Scientific American

Fracking Can Be Done Safely, but Will It Be?

Fri, 17 May 2013 06:00:00 EST

Out of sight (and smell), natural gas slowly bubbled up into Norma Fiorentino’s private water well near the town of Dimock in northeastern Pennsylvania--in the heart of the new fracking boom in the U.S. Then, on New Year's Day 2009, when a mechanical pump flicked on and provided the spark, Fiorentino's backyard exploded. She and many others blame the blast on fracking --the colloquial name for the natural gas drilling process that combines horizontal drilling and the fracturing of shale deep underground with high-pressure water to create a path for gas to flow back up the well. [More]

400 PPM: Can Artificial Trees Help Pull CO2 from the Air?

Thu, 16 May 2013 11:01:00 EST

Carbon dioxide levels in the atmosphere have touched 400 parts per million for the first time in at least 800,000 years. The jagged saw-toothed line of the Keelings' father-and-son measurements climbed above that milestone briefly this month before the budding growth of the Northern Hemisphere's spring began sucking CO2 back out of the sky. But human greenhouse gas pollution looks set to continue to rise--and photosynthetic plants on land or at sea can only do so much. As greenhouse gas levels increase further, could machines help wash the skies of the excess CO2? [More]

Amazon Be Dammed: Deforestation Undermines Future Viability of Brazil s Hydropower Projects

Wed, 15 May 2013 17:30:00 EST

The Amazon Basin is the epicenter of the world’s hydropower plants--the same gushing rains that give the region its lush foliage make it a prime destination for developers seeking to capitalize on this allegedly renewable energy source. But the long-term sustainability of these projects, which use the natural flow of water to generate electricity, is now under scrutiny.

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Obama Administration Announces 3 Advanced-Manufacturing Innovation Institutes

Wed, 15 May 2013 10:15:00 EST

From Nature magazine

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U.K. Stockpiles Plutonium in Hopes of Future Energy

Mon, 06 May 2013 15:30:00 EST

LONDON – Britain's plutonium stockpile, the biggest in the world, has just grown by another three tonnes as the German and Dutch governments have handed over their stores, apparently glad to be rid of it.

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Remember the BP Oil Spill? Malformed Fish Do

Sun, 05 May 2013 09:00:08 EST

You’ve heard of the canary in the coalmine. Well, a species called the Gulf killifish might be the fish in the oil well.

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Airplane to Fly across U.S. Powered by Sunshine [Slide Show]

Fri, 03 May 2013 07:01:00 EST

The goal is to fly around the world using no fuel other than sunlight . But first a prototype of the solar plane to circumnavigate the globe will fly across the U.S.--taking off on May 3 and potentially proving that airplanes can fly long distances on nothing more than sunshine. [More]

Top 10 Green Buildings Improve Surrounding Environment and Users Health

Mon, 29 Apr 2013 12:05:00 EST

Most paragons of architectural greatness distinguish themselves by an ability to stand out from their surroundings. The American Institute of Architects, by contrast, has just recognized a handful of buildings for their capacity to blend in.

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Air Gun Blasts Shatter Undersea Tranquility

Sun, 28 Apr 2013 09:00:08 EST

[ audio clip ] That's the sound of air gun testing for the presence of oil and gas under the seabed. “Air gun” is a euphemism for a massive release of compressed air. Don’t like it? Neither does underwater life.

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Recommended: The Power Surge

Sat, 27 Apr 2013 12:00:00 EST

The Power Surge: Energy, Opportunity, and the Battle for America's Future [More]

Gut Microbe Makes Diesel Biofuel

Tue, 23 Apr 2013 06:00:00 EST

Welding bits and pieces from various microbes and the camphor tree into the genetic code of Escherichia coli has allowed scientists to convince the stomach bug to produce hydrocarbons, rather than sickness or more E. coli . The gut microbe can now replicate the molecules, more commonly known as diesel, that burn predominantly in big trucks and other powerful moving machines. [More]

Is Sustainability Even Possible?

Sun, 21 Apr 2013 10:00:08 EST

Some questions to ponder on Earth Day: how much of an environmental problem is the growing human population ? And is the problem too many people or the throwaway culture of too many things ?

