Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

Many areas of research characterize samples under standard conditions and attempt to extrapolate these results to temperatures or an atmosphere far from ambient.  Numerous non-ambient capabilities are available within MCL, these require careful planning and special hardware, but the data collected under non-ambient conditions can be invaluable.  Variable temperature accessories are perhaps the most convenient and commonly used for non-ambient analysis.

The scale of the CO2 emissions is such that any mitigation process must generate minimal waste byproducts. Molecular hydrogen (H2) could – in principle – reduce CO2 in a waste-free manner. Here, I will discuss the thermodynamic landscape for CO2 hydrogenation and how that landscape impacts catalyst design. This thermochemical viewpoint on catalysis represents our team’s approach in developing more sustainable chemical processes.

This talk will introduce the new political-industrial ecology research initiative at the Earth and Environmental Sciences Institute. Political-industrial ecology aims to better embed the resource flows supporting industrial systems, such as energy and agriculture, in their broader political economic and specific geographic contexts. By better understanding the specific ‘ecosystem’ of industrial society, political-industrial ecology can contribute to crafting more environmentally just industrial futures. 

As the world works to limit greenhouse gas emissions to mitigate the impacts of climate change across all sectors, air travel presents a particularly difficult challenge. Aviation contributes approximately 2.5% of the world’s greenhouse gas emissions, but unlike other portions of the transportation sector, it is unlikely that electrification will meaningfully reduce emissions from air travel. To meet the demands of low-carbon flight, policymakers and the industry are turning to sustainable aviation fuel (SAF).

Join in for the kickoff of the 2024 Commonwealth Sustainability Week by PA DEP Secretary Jessica Shirley! Learn of the strategies needed & actions underway as we work together to achieve emission reduction goals within the Commonwealth by 2035 and beyond.​ Presenters: 

What: The Center for Rural Pennsylvania is hosting a Zoom webinar discussion with researchers on its recently published reports analyzing utility-scale solar energy in Pennsylvania.  

Robin Gómez is an associate professor in Weed Science at the University of Costa Rica (UCR) and president of the Costa Rican Weed Science Society (ACEM). He has an MSc. in Agricultural Sciences and Natural Resources from UCR and a PhD. in Sustainable Agriculture from Iowa State University. His research focuses on the biology, ecology, and management of weeds in tropical agroecosystems.

This presentation will briefly summarize the current state of microplastics research including: what they are, how they are being identified, the rate of expanding research, microplastics and biomonitoring, and how they are currently understood to behave in certain environments. Our microplastics work at the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) is aimed at producing literature reviews focused on human health and exposure as well as establishing collaborations.

The Stuckeman School's annual Research Open House is scheduled for Wednesday, Oct. 2, from 1:30 to 3:00 p.m. at the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space. This event aims to highlight the wide-ranging design research undertaken by the school's faculty, as well as graduate and undergraduate students. Additionally, collaborators from the College of Arts and Architecture and the broader University community will also be participating.

The US Midwest, home to over 20 percent of Americans, depends heavily on agriculture. Bellemare looks at the relationship between commodity prices---corn and soybean prices, the dominant commodities in the Midwest---and mortality in a sample of 485 Midwestern counties for the period 1980 to 2016. As outcome variables, he looks at crude or age-adjusted all-cause death rates. Commodity prices are only available at the state or global level, so he interacts (i) state-level or global commodity prices with (ii) how much of each commodity is grown within each county.

Recently, there has been a growing demand for graduate students of all disciplines to communicate well with diverse audiences about what they do and why they do it. In two consecutive sessions devoted to the composition and delivery of a short research or scholarship presentation, we will explore how structured and dynamic communication can set a speaker on a path for success. In the first session, participants will have an opportunity to draft content that summarizes their project in effective ways that will reach a non-specialized audience.

The Stuckeman School is hosting a virtual lecture titled “The 99%” by Victor Meesters of Rotor and Margo Sulnier of Rotor Deconstruction (DC) that will be live-streamed at noon on Oct. 2 in the Stuckeman Family Building Jury Space. The lecture will be followed by the Stuckeman Research Open House.

Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series Fall 2024 Céline Martin American Museum of Natural History ​​Host: Maureen Feineman

Computed tomography (CT) is a non-destructive technique that is used to investigate the 3D structure in a wide range of materials of both biologic and synthetic origin, from manufactured metal parts to delicate insect specimens. With this technique, samples can be analyzed ranging from the size of cockroach antenna to a bear skull. Using image analysis software, visualization, processing, and quantification of internal and external features can produce eye-catching images, videos, and both quantitative and qualitative information, all with little to no harm to the sample.

In many startups and corporate environments, technical roles, such as those occupied by chemical engineers, are often isolated from business operations, creating a divide between specialized technical expertise and broader business functions. Since completing my PhD at Pennsylvania State University, I have actively worked to dismantle these boundaries, continuously seeking new roles and opportunities within Geno and often pioneering positions that had never existed before - all driven by a desire to create impact.

In this first climate solutions talk I will discuss how climate change and the push for clean energy might worsen dust-related health problems for miners and look for ways to fill the gaps in knowledge on how mining dust affects health. This study presents an incontrovertible visual proof of prevalence of nano-sized mineral dust during raw material extraction, utilizing advanced techniques such as scanning electron microscopy (SEM).

I will introduce the Center for Gas Turbine Research, Education, and Outreach (GTREO). Gas turbine engines are one of the largest contributors to the U.S. electric power grid, and are the dominant means of aircraft propulsion. Did you know the temperatures inside some parts of a gas turbine engine are hotter than lava, and that we have two of them at University Park that can produce about 40% of our campus electricity?

Fall 2024 EarthTalks Series: Legal Elements of the Energy Transition

Meryl Mims is an associate professor in the Department of Biological Sciences at Virginia Tech and an affiliated faculty member with Virginia Tech's Global Change Center and Invasive Species Collaborative. Meryl received her PhD from the University of Washington in 2015 and held a postdoctoral fellowship with the U.S. Geological Survey before joining the faculty at Virginia Tech. Along with members of her lab, Meryl studies how species' traits interact with the environment to influence populations and communities of organisms and their vulnerability to climate change.

Aerosols, or particles, emitted into the air have adverse effects for regional air quality and health. In addition, aerosols significantly impact earth’s climate and the hydrological cycle. They can directly reflect the amount of incoming solar radiation into space; by acting as cloud condensation nuclei (CCN), they can indirectly impact climate by affecting cloud albedo. Our assessment of the interactions of aerosols and clouds is uncertain and parameters used to estimate cloud droplet formation in global climate models are not well constrained.