It’s likewise smartly designed, packing up into—as you likely already gleaned—the shape of a suitcase. The heavy-duty handles and latches are strong. Though the Nomad is 28 pounds, which is a bit on the heavy side for a single-hand carry, the shape and large handle actually make it easier to carry than smaller and cheaper models.

The Nomad uses a dual-venting system to achieve good airflow, even when the lid is closed. The vents, combined with the raised fins on the bottom of the grill (which elevate your charcoal, allowing air to flow underneath), allow for very precise control of both high and low temperatures. If you live and die by overlanding, this grill could be your new constant companion.

A Great Budget Portable Grill: WIRED reviewer Scott Gilbertson also loves the simple Weber Jumbo Joe ($90), a smaller version of the classic Original Kettle. It’s an easy choice for tailgates, especially. And if you want to use it at home, you can build yourself a stand for home cookouts. It’s low-cost, light, and dead simple. All are virtues.

Other Grills I Recommend

Recteq X-Fire Pro

Photograph: Kat Merck

Recteq X-Fire Pro 825 for $1,400: Pellet smokers rarely crest much over 450 degrees Fahrenheit, which does not offer the sear you’d get on a charcoal or gas grill. But Recteq’s 825-square-inch, dual-pot X-Fire Pro wants to be your everything device, notes WIRED reviewer Kat Merck. In Smoke Mode, the left fire pot ignites for classic low-and-slow smoking. Switch the big knob to Grill Mode, and both pots fire up, with an adjustable damper over the right side. The damper, controllable with another knob, allows you to open access to the right fire pot just a little bit, or all the way to the gates of hell—1,200 degrees Fahrenheit. It takes about 20 minutes for the fire pot to get going this high, and if you don’t clean the fire pot first, it’ll kick off a lot of sparks in the process. Who knows why you need to get to 1,200 degrees? But as Merck notes, this is a company known for a cartoon bull logo and bull-horn handles. “Recteq likes to be extreme, so it tracks,” she says. If you keep your sear to a more human 600 degrees Fahrenheit, it’s a solid grill and sear experience. But keep in mind that the high power draw from the dual igniters will require a 10- or-12-gauge extension cord, which is probably better than the cord you’ve got at home. The X-Fire also didn’t produce the same smokiness as WIRED’s top-pick Recteq Flagship 1600, according to Merck’s testing, which means you’ll end up using smoke tubes at low temperature if you want to get more smoke in the meat. Note, too, that the advertised 20-pound pellet capacity is split between fire pots. This could mean refilling a 10-pound hopper multiple times during a long cook.

Photograph: Brad Bourque

Traeger Woodridge Pro for $1,000: The Traeger Woodridge Pro is WIRED’s previous top-pick pellet grill and smoker for most people. It still exists beautifully at the intersection of value and utility, and is likely to make you popular in the neighborhood. It’s a straightforward beast of a thing that’s easy to clean, easy to dial in for a perfect rack of ribs, and big enough to cook up two pork bellies at the same time. My new top-pick Recteq has a couple smart features that make us prefer it, like temperature history on its meat probes, and an easier learning curve on smart features. But this Woodridge will still make you quite popular in the neighborhood.

Photograph: Traeger

Traeger Timberline Wi-Fi Wood Pellet Grill for $3,300: If you’re serious about grilling and smoking, Traeger’s Timberline is almost a step up from a smoker. It’s the perfect all-in-one outdoor kitchen. It uses the same wireless smoking smarts as the Woodridge but adds some extras, like an induction burner (perfect for adding a last-minute sear with a cast-iron pan or steaming some veggies). The insulated smoke box has room for six pork shoulders, or about the equivalent racks of ribs or chickens. Former WIRED editor Parker Hall has managed to feed hundreds of people using it. (As a longtime food and barbecue critic, I can vouch heartily for Hall’s resulting brisket and ribs.) If that’s not enough, there’s also an XL version that’s even bigger. “All of my meats heated evenly and were perfectly cooked right when the smoker said they would be,” Hall says. If you want flawless smoking from the comfort of your couch and price is not a factor, the Timberline delivers.

