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The U.S. Department of Energy Office of Science is pleased to announce virtual office hours to share information and provide opportunities for the research community to ask questions about the Biological and Environmental Research (BER) program. Researchers at all institutions are welcome to attend and learn more about the BER program. Each office hour will be in the form of a Zoom meeting, starting with a brief presentation on the indicated topic, followed by questions.

We know that greenhouse gas emissions like carbon dioxide

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

should increase rainfall. The emissions heat the atmosphere, causing a one-two punch: warmer oceans make it easier for water to evaporate, and warmer air can hold more water vapor, meaning more moisture is available to fall as rain. But for much of the 20th century, that increase in precipitation didn’t clearly show up in the data.

A modeling analysis led by the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory gives the first detailed look at how geothermal

geothermal

Heat energy from the earth—Geo (earth) + thermal (heat).

Source: US Department of Energy Source

energy can relieve the electric power system and reduce carbon emissions if widely implemented across the United States within the next few decades. Researchers created a simulation model of the mass deployment of geothermal heat pumps, or GHPs, in commercial and residential buildings from 2022 through 2050.

Pablo Moriano, a research scientist in the Computer Science and Mathematics Division at the Department of Energy’s Oak Ridge National Laboratory, was selected as a member of the 2024 Class of MGB-SIAM Early Career Fellows. Moriano is one of just eight new members chosen for their early career achievements, namely the advancement of industrial and applied mathematics, computational science and data science, as well as support for diversity, equity and inclusion efforts in his research community.

Transit and school bus fleets across the nation are working hard to incorporate clean transportation solutions that help communities meet decarbonization goals and improve local health outcomes. However, planning for and deploying zero-emission fleets is a tall order, leaving many fleet managers with more questions than answers. To help solve the problem, the 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) announced the $5 million Clean Bus Planning Awards (CBPA) program on February 20.

Meet Angel McCoy, whose childhood fascination with earth science

earth science

The study of the Earth's structure, properties, processes, and four and a half billion years of biotic evolution.

Source: NSF Source

led her to her current role as an offshore wind energy regulation specialist at NREL. McCoy chose meteorology and started her career as a meteorologist at the National Weather Service’s Climate Prediction Center, where she worked for four years before taking a job at the U.S. Department of the Interior’s Bureau of Ocean Energy Management (BOEM). That role was not what she expected, but it put her on the path that led to her current role at NREL.

Intense research efforts have been directed toward studying the electrochemical

electrochemical

A discipline of chemistry concerned with the interconversion of electrical and chemical energy.

Source: Source

conversion of CO2, a major greenhouse gas, into platform chemicals and fuels. The success of this technology can enable decarbonization of some of the largest CO2 emitters including steel, cement and chemical manufacturing industries. Copper is unique in its ability to convert CO2 at low temperatures to a diverse range of products such as carbon monoxide, ethylene and ethanol

ethanol

A renewable fuel made from corn and other plant materials.

Source: US Department of Energy Source

at industrially viable current densities.

Engineers at the University of Cincinnati created a more efficient way of converting carbon dioxide into valuable products while simultaneously addressing 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

In his chemical engineering lab in UC’s College of Engineering and Applied Science, Associate Professor Jingjie Wu and his team found that a modified copper catalyst improves the electrochemical conversion of carbon dioxide into ethylene, the key ingredient in plastic and a myriad of other uses.

Climate scientists worldwide share a language called integrated assessment models (IAMs). The computer simulations make cost-benefit sense of policies affecting climate change. For a team of Pacific Northwest National Laboratory (PNNL) researchers, the models were the common thread for a three-year project assisting counterparts in Malaysia and Thailand in exploring carbon-neutral pathways.

Use of drones to conduct radiological surveys from the sky, contamination monitoring 200-feet underground, and analysis of environmental data with 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

tools, were among the captivating emerging technology themes discussed at the Global Summit on Environmental Remediation, which addressed a breadth of challenges, barriers, and innovative solutions for successful remediation and long-term stewardship of contaminated sites worldwide.

Pacific Northwest National Laboratory researchers use chemometric

chemometric

Defined as the application of mathematical and statistical methods to chemistry.

Source: NIH Source

analysis to model chemistry in molten salt. Uranium fuel dissolved in salt that is heated above its melting point is one design for a molten salt reactor (MSR), an advanced reactor concept for clean energy generation. How will nuclear power plant operators know what is happening within that extreme environment? How will they know if everything is running as expected?

Argonne is part of a multi-institutional effort to survey the sky for clues about the origins and nature of our universe. For more than five years, scientists at the South Pole Telescope in Antarctica have been observing the sky with an upgraded camera. The extended gaze toward the cosmos is picking up remnant light from the universe’s early formation. Now researchers have analyzed an initial batch of data, publishing details in the journal Physical Review D.