nexustandards.com/energy-infrastructure · 2 taught
Energy and Critical Infrastructure
NRS-M15 Energy risk; NRS-T12 Energy transition technology risk
2standards1discipline
Illustrative: atoms and bonds of a lattice with a phonon travelling through it and one dopant site
Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium · Infrastructure, Energy and Industry · Department of Energy and Resources
Courses in development
Climate and energy technologies
The discipline covers the technologies of decarbonisation and climate response and the risks they carry: energy storage, hydrogen, advanced nuclear including small modular reactors and fusion, and carbon dioxide removal with its measurement and permanence.
- Energy storage and battery safety
- Hydrogen production, storage and safety
- Small modular and advanced reactors
- Fusion research and its timelines
- Carbon dioxide removal methods
- Measurement, reporting and verification
- Permanence and reversal risk
- Technology readiness and scale-up risk
Courses in development extend the scope to further subjects: Carbon removal, hydrogen and storage risk; Advanced nuclear safety, security and safeguards.
02Maps
Maps and the globe for any place
Search any place or open the world; the layers and generators follow climate and energy technologies on the planet map, the globe and in 3D.
Infrastructure, Energy and IndustryAny placeTwin builder
The boundaries, names and designations shown do not imply any judgement on the legal status of any territory, or any endorsement or acceptance of such boundaries. Countries: Natural Earth (public domain).
03Live map
Energy now in New Zealand
Night-time lights, fires and gas flares, sunshine and heat, the signals of energy use, supply and demand, over New Zealand.
The interactive map needs JavaScript; the layer list and sources are below.
Layers 2
Energy now
Keyboard, with the map focused
Hold Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll to zoom
Latest available
NASA GIBS / EOSDIS · ASTER GDEM (METI, NASA) · Blue Marble (NASA) · © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL) · Natural Earth
Loading the latest NASA imagery.
Drag to move. Ctrl or ⌘ and scroll, pinch or the buttons to zoom; hover for the values under the pointer; reset returns to the region.
Energy now, framed on New Zealand.Satellite and model products as NASA publishes them, each with its own date. They are indicators, not assessments of any place.
Data: NASA GIBS · ASTER GDEM · Blue Marble · © OpenStreetMap contributors · Natural Earth · NASA EONETSources and licences
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS Black Marble night-time lights, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center; distributed by the NASA Level-1 and Atmosphere Archive and Distribution System (LAADS DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- NASA Fire Information for Resource Management System (FIRMS), VIIRS 375 m active fire product, NASA LANCE; vector tiles via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MERRA-2 reanalysis, NASA Global Modeling and Assimilation Office; distributed by the NASA GES DISC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- MODIS and VIIRS atmosphere products, NASA LANCE and LAADS DAAC; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- VIIRS near-real-time products (flood, land surface temperature, snow cover, corrected reflectance), NASA LANCE; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- ASTER GDEM is a product of METI and NASA (ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003, NASA LP DAAC); imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). Cite as: NASA/METI/AIST/Japan Spacesystems and U.S./Japan ASTER Science Team (2019). ASTER Global Digital Elevation Model V003. doi:10.5067/ASTER/ASTGTM.003. NASA open data
- Made with Natural Earth. Free vector and raster map data @ naturalearthdata.com. Public domain
- © OpenStreetMap contributors (ODbL), via NASA GIBS (coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names). Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). ODbL
- Blue Marble, NASA Earth Observatory; imagery via NASA GIBS. Colours redrawn from the published colour map; values averaged into H3 cells where shown (modified). NASA open data
- Context on the globe and flat map: coastlines, boundaries, roads and place names from NASA GIBS reference layers (OpenStreetMap data, ODbL, © OpenStreetMap contributors); Blue Marble imagery as an optional base; 3D terrain and the elevation read-out from the ASTER GDEM elevation colour index (5 m to 200 m classes, exaggerated for legibility). Boundaries are drawn as published and imply no position on any territory.
- Globe: MapLibre GL JS 6.9.1, BSD-3-Clause, © MapLibre contributors.
- Live events: NASA Earth Observatory Natural Event Tracker (EONET); events are indicative and keep their original source links.
- NASA GIBS: We acknowledge the use of imagery provided by services from NASA's Global Imagery Browse Services (GIBS), part of NASA's Earth Science Data and Information System (ESDIS).
- Past year, daily temperature (ERA5 via Open-Meteo): Contains modified Copernicus Climate Change Service information 2026.
- Past year, daily temperature and sunshine (NASA POWER): These data were obtained from the NASA Langley Research Center (LaRC) POWER Project funded through the NASA Earth Science/Applied Science Program..
- Weather data by Open-Meteo.com (https://open-meteo.com/), licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).
- Optional layers (8 sources in the layer list: live, forecast, observed and context) print their provider credit on the map and here when switched on; forecasts are model output and derived indices are estimates.
Layers and dates
- Night-time lights, daily: VIIRS Black Marble (VNP46A2), NASA LAADS DAAC · 12 Oct 2026
- Active fires and thermal anomalies: VIIRS NOAA-20 375 m (FIRMS), NASA LANCE FIRMS · 13 Oct 2026
- Incoming sunlight at the surface over land, monthly mean: MERRA-2, NASA GMAO / GES DISC · July 2026
- Daytime cloud fraction: MODIS Terra, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Land surface temperature, day: VIIRS NOAA-20, NASA LANCE · 13 Oct 2026
- Flood water, 3-day composite: VIIRS Global Flood Product, NASA LANCE · 14 Oct 2026
04The subject
The subject, methods and measures and debates and bodies
The field and its scope
For engineers, investors, regulators and analysts who need to understand how storage, hydrogen, advanced nuclear and carbon dioxide removal work, how each fails, and how their performance and permanence claims are verified.
