Introduction to Environment & Sustainability
Ohio Wesleyan University, Department of Environment & Sustainability
Champion Travel found that:
More:Â One SpaceX Rocket Launch Produces the Equivalent of 395 Transatlantic Flights worth of CO2 Emissions
This battery would charge the average US home for about 3 weeks:
According to the US Energy Information Administration, the average annual electricity consumption for a U.S. residential utility customer was 10,766 kilowatt-hours (kWh) in 2016. This is an average of 897kWh per month, around 30kWh per day, or 1,250 watts. (source)
Maersk has teamed with Trident Maritime Systems to create a 600 kWh container battery that can be placed on a container-hauling ship to provide power. The battery is now en route to be installed on the Maersk Cape Town container vessel.
The Cape Town, built in 2011, is flagged from Singapore and carries cargo between West Africa and East Asia. The battery will be installed on the ship in December 2019 and its first voyage with the new technology will happen early in 2020. The battery module was designed to take the place of a cargo container on the ship and can be charged in port, will take charge from the shipâs generator, and from the Cape Townâs waste heat recovery system. The lattermost system is in place on most Maersk ships and recharges the shipâs batteries by using the heat created by engine exhaust to create electrical power.
More:Â Maersk puts a giant battery on a container ship to improve efficiency
Residents in each U.S. county can see how they are connected to all other counties in the country via food transfers. Overall, there are 9.5 million links between counties on our map.
All Americans, from urban to rural are connected through the food system. Consumers all rely on distant producers, agricultural processing plants, food storage like grain silos and grocery stores, and food transportation systems.
Below: Maps of food flow networks within the United States. Maps depict total food flows (tons) for the (A) FAF and (B) county scale. Links are shown for all FAF data and for the largest 5% of county links.
Read More:Â The first map of Americaâs food supply chain is mind-boggling
Article w/methodology:Â Food flows between counties in the United States
Industrial development usually targets poor communities, but Ascension Parish is one of the richest, and most toxic, places in Louisiana. Some residents say the financial benefits of living there outweigh the risks.
After World War II, âyou started to see the aggressive push of industry into rural, predominantly black, plantation lands,â said Craig Colten, a Louisiana State University history professor who has written books about the stateâs industrial development.
But Louisianaâs love affair with oil and gas, while disproportionately affecting black communities, has hardly spared white communities.
Ascension Parish is perhaps the clearest example of this phenomenon.
More:Â Even Louisianaâs Wealthier Neighborhoods Canât Escape Toxic Air in âCancer Alleyâ
Diligent work by a team of 500 goats has helped save the Ronald ReaganPresidential Library from wildfires that are ravaging parts of California.
The library deployed the goat squadron during the spring in order to munch their way through around 13 acres of scrubland around the library that couldâve provided tinder-like fuel to a wildfire.
This preventive action created a fire break between the library and the Easy fire, which has menaced thousands of homes in the Simi Valley near Los Angeles. More than 1,000 firefighters are tackling the blaze, which caused flames to approach the presidential library from a nearby hillside. Treasures saved include a piece of the Berlin Wall and Air Force One.
More:Â Five hundred goats save the Ronald Reagan library from wildfires
More:Â âGoats are the best toolâ: grazers in high demand to reduce US wildfire risk
The global energy transition is happening faster than the models predicted, according to a report released today by the Rocky Mountain Institute, thanks to massive investments in the advanced-battery technology ecosystem.
Previous and planned investments total $150 billion through 2023, RMI calculatesâthe equivalent of every person in the world chipping in $20. In the first half of 2019 alone, venture-capital firms contributed $1.4 billion to energy storage technology companies.
âThese investments will push both Li-ion and new battery technologies across competitive thresholds for new applications more quickly than anticipated,â according to RMI. âThis, in turn, will reduce the costs of decarbonization in key sectors and speed the global energy transition beyond the expectations of mainstream global energy models.â
More:Â Huge Battery Investments Drop Energy-Storage Costs Faster Than Expected, Threatening Natural Gas
Russian scientists tracking migrating eagles ran out of money after some of the birds flew to Iran and Pakistan and their SMS transmitters drew huge data roaming charges.
After learning of the team’s dilemma, Russian mobile phone operator Megafon offered to cancel the debt and put the project on a special, cheaper tariff.
The team had started crowdfunding on social media to pay off the bills.
The birds left from southern Russia and Kazakhstan.
The journey of one steppe eagle, called Min, was particularly expensive, as it flew to Iran from Kazakhstan.
Min accumulated SMS messages to send during the summer in Kazakhstan, but it was out of range of the mobile network. Unexpectedly the eagle flew straight to Iran, where it sent the huge backlog of messages.
The price per SMS in Kazakhstan was about 15 roubles (18p; 30 US cents), but each SMS from Iran cost 49 roubles. Min used up the entire tracking budget meant for all the eagles.
The Russian researchers are volunteers at the Wild Animal Rehabilitation Centre in Novosibirsk. Their crowdfunding appeal, which has paid off more than 100,000 roubles (ÂŁ1,223), was called “Top up the eagle’s mobile”.
More:Â Migrating Russian Eagles Run Up Huge Data Roaming Charges
So… did you think “that’s fair!” or something else?
An Arkansas hunter was killed Tuesday by a deer he assumed was shot dead, said Keith Stephens, a spokesman for the Arkansas Game and Fish Commission.
Thomas Alexander, 66, was an experienced hunter who had lived in the Yellville, Ark., area for several years, Stephens said. He was hunting Tuesday in the nearby Ozark Mountains using a primitive firearm known as a muzzleloader, according to Stephens, and called a family member at 6:30 p.m. to tell them he had successfully shot a buck.
But the timeline of events becomes less clear after that.
Stephens isnât sure if Alexander, a licensed hunter, immediately left his deer stand or waited before approaching the buck. Muzzleloader season runs from Oct. 19-27, Stephens said â but regardless of the firearm, the commission recommends waiting at least 30 minutes to ensure a shot deer is actually dead.
More:Â A hunter was fatally gored by the deer he thought he killed, officials say
Externalities: Paying with your health (and related costs for increased health care)
Correlation between air pollution and serious medical emergencies (in England):
Each year emergency services see more than 120 additional cardiac arrests, more than 230 additional strokes and nearly 200 more people with asthma requiring hospital treatment on days of high pollution compared with the average on days of lower pollution.
The data, to be published in full next month, shows the extra strain that poor air quality is putting on already stretched NHS emergency resources
More: Scores more heart attacks and strokes on high pollution days, figures show.
And in the US: a new study reveals
After declining by 24.2% from 2009 to 2016, annual average fine particulate matter (PM2.5) in the United States in counties with monitors increased by 5.5% between 2016 and 2018.
More:Â Recent Increases in Air Pollution: Evidence and Implications for Mortality
On August 28, the EPA approved the first-ever bee-distributed organic pesticide for the US marketâa fungus-fighting powder called Vectorite that contains the spores of a naturally occurring fungus called Clonostachys rosea (CR-7). CR-7 is completely harmless to its host plant and acts as a hostile competitor to other, less innocuous fungi. It has been approved for commercial growers of flowering crops like blueberries, strawberries, almonds, and tomatoes.
The beauty of Vectorite is that it mimics a âlocally appropriate natural system,â said Vicki Wojcik, director of Pollinator Partnership Canada. âItâs an interesting twist⌠where care for the health of the pollinator is actually vital because it is your actual vector.â
Thus… bee vectoring.