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Categories: Energy: Fossil Fuels, Environmental: Water

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The next generation of sustainable energy technology might be built from some low-tech materials: rocks and the sun. Using a new approach known as concentrated solar power, heat from the sun is stored then used to dry foods or create electricity. A team has found that certain soapstone and granite samples from Tanzania are well suited for storing this solar heat, featuring high energy densities and stability even at high temperatures.

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One of Australia's first long-distance walkers has been described after palaeontologists used advanced 3D scans and other technology to take a new look at the partial remains of a 3.5 million year old marsupial from central Australia.   They have named a new genus of diprotodontid Ambulator, meaning walker or wanderer, because the locomotory adaptations of the legs and feet of this quarter-tonne animal would have made it well suited to roam long distances in search of food and water when compared to earlier relatives.

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Researchers have published new findings on how our warming climate will affect the frequency of flash droughts and the risk to croplands globally.

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The quest to develop hydrogen as a clean energy source that could curb our dependence on fossil fuels may lead to an unexpected place -- coal. Scientists have found that coal may represent a potential way to store hydrogen gas, much like batteries store energy for future use, addressing a major hurdle in developing a clean energy supply chain.

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The Midwestern United States has lost 57.6 billion tons of topsoil due to farming practices over the past 160 years, and the rate of erosion, even following the U.S. Department of Agriculture's guidelines, is still 25 times higher than the rate at which topsoil forms. Yet, we need not despair: researchers recently reported that no-till farming, which is currently practiced on 40 percent of cropland acres in the Midwest, can extend our current level of soil fertility for the next several centuries. This has implications for everything from food security to climate-change mitigation.

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A team of engineers has recently shown that nearly any material can be turned into a device that continuously harvests electricity from humidity in the air. Researchers describe the 'generic Air-gen effect'-- nearly any material can be engineered with nanopores to harvest, cost effective, scalable, interruption-free electricity. The secret lies in being able to pepper the material with nanopores less than 100 nanometers in diameter.

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A new study has used global storm-resolving simulations and machine learning to create an algorithm that can deal separately with two different scales of cloud organization: those resolved by a climate model, and those that cannot be resolved as they are too small. This new approach addresses the missing piece of information in traditional climate model parameterizations and provides a way to predict precipitation intensity and variability more precisely.

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A new study has revealed that drying laundry using a condenser tumble dryer leads to hundreds of tons of potentially harmful microfibers being released into waterways and oceans across the UK and Europe.

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Scientists have successfully conducted a simultaneous marine and atmospheric measurements at multiple locations directly beneath a violent, Category 5, which is the strongest class, typhoon in the North-West Pacific, before it reached land.

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Nontraditional water sources can be deployed to help cope with climate-induced water risks and tackle the increasing water demand for decarbonization of fossil fuel-fired power plants, but that could increase the cost of electricity generation by 8 percent to 10 percent.

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A team of researchers has found a mechanism in thale cress (Arabidopsis thaliana) which enables plants to provide protection against salt stress for their sensitive stem cells in the meristem at the root tip.

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Droughts can be good for trees. Certain trees, that is. Contrary to expectation, sometimes a record-breaking drought can increase tree growth. Why and where this happens is the subject of a new article.

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Seawater is full of bacteria, hundreds of thousands live in every liter. But the sheer number of bacteria living in the water does not necessarily mean a lot. More important is how active they are and how quickly they duplicate.

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Mountain snowpack, typically seen as the water tower of the Western United States and Canada, is in decline, according to a new study. Researchers created the Snow Storage Index to assess snow water storage from 1950-2013 and found that storage has significantly declined in more than 25% of the Mountain West, in part because more snow is melting during winter and spring.

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Researchers took a deep dive into the economic and environmental value of community recycling efforts and compared it to the value of other climate change mitigation practices, concluding it provides a return on investment.

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A team of researchers has created a new supply chain model which could empower the international hydrogen renewable energy industry.

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Better understanding the formation of swirling, ring-shaped disturbances -- known as vortex rings -- could help nuclear fusion researchers compress fuel more efficiently, bringing it closer to becoming a viable energy source. A mathematical model linking these vortices with more pedestrian types, like smoke rings, could help engineers control their behavior in power generation and more.

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New evidence for the presence of ancient lakes in some of the most arid regions of South Africa suggests that Stone Age humans may have been more widespread across the continent than previously thought.

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Fifty-three percent of the world's largest freshwater lakes are in decline, storing less water than they did three decades ago, according to a new study. The study analyzed satellite observations dating back decades to measure changes in water levels in nearly 2,000 of the world's biggest lakes and reservoirs. It found that climate change, human consumption and sedimentation are responsible.

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A newly published artificial intelligence (AI) algorithm is allowing researchers to quickly and accurately estimate coastal fish stocks without ever entering the water.