Courtesy of Masterbuilt

Masterbuilt Gravity Series 800 for $899: This spacious Masterbuilt offers a nice combination, notes WIRED reviewer Chris Smith: charcoal flavor with the temperature precision of gas or electricity. The large, top-loading charcoal hopper uses gravity (hence the name) to feed heat into an internal housing, and an integrated fan enables precise digital temperature control—on the device or via the app. You’ll reach 700 degrees Fahrenheit within 15 minutes. Temperatures are remarkably consistent once stabilized, and if you want to add smoke flavor, just throw wood chunks into the ash bin and let falling charcoal embers do the rest. But the versatility comes with caveats. You may miss the ability to sear directly over a flame, and you’ll need to change out the internal housing before switching to the flat-top grill.

Courtesy of Yoder

Yoder YS640S Pellet Smoker for $2,700: Most grills do one thing well and several others poorly or not at all. Yoder’s YS640S is a more versatile tool, thanks to a design that allows easy access to the auto-feed firebox. Like Traegers that are half the price, this Kansas-made grill uses an electric fan and an auger to feed wood pellets in for a slow smoke session. It’s all driven by a control board that sends temp alerts and allows you to adjust the temperature via Wi-Fi. As a smoker, it easily handled ribs and a chuck roast, holding the temperature better than most. This is thanks to its bomb-proof 10-gauge steel construction, which means this grill weighs as much as a refrigerator. Where the Yoder really stands out, though, is as a grill and possible pizza oven. By removing a steel plate positioned over the fire pit, you can sear burgers directly over the flame or remove the grills and plop on a hefty pizza oven attachment ($489), which uses the pellet feed system to maintain a constant 900-plus degrees Fahrenheit.

A Grill to Avoid

Courtesy of Ace

Kamado Joe Konnected Joe for $1,900: There’s a lot to like about this kamado-style grill. Indeed, WIRED previously recommended it for its electric ignition and Wi-Fi connectivity that allows you to measure the temperature of the interior and the meat via two probes. But over long-term use, WIRED commerce director Martin Cizmar has had constant problems with the electric grill tripping the 2-year-old GFCI outlets on his patio. Once it even tripped the breaker. A Reddit thread reveals this is a common problem. Like the Redditors, Cizmar found temporary relief by running an extension cord into an outlet in his kitchen, but even that has failed him a few times during testing. Unfortunately, this grill is a hard pass until the issue is resolved.

During the Trinity nuclear test on July 16, 1945, in the New Mexico desert—the world’s very first test of an atomic bomb—a new material spontaneously formed. It was discovered only recently, by an international research team coordinated by geologist Luca Bindi at the University of Florence, which identified the novel clathrate based on calcium, copper, and silicon. It’s a material never before observed either in nature or as an artificial compound created in the laboratory.

What Are Clathrates?

The term “clathrates” denotes materials characterized by a “cage-like” structure that traps other atoms and molecules inside, giving them unique properties. Of great technological interest, these materials are being studied for various applications ranging from energy conversion (as thermoelectric materials capable of transforming heat into electricity) to the development of new semiconductors, to gas storage and hydrogen for future energy technologies.

The New Material

To discover the new material, researchers focused on trinitite, a silicate glass containing rare metallic phases. Using some techniques like x-ray diffraction, the team was able to identify a type I clathrate based on calcium, copper, and silicon within a tiny copper-rich metal droplet embedded in a sample of red trinitite.

The new material, the researchers say, formed spontaneously during a nuclear explosion. This indicates that the extreme conditions, such as extremely high temperatures and pressures, can generate new materials that are impossible to obtain by traditional methods.

Natural Laboratories

The discovery is even more interesting because in the same detonation event another very rare material was formed: a silicon-rich quasicrystal, already documented by the team of experts led by Bindi a few years ago.

