article thumbnail

Study: Crop relocation can help buffer US agriculture from climate change but southern states may face massive loss of productive land

Green Car Congress

Projected extreme temperatures under climate change are predicted to reduce average yields for several of the United States’ major crops. These changes in productivity would drive farmers to change crops and move into new areas. Farmers are particularly exposed to the problems of climate change.

article thumbnail

US DOI report highlights impacts of climate change on Western water resources

Green Car Congress

The US Department of the Interior released a report that assesses climate change risks and how these risks could impact water operations, hydropower, flood control, and fish and wildlife in the western United States. Click to enlarge. —Interior Secretary Ken Salazar. —Reclamation Commissioner Mike Connor.

article thumbnail

Climate Change is NSF Engineering Alliance’s Top Research Priority

Cars That Think

Since its launch in April 2021 , the Engineering Research Visioning Alliance has convened a diverse set of experts to explore three areas in which fundamental research could have the most impact: climate change; the nexus of biology and engineering; and securing critical infrastructure against hackers.

article thumbnail

Study projects thermoelectric power in Europe and US vulnerable to climate change due to lower summer river flows and higher river water temperatures

Green Car Congress

A study published in Nature Climate Change suggests that thermoelectric power plants (i.e., nuclear and fossil-fueled generating units) in Europe and the United States are vulnerable to climate change due to the combined impacts of lower summer river flows and higher river water temperatures. Click to enlarge.

article thumbnail

DOE launches major 10-year project to use high performance computing for climate change research; ACME

Green Car Congress

The plan is to exploit advanced software and new high performance computing machines as they become available. How will more realistic portrayals of features important to the water cycle (resolution, clouds, aerosols, snowpack, river routing, land use) affect river flow and associated freshwater supplies at the watershed scale?

article thumbnail

A New Energy-Efficient Hydrogel Pulls Water From Air

Cars That Think

Using a new kind of hydrogel material, researchers at the University of Texas at Austin have pulled water out of thin air at temperatures low enough to be achieved with sunlight. Atmospheric water harvesting draws water from humidity in the air. The material is a hydrogel, a polymer network that naturally retains a lot of water.

Water 131
article thumbnail

Water Scarcity Concerns Drive Semiconductor Industry to Adopt New Technologies

Cars That Think

And chip fabs need a lot of water to operate. By some estimates , a large chip fab can use up to 10 million gallons of water a day, which is equivalent to the water consumption of roughly 300,000 households. to open up its plants to inspection to demonstrate their water conservation efforts.

Water 96