengthen collaboration with Seatrium demonstrates our confidence in their global expertise, enabling
Australia Gets Bulk of Chevron Payments to Governments
Chevron Corp has reported $14.21 billion in payments to governments for 2024 with Australia topping the list at $3.39 billion. That was more than Chevron’s home country; the United States got $1.59 billion. The disclosure to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consisted of taxes, royalties, production entitlements, fees, bonuses, and “community and social responsibility” payments. The filing included exploration-related payments made 2023 that had been delayed for reporting. Rounding up the top five recipients are Nigeria at $2.91 billion, Angola at $1.74 billion and the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Partitioned Zone at $1.09 billion. Payments to Australia, the U.S. and Kuwait-Saudi Arabia were mostly taxation. Production entitlements comprised the bulk of payments to Nigeria and Angola. The oil and gas giant paid Australia $3.33 billion in taxes for 2024. The remaining Australian payments consisted of $27.33 million for community and social responsibility and $26.18 million in fees. Chevron’s Aussie operations mainly consist of three natural gas projects in Western Australia, which both export overseas and supply the domestic market. On Barrow Island, Chevron operates the Gorgon Project with a 47.3 percent stake. Put into operation March 2016, Gorgon has three liquefaction trains with a combined capacity of 15.6 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) and a domestic gas plant that supplies up to 300 terajoules (tJ) a day, according to Chevron. On the Pilbara coast, Chevron’s operated and 64.14 percent-owned Wheatstone Project includes a two-train LNG facility with a capacity of 8.9 MMtpa and a domestic gas plant that delivers up to 230 tJ per day, according to Chevron. Wheatstone shipped its first LNG October 2017. On the Burrup Peninsula, Chevron owns a minority stake in the North West Shelf (NWS) Project, operated by Australia’s Woodside Energy Group Ltd. On July 25, 2025, the International Group of LNG Importers reported Woodside
Oil and Gas Companies Need to Brace for a Tough 2026
Oil and gas companies need to brace for a tough 2026, Wood Mackenzie warned in a statement sent to Rigzone recently. In the statement, Wood Mackenzie highlighted that, according to its new Corporate Strategic Planner Oil and Gas 2026 report, oil and gas companies “will plan for a tough year in 2026, with capital budgets set to decline as firms prioritize financial strength over long-term growth investments”. “The comprehensive corporate planning toolkit reveals that companies will maintain disciplined investment criteria whilst navigating significant headwinds,” Wood Mackenzie noted in the statement. “Reinvestment rates will average 50 percent, enabling firms to return an average of 45 percent of operating cash flow to shareholders and, in some cases, deleverage even at our forecast annual average price of just under $60 per barrel Brent for 2026,” it added. Wood Mackenzie noted in the statement that companies with gearing above 35 percent will prioritize deleveraging to build resilience against rising price shock risks. It went on to state that those with high reinvestment rates exceeding 80 percent will emphasize net investment after asset sales, deploying disposals to offset higher spending whilst high-grading portfolio quality. In the statement, Wood Mackenzie warned that low carbon spending “faces deeper cuts”, pointing out that the report “identifies further reductions in low-carbon spending as companies withdraw from marginal projects”. “Leading European Majors will cap renewable and low-carbon investments at 30 percent of total budgets as companies pull back from low-return projects,” the company said in the statement. “Most large international oil companies and national oil companies will converge on allocating 10-20 percent of overall budgets to low-carbon initiatives. Capital allocation will swing back towards upstream investments, including exploration and business development,” it added. The statement also noted that structural cost reductions will be a priority to boost margins and hedge against macro
Scientists can see Earth’s permafrost thawing from space
Something is rotten in the city of Nunapitchuk. In recent years, a crack has formed in the middle of a house. Sewage has leached into the earth. Soil has eroded around buildings, leaving them perched atop precarious lumps of dirt. There are eternal puddles. And mold. The ground can feel squishy, sodden. This small town in northern Alaska is experiencing a sometimes overlooked consequence of climate change: thawing permafrost. And Nunapitchuk is far from the only Arctic town to find itself in such a predicament. Permafrost, which lies beneath about 15% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, is defined as ground that has remained frozen for at least two years. Historically, much of the world’s permafrost has remained solid and stable for far longer, allowing people to build whole towns atop it. But as the planet warms, a process that is happening more rapidly near the poles than at more temperate latitudes, permafrost is thawing and causing a host of infrastructural and environmental problems. Now scientists think they may be able to use satellite data to delve deep beneath the ground’s surface and get a better understanding of how the permafrost thaws, and which areas might be most severely affected because they had more ice to start with. Clues from the short-term behavior of those especially icy areas, seen from space, could portend future problems.
Using information gathered both from space and on the ground, they are working with affected communities to anticipate whether a house’s foundation will crack—and whether it is worth mending that crack or is better to start over in a new house on a stable hilltop. These scientists’ permafrost predictions are already helping communities like Nunapitchuk make those tough calls. But it’s not just civilian homes that are at risk. One of the top US intelligence agencies, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), is also interested in understanding permafrost better. That’s because the same problems that plague civilians in the high north also plague military infrastructure, at home and abroad. The NGA is, essentially, an organization full of space spies—people who analyze data from surveillance satellites and make sense of it for the country’s national security apparatus.
Understanding the potential instabilities of the Alaskan military infrastructure—which includes radar stations that watch for intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as military bases and National Guard posts—is key to keeping those facilities in good working order and planning for their strengthened future. Understanding the potential permafrost weaknesses that could affect the infrastructure of countries like Russia and China, meanwhile, affords what insiders might call “situational awareness” about competitors. The work to understand this thawing will only become more relevant, for civilians and their governments alike, as the world continues to warm. The ground beneath If you live much below the Arctic Circle, you probably don’t think a lot about permafrost. But it affects you no matter where you call home. In addition to the infrastructural consequences for real towns like Nunapitchuk, thawing permafrost contains sequestered carbon—twice as much as currently inhabits the atmosphere. As the permafrost thaws, the process can release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That release can cause a feedback loop: Warmer temperatures thaw permafrost, which releases greenhouse gases, which warms the air more, which then—you get it. The microbes themselves, along with previously trapped heavy metals, are also set dangerously free. For many years, researchers’ primary options for understanding some of these freeze-thaw changes involved hands-on, on-the-ground surveys. But in the late 2000s, Kevin Schaefer, currently a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, started to investigate a less labor-intensive idea: using radar systems aboard satellites to survey the ground beneath. This idea implanted itself in his brain in 2009, when he traveled to a place called Toolik Lake, southwest of the oilfields of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. One day, after hours of drilling sample cores out of the ground to study permafrost, he was relaxing in the Quonset hut, chatting with colleagues. They began to discuss how space-based radar could potentially detect how the land sinks and heaves back up as temperatures change. Huh, he thought. Yes, radar probably could do that.
Scientists call the ground right above permafrost the active layer. The water in this layer of soil contracts and expands with the seasons: during the summer, the ice suffusing the soil melts and the resulting decrease in volume causes the ground to dip. During the winter, the water freezes and expands, bulking the active layer back up. Radar can help measure that height difference, which is usually around one to five centimeters. Schaefer realized that he could use radar to measure the ground elevation at the start and end of the thaw. The electromagnetic waves that bounce back at those two times would have traveled slightly different distances. That difference would reveal the tiny shift in elevation over the seasons and would allow him to estimate how much water had thawed and refrozen in the active layer and how far below the surface the thaw had extended. With radar, Schaefer realized, scientists could cover a lot more literal ground, with less effort and at lower cost. “It took us two years to figure out how to write a paper on it,” he says; no one had ever made those measurements before. He and colleagues presented the idea at the 2010 meeting of the American Geophysical Union and published a paper in 2012 detailing the method, using it to estimate the thickness of the active layer on Alaska’s North Slope. When they did, they helped start a new subfield that grew as large-scale data sets started to become available around 5 to 10 years ago, says Roger Michaelides, a geophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis and a collaborator of Schaefer’s. Researchers’ efforts were aided by the growth in space radar systems and smaller, cheaper satellites. With the availability of global data sets (sometimes for free, from government-run satellites like the European Space Agency’s Sentinel) and targeted observations from commercial companies like Iceye, permafrost studies are moving from bespoke regional analyses to more automated, large-scale monitoring and prediction. The remote view Simon Zwieback, a geospatial and environmental expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, sees the consequences of thawing permafrost firsthand every day. His office overlooks a university parking lot, a corner of which is fenced off to keep cars and pedestrians from falling into a brand-new sinkhole. That area of asphalt had been slowly sagging for more than a year, but over a week or two this spring, it finally started to collapse inward. Kevin Schaefer stands on top of a melting layer of ice near the Alaskan pipeline on the North Slope of Alaska.COURTESY OF KEVIN SCHAEFER The new remote research methods are a large-scale version of Zwieback taking in the view from his window. Researchers look at the ground and measure how its height changes as ice thaws and refreezes. The approach can cover wide swaths of land, but it involves making assumptions about what’s going on below the surface—namely, how much ice suffuses the soil in the active layer and permafrost. Thawing areas with relatively low ice content could mimic thinner layers with more ice. And it’s important to differentiate the two, since more ice in the permafrost means more potential instability.
To check that they’re on the right track, scientists have historically had to go out into the field. But a few years ago, Zwieback started to explore a way to make better and deeper estimates of ice content using the available remote sensing data. Finding a way to make those kinds of measurements on a large scale was more than an academic exercise: Areas of what he calls “excess ice” are most liable to cause instability at the surface. “In order to plan in these environments, we really need to know how much ice there is, or where those locations are that are rich in ice,” he says. Zwieback, who did his undergraduate and graduate studies in Switzerland and Austria, wasn’t always so interested in permafrost, or so deeply affected by it. But in 2014, when he was a doctoral student in environmental engineering, he joined an environmental field campaign in Siberia, at the Lena River Delta, which resembles a gigantic piece of coral fanning out into the Arctic Ocean. Zwieback was near a town called Tiksi, one of the world’s northernmost settlements. It’s a military outpost and starting point for expeditions to the North Pole, featuring an abandoned plane near the ocean. Its Soviet-era concrete buildings sometimes bring it to the front page of the r/UrbanHell subreddit.
Here, Zwieback saw part of the coastline collapse, exposing almost pure ice. It looked like a subterranean glacier, but it was permafrost. “That really had an indelible impact on me,” he says. Later, as a doctoral student in Zurich and postdoc in Canada, he used his radar skills to understand the rapid changes that the activity of permafrost impressed upon the landscape. And now, with his job in Fairbanks and his ideas about the use of radar sensing, he has done work funded by the NGA, which has an open Arctic data portal. In his Arctic research, Zwieback started with the approach underlying most radar permafrost studies: looking at the ground’s seasonal subsidence and heave. “But that’s something that happens very close to the surface,” he says. “It doesn’t really tell us about these long-term destabilizing effects,” he adds. In warmer summers, he thought, subtle clues would emerge that could indicate how much ice is buried deeper down. For example, he expected those warmer-than-average periods to exaggerate the amount of change seen on the surface, making it easier to tell which areas are ice-rich. Land that was particularly dense with ice would dip more than it “should”—a precursor of bigger dips to come.
The first step, then, was to measure subsidence directly, as usual. But from there, Zwieback developed an algorithm to ingest data about the subsidence over time—as measured by radar—and other environmental information, like the temperatures at each measurement. He then created a digital model of the land that allowed him to adjust the simulated amount of ground ice and determine when it matched the subsidence seen in the real world. With that, researchers could infer the amount of ice beneath. Next, he made maps of that ice that could potentially be useful to engineers—whether they were planning a new subdivision or, as his funders might be, keeping watch on a military airfield. “What was new in my work was to look at these much shorter periods and use them to understand specific aspects of this whole system, and specifically how much ice there is deep down,” Zwieback says. The NGA, which has also funded Schaefer’s work, did not respond to an initial request for comment but did later provide feedback for fact-checking. It removed an article on its website about Zwieback’s grant and its application to agency interests around the time that the current presidential administration began to ban mention of climate change in federal research. But the thawing earth is of keen concern.