Quantities and units
Methods and their limits
Each method is listed with what it assumes and where it fails.
What the field debates
Bodies that set practice, and the data they publish
Bodies and standards are named so learners can find and apply their published work; the Academy teaches their use and links to the publisher, and no affiliation is implied.
05The method
From a learning rate to a cost per megawatt-hour: how deployment prices a storage technology
Each doubling of cumulative deployment cuts a technology's cost by its learning rate; the capital cost that results, spread over the cycles a battery delivers and divided by its round-trip efficiency, gives a levelised cost of storage; that number, against the alternatives, is what an investor or a planner compares.
Sources: Schmidt et al., The future cost of electrical energy storage based on experience rates (2017); Schmidt et al., Projecting the future levelized cost of electricity storage technologies (2019); Way et al., Empirically grounded technology forecasts and the energy transition (2022); Staffell et al., The role of hydrogen and fuel cells in the global energy system (2019).
06Instrument
Climate and energy technologies
- Open, 0
- In preparation, 2
- Subtopics, 8
07Signature
How climate and energy technologies connects the sectors
Select corners to build a signature, then hover a line to read what each sector gives and receives.
Select corners · hover lines6 / 15 relations
Signature
Energy and its partners
Energy gives power for transport and telecoms to infrastructure (0.8), pumping and treatment to water (0.5) and fertiliser, machinery and cold chains to food (0.5).
W · E · I · F · H · B
- Sectors
- 4 of 6
- Relations
- 6 of 15
- Coupling
- 0.46 share of total
Strongest relations in play
- Energy → Infrastructure · power for transport and telecoms0.8
- Water → Energy · cooling water and hydropower0.6
- Water → Food · irrigation0.8
- Infrastructure → Water · pipes, dams and treatment works0.6
08Standards and evidence
Nexus Standards, hub, what is changing now and courses
Nexus Standards it teaches and relies on
The Nexus Standards the discipline teaches toward, grouped by master standard, with the disciplines that teach each.
nexustandards.com/digital-ai · 1 taught
Digital, Cyber and AI
NRS-H109 Energy-transition technology failures
1standard1discipline
Nexus Standards at the AcademyThe Academy proposes how each discipline teaches toward the Nexus Standards; the mapping is open for public review.
Research and tools
Research and preprints as they are published, by discipline, with the faculty's other tools.
The hub lists the newest research and preprints for Climate and energy technologies, each with its source and date. Open the research hub
What is changing now
Recent developments in climate and energy technologies, each with its source; sources checked on 16 October 2026.
Courses in this discipline
Courses for this discipline are in development; until they open, study it through the connected courses and open lessons below.
The connected disciplines below teach the methods it builds on.
09Console
How Climate and energy technologies is taught, as a process you can run
Press Play to run this process from this page's own data.
10Practice
Practice, learning and connections
How technology helps and what risk it brings
Achievements in this discipline
Course achievements
One for each course with this as its primary discipline, earned when you pass the course's assessed activities.
Department: Energy and Resources
Earn two discipline achievements in the Department of Energy and Resources. In development.
Cross-faculty: Climate technology and finance
Courses in connected disciplines and a passed integrative task. In development.
An achievement is a record of the learning completed and assessed here. How recognition works.
Where the subject is practised
A field platform page on this subject is in development; the connected disciplines below lead to the platforms that practise their subjects.
The two Foundry systems where it is practised
- FoundryNXS-LAB systemTechnologies compared under transparent test conditionsBenchmarks room
- NXS-DSS systemTechnology options appraised under uncertaintyDecisions room
Foundry system pages describe what each system and its rooms are designed to do; the courses teach the methods these systems apply.
Disciplines it depends on
Across the ecosystem
11Take part
Take part in Infrastructure, Energy and Industry
Start from who you are.
12References
Core references and where to begin
Start with Way, then Schmidt, then Feng.
13Questions
Questions, answers and key terms
Is study here free?
Yes. Every course and learning material of Risk Academy, led by the Nexus Consortium, is free to study, self-paced or with a cohort. Ordinary participation has no fee; paid work, internships and fellowships are separate arrangements.
What does completing a course give me?
A completion record: the course, its version, the date and what was assessed, private by default and shared by you. It stacks into discipline, department and programme achievements. A record states what was studied and assessed and does not certify competence; it is not a licence, a professional title or an employment status.
Where do the data and the places come from?
Every faculty teaches on a twin of a real place built from open data; each layer carries its provider, licence and date, and every result on the Academy states its source. Maps and figures are indicators for teaching, never an assessment of a place.
How do I take part beyond the courses in climate and energy technologies?
Form a competence cell of three to seven people, study a shared pathway, take a supervised assignment in the National Working Groups, or bring a cohort from your institution. For organisations.
Key terms
Term
Carbon dioxide removal
Activities that take carbon dioxide out of the atmosphere and store it durably.
Term
Permanence
How long removed or avoided carbon stays out of the atmosphere, and the risk that it returns.
Term
Measurement, reporting and verification
The process of quantifying a climate outcome, reporting it and having it checked independently.
Term
Small modular reactor
A nuclear reactor designed to be built in factory-made modules at a smaller scale than conventional plants.
ReportsContribute
Contribute evidence from this page.
Reports is the Consortium's quarterly publication. What you know about this subject can become evidence, a case or a correction in the next edition, credited to you and published under CC BY 4.0 where it is your own work.
Risk Academy
Related
Around Climate and energy technologies
Climate and energy technologies
Prepare with a related course
Open courses in connected disciplines teach the methods this discipline will build on.