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Flooding is the world's most devastating natural disaster, causing widespread destruction and loss of life. Millions of Americans live in high-risk flood zones, with the threat amplified by climate change and aging infrastructure. This episode explores how innovative computer modeling and visualizations can help communities plan for future flood risks and develop effective response strategies.
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Carbon dioxide (CO2) is abundant and stable, making it difficult to convert into something useful without a lot of energy. Researchers are using advanced computational modeling to find a catalyst that can efficiently transform CO2 into valuable products. This could turn CO2 from a climate issue into a valuable resource.
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Our planet is at a critical crossroads. In Season 5 of Growing Impact, we delve into groundbreaking research with the power to transform our world. This season offers a deep dive into the vast and varied research at Penn State, showcasing its pivotal role in advancing a healthier planet and improving the well-being of people everywhere.
Growing Impact is a podcast by the Institute of Energy and the Environment at Penn State. Each episode explores cutting-edge projects of researchers and scientists who are solving some of the world's most challenging energy and environmental issues.
For more information about this and other projects, along with transcripts and much more, please visit: https://iee.psu.edu/podcast -
Wind power has come a long way from its humble beginnings as water pumps and windmills. Today, it's a major contributor to our electricity generation. While onshore wind farms are well-established, the U.S. has yet to tap into the full potential of offshore wind. With advancements like floating turbines and improved blade designs, wind energy is poised for another significant leap forward.
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Before the early 20th century, light measurement lacked a standard, repeatable approach. At that time, scientists developed a spectral sensitivity curve, representing the "average human observer." This graph quantified light output and standardized lamp brightness calculations. Although experts recognized its imperfection and proposed alternatives, this graph, remarkably, remains the standard a century later. On this episode of Growing Impact, we discuss light sources, the measurement of those sources, and how updating this century-old standard could significantly improve energy efficiency.
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Storing carbon dioxide underground could offset the record amounts of CO2 that humans emit each year. If this technology is successful, it could be an answer to climate change impacts, such as rising temperatures and acidification of the ocean. However, the process is complex and costly. A team of researchers is exploring one way liquid CO2 could be injected into rock formations, which may efficiently convert the molecule into a solid.
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Once a frozen haven, climate-driven rising temperatures are rapidly thawing the Arctic permafrost, posing a major threat to communities and infrastructure. Researchers are investigating how these changes will transform rivers, with potential consequences for erosion, sediment transport, and the entire Arctic landscape. Additionally, their project incorporates art to communicate these critical findings in an engaging way.
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The global push to involve youth in climate action is gaining momentum, harnessing their innovative spirit, deep investment in the future, and strong collective voice to combat climate change. Getting young people involved ensures that climate policies are forward-thinking and geared towards sustainable development, while their global solidarity and use of digital platforms amplify the call for urgent action. At the forefront of this movement, Penn State's Global Youth Storytelling and Research Lab aims to become a pivotal transnational research hub, empowering young leaders to shape the future of climate and environmental justice.
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For decades, PFAS (per- and polyfluoroalkyl substances) have been a staple in products from detergents to cosmetics, making items more durable and resistant to water and stains. However, the creation and use of these "forever chemicals" is not without consequences. They persist in the environment and are now ubiquitous, even in our drinking water. Emerging evidence links PFAS exposure to significant health risks, prompting a team of researchers to evaluate affordable filtration technology. The team's project aims to safeguard drinking water, especially in communities reliant on well water, by effectively removing PFAS, thus mitigating their impact on public health.
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Solar energy's surge, driven by cost efficiency and climate change urgency, is prompting a rapid transition to a renewable energy source with substantial land requirements. This trend parallels past land rushes, like the contentious Marcellus Shale gas movement, triggering reservations among farmers as well as rural citizens and landowners. To inform just and sustainable rural land use with solar, a research team is working in rural communities to determine the potential for harmonious coexistence between solar and agriculture.