To start, the US has significant military infrastructure in Alaska: It’s home to six military bases and 49 National Guard posts, as well as 21 missile-detecting radar sites. Most are vulnerable to thaw now or in the near future, given that 85% of the state is on permafrost. Beyond American borders, the broader north is in a state of tension. Russia’s relations with Northern Europe are icy. Its invasion of Ukraine has left those countries fearing that they too could be invaded, prompting Sweden and Finland, for instance, to join NATO. The US has threatened takeovers of Greenland and Canada. And China—which has shipping and resource ambitions for the region—is jockeying to surpass the US as the premier superpower. Permafrost plays a role in the situation. “As knowledge has expanded, so has the understanding that thawing permafrost can affect things NGA cares about, including the stability of infrastructure in Russia and China,” read the NGA article. Permafrost covers 60% of Russia, and thaws have affected more than 40% of buildings in northern Russia already, according to statements from the country’s minister of natural resources in 2021. Experts say critical infrastructure like roads and pipelines is at risk, along with military installations. That could weaken both Russia’s strategic position and the security of its residents. In China, meanwhile, according to a report from the Council on Strategic Risks, important moving parts like the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, “which allows Beijing to more quickly move military personnel near contested areas of the Indian border,” is susceptible to ground thaw—as are oil and gas pipelines linking Russia and China. In the field Any permafrost analysis that relies on data from space requires verification on Earth. The hope is that remote methods will become reliable enough to use on their own, but while they’re being developed, researchers must still get their hands muddy with more straightforward and longer tested physical methods. Some use a network called Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring, which has existed since 1991, incorporating active-layer data from hundreds of measurement sites across the Northern Hemisphere. Sometimes, that data comes from people physically probing an area; other sites use tubes permanently inserted into the ground, filled with a liquid that indicates freezing; still others use underground cables that measure soil temperature. Some researchers, like Schaefer, lug ground-penetrating radar systems around the tundra. He’s taken his system to around 50 sites and made more than 200,000 measurements of the active layer. The field-ready ground-penetrating radar comes in a big box—the size of a steamer trunk—that emits radio pulses. These pulses bounce off the bottom of the active layer, or the top of the permafrost. In this case, the timing of that reflection reveals how thick the active layer is. With handles designed for humans, Schaefer’s team drags this box around the Arctic’s boggier areas. The box floats. “I do not,” he says. He has vivid memories of tromping through wetlands, his legs pushing straight down through the muck, his body sinking up to his hips. Andy Parsekian and Kevin Schaefer haul a ground penetrating radar unit through the tundra near Utqiagvik.COURTESY OF KEVIN SCHAEFER Zwieback also needs to verify what he infers from his space data. And so in 2022, he went to the Toolik Field station, a National Science Foundation–funded ecology research facility along the Dalton Highway and adjacent to Schaefer’s Toolik Lake. This road, which goes from Fairbanks up to the Arctic Ocean, is colloquially called the Haul Road; it was made famous in the TV show Ice Road Truckers. From this access point, Zwieback’s team needed to get deep samples of soil whose ice content could be analyzed in the lab. Every day, two teams would drive along the Dalton Highway to get close to their field sites. Slamming their car doors, they would unload and hop on snow machines to travel the final distance. Often they would see musk oxen, looking like bison that never cut their hair. The grizzlies were also interested in these oxen, and in the nearby caribou. At the sites they could reach, they took out a corer, a long, tubular piece of equipment driven by a gas engine, meant to drill deep into the ground. Zwieback or a teammate pressed it into the earth. The barrel’s two blades rotated, slicing a cylinder about five feet down to ensure that their samples went deep enough to generate data that can be compared with the measurements made from space. Then they pulled up and extracted the cylinder, a sausage of earth and ice. All day every day for a week, they gathered cores that matched up with the pixels in radar images taken from space. In those cores, the ice was apparent to the eye. But Zwieback didn’t want anecdata. “We want to get a number,” he says. So he and his team would pack their soil cylinders back to the lab. There they sliced them into segments and measured their volume, in both their frozen and their thawed form, to see how well the measured ice content matched estimates from the space-based algorithm. The initial validation, which took months, demonstrated the value of using satellites for permafrost work. The ice profiles that Zwieback’s algorithm inferred from the satellite data matched measurements in the lab down to about 1.1 feet, and farther in a warm year, with some uncertainty near the surface and deeper into the permafrost. Whereas it cost tens of thousands of dollars to fly in on a helicopter, drive in a car, and switch to a snowmobile to ultimately sample a small area using your hands, only to have to continue the work at home, the team needed just a few hundred dollars to run the algorithm on satellite data that was free and publicly available. Michaelides, who is familiar with Zwieback’s work, agrees that estimating excess ice content is key to making infrastructural decisions, and that historical methods of sussing it out have been costly in all senses. Zwieback’s method of using late-summer clues to infer what’s going on at that depth “is a very exciting idea,” he says, and the results “demonstrate that there is considerable promise for this approach.” He notes, though, that using space-based radar to understand the thawing ground is complicated: Ground ice content, soil moisture, and vegetation can differ even within a single pixel that a satellite can pick out. “To be clear, this limitation is not unique to Simon’s work,” Michaelides says; it affects all space-radar methods. There is also excess ice below even where Zwieback’s algorithm can probe—something the labor-intensive on-ground methods can pick up that still can’t be seen from space. Mapping out the future After Zwieback did his fieldwork, NGA decided to do its own. The agency’s attempt to independently validate his work—in Prudhoe Bay, Utqiagvik, and Fairbanks—was part of a project it called Frostbyte. Its partners in that project—the Army’s Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory—declined requests for interviews. As far as Zwieback knows, they’re still analyzing data. But the intelligence community isn’t the only group interested in research like Zwieback’s. He also works with Arctic residents, reaching out to rural Alaskan communities where people are trying to make decisions about whether to relocate or where to build safely. “They typically can’t afford to do expensive coring,” he says. “So the idea is to make these data available to them.” Zwieback and his team haul their gear out to gather data from drilled core samples, a process which can be arduous and costly.ANDREW JOHNSON Schaefer is also trying to bridge the gap between his science and the people it affects. Through a company called Weather Stream, he is helping communities identify risks to infrastructure before anything collapses, so they can take preventative action. Making such connections has always been a key concern for Erin Trochim, a geospatial scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. As a researcher who works not just on permafrost but also on policy, she’s seen radar science progress massively in recent years—without commensurate advances on the ground. For instance, it’s still hard for residents in her town of Fairbanks—or anywhere—to know if there’s permafrost on their property at all, unless they’re willing to do expensive drilling. She’s encountered this problem, still unsolved, on property she owns. And if an expert can’t figure it out, non-experts hardly stand a chance. “It’s just frustrating when a lot of this information that we know from the science side, and [that’s] trickled through the engineering side, hasn’t really translated into the on-the-ground construction,” she says. There is a group, though, trying to turn that trickle into a flood: Permafrost Pathways, a venture that launched with a $41 million grant through the TED Audacious Project. In concert with affected communities, including Nunapitchuk, it is building a data-gathering network on the ground, and combining information from that network with satellite data and local knowledge to help understand permafrost thaw and develop adaptation strategies. “I think about it often as if you got a diagnosis of a disease,” says Sue Natali, the head of the project. “It’s terrible, but it’s also really great, because when you know what your problem is and what you’re dealing with, it’s only then that you can actually make a plan to address it.” And the communities Permafrost Pathways works with are making plans. Nunapitchuk has decided to relocate, and the town and the research group have collaboratively surveyed the proposed new location: a higher spot on hardpacked sand. Permafrost Pathways scientists were able to help validate the stability of the new site—and prove to policymakers that this stability would extend into the future. Radar helps with that in part, Natali says, because unlike other satellite detectors, it penetrates clouds. “In Alaska, it’s extremely cloudy,” she says. “So other data sets have been very, very challenging. Sometimes we get one image per year.” And so radar data, and algorithms like Zwieback’s that help scientists and communities make sense of that data, dig up deeper insight into what’s going on beneath northerners’ feet—and how to step forward on firmer ground. Sarah Scoles is a freelance science journalist based in southern Colorado and the author, most recently, of the book Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons.
The US may be heading toward a drone-filled future
On Thursday, I published a story about the police-tech giant Flock Safety selling its drones to the private sector to track shoplifters. Keith Kauffman, a former police chief who now leads Flock’s drone efforts, described the ideal scenario: A security team at a Home Depot, say, launches a drone from the roof that follows shoplifting suspects to their car. The drone tracks their car through the streets, transmitting its live video feed directly to the police. It’s a vision that, unsurprisingly, alarms civil liberties advocates. They say it will expand the surveillance state created by police drones, license-plate readers, and other crime tech, which has allowed law enforcement to collect massive amounts of private data without warrants. Flock is in the middle of a federal lawsuit in Norfolk, Virginia, that alleges just that. Read the full story to learn more. But the peculiar thing about the world of drones is that its fate in the US—whether the skies above your home in the coming years will be quiet, or abuzz with drones dropping off pizzas, inspecting potholes, or chasing shoplifting suspects—pretty much comes down to one rule. It’s a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation that stipulates where and how drones can be flown, and it is about to change. Currently, you need a waiver from the FAA to fly a drone farther than you can see it. This is meant to protect the public and property from in-air collisions and accidents. In 2018, the FAA began granting these waivers for various scenarios, like search and rescues, insurance inspections, or police investigations. With Flock’s help, police departments can get waivers approved in just two weeks. The company’s private-sector customers generally have to wait 60 to 90 days.
For years, industries with a stake in drones—whether e-commerce companies promising doorstep delivery or medical transporters racing to move organs—have pushed the government to scrap the waiver system in favor of easier approval to fly beyond visual line of sight. In June, President Donald Trump echoed that call in an executive order for “American drone dominance,” and in August, the FAA released a new proposed rule. The proposed rule lays out some broad categories for which drone operators are permitted to fly drones beyond their line of sight, including package delivery, agriculture, aerial surveying, and civic interest, which includes policing. Getting approval to fly beyond sight would become easier for operators from these categories, and would generally expand their range.
Drone companies, and amateur drone pilots, see it as a win. But it’s a win that comes at the expense of privacy for the rest of us, says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project who served on the rule-making commission for the FAA. “The FAA is about to open up the skies enormously, to a lot more [beyond visual line of sight] flights without any privacy protections,” he says. The ACLU has said that fleets of drones enable persistent surveillance, including of protests and gatherings, and impinge on the public’s expectations of privacy. If you’ve got something to say about the FAA’s proposed rule, you can leave a public comment (they’re being accepted until October 6.) Trump’s executive order directs the FAA to release the final rule by spring 2026. This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.
SLB Scores Brazilian Ultra-Deepwater Contract from Petrobras
Schlumberger NV (SLB) has secured a significant contract from Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) to provide services and technology for up to 35 ultra-deepwater wells in the strategically important Santos Basin. SLB said that the contract was awarded through a competitive tender process. The wells, which are part of the second development of the Atapu and Sepia fields, target massive pockets of oil and gas beneath thick salt layers, located up to 2,000 meters below the ocean’s surface, SLB said in a media release. SLB said it will deploy advanced electric completions technologies and digital solutions to provide accurate, real-time production insights. This aims to enhance reservoir management and optimize the extraction of these difficult-to-access resources. “This will help Petrobras drive greater reliability, system uptime, and production performance in those fields, supporting Brazil’s energy security and economic growth ambitions”, Paul Sims, president of Production Systems at SLB, said. The completions work is scheduled to begin in mid-2026 and will feature advanced services and technology from SLB’s completions portfolio, such as SLB’s Electris high-flow-rate interval control valves, which are designed to increase production control and recovery from geologically complex, high-flow-rate wells. This work follows another major contract awarded to the SLB OneSubsea™ joint venture by Petrobras for the Atapu and Sepia fields in 2024, which includes standardized, pre-salt subsea production systems and related services. To contact the author, email [email protected] What do you think? We’d love to hear from you, join the conversation on the Rigzone Energy Network. The Rigzone Energy Network is a new social experience created for you and all energy professionals to Speak Up about our industry, share knowledge, connect with peers and industry insiders and engage in a professional community that will empower your career in energy. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
Seatrium, Cochin Shipyard Pen Cooperation Agreement
Seatrium Offshore Technology Pte. Ltd. (SOT) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cochin Shipyard Ltd. (CSL) to strengthen cooperation in the offshore sector across India and Asia. SOT, a Seatrium Ltd. company, said in a media release that the partnership will combine SOT’s specialized equipment and offshore solutions with CSL’s extensive infrastructure, fabrication facilities, and ship repair expertise to leverage business opportunities. SOT said that the partnership will focus on maintenance, repair, and overhaul projects for clients with operations in Asia. The two companies will also explore opportunities to expand into other key offshore markets in the region. “This MoU is a strategic milestone in Seatrium’s efforts to expand our global footprint across Asia, with India identified as a key market for long-term growth. India’s rapidly developing offshore energy sector and rising demand for maritime infrastructure present compelling opportunities for collaboration and innovation”, Winston Cheng, Senior Vice-President and Head of SOT, said. “By combining CSL’s robust local capabilities with Seatrium’s deep engineering expertise and technology strengths, we aim to deliver integrated offshore asset solutions that meet the region’s evolving needs. “Our shared goal is to support India’s energy transition, enhance its maritime capabilities, and position Seatrium as a trusted partner in driving sustainable offshore development”. The MoU establishes a framework for joint marketing, project execution, and technology collaboration, fostering a long-term partnership with CSL to advance regional energy transition and offshore development. It builds upon a prior agreement signed in November 2024 between Seatrium, via its subsidiary Seatrium Letourneau USA Inc., and CSL for co-designing and supplying essential equipment for jack-up rigs serving the Indian market, SOT said. “The MoU marks a significant step forward in CSL’s efforts to expand our offshore footprint. Our decision to strengthen collaboration with Seatrium demonstrates our confidence in their global expertise, enabling
Australia Gets Bulk of Chevron Payments to Governments
Chevron Corp has reported $14.21 billion in payments to governments for 2024 with Australia topping the list at $3.39 billion. That was more than Chevron’s home country; the United States got $1.59 billion. The disclosure to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consisted of taxes, royalties, production entitlements, fees, bonuses, and “community and social responsibility” payments. The filing included exploration-related payments made 2023 that had been delayed for reporting. Rounding up the top five recipients are Nigeria at $2.91 billion, Angola at $1.74 billion and the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Partitioned Zone at $1.09 billion. Payments to Australia, the U.S. and Kuwait-Saudi Arabia were mostly taxation. Production entitlements comprised the bulk of payments to Nigeria and Angola. The oil and gas giant paid Australia $3.33 billion in taxes for 2024. The remaining Australian payments consisted of $27.33 million for community and social responsibility and $26.18 million in fees. Chevron’s Aussie operations mainly consist of three natural gas projects in Western Australia, which both export overseas and supply the domestic market. On Barrow Island, Chevron operates the Gorgon Project with a 47.3 percent stake. Put into operation March 2016, Gorgon has three liquefaction trains with a combined capacity of 15.6 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) and a domestic gas plant that supplies up to 300 terajoules (tJ) a day, according to Chevron. On the Pilbara coast, Chevron’s operated and 64.14 percent-owned Wheatstone Project includes a two-train LNG facility with a capacity of 8.9 MMtpa and a domestic gas plant that delivers up to 230 tJ per day, according to Chevron. Wheatstone shipped its first LNG October 2017. On the Burrup Peninsula, Chevron owns a minority stake in the North West Shelf (NWS) Project, operated by Australia’s Woodside Energy Group Ltd. On July 25, 2025, the International Group of LNG Importers reported Woodside
Oil Suffers Steepest Fall Since June