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Energy-Harvesting Street Tiles Generate Power from Pavement Pounder

Sat, 20 Apr 2013 08:00:00 EST

PARIS--On April 7, 2013, Kenya’s Peter Some won the 37th Paris Marathon with a time of 2:05:38. A surprise winner, Some missed the event record by only 27 seconds, thus depriving him of a place in running history. He need not have worried; unknown to him and thousands of fellow marathoners, they were all nonetheless part of a historic event. As they ran across the Avenue des Champs Élysées and thumped their feet on 176 special tiles laid on a 25-meter stretch, the athletes generated electricity.

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Obama s 2014 Science Budget Proposal Revitalizes STEM Education, Reduces Environmental Conservation

Fri, 19 Apr 2013 12:40:00 EST

Among the winners in Pres. Barack Obama’s 2014 federal budget: the U.S. Geological Survey, Department of Education and National Science Foundation (NSF). The losers include agribusiness and the Environmental Protection Agency. Obama’s plan, announced April 11, is less a vision for a progressive science agenda than a reflection of political reality--specifically, the fact that he still must work with a conservative Congress. The budget gives a boost to science education and research, long-standing administration priorities. In a nod to fiscal conservatives it trims administrative costs and slashes subsidies for agribusiness. On the matter of fossil fuels, however, it largely maintains the status quo, preserving funding for drilling and fracking. Here’s a quick list of winners, losers and how the new White House budget would affect them.

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The Solar Cell That Turns 1 Photon into 2 Electrons

Thu, 18 Apr 2013 17:00:00 EST

Solar cells are picky. If an incoming photon has too little energy, the cell won’t absorb it. If a photon has too much, the excess is wasted as heat. No matter what, a silicon solar cell can never generate more than one electron from a single photon. Such harsh quantum realities severely limit the conversion efficiency of photovoltaic cells, and scientists have spent decades looking for work-arounds.

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DNA Tests Offer Quicker Results for Beach Bacteria

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 11:30:00 EST

Just in time for swimsuit season, federal researchers are touting a faster, more accurate water-quality test to keep beaches open and people healthy.

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How to Power the World without Fossil Fuels

Mon, 15 Apr 2013 07:00:00 EST

Three times now, Mark Jacobson has gone out on the same limb. In 2009 he and co-author Mark Delucchi published a cover story in Scientific American that showed how the entire world could get all of its energy--fuel as well as electricity--from wind, water and solar sources by 2030. No coal or oil, no nuclear or natural gas. The tale sounded infeasible--except that Jacobson, from Stanford University, and Delucchi, from the University of California, Davis, calculated just how many hydroelectric dams, wave-energy systems, wind turbines, solar power plants and rooftop photovoltaic installations the world would need to run itself completely on renewable energy.

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Behind the Numbers on Energy Return on Investment

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:20:00 EST

When I proposed an article to Scientific American on energy return-on-investment , also known as EROI, I didn't realize how much legwork would be involved in gathering the numbers needed for an infographic to accompany the story.

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How to Measure the True Cost of Fossil Fuels (preview)

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 07:14:00 EST

Canada's tar sand projects sprawl across 600 square kilometers of northeastern Alberta. Prime Minister Stephen Harper has called the industrial effort to extract oil from the deposits “an enterprise of epic proportions, akin to the building of the pyramids or China's Great Wall. Only bigger.”

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Should the U.S. Take North Korea s Nuclear Threats Seriously?

Thu, 11 Apr 2013 06:30:00 EST

North Korea has been threatening its neighbor to the south as well as its U.S. ally with invasion and destruction for more than 60 years. Backed by China, the North made good on the first part of this promise in June 1950, sparking the Korean War . But for the most part the decades of hostile rhetoric since the 1953 armistice that ended the fighting have amounted to little more than minor skirmishes. It’s easy to dismiss North Korea’s latest round of pronunciations and posturing as more of the same, except for one important variation in the Kim Jung-un regime’s verbiage. This time around the threat is “thermonuclear” war, and it comes about two months after North Korea’s third nuclear test prompted the U.N. Security Council to pursue additional sanctions against the North. [More]