The World Coal Association reports that, “Coal provides around 30% of global primary energy needs, generates 41% of the world's electricity, and is used in the production of 70% of the world's steel.” Furthermore, as oil resources diminish, coal use as a source of liquid fuels and chemicals is expected to increase.
Past Events: Penn State Energy and Environment Calendar Archive
You're viewing an archived collection of past energy and environment events from around Penn State and beyond. Please visit our Event Calendar to view current and upcoming events.
The ICLRS serves as the premier international meeting for an exchange of ideas among landfill researchers throughout the world! In contrast to other meetings, the focus of this meeting is on leading-edge research covering all aspects of landfills. The objectives of the symposium are to (1) assemble the world’s leading researchers and practitioners in the solid waste field, (2) address a broad range of topics related to landfills, and (3) discuss and debate current knowledge and future directions. The emphasis of the ICLRS is on critical discussion and detailed exploration of a topic.
The field of MultiSector Dynamics (MSD) offers a perspective that bridges sectors and disciplines to identify dynamic and adaptive pathways for societal transitions. This talk will present the research vision set forth by the MSD Community of Practice, as well as some of our planned activities and ways to interact with the community more broadly. Convergent research is central to our research vision, bringing together concepts and methods from multiple research communities, expanding open science capacities, and leveraging revolutions in data and computing.
Designed for the busy professional, this virtual workshop takes place on four consecutive Thursday afternoons. The Center of Excellence in Industrial Biotechnology (CoEIB) is gathering prominent faculty and industry professionals as course leaders. The goal is to provide you with the knowledge in fermentation to actively participate in the actions your company is taking every day.
Graduate Students' Distinguished Lecture: Rich Rotunno
The rotating-flow boundary layer is an essential part of geophysical fluid dynamics in phenomena ranging from synoptic-scale cyclones to dust devils. In this talk I review what I consider to be the basic concepts that I think all meteorologists (and others) should be familiar with. I will illustrate these concepts using results from the literature on laboratory experiments, tropical cyclones and tornadoes.
Natural disasters provide opportunities for decision-makers to learn about climate risks. However, relying only on personal experiences results in temporary and slow learning. This paper examines whether social learning takes place in that decision-makers learn from peer experiences. Using the Facebook Social Connectedness Index (SCI) to construct a network adjacency matrix, we estimate a Network Difference-in-differences (NDID) model to account for the social learning effects of peer flood experiences.
The Millennium Café runs 10-11am in the 3rd floor Café Commons of the MSC Bldg. Join researchers from across campus for a stellar cup of coffee and two <10 min interdisciplinary talks.
Transforming BioSTEM Education through Foundational Research Experiences
The Center for Artificial Intelligence Foundations and Scientific Applications (CENSAI) is pleased to welcome Dr. A. Gilad Kusne, staff scientist with the National Institute of Standards and Technology, in our monthly distinguished speakers series. Dr. Kusne will present on his work related to autonomous materials research.
Autonomous Materials Research and Discovery at NIST
For at least three decades, young people (younger than 30 years of age for the purposes of this work) have sought to intervene in adult-dominated policy and lawmaking processes around the issue of climate change. Within the last 15 years, young people have formed large-scale, transnational protest movements, launched climate change lawsuits, and disrupted formal (climate) governance processes at many scales and in many sites.
The Sustainability Showcases are weekly discussions highlighting the interdisciplinary nature of sustainability by creating a platform for stakeholders to engage with one another. In addition, the series makes connections between faculty research, personal and professional interest, and the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.
Rhiana Gunn-Wright, one of the leading architects of the Green New Deal, is at the center of creating lasting, inclusive solutions to combat climate change. While she works to engage older generations in fight against climate change, she sees the struggle as primarily generational. Young people will bear the brunt of the crisis so they must lead the fight for change. In this lecture, she will discuss her work as a climate activist and policy expert and inspire the Penn State student community to join the fight for creating just and urgent responses to the climate crisis.
Join the Nittany AI community for a celebration of student innovation and collaboration in pursuit of AI for Good. This event is for anyone connected to the Nittany AI community — students, faculty, staff, friends, industry partners, nonprofits, and beyond.
Designed for the busy professional, this virtual workshop takes place on four consecutive Thursday afternoons. The Center of Excellence in Industrial Biotechnology (CoEIB) is gathering prominent faculty and industry professionals as course leaders. The goal is to provide you with the knowledge in fermentation to actively participate in the actions your company is taking every day.
It can be forgiven, right? It was 50 years ago–satellite weather prediction was still in its infancy, nothing like the sophisticated systems we have in place today. Surely something like Hurricane Agnes, which at the time was the costliest hurricane to ever hit the United States and dumped more than 14 trillion gallons of water on Pennsylvania, would not repeat its damage were it to arrive today? We’re safer today aren’t we?
API Chief Economist Dean Foreman, Ph.D., is proactively engaging with policymakers, business leaders, allied trade associations, academic and industry forums concerning current energy market dynamics. Please join us to discuss U.S. and global oil and natural gas market fundamentals in context with economic growth, geopolitics, and energy policies.
Registration required for Zoom.
Bio:
Climate model simulations are known to be highly sensitive to parameter choices in the sub-grid-scale representation of deep convection, as deep convection plays a critical role in the transport of heat and momentum globally. Over the years, it has also become evident that the intermodel spread in climate sensitivity is largely driven by uncertainty in the magnitude of the cloud feedback in the tropics, specifically the low cloud feedback. This begs the question: how do cloud feedbacks and climate sensitivity relate to deep convection?
In reaction to the oil crisis of the mid-1970s, the U.S. government imposed a ban on crude oil exports. This ban was largely symbolic until the “shale revolution” essentially doubled U.S. production of crude oil after 2010. However, this new U.S. light crude oil production growth was not well matched with the existing capacities of domestic refineries, many of which were configured to process heavier crude oil streams. Once the crude oil export ban was lifted at the end of 2015, U.S. light crude oil could be processed by non-U.S. refineries, and in turn this better enabled U.S.
Department of Geosciences Colloquium Series presents Kathleen Johnson, UC Irvine
Host: Maureen FeinemanSpeleothem constraints on tropical hydroclimate dynamics
Flooding is the most frequent natural disaster globally and across the U.S, as well as in Pennsylvania where flood-related impacts are predicted to worsen with climate change. As we recognize the 50th anniversary of Hurricane Agnes and the devastating impacts of floods globally this year, we will be hosting a series of talks on flood-related research and topics during the 2022-2023 Water Insights series. These talks will be once a month, starting on September 6th.
Incorporating species’ ability to adaptively respond to climate change is critical for robustly predicting persistence and identifying mitigation strategies. In the Galápagos, 95-97% of corals were bleached and killed in the 1982-83 El Niño event, representing a region with an extended bleaching history and a useful analog for future reefs worldwide under climate change. Some Galápagos coral communities have shown signs of recovery and persistence through more recent ENSO events. These corals may be uniquely thermally resistant, derived from heat tolerant survivors and/or new recruits.