Day: June 23, 2017

The Biggest, Strangest ‘Batteries’

Read the full story in the New York Times.

What if you need a battery? A really big one — big enough to run a city?

It’s a question that inventors have been tackling for decades. No one wants the fridge, or the hospital, going on the blink when demand surges or the power plant needs repairs.

It turns out to be a surprisingly tricky question to answer. Today, with the rise of green energy sources like solar and wind, the need for industrial-scale energy storage is becoming ever more vital to make sure there’s power even after the sun sets or the breeze dies down.

It’s usually (but not always) still too impractical to string together enough traditional batteries — those powered by chemical reactions, like the ones in smoke alarms and Teslas — to do the job. Instead, with remarkable ingenuity, technicians have relied on a host of physical forces and states such as temperature, friction, gravity and inertia to keep energy locked up for later release.

Recycling never looked so good: Luxury-quality materials made from waste

Read the full story from CNN Style.

Recycling is a concept as old as trash itself. By now, we’re used to seeing useful materials, such as glass and paper, reprocessed into lower-grade versions of themselves, and discarded products upcycled into entirely new designs. (Emeco’s 111 Navy chair, made from 111 used Coca-Cola bottles, is a good example.)

But today we’re witnessing the emergence of a new recycling trend, driven by the luxury design industry. These versatile materials, substitutes for conventional woods, plastics and stone, come in sheet or tile form, ready to be cut, shaped and manipulated by architects and fellow designers.

I Pulled 30 Years of Weather Data to Calculate the Perfect Wedding Date

Read the full story at Motherboard.

Here’s what happens when you get engaged: you experience roughly 24 hours of heady bliss, champagne, and congratulations. Then reality descends and you remember you now have to plan a wedding.

According to common sense, Pinterest, and Emily Post, the first step is to pick a date, which should be fairly simple. But if you want to get married in the cheap showiness of nature (and in Canada) like I do, weather is a pretty big consideration. Since my fiancé is a data journalist and I’m a science journalist, we naturally decided we’d choose the date based on data.

Is It Really So Offal? ‘Ugly Food’ Boot Camp Entices Chefs And Diners

Read the full story from NPR.

This meal taps into JBF’s boot camp initiative and hits more than one sweet spot for chefs. Most obviously, the less food that goes in the trash, the more money a chef saves in an industry notorious for tight margins. But even before that, if a chef can buy the produce that a farm otherwise cannot sell — as in the case of the fruit and vegetables used for tonight’s dinner, which was supplied by food-rescue organization Hungry Harvest — that chef is helping farmers earn a living wage. And offering up an animal that promotes healthy agriculture can help cooks work toward saving the planet to boot. Win-win-win.

Strong Public Support for State-level Policies to Address Climate Change

Download the document.

This report presents findings from the Spring 2017 National Surveys on Energy and Environment (NSEE) fielded just prior to President Trump’s June 2017 announcement to withdraw the U.S. from the 2015 international climate agreement negotiated in Paris and subsequent pledges by a number of states to continue to honor their share of Paris emission reduction commitments. The data suggest that these state-level pledges match the expectations of a majority of Americans who feel that in the absence of federal action, state governments have a responsibility to act to address climate change. Furthermore, while it is still unclear what specific policies states will seek to uphold their pledges, our data finds the suite of policy options that have previously formed the backbone of state climate policy are likely to enjoy broad-based public support across the political spectrum. This even holds among those who don’t necessarily think that climate change is occurring.

Storm Surge: How States Will Have to Step Up As Disasters Become More Frequent and Expensive

Read the full series in Stateline. The two parts currently available are:

Part One: Federal Pullback, Climate Change Could Boost State Spending on Disasters
The proposed pullback, along with the threat of more frequent and more intense natural disasters linked to climate change, is already forcing cities and states to change the way they prepare for, and recover from, events like tornadoes, forest fires, floods and hurricanes.

Part Two: Using Special Nails to Save Roofs — and Dollars
More states are encouraging residents to build stronger homes now to minimize disaster costs in the future.

How Residents of Hamburg Reclaimed the Power Grid

Read the full story at Great Lakes Echo.

Because natural burial has environmental benefits over conventional burial, it is often favored by those who like to “go green.”  But it also can appeal for other, more conservative reasons.  It’s the choice of some independently-minded rural folks, and to many religious traditionalists.  Additionally, it can help out the local businesses that serve the growing demand.  In this installment episode of WEMU’s “The Green Room,” Barbara Lucas looks at natural burial benefits that go “beyond green.”

Artists Tinker with Tech at an E-Waste Warehouse

Read the full story at Hyperallergic.

For a one-night exhibition at the Lower East Side Ecology Center’s e-waste warehouse in Gowanus, artists transformed outdated and damaged devices into interactive installations and sculptures.

Recycling E-Waste with Workers Looking for a Second Chance

Read the full story at Waste360.

Indiana-based RecycleForce is taking e-waste from businesses, governments and some residents and processing them using the labor of former prisoners reentering the workforce. About 350 to 380 come through annually for four- to six-month employment stints.

Shadow hunting: ASU urban climatologist helps us keep our cool

Read the full story from Arizona State University.

In an Arizona summer, the best parking spot is not the one by the door. It’s the one a quarter-mile away under a tree.

Ariane Middel, Arizona State University urban climatologist and hunter of shadows, knows this and has created a method to show us a cool way through the shade.