Solar and wind energy preserve groundwater for drought, agriculture
November 6, 2019 ・ B. Rose KellySolar and wind farms are popping up around the country to lower carbon emissions, and these renewables also have another important effect: keeping more water in the ground. A new Princeton University-led study in Nature Communications is among the first…
A world without the Amazon? Safeguarding the Earth’s largest rainforest focus of Princeton conference
October 23, 2019 ・ Pooja MakhijaniThe Amazon is the world’s largest and most diverse tropical forest and the ancestral home of over 1 million indigenous peoples. How to preserve it was the centrally urgent theme at a conference at Princeton on Oct. 17-18. “Safeguarding the…
PEI awards $1.01 million in Water and the Environment Grand Challenge projects
October 1, 2019 ・ Morgan KellyThe ecological impacts of extreme weather, a national “climate park” in the New Jersey Meadowlands, and engineered nanoparticles that target groundwater pollutants are among the 13 projects funded by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) as part of its Water and…
PEI Urban Grand Challenges awards $509,000 to new urban sustainability projects
January 17, 2019 ・ Morgan KellyVertical farms in post-industrial America, origami-based noise-pollution barriers, and cement made from burned waste make up the latest round of projects funded by the Princeton Environmental Institute (PEI) Urban Grand Challenges program. Totaling $509,000, the new awards are active through September…
Habits and history determine if conservation succeeds or fails
December 20, 2018The ghosts of harvesting past can haunt today’s conservation efforts. The conservation or overharvesting of a resource such as fish, timber or other wildlife often is determined by past habits and decisions related to that resource, according to a study…
Europe’s Policy to Treat Wood as Low-Carbon Fuel Poised to Harm Global Forests
September 12, 2018Europe’s decision to promote the use of wood as a “renewable fuel” will likely greatly increase Europe’s greenhouse gas emissions and cause severe harm to the world’s forests, according to a new paper published in Nature Communications. European officials agreed…
Photosynthesis and engines evolved in remarkably similar ways
July 25, 2018 ・ Adam HadhazyA plant: natural, grown, leafy. An internal combustion engine: artificial, machined, metallic. At first blush, these two objects couldn’t appear less alike. Yet, according to a Princeton University study published June 29 in the journal PLoS ONE, the two complex…
PEI-STEP fellow Ryan Edwards awarded fellowship to take geosciences to D.C.
April 24, 2018 ・ Morgan KellyRyan Edwards, CEE graduate student and PEI-STEP fellow, will spend 12 months in Washington, D.C., as a William L. Fisher Congressional Geoscience Fellow
PEI awards $515,000 to projects studying our changing climate and environment
April 23, 2018 ・ Morgan KellyPEI’s Climate and Energy Challenges program has funded five new projects totaling $515,000 to study our changing climate and environment