Oil declined on signals that OPEC+ will hike production again in November, tempering last week’s rally. West Texas Intermediate fell 3.4% to settle near $63 a barrel, the biggest drop since June, while Brent closed below $70. The OPEC+ alliance led by Saudi Arabia is considering raising output by at least as much as the 137,000 barrel-a-day hike scheduled for next month, according to people familiar with the plans. While such an increase could add supply to a market in which there’s already expected to be an excess, it would also bring further scrutiny to which of the group’s members are running into capacity limits. “We view a repeat of the incremental 137,000-barrel-a-day addition for November as the most likely outcome,” RBC Capital Markets LLC analysts including Helima Croft wrote in a note, referring to the decision likely to be taken at the group’s Oct. 5 meeting. “Given that many producers, excluding Saudi Arabia, have essentially hit their production ceilings, future OPEC+ supply increases will be materially lower than the announced headline numbers,” the analysts added. Crude remains on track for monthly and quarterly gains, even as the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have been pursuing a strategy to reclaim market share rather than managing prices. Oil has been underpinned by robust buying for stockpiling in China, as well as on geopolitical tensions. Today’s slide also reflects a pullback from last week’s highs, when traders covered long positions ahead of the weekend to hedge against mounting threats to Russian energy infrastructure. The International Energy Agency has projected a record oversupply in 2026 as OPEC+ continues to revive production, and as supply climbs from the group’s rivals. Goldman Sachs Group Inc., meanwhile, has said it sees Brent falling to the mid-$50s next year, despite crude stockpiling by
OPEC Plus Poised to Agree Fresh Output Hike
OPEC+ will likely raise oil output again in November as the group continues its strategy to reclaim global market share, according to people familiar with its plans. The alliance led by Saudi Arabia will consider adding at least as much as the 137,000 barrel-a-day hike scheduled for October when it meets online Oct. 5, the people said. They asked not to be identified as the talks are private. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries and its allies have started to revive a new layer of halted output, amounting to 1.66 million barrels a day, in monthly stages despite warnings from across the oil industry of an impending surplus. So far, the oil market has absorbed additional barrels from the group without significant ructions, and Brent futures have risen 3 percent this month. Still, the planned October hike is sharply lower than the increments that the group announced in the two prior months, and delegates emphasized at the time that the actual supply boost would be even smaller because some countries lack the ability to increase. The upcoming meeting also takes place against the backdrop of a planned trip by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman to Washington in November. He will meet President Donald Trump, who has repeatedly called for lower fuel prices while he seeks to tame inflation and reduce interest rates. No final decision has been made yet, and deliberations could still evolve ahead of Sunday’s meeting, the people said. The expectation for the meeting was first reported by Reuters. What do you think? We’d love to hear from you, join the conversation on the Rigzone Energy Network. The Rigzone Energy Network is a new social experience created for you and all energy professionals to Speak Up about our industry, share knowledge, connect with peers and industry insiders and
Treasuries Hold Gains Amid Oil Price Slump
Treasuries held small gains in early US trading Monday, supported by a slump in oil prices and a rally in UK government bonds, and by anticipation of buying into Tuesday’s month-end index rebalancing. Yields were lower, the two-year by about a basis point and long maturities by as much as three basis points, remaining inside last week’s ranges. US benchmark crude oil futures were down about 2% on signs OPEC+ will hike production again in November. The prospect of a US government shutdown beginning Wednesday also has implications for the Treasury market, as shutdowns are associated with gains for bonds based on their potential to restrain the economy. The market racked up gains even as Cleveland Fed President Beth Hammack — who becomes a voting member of the central bank’s rate-setting committee next year — reiterated her view that inflation remains too high to warrant cutting interest rates. Futures markets continue to anticipate about 100 basis points of additional Fed easing over the next 12 months. Expectations for Fed rate cuts rest mainly on signs of stress in the US labor market, where job creation has slowed precipitously in recent months. September data is set to be released on Friday. Tuesday’s month-end bond index rebalancing — to add eligible bonds created during the month and remove those that no longer fit the index criteria — typically drives buying by passive and other index-tracking investment funds that can support the market if their needs exceed expectations. The rebalancing will increase the duration of the Bloomberg Treasury index by an estimated 0.06 year, less than the average for September over the past decade. WHAT DO YOU THINK? Generated by readers, the comments included herein do not reflect the views and opinions of Rigzone. All comments are subject to editorial review. Off-topic, inappropriate or insulting comments will be
Lawmakers urge PJM to take steps so clean energy projects can meet tax credit deadlines
Dive Brief: A group of 107 state lawmakers on Monday urged the PJM Interconnection to take steps to support the rapid addition of clean energy resources onto the grid to ensure the grid operator has enough power supplies to meet the region’s needs. The lawmakers in the National Caucus of Environmental Legislators want action from PJM so that renewable energy developers can take advantage of federal tax credits before they expire, according to Maryland Delegate Lorig Charkoudian, a Democrat who spearheaded the letter to PJM. “We’re asking them to work with states and move these projects forward so they can get in under the deadlines for tax credits,” Charkoudian said in an interview Friday. PJM should urge the Trump administration to stop hampering clean energy projects, which can be built quickly and would help address the United States’ power supply needs and bolster reliability, according to the lawmakers. Dive Insight: PJM has been warning since at least February 2023 that it faces a potential shortfall in power supplies, partly driven by data center development. In the letter, the lawmakers ask PJM to communicate with federal agencies about the need to support renewable energy as part of an “all-of-the-above” energy strategy that addresses reliability and affordability. The Trump administration and Congress have taken a range of actions aimed at limiting clean energy resources from coming online despite concerns about a lack of adequate power supplies, and PJM appears to be silent on the issue, Charkoudian said. “Either we have a resource adequacy issue or we don’t — and I believe we do — so we need to be getting all of this energy online as quickly as possible,” Charkoudian said. Also, the legislators want PJM to give states more information about projects that are close to finishing their interconnection reviews so states
Vistra announces Comanche deal, plan to add 860 MW of natural gas
Vistra Corp. has reached a final investment decision to expand gas capacity at its Permian Basin Power Plant, locking in a plan to build two new natural gas power units totaling 860 MW, the company said Monday. “This expansion more than triples the site’s current capacity from 325 MW to 1,185 MW,” Vistra said in a release. The decision to expand was “based on customer demand and to meet West Texas’ growing power needs, particularly the state’s expanding oil and natural gas industries.” “As the leading competitive generator in Texas, customers from residential to commercial and industrial are turning to Vistra to help them meet their energy needs,” said Jim Burke, president and CEO of Vistra. “We recognize that energy is critical to powering this economic opportunity, and we expect Texas will play an outsized role.” Vistra also filed an 8-K with the Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday, confirming that it “has entered into a 20-year power purchase agreement (with options to extend for up to an additional 20 years) with a large, investment grade company … pursuant to which the Company has agreed to supply to the Customer 1,200 MW of carbon-free power from the Comanche Peak Nuclear Power Plant.” Vistra said it “anticipates power delivery to begin in the fourth quarter of 2027 and ramp to full capacity by 2032.” The company received permission last year from the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to extend the operation of Comanche through 2053, an additional 20 years beyond its original licenses. On Sept. 22, Jefferies downgraded Vistra’s stock to “hold” based on the lack of a deal up to that point and their view that the company’s stock, which rallied based on excitement about a deal, had gotten close to its peak price. “We still have a positive view of [the
NOAA, Fugro Team Up to Accelerate Deep Ocean Mapping
The U.S. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) announced in a statement posted on its site recently that it and Fugro have partnered “to accelerate deep ocean mapping [and] characterization”. The statement noted that NOAA Ocean Exploration and Fugro have signed a cooperative research and development agreement (CRADA) “to develop and use uncrewed systems for ocean exploration to enhance the efficiency, reach, and impact of NOAA’s mission to explore the deep ocean”. “This collaboration unites NOAA’s scientific and operational excellence with Fugro’s cutting-edge technological expertise to expand ocean exploration capabilities,” the statement added. According to the statement, the agreement “focuses on the key objectives of seeking better ways to operate ocean exploration missions using remote technology, developing tools that enable scientists to control underwater robots in real-time from distant locations, and creating new sensors that can aid in environmental baseline studies, including the observation of critical minerals”. This agreement also enables NOAA and Fugro to coordinate on the use of ships, USVs, underwater devices and buoys that transmit data, the statement said. “Together, NOAA and Fugro plan to advance remote mission control, develop cloud-based workflows, and improve real-time data delivery through high-bandwidth communications,” the statement added. NOAA noted in the statement that Fugro’s “extensive experience operating uncrewed vehicles, providing data services and remotely managing offshore systems and assets makes it a valuable partner for NOAA as they explore previously unexplored or poorly explored areas of the deep ocean”. “While Fugro and NOAA Ocean Exploration will develop specific projects together in the coming months, the CRADA lays the groundwork for ongoing collaboration and innovation between the public and private sectors,” NOAA highlighted. NOAA said in the statement that this CRADA “reflects NOAA Ocean Exploration’s broader mission to unlock the mysteries of the deep ocean and enable the sustainable use of marine resources
West of Orkney developers helped support 24 charities last year
The developers of the 2GW West of Orkney wind farm paid out a total of £18,000 to 24 organisations from its small donations fund in 2024. The money went to projects across Caithness, Sutherland and Orkney, including a mental health initiative in Thurso and a scheme by Dunnet Community Forest to improve the quality of meadows through the use of traditional scythes. Established in 2022, the fund offers up to £1,000 per project towards programmes in the far north. In addition to the small donations fund, the West of Orkney developers intend to follow other wind farms by establishing a community benefit fund once the project is operational. West of Orkney wind farm project director Stuart McAuley said: “Our donations programme is just one small way in which we can support some of the many valuable initiatives in Caithness, Sutherland and Orkney. “In every case we have been immensely impressed by the passion and professionalism each organisation brings, whether their focus is on sport, the arts, social care, education or the environment, and we hope the funds we provide help them achieve their goals.” In addition to the local donations scheme, the wind farm developers have helped fund a £1 million research and development programme led by EMEC in Orkney and a £1.2m education initiative led by UHI. It also provided £50,000 to support the FutureSkills apprenticeship programme in Caithness, with funds going to employment and training costs to help tackle skill shortages in the North of Scotland. The West of Orkney wind farm is being developed by Corio Generation, TotalEnergies and Renewable Infrastructure Development Group (RIDG). The project is among the leaders of the ScotWind cohort, having been the first to submit its offshore consent documents in late 2023. In addition, the project’s onshore plans were approved by the
Biden bans US offshore oil and gas drilling ahead of Trump’s return
US President Joe Biden has announced a ban on offshore oil and gas drilling across vast swathes of the country’s coastal waters. The decision comes just weeks before his successor Donald Trump, who has vowed to increase US fossil fuel production, takes office. The drilling ban will affect 625 million acres of federal waters across America’s eastern and western coasts, the eastern Gulf of Mexico and Alaska’s Northern Bering Sea. The decision does not affect the western Gulf of Mexico, where much of American offshore oil and gas production occurs and is set to continue. In a statement, President Biden said he is taking action to protect the regions “from oil and natural gas drilling and the harm it can cause”. “My decision reflects what coastal communities, businesses, and beachgoers have known for a long time: that drilling off these coasts could cause irreversible damage to places we hold dear and is unnecessary to meet our nation’s energy needs,” Biden said. “It is not worth the risks. “As the climate crisis continues to threaten communities across the country and we are transitioning to a clean energy economy, now is the time to protect these coasts for our children and grandchildren.” Offshore drilling ban The White House said Biden used his authority under the 1953 Outer Continental Shelf Lands Act, which allows presidents to withdraw areas from mineral leasing and drilling. However, the law does not give a president the right to unilaterally reverse a drilling ban without congressional approval. This means that Trump, who pledged to “unleash” US fossil fuel production during his re-election campaign, could find it difficult to overturn the ban after taking office. Sunset shot of the Shell Olympus platform in the foreground and the Shell Mars platform in the background in the Gulf of Mexico Trump
The Download: our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. Introducing: MIT Technology Review’s 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025 Each year, we spend months researching and discussing which technologies will make the cut for our 10 Breakthrough Technologies list. We try to highlight a mix of items that reflect innovations happening in various fields. We look at consumer technologies, large industrial-scale projects, biomedical advances, changes in computing, climate solutions, the latest in AI, and more.We’ve been publishing this list every year since 2001 and, frankly, have a great track record of flagging things that are poised to hit a tipping point. It’s hard to think of another industry that has as much of a hype machine behind it as tech does, so the real secret of the TR10 is really what we choose to leave off the list.Check out the full list of our 10 Breakthrough Technologies for 2025, which is front and center in our latest print issue. It’s all about the exciting innovations happening in the world right now, and includes some fascinating stories, such as: + How digital twins of human organs are set to transform medical treatment and shake up how we trial new drugs.+ What will it take for us to fully trust robots? The answer is a complicated one.+ Wind is an underutilized resource that has the potential to steer the notoriously dirty shipping industry toward a greener future. Read the full story.+ After decades of frustration, machine-learning tools are helping ecologists to unlock a treasure trove of acoustic bird data—and to shed much-needed light on their migration habits. Read the full story.
+ How poop could help feed the planet—yes, really. Read the full story.
Roundtables: Unveiling the 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025 Last week, Amy Nordrum, our executive editor, joined our news editor Charlotte Jee to unveil our 10 Breakthrough Technologies of 2025 in an exclusive Roundtable discussion. Subscribers can watch their conversation back here. And, if you’re interested in previous discussions about topics ranging from mixed reality tech to gene editing to AI’s climate impact, check out some of the highlights from the past year’s events. This international surveillance project aims to protect wheat from deadly diseases For as long as there’s been domesticated wheat (about 8,000 years), there has been harvest-devastating rust. Breeding efforts in the mid-20th century led to rust-resistant wheat strains that boosted crop yields, and rust epidemics receded in much of the world.But now, after decades, rusts are considered a reemerging disease in Europe, at least partly due to climate change. An international initiative hopes to turn the tide by scaling up a system to track wheat diseases and forecast potential outbreaks to governments and farmers in close to real time. And by doing so, they hope to protect a crop that supplies about one-fifth of the world’s calories. Read the full story. —Shaoni Bhattacharya
The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Meta has taken down its creepy AI profiles Following a big backlash from unhappy users. (NBC News)+ Many of the profiles were likely to have been live from as far back as 2023. (404 Media)+ It also appears they were never very popular in the first place. (The Verge) 2 Uber and Lyft are racing to catch up with their robotaxi rivalsAfter abandoning their own self-driving projects years ago. (WSJ $)+ China’s Pony.ai is gearing up to expand to Hong Kong. (Reuters)3 Elon Musk is going after NASA He’s largely veered away from criticising the space agency publicly—until now. (Wired $)+ SpaceX’s Starship rocket has a legion of scientist fans. (The Guardian)+ What’s next for NASA’s giant moon rocket? (MIT Technology Review) 4 How Sam Altman actually runs OpenAIFeaturing three-hour meetings and a whole lot of Slack messages. (Bloomberg $)+ ChatGPT Pro is a pricey loss-maker, apparently. (MIT Technology Review) 5 The dangerous allure of TikTokMigrants’ online portrayal of their experiences in America aren’t always reflective of their realities. (New Yorker $) 6 Demand for electricity is skyrocketingAnd AI is only a part of it. (Economist $)+ AI’s search for more energy is growing more urgent. (MIT Technology Review) 7 The messy ethics of writing religious sermons using AISkeptics aren’t convinced the technology should be used to channel spirituality. (NYT $)
8 How a wildlife app became an invaluable wildfire trackerWatch Duty has become a safeguarding sensation across the US west. (The Guardian)+ How AI can help spot wildfires. (MIT Technology Review) 9 Computer scientists just love oracles 🔮 Hypothetical devices are a surprisingly important part of computing. (Quanta Magazine)
10 Pet tech is booming 🐾But not all gadgets are made equal. (FT $)+ These scientists are working to extend the lifespan of pet dogs—and their owners. (MIT Technology Review) Quote of the day “The next kind of wave of this is like, well, what is AI doing for me right now other than telling me that I have AI?” —Anshel Sag, principal analyst at Moor Insights and Strategy, tells Wired a lot of companies’ AI claims are overblown.