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The Colorado River passes through five states on its way to Mexico, supplying water to municipalities, farms, and industry. It supports more than a trillion dollars in economic activity and supplies water to an estimated 40 million people. The overuse of the Colorado River and an extensive climate change-driven drought have significantly decreased the volume of the fifth largest river in the U.S. A research team is exploring how climate change and agricultural adaptation will affect water availability in the Upper Colorado River Basin and what is important to communities that depend on the river.
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Contrails, the cloud-like streaks left in the sky by jets, are artificial clouds that are similar in nature to natural cirrus clouds, the thin, high-altitude clouds that spread across the sky in wispy fingers. Contrails, like cirrus clouds and unlike thicker, lower-altitude clouds, can allow a considerable amount of solar radiation to penetrate to the Earth's surface, warming the planet. Contrails can also trap that energy in the Earth's atmosphere, increasing the warming effect. As aviation looks to grow in the coming years, there is concern about the increasing impact of contrails on climate change. A new interdisciplinary project will use expertise in aerodynamics, satellite imaging, and sustainability to identify opportunities to mitigate the climate impacts of contrails.
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Malawi, like many countries in Africa, is facing environmental challenges including deforestation, soil erosion, and unsustainable farming practices. However, restoring the land is much more complex than planting additional trees. The degradation of the land is closely related to the socio-economic status of the people of Malawi, who are connected to the land through agriculture as well as social, cultural, and religious traditions. While Malawi has pledged to restore degraded lands, it is not clear if any efforts are accomplishing what they intended. A research group is using Malawi as a case study to better inform policies and practices in forest landscape restoration.
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Wastewater treatment plants serve approximately 75% of Americans—more than 248 million people. However, many people do not recognize the energy burden these facilities create, which can be more than 30% of a municipality's energy bill. Most of this energy comes from fossil fuels. With rising energy costs and the worsening climate crisis, some wastewater treatment plants have started using solar energy. Because solar adoption at wastewater treatment plants is still relatively new, there is little known about these facilities, including where they are, what drove them to choose solar, and if solar has been a success. A team of researchers looks to fill in those gaps with a new project.
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Plastic is part of virtually every aspect of our lives. However, our relationship with this hydrocarbon-based material is complex. As much as we use plastic, it often gets a bad rap. Images of plastic bottles and plastic bags clogging waterways and nightmarish tales of microplastics invading our food supply make it is easy to point the finger at plastic as the villain. Nonetheless, it seems that plastic will be a part of our lives for the foreseeable future. Thus, it is crucial to find better ways to handle plastic waste. That is what one research team is taking on, and their idea is to use one of nature's foremost degraders: fungi.
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In season four, Growing Impact is expanding: more team members from different disciplines and deeper conversations around the challenges their project is addressing, the inspiration that turned an idea into a project, and the solutions that may arise from these interdisciplinary researchers.
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Substance use is similar to extreme weather due to climate change in multiple ways. Both have had impacts in rural towns and big cities. Both can impact any socio-economic class. Both are here to stay for the foreseeable future, and both can damage lives. Another connection is the impact of one on the other, specifically, how extreme weather, like flooding, can impact a community's ability to support those afflicted with substance use disorder.
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Every material that makes up a building, be it steel, concrete, wood, or plastic, has a greenhouse gas emission associated with it. This is called embodied carbon, and calculating the amount of GHG for one building is achievable. However, calculating that number for an entire city is still a challenge. To assist policymakers to better manage their city's carbon emissions, a team of researchers is developing a methodology to calculate embodied carbon for an entire city.
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As cities are built, a lot of vegetation is replaced with building materials such as concrete and brick. These materials absorb the sun's heat and then radiate it back into the atmosphere. This leads to urban heat islands where cities are much hotter than the surrounding areas. But trees offer shade and cooling, reducing the temperature in cities. So, what is stopping cities from planting more trees? That is what one research team is investigating.
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Creating laws and policies informed by science and facts was not always the primary method used by legislators and policymakers. Until around 2000, policies were often based on a policymaker's intuition. Today, there are concerted efforts to get vetted, fact-based scientific research on numerous topics into the hands of policymakers. One of those topics is climate change and its impacts on human health. Climate change presents a huge array of health problems, and helping policymakers know how to address them as climate change accelerates will continue to be a very important scientific and practical problem.
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