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Carbon dioxide (CO2)

carbon dioxide (CO2)

An important heat-trapping gas, also known as a greenhouse gas, that comes from the extraction and burning of fossil fuels (such as coal, oil, and natural gas), from wildfires, and natural processes like volcanic eruptions.

Source: NASA Source

is both an essential resource for life on Earth and a greenhouse gas contributing to global warming. Today, scientists are investigating CO2 as a promising resource that can be utilized to create renewable low-carbon fuels and high-value chemical products. The challenge for researchers has been to identify efficient and cost-effective CO2 conversion pathways to premium carbon intermediates, such as carbon monoxide, methanol, or formic acid.

Science Careers in Search of Women (SCSW) offers female high school students an extraordinary opportunity to explore STEM professions and areas of interest through interaction with the laboratory’s world-class scientists and engineers. The program strives to inspire young women to pursue careers in science by bringing them into the laboratory for a day of lectures, tours, career booth exhibits, and mentoring.

Aurora’s speed and artificial intelligence

artificial intelligence

A machine-based system that can, for a given set of human-defined objectives, make predictions, recommendations or decisions influencing real or virtual environments.

Source: U.S. Department of State Source

capabilities will transform scientific research and enable breakthroughs in some of the world’s most pressing challenges, from climate and materials science to energy storage and fusion energy.

fusion energy

A multi-disciplinary field focused on the science needed to develop an energy source based on a controlled thermonuclear fusion reaction.

Source: U.S Department of Energy Source

The Aurora supercomputer at the U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Argonne National Laboratory has officially surpassed the exascale threshold, measuring over a quintillion calculations per second on the new Top500 list.

New research identifies chemical reaction among aerosols

aerosols

Small particles or droplets, such as wildfire smoke, volcanic gases, or salty sea spray, that float in the air. They are emitted by both natural events and human activities.

Source: NASA Global Climate Change Source

that will impact atmospheric model predictions of organic aerosol concentration and size. Atmospheric aerosols play a significant role in Earth’s climate. Understanding the formation of organic particles in the atmosphere is key to understanding cloud properties and formation, and as a result, unraveling future climate change.

climate change

A change in the average conditions — such as temperature and rainfall — in a region over a long period of time.

Source: NASA Climate Kids Source

Iron and steel production are among the most challenging sectors to decarbonize

decarbonize

Decarbonization involves the reduction or eradication of carbon dioxide emissions from specific systems, such as industries, economies, or societies.

Source: Source

in the industrial sector. They are currently responsible for 11% of global carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions. The U.S. Department of Energy’s (DOE) Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy recently announced $28 million in funding under the Revolutionizing Ore to Steel to Impact Emissions program.

For 17 months, a field campaign in Tasmania will collect unprecedented data on southern ocean aerosol-cloud-precipitation interactions. To date, what scientists know about cloud and aerosol properties over the Southern Ocean is largely from satellite data sets and a scattering of ship-based efforts. A sustained, long-term campaign like CAPE-k will help expand atmospheric data in a region that Australian atmospheric chemist Melita Keywood calls “the most under-observed in the world.”

More communities could be at risk for contracting mosquito-borne diseases. A research team at Los Alamos National Laboratory is using computer models to simulate how climate change could expand the geographical range in which mosquitoes live, which may cause an increase in mosquito-borne illness. The study was recently published in the Journal of Climate Change and Health.

Local decision-makers looking for ways to reduce the impact of heat waves on their communities have a valuable new capability at their disposal: a new study on vegetation resilience. Scientists at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory completed a study of how well vegetation survived extreme heat events in both urban and rural communities across the country in recent years. The analysis informs pathways for climate mitigation, including ways to reduce the effect of urban heat islands.

heat island

Structures such as buildings, roads, and other infrastructure absorb and re-emit the sun’s heat more than natural landscapes such as forests and water bodies. Urban areas, where these structures are highly concentrated and greenery is limited, become “islands” of higher temperatures relative to outlying areas.

Source: EPA Source

The wind industry could benefit from the use of artificial intelligence (AI) to design and deploy wind plants, according to an article in Nature Energy written by researchers at the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy

renewable energy

Renewable energy comes from unlimited, naturally replenished resources, such as the sun, tides, and wind. Renewable energy can be used for electricity generation, space and water heating and cooling, and transportation.

Source: U.S Department of Energy Source

Laboratory (NREL). The researchers developed an AI-based surrogate model called the Wind Plant Graph Neural Network (WPGNN), which was trained on simulations of more than 250,000 randomly generated wind plant layouts under various atmospheric conditions, plant designs, and turbine operations.

In the face of accelerating climate change, the U.S. aims to reduce the net carbon emissions of its economy to zero by 2050. Achieving this goal will require an unprecedented deployment of clean energy technologies, and a significant transformation of the nation’s energy infrastructure. It is an exceptionally complex and daunting challenge. But it is not impossible if we harness the transformative capabilities of artificial intelligence, or AI, to help.

Today, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) announced $16 million in funding for four projects providing classroom training and research opportunities to train the next generation of accelerator scientists and engineers needed to deliver scientific discoveries. These programs will train the next generation of scientists and engineers, providing the expertise needed to lead activities supported by the DOE Office of Science.

Argonne joins scientists from across federal agencies to explore artificially shading the Earth’s surface to slow global warming. As the levels of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere continue to increase and climate change impacts become more costly, the scientific community is redoubling efforts to investigate the potential risks and benefits of artificially shading Earth’s surface to slow global warming.