The big story Broadband funding for Native communities could finally connect some of America’s most isolated places September 2022 Rural and Native communities in the US have long had lower rates of cellular and broadband connectivity than urban areas, where four out of every five Americans live. Outside the cities and suburbs, which occupy barely 3% of US land, reliable internet service can still be hard to come by.
The covid-19 pandemic underscored the problem as Native communities locked down and moved school and other essential daily activities online. But it also kicked off an unprecedented surge of relief funding to solve it. Read the full story. —Robert Chaney We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.) + Rollerskating Spice Girls is exactly what your Monday morning needs.+ It’s not just you, some people really do look like their dogs!+ I’m not sure if this is actually the world’s healthiest meal, but it sure looks tasty.+ Ah, the old “bitten by a rabid fox chestnut.”
Equinor Secures $3 Billion Financing for US Offshore Wind Project
Equinor ASA has announced a final investment decision on Empire Wind 1 and financial close for $3 billion in debt financing for the under-construction project offshore Long Island, expected to power 500,000 New York homes. The Norwegian majority state-owned energy major said in a statement it intends to farm down ownership “to further enhance value and reduce exposure”. Equinor has taken full ownership of Empire Wind 1 and 2 since last year, in a swap transaction with 50 percent co-venturer BP PLC that allowed the former to exit the Beacon Wind lease, also a 50-50 venture between the two. Equinor has yet to complete a portion of the transaction under which it would also acquire BP’s 50 percent share in the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal lease, according to the latest transaction update on Equinor’s website. The lease involves a terminal conversion project that was intended to serve as an interconnection station for Beacon Wind and Empire Wind, as agreed on by the two companies and the state of New York in 2022. “The expected total capital investments, including fees for the use of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal, are approximately $5 billion including the effect of expected future tax credits (ITCs)”, said the statement on Equinor’s website announcing financial close. Equinor did not disclose its backers, only saying, “The final group of lenders includes some of the most experienced lenders in the sector along with many of Equinor’s relationship banks”. “Empire Wind 1 will be the first offshore wind project to connect into the New York City grid”, the statement added. “The redevelopment of the South Brooklyn Marine Terminal and construction of Empire Wind 1 will create more than 1,000 union jobs in the construction phase”, Equinor said. On February 22, 2024, the Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM) announced
USA Crude Oil Stocks Drop Week on Week
U.S. commercial crude oil inventories, excluding those in the Strategic Petroleum Reserve (SPR), decreased by 1.2 million barrels from the week ending December 20 to the week ending December 27, the U.S. Energy Information Administration (EIA) highlighted in its latest weekly petroleum status report, which was released on January 2. Crude oil stocks, excluding the SPR, stood at 415.6 million barrels on December 27, 416.8 million barrels on December 20, and 431.1 million barrels on December 29, 2023, the report revealed. Crude oil in the SPR came in at 393.6 million barrels on December 27, 393.3 million barrels on December 20, and 354.4 million barrels on December 29, 2023, the report showed. Total petroleum stocks – including crude oil, total motor gasoline, fuel ethanol, kerosene type jet fuel, distillate fuel oil, residual fuel oil, propane/propylene, and other oils – stood at 1.623 billion barrels on December 27, the report revealed. This figure was up 9.6 million barrels week on week and up 17.8 million barrels year on year, the report outlined. “At 415.6 million barrels, U.S. crude oil inventories are about five percent below the five year average for this time of year,” the EIA said in its latest report. “Total motor gasoline inventories increased by 7.7 million barrels from last week and are slightly below the five year average for this time of year. Finished gasoline inventories decreased last week while blending components inventories increased last week,” it added. “Distillate fuel inventories increased by 6.4 million barrels last week and are about six percent below the five year average for this time of year. Propane/propylene inventories decreased by 0.6 million barrels from last week and are 10 percent above the five year average for this time of year,” it went on to state. In the report, the EIA noted
More telecom firms were breached by Chinese hackers than previously reported
Broader implications for US infrastructure The Salt Typhoon revelations follow a broader pattern of state-sponsored cyber operations targeting the US technology ecosystem. The telecom sector, serving as a backbone for industries including finance, energy, and transportation, remains particularly vulnerable to such attacks. While Chinese officials have dismissed the accusations as disinformation, the recurring breaches underscore the pressing need for international collaboration and policy enforcement to deter future attacks. The Salt Typhoon campaign has uncovered alarming gaps in the cybersecurity of US telecommunications firms, with breaches now extending to over a dozen networks. Federal agencies and private firms must act swiftly to mitigate risks as adversaries continue to evolve their attack strategies. Strengthening oversight, fostering industry-wide collaboration, and investing in advanced defense mechanisms are essential steps toward safeguarding national security and public trust.
The Download: growing threats to vulnerable languages, and fact-checking Trump’s medical claims
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral Wikipedia is the most ambitious multilingual project after the Bible: There are editions in over 340 languages, and a further 400 even more obscure ones are being developed. But many of these smaller editions are being swamped with AI-translated content. Volunteers working on four African languages, for instance, estimated to MIT Technology Review that between 40% and 60% of articles in their Wikipedia editions were uncorrected machine translations. This is beginning to cause a wicked problem. AI systems learn new languages by scraping huge quantities of text from the internet. Wikipedia is sometimes the largest source of online linguistic data for languages with few speakers—so any errors on those pages can poison the wells that AI is expected to draw from. Volunteers are being forced to go to extreme lengths to fix the issue, even deleting certain languages from Wikipedia entirely. Read the full story.
—Jacob Judah This story is part of our Big Story series: MIT Technology Review’s most important, ambitious reporting. These stories take a deep look at the technologies that are coming next and what they will mean for us and the world we live in. Check out the rest of the series here.
Trump is pushing leucovorin as a new treatment for autism. What is it? On Monday, President Trump claimed that childhood vaccines and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, are to blame for the increasing prevalence of autism. He advised pregnant women against taking the medicine. The administration also announced that the FDA would work to make a medication called leucovorin available as a treatment for children with autism. The president’s assertions left many dismayed. “The data cited do not support the claim that Tylenol causes autism and leucovorin is a cure, and only stoke fear and falsely suggest hope when there is no simple answer,” said the Coalition for Autism Researchers, a group of more than 250 scientists, in a statement. So what does the evidence say? Read our story to find out. —Cassandra Willyard This is part of our MIT Technology Review Explains series, where our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. Fusion power plants don’t exist yet, but they’re making money anyway This week, Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced it has another customer for its first commercial fusion power plant, in Virginia. Eni, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, signed a billion-dollar deal to buy electricity from the facility. One small detail? That reactor doesn’t exist yet. This is a weird moment in fusion. Investors are pouring billions into the field to build power plants, and companies are even signing huge agreements to purchase power from those still-nonexistent plants.
But all this comes before companies have actually completed a working reactor that can produce electricity. It takes money to develop a new technology, but all this funding could lead to some twisted expectations. Read the full story. —Casey Crownhart This story is from The Spark, our weekly newsletter all about the latest in climate change and clean tech. Sign up to receive it in your inbox every Wednesday. The AI Hype Index: Cracking the chatbot code Millions of us use chatbots every day, even though we don’t really know how they work or how using them affects us. In a bid to address this, the FTC recently launched an inquiry into how chatbots affect children and teenagers. Elsewhere, OpenAI has started to shed more light on what people are actually using ChatGPT for, and why it thinks its LLMs are so prone to making stuff up. There’s still plenty we don’t know—but that isn’t stopping governments from forging ahead with AI projects. In the US, RFK Jr. is pushing his staffers to use ChatGPT, while Albania is using a chatbot for public contract procurement. Check out the latest edition of our AI Hype Index to help you sort AI reality from hyped-up fiction. The must-reads
I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Huntington’s disease has been treated successfully for the first timeGene therapy managed to slow progress of the disease in patients by 75%. (The Economist $) + Here’s how the gene editing tool CRISPR is changing lives. (MIT Technology Review)2 Google says 90% of tech workers are using AIBut most of them also say they don’t trust AI models’ outputs. (CNN)+ Why does AI hallucinate? (MIT Technology Review)3 A MAGA TikTok takeover is comingJust as free speech protections in the US start to look worryingly fragile. (The Atlantic $)4 Chinese tech workers are returning from the USThere’s a whole bunch of complex factors both driving them to leave, and luring them back. (Rest of World)+ But it’s hard to say what the impact of the new $100,000 fee for H-1B visas will be on India’s tech sector. (WP $)+ Europe is hoping to nab more tech talent too. (The Verge)
5 If AI can diagnose us, what are doctors for?They need to prepare for the fact chatbot use is becoming more and more widespread among patients. (New Yorker $)+ This medical startup uses LLMs to run appointments and make diagnoses. (MIT Technology Review)6 Drones have been spotted at four more airports in DenmarkIt looks like a coordinated attack, but officials still haven’t worked out who is behind it. (FT $)7 TSMC has unveiled AI-designed chips that use less energyThe AI software found better solutions than TSMC’s own human engineers—and did so much faster. (South China Morning Post)+ These four charts sum up the state of AI and energy. (MIT Technology Review) 8 How to find love on dating apps 💑It’s not easy, but it is possible. (The Guardian)9 AI models can’t cope with Persian social etiquetteIt involves a lot of saying ‘no’ when you mean ‘yes’, which simply doesn’t wash with computers. (Ars Technica)10 VR headsets are better than ever, but no one seems to careThe tech industry keeps overestimating how willing people are to strap computers to their faces. (Gizmodo) Quote of the day “We are living through the most destructive arms race in human history.” —Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy tells world leaders gathered at the UN that they need to intervene to stop the escalating development of drone technology and AI, The Guardian reports.
One more thing STUART BRADFORD The great AI consciousness conundrum AI consciousness isn’t just a tricky intellectual puzzle; it’s a morally weighty problem. Fail to identify a conscious AI, and you might unintentionally subjugate a being whose interests ought to matter. Mistake an unconscious AI for a conscious one, and you risk compromising human safety and happiness for the sake of an unthinking, unfeeling hunk of silicon and code.
Over the past few decades, a small research community has doggedly attacked the question of what consciousness is and how it works. The effort has yielded real progress. And now, with the rapid advance of AI technology, these insights could offer our only guide to the untested, morally fraught waters of artificial consciousness. Read the full story. —Grace Huckins We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.) + It’s Fat Bear Week! Who gets your vote this year?+ Learn about Lord Woodbine, the forgotten sixth Beatle. + There are some truly wild and wacky recipes in this Medieval Cookery collection. Venison porridge, anyone? + Pessimism about technology is as old as technology itself, as this archive shows.
Fusion power plants don’t exist yet, but they’re making money anyway
This week, Commonwealth Fusion Systems announced it has another customer for its first commercial fusion power plant, in Virginia. Eni, one of the world’s largest oil and gas companies, signed a billion-dollar deal to buy electricity from the facility. One small detail? That reactor doesn’t exist yet. Neither does the smaller reactor Commonwealth is building first to demonstrate that its tokamak design will work as intended. This is a weird moment in fusion. Investors are pouring billions into the field to build power plants, and some companies are even signing huge agreements to purchase power from those still-nonexistent plants. All this comes before companies have actually completed a working reactor that can produce electricity. It takes money to develop a new technology, but all this funding could lead to some twisted expectations. Nearly three years ago, the National Ignition Facility at Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory hit a major milestone for fusion power. With the help of the world’s most powerful lasers, scientists heated a pellet of fuel to 100 million °C. Hydrogen atoms in that fuel fused together, releasing more energy than the lasers put in.
It was a game changer for the vibes in fusion. The NIF experiment finally showed that a fusion reactor could yield net energy. Plasma physicists’ models had certainly suggested that it should be true, but it was another thing to see it demonstrated in real life. But in some ways, the NIF results didn’t really change much for commercial fusion. That site’s lasers used a bonkers amount of energy, the setup was wildly complicated, and the whole thing lasted a fraction of a second. To operate a fusion power plant, not only do you have to achieve net energy, but you also need to do that on a somewhat constant basis and—crucially—do it economically.
So in the wake of the NIF news, all eyes went to companies like Commonwealth, Helion, and Zap Energy. Who would be the first to demonstrate this milestone in a more commercially feasible reactor? Or better yet, who would be the first to get a power plant up and running? So far, the answer is none of them. To be fair, many fusion companies have made technical progress. Commonwealth has built and tested its high-temperature superconducting magnets and published research about that work. Zap Energy demonstrated three hours of continuous operation in its test system, a milestone validated by the US Department of Energy. Helion started construction of its power plant in Washington in July. (And that’s not to mention a thriving, publicly funded fusion industry in China.) These are all important milestones, and these and other companies have seen many more. But as Ed Morse, a professor of nuclear engineering at Berkeley, summed it up to me: “They don’t have a reactor.” (He was speaking specifically about Commonwealth, but really, the same goes for the others.) And yet, the money pours in. Commonwealth raised over $800 million in funding earlier this year. And now it’s got two big customers signed on to buy electricity from this future power plant. Why buy electricity from a reactor that’s currently little more than ideas on paper? From the perspective of these particular potential buyers, such agreements can be something of a win-win, says Adam Stein, director of nuclear energy innovation at the Breakthrough Institute. By putting a vote of confidence behind Commonwealth, Eni could help the fusion startup get the capital it needs to actually build its plant. The company also directly invests in Commonwealth, so it stands to benefit from success. Getting a good rate on the capital needed to build the plant could also mean the electricity is ultimately cheaper for Eni, Stein says. Ultimately, fusion needs a lot of money. If fossil-fuel companies and tech giants want to provide it, all the better. One concern I have, though, is how outside observers are interpreting these big commitments.
