By Julie Chao Farmers have enough worries – between bad weather, rising costs, and shifting market demands – without having to stress about the carbon footprint of their operations. But now a new set of projects by scientists at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) could make agriculture both more sustainable and more profitable.…
Pluton Biosciences selected for Wells Fargo innovation incubator
The Wells Fargo Innovation Incubator (IN2), a technology incubator and platform funded by the Wells Fargo Foundation and co-administered by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL), today announced that it has selected Pluton Biosciences to join the program as a member of IN2’s seventh cohort. The selected companies share a focus on developing…
SwRI opens new automotive Catalyst Technology Center
Southwest Research Institute has launched a new automotive emissions aftertreatment catalyst testing facility, expanding the capacity and capabilities of its state-of-the-art Universal Synthetic Gas Reactor (USGR) technology. These systems simulate real-world exhaust gas conditions to quickly and accurately characterize catalyst performance. The Catalyst Technology Center includes two new USGR systems, bringing SwRI’s testing capacity to…
Reducing the carbon footprint of artificial intelligence
Written by Rob Matheson, MIT News Office Artificial intelligence has become a focus of certain ethical concerns, but it also has some major sustainability issues. Last June, researchers at the University of Massachusetts at Amherst released a startling report estimating that the amount of power required for training and searching a certain neural network architecture…
Using fiber optics to advance safe and renewable energy
Fiber optic cables, it turns out, can be incredibly useful scientific sensors. Researchers at Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (Berkeley Lab) have studied them for use in carbon sequestration, groundwater mapping, earthquake detection, and monitoring of Arctic permafrost thaw. Now they have been awarded new grants to develop fiber optics for two novel uses: monitoring offshore…
Nature-inspired green energy technology clears major development hurdle
Scientist Heinz Frei has spent decades working toward building an artificial version of one of nature’s most elegant and effective machines: the leaf. Frei, and many other researchers around the world, seek to use photosynthesis – the sunlight-driven chemical reaction that green plants and algae use to convert carbon dioxide (CO2) into cellular fuel –…
Instrument may enable mail-in testing to detect heavy metals in water
Lead, arsenic, and other heavy metals are increasingly present in water systems around the world due to human activities, such as pesticide use and, more recently, the inadequate disposal of electronic waste. Chronic exposure to even trace levels of these contaminants, at concentrations of parts per billion, can cause debilitating health conditions in pregnant women,…
How are microbes attracted to an oil spill?
When containing a massive disaster like an oil spill, small microbes play a big role. Arezoo Ardekani, a Purdue University associate professor of mechanical engineering, has published research that describes the complex hydrodynamics of microorganisms at liquid-liquid and gas-liquid interfaces, showing that microbes may flock to areas where surfactant has been applied. On April 20,…
EPA awards SwRI $25 million contract for emissions testing, analytical services
Southwest Research Institute (SwRI) has received a five-year, $25 million contract from the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) to provide testing and analytical services related to vehicle emissions and fuel efficiency. SwRI will conduct emissions characterization and technology assessment under the “Testing and Analytical Services for Regulation of Motor Vehicles, Engines, and Fuels and Fuel…
Yotta to install SolarLEAF at California University
Yotta, the developer of safe panel-level energy storage, announced today that it has teamed up with California State University, Dominguez Hills (CSUDH), to install Yotta’s proprietary technology for energy storage on campus. The project has been designed to test the grid-interactive power controls of Yotta’s SolarLEAF and to ensure that critical tasks are successfully executed.…
Monitoring intermediates in CO2 conversion to formate by metal catalyst
Plants take in energy from sunlight to transform atmospheric carbon dioxide (CO2) into sugars and then other materials for growth and metabolic functions. Mimicking this photochemical reaction to efficiently convert CO2 into fuels and industrially important chemicals would support a sustainable energy future and reduce greenhouse gas emissions. To realize such artificial photosynthesis, scientists have…
Rice lab turns trash into valuable graphene in a flash
That banana peel, turned into graphene, can help facilitate a massive reduction of the environmental impact of concrete and other building materials. While you’re at it, toss in those plastic empties. A new process introduced by the Rice University lab of chemist James Tour can turn bulk quantities of just about any carbon source into…
As microbiome studies surge, new tools are needed
