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May 20, 2013

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6:40 PM | Shale Gas Fracking Has No Impact on Groundwater in Arkansas, Study Concludes
A new study by scientists at Duke University and the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS) finds no evidence of groundwater contamination from shale gas production in Arkansas. “Our results show no discernible impairment of groundwater quality in areas associated with natural gas drilling and hydraulic fracturing in this region,” said Avner Vengosh, professor of geochemistry and water quality at Duke’s Nicholas School of the Environment. Read more »

Warner, N., Kresse, T., Hays, P., Down, A., Karr, J., Jackson, R. & Vengosh, A. (2013). Geochemical and isotopic variations in shallow groundwater in areas of the Fayetteville shale development, north-central Arkansas, Applied Geochemistry, DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
Citation
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5:40 PM | You’re Never Alone When You’re with a Drone
By David Gessner Last Tuesday, as I do almost every day, I went for a walk in the woods with Missy, my yellow lab. We were deep in a thicket near the North Carolina coast when I heard the sound of metallic wings growing close. A police helicopter came down low, blowing the tops of the trees sideways, passing over three times. My walk changed instantly -- suddenly becoming a lot less Walden, a lot more Goodfellas. This had never occurred before on one of my […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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3:05 PM | New Supercomputer Will Focus Solely on Energy Research
A new water-cooled 155 teraflop supercomputer dubbed “BlueM” will allow scientists at the Colorado School of Mines to run large simulations in support of the university’s core research areas while operating at the forefront of algorithm development using a powerful hybrid system. Read more »
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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2:20 PM | When a 'Dry Spell' Goes On Forever, Do As The Romans Do, Why Your State Bird Is All Wrong
By The Editors An evaporating way of life: Man, talk about burying the lede. Here's a bone-chilling line from halfway down a news story about the High Plains Aquifer, which stretches from the Dakotas to the Texas Panhandle -- and whose southern portion is so "tapped out" that much of the farmland above it is basically no longer irrigable: "In the end, most farmers will adapt to farming without water." Well, then! Thanks for that, Mr. Kansas State […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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1:32 PM | Australian Scientists Are Printing Solar Cells Like T-Shirts
Scientists have produced the largest flexible, plastic solar cells in Australia—10 times the size of what they were previously able to—thanks to a new solar cell printer that has been installed at Commonwealth Scientific and Industrial Research Organization (CSIRO). The printer is relatively cheap, uses common industrial chemicals and the resulting solar cells have a decent power output of approximately 1-8W per square foot (10-80W per m2). Read more »
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy

May 17, 2013

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8:51 PM | Strategies for Breaking Even on Home Energy Consumption Suggested
When you are buying a car you always look at official miles per gallon figures to find out how much fuel it will use. At the same time, most people have only a vague idea about how much energy their houses consume, even though home energy expenditures often account for a larger share of the household budget. Read more »

N.A. McNabb (2013). Strategies to Achieve Net-Zero Energy Homes: A Framework for Future Guidelines Workshop Summary Report., NIST Special Publication, DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
Citation
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6:09 PM | Scientists Trying to Photograph Photosynthesis
Photosynthetic oxidation of water is one of the central processes of life on Earth, but it is still not completely understood. Now, a German-American team of scientists has set out to observe the intermediate stages of this complex catalytic reaction using ultrashort snap shots taken at light sources including BESSY II in Berlin and the Linac Coherent Light Source at Stanford. Read more »

Kern, J., Alonso-Mori, R., Hellmich, J., Tran, R., Hattne, J., Laksmono, H., Glockner, C., Echols, N., Sierra, R., Sellberg, J. & Lassalle-Kaiser, B. (2012). Room temperature femtosecond X-ray diffraction of photosystem II microcrystals, Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences, 109 (25) 9721-9726. DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
Citation
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3:49 PM | Frog Fungus and the Pregnancy Test of Doom
By Jason Bittel Things are not going well for frogs. A type of fungus known as chytrid has decimated populations around the globe, causing the serious decline or extinction of 200 species. Even worse, scientists believe chytrid is capable of infecting most of the world’s 6,000-some amphibian varieties -- an event that would likely be cataclysmic for food chains worldwide. Luckily, a paper published in the online journal PLOS One this week offers some […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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2:55 PM | Public-Private Partnership to Deploy Hydrogen Infrastructure in the U.S.
This week, the Energy Department launched H2USA—a new public-private partnership focused on promoting hydrogen infrastructure to support more transportation energy options for U.S. consumers, including fuel cell electric vehicles (FCEVs). The new partnership brings together automakers, government agencies, gas suppliers, and the hydrogen and fuel cell industries to coordinate research and identify cost-effective solutions to deploy infrastructure that can deliver affordable, clean hydrogen […]
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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2:19 PM | For the Inner Artist in All of Us: Illustrated Bacterium
      This one is for you, Jac. Related articles New Image Page (mhrussel.wordpress.com) Image: E. coli on cellulosic biomass (mhrussel.wordpress.com) A proud day: I did it! Scene 1 from my bacteria animation (mhrussel.wordpress.com) Filed under: Bacteria, Education, Nature, STEM Tagged: Animation, Bacteria, bacteria as art, Biology, Microorganism, Nature, Science, STEM
Taking Science to the People
Microbiology | Energy
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2:16 PM | Seals with Swine Flu, Cotton to the Rescue, All Our Hairy Relatives in One Place
By The Editors Fracking fracas: The Obama administration proposed new rules for fracking on federal land yesterday that aimed to please both environmentalists and energy producers. Good luck with that. Green-friendly Massachusetts Congressman Edward Markey says the regulations would give drillers permission to “frack first and ask questions later,” while Big Oil buddy and North Dakota senator John Hoeven argues that the rules would “exacerbate […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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1:33 PM | New Project Will Forecast Solar Generation to Smooth Fluctuations
The California Energy Commission (CEC) has awarded $1.7 million to a partnership between Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory and Cool Earth Solar Inc. (CES) to conduct a community-scale renewable energy integration demonstration project at the Livermore Valley Open Campus. The central idea of the project is to use solar forecasting to make photovoltaic power generation more reliable and thus more widely used. Read more »
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy

May 16, 2013

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8:13 PM | Renault Becomes Formula E Technical Partner
Renault S.A., a French multinational vehicle manufacturer known for its role in motor sport, and its success over the years in rallying and Formula 1, has signed on as official Technical Partner of Spark Racing Technology to supply the Formula E cars to be entered in the FIA Formula E Championship. Formula E is intended to be the highest class of competition for one-make, single-seat, electrically powered racing cars. The series was conceived in 2012, with the inaugural championship to be held […]
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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6:04 PM | Researchers Develop New Way to Produce Hydrogen From Water and Sunlight
Using a combination of microanalytic techniques that at the same time image photoelectric current and chemical reaction rates across a surface on a micrometer scale, researchers at the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) have shed new light on what may become a cost-effective way to generate hydrogen gas directly from water and sunlight. Read more »

Esposito, D., Levin, I., Moffat, T. & Talin, A. (2013). H2 evolution at Si-based metal–insulator–semiconductor photoelectrodes enhanced by inversion channel charge collection and H spillover, Nature Materials, DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
Citation
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4:16 PM | Weekend Reads: Martha Stewart Tracks Polar Bears, Your Inner (Icky) Wilderness, Is That the Nuclear Waste That's Burning?
By The Editors Five #greenreads to enjoy while sending samples of your family's feces to the lab.Michael Pollan in the New York Times Magazine on our inner jungle: Much of the wild world needs conserving, but one wilderness that has escaped most of our attention (perhaps purposefully) is the one within us. Entire ecosystems live within our gut, on our skin, and in our mouths, noses, eyes, and colons. And we have a lot to learn about them. After getting lab […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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3:18 PM | Fitting a model to data
In studying the earth, we can't afford to take enough observations, and they will never be free of noise. So if you say you do geoscience, I hereby challenge you to formulate your work as a mathematical inverse problem. Inversion is a question: given the data, the physical equations, and details of the experiment, what is the distribution of physical properties? To answer this question we must address three more fundamental ones (Scales, Smith, and Treitel, 2001): How accurate is the […]
Agile*
Energy | Geosciences
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1:55 PM | Gold Goes Green, Fish Go Polar, Sick Mosquitoes Go for Stinky Socks
By The Editors Consider the numbers crunched: An exhaustive survey of thousands upon thousands of peer-reviewed journal articles on climate change reveals a whopping 97.1 percent of them agree that climate change is caused by human activity (a 2004 study found a similar consensus). The survey looked at work from 29,000 scientists in 11,994 academic papers. Will this move the needle for the American public? (And perhaps more importantly, American […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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1:23 PM | Expedition Assessed Gas Hydrate Reserves in the Gulf of Mexico
A joint-federal-agency 15-day research expedition in the northern Gulf of Mexico yielded innovative high-resolution seismic data and imagery that will help refine characterizations of large methane hydrate resources in the U.S. Outer Continental Shelf. Known reservoirs are expected to contain 6,700 trillion cubic feet of gas—more than the largest “conventional” natural gas fields. (According to the International Energy Agency, the South Pars natural gas condensate field located in the […]
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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2:08 AM | An Inside Look At The Science Of Eating Grass
Reblogged from Dinner Table Science: Cows are cool.  And here is why. They're not especially smart, or amazingly athletic, nor are they formidable predators or experts of camouflage.  Their main survival tactic is to be large and to move in groups.  But what's really cool about cows, is that they are ruminants. A ruminant is a mammal that […]
Taking Science to the People
Microbiology | Energy