US Energy Secretary Chris Wright has been loud about his support for fusion and his expectations of the technology. Earlier this month, he told the BBC that it will soon power the world. He’s certainly not the first to have big dreams for fusion, and it is an exciting technology. But despite the jaw-dropping financial milestones, this industry is still very much in development. And while Wright praises fusion, the Trump administration is slashing support for other energy technologies, including wind and solar power, and spreading disinformation about their safety, cost, and effectiveness. To meet the growing electricity demand and cut emissions from the power sector, we’ll need a whole range of technologies. It’s a risk and a distraction to put all our hopes on an unproven energy tech when there are plenty of options that actually exist. This article is from The Spark, MIT Technology Review’s weekly climate newsletter. To receive it in your inbox every Wednesday, sign up here.
How AI and Wikipedia have sent vulnerable languages into a doom spiral
When Kenneth Wehr started managing the Greenlandic-language version of Wikipedia four years ago, his first act was to delete almost everything. It had to go, he thought, if it had any chance of surviving. Wehr, who’s 26, isn’t from Greenland—he grew up in Germany—but he had become obsessed with the island, an autonomous Danish territory, after visiting as a teenager. He’d spent years writing obscure Wikipedia articles in his native tongue on virtually everything to do with it. He even ended up moving to Copenhagen to study Greenlandic, a language spoken by some 57,000 mostly Indigenous Inuit people scattered across dozens of far-flung Arctic villages. The Greenlandic-language edition was added to Wikipedia around 2003, just a few years after the site launched in English. By the time Wehr took its helm nearly 20 years later, hundreds of Wikipedians had contributed to it and had collectively written some 1,500 articles totaling over tens of thousands of words. It seemed to be an impressive vindication of the crowdsourcing approach that has made Wikipedia the go-to source for information online, demonstrating that it could work even in the unlikeliest places. There was only one problem: The Greenlandic Wikipedia was a mirage. Virtually every single article had been published by people who did not actually speak the language. Wehr, who now teaches Greenlandic in Denmark, speculates that perhaps only one or two Greenlanders had ever contributed. But what worried him most was something else: Over time, he had noticed that a growing number of articles appeared to be copy-pasted into Wikipedia by people using machine translators. They were riddled with elementary mistakes—from grammatical blunders to meaningless words to more significant inaccuracies, like an entry that claimed Canada had only 41 inhabitants. Other pages sometimes contained random strings of letters spat out by machines that were unable to find suitable Greenlandic words to express themselves. “It might have looked Greenlandic to [the authors], but they had no way of knowing,” complains Wehr.
“Sentences wouldn’t make sense at all, or they would have obvious errors,” he adds. “AI translators are really bad at Greenlandic.” What Wehr describes is not unique to the Greenlandic edition.
Wikipedia is the most ambitious multilingual project after the Bible: There are editions in over 340 languages, and a further 400 even more obscure ones are being developed and tested. Many of these smaller editions have been swamped with automatically translated content as AI has become increasingly accessible. Volunteers working on four African languages, for instance, estimated to MIT Technology Review that between 40% and 60% of articles in their Wikipedia editions were uncorrected machine translations. And after auditing the Wikipedia edition in Inuktitut, an Indigenous language close to Greenlandic that’s spoken in Canada, MIT Technology Review estimates that more than two-thirds of pages containing more than several sentences feature portions created this way. This is beginning to cause a wicked problem. AI systems, from Google Translate to ChatGPT, learn to “speak” new languages by scraping huge quantities of text from the internet. Wikipedia is sometimes the largest source of online linguistic data for languages with few speakers—so any errors on those pages, grammatical or otherwise, can poison the wells that AI is expected to draw from. That can make the models’ translation of these languages particularly error-prone, which creates a sort of linguistic doom loop as people continue to add more and more poorly translated Wikipedia pages using those tools, and AI models continue to train from poorly translated pages. It’s a complicated problem, but it boils down to a simple concept: Garbage in, garbage out. “These models are built on raw data,” says Kevin Scannell, a former professor of computer science at Saint Louis University who now builds computer software tailored for endangered languages. “They will try and learn everything about a language from scratch. There is no other input. There are no grammar books. There are no dictionaries. There is nothing other than the text that is inputted.” There isn’t perfect data on the scale of this problem, particularly because a lot of AI training data is kept confidential and the field continues to evolve rapidly. But back in 2020, Wikipedia was estimated to make up more than half the training data that was fed into AI models translating some languages spoken by millions across Africa, including Malagasy, Yoruba, and Shona. In 2022, a research team from Germany that looked into what data could be obtained by online scraping even found that Wikipedia was the sole easily accessible source of online linguistic data for 27 under-resourced languages. This could have significant repercussions in cases where Wikipedia is poorly written—potentially pushing the most vulnerable languages on Earth toward the precipice as future generations begin to turn away from them. “Wikipedia will be reflected in the AI models for these languages,” says Trond Trosterud, a computational linguist at the University of Tromsø in Norway, who has been raising the alarm about the potentially harmful outcomes of badly run Wikipedia editions for years. “I find it hard to imagine it will not have consequences. And, of course, the more dominant position that Wikipedia has, the worse it will be.” Use responsibly Automation has been built into Wikipedia since the very earliest days. Bots keep the platform operational: They repair broken links, fix bad formatting, and even correct spelling mistakes. These repetitive and mundane tasks can be automated away with little problem. There is even an army of bots that scurry around generating short articles about rivers, cities, or animals by slotting their names into formulaic phrases. They have generally made the platform better. But AI is different. Anybody can use it to cause massive damage with a few clicks. Wikipedia has managed the onset of the AI era better than many other websites. It has not been flooded with AI bots or disinformation, as social media has been. It largely retains the innocence that characterized the earlier internet age. Wikipedia is open and free for anyone to use, edit, and pull from, and it’s run by the very same community it serves. It is transparent and easy to use. But community-run platforms live and die on the size of their communities. English has triumphed, while Greenlandic has sunk. “We need good Wikipedians. This is something that people take for granted. It is not magic,” says Amir Aharoni, a member of the volunteer Language Committee, which oversees requests to open or close Wikipedia editions. “If you use machine translation responsibly, it can be efficient and useful. Unfortunately, you cannot trust all people to use it responsibly.”
Trosterud has studied the behavior of users on small Wikipedia editions and says AI has empowered a subset that he terms “Wikipedia hijackers.” These users can range widely—from naive teenagers creating pages about their hometowns or their favorite YouTubers to well-meaning Wikipedians who think that by creating articles in minority languages they are in some way “helping” those communities. “The problem with them nowadays is that they are armed with Google Translate,” Trosterud says, adding that this is allowing them to produce much longer and more plausible-looking content than they ever could before: “Earlier they were armed only with dictionaries.” This has effectively industrialized the acts of destruction—which affect vulnerable languages most, since AI translations are typically far less reliable for them. There can be lots of different reasons for this, but a meaningful part of the issue is the relatively small amount of source text that is available online. And sometimes models struggle to identify a language because it is similar to others, or because some, including Greenlandic and most Native American languages, have structures that make them badly suited to the way most machine translation systems work. (Wehr notes that in Greenlandic most words are agglutinative, meaning they are built by attaching prefixes and suffixes to stems. As a result, many words are extremely context specific and can express ideas that in other languages would take a full sentence.) Research produced by Google before a major expansion of Google Translate rolled out three years ago found that translation systems for lower-resourced languages were generally of a lower quality than those for better-resourced ones. Researchers found, for example, that their model would often mistranslate basic nouns across languages, including the names of animals and colors. (In a statement to MIT Technology Review, Google wrote that it is “committed to meeting a high standard of quality for all 249 languages” it supports “by rigorously testing and improving [its] systems, particularly for languages that may have limited public text resources on the web.”) Wikipedia itself offers a built-in editing tool called Content Translate, which allows users to automatically translate articles from one language to another—the idea being that this will save time by preserving the references and fiddly formatting of the originals. But it piggybacks on external machine translation systems, so it’s largely plagued by the same weaknesses as other machine translators—a problem that the Wikimedia Foundation says is hard to solve. It’s up to each edition’s community to decide whether this tool is allowed, and some have decided against it. (Notably, English-language Wikipedia has largely banned its use, claiming that some 95% of articles created using Content Translate failed to meet an acceptable standard without significant additional work.) But it’s at least easy to tell when the program has been used; Content Translate adds a tag on the Wikipedia back end. Other AI programs can be harder to monitor. Still, many Wikipedia editors I spoke with said that once their languages were added to major online translation tools, they noticed a corresponding spike in the frequency with which poor, likely machine-translated pages were created. Some Wikipedians using AI to translate content do occasionally admit that they do not speak the target languages. They may see themselves as providing smaller communities with rough-cut articles that speakers can then fix—essentially following the same model that has worked well for more active Wikipedia editions. Google Translate, for instance, says the Fulfulde word for January means June, while ChatGPT says it’s August or September. The programs also suggest the Fulfulde word for “harvest” means “fever” or “well-being,” among other possibilities. But once error-filled pages are produced in small languages, there is usually not an army of knowledgeable people who speak those languages standing ready to improve them. There are few readers of these editions, and sometimes not a single regular editor.
Yuet Man Lee, a Canadian teacher in his 20s, says that he used a mix of Google Translate and ChatGPT to translate a handful of articles that he had written for the English Wikipedia into Inuktitut, thinking it’d be nice to pitch in and help a smaller Wikipedia community. He says he added a note to one saying that it was only a rough translation. “I did not think that anybody would notice” the article, he explains. “If you put something out there on the smaller Wikipedias—most of the time nobody does.” But at the same time, he says, he still thought “someone might see it and fix it up”—adding that he had wondered whether the Inuktitut translation that the AI systems generated was grammatically correct. Nobody has touched the article since he created it.
Lee, who teaches social sciences in Vancouver and first started editing entries in the English Wikipedia a decade ago, says that users familiar with more active Wikipedias can fall victim to this mindset, which he terms a “bigger-Wikipedia arrogance”: When they try to contribute to smaller Wikipedia editions, they assume that others will come along to fix their mistakes. It can sometimes work. Lee says he had previously contributed several articles to Wikipedia in Tatar, a language spoken by several million people mainly in Russia, and at least one of those was eventually corrected. But the Inuktitut Wikipedia is, by comparison, a “barren wasteland.” He emphasizes that his intentions had been good: He wanted to add more articles to an Indigenous Canadian Wikipedia. “I am now thinking that it may have been a bad idea. I did not consider that I could be contributing to a recursive loop,” he says. “It was about trying to get content out there, out of curiosity and for fun, without properly thinking about the consequences.” “Totally, completely no future” Wikipedia is a project that is driven by wide-eyed optimism. Editing can be a thankless task, involving weeks spent bickering with faceless, pseudonymous people, but devotees put in hours of unpaid labor because of a commitment to a higher cause. It is this commitment that drives many of the regular small-language editors I spoke with. They all feared what would happen if garbage continued to appear on their pages. Abdulkadir Abdulkadir, a 26-year-old agricultural planner who spoke with me over a crackling phone call from a busy roadside in northern Nigeria, said that he spends three hours every day fiddling with entries in his native Fulfulde, a language used mainly by pastoralists and farmers across the Sahel. “But the work is too much,” he said. Abdulkadir sees an urgent need for the Fufulde Wikipedia to work properly. He has been suggesting it as one of the few online resources for farmers in remote villages, potentially offering information on which seeds or crops might work best for their fields in a language they can understand. If you give them a machine-translated article, Abdulkadir told me, then it could “easily harm them,” as the information will probably not be translated correctly into Fulfulde. Google Translate, for instance, says the Fulfulde word for January means June, while ChatGPT says it’s August or September. The programs also suggest the Fulfulde word for “harvest” means “fever” or “well-being,” among other possibilities.
Abdulkadir said he had recently been forced to correct an article about cowpeas, a foundational cash crop across much of Africa, after discovering that it was largely illegible. If someone wants to create pages on the Fulfulde Wikipedia, Abdulkadir said, they should be translated manually. Otherwise, “whoever will read your articles will [not] be able to get even basic knowledge,” he tells these Wikipedians. Nevertheless, he estimates that some 60% of articles are still uncorrected machine translations. Abdulkadir told me that unless something important changes with how AI systems learn and are deployed, then the outlook for Fulfulde looks bleak. “It is going to be terrible, honestly,” he said. “Totally, completely no future.” Across the country from Abdulkadir, Lucy Iwuala contributes to Wikipedia in Igbo, a language spoken by several million people in southeastern Nigeria. “The harm has already been done,” she told me, opening the two most recently created articles. Both had been automatically translated via Wikipedia’s Content Translate and contained so many mistakes that she said it would have given her a headache to continue reading them. “There are some terms that have not even been translated. They are still in English,” she pointed out. She recognized the username that had created the pages as a serial offender. “This one even includes letters that are not used in the Igbo language,” she said. Iwuala began regularly contributing to Wikipedia three years ago out of concern that Igbo was being displaced by English. It is a worry that is common to many who are active on smaller Wikipedia editions. “This is my culture. This is who I am,” she told me. “That is the essence of it all: to ensure that you are not erased.”