Written by Peter Christey, PhD, co-founder and CEO of General Automation Lab Technologies Inc. Thanks to exciting new insights into the nature and importance of microbiomes, the field of microbiology is being reinvigorated. Indeed, significant R&D resources are being committed to realizing the promise of microbiome-based diagnostics and therapeutics. Scientific papers consistently report advances…
Controllis launches carbon neutral power solution for off-grid and poor-grid telecom sites
Controllis, a supplier of hybrid power systems for mobile network operators (MNOs) and tower companies, has leveraged its experience to develop a carbon neutral site power system to help support a net zero emissions economy, established by the Paris Agreement. The new system, Controllis Zero will allow off-grid and poor-grid sites to produce cleaner energy…
A simplified way to turn food waste into hydrogen energy
Americans discard as much as 40% of their food, worth about $200 billion a year, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. A simple new method from Purdue University scientists could help cut down that amount of waste – and provide another renewable source of clean energy. The Purdue scientists developed a method to improve…
Energy – whatever the weather
To better determine the potential energy cost savings among connected homes, researchers at Oak Ridge National Laboratory developed a computer simulation to more accurately compare energy use on similar weather days. “Since no two weather days are alike, we created a simulated weather identification model that keeps environmental impacts such as temperature changes and sunlight…
The uncertain role of natural gas in the transition to clean energy
MIT study finds that challenges in measuring and mitigating leakage of methane, a powerful greenhouse gas, prove pivotal. A new MIT study examines the opposing roles of natural gas in the battle against climate change — as a bridge toward a lower-emissions future, but also a contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Natural gas, which is…
PerkinElmer Solution to analyze microplastics during two year, all-women research voyage of world’s oceans
PerkinElmer’s Spectrum Two FT-IR spectrometer solution is onboard a research trip led by eXXpedition, a not-for-profit organization running all-women sailing voyages investigating ocean plastic pollution causes and solutions. The latest mission, launched October 2019 from Plymouth, England, runs through Spring 2021 and features over 30 stops– from the Azores, Aruba, and the Galapagos, to Fiji,…
New material points toward highly efficient solar cells
A new type of material for next-generation solar cells eliminates the need to use lead, which has been a major roadblock for this technology. Solar cells, incorporating the mineral perovskite, have been the focus of attention since the material was first shown to work in 2009. Solar cells that are built using this material are…
SwRI’s new Low-Load Cycle targets heavy-duty diesel engine emissions
Southwest Research Institute engineers developed a new certification cycle, the Low-Load Cycle (LLC), to gauge the performance of heavy-duty diesel engine after-treatment systems in low-load conditions. Aftertreatment systems filter exhaust emissions and reduce pollutants escaping into the environment. SwRI’s Low-Load Cycle challenges aftertreatment systems by analyzing them in unfavorable, but common, low-load conditions, such as…
Scientists develop efficient methods to turn woody biomass into fuels
Increasing production of second-generation biofuels – those made from non-food biomass such as switchgrass, biomass sorghum, and corn stover – would lessen our reliance on burning fossil fuels, which contributes to climate change. Several barriers have prevented the efficient conversion of that biomass. Lignin, a complex compound in cell walls, blocks access to plant carbohydrates…
Antarctic ice cliffs may not contribute to sea-level rise as much as predicted
Antarctica’s ice sheet spans close to twice the area of the contiguous United States, and its land boundary is buttressed by massive, floating ice shelves extending hundreds of miles out over the frigid waters of the Southern Ocean. When these ice shelves collapse into the ocean, they expose towering cliffs of ice along Antarctica’s edge.…
Local sunshine meets local needs with global impact; key is cogenerating electricity alongside farming
A team of engineers, agronomists and economists at Purdue University’s Center for Sustainable Food, Energy and Water Systems (SFEWS), supported by the National Science Foundation, are developing novel photovoltaic (PV) module designs for use on agricultural land to cogenerate electricity while growing food crops. The enabling insights from their modeling results were just published in…
Sunlight degrades polystyrene much faster than expected
Polystyrene persists in the environment for millennia, according to some international governmental agencies. This estimate is based on the amount of time required for microbes to break down the plastic. But now researchers have challenged this common assumption with the finding that sunlight can break down polystyrene over a much shorter time scale, from decades…
Improving Crops and Inspiring the Next Generation of Scientists
“When I found out, I took off running across the lab.” That’s how Kevin Cox, a postdoctoral associate at the Danforth Center, describes the moment he found out that he had received the Hanna H. Gray Fellowship from the Howard Hughes Medical Institute. “It was definitely emotional. I had applied to this same fellowship a…