Global wind power capacity has increased more than fivefold over the past decade, leading to larger turbines, but low-level jets are one cause for concern. The effects of these strong, energetic wind flows depend on how high the wind flows are in relation to the turbines. In the
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In mid-2020, amid public health crises, natural disasters, and protests calling for social justice, researchers at Stanford University, Resources for the Future, and ReconMR interviewed a random sample of 999 American adults to learn about climate opinions in the United States. With so many things to worry about in 2020, the researchers wondered, would concern about environmental issues drop?
As it turned out, Americans didn t push climate and energy to the backburner in fact, more Americans than ever consider climate change to be extremely personally important, and large majorities of Americans across the political spectrum want their leaders to take action to invest in clean energy and mitigate climate effects.
A long-cherished dream of materials researchers is a solar cell that converts sunlight into electrical energy as efficiently as silicon, but that can be easily and inexpensively fabricated from abundant materials. Scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin have now come a step closer to achieving this.
Lithium-sulfur batteries, given their light weight and theoretical high capacities, are a promising alternative to conventional lithium-ion batteries for large-scale energy storage systems, drones, electric vehicles, etc. But at present, they suffer from poor battery life, limiting their applicability. Now, scientists from Gwangju Institute of Science and Technology, Korea, have discovered a new catalyst material s ability to significantly improve lithium-sulfur battery life, opening doors to their near-future practical commercial realization.
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IMAGE: Luoye Chen (pictured) is a Ph.D. student at the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign in CABBI Sustainability Theme Leader Madhu Khanna s lab group. Alongside the research team, Chen worked to develop. view more
Credit: CABBI communications staff
Researchers at the Center for Advanced Bioenergy and Bioproducts Innovation (CABBI) found that transitioning land enrolled in the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP) to bioenergy agriculture can be advantageous for American landowners, the government, and the environment.
Land enrolled in the CRP cannot currently be used for bioenergy crop production, wherein high-yielding plants (like miscanthus and switchgrass) are harvested for conversion into marketable bioproducts that displace fossil fuel- and coal-based energy. Established by the U.S. Department of Agriculture in 1985, the CRP incentivizes landowners to retire environmentally degraded cropland, exchanging agricultural productivity for native habitats an