Iwuala, who now works as a professional translator between English and Igbo, said the users doing the most damage are inexperienced and see AI translations as a way to quickly increase the profile of the Igbo Wikipedia. She often finds herself having to explain at online edit-a-thons she organizes, or over email to various error-prone editors, that the results can be the exact opposite, pushing users away: “You will be discouraged and you will no longer want to visit this place. You will just abandon it and go back to the English Wikipedia.” These fears are echoed by Noah Ha‘alilio Solomon, an assistant professor of Hawaiian language at the University of Hawai‘i. He reports that some 35% of words on some pages in the Hawaiian Wikipedia are incomprehensible. “If this is the Hawaiian that is going to exist online, then it will do more harm than anything else,” he says. Hawaiian, which was teetering on the verge of extinction several decades ago, has been undergoing a recovery effort led by Indigenous activists and academics. Seeing such poor Hawaiian on such a widely used platform as Wikipedia is upsetting to Ha‘alilio Solomon. “It is painful, because it reminds us of all the times that our culture and language has been appropriated,” he says. “We have been fighting tooth and nail in an uphill climb for language revitalization. There is nothing easy about that, and this can add extra impediments. People are going to think that this is an accurate representation of the Hawaiian language.” The consequences of all these Wikipedia errors can quickly become clear. AI translators that have undoubtedly ingested these pages in their training data are now assisting in the production, for instance, of error-strewn AI-generated books aimed at learners of languages as diverse as Inuktitut and Cree, Indigenous languages spoken in Canada, and Manx, a small Celtic language spoken on the Isle of Man. Many of these have been popping up for sale on Amazon. “It was just complete nonsense,” says Richard Compton, a linguist at the University of Quebec in Montreal, of a volume he reviewed that had purported to be an introductory phrasebook for Inuktitut. Rather than making minority languages more accessible, AI is now creating an ever expanding minefield for students and speakers of those languages to navigate. “It is a slap in the face,” Compton says. He worries that younger generations in Canada, hoping to learn languages in communities that have fought uphill battles against discrimination to pass on their heritage, might turn to online tools such as ChatGPT or phrasebooks on Amazon and simply make matters worse. “It is fraud,” he says. A race against time According to UNESCO, a language is declared extinct every two weeks. But whether the Wikimedia Foundation, which runs Wikipedia, has an obligation to the languages used on its platform is an open question. When I spoke to Runa Bhattacharjee, a senior director at the foundation, she said that it was up to the individual communities to make decisions about what content they wanted to exist on their Wikipedia. “Ultimately, the responsibility really lies with the community to see that there is no vandalism or unwanted activity, whether through machine translation or other means,” she said. Usually, Bhattacharjee added, editions were considered for closure only if a specific complaint was raised about them. But if there is no active community, how can an edition be fixed or even have a complaint raised? Bhattacharjee explained that the Wikimedia Foundation sees its role in such cases as about maintaining the Wikipedia platform in case someone comes along to revive it: “It is the space that we provide for them to grow and develop. That is where we are at.” Inari Saami, spoken in a single remote community in northern Finland, is a poster child for how people can take good advantage of Wikipedia. The language was headed toward extinction four decades ago; there were only four children who spoke it. Their parents created the Inari Saami Language Association in a last-ditch bid to keep it going. The efforts worked. There are now several hundred speakers, schools that use Inari Saami as a medium of instruction, and 6,400 Wikipedia articles in the language, each one copy-edited by a fluent speaker. This success highlights how Wikipedia can indeed provide small and determined communities with a unique vehicle to promote their languages’ preservation. “We don’t care about quantity. We care about quality,” says Fabrizio Brecciaroli, a member of the Inari Saami Language Association. “We are planning to use Wikipedia as a repository for the written language. We need to provide tools that can be used by the younger generations. It is important for them to be able to use Inari Saami digitally.” This has been such a success that Wikipedia has been integrated into the curriculum at the Inari Saami–speaking schools, Brecciaroli adds. He fields phone calls from teachers asking him to write up simple pages on topics from tornadoes to Saami folklore. Wikipedia has even offered a way to introduce words into Inari Saami. “We have to make up new words all the time,” Brecciaroli says. “Young people need them to speak about sports, politics, and video games. If they are unsure how to say something, they now check Wikipedia.” Wikipedia is a monumental intellectual experiment. What’s happening with Inari Saami suggests that with maximum care, it can work in smaller languages. “The ultimate goal is to make sure that Inari Saami survives,” Brecciaroli says. “It might be a good thing that there isn’t a Google Translate in Inari Saami.” That may be true—though large language models like ChatGPT can be made to translate phrases into languages that more traditional machine translation tools do not offer. Brecciaroli told me that ChatGPT isn’t great in Inari Saami but that the quality varies significantly depending on what you ask it to do; if you ask it a question in the language, then the answer will be filled with words from Finnish and even words it invents. But if you ask it something in English, Finnish, or Italian and then ask it to reply in Inari Saami, it will perform better. In light of all this, creating as much high-quality content online as can possibly be written becomes a race against time. “ChatGPT only needs a lot of words,” Brecciaroli says. “If we keep putting good material in, then sooner or later, we will get something out. That is the hope.” This is an idea supported by multiple linguists I spoke with—that it may be possible to end the “garbage in, garbage out” cycle. (OpenAI, which operates ChatGPT, did not respond to a request for comment.) Still, the overall problem is likely to grow and grow, since many languages are not as lucky as Inari Saami—and their AI translators will most likely be trained on more and more AI slop. Wehr, unfortunately, seems far less optimistic about the future of his beloved Greenlandic. Since deleting much of the Greenlandic-language Wikipedia, he has spent years trying to recruit speakers to help him revive it. He has appeared in Greenlandic media and made social media appeals. But he hasn’t gotten much of a response; he says it has been demoralizing. “There is nobody in Greenland who is interested in this, or who wants to contribute,” he says. “There is completely no point in it, and that is why it should be closed.” Late last year, he began a process requesting that the Wikipedia Language Committee shut down the Greenlandic-language edition. Months of bitter debate followed between dozens of Wikipedia bureaucrats; some seemed to be surprised that a superficially healthy-seeming edition could be gripped by so many problems. Then, earlier this month, Wehr’s proposal was accepted: Greenlandic Wikipedia is set to be shuttered, and any articles that remain will be moved into the Wikipedia Incubator, where new language editions are tested and built. Among the reasons cited by the Language Committee is the use of AI tools, which have “frequently produced nonsense that could misrepresent the language.” Nevertheless, it may be too late—mistakes in Greenlandic already seem to have become embedded in machine translators. If you prompt either Google Translate or ChatGPT to do something as simple as count to 10 in proper Greenlandic, neither program can deliver. Jacob Judah is an investigative journalist based in London.
Roundtables: The Future of Birth Control
Available only for MIT Alumni and subscribers.
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Recorded on September 24, 2025 Related Coverage:
The Download: accidental AI relationships, and the future of contraception
This is today’s edition of The Download, our weekday newsletter that provides a daily dose of what’s going on in the world of technology. It’s surprisingly easy to stumble into a relationship with an AI chatbot The news: The first large-scale computational analysis of the Reddit community r/MyBoyfriendIsAI, which is dedicated to discussing AI relationships, found that many people formed those relationships unintentionally while using AI for other purposes. In fact, only 6.5% of them said they’d deliberately sought out an AI companion. Why it matters: The study found that AI companionship provides vital support for some but exacerbates underlying problems for others. This means it’s hard to take a one-size-fits-all approach to user safety. Read the full story.
—Rhiannon Williams
Join us at 1.30pm ET today to learn about the future of birth control Conversations around birth control usually focus on women, but Kevin Eisenfrats, one of the MIT Technology Review 2025 Innovators Under 35, is working to change that. His company, Contraline, is working toward testing new birth control options for men. Join us for an exclusive subscribers-only Roundtable interview to hear Kevin in conversation with our executive editor Amy Nordrum at 1.30 ET today. MIT Technology Review Narrated: What’s next for AI and math The last year has seen rapid progress in the ability of large language models to tackle math at high school level and beyond. Is AI closing in on human mathematicians? This story is the latest to be turned into a MIT Technology Review Narrated podcast, which we publish every week on Spotify and Apple Podcasts. Just navigate to MIT Technology Review Narrated on either platform, and follow us to listen to all our new episodes as they’re released. The must-reads I’ve combed the internet to find you today’s most fun/important/scary/fascinating stories about technology. 1 Secret Service agents dismantled a giant operation to cripple cell networksThey say it’s likely it was intended to be used for scams. (Wired $)
2 Welcome to the new era of fragmented US vaccine policiesThe federal government is abdicating responsibility for public health. Who will fill the void? (New Yorker $)+ Why US federal health agencies are abandoning mRNA vaccines. (MIT Technology Review)3 European defense leaders are discussing building a ‘drone wall’ They’re scrambling to catch up as Russian incursions into their territory increase. (ABC)4 How will we know if we’ve reached artificial general intelligence?That’s the multi-billion dollar question—but there’s no clear answer. (IEEE Spectrum)+ Experts don’t even agree on what AI is to begin with, never mind AGI. (MIT Technology Review) 5 Robot umpires are coming to baseball’s major leagues next year 🤖⚾Humans will still be in charge of calling balls and strikes, but tech will help to judge appealed decisions. (AP)6 AI’s energy needs are being overstatedAnd that could lock us into unnecessary, costly fossil fuel projects. (The Verge)+ Four reasons to be optimistic about AI’s energy usage. (MIT Technology Review)7 Extreme drought is set to become a lot more commonplaceGovernments need to do a lot more to prepare. (Gizmodo) 8 AI is coming for subtitle writers’ jobs But their work is harder to replace than you might think. (The Guardian)+ ‘Workslop’ is slowing everything down. (Harvard Business Review)+ And, to add to the problem, AI systems may never be secure. (The Economist $)9 How epigenetics could help save wildlife from extinctionIt could allow scientists to detect accelerated aging before an animal population starts to visibly collapse. (Knowable)+ Aging clocks aim to predict how long you’ll live. (MIT Technology Review)10 TikTok is getting introduced to the concept of the rapture Which is due today, according to some. If so, it’s been great knowing you. Good luck! (The Guardian) Quote of the day “Everybody has a backup.” —Stella Li, executive vice president at BYD, tells CNBC the company has contingency plans in case Beijing orders it to stop using Nvidia chips.
One more thing GETTY IMAGES This app is helping workers reclaim millions in lost wages
Reclamo, a new web app, helps immigrant workers who have experienced wage theft. It guides them through assembling case details, and ultimately produces finished legal claims that can be filed instantly. A process that would otherwise take multiple meetings with an attorney can now be done within an hour.A significant amount of wage theft targets immigrants, both legal and undocumented, in part because of communication barriers and their perceived lack of power or legal recourse. But the app is already making a difference—helping workers to reclaim $1 million in lost wages since it started beta testing in October 2022. Read the full story. —Patrick Sisson We can still have nice things A place for comfort, fun and distraction to brighten up your day. (Got any ideas? Drop me a line or skeet ’em at me.) + It’s Fat Bear Week! Who gets your vote this year?+ Learn about Lord Woodbine, the forgotten sixth Beatle. + There are some truly wild and wacky recipes in this Medieval Cookery collection. Venison porridge, anyone? + Pessimism about technology is as old as technology itself, as this archive shows.
Trump is pushing leucovorin as a new treatment for autism. What is it?
MIT Technology Review Explains: Let our writers untangle the complex, messy world of technology to help you understand what’s coming next. You can read more from the series here. At a press conference on Monday, President Trump announced that his administration was taking action to address “the meteoric rise in autism.” He suggested that childhood vaccines and acetaminophen, the active ingredient in Tylenol, are to blame for the increasing prevalence, and advised pregnant women against taking the medicine. “Don’t take Tylenol,” he said. “Fight like hell not to take it.” The president’s assertions left many scientists and health officials perplexed and dismayed. The notion that childhood vaccines cause autism has been thoroughly debunked. “There have been many, many studies across many, many children that have led science to rule out vaccines as a significant causal factor in autism,” says James McPartland, a child psychologist and director of the Yale Center for Brain and Mind Health in New Haven, Connecticut.
And although some studies suggest a link between Tylenol and autism, the most rigorous have failed to find a connection. The administration also announced that the Food and Drug Administration would work to make a medication called leucovorin available as a treatment for children with autism. Some small studies do suggest the drug has promise as a treatment for autism, but “those are some of the most preliminary treatment studies that we have,” says Matthew Lerner, a psychologist at Drexel University’s A.J. Drexel Autism Institute in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. “This is not one I would say that the research suggests is ready for fast tracking.”
The press conference “alarms us researchers who committed our entire careers to better understanding autism,” said the Coalition for Autism Researchers, a group of more than 250 scientists who study autism, in a statement. “The data cited do not support the claim that Tylenol causes autism and leucovorin is a cure, and only stoke fear and falsely suggest hope when there is no simple answer.” There’s a lot to unpack here. Let’s begin. Has there been a “meteoric rise” in autism? Not in the way the president meant. Sure, the prevalence of autism has grown, from about 1 in 500 children in 1995 to 1 in 31 today. But that’s due, in large part, to changes in the way autism is diagnosed. The latest iteration of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Illnesses, published in 2013, grouped five previously separate diagnoses into a single diagnosis of autism spectrum disorder (ASD). That meant that more people met the criteria for an autism diagnosis. Lerner points out that there is also far more awareness of the condition today than there was several decades ago. “There’s autism representation in the media,” he says. “There are plenty of famous people in the news and finance and in business and in Hollywood who are publicly, openly autistic.” Is Tylenol a contributor to autism?? Some studies have found an association between the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy and autism in children. In these studies, researchers asked women about past acetaminophen use during pregnancy and then assessed whether children of the women who took the medicine were more likely to develop autism than children of women who didn’t take it. These kinds of epidemiological studies are tricky to interpret because they’re prone to bias. For example, women who take acetaminophen during pregnancy may do so because they have an infection, a fever, or an autoimmune disease. “Many of these underlying reasons could themselves be causes of autism,” says Ian Douglas, an epidemiologist at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. It’s also possible women with a higher genetic predisposition for autism have other medical conditions that make them more likely to take acetaminophen.
