A look at our changing environment.
Ocean waves form as wind blows over the surface of open water. Globally, waves contain tremendous amounts of energy. Theoretically, the energy generating potential of waves off the coasts of the U.S. would meet more than 60% of the country’s electricity needs. There are a variety of methods and technologies for tapping into this energy […]
Sharks and rays belong to a group of cartilaginous fish called elasmobranchs, which have been swimming in the world’s oceans for 450 million years. The resilient species have survived five mass extinction events, and are older than dinosaurs, trees, and Mount Everest. But despite their resilience, many species of sharks and rays today are threatened […]
Americans experienced unusually cold and wintery weather in January. Places like southern Louisiana and Florida saw appreciable amounts of snow. For those who experienced January’s Arctic blast, it was a cold January. But despite that, January was the world’s warmest on record, extending a run of extraordinary heat in which 18 out of the last […]
Microplastics are small plastic pieces less than five millimeters long and typically far smaller than that. They come from a variety of sources, often from larger plastic debris that degrades into smaller and smaller pieces. There are also microbeads, which are tiny pieces of manufactured polyethylene plastic that are added to various health and beauty […]
Hydrogen has great potential for helping society to reach net-zero emissions. The problem is that the most economical and established production methods for hydrogen depend heavily on fossil fuels and result in roughly a dozen kilograms of carbon dioxide emissions for every kilogram of hydrogen produced. The carbon-free way to produce hydrogen is by splitting […]
Engineers at the University of Michigan and Rice University have developed a new technology for removing boron from seawater, an important step in turning seawater into safe drinking water. Boron is a natural component of seawater that remains a toxic contaminant in drinking water after conventional filters remove salts from seawater. The boron levels in […]
After seven months of waiting following the end of the recent El Niño condition, La Niña finally showed up in the eastern Pacific Ocean in early December. El Niño and La Niña are climate patterns in the Pacific Ocean that can affect weather worldwide. Normally, trade winds in the Pacific blow west along the equator, […]
Naysayers about renewable energy often claim that it is unreliable. It is true that the sun sets every night and sometimes the wind doesn’t blow. But with the growing use of battery banks to store excess power generated by renewables, the lack of reliability of renewable energy is turning out to be a myth. A […]
A new study by Swiss and Austrian scientists has found that persistent multi-year droughts have become increasingly common since 1980 and will continue to proliferate as the climate warms. There are multiple examples in recent years in places ranging from California to Mongolia to Australia. Fifteen years of persistent megadrought in Chile have nearly dried […]
Plants absorb nutrients and minerals from the soil as they grow and incorporate them into their leaves and stems. Such plants can be used to remove toxic elements from soil. Cleaning soil in this way is called phytoremediation. Researchers at the University of Massachusetts Amherst are trying to go beyond phytoremediation and do phytomining, in […]
Wholesale coffee prices hit record highs in the midst of the Trump administration’s deportation and tariff dispute with Colombia. But coffee prices have already been trading near 50-year highs for a while as a result of shortages related to extreme weather and increased global demand. In recent years, repeated droughts and flooding have put pressure […]
Nearly all wind turbines in use today are horizonal axis wind turbines. They are a familiar sight with their three giant rotor blades spinning about an axis high above the ground attached to a nacelle containing the gearbox and generator. A vertical-axis wind turbine has its rotor shaft transverse to the wind; that is, the […]
Permafrost covers about a quarter of the landmass in the Northern Hemisphere. It stores vast quantities of organic carbon in the form of dead plant matter. As long as it stays frozen, it is no threat to the climate. But as permafrost thaws, microorganisms start breaking down that plant matter and large amounts of carbon […]
Data centers are dedicated facilities containing computers and their related hardware equipment such as servers, data storage drives, and network equipment; they are the physical facilities that store digital data. Data centers are one of the most energy-intensive building types, consuming 10 to 50 times more energy per floor space than a typical commercial office […]
It came as no surprise that 2024 ended up as the warmest year on records. It was the hottest year since record keeping began in 1880. The global average temperature was 1.28 degrees Celsius (or 2.3 degrees Fahrenheit) above the 20th-century baseline period of 1951-1980. It was actually 1.47 degrees above the 1850-1900 average. The […]
Empire Wind 1, the first offshore wind project that will connect to the New York City grid, has received the financing needed to move forward. Equinor, the Norwegian state-owned multinational energy company developing the project, closed on a more than $3 billion financing package. The wind farm will span 80,000 acres in an area 15-30 […]
Applying salt to roadways lowers the freezing point of water and prevents slippery surfaces, which makes it safer for people to drive in wintry conditions. In the U.S., more than 22 million tons of road salt is spread every year. But road salt harms infrastructure and the environment. In fact, road salt damages cars and […]
Flow batteries are rechargeable batteries in which liquid electrolytes flow through one or more chemical cells from one or more tanks. The electrolytes are redox pairs, that is, chemical compounds that can reversibly undergo reduction and oxidation reactions. The most common redox electrolytes include elements like vanadium, chromium, iron, zinc, and bromine. Flow batteries can […]
January saw some major bouts of subfreezing temperatures across much of North America and significant snowfall in places like Pensacola, Florida and New Orleans. This spate of frigid weather undoubtedly prompted many people to question whether global warming is really happening. But such cold spells quite likely are not happening in spite of global warming, […]
A decade ago, Ecuador began a major transition to using hydroelectric power. Like in many other South American countries, the presence of abundant rivers could supply large amounts of energy and drive economic expansion and lead to a new era of prosperity. This ambitious plan has run into the impacts of climate change. An extraordinary […]