A quasicrystal, as Bindi told WIRED at the time, is something that is not a crystal, but looks a lot like one. “Their peculiarity,” he said, “is that the atomic arrangement that is not periodic, but nearly so, creates incredible symmetries from which derive amazing physical properties, among other things, very difficult to predict.”

Establishing the link between these structures therefore helps scientists better understand how atoms organize under extreme conditions and expand the possibilities for designing new materials. “Events such as nuclear explosions, lightning strikes, or meteoritic impacts function as true natural laboratories,” the researchers explain. “They allow us to observe forms of matter that we cannot easily reproduce in the laboratory.”

In essence, this research opens new vistas for the development of innovative technologies, demonstrating that even destructive events can bequeath discoveries useful for the future.

This story originally appeared in WIRED Italia and has been translated from Italian.

As states seek out much-needed supplies of clean, reliable energy, some are looking to an unconventional source: abandoned oil and gas wells harnessed for geothermal heat.

Millions of inactive wells are littered across the United States, the relics of earlier eras of fossil fuel production. A large number of the sites have no official owner, and many are still polluting groundwater and leaking heat-trapping methane. The country has barely scratched the surface in dealing with this problem.

Policymakers in both Republican- and Democratic-led states are exploring whether these sites could instead be converted into new wells for producing geothermal energy. The holes are already drilled in the ground, after all. And regions with widespread oil and gas development have rich subsurface data that geothermal firms need in order to determine where and how to build their carbon-free systems.

The concept is relatively new and largely untested, though scientists and startups are working to change that. States are also laying the groundwork for action by lifting regulatory hurdles and launching in-depth studies.

In Oklahoma, the state Senate is considering a bill that would create a process for companies to buy abandoned oil and gas wells and repurpose them for geothermal energy or underground energy storage. Oklahoma has identified over 20,000 such wells, and state regulators estimate that it would take 235 years and hundreds of millions of dollars to plug all of them. Fixing a single old well can cost anywhere from $75,000 to $150,000 or more, by some calculations, depending on where it’s located and how complicated it is to clean up.

The Well Repurposing Act, which passed Oklahoma’s House in March, is modeled after a similar law that New Mexico adopted last year to address its 2,000-plus orphan wells.

The Oklahoma bill ​“recognizes that these wells are a liability, and that there may be a way to turn them into some sort of revenue generation and give them value,” said Dave Tragethon, communications director for the nonprofit Well Done Foundation, which works to find and cap abandoned oil and gas wells nationwide. ​“And if there’s value, that means there’s more of a willingness to address them and more of an opportunity to raise funding.”

In Alabama, legislators passed a law last month that allows the state to approve and regulate the conversion of oil and gas wells to tap alternative energy resources like geothermal. North Dakota adopted a bill last year requiring a legislative council to study the feasibility of using nonproductive wells to generate geothermal power. And in Colorado, state agencies just launched a technical study to evaluate the potential of repurposing old wells for geothermal development and carbon capture and sequestration.

These efforts reflect the growing bipartisan support for geothermal energy, which has largely remained unscathed by the Trump administration’s efforts to block renewable energy projects. The energy resource has the potential to help meet the nation’s soaring energy demand while also slashing planet-warming emissions from electricity and heating.

Converting Wells Is Enticing but Complicated

Geothermal systems work by circulating fluids underground to capture naturally occurring heat, which can then be used to drive turbines for generating electricity or to directly warm the air and water in buildings. The industry is gaining momentum thanks to recent advances in drilling methods and technologies that are making it technically possible or financially viable to access geothermal energy in more places.

Many of those breakthroughs have come from the oil and gas industry, whose skilled workforce of drilling engineers and geoscientists, and deep corporate pockets, have helped launch startups and deploy cutting-edge systems. However, most of that expertise and funding is being poured into building new projects—not figuring out how to retool leaky wells left behind by earlier generations.