Washington State University researchers have created a sustainable alternative to traditional concrete using coal fly ash, a waste product of coal-based electricity generation.

The advance tackles two major environmental problems at once by making use of coal production waste and by significantly reducing the environmental impact of concrete production.

Xianming Shi, associate professor in WSU’s Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and graduate student Gang Xu, have developed a strong, durable concrete that uses fly ash as a binder and eliminates the use of environmentally intensive cement. They report on their work in the August issue of the journal, Fuel.

Study is the first to examine social disparities in location of emissions

California law requires 25 percent of the revenue from the state’s cap-and-trade program, designed to limit emissions of greenhouses gases like carbon dioxide, to be invested in measures that benefit disadvantaged communities. But a newly published study by San Francisco State University, the University of California, Berkeley and others comparing emissions before and after the program began in 2013 found that disadvantaged communities are not yet benefitting — and have actually seen an increase in pollutants.

Global fossil fuel emissions would have to be reduced by as much as 20% more than previous estimates to achieve the Paris Agreement targets, because of natural greenhouse gas emissions from wetlands and permafrost, new research has found.

With current climate policies and efforts to increase clean power generation, the remaining use of fossil fuels in industry, transport and heating in buildings will cause enough CO2 emissions to push climate targets out of reach, according to a study co-authored and co-designed by the JRC.

The Baltic Sea is home to some of the world’s largest dead zones, areas of oxygen-starved waters where most marine animals can’t survive. But while parts of this sea have long suffered from low oxygen levels, a new study by a team in Finland and Germany shows that oxygen loss in coastal areas over the past century is unprecedented in the last 1500 years. The research is published today in the European Geosciences Union journal Biogeosciences.

One of Canada’s largest pension fund’s continued and increasing investment in fossil fuels does not support the widely held goal of limiting global warming to 2°C above pre-industrial levels, says a new report by University of Victoria and University of British Columbia researchers affiliated with the Corporate Mapping Project, a six-year research and public engagement initiative.

The decline in China’s carbon emissions is likely to be sustained if changes to the country’s industrial structure and energy efficiency continue, according to new research led by the University of East Anglia (UEA).

As the story of lead contamination in the water of Flint, Michigan, was unfolding in the national news, Elena Sobrino was finishing up her undergraduate degree at the University of Michigan at Flint.

In 2015, exposure to particulate matter in sub-Saharan Africa led to 400,000 otherwise preventable infant deaths, according to a new Stanford study. The research published this week in Nature, finds that even modest improvements in air quality could lead to substantial reductions in infant mortality in developing countries.

Why do individuals respond differently to the same environment? Researchers from North Carolina State University and Oregon State University have pinpointed a genetic difference in zebrafish tied to differing responses to the same environmental chemical. The work could have implications for identifying genetic factors that explain differential chemical sensitivity.