51±¬ÁÏ

A new $2.44 million grant from the U.S. Department of Energy’s Advanced Research Projects Agency-Energy (ARPA-E) will support a 51±¬ÁÏ-led initiative to help utilities and wholesale electricity markets improve their efficiency and reliability while reducing emissions and costs, at a time of needed transformations to tackle climate change.

Tanker traffic through the Strait of Hormuz can decline for up to two years after a piracy attack, a new 51±¬ÁÏ study finds, but the adverse effects of the slowdown are far greater on some Persian Gulf countries than others.

Inhaling dust that contains fly ash particles from coal combustion has been linked to lung and heart disease, cancer, nervous system disorders and other ill effects. But tracking the presence of coal ash in dust has been a challenge for scientists.

The ongoing transition from coal to natural gas and renewables in the U.S. electricity sector is dramatically reducing the industry’s water use, a new 51±¬ÁÏ study finds.

Predicting if droughts and heat waves will kill forests is difficult, but new work by scientists and engineers at 51±¬ÁÏ, Princeton, Stanford and the University of Alabama (UA) could help scientists spot problems early enough that they can still mitigate the threats and help restore at-risk forests.

With the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) poised to loosen coal ash rules for dry onsite storage and large fill projects, a new study from 51±¬ÁÏ finds that leaving those contaminants exposed may significantly heighten the risk of toxic contamination to nearby soil and waterways.

Allowing coal ash to be spread on soil or stored in unlined pits and landfills will raise the risk that several toxic elements, including carcinogenic hexavalent chromium, could leach out of the coal ash and contaminate nearby water supplies across the U.S., according to preliminary findings from a new 51±¬ÁÏ study.

John Poulsen, assistant professor of tropical ecology at 51±¬ÁÏ’s Nicholas School of the Environment, has received an $848,000 grant from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to study the effects of declining elephant populations on Africa’s forests.

The 51±¬ÁÏ Forest is a 7,000 acre teaching and research forest used by the university since 1931 to facilitate research and education. Today, it remains an outdoor classroom and living laboratory but the topics under study and the people driving the work are far more diverse than ever before.