Read the full story in The Guardian. Megafarms in the US produce more than 100bn pounds of meat that fill supermarket aisles in the US and abroad. But they also produce 940bn pounds of manure annually – twice as much sewage as produced by the human population. The people who live in the shadow of ..read more

Read the full story from the Prairie Research Institute. The precise physical area of the Mahomet aquifer in central Illinois has long been shrouded in mystery, its range estimated based on scant data from a disparate collection of private well drilling and geological core samples. However, a ground­breaking technology known as helicopter-based time-domain electromagnetics (HTEM ..read more

Download the report. The State of Colorado and its cities and counties must prepare for extreme heat by creating policiesthat increase equitable access to cooling. Cooling is a fundamental public health need that Colorado’s state and local government agencies must secure for all communities. A right-to-cooling approach recognizes that cooling is essential for all Coloradans ..read more

Read the full story from the Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK). Even if CO2 emissions were to be drastically cut down starting today, the world economy is already committed to an income reduction of 19% until 2050 due to climate change, a new study finds. These damages are six times larger than the ..read more

Read the full story from the University of Toronto. Ardra Inc. aims to replace natural flavour ingredients in food with more sustainable alternatives manufactured using precision fermentation. Think of the fermenting tanks in a brewery, but instead of yeast, Ardra’s technology involves microbes that are genetically engineered to produce high-value compounds rather than ethanol ..read more

Tricia Wachtendorf, University of Delaware and James Kendra, University of Delaware People often think of disasters as great equalizers. After all, a tornado, wildfire or hurricane doesn’t discriminate against those in its path. But the consequences for those impacted are not “one-size-fits-all.” That’s evident in recent storms and wildfire disasters and in the U.S. Census ..read more

Praveen, K., Abinandan, S., Venkateswarlu, K., & Megharaj, M. (2024). “Emergy Analysis and Life Cycle Assessment for Evaluating the Sustainability of Solar-Integrated Ecotechnologies in Winery Wastewater Treatment.” ACS Sustainable Chemistry & Engineering 12(11), 4676–4689. https://doi.org/10.1021/acssuschemeng.3c08530 Abstract Innovative approaches in sustainable wastewater management are vital in addressing climate change. This study introduces a novel assessment of ..read more

Ghahremani, Ali, Scott D. Adams, Michael Norton, Sui Yang Khoo, and Abbas Z. Kouzani. 2024. “Delamination Techniques of Waste Solar Panels: A Review” Clean Technologies 6(1), 280-298. https://doi.org/10.3390/cleantechnol6010014 [open access] Abstract Solar panels are an environmentally friendly alternative to fossil fuels; however, their useful life is limited to approximately 25 years, after which they become ..read more

Read the full story from the Illinois Answers Project. For many Illinois residents who live in flood-prone areas, government buyouts provide an option when there is no other way out. Buyouts are intended to mitigate future flood risk by removing buildings that repeatedly flood and turning the land into open space.  In Illinois, there are ..read more

Download the topic brief. Engineers typically design thermal systems to provide the highest quality heat needed for industrial processes, leading to over-designed equipment that uses more energy than needed. Industrial heat pump (IHP) technology flips this approach, designing for the lowest-quality heat needed, then boosting to meet higher quality needs. This right-sizing approach reduces electricity ..read more