Volume 13 Issue 8
April 11, 2022 – April 17, 2022
Riti Bhandarkar ‘23 | Zihan Lin ‘23 | Sunay Joshi ‘24 | Wilder Crosier ‘25 | Jackson Lichtenberger ‘25 | Andrew Ji ‘25
Truckers Get Slammed by Diesel Freight Train
April 8, 2022 | The Wall Street Journal | Spencer Jakab
Oil prices continue to rise in the US, causing headaches for consumers and truckers, but not the rail industry. The trucking industry, already facing a shortage of drivers and challenges buying and maintaining their fleets, are now also dealing with an additional 30 cents per mile of costs from surging diesel prices. Transportation by rail, on the other hand, is more energy efficient. On one gallon of fuel, trains can move cargo 492 miles, while trucks can only make it 134 miles with the same load. In fact, Union Pacific claims that the US could save 1.5 billion gallons of fuel a year—the equivalent of removing over three million cars from the roads—simply by switching 10% of trucking freight to rail transport. The transportation industry has not seen major shifts towards railroads, but the pandemic consumption boom did lead railroad companies to transport four times as many trailers, and the ever-increasing prices continue to support this trend. WC
Biden to Allow More Ethanol in Gas This Summer in Bid to Lower Prices
April 12, 2022 | The Wall Street Journal | Timothy Puko
The Biden administration will allow high-ethanol fuels to be sold over the summer. So-called E15 fuels with ethanol content at 15% are typically not sold in the summer in order to reduce pollution. However, the move may lower gas prices and also help Biden politically in Midwestern ethanol-producing states. Critics of the policy point to a possible increase in the price of corn, which is used to produce ethanol, as well as the use of wildlife for corn production. - SJ
A new path to nuclear fusion? A novel pistol shrimp-inspired system succeeded
Apr 11, 2022 | Interesting Engineering | Chris Young
The fusion startup First Light Fusion announced Monday that it had succeeded in creating fusion without relying on powerful lasers and magnets. According to its press release, its novel approach may be the “fastest, simplest, and cheapest route to commercial fusion power,” and surprisingly, it is inspired by a tiny sea creature - the pistol shrimp. Rather than using tokamaks and stellarators to achieve sustained fusion, First Light’s approach uses railguns to propel a tiny projectile into a fuel-containing target faster than the speed of sound. By adjusting the timing and environment of the firing, shockwaves can momentarily simulate pressure levels hundreds of millions of times higher than atmospheric pressure, which kickstarts a reaction by causing fuel pellets to implode and fuse. AJ
Amid Soaring Demand for Warehouses, An Effort to Make Them Greener
April 12, 2022 | New York Times | Jane Margolies
The explosion in consumer demand for online shopping during the pandemic has caused an equal explosion in the need for huge warehouses and distribution centers, and now companies are turning those buildings green. The change is coming especially fast in Europe, where government incentives (and coercion) for building net-zero facilities have led the rush towards renewables. In the US, some companies are jumping to capitalize on the unused open space on warehouse roofs to create solar farms that power their buildings and the surrounding communities; others are leasing their roofs to solar companies to do the job for them. The warehouses are the perfect place for new solar projects: they are large open spaces with direct sunlight all day, they’re out of sight and out of mind (a common complaint about new solar projects on the ground), and the buildings are already connected to the grid, making the distribution of electricity just as easy as the products inside. - JL
Queensland advances green hydrogen and ammonia project to be powered by renewables
April 11, 2022 | The Guardian | Ben Smee
The H2-Hub Gladstone project, recently set in a streamlined approval process, is going to make Gladstone a milestone site of Australia’s net zero mission. The $4.7bn project will build up to 3 gigawatts of electrolysis for hydrogen production and is projected to make 5,000 tons of ammonia everyday, all of which will be powered by solar and wind energy. Energy analysts are optimistic about the status of green hydrogen, which they predict will supersede hydrogen produced from coal and gas by the end of the decade. This development will likely make Queensland prosper with renewable energy jobs in the future. Operations of the H2-Hub Gladstone project is set in 2025 with further expansions towards the end of decade. - ZL