Latest Environmental Science & Technology Stories

Homes in low-income and affluent communities in California both had similarly high levels of endocrine disruptors, and the levels were higher in indoor air than outdoor air, according to a new study believed to be the first that paired indoor and outdoor air samples for such wide range (104) of these substances. The study appears in ACS' Environmental Science & Technology, a semi-monthly journal.Ruthann Rudel and colleagues note concern about the reproductive and other health effects of...

The United States could completely stop emissions of carbon dioxide from coal-fired electric power plants - a crucial step for controlling global warming - within 20 years by using technology that already exists or could be commercially available within a decade. That's the conclusion of an article published online today, along with a news article on the topic, in the American Chemical Society's semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology (ES&T). Both are scheduled for the...

Using productive farmland to grow crops for food instead of fuel is more energy efficient, Michigan State University scientists concluded, after analyzing 17 years' worth of data to help settle the food versus fuel debate."It's 36 percent more efficient to grow grain for food than for fuel," said Ilya Gelfand, an MSU postdoctoral researcher and lead author of the study. "The ideal is to grow corn for food, then leave half the leftover stalks and leaves on the field for soil...

Such burns release less carbon dioxide than wildfires, scientists findThe use of prescribed burns to manage western forests may help the United States reduce its carbon footprint.Results of a new study find that such burns, often used by forest managers to reduce underbrush and protect bigger trees, release substantially less carbon dioxide emissions than wildfires of the same size."It appears that prescribed burns can be an important piece of a climate change strategy," says...

With many companies investing heavily in algae-based biofuels, researchers from the University of Virginia's Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have found there are significant environmental hurdles to overcome before fuel production ramps up. They propose using wastewater as a solution to some of these challenges.These findings come after ExxonMobil invested $600 million last summer and the U.S. Department of Energy announced last week that it is awarding $78 million in...

UCI computer model foresees effects of alternative transportation fuelsIt's the year 2060, and 75 percent of drivers in the Greater Los Angeles area have hydrogen fuel cell vehicles that emit only water vapor.Look into Shane Stephens-Romero's crystal ball - a computer model called STREET - and find that air quality has significantly improved. Greenhouse gas emissions are more than 60 percent lower than in 2009, and levels of microscopic soot and ozone are about 15 percent and 10 percent...

Amid concerns about a pandemic of swine flu, researchers from Nebraska report for the first time that poultry carcasses infected with another threat "” the "bird flu" virus "” can remain infectious in municipal landfills for almost 2 years. Their report is scheduled for the June 15 issue of ACS' semi-monthly journal Environmental Science & Technology.Shannon L. Bartelt-Hunt and colleagues note that avian influenza, specifically the H5N1 strain, is an ongoing public health...

Reveal "life story" of oil off Coal Oil Point, CaliforniaTwenty years ago, the oil tanker Exxon Valdez was exiting Alaska's Prince William Sound when it struck a reef in the middle of the night.What happened next is considered one of the nation's worst environmental disasters: 10.8 million gallons of crude oil spilled into the pristine Alaskan waters, eventually covering 11,000 square miles of ocean.Now, imagine 8 to 80 times the amount of oil spilled in the Exxon Valdez...

Availability of solar cell materials could limit large-scale deployment of photovoltaicsUnconventional solar cell materials that are as abundant but much less costly than silicon and other semiconductors in use today could substantially reduce the cost of solar photovoltaics, according to a new study from the Energy and Resources Group and the Department of Chemistry at the University of California, Berkeley, and the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (LBNL).These materials, some of which...

Making bales with 30 percent of global crop residues "“ the stalks and such left after harvesting "“ and then sinking the bales into the deep ocean could reduce the build up of global carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by up to 15 percent a year, according to just published calculations.That is a significant amount of carbon, the process can be accomplished with existing technology and it can be done year after year, according to Stuart Strand, a University of Washington research professor....