Two studies attempted to account for these potential biases by looking at siblings whose mothers had used acetaminophen during only one of the pregnancies. The largest is a 2024 study that looked at nearly 2.5 million children born between 1915 and 2019 in Sweden. The researchers initially found a slightly increased risk of autism and ADHD in children of the women who took acetaminophen, but when they conducted a sibling analysis, the association disappeared. Rather, scientists have long known that autism is largely genetic. Twin studies suggest 60 to 90% of autism risk can be attributed to your genes. However, environmental factors appear to also play a role. That “doesn’t necessarily mean toxins in the environment,” Lerner says. In fact, one of the strongest environmental predictors of autism is paternal age. Autism rates seem to be higher when a child’s father is older than 40. So should someone who is pregnant avoid Tylenol just to be safe? No. Acetaminophen is the only over-the-counter pain reliever that is deemed safe to take during pregnancy, and women should take it if they need it. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists (ACOG) supports the use of acetaminophen in pregnancy “when taken as needed, in moderation, and after consultation with a doctor.” “There’s no downside in not taking it,” Trump said at the press conference. But high fevers during pregnancy can be dangerous. “The conditions people use acetaminophen to treat during pregnancy are far more dangerous than any theoretical risks and can create severe morbidity and mortality for the pregnant person and the fetus,” ACOG president Steven Fleischman said in a statement. What about this new treatment for autism? Does it work? The medication is called leucovarin. It’s also known as folinic acid and, like folic acid, it’s a form of folate, a B vitamin found in leafy greens and legumes. The drug has been used for years to counteract the side effects of some cancer medications and as a treatment for anemia. Researchers have known for decades that folate plays a key role in the fetal development of the brain and spine. Women who don’t get enough folate during pregnancy have a greater risk of having babies with neural tube defects like spina bifida. Because of this, many foods are fortified with folic acid, and the CDC recommends that women take folic acid supplements during pregnancy. “If you are pregnant and you’re taking maternal prenatal vitamins, there’s a good chance it has folate already,” Lerner says. But “the idea that a significant proportion of autistic people have autism because of folate-related difficulties is not a well established or widely accepted premise,” says McPartland. However, in the early 2000s, researchers in Germany identified a small group of children that developed neurodevelopmental symptoms because of a folate deficiency. “These kids are born pretty normal at birth,” says Edward Quadros, a biologist at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University in Brooklyn, New York. But after a year or two, “they start developing a neurologic presentation, very similar to autism,” he says. When the researchers gave these children folinic acid, some of their symptoms improved, especially in children younger than six. Because the children had low levels of folate in the fluid that surrounds the spine and brain, but normal folate levels in the blood, the researchers posited that the problem was the transport of folate from the blood to the fluid that bathes the spinal cord and brain. Research by Quadros and other scientists suggested that the deficiency was the result of an autoimmune response. Children develop antibodies against the receptors that help transport folate, and those antibodies block folate from crossing the blood-brain barrier. High doses of folinic acid, however, activate a second transporter that allows folate in, Quadros says. There are also plenty of individual anecdotes that leucovorin works. But the medicine has only been tested as a treatment for autism in four small trials that used different doses and measured different outcomes. The evidence that it can improve symptoms of autism is “weak” according to the Coalition of Autism Scientists. “A much higher standard of science would be needed to determine if leucovorin is an effective and safe treatment for autism,” the researchers said in a statement.
Oil and Gas Companies Need to Brace for a Tough 2026
Oil and gas companies need to brace for a tough 2026, Wood Mackenzie warned in a statement sent to Rigzone recently. In the statement, Wood Mackenzie highlighted that, according to its new Corporate Strategic Planner Oil and Gas 2026 report, oil and gas companies “will plan for a tough year in 2026, with capital budgets set to decline as firms prioritize financial strength over long-term growth investments”. “The comprehensive corporate planning toolkit reveals that companies will maintain disciplined investment criteria whilst navigating significant headwinds,” Wood Mackenzie noted in the statement. “Reinvestment rates will average 50 percent, enabling firms to return an average of 45 percent of operating cash flow to shareholders and, in some cases, deleverage even at our forecast annual average price of just under $60 per barrel Brent for 2026,” it added. Wood Mackenzie noted in the statement that companies with gearing above 35 percent will prioritize deleveraging to build resilience against rising price shock risks. It went on to state that those with high reinvestment rates exceeding 80 percent will emphasize net investment after asset sales, deploying disposals to offset higher spending whilst high-grading portfolio quality. In the statement, Wood Mackenzie warned that low carbon spending “faces deeper cuts”, pointing out that the report “identifies further reductions in low-carbon spending as companies withdraw from marginal projects”. “Leading European Majors will cap renewable and low-carbon investments at 30 percent of total budgets as companies pull back from low-return projects,” the company said in the statement. “Most large international oil companies and national oil companies will converge on allocating 10-20 percent of overall budgets to low-carbon initiatives. Capital allocation will swing back towards upstream investments, including exploration and business development,” it added. The statement also noted that structural cost reductions will be a priority to boost margins and hedge against macro
Scientists can see Earth’s permafrost thawing from space
Something is rotten in the city of Nunapitchuk. In recent years, a crack has formed in the middle of a house. Sewage has leached into the earth. Soil has eroded around buildings, leaving them perched atop precarious lumps of dirt. There are eternal puddles. And mold. The ground can feel squishy, sodden. This small town in northern Alaska is experiencing a sometimes overlooked consequence of climate change: thawing permafrost. And Nunapitchuk is far from the only Arctic town to find itself in such a predicament. Permafrost, which lies beneath about 15% of the land in the Northern Hemisphere, is defined as ground that has remained frozen for at least two years. Historically, much of the world’s permafrost has remained solid and stable for far longer, allowing people to build whole towns atop it. But as the planet warms, a process that is happening more rapidly near the poles than at more temperate latitudes, permafrost is thawing and causing a host of infrastructural and environmental problems. Now scientists think they may be able to use satellite data to delve deep beneath the ground’s surface and get a better understanding of how the permafrost thaws, and which areas might be most severely affected because they had more ice to start with. Clues from the short-term behavior of those especially icy areas, seen from space, could portend future problems.
Using information gathered both from space and on the ground, they are working with affected communities to anticipate whether a house’s foundation will crack—and whether it is worth mending that crack or is better to start over in a new house on a stable hilltop. These scientists’ permafrost predictions are already helping communities like Nunapitchuk make those tough calls. But it’s not just civilian homes that are at risk. One of the top US intelligence agencies, the National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency (NGA), is also interested in understanding permafrost better. That’s because the same problems that plague civilians in the high north also plague military infrastructure, at home and abroad. The NGA is, essentially, an organization full of space spies—people who analyze data from surveillance satellites and make sense of it for the country’s national security apparatus.
Understanding the potential instabilities of the Alaskan military infrastructure—which includes radar stations that watch for intercontinental ballistic missiles, as well as military bases and National Guard posts—is key to keeping those facilities in good working order and planning for their strengthened future. Understanding the potential permafrost weaknesses that could affect the infrastructure of countries like Russia and China, meanwhile, affords what insiders might call “situational awareness” about competitors. The work to understand this thawing will only become more relevant, for civilians and their governments alike, as the world continues to warm. The ground beneath If you live much below the Arctic Circle, you probably don’t think a lot about permafrost. But it affects you no matter where you call home. In addition to the infrastructural consequences for real towns like Nunapitchuk, thawing permafrost contains sequestered carbon—twice as much as currently inhabits the atmosphere. As the permafrost thaws, the process can release greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. That release can cause a feedback loop: Warmer temperatures thaw permafrost, which releases greenhouse gases, which warms the air more, which then—you get it. The microbes themselves, along with previously trapped heavy metals, are also set dangerously free. For many years, researchers’ primary options for understanding some of these freeze-thaw changes involved hands-on, on-the-ground surveys. But in the late 2000s, Kevin Schaefer, currently a senior scientist at the Cooperative Institute for Research in Environmental Sciences at the University of Colorado Boulder, started to investigate a less labor-intensive idea: using radar systems aboard satellites to survey the ground beneath. This idea implanted itself in his brain in 2009, when he traveled to a place called Toolik Lake, southwest of the oilfields of Prudhoe Bay in Alaska. One day, after hours of drilling sample cores out of the ground to study permafrost, he was relaxing in the Quonset hut, chatting with colleagues. They began to discuss how space-based radar could potentially detect how the land sinks and heaves back up as temperatures change. Huh, he thought. Yes, radar probably could do that.
Scientists call the ground right above permafrost the active layer. The water in this layer of soil contracts and expands with the seasons: during the summer, the ice suffusing the soil melts and the resulting decrease in volume causes the ground to dip. During the winter, the water freezes and expands, bulking the active layer back up. Radar can help measure that height difference, which is usually around one to five centimeters. Schaefer realized that he could use radar to measure the ground elevation at the start and end of the thaw. The electromagnetic waves that bounce back at those two times would have traveled slightly different distances. That difference would reveal the tiny shift in elevation over the seasons and would allow him to estimate how much water had thawed and refrozen in the active layer and how far below the surface the thaw had extended. With radar, Schaefer realized, scientists could cover a lot more literal ground, with less effort and at lower cost. “It took us two years to figure out how to write a paper on it,” he says; no one had ever made those measurements before. He and colleagues presented the idea at the 2010 meeting of the American Geophysical Union and published a paper in 2012 detailing the method, using it to estimate the thickness of the active layer on Alaska’s North Slope. When they did, they helped start a new subfield that grew as large-scale data sets started to become available around 5 to 10 years ago, says Roger Michaelides, a geophysicist at Washington University in St. Louis and a collaborator of Schaefer’s. Researchers’ efforts were aided by the growth in space radar systems and smaller, cheaper satellites. With the availability of global data sets (sometimes for free, from government-run satellites like the European Space Agency’s Sentinel) and targeted observations from commercial companies like Iceye, permafrost studies are moving from bespoke regional analyses to more automated, large-scale monitoring and prediction. The remote view Simon Zwieback, a geospatial and environmental expert at the University of Alaska Fairbanks, sees the consequences of thawing permafrost firsthand every day. His office overlooks a university parking lot, a corner of which is fenced off to keep cars and pedestrians from falling into a brand-new sinkhole. That area of asphalt had been slowly sagging for more than a year, but over a week or two this spring, it finally started to collapse inward. Kevin Schaefer stands on top of a melting layer of ice near the Alaskan pipeline on the North Slope of Alaska.COURTESY OF KEVIN SCHAEFER The new remote research methods are a large-scale version of Zwieback taking in the view from his window. Researchers look at the ground and measure how its height changes as ice thaws and refreezes. The approach can cover wide swaths of land, but it involves making assumptions about what’s going on below the surface—namely, how much ice suffuses the soil in the active layer and permafrost. Thawing areas with relatively low ice content could mimic thinner layers with more ice. And it’s important to differentiate the two, since more ice in the permafrost means more potential instability.
To check that they’re on the right track, scientists have historically had to go out into the field. But a few years ago, Zwieback started to explore a way to make better and deeper estimates of ice content using the available remote sensing data. Finding a way to make those kinds of measurements on a large scale was more than an academic exercise: Areas of what he calls “excess ice” are most liable to cause instability at the surface. “In order to plan in these environments, we really need to know how much ice there is, or where those locations are that are rich in ice,” he says. Zwieback, who did his undergraduate and graduate studies in Switzerland and Austria, wasn’t always so interested in permafrost, or so deeply affected by it. But in 2014, when he was a doctoral student in environmental engineering, he joined an environmental field campaign in Siberia, at the Lena River Delta, which resembles a gigantic piece of coral fanning out into the Arctic Ocean. Zwieback was near a town called Tiksi, one of the world’s northernmost settlements. It’s a military outpost and starting point for expeditions to the North Pole, featuring an abandoned plane near the ocean. Its Soviet-era concrete buildings sometimes bring it to the front page of the r/UrbanHell subreddit.
Here, Zwieback saw part of the coastline collapse, exposing almost pure ice. It looked like a subterranean glacier, but it was permafrost. “That really had an indelible impact on me,” he says. Later, as a doctoral student in Zurich and postdoc in Canada, he used his radar skills to understand the rapid changes that the activity of permafrost impressed upon the landscape. And now, with his job in Fairbanks and his ideas about the use of radar sensing, he has done work funded by the NGA, which has an open Arctic data portal. In his Arctic research, Zwieback started with the approach underlying most radar permafrost studies: looking at the ground’s seasonal subsidence and heave. “But that’s something that happens very close to the surface,” he says. “It doesn’t really tell us about these long-term destabilizing effects,” he adds. In warmer summers, he thought, subtle clues would emerge that could indicate how much ice is buried deeper down. For example, he expected those warmer-than-average periods to exaggerate the amount of change seen on the surface, making it easier to tell which areas are ice-rich. Land that was particularly dense with ice would dip more than it “should”—a precursor of bigger dips to come.
The first step, then, was to measure subsidence directly, as usual. But from there, Zwieback developed an algorithm to ingest data about the subsidence over time—as measured by radar—and other environmental information, like the temperatures at each measurement. He then created a digital model of the land that allowed him to adjust the simulated amount of ground ice and determine when it matched the subsidence seen in the real world. With that, researchers could infer the amount of ice beneath. Next, he made maps of that ice that could potentially be useful to engineers—whether they were planning a new subdivision or, as his funders might be, keeping watch on a military airfield. “What was new in my work was to look at these much shorter periods and use them to understand specific aspects of this whole system, and specifically how much ice there is deep down,” Zwieback says. The NGA, which has also funded Schaefer’s work, did not respond to an initial request for comment but did later provide feedback for fact-checking. It removed an article on its website about Zwieback’s grant and its application to agency interests around the time that the current presidential administration began to ban mention of climate change in federal research. But the thawing earth is of keen concern.
