• U.S. geological carbon dioxide storage potential

    The United States has the potential to store a mean of 3,000 metric gigatons of carbon dioxide (CO2) in geologic basins throughout the country. Technically accessible storage resources are those that can be accessed using today’s technology and pressurization and injection techniques. The most common method of geologic carbon storage involves pressurizing CO2 gas into a liquid, and then injecting it into subsurface rock layers for long-term storage.

  • Increasing food production from existing farmland

    A policy known as sustainable intensification could help meet the challenges of increasing demands for food from a growing global population. The goal of sustainable intensification is to increase food production from existing farmland. Sustainable intensification would minimize the pressure on the environment in a world in which land, water, and energy are in short supply.

  • Research network to search for extraterrestrial intelligence launched in U.K.

    A network has been launched to promote academic research in the United Kingdom relating to the search for extraterrestrial intelligence. The network brings together academics from eleven institutions across the country, and it covers a broad spectrum of research topics, including potential methods for detecting signals, the linguistic challenge of deciphering messages, the probability of an extraterrestrial civilization interacting with Earth, and the longevity of civilizations.

  • U.S. tax code has minimal effect on CO2, other greenhouse gas emissions

    Current federal tax provisions have minimal net effect on greenhouse gas emissions, according to a new report from the National Research Council. The report found that several existing tax subsidies have unexpected effects, and others yield little reduction in greenhouse gas emissions per dollar of revenue loss.

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  • Life on Earth will end 2.8 billion years from now due to increasingly luminous Sun

    All species have finite lifetimes, with each eventually facing an event that leads to its extinction. . Ultimately, a combination of slow and rapid environmental changes will result in the extinction of all species on Earth, with the last inhabitants disappearing within 2.8 billion years from now. The main driver for these changes will be the Sun. As it ages over the next few billion years, the Sun will remain stable but become steadily more luminous, increasing the intensity of its heat felt on Earth and warming the planet to such an extent that the oceans evaporate.

  • El Nino unusually active in the late twentieth century: study

    Spawning droughts, floods, and other weather disturbances world-wide, the El Niño-Southern Oscillation (ENSO) impacts the daily life of millions of people. During El Niño, Atlantic hurricane activity wanes and rainfall in Hawaii decreases while Pacific winter storms shift southward, elevating the risk of floods in California. The ability to forecast how ENSO will respond to global warming thus matters greatly to society.

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  • Improving crop resilience, yields in a world of extreme weather

    Farmers in the United States witnessed record-breaking extremes in temperature and drought during the last two summers, causing worldwide increases in the costs of food, feed and fiber. Indeed, many climate scientists caution that extreme weather events resulting from climate change is the new normal for farmers in North America and elsewhere, requiring novel agricultural strategies to prevent crop losses. UC Riverside-led research team develops new chemical for improving crop drought tolerance.

  • Renewables to surpass gas by 2016 in the global power mix: IEA

    An International Energy Agency (IEA) report says power generation from hydro, wind, solar, and other renewable sources worldwide will exceed that from gas and be twice that from nuclear by 2016.

  • Transporting diluted bitumen through pipelines does not increase likelihood of release

    Scientific study has found that the thick Canadian crude oil, known asdiluted bitumen, whichwould be shipped to the U.S. through the Keystone XL pipleline is no more dangerous than transporting other types of crude oil.

  • Environmentalists begin a summer of protest against Keystone project

    A coalition of environmentalist groups calling itself “fearless summer” launched what it said would be a series of protests against the Keystone XLL pipeline project. Near the city of Seminole, Oklahoma, members of the group shackled themselves to industrial equipment and disruoted work at Keystone-related construction site. Ten were arrested.

  • The future of Colorado River flows

    The Colorado River provides water for more than thirty million people, including those in the fast-growing cities of Las Vegas, Phoenix, and Los Angeles. Increasing demand for that water combined with reduced flow and the looming threat of climate change have prompted concern about how to manage the basin’s water in coming decades.

  • Policy, regulatory issues hobble hydropower as wind-power backup

    Theoretically, hydropower can step in when wind turbines go still, but barriers to this non-polluting resource serving as a backup are largely policy- and regulation-based, according to researchers.

  • Methane, ethane, and propane found in water wells near shale gas sites

    Homeowners living within one kilometer of shale gas wells appear to be at higher risk of having their drinking water contaminated by stray gases, according to a new study. Scientists analyzed 141 drinking water samples from private water wells across northeastern Pennsylvania’s gas-rich Marcellus shale basin. Their study documented not only higher methane concentrations in drinking water within a kilometer of shale gas drilling — which past studies have shown — but higher ethane and propane concentrations as well.

  • Smart technologies tackle global food shortage

    From monitoring soil moisture to measuring oyster heartbeats, Aussie farmers can help to tackle the global food shortage and significantly increase their productivity by taking advantage of new smart farming technologies enabled by next generation broadband networks.

  • Bolstering pre-disaster resilience significantly reduces post-disaster recovery cost

    A new study finds that the federal government spends six times more on post-disaster disaster recovery efforts than on helping communities become more resilient to extreme weather which is predicted to become more intense and frequent. The study, citing Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) estimates, calculates that for every $1 invested in “pre-disaster” mitigation, the cost of damage from extreme weather is reduced by $4.