Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive

Jesse Lasky, Penn State University

Steve Norman '02g is a Research Ecologist with the USDA

Geochemistry Forum: Methanosarcina acetivorans and the Methane-Iron Bicycle with James Ferry, Department of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology, Penn State

Karl Zimmerer, PSU Geography December 6, 2019 @ 12:00 am to 12:00 am 312 Ag Engineering University Park

This four-hour workshop for faculty at Penn State is a starting point for building new collaborative projects. It will feature brief reports from the many initiatives at Penn State that seek to mitigate the effects of climate change through reducing ghg emissions, whether by sequestering carbon, managing soil and forests, building alternative energy infrastructure, encouraging conservation, or other means. It will also include work being done in the humanities, arts, and other fields to begin exploring collaborative possibilities. The central goals for this workshop are to:

Part of the Energy for the Future Seminar: Dr. Srikanta Mishra of the Institute Fellow and Chief Scientist (Energy) at Battelle Memorial Institute will present "Big Data Analytics: What Can It Do For Petroleum Engineers And Geoscientists?"

David Padgett Meteo Colloquium Urban Climate Vulnerability: Global to Local Scales

The National Flood Insurance Program suffers from insolvency partially attributable to premium subsidies for older, vulnerable properties. Efforts to phase out subsidies are slow, with policymakers and constituents concerned over the impacts of subsidy removal on housing markets. Using an exogenous break in subsidy eligibility specified in the original legislation, we estimate nationwide and metro region-specific difference-in-differences models to identify the capitalization of subsidy eligibility in home values.

Zachary Moon, Meteorology and Atmopsheric Science, Penn State

Katherine Zipp, Pennsylvania State University, 'Water in All the Wrong Places: Economics Meets Geosciences'

While the evidence of climate change and plastic pollution abounds around us, many people still deny the problems and few of us have made substantial and sustained behavioral changes to address them. In two studies, we focus on the impact of art on sustainable behavior. Art sometimes makes us see things differently and put ourselves in the picture. How can art be used to communicate the need to make difficult behavior changes, such as the need to live a more sustainable life or reduce our consumption of plastic?

In this presentation, Dr. Odette Mina will highlight the Energy and Environmental Sustainability Laboratories (EESL) capabilities and opportunities for collaboration. EESL are shared multi-user instrumentation facilities at Penn State that tie together world-class instrumentation and expertise in a broad array of analytical techniques covering materials in all phases. EESL was created to offer researchers the opportunity to work with cutting-edge research equipment in areas of energy and the environment.

The PADEP Energy Programs Office is addressing energy resilience and security through a partnership with a new program called PEER, or Performance Excellence in Electricity Renewal. Modeled after the LEED rating system for Green Buildings and run by GBCI and USGBC, PEER is a new tool to measure and improve power system performance in cities, commercial and industrial complexes, and developed campuses such as military installations. With PADEP's support, up to five entities in Pennsylvania will receive a free technical assessment of their power system and possible PEER certification.

Geochemistry Forum: Tracking Paleogene lake level change and its long-term cyclicities with Meng Wang, Meng Wang, Ph.D. student from School of Earth Resources, China University of Geosciences

Dr. Sarah McAnulty, founder of #SkypeAScientist, an organization that connects classrooms with scientists around the world, will be speaking at the HUB on Thursday, November 21st starting at 4:30 pm. Her talk is entitled Entertaining Before You Educate: Framing Science Communication for Your Audience. All are welcome to attend!

EME Energy for the Future Seminar Series: Data-Driven Modeling of Weather-Induced Power Outages Dr. Seth Guikema, Professor, Dept of Industrial and Operations Engineering, Dept Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Michigan; Professor II, Dept. of Economics, Planning & Safety, University of Stavanger (Norway); Data Science Research Follow, One Concern, Inc. 401 Steidle Building @ 04:00 PM

Meteorology and Atmospheric Science Colloquia: Reconciling Predictability and Uncertainties in Seasonal Predictions and Future Projections of Tropical Cyclone Activity with Dr. Gan Zhang, Postdoctoral Research Associate, Program in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences, Princeton University

This webinar will describe a suite of collaborative modeling (CM) methods employed to assess and enhance the climate resiliency of snow-fed arid lands river systems in the Truckee-Carson River System in the western United States.

Housing is the most important asset for the vast majority of American households and a key driver of racial disparities in wealth. This paper studies how residential segregation by race eroded black wealth in prewar urban areas. Using a novel sample of matched addresses from prewar American cities, we find that over a single decade rental prices soared by roughly 50 percent on city blocks that transitioned from all white to majority black. Meanwhile, black families paid a 28 percent premium to buy a home on a majority white block.

Rebecca Payne, Geosciences and Astrobiology, will present Tiny meteorites, big implications for the early Earth: oxidized micrometeorites suggest high pCO2 or low pN2 during the Archean