Growing Impact: Season 5

3-minute listen/watch | 1-minute read

Our planet is at a critical crossroads. In Season 5 of Growing Impact, we delve into groundbreaking research with the power to transform our world. This season offers a deep dive into the vast and varied research at Penn State, showcasing its pivotal role in advancing a healthier planet and improving the well-being of people everywhere.

Transcript

Host

Our planet faces challenges. In season five of Growing Impact, we'll explore research innovations with the potential to change the world. 

We'll explore how 3D flood visualizations better show communities the dangers of future flooding due to climate change.

Kaleigh Yost

Without that communication tool, it's very difficult for the public and decision-makers to make informed decisions about when they should evacuate, how they should prepare, and what to do in the face of these increasingly frequent and severe flood events.

Host

We'll also discuss the science of turning carbon dioxide into useful products, creating a commodity out of the threat.

Nelson Dzade

If we are able to emulate nature and successfully convert CO2 into useful chemical intermediates without the need of any extreme conditions like temperature and pressure, the benefits are going to be very enormous. You will see that one of the major gases which is responsible for our climate change will become an important feedstock.

Host

Plus, we'll look into an efficient and sustainable cooling solution with huge energy-saving potential and zero carbon emissions.

Herschel Pangborn

A double-digit percentage of our energy goes into heating and cooling in buildings. That is emissions. That's cost. So rather than take energy off the grid in order to provide this cooling, let's try to take the energy that's already out there that's not being used. This is a way of extracting mechanical energy from motion and turning that into cooling in buildings.

Host

Season five will also visit past projects that have resulted in extraordinary real-world impacts. This includes helping smallholder farmers across Africa, Asia, and the Americas adapt to climate change and combat agricultural pests and disease.

David Hughes

If we are trying to feed 10 billion people on a 2.6-degree Celsius hotter world, we need domain expertise. We need to bring in experts. It's what has saved us through the Dust Bowl. And it's what's going to save us into the future.

Host

We'll also speak with researchers who have a unique method of detecting catastrophic hazards, like landslides and sinkholes, before they happen.

Tieyuan Zhu

So, we actually can detect that a low-velocity zone. So that'll tell us, oh, here is a potential cavity. And then, if you go to the surface, you look at the soil thickness, you can tell, oh, this is a potential sinkhole development area.

Host

Growing Impact: Season 5 will provide an inside look at the breadth and depth of Penn State research and its significant contributions to a healthy planet and healthy people. Join us on October 1 for Growing Impact: Season 5. Visit iee.psu.edu/podcast.