May 15, 2013

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8:46 PM | People ‘Concerned’ About Fracking, But Like the Money It Brings
Most Michigan and Pennsylvania residents say that hydraulic fracturing (commonly known as fracking) is good for the economy, but have concerns about chemicals used and other environmental risks, according to a recent survey done by the University of Michigan. Read more »
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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8:07 PM | Overinflated: Why the NYC Bike Share Backlash Is a Good Thing
By Tom Vanderbilt No revolution is deserving of the label if it doesn't provoke resistance from a threatened establishment. That’s why the backlash against Citi Bike -- the new bike-sharing program scheduled to put 6,000 bikes and 330 stations on New York City’s streets by the end of the month -- is a positive development. Let us first qualify. As far as backlashes go, the anti-Citi Bike outcry is fairly tame stuff: a smattering of lawsuits, some very […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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7:56 PM | Combing the Earth One Genome at a Time: In Pursuit of “The Next Big Thing” in Sustainability
There is one thing that can be said about scientists: they’re never satisfied…thankfully. Observation and curiosity leave them on a never-ending quest to understand Mother Nature and improve humanity. One great example of this is the field of alternative energy science. Through the efforts of the Bioenergy Research Centers (BRCs) and Joint Genome Institute within […]
Taking Science to the People
Microbiology | Energy
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4:33 PM | The Modern Prometheus: Scientists Uncover the Secret of ‘Magnetic Fire’
A group of physicists from the New York University have uncovered how energy is released and dispersed in magnetic materials in a process similar to the spread of forest fires. This finding not only has the potential to deepen our understanding of self-sustained chemical reactions, but also could open new exciting possibilities for energy storage. Read more »

Subedi, P., Vélez, S., Macià, F., Li, S., Sarachik, M., Tejada, J., Mukherjee, S., Christou, G. & Kent, A. (2013). Onset of a Propagating Self-Sustained Spin Reversal Front in a Magnetic System, Physical Review Letters, 110 (20) DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
Citation
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2:24 PM | Birds Vs. Blades, a Polar Bear Takes Flight, Wandering Whales Get the Seismic Treatment
By The Editors Not exactly the wind beneath our wings: Large wind farms are threatening many birds of prey, an investigation says, including the iconic golden eagle. “Flying eagles behave like drivers texting on their cellphones; they don't look up. As they scan for food, they don't notice the industrial turbine blades until it's too late.” (See “In-Flight Safety Information,” Spring 2012, for possible fixes to the problem.) Although fossil fuel […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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1:18 PM | It’s Dangerous to Go Off-Grid, Take Solar Lantern With You
As we have written earlier this week, universal access to modern energy could be achieved with an investment of between 65 and 86 billion US dollars per year up until 2030. However, as millions of people around the world still do not have electricity in their homes, a new solar-powered lantern developed by Panasonic might come in handy. Read more »
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy

May 14, 2013

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9:53 PM | Scientist Ralph Keeling -- Son of the Keeling Curve's Namesake -- on What It Means to Reach 400 ppm
By Susan Freinkel In 1958, a year before Ralph Keeling was born, his father set up an atmospheric monitoring station on a Hawaiian volcano. The average daily level of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere at the time stood at about 315 parts per million -- higher than it had been for most of human history, but not by much. Late last week, headlines around the globe reported that monitors on that same Hawaiian volcano were showing CO2 concentrations in the […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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8:33 PM | Investing in Palm Oil Production Technology Has Positive Effects on Environment and Income
Investing in an advanced technology in palm oil production will reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 80%, improve the economic return of the palm oil mill, and increase the net income of smallholder fresh fruit bunch (FFB) producers and middlemen. Read more »
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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7:09 PM | Graphene Redefines Electric Current, Literally
A new joint innovation by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) and the University of Cambridge could pave the way for redefining the ampere in terms of fundamental constants of physics. The world’s first graphene single-electron pump (SEP), described in Nature Nanotechnology, provides the speed of electron flow needed to create a new standard for electrical current based on electron charge. Read more »

Connolly, M., Chiu, K., Giblin, S., Kataoka, M., Fletcher, J., Chua, C., Griffiths, J., Jones, G., Fal'ko, V., Smith, C. & Janssen, T. (2013). Gigahertz quantized charge pumping in graphene quantum dots, Nature Nanotechnology, DOI:

The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
Citation
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7:09 PM | A Desire Named Streetcar
By Jeff Turrentine When President Obama nominated Charlotte, North Carolina, Mayor Anthony Foxx to head the U.S. Department of Transportation last month, he cited among Foxx’s other relevant accomplishments “a new streetcar project that’s going to bring modern electric tram service to [Charlotte’s] downtown area.” All well and good. But honestly, if enthusiasm for downtown streetcar projects was a prerequisite for the job, the president could […]
OnEarth
Energy | Environment
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5:57 PM | Nissan Field Tests Zero-Emission Electric Van
Nissan Motor Company has started the field tests of its new electric compact van, e-NV200, in Saitama City (Japan). Saitama City is promoting the adoption of electric vehicles by bringing together different interested parties, under a program called E-KIZUNA. Since 2009, the project promotes electric vehicles as means to address global warming and create a sustainable low-carbon society. Read more »
The Daily Fusion
Environment | Energy
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