NREL Analysis Identifies Where Commercial Customers Might Benefit from Battery Energy Storage

Commercial electricity customers who are subject to high demand charges may be able to reduce overall costs by using battery energy storage to manage demand, according to research by the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL).

Potential Tropical Cyclone 10 Soaks Mid-Atlantic

NOAA's GOES East satellite provided an image of Potential Tropical Cyclone 10 as it continued moving north along the U.S. East Coast.

The system is still not a tropical cyclone and the chances for the system to become a tropical cyclone appear to be decreasing. Regardless, National Hurricane Center noted that tropical-storm-force winds and heavy rains are expected over portions of North Carolina later today, Aug. 29.

A Tropical Storm Warning was in effect from north of Surf City to Duck, North Carolina and for the Albemarle Sound and Pamlico Sound.

NASA Calculates Tropical Storm Harvey's Flooding Rainfall

At NASA's Goddard Space Flight Center in Greenbelt, Maryland, an analysis of Hurricane Harvey's tremendous rainfall was created using eight days of satellite data.

NASA's Integrated Multi-satellitE Retrievals for GPM or IMERG product is used to make estimates of precipitation from a combination of space-borne passive microwave sensors, including the GMI microwave sensor onboard the Global Precipitation Measurement satellite GPM core satellite, and geostationary IR (infrared) data. 

Methane can naturally contaminate groundwater, researchers find

A team of researchers from the University of Windsor and the University of Saskatchewan have discovered that methane can naturally migrate upwards through shale over millions of years and reach groundwater without any industry influence.

“Upward migration of methane through low-porosity zones raises awareness that groundwater wells can be naturally contaminated by deeper sources of methane,” says Scott Mundle, an assistant professor of chemistry in the Great Lakes Institute for Environmental Research. “This is an important consideration when investigating potential causal links between fracking and an impacted water well.”

Record-low salmon monitoring

The Department of Fisheries and Oceans Canada (DFO) is not monitoring enough spawning streams to accurately assess the health of Pacific salmon, according to a new study led by Simon Fraser University researchers Michael Price and John Reynolds.

The study, published in the Canadian Journal of Fisheries and Aquatic Sciences, reveals that the DFO does not have enough data to determine the status of 50 per cent of all managed salmon populations along B.C.’s north and central coasts.

NASA Sees Tropical Storm Pakhar After Landfall

Just after Tropical Storm Pakhar made landfall in southeastern China and NASA-NOAA's Suomi NPP satellite captured an image of the storm.

Oil and gas wells as a strong source of greenhouse gases

The pictures went around the world. In April 2010, huge amounts of methane gas escaped from a well below the Deepwater Horizon platform in the Gulf of Mexico. This "blow-out" caused an explosion, in which eleven people died. For several weeks, oil spilled from the damaged well into the ocean. Fortunately, such catastrophic "blow-outs" are rather rare. Continuous discharges of smaller amounts of gas from active or old and abandoned wells occur more frequently.

Strength of global stratospheric circulation measured for first time

When commercial airplanes break through the clouds to reach cruising altitude, they have typically arrived in the stratosphere, the second layer of Earth’s atmosphere. The air up there is dry and clear, and much calmer than the turbulent atmosphere we experience on the ground.

And yet, for all its seeming tranquility, the stratosphere can be a powerful conveyor belt, pulling air up from the Earth’s equatorial region and pushing it back down toward the poles in a continuously circulating pattern. The strength of this circulation can significantly impact the amount of water vapor, chemicals, and ozone transported around the planet.

WPI Researchers Demonstrate New Membrane Technology That May Help Make Hydrogen Fuel Cell Vehicles Viable

While cars powered by hydrogen fuel cells offer clear advantages over the electric vehicles that are growing in popularity (including their longer range, their lower overall environmental impact, and the fact that they can be refueled in minutes, versus hours of charging time), they have yet to take off with consumers. One reason is the high cost and complexity of producing, distributing, and storing the pure hydrogen needed to power them, which has hindered the roll-out of hydrogen refueling stations.

Climate May Drive Forest-Eating Beetles North, Says Study

Pines in Canada and Much of U.S. at Risk.