To start, the US has significant military infrastructure in Alaska: It’s home to six military bases and 49 National Guard posts, as well as 21 missile-detecting radar sites. Most are vulnerable to thaw now or in the near future, given that 85% of the state is on permafrost. Beyond American borders, the broader north is in a state of tension. Russia’s relations with Northern Europe are icy. Its invasion of Ukraine has left those countries fearing that they too could be invaded, prompting Sweden and Finland, for instance, to join NATO. The US has threatened takeovers of Greenland and Canada. And China—which has shipping and resource ambitions for the region—is jockeying to surpass the US as the premier superpower. Permafrost plays a role in the situation. “As knowledge has expanded, so has the understanding that thawing permafrost can affect things NGA cares about, including the stability of infrastructure in Russia and China,” read the NGA article. Permafrost covers 60% of Russia, and thaws have affected more than 40% of buildings in northern Russia already, according to statements from the country’s minister of natural resources in 2021. Experts say critical infrastructure like roads and pipelines is at risk, along with military installations. That could weaken both Russia’s strategic position and the security of its residents. In China, meanwhile, according to a report from the Council on Strategic Risks, important moving parts like the Qinghai-Tibet Railway, “which allows Beijing to more quickly move military personnel near contested areas of the Indian border,” is susceptible to ground thaw—as are oil and gas pipelines linking Russia and China. In the field Any permafrost analysis that relies on data from space requires verification on Earth. The hope is that remote methods will become reliable enough to use on their own, but while they’re being developed, researchers must still get their hands muddy with more straightforward and longer tested physical methods. Some use a network called Circumpolar Active Layer Monitoring, which has existed since 1991, incorporating active-layer data from hundreds of measurement sites across the Northern Hemisphere. Sometimes, that data comes from people physically probing an area; other sites use tubes permanently inserted into the ground, filled with a liquid that indicates freezing; still others use underground cables that measure soil temperature. Some researchers, like Schaefer, lug ground-penetrating radar systems around the tundra. He’s taken his system to around 50 sites and made more than 200,000 measurements of the active layer. The field-ready ground-penetrating radar comes in a big box—the size of a steamer trunk—that emits radio pulses. These pulses bounce off the bottom of the active layer, or the top of the permafrost. In this case, the timing of that reflection reveals how thick the active layer is. With handles designed for humans, Schaefer’s team drags this box around the Arctic’s boggier areas. The box floats. “I do not,” he says. He has vivid memories of tromping through wetlands, his legs pushing straight down through the muck, his body sinking up to his hips. Andy Parsekian and Kevin Schaefer haul a ground penetrating radar unit through the tundra near Utqiagvik.COURTESY OF KEVIN SCHAEFER Zwieback also needs to verify what he infers from his space data. And so in 2022, he went to the Toolik Field station, a National Science Foundation–funded ecology research facility along the Dalton Highway and adjacent to Schaefer’s Toolik Lake. This road, which goes from Fairbanks up to the Arctic Ocean, is colloquially called the Haul Road; it was made famous in the TV show Ice Road Truckers. From this access point, Zwieback’s team needed to get deep samples of soil whose ice content could be analyzed in the lab. Every day, two teams would drive along the Dalton Highway to get close to their field sites. Slamming their car doors, they would unload and hop on snow machines to travel the final distance. Often they would see musk oxen, looking like bison that never cut their hair. The grizzlies were also interested in these oxen, and in the nearby caribou. At the sites they could reach, they took out a corer, a long, tubular piece of equipment driven by a gas engine, meant to drill deep into the ground. Zwieback or a teammate pressed it into the earth. The barrel’s two blades rotated, slicing a cylinder about five feet down to ensure that their samples went deep enough to generate data that can be compared with the measurements made from space. Then they pulled up and extracted the cylinder, a sausage of earth and ice. All day every day for a week, they gathered cores that matched up with the pixels in radar images taken from space. In those cores, the ice was apparent to the eye. But Zwieback didn’t want anecdata. “We want to get a number,” he says. So he and his team would pack their soil cylinders back to the lab. There they sliced them into segments and measured their volume, in both their frozen and their thawed form, to see how well the measured ice content matched estimates from the space-based algorithm. The initial validation, which took months, demonstrated the value of using satellites for permafrost work. The ice profiles that Zwieback’s algorithm inferred from the satellite data matched measurements in the lab down to about 1.1 feet, and farther in a warm year, with some uncertainty near the surface and deeper into the permafrost. Whereas it cost tens of thousands of dollars to fly in on a helicopter, drive in a car, and switch to a snowmobile to ultimately sample a small area using your hands, only to have to continue the work at home, the team needed just a few hundred dollars to run the algorithm on satellite data that was free and publicly available. Michaelides, who is familiar with Zwieback’s work, agrees that estimating excess ice content is key to making infrastructural decisions, and that historical methods of sussing it out have been costly in all senses. Zwieback’s method of using late-summer clues to infer what’s going on at that depth “is a very exciting idea,” he says, and the results “demonstrate that there is considerable promise for this approach.” He notes, though, that using space-based radar to understand the thawing ground is complicated: Ground ice content, soil moisture, and vegetation can differ even within a single pixel that a satellite can pick out. “To be clear, this limitation is not unique to Simon’s work,” Michaelides says; it affects all space-radar methods. There is also excess ice below even where Zwieback’s algorithm can probe—something the labor-intensive on-ground methods can pick up that still can’t be seen from space. Mapping out the future After Zwieback did his fieldwork, NGA decided to do its own. The agency’s attempt to independently validate his work—in Prudhoe Bay, Utqiagvik, and Fairbanks—was part of a project it called Frostbyte. Its partners in that project—the Army’s Cold Regions Research Engineering Laboratory and Los Alamos National Laboratory—declined requests for interviews. As far as Zwieback knows, they’re still analyzing data. But the intelligence community isn’t the only group interested in research like Zwieback’s. He also works with Arctic residents, reaching out to rural Alaskan communities where people are trying to make decisions about whether to relocate or where to build safely. “They typically can’t afford to do expensive coring,” he says. “So the idea is to make these data available to them.” Zwieback and his team haul their gear out to gather data from drilled core samples, a process which can be arduous and costly.ANDREW JOHNSON Schaefer is also trying to bridge the gap between his science and the people it affects. Through a company called Weather Stream, he is helping communities identify risks to infrastructure before anything collapses, so they can take preventative action. Making such connections has always been a key concern for Erin Trochim, a geospatial scientist at the University of Alaska Fairbanks. As a researcher who works not just on permafrost but also on policy, she’s seen radar science progress massively in recent years—without commensurate advances on the ground. For instance, it’s still hard for residents in her town of Fairbanks—or anywhere—to know if there’s permafrost on their property at all, unless they’re willing to do expensive drilling. She’s encountered this problem, still unsolved, on property she owns. And if an expert can’t figure it out, non-experts hardly stand a chance. “It’s just frustrating when a lot of this information that we know from the science side, and [that’s] trickled through the engineering side, hasn’t really translated into the on-the-ground construction,” she says. There is a group, though, trying to turn that trickle into a flood: Permafrost Pathways, a venture that launched with a $41 million grant through the TED Audacious Project. In concert with affected communities, including Nunapitchuk, it is building a data-gathering network on the ground, and combining information from that network with satellite data and local knowledge to help understand permafrost thaw and develop adaptation strategies. “I think about it often as if you got a diagnosis of a disease,” says Sue Natali, the head of the project. “It’s terrible, but it’s also really great, because when you know what your problem is and what you’re dealing with, it’s only then that you can actually make a plan to address it.” And the communities Permafrost Pathways works with are making plans. Nunapitchuk has decided to relocate, and the town and the research group have collaboratively surveyed the proposed new location: a higher spot on hardpacked sand. Permafrost Pathways scientists were able to help validate the stability of the new site—and prove to policymakers that this stability would extend into the future. Radar helps with that in part, Natali says, because unlike other satellite detectors, it penetrates clouds. “In Alaska, it’s extremely cloudy,” she says. “So other data sets have been very, very challenging. Sometimes we get one image per year.” And so radar data, and algorithms like Zwieback’s that help scientists and communities make sense of that data, dig up deeper insight into what’s going on beneath northerners’ feet—and how to step forward on firmer ground. Sarah Scoles is a freelance science journalist based in southern Colorado and the author, most recently, of the book Countdown: The Blinding Future of Nuclear Weapons.
The US may be heading toward a drone-filled future
On Thursday, I published a story about the police-tech giant Flock Safety selling its drones to the private sector to track shoplifters. Keith Kauffman, a former police chief who now leads Flock’s drone efforts, described the ideal scenario: A security team at a Home Depot, say, launches a drone from the roof that follows shoplifting suspects to their car. The drone tracks their car through the streets, transmitting its live video feed directly to the police. It’s a vision that, unsurprisingly, alarms civil liberties advocates. They say it will expand the surveillance state created by police drones, license-plate readers, and other crime tech, which has allowed law enforcement to collect massive amounts of private data without warrants. Flock is in the middle of a federal lawsuit in Norfolk, Virginia, that alleges just that. Read the full story to learn more. But the peculiar thing about the world of drones is that its fate in the US—whether the skies above your home in the coming years will be quiet, or abuzz with drones dropping off pizzas, inspecting potholes, or chasing shoplifting suspects—pretty much comes down to one rule. It’s a Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulation that stipulates where and how drones can be flown, and it is about to change. Currently, you need a waiver from the FAA to fly a drone farther than you can see it. This is meant to protect the public and property from in-air collisions and accidents. In 2018, the FAA began granting these waivers for various scenarios, like search and rescues, insurance inspections, or police investigations. With Flock’s help, police departments can get waivers approved in just two weeks. The company’s private-sector customers generally have to wait 60 to 90 days.
For years, industries with a stake in drones—whether e-commerce companies promising doorstep delivery or medical transporters racing to move organs—have pushed the government to scrap the waiver system in favor of easier approval to fly beyond visual line of sight. In June, President Donald Trump echoed that call in an executive order for “American drone dominance,” and in August, the FAA released a new proposed rule. The proposed rule lays out some broad categories for which drone operators are permitted to fly drones beyond their line of sight, including package delivery, agriculture, aerial surveying, and civic interest, which includes policing. Getting approval to fly beyond sight would become easier for operators from these categories, and would generally expand their range.
Drone companies, and amateur drone pilots, see it as a win. But it’s a win that comes at the expense of privacy for the rest of us, says Jay Stanley, a senior policy analyst with the ACLU Speech, Privacy and Technology Project who served on the rule-making commission for the FAA. “The FAA is about to open up the skies enormously, to a lot more [beyond visual line of sight] flights without any privacy protections,” he says. The ACLU has said that fleets of drones enable persistent surveillance, including of protests and gatherings, and impinge on the public’s expectations of privacy. If you’ve got something to say about the FAA’s proposed rule, you can leave a public comment (they’re being accepted until October 6.) Trump’s executive order directs the FAA to release the final rule by spring 2026. This story originally appeared in The Algorithm, our weekly newsletter on AI. To get stories like this in your inbox first, sign up here.
SLB Scores Brazilian Ultra-Deepwater Contract from Petrobras
Schlumberger NV (SLB) has secured a significant contract from Petroleo Brasileiro SA (Petrobras) to provide services and technology for up to 35 ultra-deepwater wells in the strategically important Santos Basin. SLB said that the contract was awarded through a competitive tender process. The wells, which are part of the second development of the Atapu and Sepia fields, target massive pockets of oil and gas beneath thick salt layers, located up to 2,000 meters below the ocean’s surface, SLB said in a media release. SLB said it will deploy advanced electric completions technologies and digital solutions to provide accurate, real-time production insights. This aims to enhance reservoir management and optimize the extraction of these difficult-to-access resources. “This will help Petrobras drive greater reliability, system uptime, and production performance in those fields, supporting Brazil’s energy security and economic growth ambitions”, Paul Sims, president of Production Systems at SLB, said. The completions work is scheduled to begin in mid-2026 and will feature advanced services and technology from SLB’s completions portfolio, such as SLB’s Electris high-flow-rate interval control valves, which are designed to increase production control and recovery from geologically complex, high-flow-rate wells. This work follows another major contract awarded to the SLB OneSubsea™ joint venture by Petrobras for the Atapu and Sepia fields in 2024, which includes standardized, pre-salt subsea production systems and related services. To contact the author, email [email protected] What do you think? We’d love to hear from you, join the conversation on the Rigzone Energy Network. The Rigzone Energy Network is a new social experience created for you and all energy professionals to Speak Up about our industry, share knowledge, connect with peers and industry insiders and engage in a professional community that will empower your career in energy. MORE FROM THIS AUTHOR
Seatrium, Cochin Shipyard Pen Cooperation Agreement
Seatrium Offshore Technology Pte. Ltd. (SOT) has signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Cochin Shipyard Ltd. (CSL) to strengthen cooperation in the offshore sector across India and Asia. SOT, a Seatrium Ltd. company, said in a media release that the partnership will combine SOT’s specialized equipment and offshore solutions with CSL’s extensive infrastructure, fabrication facilities, and ship repair expertise to leverage business opportunities. SOT said that the partnership will focus on maintenance, repair, and overhaul projects for clients with operations in Asia. The two companies will also explore opportunities to expand into other key offshore markets in the region. “This MoU is a strategic milestone in Seatrium’s efforts to expand our global footprint across Asia, with India identified as a key market for long-term growth. India’s rapidly developing offshore energy sector and rising demand for maritime infrastructure present compelling opportunities for collaboration and innovation”, Winston Cheng, Senior Vice-President and Head of SOT, said. “By combining CSL’s robust local capabilities with Seatrium’s deep engineering expertise and technology strengths, we aim to deliver integrated offshore asset solutions that meet the region’s evolving needs. “Our shared goal is to support India’s energy transition, enhance its maritime capabilities, and position Seatrium as a trusted partner in driving sustainable offshore development”. The MoU establishes a framework for joint marketing, project execution, and technology collaboration, fostering a long-term partnership with CSL to advance regional energy transition and offshore development. It builds upon a prior agreement signed in November 2024 between Seatrium, via its subsidiary Seatrium Letourneau USA Inc., and CSL for co-designing and supplying essential equipment for jack-up rigs serving the Indian market, SOT said. “The MoU marks a significant step forward in CSL’s efforts to expand our offshore footprint. Our decision to strengthen collaboration with Seatrium demonstrates our confidence in their global expertise, enabling
Australia Gets Bulk of Chevron Payments to Governments
Chevron Corp has reported $14.21 billion in payments to governments for 2024 with Australia topping the list at $3.39 billion. That was more than Chevron’s home country; the United States got $1.59 billion. The disclosure to the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) consisted of taxes, royalties, production entitlements, fees, bonuses, and “community and social responsibility” payments. The filing included exploration-related payments made 2023 that had been delayed for reporting. Rounding up the top five recipients are Nigeria at $2.91 billion, Angola at $1.74 billion and the Kuwait-Saudi Arabia Partitioned Zone at $1.09 billion. Payments to Australia, the U.S. and Kuwait-Saudi Arabia were mostly taxation. Production entitlements comprised the bulk of payments to Nigeria and Angola. The oil and gas giant paid Australia $3.33 billion in taxes for 2024. The remaining Australian payments consisted of $27.33 million for community and social responsibility and $26.18 million in fees. Chevron’s Aussie operations mainly consist of three natural gas projects in Western Australia, which both export overseas and supply the domestic market. On Barrow Island, Chevron operates the Gorgon Project with a 47.3 percent stake. Put into operation March 2016, Gorgon has three liquefaction trains with a combined capacity of 15.6 million metric tons per annum (MMtpa) and a domestic gas plant that supplies up to 300 terajoules (tJ) a day, according to Chevron. On the Pilbara coast, Chevron’s operated and 64.14 percent-owned Wheatstone Project includes a two-train LNG facility with a capacity of 8.9 MMtpa and a domestic gas plant that delivers up to 230 tJ per day, according to Chevron. Wheatstone shipped its first LNG October 2017. On the Burrup Peninsula, Chevron owns a minority stake in the North West Shelf (NWS) Project, operated by Australia’s Woodside Energy Group Ltd. On July 25, 2025, the International Group of LNG Importers reported Woodside
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